Christianity As Mystical Fact: And the Mysteries of Antiquity

The Western esoteric roots of Christianity. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures, which he rewrote and published as this book, Christianity As Mystical Fact. This important work marks a watershed in the development of Western esotericism and our deeper understanding of the roots, development, and meaning of Christianity. In his autobiography, Steiner wrote of this work, "My intention was not simply to present the mystical content of Christianity. Rather, my aim was to describe its evolution from the ancient Mysteries to the Mystery of Golgotha in such a way as to reveal forces as work in this evolution that were not just earthly, historical forces, but spiritual, extra-earthly impulses. I wanted to show that the content presented in the ancient Mysteries took the form of ritualistic pictures of events occurring within the cosmos, events that were then transferred from the cosmos to the earth in the Mystery of Golgotha as a sense-perceptible fact accomplished on the plane of history." Christianity As Mystical Fact is a fundamental book, both in Steiner's own development and that of Western esotericism and for our understanding of the Christ event. Here readers will find the evolutionary development from the ancient Mysteries through the great Greed philosophers to the events portrayed in the Gospels. A book in the Classics in Anthroposophy series