The Influence of Spiritual Beings Upon Man
GA 102
Publisher's Note
In his autobiography, The Course of My Life (chapters 35 and 36), Rudolf Steiner speaks as follows concerning the character of this privately printed matter:
“The content of this printed matter was intended as oral communications, not to be printed...
Nothing has ever been said that is not in utmost degree the purest result of the developing Anthroposophy. ... Whoever reads this privately printed material can take it in the fullest sense as containing what Anthroposophy has to say. Therefore it was possible without hesitation ... to depart from the plan of circulating this printed matter among members alone. Only, it will be necessary to put up with the fact that erroneous matter is included in the lecture reports which I did not revise.
The right to a judgment about the content of such privately printed material can naturally be conceded only to one who knows what is taken for granted as the prerequisite basis of this judgment. And for most of this printed matter prerequisite will be at least the Anthroposophical knowledge of the human being, and of the cosmos, to the extent that their nature is set forth in Anthroposophy, and of what exists in the form of ‘Anthroposophical history’ in the communications from the world of spirit.”
Rudolf Steiner presented the lectures printed in this volume to an audience familiar with Anthroposophy. The reader who wishes fully to appreciate this volume and who has no prior' acquaintance with Anthroposophy can gain the requisite background by reading An Outline of Occult Science or Theosophy. These are Steiner's own introductions. Both books are published by the Anthroposophic Press.