18 lectures & conversations with 57 priests, Dornach, Sept 5–22, 1924 (CW 346) John's Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse, has been subjected to countless theological and academic interpretations over the years, usually based on theories and abstract speculations. Rudolf Steiner, however, discussed the Book of Revelation through direct experience and knowledge of the spiritual truths contained in John's mysterious imagery. Rudolf Steiner had already presented his insights on the Apocalypse to various audiences, but in 1924 he presented a completely new perspective. This time, his comments were in response to requests from priests of The Christian Community, the movement for religious renewal, which itself had taken form on the basis of Steiner's insights. This book will be of value to anyone who would like a fresh perspective on the most enigmatic book of the New Testament. Includes eight color plates of blackboard drawings. This book is a translation from German of text reconstructed from notes taken by the participants, originally published as Vorträge und Kurse über christlich-religiöses Wirken, Bd.5, Apokalypse und Priesterwirken (GA 296).
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.