Gertrude Reif Hughes, PhD, is Professor Emerita of English and Women's
Studies at Wesleyan University, where she served as Chair of her Department
and of the Women's Studies Program. The author of Emerson's Demanding
Optimism (1984), she has published essays on American poets, including
Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, H.D., and Adrienne Rich, as well as essays
on Rudolf Steiner and feminist thought and on Steiner's Calendar of the Soul.
 A lifelong student of Anthroposophy, she is a former chair of the Board of Anthroposophic
Press (SteinerBooks) and former President of the Rudolf Steiner (Summer) Institute,
where she taught meditation for many years and served on its board. She is a member
of the board of Sunbridge College and one of the core faculty of The Barfield School
Masters Program at Sunbridge. Her degrees are from Yale University and Mount Holyoke
College. As a child, she attended the New York City Rudolf Steiner School.

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1924) spoke many times about the need for more than
an intellectual understanding of what he taught as the spiritual path of
Anthroposophy, or Spiritual Science, and to this end provided numerous
meditations and exercises for his esoteric students during the first three
decades of the twentieth century. He always emphasized the need for
self-development through the regular practice of meditations and exercises
to strengthen and clarify one’s thinking, feeling, and will. Steiner saw such
efforts as means not only to develop spiritual sight, but also to protect
oneself inwardly from the various dangers inherent to inner development,
including egoism and mistaking fantasy for spiritual realities.

This handbook offers verses, exercises, and original instructions from Steiner,
along with commentary, suggestions, and context from Gertrude Reif Hughes,
a student of Anthroposophy for much of her life. Having meditated Steiner’s
verses and their meanings for decades, she describes how the content of these
inspiring meditations can create far-reaching effects for one’s life on
Earth as well as for one’s eventual life in the spiritual world.

More Radiant than the Sun will be a valuable companion for anyone who
is serious about deepening the practice of Anthroposophy.

Contents:

Introduction

Three Meditations on Self

More Radiant Than the Sun
Life Becomes
The Six Essential Exercises

Three Plant Meditations

Perceiving Growth and Decay
The Visible and Invisible
Plant Meditation

Three Meditations on the Cosmos

Trust in Thinking
Rainbow Colors Exercise
From Static to Dynamic

Three Meditations on Moral Ideas

The Rose Cross
Meditating on a Feeling of Joy
Point and Periphery Exercise

The Foundation Meditation

Afterword: Fostering Transformation from the Future
Cited and Relevant Works

ISBN:9781621480358