Name: Reincarnation and Destiny: Ch. 2 of Theosophy
Price: 36.67 NZD
Availability: InStock
Author: Amrine, Frederick ; Steiner, Rudolf
ISBN: 9781983203930

portada Reincarnation and Destiny: Ch. 2 of Theosophy

Reincarnation and Destiny: Ch. 2 of Theosophy

Type

Physical Book

Author

Rudolf Steiner

Translated by

Frederick Amrine

Publisher

Independently Published

Language

English

Pages

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

22.9 x 15.2 x 0.3 cm

Weight

0.08 kg.

ISBN13

9781983203930

Synopsis "Reincarnation and Destiny: Ch. 2 of Theosophy "

This excerpt is taken from the book Theosophy, which Rudolf Steiner published at the beginning of his theosophical career in 1904. Although Steiner himself did not make such a designation, Theosophy has come to be regarded as one of the four "basic books" of anthroposophy. This chapter however is quite exceptional within the book, and thus it deserves to stand alone. Unlike the rest of Theosophy, which consists of somewhat static revelations of spiritual facts, Chapter 2 is a closely-argued, logical argument. Indeed, it is quite gnomic in many places. The argument is hard to follow, but it is well worth the effort. The high point comes early in the essay, where Steiner sets up a beautifully symmetrical case for reincarnation and karma. He reminds us that memory transforms transitory experience into permanence. On the basis of remembered experience, we react differently when we next meet a similar stimulus. But in the same way, the world is permanently changed by our deeds, and the world remembers our actions the next time we encounter it. The world reacts to us differently as a result of our previous action. Seemingly chance events that "strike" us are anything but: rather, they are the karmic consequences of our deeds, and as much a part of an expanded notion of our self as is memory. There are several other beautiful arguments besides. A notable example is the claim that each human individual is a species unto themselves, and thus the talents that we bring into incarnation can only be inherited from ourselves, in an earlier life. Such arguments must inevitably remain "silhouette-like." But Steiner assures us both that the trains of thought are shadows of spiritual realities, and that the labor of following them is a good preparation for spiritual seeing.

Rudolf Steiner

(Author)

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Rudolf Steiner (Donji Kraljevec, Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Croatia, February 25 or 27, 1861-Dornach, Switzerland, March 30, 1925) was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, educator, artist, playwright, social thinker, and occultist. He was the founder of anthroposophy, Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophic medicine, and the new artistic form of eurythmy.

He described anthroposophy as follows: Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge that would like to lead the spiritual in man to the spiritual in the universe. Those who feel certain questions about the essence of man and the world as a vital necessity as the one felt when we are hungry and thirsty can be anthroposophists.

Steiner proposed a form of ethical individualism, to which he later added a more explicitly spiritual component. He derived his epistemology from the worldview of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, according to which thought is an organ of perception just like the eye or the ear. Just as the eye perceives colors and the ear sounds, so thought perceives ideas.

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