Being Human - Summer 2011

being human anthroposophy.org

personal and cultural renewal in the 21st century

Research Issue

Imagining geometry in three dimensions: a cardboard model and hands, at the Threefold Research Residency

Waldorf Education, Rhythms at Threefold A Library’s Timeless Conversation Steiner as Artist, American Destiny Humanity in Dying, in Prison, in Need a publication of the Anthroposophical Society in America summer issue - 2011

Celebrating Rudolf Steiner’s 150th Anniversary: 1861-2011 Renewal Courses Week I: June 26–July 1 • Week II: July 3–8 Two weeks of five-day retreats bringing together Waldorf teachers and others for personal rejuvenation and social renewal through anthroposophical study and artistic immersion.

Karine Munk Finser, Coordinator

Week 1 Van James Drawing Course, Grades 1-12

Week 2 Virginia Sease Celebrating 150 Years of Rudolf Steiner

Christof Wiechert Health-Bringing Curriculum

Jennifer Greene Understanding Water

Georg Locher Exploring Study of Man, Balance in Teaching, and Curriculum Painting

Aonghus Gordon & Master Craftsmen Education through Craft and Rhythm

Douglas Sloan Encountering Evil

Janene Ping Bee Man of Orn in Puppetry

Tobias Tuechelmann, MD Healing Traumatic Childhood Experiences Leonore Russell & Carla Comey AWSNA Mentoring Course for Experienced Eurythmists Elizabeth Auer Artistic Projects for Children Aged 7-12 Iris Sullivan Veilpainting Marcy Schepker Needlefelting for Classroom and Community Lorey Johnson & Kati Manning World Languages in Grades 6, 7, and 8 Juliane Weeks & Monica Amstutz Music in the Light of Anthroposophy

Programs sponsored by

Philip Thatcher The Parzival Story

Jamie York Making Math Meaningful in Grades 6, 7, and 8 Leonore Russell & Torin Finser Personal and Organizational Renewal Georg Locher, Douglas Gerwin, & Hugh Renwick Transformation of Self Evenings include: Music • Lectures • Eurythmy Performance • Artistic Café-Soirees • Slides of R. Steiner’s • Blackboard Drawings

Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program

Center for Anthroposophy

July 3–29, 2011

Wilton, New Hampshire

Douglas Gerwin, Director

603-654-2566

Three-summers program of pedagogical courses, artistic workshops, and specialized subject seminars in

info@centerforanthroposophy.org www.centerforanthroposophy.org

Arts/Art History with Patrick Stolfo

Life Sciences with Michael Holdrege

English with David Sloan

Mathematics with Jamie York

History with Meg Gorman

Physical Sciences with Michael D’Aleo

Pedagogical Eurythmy with Leonore Russell

Humanity’s Path of Evolution Leads Through Each of Us Our first word this time must be, “Thank you!” for your warm reception of our first, special issue. Fred Amrine’s lead article on Rudolf Steiner was especially praised for clarity and forthrightness. For longtime admirers of Steiner and his work it demonstrated that his importance for human civilization can be well and clearly stated. The new layout by Seiko Semones was praised for its spacious and welcoming simplicity. Some concerns reached us about the stylization of the cover and inside portraits of Dr. Steiner, and they were not outwardly as reverent as customary. As David Adams once again reports inside, Steiner was and is a force in the arts and culture generally, and worked with contemporary impulses all his life. Our portrayals aimed to suggest the dramatic inner worlds into which this great explorer ventured again and again: environments he described, here and there, in such dramatic terms as “putting one’s head into an anthill.” *** This second issue of being human focuses on research. The editor’s thoughts are presented inside; here we would like merely to point out one of anthroposophy’s staggering perspectives: that the evolution of humanity as a whole is proceeding now through the hearts, minds, and wills of each of us individually. In that sense, “being human”—when it is self-conscious and intentional—is the growing edge of what we, and the Earth with us, shall become. And “research,” which in traditional Western science would exclude the human element completely if possible, is central to how we attempt that personal development which becomes part of humanity’s development.

In a culture flooded with trivialities, it is not easy to take in something this large and consequential. Just to think such a thought sets in motion changes... *** The articles inside touch on several aspects of anthroposophical or spiritual-scientific research. Special note is made of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education, and of the continuing rebirth of research at the Threefold Educational Center. Two public conferences connected with sections of the School for Spiritual Science are described up front in line with the theme. Rudolf Steiner

Library Newsletter material begins with a very short but significant piece by Judith Soleil on the history and conceptual organization of the library itself. David Adams then reviews two large European exhibition catalogs devoted to Rudolf Steiner’s influence and role in modern art. And Walter Alexander reviews another very interesting historical juxtaposition by Kevin Dann.

General Secretary Torin Finser gives a report (p.34) of the annual general meeting of the worldwide Anthroposophical Society just held in April. Members of the Anthroposophical Society will find a supplement with the annual report of the worldwide society, along with the international study theme for the year.

In the Thresholds section we remember Lexie Ahrens and Hilde Maria Frey, two exemplary doers and builders of anthroposophical life in America. The News & Events section has much to preview and report on, but only a fraction of what is going on in this energized year of Rudolf Steiner’s 150th birthday, and short notices of new books and messages from our greatly appreciated advertisers complete this issue. Yes, it is shorter than the first issue, which was a special, celebratory double issue. *** Our authors: Bill Day is development director for the Threefold Educational Center. Kevin Dann has taught history at the university level and is the author of several books, one of which is reviewed in this issue. Judith Soleil is librarian at the Rudolf Steiner Library in Ghent, NY. David Adams writes about and teaches art history, is a former Waldorf teacher, and is a member of the council of the Art Section of the School for Spiritual Science in North America. Walter Alexander writes about health, is contributing editor for Lilipoh, and is co-president of the New York branch of the Anthroposophical Society. Next issue we expect to include authors’ email addresses; for now write to them at editor@anthroposophy.org.

Online: Costs of printing limit our pages, but much more is being posted in the Articles section of our website, anthroposophy.org. With the next issue we will begin to list some of them here.

John Beck summer issue 2011

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Being human, briefly noted Love in Action - Truus Geraets This small, important book by healing eurythmist Truus Geraets and her soul mate Dawud (David Anglin) is a painful, truthful, intimately human look at the enormous and disastrous US correctional system. It gathers real symptoms for thoughtful students of societal failure, and it is a lifeline to those inside and out, an affirmation that “we are all on a path of development.” We received it shortly before a close friend was to be released on parole, after five “bids,” from the NY state prison system, and quickly sent it to him. Its authenticity moved and reassured him.

How important that someone knows and cares to write about the terrible stress inflicted hourly on almost every inmate! And about the catch-22’s and prejudgments which fill life on parole with anxiety and frustration.

“To believe in the higher self of the other as much as of one’s own, isn’t that another expression of LOVE?” asks Truus in the Foreword. She found that belief unexpectedly with Dawud while giving eurythmy lessons in a Michigan prison over thirty years ago. We learn of her strength, Dawud’s unforseen capacities, and then how caring for someone in prison pulls at and expands one’s horizons. Marriage, release, divorce, new charges—all unfold against the background of Truus’ work across the USA and in Africa and Dawud’s struggle to endure the system. Love in Action is a tough handbook for how to hold onto hope inside, and to sustain another person with belief, from outside, in their true being. — Available online at www.trafford.com and other major book sites.

Most Excellent Dying - Nancy Jewel Poer The Most Excellent Dying of Theodore Jack Heckelman is a new, award-winning film by Nancy Jewel Poer. It was a gift from big brother Jack to his sister, Nancy, who after many other important efforts over decades now works to help individuals and families “live into dying.” Finding himself faced with an aggressive cancer early in his eighties, Jack decides to give his dying to his community: family, friends, fellow social activists.

He becomes in the process a real elder in the traditional sense: someone whose conscious, purposeful approach to birth into the next life becomes a sacred exercise of the capacity to love, for himself and all his people.

The contents of this film are almost too perfect; as fiction it might have been over-reaching. In fact it is all the most genuine home video, real folks speaking and singing not perfectly but from the heart, while Jack’s high ideals, spoken beautifully from a lifetime of social activism, are edged by the emotional strain of letting go and approaching the unknown. And along with sister Nancy there is Jack’s younger second wife Linda Bergh, who had already experienced and learned to work with the devastating death in a car accident of her daughter and a close friend. Through these and many other threads a web of destiny is revealed, which Nancy as filmmaker explores with great artistry. — Available at www.nancyjewelpoer.com, along with the book Living Into Dying.

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Anthroposophy Social Forum Truus Geraets is also working with Ute Craemer, Aban Bana and Ben Cherry towards the realization of an Anthroposophical World Social Forum which would highlight the many social projects and initiatives which have arisen on anthroposophical foundations and the thousands of people in inhumane conditions touched by them, in medicine, education, agriculture or other fields. A first social forum was planned for April 2011, leading into the Asian-Pacific Conference in Hyderabad, to meet others who carry this initiative and learn from them. Truus Geraets will be celebrating her 80th birthday.

(From Thomas Stöckli in Anthroposophy Worldwide.)

Waldorf WOW Day For sixteen years European Waldorf schools have devoted a day each year to raising funds for educational projects in developing and emerging countries worldwide. Organizers hope for this to spread to the USA. In 2011 WOW (Waldorf One World) day is set for September 29th. To learn more visit www.wowday.eu (and click on the little British flag), email na.wowday@gmail.com or contact Truus Geraets (949-646-6392) or Leslie Loy (503-819-3399).

Note to readers Suggestions & brief submissions for this page will be gratefully received! editor@anthroposophy.org Editor, 1923 Geddes Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Contents Features 9 13 15 17 18 19 20 20

Research, Science, & the Human Being Living Research at Threefold Educational Center Rhythms of Spiritual Scientific Research at Threefold The Agriculture Course at the Pfeiffer Center Redeeming the Realm of Rights Intrinsic Nature of Water Metamorphosis & Resurrection Research as a Timeless Conversation

Reviews 22

31

Rudolf Steiner & Contemporary Art Rudolf Steiner–The Alchemy of the Everyday A Short Story of American Destiny

Report 34

Torin Finser: Report from the Dornach AGM

Thresholds 36 37 38 39

New Members Lexie Ahrens Members Who Have Died Hilde Maria Frey

News & Events 40

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National Fall Conference; Nineteen Lessons of the First Class; Rudolf Steiner in Italy 1911; Second Mystery Drama Conference; English Week 2010 at the Goetheanum Rudolf Steiner Library New Book Listings/Annotations

Author’s reply to Keith Francis’ review of Metamorphosis – Evolution in Action Darwin’s historical achievement lies in grounding, or incarnating, the idea of evolution. The fact that aspects of his work need to be corrected hardly diminishes the greatness of this achievement. Nor is it diminished by the circumstance that he drew his concept of the survival of the fittest from the social thought of his time and applied it to non-human nature. The concept was formulated by Thomas Malthus in his writings on the upheaval and conflict arising from the industrial revolution in England. Darwin had already developed the idea of evolution but had not yet been able to resolve the question of natural selection, i.e.: What are the factors that determine which species of plants or animals survive while others become extinct?

Darwin was referring to Malthus’ sociological treatise An Essay on the Principle of Population when he wrote of his own book, The Origin of Species: “This is the doctrine of Malthus applied to the plant and animal kingdoms.” Elsewhere Darwin is yet more explicit: “In 1838 I was reading the book by Thomas Robert Malthus for pleasure. I was well prepared to accept the struggle of existence, and the book convinced me that, in this struggle, well adapted species would survive and the less well adapted would be destroyed… Now I had a theory I could work with!” (Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, London, 1887) Today we know that the factors at work in evolution are not the competitive struggle for existence and mutual exclusion but rather on the contrary differentiated associations within nature as a whole. The science of ecology – unknown at Darwin’s time – has since identified the actual ordering structures in living nature: symbioses and synusiae such as those arising between plants (the “producers”) and other organisms (the “consumers”) who nourish themselves from the vegetable substances plants have produced. At their death, the physical substance of all organisms is reintroduced into the universal life cycle by the “destroyers” – fungi and microbes. Thus one group of organisms provides the basis for the existence of others. When carnivores are depicted as the enemies of their prey, the inadequacy of such a concept becomes evident in light of the fact that, though they decimate them, they never do so to the extent that they destroy them. Their 6 •

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prey remain the basis of their own existence. In the last analysis, both the carnivores and their prey are parts, or “organs,” of one super-ordinate organism. Neither could exist without the other! Further examples could be cited ad infinitum.

