Lighting Fires
Deepening Education through Meditation

Jörgen Smit

Softbound

$16.00

Teaching, especially in Waldorf schools, challenges teachers to develop both professionally and personally through a process of self-education. Jörgen Smit addresses the inner path of the teacher, the emerging human "becoming" who lives in every adult, as well as in each child. Often "natural teachers"—who "light fires" rather than "fill buckets"deepen their teaching through meditation.

In four essays, based on lectures by the author, Lighting Fires gives practical examples that can help develop the powers of thinking, perception, living in time, or "becoming," and imagination. The book also offers insight into the temperaments and how sleep can become a transforming influence in child development.

Contents:

1. One Teacher's Path of Schooling
2. The Awakening of Consciousness in the Etheric
3. The Four Qualities of the Etheric and the Teacher's Path of Schooling
4. The Influence of Spiritual Beings in the Night upon the Development of Children and Adolescents

A Primer for Spiritually Thinking Educators

A New "Organic-Living" Translation of Rudolf Steiner's Original Essay "Education of the Child" with Study Material

Mark Riccio

Spiral Bound

$19.95

Here at last is what many have been asking for - a workbook that moves step-by-step along the path outlined in A Study Guide to Rudolf Steiner's Heart-Thinking. Anyone following it with the liveliness of thought offered by the author will, I predict, find themselves in the adventurous realm of continuous discovery about both the world and themselves.

Mark Riccio offers up an excellent overview (i.e., how to proceed) and then begins with his own translation of Steiner's essay The Education of the Child. In doing so, he has reshaped the title to indicate that all educators (not just those in Waldorf settings) are invited to partake, as was Steiner's intent. In my mind, he also indirectly points to the fact that everyone is at one moment or another an educator and that anyone who wishes can draw from the well of its inspiration.

His process is one of diving into the words to arrive at the thought they surround, then to retrieve that thought from the depths of its dwelling place and bring it back into our world as living insight and inspiration. What you'll discover is nothing less than sheer joy.

For groups or individuals, this is a pathway from the head to the heart and out into the world. Enjoy!

A Study Guide for Rudolf Steiner's Heart-Thinking

Mark Riccio

Softbound

$10.00

The process of learning Steiner's heart-thinking was once described to me (by someone who was not Mark Riccio) as a process of reading and parsing each and every word of Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom (aka Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path) until you were so bored that you left yourself open for a moment of enlightenment. I need to add here that this person said this as a genuine explanation of the process he taught.

Those of you who know me even just a little can imagine how quickly I distanced myself from this process. In retrospect, it is really a shame that I didn't meet Mark Riccio and his approach first, because Mark actually thinks with his heart and loves with his thinking so much that the notion of boredom as a path of inner development never crosses his mind.

Instead, what you will find is an invitation to experience the warmth that Steiner's "intellectual" work can impart; to discover the clear thinking that love can evoke; and a process that is true joy. All of which is so very much closer everything I understand to be in accord with Steiner's suggestions for inner development (e.g., in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds Steiner remarks that the world cannot teach us anything save through our own enjoyment of it).

Mark's Study Guide is a joyous step-by-step instruction which you can undertake alone or share within a group. Coming as it does from the author of an article aptly titled "The Joy of Text" (now a chapter in this book), you can imagine that boredom (which does have its place in our lives, mind you) is not the focus of the process. Here is a path of which I can only say, "Try it, you'll like it." And it will like you, too.

An Outline for a Renewal of Waldorf Education
Rudolf Steiner's Method of Heart-Thinking and Its Central Role in the Waldorf School

Mark-Dominick Riccio, Ed.D.

Softbound

$12.95

Mark Riccio's book is a masterful presentation not only of the heart of Waldorf Education, but of ways of nurturing the heart-opening approach of this education such that it - and those who teach it - spring to life, creative and loving in the here and now. Heart-Thinking, an articulation of Steiner's cognitive approach, when done with open eyes, a smiling face, and a warm heart leads the thinker through successive levels of understanding, each culminating in a flowering metamorphosis transforming into the next level. So, too, Riccio's 100 page gem of a book - to engage in his understanding, to try out his exercises (which are fun - no long faces here!), is to find oneself at a point of transformation - and the choice (the only real choice) is to embrace life more fully, open your heart, and move on to the next level.

