Rudolf Steiner - Secret Brotherhoods (Complete)

This is my fourth audiobook recording. I'll be reading a longer series of lectures given by Rudolf Steiner and collected under the book, "Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double." I am doing this for three reasons:

1. I was inspired by the recorded readings of Josh Reeves (http://www.theglobalreality.com/) and Dale Brunsvold (http://www.rudolfsteineraudio.com/).
2. Being of a silent and introspective nature, I'm hoping these readings will help strengthen and steady my voice which has become rather weak from lack of use.
3. Commitment to transmute the consumptive impulse into something creative.

This torrent contains all 7 lectures plus the introduction. An e-text version of the lectures has also been included but please note that these lectures use a different translation than the one I used for the recording.

Other recordings:
* Rudolf Steiner - The Four Temperaments ( http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-details.php?id=26746&hit=1 )
* Rudolf Steiner - How to Cure Nervousness ( http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-details.php?id=26648&hit=1 )
* Rudolf Steiner - The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman ( http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-details.php?id=26638&hit=1 )

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Secret Brotherhoods
and the Mystery of the Human Double
7 lectures, St Gallen, Zurich, Dornach, Nov. 1917 (CW 178)
Rudolf Steiner, Translated by Johanna Collis
ISBN: 9781855841628
Rudolf Steiner Press
http://steinerbooks.net/detail.html?session=3f670b278b32871db3af66acac6c...

In the age of the internet and the proliferation of "conspiracy theories," ideas that secret groups are trying to gain control of humanity are no longer rare. But this was not true in 1917 when Rudolf Steiner spoke of such matters in the extraordinary lectures contained in this book. His unique contribution to this controversial topic is not based on abstract theories; it arose from exact research methods that use advanced forms of perception and cognition.

Using the firsthand knowledge available to him, Steiner takes us behind the scenes of events in outer history and contemporary culture to reveal a dark world of secret elitist brotherhoods that are attempting to control the masses through the forces of economics, technology, and political assassinations. These hidden groups, he explains, seek power through the use of ritual magic and suggestion.

Among his many topics, Steiner speaks about the geographic nature of the American continent and the forces that arise from it; the nature of the double (or doppelganger) and the dangers of psychoanalysis; the spiritual origin of electromagnetism; the abuse of inoculations and vaccinations; the meaning of Ireland for world development; confused ideas about angels in relation to higher beings and divinity; and, above all, the need for clear insight into world events based on spiritual knowledge.

Lecture 1 - Knowledge of the Supersensible and Riddles of the Human Soul:
* Characterization of science and spiritual science: scientific observation traces phenomena back to their origin (birth) and studies what is visible; the starting-point for spiritual science is death and what happens thereafter in the spiritual world.
* Resignation or the courage to seek more knowledge when the outer limits are reached.
* F. T. Vischer.
* Du Bois-Reymond.
* Inner and outer pictures.
* Calculation by James Dewar and thos based on the Kant-Laplace theory.
* Forces of construction (life) and destruction (death).
* Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition.
* How the manner of death affects the next life.
* Understanding the soul and spirit elements in human being and universe.
* How spiritual knowledge illumines destiny.
* The effects on life and lfe after death of materialist and spiritual world views.
* Darwin, Haeckel, Hartmann, Hertwig.
* Goetheanism.

Lecture 2 - The Mystery of the Double. Geographic Medicine:
* The time has come to reveal spiritual secrets.
* Increasing emphasis on materialism since the sixteenth century necessitates the search for spiritual knowledge today.
* The importance of a shared cultivation of spiritual science for the life of the soul after death.
* Spiritual concepts throw light on knowledge.
* How the spiritual world impinges on the physical.
* The faculty of love.
* The double entering before birth and wanting to remain after death. This has been prevented by the Mystery of Golgotha, as is known to secret brotherhoods and must now become known to all.
* Geographic medicine and how the double is affected by emanations from the earth.
* European contacts with America before and after the age of the consciousness soul.
* Christianization by Irish and Scottish missionaries.
* The earth as a living organism.
* Nationalism and world culture.
* Russia and America.
* Europe's relationship with America; Emerson and Woodrow Wilson.
* Spiritual science as a force for life.

Lecture 3 - Behind the Scenes of External Events (Part 1):
* Human souls now becoming conscious of much that formerly lay beyond consciousness. Some are concerned more with the spiritual world while others seek earthly power.
* The guidance of humanity in accordance with esoteric laws.
* Becoming conscious of the mysteries of sickness, procreation and death.
* Knowledge gained by souls who die by assassination.
* The power of secret brotherhoods.
* Efforts to paralyse spiritual development.
* The important year of 1841.
* The spirits of darkness at work in human souls since 1879. Seeing through them robs them of their power.
* Working for spiritual science.

Lecture 4 - Behind the Scenes of External Events (Part 2):
* The transformation of soul life during the course of time.
* Monotheism leads human beings only to their own angel. Personal monotheism leads to national monotheism. Instead, one ought to enter into a concrete relationship with the spiritual world.
* Reality must prevail over abstraction.
* The battle in the spiritual world between 1841 and 1879.
* The spirits of darkness at work.
* Secret brotherhoods and their various goals.
* The task of spiritual science.
* How materialistic views work in the spiritual world.
* The nature of freedom.
* Relationship with the dead.
* Psychoanalysis.
* Disorders of the soul as a consequence of a wrong relationship with the dead. Spiritual knowledge as a remedy.
* Working out of spiritual impulses and the obstacles encountered.

Lecture 5 - Individual Spirit Beings and the Constant Foundation of the Universe (Part 1):
* The spirit cannot be comprehended by means of the concepts of the unconscious. Where there is spirit there is consciousness.
* Secret brotherhoods seek to use occult knowledge for their own ends.
* The zenith of materialism and experiencing the appearance of Christ in the etheric.
* To tackle evil consciously is a contemporary task.
* How spiritual or materialistic concepts work in the life after death, and how secret brotherhoods us this knowledge.
* The illusion that spiritual forces are merely forces of nature.
* Spiritualism - a higher form of materialism.
* A protection against occult machinations is to recognize them.
* The Christ impulse.
* The inclination of western and eastern secret brotherhoods to distract human souls from the appearance of Christ.
* The impulse of Ireland.
* Eliminating the 'American' impulse.
* The subconscious and the double. The latter's dependence on terrestrial conditions.

Lecture 6 - Individual Spirit Beings and the Constant Foundation of the Universe (Part 2):
* The secret brotherhoods and spiritualism.
* Contradictions in life.
* A unifying universal principle and how certain spiritual individualities work.
* Living reality and abstract lack of contradiction.
* Outer nature suggests the existence of a unifying universal principle, but individual spirits contradict one another behind the tapestry of the senses.
* The elemental beings.
* Thinking, feeling and will and how differentiated beings work.
* Evil.
* Christ in the fifth post-Atlantean period.
* Freedom.
* The legend of Ireland.
* Ireland and the Christianization of Europe.
* The double and freedom.
* Taylor's division of labour as an example.

Lecture 7 - Individual Spirit Beings and the Constant Foundation of the Universe (Part 3):
* The old culture is gone and spiritual science points to the future.
* Vital questions: Use of etheric forces in machines. Control of life, sickness and death. Control of procreation and birth.
* Forces coming in from points in the zodiac.
* To overlook spiritual impulses or take hold of them in freedom.
* The philosophers' stone.
* God, virtue, immortality. How the secret brotherhoods redefine them.
* Selfless consideration of spiritual matters is a contemporary necessity.
* How western and eastern brotherhoods use spiritual knowledge.
* Depending on how human beings behave on earth, the dead can work out of the spiritual world in freedom or be coerced into human existence in an artificial way.