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Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner #CW 106
Egyptian Myths and Mysteries
Rudolf Steiner emphasizes the astonishing and special relationship between our own time and that of ancient Egypt--how, in the natural rhythm of the ages, the so-called third post-Atlantian (Egyptian) epoch is mirrored by the fifth (present) epoch. In this sense, today it is especially relevant to look at ancient Egypt with fresh eyes. The evolution of Western civilization has been profoundly influenced by Egyptian myths through the Greek mysteries. Because of other influences, however, this heritage has degenerated; thinking has mummified and and myth has all but disappeared. Consequently, it is important to revive the seed of goodness passed down to us from ancient Egypt.Through true imagination, it is our task to renew human knowledge related to the creative forces in nature, which the Egyptians attempted through the Osiris-Isis myth, and the Greeks through the myth of Demeter. This is what Rudolf Steiner attempts in this lecture cycle.Steiner's subjects experiences of Egyptian initiations; esoteric anatomy and physiology; the stages of evolution of the human form; and much more. The final lecture is on the Christ impulse as the conqueror of matter.
153 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1961
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About the author
Rudolf Steiner
4,362 books1,106 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 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 11, 2021
Steiner never ceases to amaze. I have been reading his works for over twenty years, and yet this book just blew my mind all over again at the depth and breadth of his insights.
November 24, 2020
I picked this book up from a pile somewhere, without opening it or even reading the back, and took it home, assuming it was a collection of Egyptian Myths and information about Egyptian Mysteries. It has been on my shelf for a few years, unopened. Now as the 2020 election drew to a close I was looking for something to read with no political content, no obvious relationship to my life. And discovered that this book has almost nothing at all to do with any Egyptian myths or mysteries, but is in fact a bizarre theosophist cosmogony by the founder of the Waldorf Schools.
Hardly a page passes without some startlingly strange assertion. In these pages we learn that everyone living today in this, the fifth age, is a reincarnated Egyptian, and our modern materialism is due to the fact that as we awaited reincarnation we had our mummified bodies to contemplate for centuries. Unexpected as this might be, it is easily outdone by subsequent facts, such as the fact that the original form of the solar system was a swirl of etheric human germs; that the order of creation was humans first, then animals, then plants, and finally minerals; that humans were formed (materially speaking) from bottom up, feet first, then knees, then hips, etc.; that the Mongolian people are those most connected to Atlantis; that the Buddha was Wotan or Odin; that fish, for example, are the decadent form of creatures that evolved from our feet; that the people of Atlantis had no bones or eyes, but perceived via the pineal gland; that Yahweh lives on the moon...an endless stream of these bizarre claims. What's interesting is that as I read I would report the latest weirdness to my new agey housemate and she would say, "you know, that makes sense," right up until the point at which Christ enters the picture, at which point she decided the whole thing is culturally imperialist and misogynist to boot. To me including Jesus in this is just the same as today's new agey types always claiming "more and more, scientists are becoming aware" that their hippie silliness is true, and appealing to quantum mechanics or whatever -- it is an inevitable product of the society. Today completely rejecting science is sort of a bridge too far, and in 1908 rejecting Jesus was the same. I certainly prefer Steiner's approach to geology and biology, to say, "fuck it, here's what I think" rather than try to make some strained analogy or symbolic recapitulation, and I can only wish that he had done the same with Christ, who is here only vaguely connected to Christianity, and then really only in a Gnostic way.
Although it was just what the doctor ordered in terms of having zero point zero percent to do with Donald Trump (although a dedicated hater could probably make another strained analogy between a small amount of the stuff here and the weirdo nationalist myths that eventually produced Nazism), in the end 150 pages of it did become wearisome, and the Christ stuff, as I say, was less inspired than the preceeding visions of crocus-like humans floating hip deep in the water-earth, their lower members boneless tentacles, their upper half a flowering astral vapor. I did very much like his assertion that "People are apt to believe privily that, although our earth is changeable, everything up yonder, beyond death, remains the same. This is by no means the case. . .Just as the physical plane changes, so do things change in the other world." I'm not sure I've ever found a sense that everything changes, even eternity, outside of Aeschylus. And I find it quite nice to think so.