As Riccio tells us, the heart of Waldorf Education takes the students (and their teachers!) on such a journey of heart-opening transformation as it teaches them the things they need to know to become part of the family of humanity.

The seed of revolution (or, more correctly, evolution) that is this book lies in the suggestion, the hope, of the author (and myself) that teachers and staff at Waldorf Schools embrace the challenge of developing their own capacities of Heart-Thinking (and in my mind, this applies without modification to homeschooling co-ops and parents). Were this to occur, it would transform the education offered into something that fills all of society with a new life - and nurtures rather than drains those who provide it and support it.

I have great hopes that many will embrace these proposals, this way of learning to love without blindness. Not just our children, but all of us, will thrive on the effort.

The Foundation Stone

Willem Zeylmans von Emmichoven

Softbound

$19.95

During the Christmas Conference of 1923–24 when the Anthroposophical Society was refounded, Rudolf Steiner presented to its members for the first time the Foundation Stone Meditation. On consecutive days during that week, Steiner showed how elements of the Meditation could be rebuilt into new meditations (sometimes referred to as “rhythms”), which could be inwardly practiced. Zeylmans van Emmichoven was present at that formative meeting and lived intensively with these “rhythms” for more than thirty years. Initially in the Netherlands, and later during his many journeys around the world, Zeylmans began to make people aware of the germinating forces contained within the Meditation. This volume remains a seminal book that has inspired generations of students of anthroposophy.

Verses and Meditations

Rudolf Steiner

Translated by George and Mary Adams except where noted

Softbound

$22.00

Verses and Meditations is an extensive collection of verses given by Rudolf Steiner to individuals and groups between 1906 and 1925. It is a personal favorite of mine, and I have used various of the verses for meditation and reflection at different points in my life over the past 20 or so years. I still go back to it several times a year and always find something "new" and valuable to me personally.

I should also note that the Introduction by George Adams is an excellent discussion of anthroposophic inner work and meditation. It is thorough, concise and engaging - an unbeatable combination, really. The carefully selected verses plus this essay is also an unbeatable combination - I can attest to the longevity of its usefulness.

Seeking Spirit Vision
Essays on Developing Imagination

Dennis Klocek

Softbound

$23.95

Seeking Spirit Vision, if you are willing to take it up and work with it, will change your life, as much perhaps as the most significant person you have ever met did. This book, if you wish, can become a lifetime friend - a very wise friend.

- Robert Sardello, Ph.D.
The School of Spiritual Psychology

Dennis Klocek has always had a remarkable ability to bring together seemingly disparate bits of knowledge, observation, experience and alchemically transform them into golden nuggets of insight, lights along pathways formerly unseen. Seeking Spirit Vision brings together in writing and in one volume the fruits of Klocek's lifetime of pathfinding, of his quest to make manifest that the many dispersed spiritual streams, science. and art are, in fact, shimmering aspects of a truly unified Reality. This book is simply golden.

In it you will find bits of spiritual history, explanations of the nature of experiences both esoteric and mundane, and especially an overflowing abundance of exercises -- explained more clearly than any others I have encountered -- which, over time, can heal the human body, soul and spirit toward clear vision.

Seeking Spirit Vision can truly become a lifetime companion and lead you to a personal experience of the varieties of wonder and spirit our universe holds in store for us.

The Seer's Handbook
A Guide to Higher Perception

Dennis Klocek

Softbound

$25.00

The Seer's Handbook is the heart-gift of a man who has lived what he writes about. It is a beautiful thing to see a friend stay the course and arrive where he sought to go so many years ago. And then, for Dennis to share his journeys with us, giving us a map to places seldom travelled - my heart warms just thinking about this gift he brings us.

Dennis marries the wisdom of the alchemists with Steiner's Western path of initiation, then shows us how we can awaken our soul to become an organ of perception that will unveil worlds that stretch beyond the confines of space and time. He gives us exercises, meditaitons, insights and a few cautions -- in truth, he extends a hand for us to grasp as we move along a new path with eyes not yet adjusted to the qualities of cosmic light.

This book is a joy and a beautiful guide to spiritual reality. If seeking is your heart's delight, you could do no better than to carry a copy of The Seer's Handbook on your journey.

