Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) FOUR MYSTERY PLAYS BY RUDOLF STEINER Translated and Edited with the Author's Permission by H. Collison, M.A. Oxon., S. M. K. Gandell, M.A. Oxon., and R. T. Gladstone, M.A. Cantab. The Portal of Initiation The Soul's Probation The Guardian of the Threshold The Soul's Awakening G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1920 INTRODUCTION The four plays here produced in an English translation in two volumes, are perhaps best described as Christian Mystery Plays. They are intended to represent the experiences of the soul during initiation; or, in other words, the psychic development of man up to the moment when he is able to pierce the veil and see into the beyond. Through this vision he is then able to discover his real self and carry into effect the cryptic injunction graven on the old Greek temples Gnôthi seauton, know thyself. At a later stage he comes to 'realize' himself, and finally learns the true significance of the Second Advent of our Lord. This process is known as the 'Rosicrucian' initiation--an initiation specially adapted to modern days--the time and manner of which depend on the individual nature and circumstances of each person. The four plays form one continuous series, and the characters portrayed are of quite an ordinary kind except that they take more than the usual interest in spiritual matters, their first desire being so to improve their own mental and moral state as to make them able to benefit their fellows.