Hardly a page passes without some startlingly strange assertion. In these pages we learn that everyone living today in this, the fifth age, is a reincarnated Egyptian, and our modern materialism is due to the fact that as we awaited reincarnation we had our mummified bodies to contemplate for centuries. Unexpected as this might be, it is easily outdone by subsequent facts, such as the fact that the original form of the solar system was a swirl of etheric human germs; that the order of creation was humans first, then animals, then plants, and finally minerals; that humans were formed (materially speaking) from bottom up, feet first, then knees, then hips, etc.; that the Mongolian people are those most connected to Atlantis; that the Buddha was Wotan or Odin; that fish, for example, are the decadent form of creatures that evolved from our feet; that the people of Atlantis had no bones or eyes, but perceived via the pineal gland; that Yahweh lives on the moon...an endless stream of these bizarre claims. What's interesting is that as I read I would report the latest weirdness to my new agey housemate and she would say, "you know, that makes sense," right up until the point at which Christ enters the picture, at which point she decided the whole thing is culturally imperialist and misogynist to boot. To me including Jesus in this is just the same as today's new agey types always claiming "more and more, scientists are becoming aware" that their hippie silliness is true, and appealing to quantum mechanics or whatever -- it is an inevitable product of the society. Today completely rejecting science is sort of a bridge too far, and in 1908 rejecting Jesus was the same. I certainly prefer Steiner's approach to geology and biology, to say, "fuck it, here's what I think" rather than try to make some strained analogy or symbolic recapitulation, and I can only wish that he had done the same with Christ, who is here only vaguely connected to Christianity, and then really only in a Gnostic way.
Although it was just what the doctor ordered in terms of having zero point zero percent to do with Donald Trump (although a dedicated hater could probably make another strained analogy between a small amount of the stuff here and the weirdo nationalist myths that eventually produced Nazism), in the end 150 pages of it did become wearisome, and the Christ stuff, as I say, was less inspired than the preceeding visions of crocus-like humans floating hip deep in the water-earth, their lower members boneless tentacles, their upper half a flowering astral vapor. I did very much like his assertion that "People are apt to believe privily that, although our earth is changeable, everything up yonder, beyond death, remains the same. This is by no means the case. . .Just as the physical plane changes, so do things change in the other world." I'm not sure I've ever found a sense that everything changes, even eternity, outside of Aeschylus. And I find it quite nice to think so.
August 21, 2019
I used to be a lawyer for thirty-seven years. Every time I faced a case, I took care of supporting my thesis with evidence.
Egyptian Myths and Mysteries by Rudolf Steiner turned upside down my mindset. In fact, the author gives no evidence of what he claims. But, it doesn’t entail that what he writes is pure fantasy.
According to Rudolf Steiner, there was a time when the earth, the moon and the sun were one single mass. Then, the earth and the moon separated from the sun, and finally the moon separated from the earth.
During the evolutive process, man underwent a progressive transformation. He became materialistic and his soul was about to die. To prevent the death of the human soul, Jesus came to the earth and saved humanity through his sacrifice.
I heard about Rudolf Steiner when I was a member of an esoteric group long ago. My brethren considered him a great writer. They said that one must be an initiate to know the occult and esoteric truths. Who knows, they might be right.
I enjoyed reading Rudolf Steiner’s Egyptian Myths and Mysteries. It was easy to read and broadened the horizons of my mind.
Ettore Grillo, author of these books:
- A Hidden Sicilian History
- The Vibrations of Words
-Travels of the Mind
http://www.amazon.com/author/ettoregr...
Egyptian Myths and Mysteries by Rudolf Steiner turned upside down my mindset. In fact, the author gives no evidence of what he claims. But, it doesn’t entail that what he writes is pure fantasy.
According to Rudolf Steiner, there was a time when the earth, the moon and the sun were one single mass. Then, the earth and the moon separated from the sun, and finally the moon separated from the earth.
During the evolutive process, man underwent a progressive transformation. He became materialistic and his soul was about to die. To prevent the death of the human soul, Jesus came to the earth and saved humanity through his sacrifice.
