Soundings of the Soul
Exercises in the Reading of Texts

Words are the bearers of the meaning of our lives. Whether we are rejoicing, reflecting, conversing, grieving, playing, loving, working, healing, learning, killing, resting, or creating, we both draw from, and invest in, words the significance of our activity. This is true whether the words are spoken, thought, or gestured.

We can hardly discover more significance in our lives than we find in the words through which we live. When those words become abstract, dry, and lifeless, our existence becomes abstract, dry, and lifeless. And so it is strange that the art of listening and reading receives as little attention as it does in our society. We are flooded with words on every hand -- in books, magazines, and newspapers, movies and television, via computer screens and cell phones, in face-to-face conversation -- and yet it may be that our ability to receive all these words as profound expressions of the human soul and as revelations of the world around us has been weakening before the onslaught.

The articles gathered here are humble attempts to hint at the way words, properly attended to, could enrich our lives with meaning and spiritual depth. The texts are transcribed and edited versions of talks given by Vladislav Rozentuller. Steve Talbott has done the transcription and editing.

A Brief Introduction: On Interpreting Texts --->

Poetic Texts --->

Fairy Tale --->

Biblical Texts --->

Rudolf Steiner's Study of Man --->

The Salamander: Temptation, Destiny and the Spiritual History of America --->

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