In this broader ecological context, the principle of the struggle for existence loses its validity. It turns out to be an anthropomorphic concept that has no place in natural science and, worse still, falsifies the relationships that actually exist in nature.

Seen in the context of Darwin’s central discovery – the idea of evolution – Malthus’ theory can now be seen as an aberration of the times that appeared so convincing because of its “human” connotations.

Much remains to be done in developing a deeper ecological understanding that will provide the basis for a non-exploitative, nurturing relationship to nature. This also needs to become an essential aspect of how life sciences are taught in schools. In the future, the further development and elaboration of the idea of evolution will reflect the evolution of human culture itself.

To sum up: Darwin’s significance – his extraordinary significance – lies in the fact that he introduced the idea of evolution into human consciousness. In the light of this great achievement, the erroneous aspect of his theoretical explanation is of negligible importance especially as it only illustrates the fact that the idea of evolution is itself capable of evolving.

Andreas Suchantke (Editor’s note: the review to which this letter responds, printed in Evolving News’ Research Issue 2010, is available at anthroposophy.org under Articles.)

Symeon the New Theologian Janet Clement of Richmond, Maine, sent “thanks for the quote from Symeon the New Theologian,” in the report of the 2010 conference of the North American Council for Anthroposophic Curative Education and Social Therapy. Jaimen McMillan quoted these thousand-year-old lines which anticipate Rudolf Steiner’s picture of “the Christ” as a cosmic being offering to all a renewal of life forces. Symeon’s words: And let yourself receive the one who is opening to you so deeply.

For if we genuinely love Him, we wake up inside Christ’s body where all our body, all over every most hidden part of it, is realized in joy as Him,

and He makes us utterly real, and everything that is hurt, everything that seems to us dark, harsh, shameful, maimed, ugly, irreparably damaged, is in Him transformed and recognized as whole, as lovely, and radiant in His light we awaken as the Beloved in every last part of our body.

Anthroposophy as Biographies L. Ahrens of Chestnut Ridge, New York, sent two typed pages of excerpts from Anthroposophy in the 20th Century: A Cultural Impulse in Biographic Portraits, edited

by Bodo von Plato, an 1100 page volume in German from 2003 with short portraits of almost a thousand anthroposophists. August Bier, a famous Berlin surgeon born the same year as Steiner, followed biodynamics but never joined the society. Louis Locher, the youngest person at the Christmas Foundation Conference, later led the section for mathematics and astronomy and died in a fall in the Swiss Alps. Of those deceased, the average lifespan was 75, with the 25 eurythmists averaging 82 years. American Olin Wannamaker lectured to members in Los Angeles when he was 97.

Ten Commandments of Black Love Editor’s note: “black” in the following context refers not to an ethnicity but to an experiential condition of life.

I’m the singer/songwriter for the Los Angeles band Black Love—we make music about loss, specifically the loss experienced when a relationship breaks up. Inspiration and hope are often in short supply when that happens, and so I’ve written these Ten Commandments of Black Love.

Thou shalt not talk thyself out of thine own power.

Thou shalt love thine own voice.

Thou shalt not give the game away.

Thou shalt follow thine own star.

Thou shalt not fear loneliness.

Thou shalt embrace awareness in all its forms.

Thou shalt not lose perspective.

Thou shalt continue to care.

Thou shalt not reject the good will of others.

Thou shalt never forget.

With these commandments, I’m telling my audience not to give in to depression or anger, not to give in to feelings of lack, to be strong and proud for having lived through something inescapably traumatic that will

ultimately make them better individual adult human beings. Seeing as now there’s “The Ten Commandments of the Mafia,” “Financial Happiness,” and even “Driving,” I thought it might be beneficial to return to the purity of the current. I appreciate how rare it is for rock musicians to actively seek out other spiritual points of view—even the anthroposophical view—but I did want to reach out to you in some small way and bridge the gap with these ideas. We may not see eye-to-eye on all things, but I’ve always wanted to create art that strives towards both the living of a good life and transcendence—something I know we can all contemplate and appreciate. Thanks for your time and consideration, keep up the good work.

David Cotner www.blackloveglobal.com

Punk & Porn, Ahriman & Lucifer The following exchange of letters is directed toward our sister publication, the Journal for Anthroposophy, which does not have space to accept letters. At the suggestion of the editor of the Journal’s “Classics” series, it is printed here. In Rudolf Steiner’s depiction of spiritual forces challenging and opposing (and potentially aiding) human evolution, Ahriman and Lucifer form a dynamic polarity.

The article by Michael Howard on beauty in the Michaelmas 2008 issue of the Classics from the Journal for Anthroposophy argues that pornography is luciferic and the “punk look” is ahrimanic. I appreciate the attempt in the article to describe these things, but I think it errs.

While listening to Brahms the day after reading the article I was suddenly moved to speak: I feel strongly this statement is backwards, or at least oversimplifying things, and understanding the truth of the matter would help the anthroposophic cause in general. I am not a well-versed anthroposophist, and I don’t know these terms as well as the experts, but I do know something about punk and something about porn.

The punk look is from a luciferic impulse of selfabnegation and is feeling-based, an unfunded expression of that grief which the wearer feels the culture has not acknowledged. Pornography is ahrimanic—it is very sustainable in a worldly sense, since you will never lose financially at opening a brothel, but there is no attempt to leave worldliness in porn. There is no ideology aimed at, no feeling that is being expressed, but rather the supsummer issue 2011

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pression of feeling for the sake of the dollar. Women who actually enjoy their sexuality and their beauty display it in a wholly different way, a way that includes romance; those who chose to be objects for pornography numb out all romance in themselves for pragmatism and efficiency.

The “beauty” in pornography is destructive to the other, and in punk it is sacrificing of the self. At the same time, of course, each thing has elements of the other, too.

But the implication that punk is unfeeling, detached, and worldly is really a mistake. Those who make talismans that are closest to the Other World in Africa in particular make them as ugly as possible—they are terrifying to look at for the human in us, but the spirit recognizes them as coming from our true home. The comparison is of apples and oranges—punk is a deliberate approach to life, whereas porn makes no attempt to be anything. A better comparison would be to look at the beauty of the factory and the beauty of the pornography printed in it.

Anonymous Unschooler Reply from Michael Howard: Thanks very much for your email. Even though you are voicing a critique on an aspect of my essay, nevertheless, I am gratified to know it has engaged your interest sufficient to motivate you to write.

I certainly don’t have any issue with the implication that human experience is complex and that often luciferic and ahrimanic qualities are interwoven. I certainly see the point that pornography has an ahrimanic side, particularly in creating it. I was probably thinking more of the voluptuous, expansive and compelling attraction that pornography can evoke.

By the way, I use the word pornography not only in the literal sense but with the meaning James Joyce uses in his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, to describe all that makes us unfree through compelling attraction—which seems to me a good characterization of what Steiner means by luciferic. That which makes us unfree through compelling loathing or revulsion, Joyce calls the didactic—which seems to me to point in the direction of the ahrimanic.

So it was in this sense that I must have latched onto the “punk look” that strikes me--rightly or not--as intentionally anti-beauty, that can evoke revulsion and loathing. It was in that sense that I used it as an example of the ahrimanic. But in reading your descriptions, I realize speaking about punk was a bad choice given that I do not 8 •

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know it from the inside as you clearly seem to.

Given the spiritual complexity of human nature, your comments support the view that, in any given situation, we have reason to look for the gesture and activity of both the ahrimanic and luciferic spirits. That assumes we have a growing feel for the qualitative attributes of the luciferic, as compared to the attributes of the ahrimanic. As a starting point, I understand the luciferic is that which makes us unfree through being over-expansive, warm, lightfilled and lifted out, while the ahrimanic is contracted, cold, dark and heavy. The luciferic is full of self, proud and over-confident, so that one sees only oneself and not the other. It is over-idealistic, living in fantasy that disdains reality. The ahrimanic is for me more complicated, because on the one hand it appears as compelling fear and anxiety, and self-abnegation. But on the other hand the ahrimanic manifests as cold, unfeeling logic that acts with mechanistic precision, and most especially, is driven by power to control nature and other human beings.

From what you say, I see how some aspects of the ahrimanic do not apply to the punk culture. The only place that does not ring true to me is your equating the self-abnegation of the punk attitude with the luciferic.

As much as I think we are meant to learn to work with these terms luciferic and ahrimanic, similar to the way it is essential for a painter to discern warm colors from cool colors, I certainly do so cautiously, in the assumption that I may misapply them in a given situation, or that I may be over-simplifying a more complex reality.

So thanks for your stimulating reflections, and I hope you likewise may be motivated to continue refining your capacity to discern the activity of these spiritual forces in every domain of life.

Michael Howard Anonymous Unschooler replies: I really appreciate that all of you took the time to write back to my email. I guess I do want add two things: I think the article has helped me see something about myself, that I have tended to lean toward the ahrimanic much more than my perception of myself told me I did, and that that has repeatedly cost me and others. [And] having a dialogue about it helped me in a way that I can’t necessarily explain, certainly not in the time I have right now, but it is generally more helpful to me to have a dialogue with an author than simply to read.

Anonymous Unschooler

Research, Science, & the Human Being by the Editor

Research Science & the Human Being

The first “basic” or foundational book by Rudolf Steiner was A Philosophy of Freedom. Already this title invites us into a small research problem, since Steiner indicated that English “freedom” did not adequately translate the German “Freiheit”; its suffix, “-heit,” points to an active capacity, while “-dom” indicated a defining condition. The missing English cognate would have been “freehood”—like “womanhood,” “manhood,” “brotherhood,” “sisterhood.” The suffix “-dom” aligns more with “kingdom” or “fiefdom” or “serfdom.” So the title is sometimes rendered “a philosophy of spiritual activity”—but that loses the “free” to which we Americans feel so connected.

Such questions of the human inner life are central to anthroposophy. *** With this issue we take up for the second year the question of anthroposophical research: what is it, how is it faring, where might we lend a hand. Rudolf Steiner’s first foundational book is important to this research in two ways. First, it is a record of his own fundamental research path. Page by page it reflects Steiner’s exploration of his own consciousness. He hoped for the book to be taken up by deeply committed and self-aware seekers: human beings looking for the way forward in human evolution. Americans are misled, again, by the title, since our impulsive culture does not see in the word “philosophy” the forward-driving enterprise which it was for Steiner.

Interestingly it was, according to Steiner, some American anarchists in Europe who first “got” what he was saying.

(A true anarchism is not mere lawlessness, but a search for how human beings can be both social and free.)

The second importance of A Philosophy of Freedom for research is that it shows us something essential about anthroposophy, as Rudolf Steiner developed it. The word “anthroposophy” had been around, but had never established itself clearly. Meanwhile, the similarly old word “anthropology” was being given its modern sense: a comparative study of human beings and cultures in different

places, with emphasis on the exotic and “primitive,” and across different times. This was, as G.K. Chesterton put it later, a science not so much of human beings as of anthropoids. In the dominant culture, that body of concerns and that view of the human being which would be a true inquiry into our own human place and significance in the cosmos was dismembered and parceled out among a dozen or more emerging sciences, with no central unifier.

So anthropology fit itself into a modest place in a broad and materialistic scientific enterprise, being neither more comprehensive nor more central to “science,” to human understandings, than zoology or botany. It could not be otherwise under materialism, when the specifically human elements that differentiate us from animals and plants and minerals are located in consciousness, mind, spirit. Moreover, since the early 1600s “hard” science sought to pull the human being back to the sidelines of research, a cool and detached observer. “The experimenter stands apart from the experiment!” That was the hopeful cry of those trying to objectify science and free it from petty human emotions and personal ambitions.

It was a further problem in Steiner’s youth that this “objective” science had come to certain limits. In 1872, when he was eleven, the German physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond gave a famous lecture On the Limits of Natural Science (Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens) and followed in 1880 with a speech to the Berlin Academy of Sciences where he presented seven “world riddles,” three of them “transcendent” or insoluble. Essentially these “boundaries” remain today in the questions, “What is matter?” and “What is consciousness?” They defy science’s hope to make all of reality knowable, thinkable. summer issue 2011

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Research Science & the Human Being With his scientific training and natural clairvoyant experiences from childhood, Rudolf Steiner set out to find a way through these limits, and A Philosophy of Freedom is his research report and guidebook. What he found was that the dead-ends of modern natural science can be overcome only by placing a view of the human being back in the central, fundamental position of all research. To solve the riddles of the world, we must solve the riddles of the human being, as he states plainly in the 1918 preface to the revised edition.