Start Now!
a book of soul and spiritual exercises

Rudolf Steiner

Edited and introduced by Christopher Bamford

Softbound

$20.00

Start Now!, in my opinion, will become one of the most well-worn and well-loved handbooks on the shelves and in the hands of those committed to spiritual development. It contains every essential exercise and meditation by Steiner that I've ever encountered -- in fresh, well-edited English. This includes the Calendar of the Soul, the Foundation Stone Meditation, and the Rose Cross Meditation, as well as the Six Essential Exercises and the Retrospection exercise. I've looked hard and must say that I find nothing missing -- and much that I didn't think of but that clearly belongs in the forefront of modern awareness.

Start Now! offers the most extensive collection available of Steiner’s spiritual instructions and practices, including meditation instructions; mantric verses; daily, weekly, and monthly practices for developing one’s soul qualities; karmic exercises and meditations for working with the dead, with the angelic hierarchies, and with our guardian angels.

CONTENTS:

• Introduction by Christopher Bamford (background and context)
• Prologue – Framing the Work (including Steiner’s early “Credo”)
• Meditation Instructions and Explanations
• The Way of Thinking
• The Way of Reverence & Its Fruits
• Developing the Chakras, or “Lotus Flowers”
• Six Essential Exercises
• The Backward Review, or “Retrospect”
• Living the Year Spiritually (including the complete “Calendar of the Soul”)
• Meditations from the Esoteric School
• The Rosicrucian Path
• The Christian-Gnostic Path
• Working with the Dead
• The Foundation Stone Meditation
• Meeting the Guardians
• Bibliography & Further Reading

This is one of those rare books that I would place in the "must have" category. A lifetime of joy and discovery!

The Inner Path

Karl König

Softbound

$19.95

I sometimes marvel at how a person's way of looking at the world permeates, really, everything they come to do in life. In Karl König's case, we have someone who even as a child contemplated development - of everything. He became vocationally a homeopathic physician with a deep understanding of embryology and its relationship to overall human development. Then, he went on to found the Camphill Movement where human beings whose development was in one way or another incomplete could be cared for and their capacities nurtured. Again, it was his capacity to see what development was all about - how it proceeded, what it meant when it stalled, how one could go about loosening those bonds.

Here in this remarkable book, König gives us what amounts to a physiology of self-development as fostered though various types of inner work. His understanding is profound and his descriptions detailed, warm and wonderful. You can share with him his discoveries of the way certain inner exercises can move us forward, and in what direction. Why, for one set of circumstances, a particular exercise (usually sequential exercises, actually) is most effective, and in another situation, you would want to turn to something different.

The Inner Path is fascinating and useful - a spiritual psychology and a how-to all in one. It is wonderful to see it in print.

The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
Goethe's Fairy Tale

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Translated by Julius E Heuscher

Edited by Joan deRis Allen

Paintings by Hermann Linde

Hardbound

$25.00

The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily is one of the most important stories of the Anthroposophic and Rosicrucian streams. It is a timeless, allegorical tale of initiation and had a profound impact on Rudolf Steiner and on the formulation of his teachings. He called the fairy tale a kind of “secret revelation,” an “apocalypse.” As the authors point out in The Time Is At Hand! Goethe’s fairy tale begins with a specific image: a river separating two lands that contrast to each other, as do the sensory world and the spiritual world. The story ends with a bridge, created through sacrifice, that spans the river between the two lands.

Indeed, Rudolf Steiner was so deeply impressed by Goethe’s fairy tale, that he used it as the model for his first mystery drama, The Portal of Initiation. It is said that, prior to its first performance, he told friends, “I know how long and deeply you have loved Goethe’s fairy tale, and today I am happy to tell you that you will see it performed on stage.”

This is a fairy tale for meditation—and for building bridges of the soul and spirit.

The twelve paintings in this book represent the soul experiences of the “Youth” in the fairy tale. They are the fruit of an intense collaboration between Hermann Linde and Rudolf Steiner, who commissioned the work. Steiner visited Linde’s studio each day and provided him with detailed indications on how to treat the various motifs.

