Suggested Reading This list is not required reading but merely a few good selections inspiring our work together in celebration of AnthropoSophia. 1) The Mysteries by Ita Wegman Find at the online Library: https://archive.org/details/mysteries0000wegm/page/54/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/mysteries0000wegm/page/75/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/mysteries0000wegm/page/93/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/mysteries0000wegm/page/106/mode/1up 2) THE FUNDAMENTAL SOCIAL LAW Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, 1927 Vol. II, No.3, “Anthroposophy and the Social Question”, 1919, GA 34rsarchive.org/Articles/FuSoLa_index.html 3) "The Spiritual Individualities of Our Planetary System's Destiny-Determining and Human-Inwardly-Freeing Planets"Rudolf Steiner, 27 July 1923, Dornach, GA 228 rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA228/English/RSA2023/SpInPl_index.html 4) Excerpt of The Heavenly Sophia and Being AnthropoSophia by Sergei Prokofieff “As we now survey the threefold path of study, we may ask ourselves the question: Who is it who has let us on this path, and accompanied us? Who is it who stood invisibly beside us, when for the first time an anthroposophical book came into our hands and we began to read it? Who is it who has given us the possibility of following this path from Christian Rosenkreutz to Michael and from him to Christ in full freedom? This being is Anthroposophy itself, though no longer as a teaching but as a living being of the spiritual worlds, as AnthropoSophia. Rudolf Steiner used this name for this being on two occasions. The first was in a lecture that he gave at the first General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society. This lecture of February 3, 1913 bears the title, The Essence of Anthroposophy and considers the evolution of Western civilization as a developmental process a being who has appeared on Earth under the name of Sophia, PhiloSophia and now AnthropoSophiaand who would wish to lead man to true self-knowledge. Rudolf Steiner used this name for the second time at the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach on December 25, 1923, the most important day of the Christmas Conference. At the beginning of his address he pointed out that it is necessary for every anthroposophist that ‘his heart is enlivened through and through by AnthropoSophia.’* And then at the end of his address he mentions this being again, speaking about the need to found ‘a true community of human beings for AnthropoSophia.’ If one takes Rudolf Steiner’s two references to AnthropoSophia at the Christmas Conference together, one may see in the first the most important condition for the second. From the lecture of 1913 and from the address of 1923 it follows with full clarity that this being is connected with an individual anthroposophist’s path of development and also with the entire biography of the Anthroposophical Society from its beginnings. But what does it mean, esoterically speaking, that one’s ‘heart is enlivened through and through’ by a being of the spiritual world? This means none other than finding a real approach to this being in the spiritual world, having a kind of supersensible encounterwith it. We must now attempt to describe the path which can lead to such a direct experience of the supersensible being AnthropoSophia. Here too we may begin with a simple example. Someone has intensively studied a certain aspect of spiritual science one evening in the three stages as have been described: he has penetrated it with his thoughts, transformed it into pictures and derived from it impulses for his moral conduct and actions. Having done this, he goes to sleep. It may then happen that the following morning he wakes up with a feeling which is akin to a resolve: from this day forth I want to change all my habits, my character and my whole life so as to bring it into harmony with what I have received through the study of spiritual science. I want to begin an entirely new life, which I want to lead in harmony with Anthroposophy, or – as Rudolf Steiner has formulated it – ‘to become a true representative of the anthroposophical cause’. For Anthroposophy has enabled me to recognize the true image of man and, through this, the image of my own being; and I want to make every effort I can to resemble this archetypal picture. What is so wonderful about this is that we experience this resolve as wholly our own, that is, as entirely free. Indeed, of all the resolves that we have ever made it is the freest. To be sure, we shall not bring this ideal to realization in a day; on the contrary, it is most probable that with our various duties we shall at first forget about it during the day. But it may happen that on the next, or some subsequent morning, after intensive study in the evening, we again have this experience, perhaps a third time and so on. Finally, under the inspiration of these experiences, we shall arrive at the question: What actually happened during the night, between the intensive study in the evening and the resolve of the following morning? For we shall come to feel ever more strongly that while we were asleep something of extraordinary importance has happened – called forth by our intensive study – which we can only compare with an encounterwith a spiritual being. And then, if we try to strengthen this experience through the conscious effort to implement our resolve, we shall sooner or later receive an answer to our question which may be formulated in earthly words as follows: What brought you during the night in the spiritual world to the resolve referred to above was the encounter with the living, being AnthropoSophia. And beholding this sublime and lofty being, my whole soul was filled with the longing and desire to become like her. This longing, this will-imbued aspiration, appears within me the following morning as the resolve to change my whole life, so that I want, hence forth, with all my inner strength to become a true representative of her spiritual being in the modern world.
Additional reading: - Man's Life on Earth and in the Spiritual Worlds http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MansLife/19221116p01.html Rudolf Steiner, London, 16th November, 1922 -THE ANTHROPOSOPHIC MOVEMENT: VIII. Responsibility to Anthroposophy, GA 258 https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA258/English/RSP1993/19230617p01.html
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