This lecture series explores what it means to live spiritually in a world increasingly shaped by surface-level metrics, technological abstraction, and the erosion of mystery. Drawing on Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science and other esoteric streams, the talks revolve around the figure of Anthroposophia, not as a distant ideal, but as an inner faculty of human transformation. With equal parts critique and care, Dennis asks: what role does spiritual knowledge have in a culture that often treats the soul as irrelevant or irrational? What happens when ancient practices are pushed to the margins, and how might we reclaim them without retreating from the modern world?

Each lecture weaves together practical spiritual exercises, such as imaginative thinking, symbolic mapping, rhythmic meditation, and rituals of attention, with deeper themes of karma, suffering, and hope. Central to the series are the figures of the Sophia and the Black Madonna, explored not as static icons but as evolving presences in the human soul. Through their archetypal changes, we examine the transformation of pain into insight, the loosening of illusion, and the possibility of moral imagination in the face of loss and decay.

The lectures also take up the tension between mechanical education and true inner schooling, critiquing the tendency to replace understanding with programming. At the heart of this contrast is a call to awaken not just intellect but intention, to shift from ego-driven wishes toward acts of will rooted in service and love. Through explorations of sacred geometry, ancient invocations, mantras, and esoteric cosmology, Dennis invites participants into a renewed relationship with the unseen patterns shaping human experience.

Rather than providing fixed answers, Dennis creates space for serious inner work. Listeners are encouraged to take up the path of spiritual research not as a hobby, but as a daily practice, one that requires patience, humor, and the courage to live into the unknown. Taken together, these talks offer a map, not to transcend suffering, but to work through it with clarity, reverence, and resolve.

Lecture 1 – The Science of Unknowing: From Sophia to the Black Madonna

Modern culture prizes quantifiable knowing, yet spiritual life begins in rhythmic unknowing. This opening lecture contrasts programmed intelligence with living cognition and traces the evolution of Sophia through her descent into the Black Madonna, the being who transforms suffering into devotion. Rudolf Steiner’s picture of rhythmic meditation, balancing knowing and silence, provides a foundation for all further practice.

Lecture 2 – Forming the Vessel: The Practice of AnthropoSophia

Spiritual knowledge demands an inner vessel strong enough to hold emptiness. This session introduces practical meditative and geometric exercises for developing rhythmic concentration and heart-centered will. Through elements of earth, water, air, and fire, participants learn how ancient ritual becomes a modern art of attention, preparing the soul to meet living beings of wisdom with balance, clarity, and reverence.

Lecture 3 – The Descent of Sophia: The Black Madonna and the Redemption of Desire

Drawing from Gnostic and Rosicrucian sources, this talk explores the legend of Sophia’s fall and the human task of transforming desire into moral imagination. The figure of the Black Madonna becomes a guide for turning suffering into insight and compassion. Through conscious engagement with pain and longing, we participate in the redemption of the world and the awakening of Michaelic courage within the heart.

Lecture 4 – The Virgin Sophia: Purifying the Senses and Redeeming the World

The Virgin Sophia represents the soul that has learned to love the world without illusion. This lecture introduces her as the third form of the Triple Goddess, the purified human consciousness that reanimates the “corpse” of the material world through selfless perception. Drawing from myth and meditative practice, the session explores the dual gestures of the Black Madonna, nurture and weaning, culminating in the “Angel of Death” exercise, a path toward clarity, compassion, and freedom.

Lecture 5 – Imagination and the Art of Destiny: Building the Hut

Here imagination becomes method. Participants explore the polarity between memory and imaginative thinking, discovering how creative cognition sustains vitality and continuity of consciousness. Exercises such as the “as-if” practice and symbolic mapping (“building the hut”) train the moral imagination, the power to view one’s life from the standpoint of the guiding spirit. Through disciplined imagination, thought becomes offering, and the Virgin Sophia lives as a formative power within the soul.

Lecture 6 – From Wish to Will: The Practice of Spiritual Research

The closing lecture traces the transformation of wish from personal desire to altruistic will. Working with the Rosicrucian mantras Ex Deo Nascimur, In Christo Morimur, and Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus, participants learn to unite meditation, imagination, and cosmic as tools of inner research. The gesture of AnthropoSophia emerges as the capacity to live in creative uncertainty, turning knowledge into communion and science into love.