Our Connection With The Elemental World

The heart of this volume comprises Rudolf Steiner's commentary on the elemental forces that are responsible for our earthly nature as human beings – forces that influence us through our membership of a national or geographical group. When such elemental forces are not recognised and understood, he states, they cause conflict and chaos. However, Steiner indicates an important accompanying task that calls upon each human being to develop individuality, emancipating ourselves from the earthly influences underlying national and racial groups.These great themes are framed by Rudolf Steiner's pioneering research into the two major Northern folk-poems, the Kalevala and The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson. The former tells of the elemental spirits who created the conditions for our earthly incarnation, whereas the Dream Song has to do with the drama of excarnation – the journey of the human soul after death. Linking these vast motifs is Steiner's unique description of the mission and tasks of the Russian people and the contrast of their destiny to the North American people (who, he says, are 'dominating the Earth for a brief period of increasing splendour').Steiner explains how elemental beings, responsible for the balance of land and sea, have created conditions where various peoples are enabled to develop their gifts and fulfil their destinies. Thus he speaks of Finland as the ancient conscience of Europe, Russia as the future bearer of the Christ-imbued Spirit Self, and the differing but complementary environments of Germany and Britain. Strikingly, he states that, 'no souls on Earth love one another more than those living in Central Europe and those living in the British Isles'.Rudolf Steiner also speaks of the necessary work of luciferic and ahrimanic beings that collaborate to enable the solid spatial forms of our physical bodies. Likewise, they influence our etheric and astral bodies, facilitating thinking, feeling and will to be imbued with life and consciousness.

The heart of this volume comprises Rudolf Steiner’s commentary on the elemental forces that are responsible for our earthly nature as human beings – forces that influence us through our membership of a national or geographical group. When such elemental forces are not recognised and understood, he states, they cause conflict and chaos. However, Steiner indicates an important accompanying task that calls upon each human being to develop individuality, emancipating ourselves from the earthly influences underlying national and racial groups. These great themes are framed by Rudolf Steiner’s pioneering research into the two major Northern folk-poems, the Kalevala and The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson. The former tells of the elemental spirits who created the conditions for our earthly incarnation, whereas the Dream Song has to do with the drama of excarnation – the journey of the human soul after death. Linking these vast motifs is Steiner’s unique description of the mission and tasks of the Russian people and the contrast of their destiny to the North American people (who, he says, are ‘dominating the Earth for a brief period of increasing splendour’). Steiner explains how elemental beings, responsible for the balance of land and sea, have created conditions where various peoples are enabled to develop their gifts and fulfil their destinies. Thus he speaks of Finland as the ancient conscience of Europe, Russia as the future bearer of the Christ-imbued Spirit Self, and the differing but complementary environments of Germany and Britain. Strikingly, he states that, ‘no souls on Earth love one another more than those living in Central Europe and those living in the British Isles’. Rudolf Steiner also speaks of the necessary work of luciferic and ahrimanic beings that collaborate to enable the solid spatial forms of our physical bodies. Likewise, they influence our etheric and astral bodies, facilitating thinking, feeling and will to be imbued with life and consciousness.

• Explores the hierarchy of elemental beings as well as Christ elemental beings, social elementals, and machine elementals • Explains how elementals inhabit the etheric space that houses our emotions, feelings, and thoughts and how they carry the emotional level of the world • Shows how the author learned to make personal contact with the elementals and shares his experiences as well as the elemental world’s urgent call for help We all live in the realm of elemental beings. They permeate our souls, our thoughts, our feelings, and they co-create the world around us, yet we are often completely unaware of them. They, however, are eager to be perceived and acknowledged by us because their future and ours are fundamentally connected. Elementals act as carriers of the emotional level of the world, and Thomas Mayer reveals how he learned to develop and fine-tune his sense of perception to make direct personal contact with them. Providing insight into the elemental hierarchy, from the low workers to the masters and the elemental kings, he portrays Christ elemental beings, social elementals, and machine elementals as well. He also explores the adversarial forces like Lucifer and Ahriman that access the elemental world through the subconscious of humans and seek to destroy our elemental friends. Through sharing his encounters with fairies, dwarves, giants, and others, the author reveals their urgent call for help, an entreaty to anchor the elemental beings again in the awareness of humankind through recognition, acknowledgment, and conscious connection. Let us support the elementals in their crucial, life-giving work, through which they in turn support us in preserving the Earth we live on.

