The Secret Stream

By Rudolf Steiner

Selected lectures

During the early seventeenth century, Europe was suddenly embroiled in controversy after the publication of the first Rosicrucian texts. Ever since, Rosicrucianism has been at the center of Western Christian esotericism. Forced underground by the Thirty Years War, it was secretly handed down by alchemists, hermeticists, and Masons to the nineteenth century, when it inspired new spiritual movements such as Theosophy, the Order of Golden Dawn, and Rudolf Steiner's Spiritual Science.

The Secret Stream collects all of Steiner's discussions of the Rosicrucians, answering questions such as Who are the Rosicrucians? What is Alchemy? What is the Rosicrucian path? What is the difference between Rosicrucianism and mysticism? And what does it mean for today? The topics include the Tao and the Rose Cross; the history and mission of Christian Rosenkreutz; the nature of Rosicrucian practice and experience; the meaning of "The Chymical Wedding," and Goethe's Rosicrucian poem, "The Mysteries."

Rosicrucian meditation is also discussed, including how to meditate the Rose Cross itself. This important collection goes to the spiritual heart of Anthroposophy, whose essence is the Rosicrucian path. Edited and introduced by Christopher Bamford, The Secret Stream brings to light the hidden fraternity that has lived and worked since the fourtheenth century. It reveals the Rosicrucian path that is Christian, alchemical, and profoundly modern.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0880104759
• ISBN13: 9780880104753
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Steiner Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Secret Stream

The Secret Stream was a excellant series of essays on Rosicrucianism and Alchemy, and also the esoteric history of mankind. To the nominal reader, it may be overwhelming, but to those interested in profundus, the deep rather than the superficial or materialistic wont, and having some experience with the concepts of Alchemy and Rosicrucianism, the book has quality even if its not taken by faith alone, and I do not believe anything taken on faith alone reflects much on the reader who seeks veritas or truth. It is a series of essays by Stiener, who is a German Scholar in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and invested great effort in the idea of spiritualism[though under many nomen], or the idea that, matter being a receptive apparent quality that is founded upon a more active essential component and is transcendent or rather transcends the superficial, apparenent sensually. Stiener writes as a scholar, and thinks as a scholar, and one of the themes, as there are many is that, around the late parts of the 13th century, mankind embraced materialism, the separation of science and religion and the devaluing of essential thinking, which had ramifications inwardly, or created a threshold of experience which limited total percipience but fomented the maturation of the facility of reason within man, thus it was neccessitated. In that scheme, Rosicrucianism and ALchemy were fomented actively, intentionally, to develope a modality of integrating love into knowledge or knowledge to the cross respectively, or rather balancing the apathetic tendancies of pure reason with its balance compassion. It also considers Rosicrucion methodology as Steiner saw it, investigated Geothe and some of the initial documents of Rosicrucianism and its symbology. A good book, I do not quite do it service it is due, as it's been a month since I finished it.