Spiritual teachings tell us that each “folk,” race, or ethnic group has a kind of over-soul that interacts with those people, lending them unique characteristics that affect the karma and destiny of tribes, races, and nations. Steiner explores the nature and activities of various folk souls, their influences, and their meaning in the modern world.

Eleven lectures given in June of 1910 at Christiania (Oslo) from the lecture series entitled, The Mission of Individual Folk-Souls in Connection with Germanic-Scandinavian Mythology, published in German as, Die Mission einzelner Volksseelen im Zusammenhange mit der germanisch-nordischen Mythologie. [Bib. No 121]. These lectures, and those in The Spiritual Guidance of Man, are the only lectures reworked by Steiner for the public.

‘If we wish to understand the inner life of an individual we must study the soul as well as the body, and if we desire to gain real insight into national characteristics we must explore the psychic and spiritual element underlying them. This psychic and spiritual element, however, reflects not merely the activity of individual human souls working in concert, but has its origin in a higher order ... Either one must seek a basis for the psychology of peoples in a spiritual reality or one must abandon such a psychology in total.’ — Rudolf Steiner (from the Preface)

The lectures in these volumes explore the nature and working of the various folk-souls, their influences, and their meaning in the modern world.