CIIS Faculty Publications

According to Luke: The Gospel of Compassion and Love Revealed

Title

According to Luke: The Gospel of Compassion and Love Revealed

Files

Description

Rudolf Steiner was born with clairvoyant capacities, but it was not until he was forty that he could connect his inner experiences with Jesus Christ. After that “solemn festival of knowledge,” as he described it in his Autobiography, Steiner received ceaseless revelations about the significance of the Christ’s incarnation. For the next twenty years, he spoke of the hidden background to all four gospels, the Book of Revelations, and even what he called the Fifth Gospel, read directly from the spirit worlds. These lectures present the most accessible and illuminating of Steiner’s revelations about the significance of the Christ for the spiritual development of humanity. He discusses the link between the Buddha and the Christ, which unites Buddhism and Christianity―not in theory but in the spiritual activities of those two beings. Steiner also describes the relationship between the Greek Mystery traditions and the Mystery of Golgotha: "A sign was to be placed before them as well, a sign that would now be enacted before the eyes of all humankind. The 'mystical death,' which had been a ceremonial act in the Mystery temples for hundreds and thousands of years, would now be presented on the great stage of world history. Everything that had taken place in the secrecy of initiation temples was brought into the open as a single event on Golgotha." Utilizing a historical overview, revealing the relationship between the great religious traditions, and how they have conspired together for the good of humanity, Steiner never loses sight of the Gospel’s great inner meaning, as echoed in the Gospel of St. Luke: “The revelation of the spiritual worlds from the Heights and its answering reflection from human hearts brings peace to all whose purpose upon the evolving Earth is to develop good will.”

ISBN

978-0880104883

Publication Date

7-2001

Publisher

SteinerBooks

City

Herndon, VA

Keywords

Esoteric Christianity; Rudolf Steiner; Anthroposophy

Disciplines

New Religious Movements | Philosophy

Comments

Editor: Robert McDermott, PhD, Boston University (Philosophy, 1969), program chair, is CIIS president emeritus and professor of philosophy and religion. He taught at Manhattanville College (1964-71) and is professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Philosophy at Baruch College, CUNY (1971-90).

His publications include Radhakrishnan (1970), The Essential Aurobindo (1974), The Essential Steiner (1984), and the "Introduction" to William James, Essays in Psychical Research (Harvard University Press, 1986). Robert recently edited The New Essential Steiner: An Introduction to Rudolf Steiner for the 21st Century (Lindisfarne Books, 2009) and edited The Bhagavad Gita and the West: The Esoteric Significance of the Bhagavad Gita and Its Relation to the Epistles of Paul (SteinerBooks, 2009). Both of these volumes include the editor's 80-page introductions.

Robert's essays have appeared in International Philosophical Quarterly, Cross Currents, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Philosophy East and West.

He was secretary of the American Academy of Religion (1968-71) and secretary-treasurer of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (1972-76). In 1975-76, he was a Senior Fulbright Lecturer at the Open University, where he coproduced an OU-BBC film, Avatar: Concept and Example on the Bhagavad Gita and Sri Aurobindo.

From 1978 to 1980, he was director of a National Endowment for the Humanities project for the review of audiovisual materials for the study of Hinduism and Buddhism. He is the founding chair of the board of Sophia Project (two homes in Oakland, CA, for mothers and children at risk of homelessness), and has been chair of the board and president of many other institutions.

According to Luke: The Gospel of Compassion and Love Revealed

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