Old and New Methods of Initiation

Book excerpt: These lectures deal not only with the theme of initiation into the ancient mysteries and how that contrasts with what is required today of people treading a spiritual path of knowledge, but also covers such topics as the working of Lucifer and Ahriman in the threefold organization of the human being; the relationship of the individual to the folk spirit; and the need to think with exactitude and impartiality. The last four lectures examine in some detail the impulse of freedom behind the work of Goethe and Schiller, particularly Faust and the Aesthetic Letters, and draw interesting connections with Shakespeare, on the one hand, and the French Revolution, on the other.