Once Linde had finished the original panels—done mainly in tempera—he had planned to rework them in transparent watercolor glazes, intending to follow Steiner’s suggestion of working wholly “from the color itself.” Unfortunately, Hermann Linde was unable to realize his intention; he died suddenly, just a few months after the first Goetheanum was destroyed by fire on New Year’s Day 1923.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, this excellent edition will provide an beautiful introduction to Goethe's delightful fairy tale. And for those who know it well, the images and fresh translation will give the story new life in the imagination. It also makes an excellent gift for all ages.

The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Translation by Thomas Carlyle

Illustrated by David Newbatt

Hardbound, Dust-jacketed

$29.95

A true fairy story is a work of art. At Michaelmas in 1795, there appeared a series of stories ending with a Fairy Tale, "The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily." This tale tells of a magical transformation, one that, when the time is ripe, can be experienced by every human being. The author of these stories was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the creation of this Fairy Tale was to have far reaching consequences.

This new edition of The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily is the inspiration of artist David Newbatt, who wanted to bring together the original English translation by Thomas Carlyle with a series of pictures. The marriage of Carlyle's flowing English with Newbatts beautiful pastel paintings reveals the seven-fold process that unfolds within Goethe's Fairy Tale. It is a process of inner development and personal transformation, a path both ancient and modern.

Together with the translation by Thomas Carlyle and the series of seven pictures by David Newbatt, the book includes an extensive introduction by Tom Raines.

Conversation
A New Theory of Language

Carl H Flyght

Softbound

$25.00

Flygt’s argues that conversation has an objectively treatable structure and, as such, can be held to standards that can not only awaken human clairvoyance, but can also liberate our emotions and spiritual will, and contribute to a cultural background that makes community a fundamental social value. Flygt’s treatment of language use and social background is penetrating, original, academically up to date, and fascinating to contemplate.

The Soul Calendar
and the Lemniscate

Essays and a New Translation

Barbara Betteridge

Softbound

$8.95

Barbara Betteridge devoted much of her life to an exploration of Steiner's Calendar of the Soul in relationship to a lemniscatory understanding of the cycle of the year. It was our privilege to know Barbara during much of this time, and to work with her in small ways as she translated the Soul Calendar into English.

I can't begin to tell how important her resetting of the verses of the Soul Calender as four points on the yearly lemniscate has become to me over the years. From my perspective, it was one of the most eye- and heart-opening revelations of life's journey. Rather than working with polar counterpoint, as in the setting of the Pusch translation, Barbara's perspective reveals each verse (each week of the experienced year) as one of four posts supporting a living aspect of the cycle of the year.

It is with a wonderful thing to see her work in print and to be able to share it with you. May you find what I found here.

The Calendar of the Soul

Rudolf Steiner

Translated by Christopher and Lisolotte Mann

Hardbound

$12.95

Rudolf Steiner wrote the 52 verses of The Calendar of the Soul as content for meditation aimed at helping people to awaken to the life cycles and purposes of the Earth and nature. Each verse reflects the life of the natural world at a particular point in the cycle of the year - the reflection is seen in the mirror of the human soul. My own experience of these verses is that they act as illuminating light on what I am both witnessing outwardly and experiencing inwardly. I have always found that each verse moves me toward greater participation in the seasons of the World.

If you have been curious about this particular meditation, or have been wanting to begin a meditation practice for yourself, I can highly recommend the content of The Calendar of the Soul as being rich in experience and fruitful in outcome. I am actually very, very grateful for the time I have spent with these verses.

Because everyone responds to the various translations in very personal ways - they all have weaknesses and strengths when compared with the German originals, I will simply offer the St. John's Tide verse from each version and let you decide which is just right for you right now.

The world's fair shining glory
Compels me from the depths of soul
To let my being's God-given powers
Soar out into the Universe -
Abandoning my Self,
And trusting only, seek myself
In light of worlds and warmth of worlds.

The Calendar of the Soul

Rudolf Steiner

Translated by Ruth and Hans Pusch

Hardbound

$12.95

As my comments in the Mann translation also hold good for this translation, I'll simply let you read the St. John's Tide verse from this version:

The radiant beauty of the world
Compels my inmost soul to free
God-given powers of my nature
That they may soar into the cosmos,
To take wing from myself
And trustingly to seek myself
In cosmic light and cosmic warmth.

