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Karmic Relationships: Volume 1: Esoteric Studies
During 1924, before his last address in September, Rudolf Steiner gave over eighty lectures on the subject of karma to members of the Anthroposophical Society. These profoundly esoteric lectures examine the underlying laws of reincarnation and karma, and explore in detail the incarnations of certain named historical figures.
In Rudolf Steiner's words, the study of karma is 'a matter of penetrating into the most profound mysteries of existence, for within the sphere of karma and the course it takes lie those processes which are the basis of the other phenomena of world-existence?'
In this fundamental first volume - and essential basis for study of the later volumes - Rudolf Steiner gives an overview of the laws and conditions of karma, and goes on to consider the incarnations of Friedrich Nietzsche, Lord Bacon of Verulam, Lord Byron and many others.
- GenresNonfictionSpirituality
228 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1981
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About the author
Rudolf Steiner
4,345 books1,100 followersAuthor 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 21, 2017
Reading this book gave me this thought:
As per Anthroposophy, the will projects itself forward and thought looks backward. That is, the will incarnates in the future; thought grasps what embodies itself now from the past. That makes a lot of sense to me: it implies that my body and my physical life is the embodiment of something spiritual from the past; to quote the Book of Mormon, it is as if my body was "a treasure laid up from the foundation of the world." And as for the will aspect, to quote the Book of Mormon again, "that which you send out will come back to you again."
I am a Mormon, if you can't tell, but I'm very sympathetic to Steiner. And the similarities above are very palpable to me: in both, my life is willed by something ancient and spiritual, and in both, the actions I make in this life build a future body. The question is whether that ancient and spiritual thing is a past life/lives or merely a pre-existence, and also whether the future body is a future life or a resurrection.
In truth: resurrection AND reincarnation happen at every moment. Every moment repeats the moment before, albeit with a difference. The same is true with ideas and thoughts: every thought reincarnates in any thought with which it comes into contact, again with a difference. And with people in one's life: we repeat in each other. This is all reincarnation. If you want to deny the existence of reincarnation, try explaining how you are the same person you are now as you were a year ago or even a moment ago. Or how your arm is the same person as your head. That moment and this one, that organ and this one, are different; and yet there is a sameness. That sameness in difference *is* reincarnation.
I have no doubt that there are threads of continuity between my life and others in the past. I also strongly suspect that some are much more significant than others. They are those who repeat themselves in me. I am them...with a difference. To ask whether or not to call that reincarnation is splitting hairs.
As per Anthroposophy, the will projects itself forward and thought looks backward. That is, the will incarnates in the future; thought grasps what embodies itself now from the past. That makes a lot of sense to me: it implies that my body and my physical life is the embodiment of something spiritual from the past; to quote the Book of Mormon, it is as if my body was "a treasure laid up from the foundation of the world." And as for the will aspect, to quote the Book of Mormon again, "that which you send out will come back to you again."
I am a Mormon, if you can't tell, but I'm very sympathetic to Steiner. And the similarities above are very palpable to me: in both, my life is willed by something ancient and spiritual, and in both, the actions I make in this life build a future body. The question is whether that ancient and spiritual thing is a past life/lives or merely a pre-existence, and also whether the future body is a future life or a resurrection.
In truth: resurrection AND reincarnation happen at every moment. Every moment repeats the moment before, albeit with a difference. The same is true with ideas and thoughts: every thought reincarnates in any thought with which it comes into contact, again with a difference. And with people in one's life: we repeat in each other. This is all reincarnation. If you want to deny the existence of reincarnation, try explaining how you are the same person you are now as you were a year ago or even a moment ago. Or how your arm is the same person as your head. That moment and this one, that organ and this one, are different; and yet there is a sameness. That sameness in difference *is* reincarnation.
I have no doubt that there are threads of continuity between my life and others in the past. I also strongly suspect that some are much more significant than others. They are those who repeat themselves in me. I am them...with a difference. To ask whether or not to call that reincarnation is splitting hairs.
September 13, 2021
A bit hard to take seriously but very entertaining nonetheless.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews