Fairy Tales: In the Light of Spiritual Investigation

Rudolf Steiner

e.Lib, Incorporated, Aug 21, 2019 - Fiction - 56 pages

From the contents of this lecture: "Fairy tales and sagas are comparable to a good angel, granted human beings as a companion from birth on their life's wanderings, to be a trustworthy comrade throughout - offering comradeship, and making life inwardly into a truly ensouled fairy tale!"This is a lecture, given by Rudolf Steiner, entitled "Märchendichtungen im Lichte der Geistesforschung," and contained in the volume "Ergebnisse der Geistesforschung" (Results of Spiritual Research) GA 62. The series in which this lecture was given at the Architektenhaus in Berlin, may be said to underline its overall importance for Rudolf Steiner: Held February 6th 1913 subsequent to a lecture January 30th on Raphael, it was followed a week later, on February 13th, by a lecture on Leonardo da Vinci.In addition, "A Mongolian Legend," an excerpt from a matinee lecture given by Rudolf Steiner: "Mythen und Sagen. Okkulte Zeichen und Symbole" (Myths and Legends. Occult Signs and Symbols), is also included. This lecture is from GA 101, lecture IV, given on the 21st of October 1907 at Berlin.

About the author

Austrian-born Rudolf Steiner was a noted Goethe (see Vol. 2) scholar and private student of the occult who became involved with Theosophy in Germany in 1902, when he met Annie Besant (1847--1933), a devoted follower of Madame Helena P. Blavatsky (1831--1891). In 1912 he broke with the Theosophists because of what he regarded as their oriental bias and established a system of his own, which he called Anthroposophy (anthro meaning "man"; sophia sophia meaning "wisdom"), a "spiritual science" he hoped would restore humanism to a materialistic world. In 1923 he set up headquarters for the Society of Anthroposophy in New York City. Steiner believed that human beings had evolved to the point where material existence had obscured spiritual capacities and that Christ had come to reverse that trend and to inaugurate an age of spiritual reintegration. He advocated that education, art, agriculture, and science be based on spiritual principles and infused with the psychic powers he believed were latent in everyone. The world center of the Anhthroposophical Society today is in Dornach, Switzerland, in a building designed by Steiner. The nonproselytizing society is noted for its schools.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Fairy Tales: In the Light of Spiritual Investigation
• Author: Rudolf Steiner
• Editor: James Dennis Stewart
• Translated by: Peter Stebbing
• Publisher: e.Lib, Incorporated, 2019
• ISBN: 1948302128, 9781948302128
• Length: 56 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Fiction / Visionary & Metaphysical