Turning from the beginning to the end of his life’s work, at the end of 1923 Rudolf Steiner established a School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Switzerland. In this school and in the Anthroposophical Society which supports it, ancient, esoteric knowledge flows together with the fruits of modern natural and human sciences on the basis of an evolutionary strengthening of the human being’s soul forces. Rather than exclude the human being, include it—and take personal responsibility for that choice! So after three centuries of pushing the essentially human to the side, it is a science of mind and spirit —a Geisteswissenschaft, where “Geist” means both mind and spirit (but usually rendered in anthroposophical writings just as “spiritual science”)—which assumes a new, central role in overcoming the limits to knowledge.

A Call for Research In 1991 Henry Barnes, one of the preeminent figures in the first century of anthroposophy in America, recalled and repeated Rudolf Steiner’s 1923 appeal for this new research to be developed as rapidly as possible.

It was the next to the last morning of the Christmas Conference for the Founding of the General Anthroposophical Society, December 31, 1923. The two morning talks dealt with aspects of scientific inquiry. The first, by Rudolf Maier, concerned “The Connection of Magnetism with Light,” and the second, by Dr. Lily Kolisko, dealt with the “Physical Proof of the Working of Microorganisms.”

Rudolf Steiner introduced Dr. Kolisko’s talk with the following observations: “If it should become possible for anthroposophy to give to the different branches of science impulses of method which lead to certain research results, then one of the main obstacles to spiritual research existing in the world will have being human

After her talk he continued: “These experiments are, from an anthroposophical point of view, details leading to a totality which is needed by science today more urgently than can be said. Yet if we continue to work as we have been doing at present in our research institute, then perhaps in fifty, or maybe seventy-five years we shall come to the result that we need, which is that innumerable details go to make up a whole. This whole will then have a bearing not only on the life of knowledge but also on the whole of practical life as well.

“People have no idea today how deeply all these things can affect practical daily life in such realms as the production of what human beings need in order to live or the development of methods of healing and so on. Now you might say that the progress of mankind has always gone forward at a slow pace and that there is not likely to be any difference in this field. However, with civilization in its present brittle and easily destructible state, it could very well happen that in fifty or seventy-five years’ time the chance will have been missed for achieving what so urgently needs to be achieved...”

Rudolf Steiner concluded by saying what it would mean if it were possible for anthroposophical research to achieve in five or ten years what, he foresaw, would take fifty to seventy-five years at the speed at which work was then going forward. And he ended by saying: “I am convinced that if it were possible for us to create the necessary equipment and the necessary institutes and to have the necessary colleagues, as many as possible to work out of this spirit, then we could succeed in achieving in five or ten years what will now take us fifty or seventy-five. The only thing we would need for this work would be 50 or 75 million francs, then we would probably be able to do the work in a tenth of the time.”

Henry Barnes followed this recollection with a forceful appeal, sixty-eight years later (and just after the fall of the Soviet empire in East Europe), for this research work to be taken up more energetically in the USA. Two questions immediately arise: What is spiritual-scientific research? and: How

Henry Barnes

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been removed. That is why it is so important for work of the right kind to be undertaken in the proper anthroposophical sense.”

can it be furthered?

In response to the first question, we should bear in mind Rudolf Steiner’s observation quoted above that it is the “’impulses of method leading to research results that are so badly needed.” Once the method of inquiry has been opened up, it then becomes possible for colleagues in the field, who are of open mind and of good will, to share in the detailed investigations. As we know, the methods of spiritual-scientific research have been described by Rudolf Steiner in many places and, especially, in such fundamental works on the path of knowledge as Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment, and Occult Science, Chapter V. In these descriptions we find three stages: in the first, we take the results of spiritual-scientific investigation and, as students, make them our own through the activity of clear and selfless thinking, which we have prepared to become the first instrument for higher knowledge.

These living thoughts are ours because we have experienced them. In the second stage, we enter the realm of life, and, through meditative exercise, we acquire the capacity to perceive the living world as it begins to reveal itself in the language of imagination. At this stage of experience, the living images we perceive are the projections of supersensible reality, mirrored within our soul, not yet the immediate reality of spiritual experience itself. It is only when the third stage is reached and we have the inner strength of activity to erase the pictured world from consciousness that we are able to enter that stillness of being, deeper even than outer silence, in which the spiritual world itself begins to speak and sound within our soul. Beyond this experience of inspiration, as Rudolf Steiner describes it, there lies, as we know, the realm of experience in which being knows being in the immediate cognitive experience of intuition.

As one becomes familiar with the anthroposophical path of inner schooling, one discovers that what distinguishes spiritual-scientific research from the investigations of natural science is that, in the former, it is the researcher himself who is both instrument and knower, whereas in natural science the data is supplied by sense perception, extended through the use of technical instruments and theoretical models, which are then analyzed by the intellect, itself also a “given.” Responsibility, therefore, rests with the spiritual-scientific investigator to a degree unknown in natural scientific research. With these brief reflections on the nature of the method of anthroposophical research in mind, let us turn to the second question: how can it be furthered?

In a certain sense, everyone who is working with anthro-

posophical insights, whether as an individual on the path of self-knowledge, or as a colleague in some one of the practical enterprises which have their origins in anthroposophy, is already engaged in spiritual-scientific research!

However, we are rarely conscious of this fact. We are constantly learning, comparing the results of previous investigations with the next new insights we have gained, and through this activity also expanding our capacities as a “knower,” as one who is engaged in research! Clearly, however, Rudolf Steiner had something else in mind when he spoke to the members gathered in Dornach nearly sixty-eight [now eighty-eight] years ago. He was pointing to the urgent need to free qualified individuals from their daily tasks so that they could devote themselves on a full-time basis to the work of research. He was thinking of institutes in which teams of individuals would work together, approaching the same questions from different sides, with the needed equipment at their disposal. [Emphasis added.]

Where We Stand in North America As reported in our first research issue (Evolving News, 2010, #2, p.17), a fund for anthroposophical research has been created in Henry’s name. This helpful stimulus joins other significant developments since 1991, some of them reflected on the following pages: First, a Collegium in North America of the School for Spiritual Science has grown to maturity and is carrying consciousness and fostering collaboration for all the sections of the school in our continental context.

Second, independent research institutes have been established: the Water Research Institute of Blue Hill, Maine (1991), the Research Institute for Waldorf Education (1996), and the Nature Institute, in Ghent, New York (1998). More recently, the Threefold Educational Center has resumed a research role. For many years Ehrenfried Pfeiffer had a research laboratory at Threefold for his work in biodynamics.

Third, practical research is done by anthroposophical pharmacies, doctors, therapists, biodynamic groups, RSF Social Finance, and small initiatives; by faculty at Rudolf Steiner College, training institutes, and Waldorf schools, in Camphill, the Rudolf Steiner Fellowship Community, and other intentional communities.

Fourth, there are notable efforts by individuals (Dennis Klocek, Frank Chester, and Richard Tarnas, for example), and by artists whose research flows into and is expressed by their creative work. summer issue 2011

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Research Science & the Human Being

And finally, it is all documented and disseminated by SteinerBooks, small publishers, and libraries.

Anthroposophy fosters a culture of research based in personal responsibility. As Henry Barnes noted in 1991, it begins with the individual student, of whatever age, who is “raising” and enlarging her consciousness. And this new approach to research flows together from disparate fields—natural science, social science, humanities, arts, esoteric streams, spirituality—around one unifying element: the strengthening of human consciousness by meditation and exact imagination, inspiration, intuition.

Research Institute for Waldorf Education In direct response to Henry Barnes’ appeal there emerged a research initiative for Waldorf education in North America. Though devoted to one field of initiative, its value is very broad. Education, after all, is central to all human becoming.

Education is also the focus of tremendous social pressures. Financially it is a big business. Being sponsored in the USA largely by local, state, and federal governments, it is also an area of accountability for politicians and public servants. And tens of millions of parents and grandparents take education very seriously, because it enhances or limits the lifetime possibilities of their children and grandchildren. The children, too, take an interest!

Waldorf education is immediately appealing to many parents, especially those with young children. Even so, the beautiful concepts underlying Waldorf need serious research to support them. Douglas Gerwin and David Mitchell are co-directors of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education, which receives “support and guidance from the Pedagogical Section of the School of Spiritual Science and financial support through the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), the Midwest Shared Gifting Group and the Waldorf Schools Fund and The Waldorf Curriculum Fund.” It has supported research on “essential contemporary educational issues such as attention-related disorders, trends in adolescent development and innovations in the high school curriculum, learning expectations and assessment, computers in education, the role of art in education and new ways to identify and address different learning styles.”

The institute’s work takes shape in a twice-yearly Research Bulletin, colloquia, conferences, extensive free resources at waldorfresearchinstitute.org and the On-

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Douglas Gerwin and David Mitchell

line Waldorf Library at waldorflibrary.org, and further notice in Renewal magazine. It has supported the hugely challenging work of Waldorf teachers and given the movement and its schools a significant grounding and credibility. Asked on short notice for a few recent samples of the Institute’s work, we received a wonderfully diverse collection. Pride of place must go to “Standing Out without Standing Alone: Profile of Waldorf School Graduates.” This extensive survey of North American graduates gives a very definite sense of what Waldorf has to offer.

For teachers, there is “Creating a Sense of Wonder in Chemistry,” an excerpt from David Mitchell’s book.

There’s a review by Dorit Winter of The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes, the noted biographer of Romanticism, “academically impeccable” but also “making the life of the subject experiential for the reader.” From a different angle comes “Soul Hygiene and Longevity for Teachers.”

Waldorf teaching expects much of teachers, and the article gives a series of concrete self-development and hygienic processes to support them. For educators and parents there is “Social-Emotional Education and Waldorf Education,” bringing home the broadly if intermittently recognized truth that “Children’s social-emotional development is as important as their intellectual and physical development.” And another essential and very “hot” topic: “Assessment without High-Stakes Testing: Protecting Childhood and the Purpose of School.” Finally there are “reflections on a recent visit” to Russia where a hopeful first growth of Waldorf education is now learning to live with challenges from government, church, and economic and social dysfunction.

In the chaos of Europe, the millions for investment that Rudolf Steiner once hoped for did not materialize.

Human-centered spiritual research—creative and deeply responsible—has still, tenaciously, taken root in North America. May we all participate and help it to flourish!

Living Research at Threefold Educational Center

by Bill Day At the 1924 Christmas Foundation Conference, Rudolf Steiner placed spiritual scientific research at the center of the work and mission of anthroposophy. In 1926, Threefold Farm in Spring Valley, New York, was founded as a living laboratory for spiritual science in social threefolding, biodynamic farming, and the arts. Threefold’s

Researcher Vassag Baghboudarian.

Frank Chester (center) and colleagues at work in Threefold’s Red Barn Painting Studio.

mission was codified in 1965, when the Threefold Educational Foundation was chartered by the State of New York Education Department “to establish, conduct, operate and maintain conferences, programs of research and adult education in all fields of human endeavor emphasizing the principles and methods enunciated by Rudolf Steiner.”

We recognize that research is not a luxury, it is a necessity—life itself depends on it. However, research, like any living thing, requires a convergence of essential elements in appropriate amounts. These elements include: qualified researchers carrying worthy questions; time and space in which to do research, and means for researchers to live on; and a social and physical setting that is supportive of the researchers’ work. In short, what is urgently needed is for qualified researchers to be paired with appropriate institutional, social and financial support.

Over the past eighteen months, Threefold Educational Center has consciously acted on its task as an anthroposophical institution, which is to create and foster summer issue 2011

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the conditions necessary for spiritual scientific research to take place. A series of conferences hosted by Threefold have brought together interested parties from all over North America and Europe, in part to investigate and discuss the nature and meaning of such research in the past and going forward. A community of researchers and a constellation of questions have been identified. The institution continues to develop its physical facilities to create appropriate spaces for working, meeting, exhibiting and performing, a process that evolves as new needs and opportunities arise.

