Rudolf Steiner’s Reading of “Novalis”

John the Baptist

Dear Friends,

This is Lecture One and Lecture Two of a lecture series that I gave for friends and members of the Anthroposophical Society of America in April 2024. I revised these lectures for distribution to a wider public, especially for the more than one thousand subscribers who follow our Section work on the Section YouTube channel. 

In these lectures I discuss the meaning and importance of “Novalis” for Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and for the anthroposophical movement as it arose in the modernist first decades of the twentieth century.

This is not a lecture series on the literary Novalis, the poet Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772 – 1801). There are many lectures on this website about the literary Novalis. Rather, this series takes a look at Rudolf Steiner’s reading of the “Eternal Individuality Novalis” and how this reading is absolutely foundational to Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner’s reading of the Christ mystery.

Lecture One: the “Novalis” problem

Lecture Two: Rudolf Steiner’s Last Address

9.20.24