What is truly real? Rudolf Steiner sheds light on everyday reality through spiritual knowledge, repeatedly urging us to bring anthroposophy into daily human existence. We might consciously experience the difference between consuming a potato as compared to cereals such as rye, for example – or we could grasp ordinary phenomena, such as sleepwalking, through an understanding of the threefold human being. Likewise, we might strive to comprehend how our head is the transformed organism of our previous life. Throughout, Steiner emphasizes that we can achieve spirituality on earth if only we make anthroposophy real.

The twelve lectures here were delivered during the portentous year of 1923, in the context of increasing attacks from Steiner’s opponents. His architectural masterpiece, the first Goetheanum, had already been destroyed by fire, but he was yet to refound the Anthroposophical Society at the Christmas Conference. In these uncertain times, Steiner speaks of the decline of European culture and the development of materialism as a philosophy, leaving anthroposophy with no exoteric foundation on which to build. But Rudolf Steiner strikes a positive note with an exciting and constructive way forward, providing us with the tools to see the world through three key perspectives of anthroposophy: the physical, the soul and the spiritual dimensions of reality.

This previously-unpublished volume is translated by Elizabeth Marshall and includes an introduction, notes and index.

28 April 2021; Trans. by E. Marshall; Intro. by E. Marshall (Twelve lectures, Dornach, 5 May–23 Sept. 1923, GA 225); RSP; 224pp; 23.5 x 15.5 cm; pb;