The Illustrated Calendar of the Soul
Meditations for the yearly cycle with fifty-two pictures by Anne Stockton

Rudolf Steiner

Translated by John B Thomson

Hardbound with bound ribbon bookmark

$25.00

In addition to my comments found with the Mann translation, I'd like to add that this special little volume holds a treasure of visual meditative material - the paintings, some of them tremendously beautiful, themselves offer abundant insights and reflections of the cycle of the year. My own approach would be to sometimes use only the pictures as my content, sometimes only the verses. I can even see developing a visual/written word rhythm throughout the week - and I can imagine the fruitfulness of this approach to be great. As you can surmise, I have not yet tried this (I only just discovered the book), but I do intend to work with it -- and am very eager to do so.

Here is John Thomson's translation of the St. John's Tide verse:

The shining beauty of the world
Compels me to set free from depths of soul
My life's God-given powers
To wing their way in the worlds,
And to forsake myself
And, filled with trust, seek still myself
In the light and warmth of worlds.

Meditation
bringing change into your life

Jörgen Smit

Softbound

$12.00

In this concise and down-to-earth book, Jörgen Smit removes much of the mystique surrounding meditation by guiding the reader along the path of meditative knowledge as developed by Rudolf Steiner. He shows how we can fruitfully build up meditative images, how we can gain control over our thoughts and our will by various straightforward and practical exercises, and how to balance meditative work with work on themes from our own biography in order to avoid a one-sided egotism that can occur as a result of intensive inner work.

Simple. Direct. Useful. If you've been looking for a clear pathway into an enlivened inner life, this is a great place to begin.

Self Transformation
Selected Lectures

Rudolf Steiner

Softbound

$26.00

At the heart of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual philosophy is an esoteric path of inner development that can lead to true self-transformation.

The lectures included are some of Steiner's best and cover what I believe is the full range of his suggestions for inner development:

Contents:

• The Path of Knowledge and Its Stages: The Rosicrucian Spiritual Path
• Three Paths of Practice
• Oriental and Christian Training
• Rosicrucian Training and Mysteries of the Earth
• The Ancient Yoga Civilization and the Michael Civilization of the Future
• The Way of Inner Development
• Practical Training in Thought
• Occult Science and Occult Development
• The Three Decisions on the Path of Imaginative Cognition
• Beyond the Sphere of Scientific Knowledge
• Anthroposophy and Psychology
• Sense-free Perception

Spiritual Insights
From the Work of Rudolf Steiner

Compiled by
Helmut von Kügelgen

$16.00

In general, I am not a fan of excerpts, but this little book is so outstanding that I'm happily setting aside my usual preferences. Helmut von Kügelgen has gathered together meditations, exercises, thoughts by Rudolf Steiner that are so powerfully alive that the book itself practically vibrates with the excitement of imminent discovery. I think it would be possible to work with this book for years without exhausting your interest or plumbing its full depths.

Christmas
Volume 3 of the Little Series

From the work of Rudolf Steiner

Compiled by Helmut von Kügelgen

Softbound

$15.00

These little books created by Helmut von Kügelgen are just amazing - each and every one of them was compiled with an eye toward the soul needs of teachers. The outcome is that each and every one of them carries within it such warmth, such heart-opening goodness, such hope and love, that they meet not just the needs of teachers, but of all of us.

Christmas is densely packed with meditations on the meaning of the seasons, the Gospel stories of Christmas, prayers and verses of resounding simplicity and richness, even a St. Nicolas celebration for children by von Kügelgen makes an appearance.

The tenderness and depth of Christmas is of a nature that extends well beyond a time of year -- as, in fact, the original Christmas has done.

