The First Class Lessons and Mantras: The Michael School Meditative Path in Nineteen Steps: 1 (Rudolf Steiner's Esoteric Legacy of 1924) Hardcover – 15 Dec. 2016

Working with this will transform your life. Thomas Meyer took courage and explains in detail why it is so important to publish this wisdom that has been kept secret for a century.

An advanced book for students of esoteric Christianity. Certainly not for beginners.

My review argues that this potentially exceptional work has been editorially packaged in a way that delimits its value, and this for inaccurate and inappropriate polemical reasons. The review explains on the one hand why the book is not a casual read or even merely an interesting read for anyone so minded, and why on the other hand it is potentially of enormous value as we head into the problems of the 21st century. I suggest that the translation is uneven but not without value. The editorial omissions and commissions are a problem. My score reflects the ambiguity of the situation.The practice of giving a single score for an item is convenient but is illustrative of the failure of modernist science. I would score the book differently depending on who I was speaking with. Overall, however, I think the editor, TH Mayer, does a disservice to the text by imposing his polemical views upon it. It is not I think the proper job of an editor to exclude content on the basis that he is taken a political stance on the subject. Mayer may say that he has placed the excised parts in an appendix but that decontextualises them, as well as altering what is left.This is a doubly inappropriate action, because the logic of his decision is faulty. In the first instance, it is based on dubious premises and then the logic of his argument does not stand up. It would probably not be interesting to many readers of this review how and why this is the case. Let me first turn to the book itself and then a brief comment can be made.The value in this book lies in its extraordinary content, which is a verbatim transcript of a series of 19 lectures that embed various meditational verses, or mantrams (or mantras), with commentary on how to work with them. They represent a practical philosophical work that offers a practice in the development and cultivation of thinking, emotional development and conscious, free intentionality. In the process, they lead to an alternative post-modern, postformal experience of reality and the cosmos. In this sense, it is a landmark experiment and social text whose contents anticipate and go beyond many of the developments of the last century, such as phenomenology, Whitehead's process theology, post-modernism, cybernetic epistemology and Delouzian philosophy.As it is said that a fish does not know that it swims in water, so it can be difficult for a person to become aware of just how immersed they are in the cultural milieu and worldview of their time and place. The modernist epistemology that dominated science since about 1600 has been breaking down during the 20th century, but still retains its force in contemporary culture, as for example in the belief that a numerical measurement is not only simpler but more valuable than a qualitative measurement. Throughout the last century, one figure after another – whether they are artists like Picasso and the obstructionists, scientists such as the quantum theorists and Bateson, social revolutionaries like Martin Luther King, or philosophers – have energetically encouraged revolutions in what and how we think, an epistemological revolution, with practical consequences. With its own unique style and approach, this work belongs to this tradition and has the potential, I would argue, to be the most explosively powerful because it is by far and away the most radical recasting of the cosmic ecology as an interwoven enterprise of being. But to go into that is beyond the scope of this review.Steiner intended this text to be reserved for those people who would be capable of understanding the nature of its design. Moreover, they would be those who had reached a point in their lives where they were committed to trying to make a deeper sense of themselves in the universe. This is by no means a casual read and it is not even a serious thoughtful read. It is a guide towards some years of practice, at the least. It is in fact the centrepiece of an institution that Steiner founded for the cultivation of a more contemporary research and discourses across many fields (different sciences, sociology, medicine, the arts, ecological farming, education…) with this work as the transdisciplinary educational core.The effectiveness of the education will depend on the energy and disposition of the scholar. However, I can testify that it can lead to remarkable outcomes. Every fresh science or worldview is the outcome of a specific myopia being healed. Essentially, certain specific aspects of the world are simply invisible to those who have not learned to see them. An example most people will get is the way farming and industrial processes have wrecked much of the ecological environment and brought about species holocaust out of a blindness to the consequences. The schooling of this course leads at the end to a transdisciplinary capacity to see what modernist science was blind to. It also arrives at a place where the text itself is revealed to be quite other from what it first appears. It has a kind of surreal quality who’s meaning only appears after its significance has penetrated, thoroughly. That is why Steiner discouraged entering into the path without serious intent to see it through. Mayer takes the view that that this experimental institution became defunct and therefore that all references to it should be removed from the text. Were he to do so for purely editorial reasons (such as an edited collection of philosopher or scientists work), that would be one thing. But his reasons are political. The institution that Steiner founded still formally exists and has various discipline leaders. No doubt it has not accomplished what its founder hoped for, but it is not been without value. The Steiner schools’ movement is the largest independent schools’ group in the world, biodynamic farming is gaining increasing traction in a world more conscious of ecological crisis, and there have been notable achievements in other disciplines. But Mayer thinks it should not exist and seems to have taken umbrage against its continuation. A pity.Mayer's alternative view is that individuals should work with the text alone or by passing it on to each other. But for the reasons implicit in what I have already said, this should really be an individual enterprise in a social context, for the world of the cosmos is a social world, one in which as an individual I am inseparable from all being and beings, and cultivating this is part of the practice.The translation I would say is uneven. In some cases, it better preserves the straightforwardness of the German original compared with alternative versions, but this sometimes tips into banality, particularly in the translation of the verses. Overall, it is a useful additional resource for those committed to this work. It is conveniently sized and well-priced considering the scope of what is there. The editorial content at the end is of mixed value and in some cases, I believe, downright incorrect (not just in the polemical stance that Mayer takes). For example, I am sceptical about his explanation of the Guardian, the guiding figure of conscience and self-awareness in the negotiation of cosmic reality.

For years the German speaking world has had public access to this remarkable body of work. The path of the Michael School is a personal one which comes to life in a social, worldly context. At long last, it is available to all people in the English-speaking world having an interest in this subject at a cost that is affordable for most. The form of the book and the way it is laid out makes good sense, while giving the reader reasonable entry into the material. Historical commentary and great color drawings of blackboard exhibits enhance the value of this book. I look forward to a deepening of my experiences with this book over time.

This book won't be of value to many people who are not somewhat familiar with Rudolf Steiner's work. That being said, there is a very good reason for this book to be in the public domain as it is now necessary. There are no First Class Readers near us and the books from the Goetheanum were hundreds of dollars....Beautiful, worth it for sure, but times necessitate affordability...something the Society hasn't caught on to in many instances. This is a serious book to be taken and worked with respectably and with humility and gratitude. This is a wonderful opportunity for those who are drawn to it to join others in the School of Michael.

This is Steiner's ultimate meditation and will need to be read and reread for a lifetime of ever increasing understanding.

I love this and I am so grateful it got published in English.

Oh Man Know Thy Self!