This broad-ranging anthology addresses critical and still-unanswered questions: What are the effects of education--especially contrasting educational methods--on later life? How are the stages of one's life interrelated? Do the effects of events on the individual become immediately evident, or is their true impact delayed, perhaps for decades? To what extent can we shape the stages of our individual biographies? How much freedom of choice do we have, and how much of life is predetermined?

Drawing on his capacity for higher knowledge through spiritual research, Steiner describes the human individuality as a being with a continuing existence, both before birth and beyond death. Our eternal being experiences a myriad of conditions and situations, the effects of which may be observed in one's biography. This book addresses these and other issues such as freedom and destiny, the effects of heredity, illness, and the impact of education, offering answers based on a profound knowledge of the human being.