A major step in this effort was the creation in 2010 of the Threefold Researcher in Residence program. Our first Researcher in Residence, artist and geometrician Frank Chester, worked with a team of eleven research fellows at Threefold from September 19 to October 30.

Frank and his co-workers constructed a truly collaborative learning community: a common language (alchemical transformation), common content (forms arising from the platonic solids), and a common research protocol (the lawful working of the four elements through geometry).

The work of this team of researchers culminated in an exhibition at Threefold Auditorium, “Art as Research and Scientific Inquiry as a Creative Act.” The exhibition included sequences of geometric forms built in paper, clay, cardboard, Plexiglas, wood and various metals; photographs; spinning forms; models of interior planes; a journal examining the relationship of music to form and health; forms in edges dipped in soap solution; an alchemical explanation of the chemistry behind that soap solution; sculptures weaving the elements with human development through birth, death and resurrection; and a “geomation” short film made up of almost 2,000 still pictures. All the pieces on display were works in process,

Frank Chester discussing a problem.

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The 2010 Threefold Research Fellows (left to right): Seth Wulsin, Simeon Amstutz, James Steil, Hajak Baghboudrian, Lachlan Grey, Mariel Farlow, Marcus Macauley, Frank Chester, Mark Gardner, Jordan Walker, Daniel Wall, Vassag Baghboudarian

artifacts of each researcher’s line of inquiry that also offered a window onto the group process as a whole.

The exhibit’s opening on November 5 coincided with a symposium, co-sponsored by Threefold and the Collegium of the North American School of Spiritual Science, entitled “How Do I Research My Questions?” Presentations by physician Gerald Karnow, educator John Barnes, scientist Henrike Holdrege and eurythmist Dorothea Mier set the tone for a weekend of explorations into the nature and meaning of spiritual scientific research, starting at the level of each individual’s personal questions: How do individuals identify and begin to work on our life questions? Can pursuing this intimate, personal process help us develop a methodology for spiritual scientific research? How can we connect our personal quests with our responsibility to all of humanity, and to the cosmos?

Threefold’s Researcher in Residence program will continue in 2011 with a two-week fellowship led by Frank Chester and Dorothea Mier on the theme “Into the Center of Our Heart.” As in 2010, a dozen applicants will be

Frank Chester considers a question in geometric modeling with Lachlan Grey.

selected to work and study with Frank and Dorothea at Threefold beginning in late September. The fellowship will culminate in a symposium that will provide rich and unusual opportunities to experience some of the results of the residency and further explore the themes in a social setting.

Visit www.threefold.org/research for more information about the Threefold Researcher in Residence program, including details on how to participate in the 2011 program. To get updates about the 2011 program sent to you, join the Threefold email list and check the box indicating your interest in the program.

Rhythms of Spiritual Scientific Research at Threefold

by Kevin Dann The title page of The Book of Lambspring (1599) – an alchemical text by Nicolas Barnaud, a member of Rudolf II’s Prague alchemical circle – bears an illustration of a venerable grey-bearded man holding a staff in his right hand, while his left hand rests upon a threefold furnace. The prefatory text below vows to unveil “the one substance/In which all the rest is hidden,” and encourages the reader, through “Coction, time, and patience,” to doggedly Simeon Amstutz (with Daniel Wall) created a geomation film of “The Book of Lambspring” which can pursue the alchemical philoso- be seen at www.threefold.org/research pher’s art, but then pulls back to warn of the derision that he will receive if he shows his Scientific Inquiry as a Creative Act,” researcher-artist hard-won knowledge to the outside world. “Therefore be fellows Dan Wall and Simeon Amstutz gesture at the modest and secret,” the author counsels. A series of polar figures on their chalkboard diorama rendering of The emblems follows: two Fish swimming opposite to each Book of Lambspring. “The very first page of the book says other; a battle between a Dragon and a Knight; the meetto keep the knowledge secret,” they exclaim in puzzled ing of a Stag and a Unicorn in a forest clearing; a Lion disbelief, as they conduct an enthusiastic show-and-tell and Lioness walking together; a fight between a Wolf and of their own process of discovery in transforming a 16tha Dog. The text accompanying each emblem gives specentury alchemical text into a stop-motion film. In the cific spiritual instruction, but again, there are warnings: main room, nine other researchers point and poke and “Hold your tongue about it”; “Let those who receive the spin geometrical models; hold up sculptures for close 1 gift enjoy it in silence.” inspection; gesticulate before complex handmade charts, In a cave-like side chamber at the opening recepeagerly sharing their discoveries with the uninitiated tion for the research exhibition “Art as Research and audience. What would Nicolas Barnaud say to all this summer issue 2011

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public proclamation of the Alchemical Art? Since its founding by Ralph Courtney and Charlotte Parker in 1926, members of the Threefold Farm (now Threefold Educational Center) community have struggled mightily to penetrate and communicate the secrets of Nature and History. When, in 1933, the 33-year-old Ehrenfried Pfeiffer delivered his first American lecture at the first Anthroposophical Summer School Conference, he chose as his topic “Making Visible the FormativeForces in Nature.” His teacher, mentor, and friend Rudolf Steiner advised Pfeiffer on his course of college study, and, for the last five years of his life, closely collaborated with him on his research. In a large circus tent set up in the oak grove beyond the Threefold Farm garden and barns, Pfeiffer began his 1933 Summer Conference address by condemning contemporary natural science’s relentless endeavor to turn Natura into a corpse, and society’s reckless use of the subearthly forces of nature – electricity, magnetism, and gravity.

Back in 1920, Pfeiffer (then a young engineering student) had asked Rudolf Steiner if there might be some way of using the constructive, synthetic forces as the foundation of a new altruistic technics that would have within itself the impulse of life rather than death. In response, Steiner set his student to the task of demonstrating the etheric forces in visible form, by developing a substance that would react with the Bildekräfte (etheric formative-forces) in plants and human blood. Though the odds against success were incalculable, Pfeiffer – with the help of Erika Sabarth, who discovered copper chloride as the proper reagent – made the formative forces visible through the process of sensitive crystallization. He attributed this success to their having followed Rudolf Steiner’s advice to make the laboratory a place where the elemental beings of nature would feel comfortable, through a spiritual atmosphere of prayer and meditation.

A meditative state was also required to interpret the crystallization images, which to the untrained eye of the flesh appeared as little more than crystalline Rorschach blots. Pfeiffer distinguished subtle differences in the crystallizations, but when he reported his results to Rudolf Steiner, Steiner interpreted them as indicating that the time was not yet right for humanity to make use of the etheric forces; that time would come about only when the appropriate social conditions had been established in at least a few regions on earth. 2 Until then, no experiments toward an etheric technology should be conducted.

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anthroposophists who had pioneered American efforts in founding social threefolding in New York City and then at Threefold Farm, Pfeiffer doubted that he would see the advent of the necessary conditions in his own lifetime, and felt sure that he would go to his grave keeping secret what little knowledge he had gained about the role of the etheric forces on existence in the sense-perceptible world.

This was a decade before the most deadly sub-earthly force was discovered, with the splitting of the atom; in his biweekly lectures beginning in 1946 (Pfeiffer came to live and work at Threefold Farm in 1944), Pfeiffer repeatedly warned of the dangers of atomic radiation fallout, not so much for the immediate future, but for long-term Earth evolution. 3 As Rosicrucian initiates who were working far into the future in their spiritual scientific researches, both Rudolf Steiner and Ehrenfried Pfeiffer constantly found themselves quite alone, without sufficient financial support or a circle of colleagues capable of taking up and extending their initiatives. In a single lecture in 1952, Pfeiffer touched on numerous researches indicated by Rudolf Steiner: working with absolute zero temperatures to realize “warmth energy”; the study of plant ashes vs. mineralized ashes, in relationship to a study of the etheric light emitted by the eye; “peptonization,” the creation of remedies by experimenting with day and night rhythms (Ehrenfried Pfeiffer said that he believed 100 Ph.D. theses could be written on this!); and superimposing ultraviolet upon infrared light. In this same talk, Pfeiffer returned to the subject of the “Strader Machine” or “Keely Motor,” and once again spoke of the secrecy surrounding more recent efforts to develop a technology based in the etheric.

4 Three and a half centuries after The Book of Lambspring author cautioned about making esoteric knowledge public, this principle still held, not because of the potential for public derision, but because of the absence of the necessary social crucible into which this knowledge might be received.

The arc of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer’s life ended in frustration and disappointment, his work cut short largely for reasons beyond his control. When one looks upon the artifacts – the elegant mahogany- and glass-cased Fisher Scientific lab scales; fading photographs of plant experiments; didactic charts on soil physiology – from Pfeiffer’s laboratory, it is possible to feel wistful that this prodigious research project ended incomplete. Unlike the alchemists of old, the modern spiritual researcher can’t work in isolation, because his research can only rise and flourish in

the context of a social “soil” that is capable of receiving it. But even though Ehrenfried Pfeiffer had to curtail his work during his lifetime, in a sense it has been carried forward ever since by the ongoing efforts of the Threefold Community (individuals and the institution as a whole) to realize Ralph Courtney’s ideal of a “Threefold Commonwealth” that would be fully engaged with the deep mystery of American destiny. True, the manifestations of this work are not always outwardly visible, and progress may not be immediately perceptible, but the eager acceptance of the very exoteric work on display at “Art as Research and Scientific Inquiry as a Creative Act” showed Threefold at its best, as an eager incubator of spiritual investigation.

In the last emblem in The Book of Lambspring, a Father and Son sit on either side of “the Ancient Master”: “They produce untold, precious fruit/They perish never more,/And laugh at death.” New researchers and new impulses of research continue to arise, take form, and give way to succeeding generations, and the visions of the

standard-bearers of the past achieve renewed life in the hands of their successors.

1 Nicolas Barnaud’s text was originally published in Latin in 1599 in a collection of alchemical texts known as Quadriga aurifera. Arthur Edward Waite included the text as The Book of Lambspring in volume 1 of The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged (James Elliot and Company: London, 1893).

2 Using the crystallization method, Pfeiffer developed the ability to diagnose the nature and location of inflammations, infections, even cancer. Alla Selawry, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, A Pioneer in Spiritual Research and Practice: A Contribution to His Biography (Mercury Press: Spring Valley, NY, 1992), p. 52.

3 See Pfeiffer, Notes and Lectures, Volume I, pp. 68, 85, 127, and in Volume II, his November 20, 1961 letter regarding atomic radiation.

4 Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, “Consciousness and Research Attitudes,” in Volume II of Notes and Lectures.

The Agriculture Course An Intensive Midwinter Study of the Origins and Future of Biodynamics at the Pfeiffer Center

by Bill Day For the 2011 midwinter intensive study at the Pfeiffer Center of Rudolf Steiner’s 1924 agriculture lectures, the subject was the horn preparations, 500 and 501. As in past years, this weekend gathering featured challenging talks, a eurythmy performance, and convivial meals. New this year were small-group sessions that elicited questions and observations about the horn preps. The talking and sitting was leavened with group artistic activities with Deborah Lothrop (charcoal drawing) and Natasha Moss (eurythmy), prep making (grinding silica for 501), and hands-on experiments with water.

The two horn preps are alike (and unique) in that they are made by burying a substance in cow horns. In nearly every other

respect, they are not only different from each other, they are polar opposites. The cow dung that becomes 500 is dark, while the ground silica of 501 embodies light; 500 is buried in fall and spends the winter underground, while 501 is buried in spring and dug up in the fall; 500 is typically sprayed in the afternoon, with large drops directed at the soil more than the plants, while 501 is sprayed in the early morning, in a fine mist directed to the plants more than the soil. In their similarities and their differences, 500 and 501 remind us of siblings, tightly bound together yet emphatically distinctive, one from the other.

In talks that opened and closed the weekend, Pfeiffer Center Director Mac

500 and 501 remind us of siblings, tightly bound together yet emphatically distinctive...

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Mead drew a line connecting the earliest stages of Earth evolution to our time. As depicted in Occult Science, the Earth’s evolution is measured in cycles of expansion and contraction, warmth and coolness, light and dark, order and chaos. These cycles manifest today in the rhythms of nature. Human beings are highly emancipated from the rhythms of nature, and the horn preps, if understood and used in the right way, give us an opportunity to bring those rhythms into our service. Mac suggested that we start by understanding the differences between metamorphosis (a movement from one state to that state’s polar opposite) and enhancement (a process of unfolding), two phenomena that exist throughout nature and also throughout the preps.

