The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Preliminary Remarks by the Editor

[ 1 ] In his autobiography *Mein Lebensgang* (My Life’s Journey), Rudolf Steiner describes how, around the turn of the century, he was asked to give lectures on theosophy to what was then a very small theosophical circle in Berlin. He agreed to do so, but emphasized that he could speak only about what lived within him as spiritual science. His first series of lectures from the winter of 1900–01 was published, at the group’s request, in condensed form as the book *Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life and Its Relationship to Modern Worldviews*. Since the findings contained therein—the results of his own spiritual insight—were also accepted by the General Theosophical Society, there was “no longer any reason not to present this spiritual insight in my own way before the Theosophical audience, which at that time was the only one that was fully receptive to spiritual insight. I did not subscribe to any sectarian dogma; I remained a person who expressed what he believed he could express, entirely in accordance with what he himself experienced as the spiritual world.”

[ 2 ] The following winter—1901–02—saw a second series of lectures, which were compiled into the book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*, published in the summer of 1902. Immediately thereafter, the German Section of the Theosophical Society was founded, with Rudolf Steiner as its general secretary. Here, “I was now able to unfold my anthroposophical work before an ever-growing audience. No one was left in any doubt that, within the Theosophical Society, I would present only the results of my own investigative observation.”

[ 3 ] This marked the beginning of an increasingly intensive series of lectures on the spiritual sciences. In June 1903, the first issue of *Luzifer* (later *LuciferGnosis*), “Journal for the Life of the Soul and Spiritual Culture—Theosophy,” which he founded and edited, was published, and in the spring of 1904, his seminal work *Theosophy—An Introduction to Supernatural Knowledge of the World and the Destiny of Mankind* appeared. At the same time, *Luzifer* presented the path of spiritual training through the essays “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” and an esoteric cosmology through the essays “From the Akashic Records.”

[ 4 ] Thus, the German Section of the Theosophical Society was gradually developed by Rudolf Steiner and his closest collaborator, Marie von Sivers—later Marie Steiner—into a far-reaching Central European movement in the field of spiritual science. From the very beginning, it was the anthroposophical branch represented by Rudolf Steiner, which later became independent as the Anthroposophical Society due to internal difficulties.

[ 5 ] At the time Rudolf Steiner gave the lecture series on “The Basic Elements of Esotericism”—which is now being published here in book form for the first time—it was still in the early stages of its development. For this reason, Rudolf Steiner still consistently uses the terms “theosophy” and “theosophical,” and for describing planetary evolution, the human being’s constitutional members, and so on, he still employs the theosophical-Indian terminology customary in theosophical literature, to which the audience was accustomed at that time. He comments specifically on the value of this terminology in the 15th lecture of this course. In his essays from that time and in his work *Theosophy*, however, he already used terms about which he stated in 1903 in the journal *Luzifer* that he “borrowed them for certain reasons from an occult language that differs somewhat in its terminology from that found in common theosophical writings, but which, in substance, naturally corresponds with them completely.” Later, in his lectures as well, he increasingly replaced the Indian-theosophical terms with ones more appropriate to our European culture. The explanations of terms necessary for this course, using expressions common today, can be found at the end of the volume.

[ 6 ] The frequent references to the writings of H. P. Blavatsky in the lectures can be explained by the fact that the listeners at that time were intensively engaged with the teachings of the founder of the Theosophical Society and, because the explanations were difficult to understand, often turned to Rudolf Steiner with questions. Thus, he repeatedly explains Blavatsky’s statements from her magnum opus *The Secret Doctrine*, particularly the third volume, which contains treatises on “esotericism.”

[ 7 ] The entire course was actually an internal oral instruction—that is, it was neither public nor intended for the general membership, but only for a few active members who had been personally invited to attend. The purpose was to provide them with a certain foundation for their own branch work. For this reason, there is no complete stenographic transcript, but only notes that some listeners took for their personal use. These listener notes have a strongly aphoristic character, which must be taken into account when certain trains of thought are not always entirely clear due to abridged summaries or gaps. If these notes nevertheless appear in the collected works today, it is because, on the whole, they are certainly reliable, and also because they capture valuable aspects of the spiritual-scientific view of humanity and the world that are no longer found in this form in Rudolf Steiner’s later lectures. To clarify and supplement certain points, particularly those of a cosmological nature, one should consult the works *From the Akashic Records* and *Theosophy*, which were written around the same time.

H. W.