Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity

By: Rudolf Steiner

Narrated by: Tim Dalgleish

All listeners, atheist, agnostic or theist, will discover much of interest in Steiner's brilliant prose. The influence of Mystery Wisdom on thinkers such as Plato, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras is brought to life as Steiner explains how the initiate of the Mystery temples, such as those at Eleusis, ten miles from Athens, learnt to differentiate between mere knowledge and a wisdom that went beyond the transitory, phenomenal world of appearance to noumenal reality.

Psychologically the initiate came to believe 'he was himself a product of his daimon' and that he could not accomplish complete unity with the cosmos via the word or logos, but with the help of his daimon, he could (symbolically) die and be reborn. As Cicero said (making a distinction between popular religion and the deeper gnosis of the mystic), '[From the Mysteries] we learn the nature of things rather than that of the gods.' Steiner argues that Christianity was built on the foundations of a pre-history that many have forgotten while making acute observations about many historical figures such as Xenophanes, Empedocles, Plutarch, Plotinus, Pindar, Sallust, the neo-platonists, Zarathustra and the early church fathers.

Through Steiner, we recognise how Mystery Wisdom saturates Homer's Odyssey and how for Christians, the Cross of Golgotha is the Mystery cult of antiquity condensed into a fact.

Editorial note: As one of our listeners noted, an unedited file was mistakenly uploaded for this audiobook. Our apologies, the last five minutes of the original recording have now been replaced with a corrected version.

©2023 Tim Dalgleish (P)2023 Tim Dalgleish

Bravo!

I just discovered Steiner and I’m very glad this title came up in my audiobook feed. Rudolf Steiner probably wouldn’t be a hit with many people I know because of their relentless belief in their religious morality but I discarded my own long ago being such a critical thinker where religion is concerned. For years I have tethered on what I was forced to believe and what my beliefs are and confronting the how’s & why’s of importance. I enjoyed Rudolf Steiner interpretations of religion, science & mythology of how Christianity came to be and the idea of The Christ, the Logos in modern societies.

The recording needs to be edited

The last hour of the recording of this book is terrible. It needs to be edited. The reader duplicates ways of pronouncing words and sentences. Sometimes there are pauses that go on for several seconds. It looks to me like the reader forgot to go back and edit his recording for the next to the last chapter. He either forgot or doesn’t respect his listeners enough to care. I don’t know or care which it is. I don’t recommend this recording.

It is a shame because it is a good book and the first several hours of the reader’s recording is excellent.