Contents:

• How to Work with This Booklet
• The Four Different Accounts of Christmas in the Gospels
• Universal Verse for the Earth
• The Gospel of St. John
• The Christmas Conference 1923/1924
• Christmas Verse
• Verses from the Calendar of the Soul
• The Etheric Body as a Reflection of the Universe
• Wisdom, Power and Love
• In Praise of Love
• The Armour of God - Verse by Angelus Silesius
• Universal Verse for Our Earth
• Freedom and Peaceful Collaboration
• Isis, Sophia and Maria Unified in Love through the Child
• Forces of Child and Forces of Eternity
• The Birth of Christ in the Human Soul
• The Christ-Impulse throughout History
• Peace on Earth
• Summer and Winter/New Year's Eve and the Holy Nights
• Verses by Angelus Silesius
• The First Gift
• The Nicholas Messenger
• Apocalyptic Advent Gospel - Gospel Texts for Advent, Christmas time, Epiphany and Beyond

Michaelmas
From the Work of Rudolf Steiner
Volume 7 in the Original Little Series

Compiled by
Helmut von Kügelgen

$15.00

To our eye, Helmut von Kügelgen has succeeded in putting between two modest covers the deepest, most useful and most beautiful thoughts, essays, imaginations, verses and observations of Rudolf Steiner on the subject of Michaelmas and the Archangel Michael. This is a heart-opening, invigorating anthology.

Sample Contents:

• How to Use This Booklet
• Anthroposophy and the Human Gemüt
• Michael's Battle with the Dragon
• Twelve Verses from the Calendar of the Soul
• Michaelmas Verse
• The Michael Festival in the Course of the Year
• Enthusiasm and the Consciousness o fthe Waldorf Teacher
• Healthy and Ill instead of True and False
• The Fine Weaving of the Spiritual in the Material
• The Battle of Michael Described for the Waldorf Teacher
• Truth-Wrought Pictures of Michael and the Growth of Human Freedom
• Michael-Imagination
• On the Genesis of Evil
• Threefolding and the Michael Festival of the Future
• Easter and Michaelmas
• Trust in Spirit Bring Michael-Strength
• Michael's Ascent to Time Spirit and His Battle with the Dragon
• The Art of Education: Bulding the Vehicle in which Michael Will Ride into Our Civilization
• On the Being of Michael - His Gaze - Rejection of Nationalism
• The Message of Michael
• The Equilibrium Between Lucifer and Ahriman through Christ
• A Picture of Equilibrium
• On the Mystery of Michael
• From the New Testament

Compiled by
Helmut von Kügelgen

Softbound

$15.00

To read this powerful little book is to enter a space of quiet, calm reassurance; of peaceful strength. Just what all of us need to walk through our lives with warmth and uprightness. Thank you, again, Herr von Kügelgen!

Contents:

• Words for teachers
• We found a path
• Ideas - Vessels wrought from love
• Love born from understanding
• Michael and the love for the outer world
• Truth wrought words
• Harmonious cooperation is grace
• Love and trust - Moral impulses for the future
• Devotion to the outer world is love
• Love and harmony - Couldn't it be so?
• Spatial barriers separate and protect us
• Where I direct my gaze
• To be free means to be able to die - To be able to love means to be able to live
• Love - Memory - Freedom
• The third realm of evil
• The teacher's prayer and a leaven in social life
• Memory and Love
• Spiritual freedom and love of the deed

Meditations on the Tarot
A Journey into Christian Hermeticism

Anonymous

Translated by Robert Powell

Softbound

$21.95

This book, in my view, is the greatest contribution to date toward the rediscovery and renewal of the Christian contemplative tradition of the Fathers of the Church and the High Middle Ages.

- Abbot Thomas Keating, OCSO
author of The Divine Indwelling and many other books on Contemplative Prayer

I have to agree with Abbot Keating, and I would add more. In my experience, Meditations on the Tarot is the most comprehensive, clear and thorough articulation of the path of Christian mysticism, the esoteric path of self-knowledge leading toward a union the human will, feeling and knowledge with that Creating, Love and Comprehension which is Christ. And, it is extremely beautiful - the sort of text to be savored slowly and repeatedly throughout a lifetime.

This is the fully corrected edition, republished after Element Books (the original publishers of the English language edition) ceased to exist. It is published for the first time with an index (which is wonderfully comprehensive!) and an afterword by Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar.

Written anonymously (though known widely that the author was Valentin Tomberg, originally an anthroposophist who left the Society after one of the those social disasters at Dornach) and first published posthumously, the author's intention is for the reader to find a relationship with the author in the spiritual dimensions of existence. Whether or not the author/reader succeed in this goal, there is no question that the reader will gain an understanding of the Christian mystical path that will become fruitful throughout his or her life. This is an amazing book, one which I hope many, many people will read.

