Mysteries of Evil (eBook)

Mysteries of Evil: A MysTech Study Guidebook

Lectures by Rudolf Steiner: Selected and Arranged by Andrew Linnell

This book is designed as a guidebook for a 16-session course that uses excerpts from 66 lectures by Rudolf Steiner to deal with what Steiner called the Mysteries of Evil. As Catholicism and Protestantism have Satan so does Anthroposophy have spiritual beings that oppose proper human spiritual development. Lucifer and Ahriman are primary on this list that also includes Sorat and the Asuras. But Anthroposophy differs greatly from such Christian (and other) religions in that these beings who inspire humans to do evil are considered necessary for the goals of human evolution to be attained. Thus, the mysteries of evil. Using these excerpts, this course explores evil as it applied in the past, in the present, and will in the future. The course examines how each person can, in grasping this mystery, overcome one’s fear of evil and thereby act in confidence regarding the future.

About the Author

Andrew Linnell is the other co-founder and CEO of MysTech. He’s been retired since 2013 after a 42-year career in the computer industry. He had been the CTO of OmegaBand in Austin, TX. and has worked at EMC, Compaq, DEC, Wang Labs, and IBM. He is also currently the president of the Boston branch of the Anthroposophical Society and a member of the School for Spiritual Science. He is the father of three and the author of two children’s books and two history books: The Hidden Heretic of the Renaissance: Leonardo and the The Uncomfortable History of Christianity.  He leads several MysTech study groups and has published four MysTech Study Guides to date.

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Croatia), where he grew up. As a young man, he lived in Weimar and Berlin, where he became a well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, known especially for his work with Goethe’s scientific writings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he began to develop his early philosophical principles into an approach to systematic research into psychological and spiritual phenomena. Formally beginning his spiritual teaching career under the auspices of the Theosophical Society, Steiner came to use the term Anthroposophy (and spiritual science) for his philosophy, spiritual research, and findings. The influence of Steiner’s multifaceted genius has led to innovative and holistic approaches in medicine, various therapies, philosophy, religious renewal, Waldorf education, education for special needs, threefold economics, biodynamic agriculture, Goethean science, architecture, and the arts of drama, speech, and eurythmy. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world. He died in Dornach, Switzerland.