The Wisdom of Man of the Soul and of the Spirit

The twelve lectures contained in this volume are of particular importance in Steiner's overall work, since it was with these lectures that he wanted to begin to expand scientific knowledge of the physical, mental and spiritual nature of the human being through concrete spiritual scientific research results. He wanted to give his audience at the time “a serious and dignified foundation for our spiritual movement”. A bridge was to be created that, on the one hand, could lead “from the world in which we live directly to the worlds that are considered from a higher point of view in theosophy” (p. 109) and, on the other hand, was designed to “build a kind of bridge from spiritual science to the science of these fields that is common today” (p. 217). The lectures were given in 1909, 1910 and 1911 in connection with the last three general assemblies of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in Berlin, before the anti-Rudolf Steiner movement broke away from the connection with the Theosophical Society in 1912/13. The three lecture courses of four lectures each were structured and conducted by Rudolf Steiner himself as a coherent whole, which naturally resulted in their being combined into one volume.