The author uses the twenty-two major arcana of the tarot deck as the focal points of a meditative exploration of some of humanity's most penetrating spiritual questions. That Meditations on the Tarot has attracted a nearly unique range of praise from across the spiritual spectrum is further testimony to its depth and insight.

To give you an idea of what you will find in the nearly 700 pages of this book, here is an experpt from the chapter exploring The Hermit (note: bracketed remarks are mine):

[after discussing the location and nature of the seven primary chakras of the human being the author continues:]

The disciple of Hindu yoga and tantra meditates on, or inwardly recites, "seed-mantras" (bija mantra) in order to arouse and advance the development of these centres or chakras. He inwardly vibrates the syllable OM for the centre between the eyebrows (the two-petalled lotus), the syllable HAM for the larynx centre (the sixteen-petalled lotus), the syllable YAM for the heart centre (the twelve petalled lotus), the syllable RAM for the umbilical centre (the ten-petalled lotus), the syllable VAM for the pelvic centre (the six-petalled lotus) and the syllable LAM for the centre at the base of the spine (the four-petalled lotus). Concerning the crown centre (the eight-petalled lotus) there is no bija mantra for it - this centre being not the means by rather the aim of yogic development. It is the centre of liberation.

Now, the following "mantras" or Christian formulai are those which related to these centres:

• I am the resurrection and the life - the eight-petalled lotus
• I am the light of the world - the two-petalled lotus
• I am the good shepherd - the sixteen petalled lotus
• I am the bread of life - the twelve-petalled lotus
• I am the door - the ten-petalled lotus
• I am the way, the truth and the life - the six-petalled lotus
• I am the true vine - the four-petalled lotus

Here is the difference in the choice of method: It is a matter, dear Unknown Friend, of choosing between the method of vibrating particular syllabic sounds - Om, Ham, Yam, Ram, Vam and Lam - and the method which has in view spiritual communion with the seven rays of the "I AM" or the seven aspects of the perfect SELF, who is Jesus Christ. The first method aims at awakening the centres such as they are; the second aims at the Christianisation of th all the centres, i.e., their transformation in conformity with their divine-human prototypes. It is a matter here of the realisation of hte words of the apostle Paul: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation [KJV: . . . creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new]."

Here, in three short paragraphs, the author captured the essential way of Christianity - in three short paragraphs! There have been entire libraries of books written attempting to do this, and the author sums it up in three paragraphs.

The entire book is like this at every step. A life's treasure.

Guidance in Esoteric Training
From the Esoteric School

Rudolf Steiner
Translated by C. Davy, O. Barfield, et al

$22.00

Guidance in Esoteric Training is a terrific "how to" book that we are very glad to see back in print and expanded. If you have been looking for well-defined exercises to use for your own spiritual and moral development, this sourcebook will meet your needs. Included are exercises for developing the capacities of heart, mind, and spiritual awareness, as well as lectures and essays by Rudolf Steiner on topics of inner development and modern initiation. Guidance is a treasure chest you will return to again and again.

At Home in the Universe
Exploring Our Suprasensory Nature

Lectures by Rudolf Steiner

Softbound

$16.00

Modern science tells us that we are an insignificant accident in a vast, indifferent universe. Rudolf Steiner maintains instead that we are intimately enmeshed with the whole cosmos, right down to the physical structure of our bodies. In these talks, he explores our relationship as individuals to the spiritual cosmos, in which we will all come to live. The key to being at home in the universe is to understand thesignificance of our individual, physical lives on earth and what happens when we leave our physical bodies behind.

Steiner encapsulates his view of our journey after death and our return to earth and a new life. He describes the "planetary" spheres through which we each pass and their effects on our future. He shows us how our character and actions on earth affect us after we die and how those experiences shape our next physical life.

This is not merely information to be added to our already overabundant store of abstract concepts; Steiner gives us imaginative exercises that help us explore our suprasensory, or spiritual, human nature. We can begin now to act more consciously by recognizing the concrete nature of morality and the real consequences of our present lives.

The introduction and comprehensive afterword by Paul Margulies explain and contextualize Steiner's text, revealing a message that is more vital and relevant than ever in our frenzied, materialistic times. This book can help us experience more meaning in life and become more at home as spiritual citizens of the universe.