Publishers Note

This booklet contains two lectures given by Rudolf Steiner to people working on the construction of the Goetheanum, a great building of molded concrete that Rudolf Steiner designed. The workmen had approached Steiner and asked that he speak to them about questions that interested them. The lectures are very casual and often take the form of a conversation, with the workmen asking first one and then another question and Steiner responding impromptu. Steiner had never intended that this material be published as it did not have the carefully structured character of his books or even of his more formal lectures, and the reader must bear this fact in mind. Moreover, the readers unfamiliar with Steiner's fundamental writings are advised to first take up the study of either An Outline Of Occult Science or Theosophy. In these works they will find a discussion of both the basic findings of the science of the spirit and of the scientific method employed in spiritual research. An understanding of these writings is absolutely necessary in forming a judgment regarding the soundness of the information conveyed by Steiner in a volume such as this one.