Description
Book Synopsis`No true understanding of the world is possible without an understanding of the elementary kingdoms.’ – Oskar Kürten A hidden gem for students of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific research, Symphonies of Creation offers a breathtaking overview of the physical and metaphysical development of the world and humanity. In describing the elementary kingdoms, Kürten elucidates the exalted spiritual realms out of which all creation has arisen. These are the formative forces that provide successive life-waves of being with the subtle and physical forms through which their evolution becomes possible. He traces the beginnings of creation – an unformed `thought seed’ in the elementary kingdoms that is elaborated by hierarchical beings at all levels, through the planes of the spiritual, soul and physical worlds – to the manifold and evolving aspects of the human being. What emerges is a picture of astonishing complexity and beauty in which all spiritual beings connected with the earth, from the highest to the lowest, work together in symphonic harmony. Rudolf Steiner spoke on many occasions and in different places of these elementary kingdoms and the multiple processes that take place within them. Kürten has sought out these references, meditated on their content and re-presents it here in an inwardly coherent synthesis. Even for those who have been studying anthroposophy for decades, this book can offer startlingly fresh insights. Symphonies of Creation is the life’s work of a man who, due to severe deafness, led a retiring existence. His inner work, however, was full of life – the results of which are presented in this inspiring study.
Table of ContentsIntroduction by Paul King – I. The Elementary Kingdoms, 1. The elementary kingdoms as time periods and as realms of beings, 2. The Three Worlds and the Spirit World in particular, 2.1 F The Three Worlds, 2.2 The World of Spirits, 3. The elementary kingdoms as form-creating thought-seed beings and as the shaping forces of the kingdoms of nature, 4. The entrance of the elementary kingdoms into earth evolution and how they appear to clairvoyant vision, 5. The elementary kingdoms' formative forces as divine sacrifice, 6. The elementary kingdoms as the life kernels of the kingdoms of nature, Life Kernels, The life kernels' unfolding of being through group egos, Working-together of elementary kingdoms and the group egos, The elementary kingdoms and the states of matter, 7. Substances in the subtle `garments' of the life kernel, 7.1 The primordial substance and its forms of densification, 7.2 Substances as living beings, 8. The elementary kingdoms and the beings of the elemental world, 9. Influence of the elementary kingdoms on sleeping human beings, 10. The elementary kingdoms as hidden predisposition in the human members-of-being, 10.1 The relation of the elementary kingdoms to the lower human members-of-being and to the third hierarchy, 10.2 The future development of the higher members-of-being – 11. The Shaping of the Human Members-of-Being by the Elementary Kingdoms, 11.1 The Creation of the lower members-of-being, 11.2 Laying down the rudiments of the higher members of the human being, 12. The passage of the earth through the elementary kingdoms and the Stages of Form – II. The Elemental World – 1. The elemental world as the world of etheric forces, 2. Attributes of the elemental world, 3. The structuring of the ethers in the earth's physical Stage of Form – III. The Spiritual Organism of the earth-Planetary Spirit (a fragment) – Appendix, Overview of Stages of Evolution, Regions of the Spirit World – Bibliography – Further Reading
