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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Inner Impulses of Evolution, The Mexican Mysteries, The Knights Templar
GA 171

These lectures trace important developments in evolution such as the two-sided attempt to falsely extend the ancient Atlantean mysteries by the luciferic eastern campaigns of Genghis Khan and the ahrimanic western black magic mysteries centered in Mexico. New light is also shed on the fate of the Knights Templar, and Henry VIII, and Sir Thomas Moore. Steiner shows how we must Christianize all our activities and that we need to concern ourselves with four problems: natural urges, birth, death, and evil.

Lectures one through seven and eight from the lecture series entitled, The Inner Human Impulse for Improvement, Goethe and the Crisis in the Nineteenth Century, published in German as, Innere Entwicklungsimpulse der Menschheit. Goethe und die Krisis des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Kosmische und menschliche Geschichte. Band II.

Foreword by Stewart C. Easton
Introduction by Frédéric Kozlik
Lecture I September 16, 1916
The Effects of Greece and Rome on Our Time
Lecture II September 17, 1916
The Influence of Luciferic and Ahrimanic Beings on Historical Development. The clear Perception of the Sensory World and Free Imaginations as the Task of Our Time. Genghis Khan and the Discovery of America.
Lecture III September 18, 1916
The After Effects of the Atlantean Mysteries in America and Asia
Lecture IV September 23, 1916
The Rise of Spiritualism. The Need for the Science of the Spirit
Lecture V September 24, 1916
Atlantean Impulses in the Mexican Mysteries. The Problem of Natural Urges and Impulses, The Problem of Death.
Lecture VI September 25, 1916
Ancient Cultural Impulses Spiritualized in Goethe. The Cosmic Knowledge of the Knights Templar.
Lecture VII October 01, 1916
Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More. The Education of Man through the Materialistic Conception.