Theosophy: An Introduction to the
Supersensible Knowledge of the
World and the Destination of Man
(Forgotten Books) by Rudolf Steiner
An Excellent First Book To Read Of Rudolf Steiner
Theosophy is a doctrine of religious philosophy and metaphysics
originating with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. In this context, theosophy
holds that all religions are attempts by the Spiritual Hierarchy to help
humanity in evolving to greater perfection, and that each religion therefore
has a portion of the truth. Together with Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan
Judge, and others, Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in 1875.
(Quote from wikipedia.org)

Table of Contents
Publishers Preface; Translators Foreword; Preface To The First Edition;
Preface To The Third Edition; Introduction; The Constitution Of The
Human Being; Introduction; The Corporeal Being Of Man; The Soul Being
Of Man; The Spiritual Being Of Man; Body, Soul, And Spirit; Re-
embodiment Of The Spirit And Destiny; Reincarnation And Karma; The
Three Worlds; The Soul World; The Soul In The Soul World After Death;
The Spirit Land; The Spirit In Spirit-land After Death; The Physical World
And Its Connection With The Soul And Spirit Lands; Thought-forms And
The Human Aura; The Path Of Knowledge; Notes And Amplifications
About the Publisher
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eyes. Happy reading!
Personal Review: Theosophy: An Introduction to the
Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of
Man (Forgotten Books) by Rudolf Steiner
This is a good place to begin with Steiner, although the reader should be
forewarned that it is not his most characteristic work. That would have to
be "An Outline of Esoteric Science" in which Steiner's true vision of the
cosmos as a war between invisible angelic beings for possession over the
human soul is detailed. This book, on the other hand, contains Steiner's
model of the architecture of the subtle body and it is important for
understanding the basis of his work, since without the knowledge of the
subtle body, nothing else will quite make sense. So it is foundational in that
sense.
But the reader coming to it with no prior knowledge of any of Steiner's
other ideas may be a little put off by its German academicism, with its dry
arranging of concepts into schematic hierarchies. Steiner's model of the
subtle body has at least three different versions, a four-fold model, a
seven-fold model and a nine-fold model, but the simplest and easiest is the

four-fold model of physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. This
model of the soul is largely derived from the Hindu Vedantic doctrine of the
five sheaths within which the Atman is enwrapped, like a mummy.
The physical body is what the human being shares in common with the
mineral world. At death, this body returns to the realm of the minerals
which have composed it. But animating this physical body and regulating
all of its processes of growth and metamorphosis is the etheric body, which
is what the human being shares in common with the plant world. The
etheric body is what makes living beings live. In the human being, it
becomes associated with memory. The astral body, however, is what the
human being shares in common with the animal world, since the astral
body is essentially waking consciousness and enables animals to move
about in space. Any being with a nervous system possesses one. But
finally, the human being possesses something which is uniquely human
and which animals do not have and which Steiner calls the Ego. By the
term "ego," however, he does not mean the Freudian ego or even the
Jungian ego, but something closer to the Jungian idea of the "Self" and the
ego together. The Ego is that transmigrating monad which hops from body
to body over the reincarnation process and it is responsible for the faculties
of human freedom and conscious will and decision-making. You won't find
anything on reincarnation in this particular Steiner text, however.
He further subdivides the ego into a sensory soul, a consciousness soul
and an intelligence soul, which are basically the three faculties of the
senses, the intellect and the will.
But you get the idea. This is Steiner's "Theosophy" in a nutshell, and it is a
good place for a beginner to start, but the beginner should in no way get
the idea that that is all there is to Steiner's vast, gigantic vision. This is only
the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
SEE MY LECTURE ON STEINER ON YOU TUBE FOR MORE
--John David Ebert, author of Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons:
Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society
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