Malcolm Gardner’s talks on “The Logic of Horn Manure” and “The Logic of Horn Silica” were an attempt to “recover the rationale” underlying Rudolf Steiner’s indications. On their face, the preps do seem bizarre, but Rudolf Steiner did not arrive at them through trial and error, or by guessing, but through a rational penetration of the workings of nature. The rational aspect is not readily apparent because of the discursive nature of Steiner’s lectures, but Malcolm’s talks were on one level a clinic on how to tease out the logic underlying Steiner’s indications. That logic in turn suggests a path toward the “real science” that will emerge when science at last takes hold of unquantifiable forces. Yes, the elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen are at work in nature’s household, but “for Steiner it’s not about the substances, it’s about the forces.” It is through diligent study of the forces at work that we can learn what it is the substances want to do—what processes of metamorphosis and enhancement they seek, for example, when they take up and throw off other substances, or change from solid to liquid to gas.

Forms and forces work hand in glove to make up the world around us. Where Malcolm took us deeply into the realm of forces, Steffen Schneider led us to consider the cow horn, a natural form that Rudolf Steiner put at the heart of the horn preps. What exactly are cow horns, and why do cows have them? What can we learn about horns by studying their form with an open mind, heart and will?

How is a horn different from an antler, and how is the cow different from an elk or a deer? What does the form of the horn (which constantly changes over the life of the cow) tell us about its hidden functions as organs and sheaths— its role as an organ of perception, and its role in the cow’s metabolic life? Steffen’s personal explorations of these questions showed how much there is to ponder and learn 18 •

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from even the most mundane objects in nature.

Stirring is central to making and using 500 and 501, but how often do we think about the properties and behavior of water? Jennifer Greene’s workshop on the subject included illuminating hands-on experiments as well as demonstrations that vividly illustrated how water creates sheaths in motion, generating an environment of almost unimaginable complexity every time we stir preps.

Mac Mead opened the weekend with this startling observation: “None of us has scratched the surface of what the preps are all about.” That may not be what we want to hear from our teacher, or even think about ourselves, but the level of humility it expressed created a mood entirely suitable for one’s own ideas and understanding of the horn preps to undergo metamorphosis and enhancement.

Next year’s midwinter weekend intensive at the Pfeiffer Center is scheduled for January 13-16, 2012. Mark your calendar, and watch www.pfeiffercenter.org for news and registration information in the fall.

Redeeming the Realm of Rights A public conference sponsored by the Social Sciences Section Along with financial and environmental crises, we are facing a crisis in democracy and human relations. Most notably, financial and corporate interests take priority over the rights of the people, resulting in human and environmental exploitation and international strife. This is not simply the result of defective outer arrangements, but is equally a failure of human beings to develop capacities needed for a true democracy and a healthy social life. Our institutions and social forms are a reflection of thoughts and feelings that people carry within them. Therefore, meaningful change requires not only transformation of the outer structures and arrangements but also an inner transformation of the people who are active within them, including developing enhanced listening and speaking and a greater interest in others.

The social threefolding ideas of Rudolf Steiner will provide a framework for this conference to explore our political heritage, some of the most pressing political is-

sues of our times, and the outer forms and inner capacities that we will need in the future to redeem the realm of rights. Along with presentations we will employ artistic exercises and focused and free form conversations to gain insights and develop new capacities.

Some of the confirmed topics we will consider are the social pathology of income inequities, rights in an intentional community, money as a right, school choice as a civil right, the right of access to land, transcending political parties, and rights as an earthly task. The confirmed list of presenters, conversation leaders, and artists at the time of writing include Peter Buckbee, Michelle Bourassa, Steve Burman, Jennifer Daler, Alice Groh, Trauger Groh, Sarah Hearn, Michael Howard, Seth Jordan, Gary Lamb, John MacManus, John Miller, Luigi Morelli, Patrice Maynard, Ulrich Roesch, Penelope Roberts, John Root, Jr., Channa Seidenberg, Christopher Schaefer, Denis Schneider, and Douglas Sloan.

Organizations collaborating to host this conference include the Berkshire Taconic Branch of the Anthroposophical Society, Center for Social Research at Hawthorne Valley, Think OutWord, and Banjo Mountain Café.

To make this conference affordable to as many people as possible the fee is on a sliding scale from $100 to $300. Complete conference information is available at www.rightsconference.org or by contacting Gary Lamb at garylamb@taconic.net or 518-672-7500, ext. 223.

Intrinsic Nature of Water The Water Research Institute of Blue Hill is pleased to announce a conference, “Steps Towards Discovering the Intrinsic Nature of Water,” led by Jennifer Greene, Director of the Water Research Institute of Blue Hill, with Wolfram Schwenk and David Auerbach. This conference will begin Sunday evening, July 31st and end Friday, August 5th at 5pm. (On Saturday, the 6th is the wellknown Eggemoggin Reach Regatta, a true water event!)

Jennifer Greene is an educator and has led acclaimed water workshops nationally and internationally. Until his recent retirement, Wolfram Schwenk was the water biologist and senior scientist at the Institute of Flow Sciences in Herrischried, Germany. This Institute was founded by Theodor Schwenk, his father, author of Sensitive Chaos,

which Jacques Cousteau called the first phenomenological treatise on water. David Auerbach, PhD, worked many years at the Max-Planck Institute of Flow Sciences, in Göttingen, Germany.

Amidst the beauty of Maine’s Blue Hill Bay and Acadia National Park with its waterfalls, boiling springs and beach, this hands-on, experiential conference will consist of water phenomena, artistic activities, conversation and field trips, offering participants an opportunity to experience how movement, form and rhythm in water flow becomes the “language of its fluid nature”. We will endeavor to reach the kind of “fluid thinking” that is needed to become conscious of water as an element for life, its role in the natural world, and how it can teach us to understand ourselves as knowers and participants in the classroom, in nature, and in the world around us.

This workshop stands at the crossroads of the present debate around the nature of water. Native peoples the world over hold water to have sacred value as an element of life—all life without regard to rank. The modern world views water as a commodity to be moved and used to serve the greatest need of the consumer, very often to the detriment of nature and humanity. How we “see” water dictates how we manage it. It is hoped that by taking up the journey of allowing water to teach us, our attempts to understand “the language of water’s intrinsic nature” may help us to contribute to this dialogue.

This conference is for naturalists, educators, scientists, and anyone who has a passion for deepening their participation in the natural world around them. It is dedicated to the memory of Marjorie Spock, who lived many years on the Maine coast and was a deep friend of the Institute of Flow Sciences and the Water Research Institute.

For a full program contact Jennifer Greene at jgreene@waterresearch.org or call 415-254-9567.

Natural Science Section Meeting The section’s annual meeting will take place at The Water Research Institute of Blue Hill (WRI), in Blue Hill, Maine, in order to take advantage of Wolfram Schwenk’s visit for the WRI conference. The NNS meeting, for members of the First Class only, will begin Thursday evening, July 28th and go to midday, Sunday the 31st, followed by the week-long water conference described above.

David Auerbach and Wolfram Schwenk will be present for both meeting and conference. For more information, please contact the Section Council members: Jennifer summer issue 2011

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Greene at jgreene@waterresearch.org or 415-254-9567; Barry Lia at barrylia@comcast.net or 206-522-1937; or John Barnes at adonis@fairpoint.net or 518-325-1113.

Metamorphosis & Resurrection Beginning in 2009, members of the Literary Arts and Humanities Section in North America have given special attention to the theme Metamorphosis and Resurrection as reflected in the Literary Arts and Humanities. Members have already discovered that this is a theme that can be productively engaged in a great many ways. For example, in Montréal Denis Schneider and Michel Bourassa bring creative writing activities that nurture processes of metamorphosis and resurrection in biography work, counseling, and special social events for the wider community; one of their initiatives is the “Peace Group”, which works co-creatively to portray and respond to current events.

Section members also are active in developing and presenting programs on a wide variety of topics for members and friends of the Anthroposophical Society here and abroad; often these projects are undertaken together with members of other sections of the School for Spiritual Science, such as the sections for the visual and performing arts. Many members serve the Anthroposophical Society and the world as translators, editors, creative writers, historians, and students of literature and language.

Much of their activity results in written contributions to mainstream publications, to anthroposophical books and periodicals, and to the Section’s own newsletter.

The section’s work in North America is guided by its collegium: Fred Dennehy (fdennehy@wilentz.com), Bruce Donehower (bdonehower@yahoo.com), Jane Hipolito (janehipolito@earthlink.net), Douglas Miller (millerdoug@comcast.net), Marguerite Miller (margueritemiller@comcast.net), and Denis Schneider (dschneider@sympatico.ca). Any of them will gladly supply further information about the Literary Arts and Humanities Section and its activities. —Jane Hipolito, Placentia, CA More online: The text of Henry Barnes 1991 appeal, and an article by Michael Howard about the work of sections in the Anthroposophical Society, are posted at anthroposophy.org under Articles.

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Research as a Timeless Conversation A Short History of the Rudolf Steiner Library

by Judith Soleil Much has man learnt.

Many of the heavenly ones has he named, since we have become a conversation and have been able to hear from one another.

—Hölderlin There has been an anthroposophical lending library in the United States nearly as long as there have been anthroposophists. Pioneering member Caia Greene of the St. Mark’s Group created a lending library in New York around 1910 and “mailed books to interested persons all over the country and as far away as Honolulu….” In 1974, Fred Paddock began creating the library as we know it today.

Fred suggested that a true anthroposophical library, with philosophical works at its core, should also reflect anthroposophy’s calling to bring spiritual insights into various fields of activity: education, agriculture, medicine, the arts and sciences, philosophy, religion, and so on. His vision for the library was informed by a sense that the Anthroposophical Society’s future lies in “growing together with the world.”

So, as well as a complete collection of books and lectures by Rudolf Steiner in English and German, the library would also aim to collect all translated and original English-language works by other anthroposophical authors and a good selection of original anthroposophical works in German. The library would also carefully select some of the best non-anthroposophical books in areas where anthroposophists are strongly active, including those by thinkers that Steiner himself had studied and spoken

about, such as Meister Eckhart and Jakob Boehme, and works by contemporary thinkers that Steiner would likely be reading were he alive today: for example, Richard Tarnas, Emmanuel Lévinas, Albert Borgmann, and Martha Nussbaum.

The library’s move from cramped quarters in Manhattan to Harlemville, New York, in 1982 allowed room for significant growth, and Fred Paddock enthusiastically began filling out the collection. He recognized that one of the library’s important tasks was to encourage and support anthroposophical initiatives such as Waldorf education and biodynamic agriculture. Fred sought materials to support teachers’ intensive preparation for main lessons: for example, collections of fairy tales, Bible stories, and Greek, Norse, and other myths; resources on ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and modern history; and background materials on the Grail legends. There was also demand for books in the sciences: botany, zoology, and physics; and books on arithmetic and more advanced mathematics.

As the library expanded, Fred recognized the emergence of an organizing structure that reflected the relationships among the different subject areas. He characterized these relationships as a living entity that asserted itself: When you apply the concept of life, of livingness, to texts, what you are really referring to is conversation.

I began to see that within the different sections, a conversation was going on… in the philosophy section…

Descartes was carrying on a conversation with Scholasticism (and ultimately, with Thomas Aquinas). Aquinas was carrying on a conversation with Augustine and Aristotle; Aristotle was carrying on a conversation with Plato and Plato with Socrates, the pre-Socratics, and the poets. Proceeding from Descartes we hear the British empiricists, especially Hume, carrying on a conversation with Descartes, and hear Kant being “awakened from his dogmatic slumbers” by Hume. We then experience Hegel in deep conversation with Kant, and Marx conversing with Hegel. Nietzsche (as well as Montaigne and Pascal) can’t be understood outside his conversation with the great Stoic thinkers. And today, Heidegger can’t be grasped outside his struggles with Nietzsche, Kant, and the Greek thinkers… [E]ach of these thinkers was conversing with dozens of contemporaries and predecessors. The ancient texts remained alive because those who came after them, right up to our contemporaries, kept conversing (struggling, arguing) with them—interpreting them…. It was the living conversing with the dead that gave the dead life. If the

Current librarian Judith Soleil Longtime librarian Fred Paddock

conversation ceases, not only the current, most topical texts will be missing, but the early texts will begin to die because they depend upon the living to keep them alive through conversation.

