Anthroposophischer Seelenkalender by Rudolf Steiner. Verlag der Rudolf Steiner - Nachlassverwaltung. 1963. Neu durchgesehene Auflage Dornach 1963.  In German. 4 3/4" x 3 3/4" 8 unnumbered pages plus 54 pages Hardcover with no dust jacket. Gilt lettering and decoration on the front cover is slightly faded, but still quite bright. There seems to be some surface wear on the covers. Bound in is a linen bookmark that shows some fraying on the end. Otherwise, no previous owner markings. No tears, folds or creases to pages. Binding is tight with no looseness to pages. Not ex-library, not remaindered and not a facsimile reprint. For sale by Jon Wobber, bookseller since 1978. sKD04a

"Humans feel connected to the world and its changing times. They perceive the image of the cosmic archetype in their own being. Yet this image is not a symbolic, pedantic imitation of the archetype. What the great world reveals over time corresponds to a pendulum swing of the human being, one that does not operate within the element of time. Rather, humans can feel their being, surrendered to the senses and their perceptions, as corresponding to summer nature, interwoven with light and warmth. Being grounded in themselves and living in their own world of thought and will can be experienced as a winter existence. Thus, what in nature, in the alternation of time, presents itself as summer and winter, becomes for them the rhythm of outer and inner life. Great secrets of existence can be revealed to them if they appropriately relate their timeless rhythm of perception and thought to the temporal rhythm of nature. Thus, the year becomes the archetype of human soul activity and thus a fertile source of true self-knowledge. In the following soul-year calendar, the human spirit is imagined in that position in which it can sense its own soul's weaving in the images of the seasonal moods from week to week, through the impressions of the year's course. It is intended as empathetic self - knowledge . This sensitive self-knowledge can experience the cycle of soul life as timeless in time through the characteristic weekly sentences given. It should be expressly stated that it is thus conceived as a possible path to self-knowledge. The intention is not to provide "prescriptions" following the pattern of theosophical pedants, but rather to point to the living weaving of the soul as it can one day be. Everything intended for souls takes on an individual coloring. Precisely for this reason, however, every soul will find its path in relation to an individually marked one. It would be easy to say: The soul should meditate as described here if it wants to cultivate a measure of self-knowledge. It is not said because man's own path should be inspired by a given one, not pedantically conform to a "path of knowledge."" - The English translation of forward of the first edition 1912/1913 on anthroposophie.net