The Living Origin of Rocks and Minerals

An increasing number of enthusiasts are attracted by the rich variety of rocks and minerals around us, and new ways of looking at them. In this book, Walther Cloos views the Earth as a living organism, with different kingdoms of nature—mineral, plant and animal—as stages left behind as Earth developed. He argues that everything currently inert and static was once dynamic and alive. The author considers numerous aspects of geology, with chapters on oil, sedimentary rocks, radioactivity, volcanoes, and metals.

Written more than fifty years ago, this book is a classic, pioneering a scientific, geological understanding of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual insights into the evolution of Earth

A previous edition of this book was published as The Living Earth.

About the Author

Walther Cloos (1900-1985) grew up in Darmstadt. He studied pharmacy at Stuttgart Technical University, where he also attended lectures on mineralogy and geology, doing his practical training and working as an assistant in pharmacies in the Spessart region, near Hamburg and in the southern Black Forest. Having heard Rudolf Steiner at the independent academic course in Stuttgart in March 1921, he attended a second course held in Darmstadt in July that year. Later he would say that he had not been as impressed by Rudolf Steiner as others were, and that it was only the study of Steiner’s written works that he came to appreciate him. Cloos took great interest in the plant world, and especially in the medicinal plants he was growing himself at Weleda Schwaebisch Gmuend. He also closely studied alchemical writings.