The library stands as a witness to the fact that as a human race we are a single conversation. What is essential to protect our very humanness is the conversation that has gone on for millennia between the generations, the centuries, the constant conversation between the living and the dead…. It is living libraries that preserve texts in such a way that they can become a conversation; and very special libraries, indeed, that preserve these texts as parts of a single conversation.

Another significant step occurred in 1991 with the creation of the Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter. It began with annotations and short reviews, and gradually included translations of articles from German anthroposophical journals and longer reviews of new acquisitions. In 2008, the content of the newsletter was incorporated into the society’s quarterly publication, Being Human.

Fred Paddock retired in 2002, and since then Judith Soleil and Judith Kiely have cared for the library, striving both to honor Fred’s vision and to modernize operations so that new generations might discover the library and benefit from its resources. Today, the library belongs to a regional library consortium, the Capital District Library Council, is the proud recipient of a preservation grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and has created an online public access catalog where people around the world can browse the library’s holdings. We invite everyone to join the conversation!

View the library’s catalog online at rsl.scoolaid.net.

Questions? Email rsteinerlibrary@taconic.net or telephone (518) 672-7690.

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Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary Art Markus Brüderlin and Ulrike Groos, eds.

Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 2010, for Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 224 pages.

Rudolf Steiner— Alchemy of the Everyday Mateo Kreis and Julia Althaus, eds.

Weil-am-Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, 2010, 336 pages.

Review by David Adams

These two books are significant exhibition catalogs documenting and elaborating on two large, related, current exhibitions in Germany that represent an unprecedented public presentation and reconsideration of Rudolf Steiner’s work and his influence on art and society today.

Both are large-format, hardbound publications in English with extensive color illustrations, and the contributions by multiple authors are concerned with Rudolf Steiner’s work and anthroposophical art from both anthroposophical and non-anthroposophical perspectives.

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These exhibitions and publications build on a number of previous publications and sometimes associated exhibitions—primarily in German-speaking countries (all as yet untranslated)—that have risen like a wave since the contemporary art world’s discovery of Steiner’s blackboard drawings in the Goetheanum archives in 1991 by artists (and pupils of Joseph Beuys) Johannes Stüttgen and Walter Dahn. With assistance from Walter Kugler of the Steiner archives in Dornach, these publications and exhibitions have been gradually rehabilitating Rudolf Steiner’s reputation for contemporary art.

For the amount of effort, time, and money that clearly went into these new projects, the results are both exhilarating and, at times, disappointing. Particularly, Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary Art, while raising many intriguing questions, too often lacks adequate or accurate Tony Cragg Distant Cousins 2006, insight into (or, in some painted steel cases, even acquaintance with) many aspects of Rudolf Steiner’s work and thought – particularly in many of the contributions by nonanthroposophists.

The catalog, Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary Art, presents—through photographs, interviews, and essays—the work of seventeen contemporary artists, and the exhibition includes examples of their artworks as well as artworks, objects, and images by Rudolf Steiner and other anthroposophists (with 118 illustrations). It features two essays: one an overview by the curators Markus Brüderlin and Ulrike Grosse, and another by author Julia Voss titled “The Steiner Machine: How the Attempt to Reform Natural Science Led to a New Concept of the Humanities.” The latter essay is almost entirely about Steiner’s involvement with the sciences—his relationships with Ernst Haeckel and Goethe—and has very little to say about the humanities, other than indicating the possibility of scientifically investigating moral ideas. Finally, there are apparently unedited, brief statements from twelve “prominent” persons, primarily German—including academics, artists, and businesspeople—on the rather general question, “Where Is Spirit Today?” The selection of writers is mystifying: Some are clearly atheists (or at least agnostics) and little interested in “spirit,” let alone Steiner’s work. I liked best the essay by Konrad Schily, a former Green Party member of the German parliament and cofounder of the anthroposophically inspired Witten-Herdecke University. Schily emphasizes how Steiner’s thought allows us to recognize the spirit working in nature rather than relying on simplified, spiritless mechanical systems and technology.

In their foreword and introduction the curators present the project’s primary concepts. They describe their exhibition as “the uninhibited juxtaposition” of works

Katarina Grosse Pigmento Para Plantas y Globos 2008 Katarina Grosse Holey Residue installation: acrylics on balloons, 2006 installation: acrylics on earth, wall, floor wall, floor, soil, and canvasses

by Rudolf Steiner with those of selected contemporary artists. Anthroposophy is called “the twentieth century’s most influential reform movement,” but the editors also twice insist that “Steiner is not the exclusive property of the Anthroposophists!” Probably the most concise statement of their intentions is the following: …it is not a question of tracing direct influences [from Steiner to contemporary artists], to say nothing of paternity. This would be pointless, for in contradistinction to so-called “Anthroposophical art” which at times codifies Steiner’s ideas about art and work directly in a confining doctrine, the artists who are participating in this exhibition follow their own paths, and are oriented toward developments in modern art, not esoteric tendencies…(p. 17)

The art exhibited is “art created independently of the anthroposophical context, and without regard to Steiner’s prescriptions.” (p. 17) Indeed, the work of almost none of these artists looks anything like the visual art typically produced within the anthroposophical movement; such art generally seems to be regarded here as a kind of embarrassment within the context of contemporary art. The hope is that “the independent methods of contemporary art may help to excavate some of Rudolf Steiner’s ideas

Carsten Nicolai fades 2006, video and sound installation summer issue 2011

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in unconventional ways—to de-monumentalize Steiner creatively, so to speak, in order to come to terms with that which is contemporary in his ideas.” (p. 19) Thus, both curators and artists feel free to “pick and choose” a few select aspects of anthroposophy that seem to resonate with current tendencies in contemporary art. As they write, most often “his work is simply exploited like a quarry, from which one procures whatever is usable.” Most interesting to contemporary artists seem to be the very idea of investigating the spirit scientifically; the “somatic theory of spirit” (whereby matter and spirit, outer and inner always interpenetrate); his self-contained, interconnected, holistic worldview (“the Steiner cosmos”); his idea of the inside-out transformation principle of inversion (curiously translated as “eversion”); and the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total, mixedmedia work of art (like the Goetheanum).

The editors also raise the question whether we can consider Rudolf Steiner to be an artist. They generally answer this question affirmatively, pointing to several aspects of his work, Olafur Elisasson Berlin Color Sphere including the “artistic 2006, installation: stainless steel, color- aspect of his thinking effect filter glass, bulb, wire, dimmer (p. 20).” They note

Manuel Graf Buchtipp 2 2010, installation: various materials, video on monitor

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that he has been called a process artist as well as one of the first conceptual artists, and a “lecture artist,” a category of conceptual art. They appreciate his “organic and holistic” architecture and furniture designs. His ideas are generally considered “as part of modernist avant-gardism,” especially for its influence on such major early modern artists as Vasily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Thus, he contributed to the historical development of abstraction and the overcoming of mimesis and symbolism in the visual arts (especially through architectural ornament).

His blackboard drawings created intriguing precedents for the recognized blackboard drawings of Joseph Beuys.

Both the exhibition curators and artists alike frequently criticize the attitudes of anthroposophists and anthroposophical artists toward Steiner’s work. According to them, anthroposophists “maintain Steiner under ‘lock and key’… and maintain defensive postures in relation to all critical approaches.” (p. 29) The curators argue that “Steiner’s painterly-philosophical art might well have taken an entirely different direction. … [T]oday, his ideas can be realized in such free, experimental, and dynamic installations far more fully than in anthroposophical watercolors” (p. 17) —a statement I tend to agree with. They claim that a large part of Steiner’s knowledge “can only be accepted on faith, not examined objectively.” (p. 21) Yet they see Steiner “as an indispensable provider of impulses for modernity” (p. 32) and someone who offers hope for recognizing the repressed ethical and occult aspects of modernism “to complete modernity in the twenty-first century.” (p. 330) The selection of mostly younger contemporary artists for the exhibition is notably slanted toward Germanspeaking and central European artists (who admittedly would be more likely to know something about Steiner).

The interviewers of these artists struggle through repeated questions to get each of the artists to acknowledge some debt to or influence from Steiner in their artwork, but most are having none of it and clearly distance themselves from any significant direct influence by Steiner. From the many colored illustrations of installations, video art, sculptures, paintings, etc. by these artists, the reader can more or less judge this for him- or herself. Also included is Joseph Beuys’s important 1984 interview in the German magazine Der Spiegel, here finally translated into English.

In it I think he too much plays the role of the enigmatic, revolutionary “art celebrity,” often being purposely mysterious, obfuscatory, epigrammatic, and provocative, presumably to attract more controversy and interest in such

a large public forum. Beuys discusses his own spiritual experiences and also refers repeatedly to anthroposophy (not always positively). The interview includes his famous proclamation: “The Mysteries take place in the central railway station, not in the Goetheanum.”

It seems to me that with a wider and deeper acquaintance with Steiner’s artwork, and particularly with his statements about the future of the visual arts, the editors could have more effectively made a case for affinities and analogies between Steiner’s work and contemporary art of our “postmodernist” era.

Although the text is marred by a fair number of missing or unusually translated words, awkward phrasings, and grammatical errors, these are small quibbles. At least now English readers can begin to participate in these lively dialogues taking place within the art world. Both exhibitions are on view from May 12 to November 21, 2010, at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; from February 5 to May 22, 2011, at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart; from June 22 to September 25 at MAK Vienna; and from October 15, 2011, to March 18, 2012, at the Vitra Design Museum Weil am Rhein, with additional showings in Prague and elsewhere in the future.

Rudolf Steiner: The Alchemy of the Everyday, a more satisfying volume, is concerned with a much wider range of Steiner’s thought and work and includes a far higher percentage of anthroposophical authors. The unique exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum that it catalogs includes 45 pieces of furniture, 46 models, 18 sculptures, over 200 original drawings, a specially made large model of the Goetheanum, and full-size replicas of two little-known, metal “color experience chambers” designed by Steiner in 1913— as well as comparative works

by Kandinsky, Feininger, Gaudi, Mendelsohn, Wright, Beuys, Eliasson, and others.

In their foreword the editors describe their project as “the first retrospective look at Steiner’s work outside the anthroposophical context.”

As justification for it they cite the nearness of the museum to Dornach (20 kilometers), the museum’s own collection D. Huschka Portrait of Rudolf of anthroposophical furniSteiner 1906 oil on canvas

Rudolf Steiner, executed

by Max Benzinger Color Chamber Models ca.

1911-1913, scale ca. 1:20, painted sheet metal

ture, its interest in distinctive features of anthroposophical aesthetics, and Steiner’s historical and contemporary importance to the world of art and design. They attempt “a nuanced judgement [sic] of Steiner by putting his creative work in the limelight and positioning it in a historical context and in the history of its influence.” (p. 17) They argue that Steiner’s impact is “not as one-dimensionally anthroposophic as posterity and his followers have portrayed…. Even Steiner is part of Modernism....” (p. 18) This book tackles Steiner’s work in four general sections. In the first, “Context: Rudolf Steiner and His Time,” Walter Kugler writes about Steiner’s work in the environment of the emerging early-modern age. He covers his associative economic and sociological principles and the international interest shown in his first book about the threefold social organism; the development of his monistic philosophy and of the idea of spiritual research to complement ordinary scientific research; and concludes with a discussion of Rudolf Steiner’s contacts with a number of significant early-modern writers and painters.

This is followed by Wolfgang Zumdick’s essay, “The Central Core of Anthroposophy,” a competent survey of Steiner’s life in the world of ideas of his time. He begins by discussing parallels with Spinoza, Steiner’s researches into Goethe and Schopenhauer, his efforts to disprove the limitations of Kant’s Margarete Landsberg, Illustration epistemology, and his in Bilder Courier, Berlin, April 11, expansion of Haeckel’s 1925: Peter Hille (standing), Rudolf recapitulation theory Siener (second from right) and (probably) Stefan Zweig (right)

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Poster for a Eurythmy Performance Share issued by Die Kommende in First Goetheanum 1919 pastel, Tag AG, 1920 pencil, calk, and watercolor on paper

of evolution. The connection to the arts is succinctly drawn: If thinking is understood not only as an abstract idea, but experienced as a living, creative energy that creates and supports forms, then the analogy with art and artistic work immediately suggests itself.

