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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Mystery Centers
GA 232

Steiner gives a comprehensive history of the Mysteries and lays open an abundant knowledge about the methods and stages of the spiritual guidance of humanity through the centuries including: the Ephesian Mysteries of Artemis, the Mysteries of Hibernia, the Chthonic and Eleusinian Mysteries, the transition to Plato and Aristotle, the soul striving in the Middle Ages, the Rosicrucian Mysteries, to the modern Mysteries found in the School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum.

Fourteen lectures delivered at Dornach, in November and December, 1923. Authorized translation from the German of Notes unrevised by the lecturer. It is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland. From the lecture series: Mystery Centers. Published in German as: Mysteriengestaltungen,

Preface
Lecture I November 23, 1923
Concerning the Soul-Life of Man, and the Perception of the Spiritual Foundations of the World — The Experience of Thinking — The Experience of Feeling — The Experience of Gesture.
Lecture II November 24, 1923
The Activity of the Soul-Nature in Physical Man — The Influence of the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic Beings on Man and in Nature — Heredity and Adaptation to Environment.
Lecture III November 25, 1923
Identification with the Inner Life of Nature, through Imagination and Will — The Life of Memory — The Being of Gesture and of Physiognomy — Experience of Day and Year — Summer-Will and Winter-Will.
Lecture IV November 30, 1923
The Ephesian Mysteries of Artemis. The Connection of Man with the Earth-Planet — The Crystal Covering of the Earth — The Speech of the Metals — The backward-raying Forces of the Metals, and the Connection between Earth-lives.
Lecture V December 1, 1923
Mineral and Plant-Animal Creation — The previous Earth-atmosphere — Plants as Gifts of Heaven — Animals as Earth-forms — The Cosmic Memory of the Metals.
Lecture VI December 2, 1923
The Ephesian Mysteries of Artemis.
Lecture VII December 7, 1923
The Mystery Centres of Hibernia.
Lecture VIII December 8, 1923
The Being of the Hibernian Mysteries.
Lecture IX December 9, 1923
The Great Mysteries of Hibernia.
Lecture X December 14, 1923
The Cythonic and the Eleusian Mysteries. The Transition from Plato to Aristotle.
Lecture XI December 15, 1923
The Secret of Plants, of Metals, and of Men.
Lecture XII December 21, 1923
The Mysteries of the Samothracian Kabiri.
Lecture XIII December 22, 1923
Transition from the Spirit of the Ancient Mysteries to the Spirit of the Mysteries of the Middle Ages.
Lecture XIV December 23, 1923
Human Soul-Strivings During the Middle Ages the Rosicrucian Mysteries.