More Radiant than the Sun: A Handbook for Working with Steiner's Meditations and Exercises - Softcover

Reif Hughes, Gertrude

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1621480356 ISBN 13: 9781621480358

Publisher: SteinerBooks, 2013

Synopsis

“In this invaluable handbook, Gertrude Reif Hughes, in addition to providing us a comprehensive introduction, has given what has been so long needed in connection with Rudolf Steiner’s verses and exercises―the benefit of a deep and evolving personal experience in working with them.” ―Frederick Dennehy, attorney


Rudolf Steiner (1861–1924) spoke many times about the need for more than an intellectual understanding of what he taught as the spiritual path of Anthroposophy, or Spiritual Science, and to this end provided numerous meditations and exercises for his esoteric students during the first three decades of the twentieth century. He always emphasized the need for self-development through the regular practice of meditations and exercises to strengthen and clarify one’s thinking, feeling, and will. Steiner saw such efforts as means not only to develop spiritual sight, but also to protect oneself inwardly from the various dangers inherent to inner development, including egoism and mistaking fantasy for spiritual realities.

This handbook offers verses, exercises, and original instructions from Steiner, along with commentary, suggestions, and context from Gertrude Reif Hughes, a student of Anthroposophy for much of her life. Having meditated Steiner’s verses and their meanings for decades, she describes how the content of these inspiring meditations can create far-reaching effects for one’s life on Earth as well as for one’s eventual life in the spiritual world.

More Radiant than the Sun will be a valuable companion for anyone who is serious about deepening the practice of Anthroposophy.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Three Meditations on Self
• More Radiant Than the Sun
• Life Becomes
• The Six Essential Exercises
• Three Plant Meditations
• Perceiving Growth and Decay
• The Visible and Invisible
• Plant Meditation
• Three Meditations on the Cosmos
• Trust in Thinking
• Rainbow Colors Exercise
• From Static to Dynamic
• Three Meditations on Moral Ideas
• The Rose Cross
• Meditating on a Feeling of Joy
• Point and Periphery Exercise
• The Foundation Meditation
• Afterword: Fostering Transformation from the Future
• Cited and Relevant Works

About this title

About the Author

Gertrude Reif Hughes, PhD, is Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at Wesleyan University, where she served as Chair of her Department and of the Women's Studies Program. The author of Emerson's Demanding Optimism (1984), she has published essays on American poets, including Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, H.D., and Adrienne Rich, as well as essays on Rudolf Steiner and feminist thought and on Steiner's Calendar of the Soul. A lifelong student of Anthroposophy, she is a former chair of the Board of Anthroposophic Press (SteinerBooks) and former President of the Rudolf Steiner (Summer) Institute, where she taught meditation for many years and served on its board. She is a member of the board of Sunbridge College and one of the core faculty of The Barfield School Masters Program at Sunbridge. Her degrees are from Yale University and Mount Holyoke College. As a child, she attended the New York City Rudolf Steiner School.

About this edition

• Publisher: SteinerBooks
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1621480356
• ISBN 13: 9781621480358
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 120