Steiner did in fact draw this analogy: it is as important to learn to think in colours and forms as it is to recognize concepts and thoughts ‘as creators of forms, as designers.’” (p. 39)

Zumdick briefly sketches Steiner’s description of the panorama of cosmic and human evolution and notes his “radically libertarian image of the human being” before moving on to Steiner’s contributions to “a fundamental reform of all aspects of human existence” that expanded rapidly in many fields after the First World War. Zumdick concludes with a section subtitled “The Spirit Living in Forms,” in which he depicts how the hidden beings and streams of energy behind the visible world can be known through Steiner’s meditation practices and manifested in various artistic activities.

The first section concludes with an interesting study by Julia Althaus on Steiner’s avant-garde stagecraft, which begins by noting that the environment of “the Dornach colony” itself has a stage-set like quality. Af26 •

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Ahriman’s Realm, scene from The Guardian of the Threshold by Rudolf Steiner, 1992 production at the Goetheanum.

ter a brief review of the early modernist reform of theater design and performance by artists such as Georg Fuchs, Adolphe Appia, Peter Behrens, Henry van de Velde, Oskar Schlemmer, Walter Gropius, and Max Reinhardt, Althaus considers Steiner’s “decidedly traditional” division between audience and stage in both Goetheanums (which could be disputed) along with his progressive “unification of poetry, music and movement under the name of eurythmics [sic]” in his Mystery Dramas. Her highest praise is reserved for his innovations in scenery and “widediffusion” lighting for the scenes in the spiritual worlds, finding similarities both to Reinhardt and Expressionist films. She finds his contribution to overcoming realism in drama in accord with his own teachings about color and spiritual experience. Finally she even refers to Steiner’s unfulfilled project with Jan Stuten for a new colored “light-playart” as an alternative to cinema.

The second general section is titled “Metamorphoses: Paths to a New Style of Building.” It begins with architectural historian Wolfgang Pehnt’s review of Steiner’s likely early architectural experiences in Vienna and Prague, proceeding through each of his developing design efforts, from the interior decoration for the 1907 Munich Congress to the first Goetheanum.

Pehnt sees Steiner as expressing the continual metamorphic transfor-

Moving The Representative of Humanity to the second Goetheanum on a wooden ramp, 1927

Rudolf Steiner & Herman Ranzenberger Armchair for Duldeck House ca. 1917

mation and motion of the organic world (as described by Goethe) and developing Dornach as “one of the most distinctive residential colonies of its time, during a period in which such settlements proliferated, motivated by artistic, social or reformist ideals.” (p. 115) In the new concrete architecture of the second Goetheanum “the eye no longer follows the path of transformation through details—plinths, capital, and architraves—but through the continuous changes and directional shifts in the actual substance of the building.”

Next, curator Markus Brüderlin turns to a theme also covered in the Contemporary Art catalog, “the modern principle of inside out” or inversion, which “describes the coexistence of the spiritual and the material worlds.” (p. 121) He notes that the increasingly sculptural approach of much contemporary architecture indicates a desire for an organic dissolution of the barrier between inside and outside, a new spiritual dimension, although he rightly cautions that this may be a purely formalistic similarity to Steiner’s design.

“The point of origin for Steiner’s concept of inversion is Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis,” he announces, but also relates this idea to understanding complex relationships between subject and object, interior and exterior.

Brüderlin raises the still-intriguing question of whether the second Goetheanum is an inversion of the first one, and makes some further speculations that suggest he isn’t very familiar with Steiner’s ideas of the “transparent wall” and the design logic of the Boiler House. But at times he does come to impressive appreciations of the Goetheanum:

In the final chapter of this second section anthroposophist Reinhold Fäth presents an overview of the basic principles of Steiner’s approach to design under the title “Goetheanum Style and Aesthetic Individualism.” He first presents the “apparent paradox” in Steiner’s aesthetics that every work of art is an individual expression with “its own aesthetics,” while at the same time arguing that it is “both possible and necessary to create a common new style ‘related to the most generally human.’” Noting that Steiner was concerned with how designed form “unconsciously affects the human spirit and psyche,” Fäth describes Steiner’s design approach as “in essence, a spiritual functionalism that assumes that spirit and matter are interdependent.” (p. 133) He notes that Steiner connected human morality to the state of the everyday environment, which must have shocked Theosophists who thought of the material world as mere maya.

As Steiner said in 1909,

...the mores, habits, psychological propensities and relationships between good and evil which belong to a particular time are all dependent on the quality of the things they pass by from morning to night, that they are surrounded by from morning to night.

Steiner’s study of the relationship of past ages and art led him to conclude that “the development of a new spiritual and social culture must be linked to the development of a new style in art—or rather, to new forms in architectural design.” (p. 134) Fäth then describes the chief principles of the anthroposophical style as awareness of the soul forces within manufactured forms and objects; use of environmental color; the “inclining gesture” of related or tilting forms of doors, windows, and some furniture designs; the organic principle of interrelationship of all parts like organs within a living body Rudolf Steiner & Herman Ranzenberger Bed and Chest of

The building’s exterior is not a fixed, crystalline structure, but immaterial and light-like, inverting ‘in the most mysterious astral manner’ the soul’s inner world into the exterior world, like a glove opening its interior to form an extensive surface. (p. 127) Drawers for Duldeck House ca. 1917

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(including the idea of metamorphosis); living surfaces like marily a design museum, has been collecting examples of open windows to the spiritual world; emphasis on the upfurniture by Steiner and other anthroposophists, as has per, “head” end of designs; and organic, flowing surfaces director Alexander von Vegesack, who has been in touch and proportions that seem like visible music. with Fäth for years. By contrast, in the U.S. the work of The third section titled “Aesthetics” begins with one of the greatest anthroposophical furniture designers, anthroposophical architect Peter van der Ree’s essay on Fritz Westhoff, has been shamefully neglected and even Steiner’s organic architecture. At the start van der Ree destroyed. Along with the exhibition, the museum has claims, “The concept of metamorphosis is the germ cell produced a miniature of one of Oswald Dubach’s 1930s of Rudolf Steiner’s sculpture and architecture.” (p. 185) chairs that is for sale in its shop (or online).

“Steiner maintained that a work of architecture should Kries includes a 10-page portfolio titled “Dornach be an aesthetic expression of its function.” In contrast 2010—Photographic Research,” with photographs of the to the International Style that dominated 20th-century interior furnishings of various houses in Dornach, featurarchitecture, organic builders “aling much wooden furniture with ways seek to develop a design out rounded or beveled corners. He of the individual building task comments: “Design innovations and local situation.” Van der Ree since the mid-1920s—steel furnibriefly compares Steiner’s architure, new plastics, Alessi objects, tecture to that of other “organic the entire seduction machinery of architects,” including Louis Sulthe contemporary design world— livan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Anseem to be banned from the antonio Gaudi, Hugo Haring, and throposophical world.” (p. 202) Hans Scharoun. He finishes by He refers to Dornach as “somenoting that while “avant-garde arthing like a “Galapagos island of chitecture in the new millennium” design” where “fossils from that has been dominated by dynamic, revolutionary phase between 1910 flowing, sculptural forms that and 1925 have been preserved.” seem organic, these have mainly Yet the strange thing is that much arisen out of the new possibiliof this design seems to relate more ties of computerized CAD design to a contemporary trend of archisoftware rather than organic living tects and designers creating “crysideas. The danger with designing talline shapes, plant-like chairs in a free, virtual space is that one and cave-like rooms” than to “the neglects gravity, material qualities, Cartesian-rectangular spatial grids and natural laws. of Modernism.” The “strangely Wilfrid Norton Interior of the First Goetheanum before Finally we reach what conpunched and warped surfaces” of 1923, pencil and pastel on paper ceptually I consider to be the much of Steiner’s furniture and “heart” of the book, curator Mateo Kries’s essay, “Furbuildings seem to reflect a more recent paradigm shift in niture Mutations or Design as Natural History,” which science toward a view that “the entire world of molecules tries to place anthroposophical furniture in the context is in motion” and that nature “always evades geometrical of modern design. Although design of furniture and inorganization and rationalization.” So this leads Kries to teriors was a matter of some importance to Steiner, it has consider what lies behind Steiner’s designs and how these proven to be far less so to later anthroposophists, espemight relate to the history of 20th-century design. cially after the 1930s. This topic is pretty much under “In developing his creative formal language,” writes the radar in the United States as an important aspect of Kries, “Steiner does not focus—as did, say, the Cubists or Steiner’s work, although it is somewhat more visible in Antonio Gaudi—on a visual section of nature (e.g., the Europe (especially since the recent books in German by motif of the crystal or that of the plant), but aims to make Reinhold Fäth, Rudolf Steiner Design [2005] and Dornach visible the universal laws that are at work within them.”

Design [2011]). The Vitra Museum, which after all is pri(p. 204) Steiner felt we needed not just reduced, abstract, 28 •

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“sclerotic” modernhave produced his prolific body of work. He asks, ist forms that only Doesn’t Steiner seem so contemporary to us precisely consider a person’s because he was a restless communicator, a catalyser physical needs, but of change and an initiator of processes, rather than a “a design that takes creator of individual objects? into account man’s He sees similar qualities in both Beuys and Eliasson, al‘occult physiology,’ though Steiner’s effect on art is less than his effect on reflected in his spirisociety through the institutions he founded. Although tual and emotional Ursprung covers only the most basic levels of similarity needs.” At last, among the three men, he finds such commonalities as use Zodiac Clock ca. 1920s, anthroposophical someone in the art of design to give coherence to a discontinuous world, a style world has clearly recsynthetic rather than analytic approach, pragmatic interognized Steiner’s real aims and achievement! However, he vention and implementation rather than abstract concepdoesn’t yet quite gather that Steiner’s faceted forms were tuality, “no fear whatsoever of vast dimensions,” emphanot “borrowings from the ‘mineral sis on process and catalyzation rather world’” but rather suggestions of how than finished product, a constant osthe etheric world works inward from cillation between abstract and conthe periphery, and that in forms such crete, and use of art to play a mediatas those of the Boiler House Steiner ing role between science, religion, and was not trying to imitate the plant everyday life. In fact, Steiner’s field of world but rather the functions of the action ranges both more widely and structure’s use. Kries adds that, almore deeply than that of the other though Steiner did emphasize skilled two. craftsmanship, manual production, The concluding essay by and use of wood, it is doubtful that Manuel Gogos, “Anthroposophy he rejected other industrial materials as a Cultural Medium,” explores as vehemently as his successors. This, the wide range of Steiner’s social he surmises, is primarily what led reform ideas, which “in terms of to the isolation of anthroposophical their diversity, substance and sustaindesign from official design history. ability” were unique. “In Germany, Kries continues to try to find some Austria and Switzerland,” he writes, parallels to anthroposophical design “finding an alternative subculture in the immediate postwar world, but Wardrobe 1920s, anthroposophical style not charged with Rudolf Steiner’s can really only connect to the new intuition can prove difficult….” He designs that began to appear in the 1990s—“flowing, opines that “Steiner’s originality lay precisely in the crossseemingly biomorphic shapes” and immaterial qualities, disciplinary synthesis of disconnected fields.... Steiner even if these are developed from computerized technologies, exactly calculated metamorphoses, and chaos-theory research. The difference in Steiner’s design is that it is always linked to theories and worldviews rather than pragmatic technical means. Yet, Kries asks, must we not humanize cutting-edge technologies?

In the fourth and final section, “Practice,” Philip Ursprung leads off with a provocative comparison between art and society in the work of Steiner, Joseph Beuys, and Olafur Eliasson. He sees in Eliasson’s contemporary mixture of artistic studio and scientific research laboratory an example that might provide some idea of how Steiner may Oswald Dubach Chair and Table for Perotti House 1930s, Dornach summer issue 2011

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Paul Schatz Invertible Cube 1930s, cardboard

Dornach Interior, 2010

was the diagnostician of a diseased civilization.” (p. 273) However, despite the social acceptance (in the Germanspeaking world) of many of Steiner’s practical ventures, this “is by no means evidence of the acceptance of the school of thought behind it,” which is still in a “state of intellectual quarantine.” Gogos then considers various manifestations of anthroposophy, such as threefold social theory, eurythmy, biodynamic agriculture, Steiner’s prediction of mad cow disease, and even Bircher muesli. He goes on to consider anthroposophical medicine, the history of Weleda going back to 1920, Waldorf education, and even the influence of Steiner’s ideas on the foundation of the German Green Party. He concludes that Steiner is “the secret forefather of the New Age.” The final pages present a year-by-year illustrated biography of key events from Steiner’s life, followed by a dense bibliography. Throughout these essays, and in generous “portfolio” sections between each of the four large sections, are many illustrations, primarily in color, including some interesting juxtapositions between anthroposophical artwork and documents and those by other innovative artists, designers, and public figures—408 illustrations in all.

