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Born in 1861, Dr. Rudolf Steiner was a great Austrian polymath, philosopher and scientist who made influential contributions in the fields of education, science, spirituality and medicine. He is perhaps best known for pioneering the holistic educational methods for the Waldorf schools. An eloquent public speaker and gifted writer, he gave over 6,000 lectures in his lifetime and also gained recognition as a literary critic. His writings cover a wide range of subjects, and he published more than 25 books, including “Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age,” “The Way of Initiation,” and “Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: The Philosophy of Freedom.” He developed and taught an esoteric spiritual philosophy called anthroposophy, based on “the science of the spirit.” Today, we will read a selection from the chapters “Enlightenment” and “Initiation,” from Rudolf Steiner’s book “The Way of Initiation.” “The quality which is indispensable to him who would be initiated is a certain measure of courage and fearlessness. He must absolutely go out of his way to find opportunities for developing these virtues. In the occult schools they are cultivated quite systematically; but life in this respect is itself an excellent school of occultism, nay, possibly the best.” “Just as man in his physical being requires nervous force in order to use his physical senses, so also, in his psychic nature, he requires the force which is only produced in the courageous and the fearless. For in penetrating to the higher mysteries, he will see things not yet revealed to the physical eyesight nor to any other of the human senses. The latter, by hiding from our gaze, the higher verities (things which we could not bear to behold) are in reality our benefactors, since they prevent us from perceiving that which, if realized without due preparation, would throw us into unutterable consternation.” “The knowledge and power which are conferred upon a man through Initiation could not be obtained in any other manner except in some far distant future, after many incarnations, on quite another road and in quite another form. He who is initiated today experiences something which he would otherwise have to experience at a much later period and under quite different circumstances.”
