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Rudolf Steiner Archive

Calendar of the Soul

Northern Hemisphere
Week 34

In secret inwardly to feel
How all that I've preserved of old
Is quickened by new-risen sense of self:
This shall, awakening, pour forth cosmic forces
Into the outer actions of my life
And growing, mould me into true existence.

Southern Hemisphere
Week 8

The senses' might grows strong
United with the gods' creative work;
It presses down my power of thinking
Into a dreamlike dullness.
When godly being
Desires union with my soul,
Must human thinking
In quiet dream-life rest content.

—Translation by Ruth and Hans Pusch

See GA 40 for full calendar and German text.

Christ and the Spiritual World - The Search for the Holy Grail
GA 149

Steiner examines the historical pattern of humanity's thoughts and spiritual development in its search for the meaning of existence. He discusses the Sibyls, Zarathustra, astrology in Egypt, the poets and philosophers in Greece and Rome, and the Hebrew prophets. These lectures culminate in the esoteric background to the Parsival story and the Holy Grail, and a discussion of how to behold the picture of the Holy Grail by reading the stellar script in the sky at Easter.

The original texts of the lectures are contained in the series of 6 lectures entitled Christ and the Spiritual World. Concerning the Search for the Holy Grail, in German, Christus und die geistige Welt — Von der Suche nach dem heiligen Gral.

Lecture I December 28, 1913
Difficulties of understanding the Christ-Jesus-Being. The thoughts of the Gnostics.
Lecture II December 29, 1913
The Sibyls as symptoms of one side of human soul-life. The contrast between them and the Prophets. Paul and the olive-tree.
<Lecture III December 30, 1913
he three permeations of a Being of the higher Hierarchies by the Christ. Reflections of this cosmic fact in Greek mythology. The four stages of harmonisation.
Lecture IV December 31, 1913
After-effects in post-Atlantean times of the three-fold Christ-Event. Chronology in the world-outlook of Zarathustra; Astrology in the Egyptian and Chaldean Mysteries; Meteorology in Graeco-Roman times. The geological element in the Hebrew Prophets.
Lecture V January 1, 1914
The working of the Christ Impulse in the depths of the soul. The emergence of the Grail-Idea. The re-emergence of the stellar script in the secret of Parsifal. Ganganda greida, the viaticum.
Lecture VI January 2, 1914
The permeation of spiritual revelations by the Christ Impulse. Reading the stellar script with the powers of the innocent human soul. The concord between human history and the stellar script. The heavenly aspect and the human aspect of the Holy Grail.
Note on Ganganda Greida

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