• Details hands-on techniques, spells, and rituals paired with personal stories from the author’s decades of magical practice • Presents teachings on working with each element in different ways--such as divination, communication, healing, protection, manifestation, and enchantment • Explores elemental altars, scrying and reading the bones, undines and fairies, working with runes and crystals, ancestral healing, weather sensing, fire gazing, candle magic, sex magic, and communicating with the Otherworld A Book of Shadows is a witch’s sacred journal, filled with personal experiences and the intimate working of spells. In this practical guide to elemental witchcraft, Salicrow invites you into her personal Book of Shadows, detailing hands-on techniques, spells, and rituals to work with the magic of the four elements--Water, Earth, Air, and Fire. She presents teachings on each element through the lens of different schools of magic, such as divination, healing, protection, manifestation, and enchantment. Within each of these elemental teachings is a series of progressive lessons, including a personal story from the author’s lifetime of magical practice paired with a technique for you to explore. For the Water witch, she explores scrying, engaging with undines, weather protection, fairy glamour, and healing with kitchen spells. For the Earth witch, she describes reading the bones, animal messengers, listening to plants, crystal grids, and shadow work. For the Air witch, she looks at communicating with sylphs and crows, divination through clouds and wind, sonic magic and healing, spell accelerants, and smudging. For the Fire witch, she examines the Djinn, the magical hearth, fire divination, candle work, and sex magic. For all the elements, she explores how to build elemental altars and customize the ceremonies and rituals. Sharing intimate examples and practices to help you progressively develop the skills of witchcraft, Salicrow invites you to create your own personal Book of Shadows as you forge a magical relationship with the natural world.

Although western humanity has conquered the outer world with the aid of technology and science, death remains an unsolved and largely unexplored mystery. Rudolf Steiner, an exceptional seer, was able to research spiritually the question of what happens to human consciousness after the physical body passes away. In these remarkably matter-of-fact lectures he affirms that life continues beyond death. Far from being dissipated, the individual's consciousness awakens to a new reality, beginning a great journey to the farthest expanses of the cosmos. Here it embarks on a process of purification and preparation. Rudolf Steiner indicates that one of the most important tasks for our present civilization is the reestablishment of living connections with those who have died. He gives suggestions as to how this can be done safely, and describes how the dead can be of help to those on earth.

A single lecture taken from the volume Life Beyond Death.

The idea of maintaining, continuing, and enhancing our relationships with those who have died was a fundamental part of Rudolf Steiner's work. This volume collects a rich harvest of Steiner's thoughts on this subject gathered over many years. Steiner speaks from his own experiences, providing some of the meditation practices and verses that worked for him. We learn of the value of reading to the dead; of using verbs (rather than nouns) when talking with them; of the importance of the sacred moments while falling asleep and awaking for asking questions and receiving answers; of the way our memories of the dead are like art to them; and of key moods we must develop -- community with the world, gratitude, confidence in the current of life.

Designbuild Education adopts the intellectual framework of American Pragmatism, which is a theory of action, to investigate architects’ compelling urge to build and how that manifests in collegiate designbuild programs. Organized into four themes—people, poetics, process, and practice—the book brings together new essays by some of today’s most well-known designbuild educators, including Andrew Freear from Rural Studio and Dan Rockhill from Studio 804, to shed light on the theoretical dimensions of their practice and work. Illustrated with over 100 black and white images.