I heard about Rudolf Steiner when I was a member of an esoteric group long ago. My brethren considered him a great writer. They said that one must be an initiate to know the occult and esoteric truths. Who knows, they might be right.
I enjoyed reading Rudolf Steiner’s Egyptian Myths and Mysteries. It was easy to read and broadened the horizons of my mind.
Ettore Grillo, author of these books:
- A Hidden Sicilian History
- The Vibrations of Words
-Travels of the Mind
http://www.amazon.com/author/ettoregr...
July 9, 2023
I really enjoyed this book. For me it is good pleasure reading. The book reproduces 12 lectures on ancient mystical beliefs of ancient Egyptian, ancient Greek and Roman with an emphasis on Plato and Socrates and primitive Christianity. The interesting thing about the book is he lays out compelling explanations of connections between the various beliefs and explanations the beliefs so they would plausible. I recommend it.
August 29, 2025
The Intense Journey Of The Mysteries
I appreciate this powerful book. Mr Steiner explains quite well the animal spirit form of man’s beginnings. I especially was in awe of how The Sun and The Moon were joined with the Earth!! The God’s and Humanity evolved spiritually from that joining up to when the sun broke away and then the moon. Very insightful read! Thank you so much!🙏
I appreciate this powerful book. Mr Steiner explains quite well the animal spirit form of man’s beginnings. I especially was in awe of how The Sun and The Moon were joined with the Earth!! The God’s and Humanity evolved spiritually from that joining up to when the sun broke away and then the moon. Very insightful read! Thank you so much!🙏
April 8, 2025
I you want to understand where the Universe begun and how ancient peoples were, this is the book for you. It sure helps to place everything into perspective and really understand our origin. Why we react a certain way. What to do to become the best version of ourselves and really contribute. This book has it all.
February 13, 2019
Very masterfully presented especially in terms of the depth of material covered. Great explanations on initiation and Christ's impact in the Universe at large, humanity's evolutionary journey, etc..
Recommended for all interested in understanding deeper facets of the man's journey of the soul
Recommended for all interested in understanding deeper facets of the man's journey of the soul
September 22, 2025
If you consider yourself a religious person, read it. You can be highly surprised.
Of course also for genre & antiquity & Egypt fans.
Ps. Sooo happy for finally getting into my longest shelved book!
_____
Fav quote:
„People must be given fuel”.
Of course also for genre & antiquity & Egypt fans.
Ps. Sooo happy for finally getting into my longest shelved book!
_____
Fav quote:
„People must be given fuel”.
May 7, 2022
This is as fascinating as Steiners other work, though the same things are repeated a few times.
May 27, 2024
Y me quedé esperando leer sobre los mitos egipcios...
February 11, 2024
And why would I believe these stories?? He often speaks about facts but are they facts? I understand that he had access to the Akashic records but is that proven?? In this time of so much fake and untrue stories one has to be careful. Somebody wrote in his review: Your view of this book will depend entirely on your understanding of Steiner's philosophy and your beliefs as to its value. True!!! Have to read more of his books and will start with An Outline of Occult Science.
February 5, 2015
Weird stuff that goes on about the Atlantis and the Egyptians and in the end comes down to a eulogy of Christianity. The point is that before the Greco-Roman culture people were attuned to their "group-soul" which kept them in contact with their ancestors and also bestowed on them the gift of clairvoyance. Christ could not have come to lift man back to the level of the group-soul before the emergence of personality in the Greco-Roman culture.
May 23, 2013
Do not read this if your goal is to understand or simply read about Ancient Egyptian Myths. These are lectures delivered by Steiner in order to demonstrate how Ancient Egypt fits into his system of Anthroposophy - an offshoot of the Theosophy of Blavatzky et al. Your view of this book will depend entirely on your understanding of Steiner's philosophy and your beliefs as to its value.
March 15, 2015
Beautiful Work
My first Steiner read, I found it to be enlightening, uplifting, and full of divine truths. Blessings to all readers, whether they like the work or not.
My first Steiner read, I found it to be enlightening, uplifting, and full of divine truths. Blessings to all readers, whether they like the work or not.
July 11, 2016
Extreme hogwash book. He totally misunderstand planet formation, and spews. There are some good segments about etheric beings creating lungs to form man though.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews