Class lessons in the context of anthroposophy
A project within the General Anthroposophical Section looks at the nineteen first class lessons in the context of anthroposophy as a whole.
Rudolf Steiner considered the intensive study of anthroposophy to be a necessary condition for membership in the School of Spiritual Science as well as for the reception and internalization of the nineteen Class Lessons. He relied on the fact that the content of the Class Lessons would be progressively penetrated within the overall anthroposophical context – against the background of the anthroposophical writings and lectures on inner development since the early twentieth century, if not of spiritual science as a whole.
Basis for scientific studies
Profound engagement with the class lessons within the context of the anthroposophical canon is of central importance for the identity of the School of Spiritual Science. Studies and publications that explain the path of inner development as a part of anthroposophy are therefore indispensable. They also illustrate comprehensibly why the general study provides a specific foundation for the specialized scientific work of the Sections.It will benefit the development of the Anthroposophical Society as a social organism and its understanding of the School of Spiritual Science if it can be shown successfully in the coming years how the Class Lessons relate to Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical work as a whole and to what extent they are a basis of scientific enquiry in the Sections.The intention behind the project is therefore to carry out and promote productive work on the topic mentioned at and from the Goetheanum. With this in mind, the General Anthroposophical Section publishes a newsletter for class members, which goes out twice-yearly in currently four languages, as a contribution towards a deeper understanding of the class lessons and mantras, and their relation to the work of the Sections (contact schoolmembership@goetheanum.ch); in addition, seminars will be offered in future for class members both at the Goetheanum and internationally by the General Anthroposophical Section on the composition and motifs of the class lessons. Selected extracts from the newsletters and seminars will be published in various languages in a series of monographs. This is in continuation of the literature that already exists in this context.*
Cover picture: Drawing by Rudolf Steiner on the spiritual hierarchies (detail). Photo: Ita-Wegman-Archiv.
* Selection:
Johannes Kiersch A History of the School of Spiritual Science: The First Class, 2006
Sergei O. Prokofieff The First Class of the Michael School and its Christological Foundations, 2009
Sergei O. Prokofieff The Esoteric Path Through the Nineteen Lessons, 2016
Peter Selg Facing Evil and The Guardian Speaks, 2024
Peter Selg Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai. Der Mensch und die dritte Hierarchie. Zur ersten Klasse der Freien Hochschule für Geisteswissenschaft, 2022. [Humanity and the third hierarchy. The first class of the School of Spiritual Science – not yet available in English]
John L. Bewick Commentaries on the Class Lesson Mantras, 2022.
Donations General Anthroposophical Section