Rudolf Steiner Books - My Three Top Favorites

This is the first book by Rudolf Steiner I read and it is still my top favorite. Truth and Science is his dissertation which got him a PhD from Rostock University in epistemology. This is the most fundamental branch of philosophy – the theory of knowledge – which goes into questions such as “what is knowledge”, “how does the process of knowledge proceed” and “are there limits to human knowledge”.

This is probably the most fundamental of all Rudolf Steiner books. Every step in his theory of knowledge can be followed by all and all insights can be checked by looking to your own thought processes.

Steiner first argues that any theory of knowledge has to start from zero and shows that the main theory of knowledge in his days, from Immanuel Kant, does not meet this requirement. Steiner then brings you to the point of pure observation by asking this. How would you view our world when you moved from another planet to ours, had all the regular capabilities that all humans have, but have not had any thought and hadn’t interpreted any observation? You hadn’t identified anything as a cause or a result, you hadn’t even made the distinction between yourself and the world? Everything would be one stream of observations and you hadn’t given any object any label? Truth and illusion would not yet have been separated by you? That is the world of pure observation.

Steiner then shows that by holding on to our goal of finding the world of pure observation, we can also notice that some things we ‘observe’ are not outside ‘objects’ but are thoughts. We cannot doubt the content and the reality of our thoughts as we have produced them ourselves and live in them. That’s why we will not doubt them. The observations are one half of reality, the other half of reality is delivered by the world of thoughts or ideas.

Truth – or reality – is then found by combining the objects with their corresponding thoughts, by penetration the world of observation by the world of thought. If done successfully, the thoughts appear to show us the inner nature and laws of the objects. Only if we combine them together, penetrate the one with the other, can we say we have established what can be called reality. Reality is thus something we – in a certain sense – create or rather recreate by correctly combining the two “given” parts of reality: observation and thought, or fact and reason.

It should be noted that Steiner does not claim that objects are only physical objects, but that “objects” can be anything we perceive. A dream, for example, is also an “object” that can be penetrated by thoughts as happens when we try to explain their content and what it could mean.

I can’t of course summarize the entire book in such short paragraphs – this is rather meant to give you a first impression and seduce you into reading this for yourself…

It is also one of the shortest Rudolf Steiner books and I happen to love short books that focus on the essential only ;)

This is also one of the most early and fundamental Rudolf Steiner books as he goes into the nature of Christianity and how this relates to ancient mystery traditions. It was published in 1902, only two years after Rudolf Steiner began to speak openly about his clairvoyant – or occult – research.

Steiner shows how in previous cultures, e.g. in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, there were always mystery traditions consisting of mystery schools in which the chosen few could undergo an initiation into secret mystery knowledge. This involved a process of dying and a rebirth after three days, in which the student could gain knowledge into higher worlds and emanate as a truly new individual with new powers. Steiner shows how results of this mystery tradition show up in the works of many ancient philosophers, up to figures like Plato. The mystery traditions themselves were strictly kept secret for outsiders and that mystery treason was punished by death.

Steiner then describes the life, death and resurrection by Christ as the same process on a higher level. In doing so, Christ – as the Logos, the Son of God who incarnated into a human being, Jesus of Nazareth - underwent this process in public and thus also made the process of initiation visible and accessible to any human on earth.

Since then, everyday life for each one of us has become a process of initiation into previously hidden truths. Or as a pupil of Rudolf Steiner, famous artist Josephy Beuys has stated: “Nowadays the mysteries take place at the railway station” instead of in hidden and secret mystery schools.

The beautiful thing in this book by Rudolf Steiner – for me – is that he shows how Christianity is not a breach with previous so-called pagan traditions, but actually a transformation and continuation of them into a new, public form that is accessible for anyone. Christ is truly there for all.

In a sense, this book is a spiritual manifesto. No other work by Steiner has caused as much controversy as this one, both in his lifetime – he died in 1925 – and in the present day. Many of his contemporaries could not understand Steiner's sudden move towards Christianity. This was true both for the theosophists with whom he was in contact at the time and for the intellectuals and artists who were among his friends. However, most of his contemporaries failed to realize that he was taking a position that differed radically from that of the Christian churches and also from the theosophical view of Christ.

The Secret Stream brings together Rudolf Steiner’s writings and lectures on Rosicrucianism. These were the first lectures by Rudolf Steiner I read and I still find them beautiful.

The lectures address basic and deeper questions: who the Rosicrucians are, what alchemy really means, what the Rosicrucian path involves, how it differs from other mystical traditions, and why it smatters today. The book explores themes such as the Tao in relation to the Rose Cross, the life and task of Christian Rosenkreutz, Rosicrucian spiritual practice and experience, the meaning of The Chymical Wedding, and Goethe’s Rosicrucian poem The Mysteries.

In the early seventeenth century, Europe was shaken by the appearance of the first Rosicrucian manifestos, which sparked intense debate. From that time on, Rosicrucianism became a central current within Western Christian esotericism. During the Thirty Years’ War it withdrew from public view and survived in hidden form, passed on through alchemists, Hermetic thinkers, and Freemasons. In the nineteenth century it re-emerged and helped shape new spiritual movements, including Theosophy, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science.

The book also explains Rosicrucian meditation, including practical guidance on meditating with the Rose Cross itself. As a whole, this collection touches the spiritual core of Anthroposophy, which Steiner understood as deeply rooted in the Rosicrucian path. Edited and introduced by Christopher Bamford, The Secret Stream uncovers a concealed brotherhood active since the fourteenth century and presents a Rosicrucian way that is Christian in spirit, alchemical in method, and distinctly modern in outlook.