RSL study tools
This 'quick access' page can be opened in another browser tab for easy lookups during study.
For more info on some of these sources, see Navigating anthroposophical resources (incl the Discussion area)
Online resources in English
- Google
- search “rsarchive + keywords”, instead of keywords you can put also part of a sentence between double quotes
- search "rsarchive + 1917-01-11” date in this format, and/or GA number .. will also quickly bring up something
- Full text at rsarchive:
- www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/ has dropdown left upper corner, or click directly on listing GA number
- www.rsarchive.org/CV/ click on year -> allows to quickly go to date and see if available -> if so, go via dropdown to GA number (shown on right)
- since 2021, the alternative website version: Steiner Online Library (SOL) at steinerlibrary.org/
- an alternative with the same contents and a comprehensive front to access per GA is rudolfsteinerbg:
- Check for the existence of english translations :
- rudolfsteinerweb site per GA -> gives references to english books that contain translations
- aelzina (also by Daniel Hindes)
- Notes
- One can check anthro libraries and get scans of a lecture, or purchase the books second hand and scanned/OCR-ed them
- An alternative to find these references is the XL version from the UK Library
- The new CW project has published quite a number of volumes in the last few years, that are not in the above two lists
- Audio versions in MP3 (Dale Brunsvold) on rudolfsteineraudio:
Online resources in German
The fvn-rs site below gets you straight to the german copies of each lecture, several sites allow you to get the german GAs in full PDF, and steinerdatenbank gets you to the original typoscripts and manual notes from people attending the lecture.
- Full texts of all GAs available online on :
- Freie Verwaltung Nachlasses (fvn-rs)
- full text versions - that you can easily copy from (however without illustrations) from http://fvn-archiv.net/
- clean PDF versions - easy to read on a tablet (without illustrations, so not scanned versions) http://fvn-archiv.net/PDF/GA/
- search engine: fvn-rs.net/
- German section of russian BDN site
- scanned PDF and Word DOC versions are available from the comprehensive overview (document icons with a + are the BBD)
- this site also contains lectures not published in the GA. These were previously on the uranosarchiv, but this site unfortunately has become unavailable.
- Freie Verwaltung Nachlasses (fvn-rs)
- steinerdatenbank
- easiest access to source materials -> go directly to year and month -> locate by day .. ability to download original typescripts
- steinerdatenbank.de/
- You can also search via: steinerdatenbank.de/Titelseite/Titelseite_Frameset.php?Javascript=An
- www.steiner-klartext.net/
- Other online research tools, useful to find GA references on a given topic:
- anthrowiki contains not just a topic based search and wiki-site, but also links to a wealth of resources on the home page (and topic pages)
- Urs Schwendener's lexicon
- Uranos archiv: http://uranosev.de/
Other languages
- in French:
- http://www.eurythmiste.be/ga/ga.htm
- in Russian:
- in Romanian: this is the only site that has most original BBD (blackboard drawings) available
- in Norvegian:
Various other resources
- Works before 1960
- Older sources and secondary literature often refer to 'Zyklus' as the GA did not exist. This refers most often to the Arenson numbering, which has been the main reference work since the 1930's. Adolf Arenson developed his 'Leitfaden' index on the fifty main cycles after conversation with Rudolf Steiner in 1918 and finished it by 1925.
- https://anthrowiki.at/Vortragszyklen the mapping you can find at:
- https://anthrowiki.at/Rudolf_Steiner,_Vortr%C3%A4ge_vor_Mitgliedern_der_Anthroposophischen_Gesellschaft
- http://www.rsarchive.org/Basics/Arenson50.php
- https://anthrowiki.at/Vortragszyklen the mapping you can find at:
- Older sources and secondary literature often refer to 'Zyklus' as the GA did not exist. This refers most often to the Arenson numbering, which has been the main reference work since the 1930's. Adolf Arenson developed his 'Leitfaden' index on the fifty main cycles after conversation with Rudolf Steiner in 1918 and finished it by 1925.
- Schmidt number
- Other sources use the Schmidt unique four digit number per lecture (eg Hagemann) See the Haslett Word document with left navigation pane per year, and search in the upper left on date or Schmidt number S-xxxx
- Christian Karl's Rudolf Steiner Handbook can be downloaded in DE and EN from:
- An important resource for secondary literature is the 'kulturimpuls' website, it contains bio's for 1500 people with their main works. Often this is the source of unknown wealth as many of these people and their contributions have been forgotten.
For more info on these and other references, see the 'Navigating' page referenced below.
Anthroposophical libraries
Anthroposophical libraries are essential to search secondary literature. The great thing is that they now have online search tools over ten thousands of volumes, also those of often unknown or forgotten authors (see kulturimpuls), and can be search on topic keywords.
The three main libraries worldwide are:
- Central German anthro library(search available in EN/DE)
- Dutch central anthro library in The Hague
- New York library
Tip: instead of borrowing, although of course possible, an alternative today is the second hand market. Given most secondary literature is in German, do try the site booklooker.de which is thé platform where many anthro bookshops and antiquairs offer everything you can imagine at cheap prices.
Related pages
