The Apocalypse of St. John by Rudolf Steiner

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The Apocalypse of St. John by Rudolf Steiner

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I've been reading / listening to a lot of Rudolf Steiner books and lectures this year. It's fascinating stuff. Just got done with "The Apocalypse of St. John"

A lot of what Steiner taught is so foreign to my Mormon mind but a lot of it also makes sense. Steiner addressed topics that, I think, in large part have been distorted by new age teachers, but he presented them from a principled foundation.

I suppose a TL;DR of this interpretation of the Book of Revelation is that it tells of the past and future origins and development of mankind over the ages.

He focuses a lot on the importance of, and essential role of, the Christ.

Sources:
The Apocalypse of St. John (Mp3)
The Apocalypse of St. John (YouTube Audio)
The Apocalypse of St. John (Text)
Introductory Lecture - Spiritual Science. The Gospel. The Future of Mankind. The pre-religious time. The Mythologies. The religious state. The different stages of consciousness and the I-Am.

Lecture I - General character of the spirit of the Apocalypse. What takes place in Initiation and how is Initiation related to the nature of the Apocalypse?

Lecture II - Concerning Initiation through training of the thinking-forces (pre-Christian time), the feeling-forces (Christian time)..

Lecture III - What is Man? and what is he destined for in this age? Ascent by degrees into imaginative, inspirational and intuitive knowledge. The inner progress of the seven post-Atlantean cultures is expressed in the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven vials of wrath. The seven Churches are the representatives of the seven post-Atlantean culture-epochs and to each the Apocalyptist directs a message in which he says what can be retained of the old and what must be different.

Lecture IV - What the seven epochs of the post-Atlantean culture have laid into the souls and sealed will live over into the seven epochs of the future.

... The four conditions of our planetary existence. The Apocalypse shows how the future of the earth is revealed through Christian Initiation ... The twenty-four categories of beings who had gone through the human stage ... Increase of egotism is the preparatory cause of the War of All against All. ... After the seven trumpets have sounded an astral earth arises with the beings which belong to it. ... The plan of world evolution takes its course in numerical relationships, the number seven governs all parts of world evolution. Seven conditions of planetary embodiments ... After the time indicated through the sounding of the trumpets the earth becomes spiritualized. ... Michael, who has the key and holds the Dragon chained. ... It is only possible for man to reach freedom and love through the descent of evil into the abyss. .... Those who have received Christ will cast them off without trouble, the others will feel it as a second dying in each successive astral form. That is the “second death.” Those who have reached the goal on earth sketch out the plan for the Jupiter-evolution: that is the New Jerusalem. Those who have thrust away the forces which the Jupiter-consciousness can give them will be those who have remained behind, sunk down below....

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