Esoteric Lessons for the First Class (4 volumes)

This beautiful four-volume set of the First Class Lessons was purchased directly from the Goetheanum and has had only one owner. It is in excellent condition and consists of oversized books with cloth covers and gold ribbon page markers. The fourth volume is in German but is primarily blackboard drawings and pictures of handwritten notes of Rudolf Steiner. 

4 Volume Set: 19 lessons; 7 recapitulation lessons;­­ 4 individual lessons, Dornach, Prague, Berne, London; Feb.–Sept. 1924 (CW 270)

During the reestablishment of the Anthroposophical Society as the General Anthroposophical Society during Christmastime 1923–24, Rudolf Steiner also reconstituted, as the School of Spiritual Science, the Esoteric School he had led in three classes from 1904 to 1914. At the same time, he also extended its scope by adding artistic and scientific Sections. However, owing to his illness and subsequent death in March 1925, he was able to make only a beginning by establishing the First Class and the various Sections.

The actual step from the Esoteric School to the School of Spiritual Science was nevertheless an exceptional one. The Esoteric School from Helena Blavatsky’s time had been secret. Its existence was known only to those who were personally invited to participate. By contrast, the existence of the School of Spiritual Science was made known in the public statutes of the General Anthroposophical Society. From the Christmas Conference onward, Rudolf Steiner worked within this publicly acknowledged framework.

The Class lessons comprise a complete spiritual course of nineteen fundamental lessons, given from February until August 1924, with several lessons given elsewhere, and seven more lessons from September 1924, which take up the themes of the first part of the nineteen lessons in a modified form.

These volumes are translated from the German texts, Esoterische Unterweisungen für die erste Klasse der Freien Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft am Goetheanum; 4 Volumes (GA 270).