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appeared in English. Apparently given free access to the Goetheanum and the Rudolf Steiner archives, the editors have assembled images of all kinds of anthroposophical documents, photographs, and artifacts either not previously published or quite difficult to find. We read, for example, of Albert Einstein’s reaction to attending a lecture by Steiner in 1911 in Prague, of the approximately 2,400 members of the German Theosophical Society when the Anthroposophical Society was first formed, and of the date Steiner terminated the rental of his Berlin apartment shortly after the Hitler-Ludendorff putsch of 1923 in Munich.

The two publications are already having an impact in German-speaking countries, particularly as 2011 is the 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s birth. For example, the popular exhibition and travel magazine Vernissage has recently published a special issue highlighting a series of public commemorative events and retracing key locations along the path of Rudolf Steiner’s life visitable with a rail ticket on the “Rudolf Steiner Express” (with an online English edition at http://rudolf-steiner-2011.com/vernissage.html). Although the Alchemy catalog in particular is clearly one of the most important books on Steiner to appear in English, it remains to be seen what its impact on the Englishspeaking world will be, both due to its focus on German-speaking cultures and its hefty price ($349.99 on amazon. com, although I bought a copy online from the Vitra Design Museum shop for “only” $145).

Jasper Morrison Wingnut Chair 1984

A Short Story of American Destiny (1909-2009) Kevin Dann, Fortunatus, San Rafael, CA, 2008, 156 pgs.

Review by Walter Alexander A Short Story of American Destiny (1909-2009), by historian Kevin Dann, for its modest 156 pages (plus nine pages of a biographical essay), is an ambitious book.

It “bookends” the twin 1909 celebrations in Burlington, Vermont and New York City of tercentenary anniversaries of the Samuel de Champlain and Henry Hudson 1609 “discoveries” (for westerners) of the lake and river now bearing their respective names with the especially significant quatracentenary year 2009. All of this serves as a superstructure for the much larger themes of the return of the etheric Christ and the incarnation of the Antichrist. That is a large sweep, and emblematic of Dann’s ambition to find in local, relatively recent events (Kevin Dann was teaching history at SUNY Plattsburgh not far from Burlington at the time) viable links to the mainspring of the cosmos.

Even though 2009 has come and gone, the subject matter remains current because Dann, via his mentor Robert Powell, sees that year—and specifically, the July 22 solar eclipse—as the beginning of a three-and-one-half-year period ending with the much ballyhooed terminus of the Mayan calendar in 2012.

Dann weaves among the various geographical and thematic locales, starting with the 1909 celebrations, which become in his skilled hands windows into a cusp between ages. These celebrations (in New York City, it was billed as a Hudson-Fulton event) were moments of great excitement—more over the Promethean sense of emergence for America as a power among nations, one seemingly born to wield the amazing emerging technologies displayed at them, than over the history itself. For

many, the New York City event’s highlight was Wilbur Wright’s daring 12-minutes total soaring over the Hudson in two flights of his “airship.” This first over American waters was viewed by more than a million astounded souls. Afterward, Wright spoke of being buffeted by winds swirling around Manhattan’s skyscrapers, among which was the new Singer building, the world’s tallest at 187 feet. On the river below him as he flew steamed a ten-mile long flotilla of international warships, bedecked later that night with thousands of electric globes. Similarly, 100,000 electric lights traced the outlines of City Hall, the Statue of Liberty, Grant’s Tomb, and the East River bridges. To the dazzled spectators, most of whom shared as their common experience the quiet hues of lantern-lit evenings and the nonmechanical clack of horses’ hooves on pavement, these were rays from the irresistible sun of a technological dawn. Dann calls the aeronautics/ electrical combo a “magical technological communion.”

When we wonder, free of any indulgent intoxication with our own progress, what a world without radio, TV, cinema, Internet, email, and such was like, we do well to remember Shakespeare’s “Full fathom five” lyric: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.

Which is to say that the rich and strange phenomena of radio, TV, and so on did not emerge suddenly whole out of the head of Zeus, but are externalizations of aspects of our psyche that manifested earlier, but in different forms. And what Kevin Dann shows, through his true summer issue 2011

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historian’s love of time’s receding minutiae, is a picture of ing the figures of Satan, assorted other devils, sorcerers, a stage in the evolution of human consciousness strongly ghouls, and spiders to yearbook decorations and carnival resembling our own—except shifted back a shade, and skits—but by their sheer volume telling us that they are also resembling a still earlier one where the differences still well entrenched in the community’s anxious heart. are substantial enough that could we juxtapose it with As counterpoise to the 1909 celebrations in New ours, the contrasts would be quite jarring. Think of a York City and Burlington, Dann soon introduces Ruconsciousness environment already well forward of that dolf Steiner’s Christology, spoken of by Steiner in talks in which produced the Salem witch trials two hundred years Cassel, Germany, simultaneously with these celebrations. earlier, but one still working at unconvincing itself of the This Christology of Steiner, since ambition has already reality of demons and spirits—in preparation for the cold been cited, ties all human history to the evolution of the categories of the arriving technological future.

Christ Being in the cosmos—which includes that being’s Dann’s exploration of University of Vermont yearuniting itself through an elaborate and long-unfolding books and celebrations going back to the early 1890s reprocess with the person of Jesus at the baptism in the Jorvealed a society fascinated by “Indians” dan and ultimately with the earth itself and a mythology around them, but not at what Steiner calls “the turning point yet really seriously interested in them. of time.”

The clash with native peoples, brutal That elaborate process is detailed especially to them, was still too recent. in Steiner’s spiritual science, and speFor parades and pageants, real “Indicifically in his astrosophy, a grand, overans” or folks dressed like them were abarching unification of the physical unisolutely essential, though real local naverse of planets, moons, and suns with tive Americans (Lenapes, for example) the beings (earthly, super- and subwere ignored and passed over in favor of earthly) associated with them and their representatives of tribes better known interconnections through time. Dann in mythologized fictions and photos focuses on the special significance of (eg, Iroquois). the three and one-half years mentioned Those parades and pageants, cenhere at the outset, which coincide with tral to the tercentenary celebrations, the span between the Jordan baptism were staged with intentionality—not and the crucifixion. Of that, Dann just as entertainments, but as vehicles quotes Steiner saying that in that part for the teaching of a predictably selfof Jesus’ life “he did not take a single serving/-aggrandizing historical narra- Wright Brothers’ 1909 “fly by” of the step without cosmic forces working in tive that served also as a unifying vision Statue of Liberty him” and that in that time “the total for the increasingly diverse and growing essence of the cosmos, to which the earth populations of the still-young nation. While the heyday belongs, determined what Christ Jesus did,” playing out a of American historical pageants was from 1910-1920, “continuous realization of his horoscope.”

Dann says, remnants of these spectacles, I assume, still To this cosmic/human drama, Dann adds mirrorsurvive in parade floats, Mardi Gras, and even some coling events in the New World among the Aztecs and their lege football half-time extravaganzas.

Toltec predecessors, including the known, horrendous What Dann’s exploration of the yearbooks, midwinblack magic-inspired ritual murders, and the less-known, ter masquerades with “Kakewalk” (derived from the twointentionally deceitful distortion of history reversing the step “cakewalk” dance craze of the 1890s), and parades identities of the good initiate Huitzilopochtli who, as told reveal about the psyches of the players is well worth the

by Steiner, in 33 AD defeated the luciferic Quetzalcoatl reading. We see elite white ethnocentrism both intrigued initiates. This characteristic ahrimanic misdeed, Dann and unconsciously intimidated by the unrestrained and writes, is a prelude to further twentieth-century dark re“primitive” strengths of African- Americans, Native alizations through Hitler and the atomic bomb, all culmiAmericans, Africans, Islanders, and immigrant populanating with the Antichrist’s 3.5-year reign in the present tions. At the same time we see emerging scientism relegatcentury, ending in 2012.

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The coming of Ahriman, Dann points out, is for our spiritual evolution. But the inability of contemporary people to think “mythically” about the plane of history when it is close to them, Dann says, may have grave consequences if it is not overcome. With the return of the etheric Christ in 1933 obscured by the ascendancy of Hitler, and with a largely one-dimensional War on Terror emerging as the principal offspring of 9/11, there is plenty of cause for worry. Dann writes, “We must also do battle on the inner planes, and call forth our inner Sun forces to overcome the eclipse that threatens our consciousness every day. Surrounded by both the web of lies spun by the black magicians of political propaganda and the web of virtual reality spun by digital technology, we are—whether we are conscious of it or not—players in a cosmic drama, a ‘star war.’”

Does the fabric woven by Dann create a whole cloth?

It is surely an interesting one, and one worth treading on (if not wearing) as a reader’s path because of its intelligent and clear exposition of themes rarely brought into relationship (i.e., history based on conventional documentation with that derived from clairvoyant reading of the akashic record via Steiner). But there is a disturbance in the weave worth observing.

With Rudolf Steiner, you always know where you stand with regard to where the knowledge comes from.

You are invited to listen to, via reading and study, what he says out of his spiritually acquired perceptions and faculties. Then, aside from having the option of embarking, if you so choose, on the journey toward developing similar faculties, you are invited to subject that content to unprejudiced judgment, or better yet, to temporarily suspend judgment and then see how it wears. Steiner, for many of us, survives the progression of seasons very well, though chronic head-scratching is likely to be a lifelong side effect.

In A Short Story of American Destiny (1909-2009), Dann first mentions Robert Powell on page 133, noting that Powell worked from knowledge of astronomy, out of Steiner’s indications, and with specific details about Jesus Christ from the nineteenth-century visionary Anne Catherine Emmerich. From these, Powell calculates exact month, day, and year for a further specific chronology of Jesus’ earthly life’s events, Christ’s subsequent life in the etheric, and matching astrological configurations. Powell’s insights, based on precise calculations, themselves based on Catherine Emmerich’s visions, are—through verbs such as “discovered,” “recognized,” “uncovered,”

“revealed,” and “determined”—presented as reliable facts that we are to accept.

In a subsequent entry to a blog on the “Evolver” website [at http://www.realitysandwich.com/christ_amp_ maya_calendar_2012_amp_coming_antichrist] and in private conversation, in both cases in response to the question “Was Powell able to read the akashic record out of his own faculties?” Dann affirmed that Powell had some clairvoyant experiences to which he applied his own methodology derived from astrosophy.

I found myself wishing for more clarity around this question, and I found myself uncomfortable with the precision of some of the provided “information.” It is hard to capture the quality of this discomfort, but the flavor emerges distinctly whenever enough detail is given to invite speculations as to which already known figure is the Antichrist or his/her messenger. There may well be such persons and events, but whether the identities matter as much as which profoundly living imaginations or what qualities of beings they are an enactment of is another worthy question. Glinting also from the hard, informational precision is a hint of mechanical determinism to which I am averse. Steiner often gave exact details out of his explorations into karma, but the details were never the point of the exploration, but rather guideposts toward an expanded and deepened beholding capacity—for us to wield in our further experience of the way the world works around, in and through us.

It isn’t until the post-scripted “Biographical Essay” that Dann tells us that Powell is his close friend and colleague, and that the book “owes its greatest debt to the understandings Robert has imparted to me over the last seven years.” That kind of statement, I feel strongly, belongs in a preface or introduction. The choice to delay revealing that relationship intensified my already mentioned discomfort over important details expressed as certainties, the source and rationale for which remain uncertain to me. The “Biographical Essay” is otherwise a loving expression of Dann’s respect not just for the work of others on which the book rests, but for the personalities themselves, who, like him, share in the gift of surrendering to the records and traces of lives, cultures and epochs—and who then bring them forth transformed to those who will listen.

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April 19, 2011

Dear Members and Friends,

The Anthroposophical Society in America General Council Members Torin Finser (General Secretary) MariJo Rogers (General Secretary) James Lee (at large) Virginia McWilliam (at large) Regional Council Representatives Ann Finucane (Eastern Region) Dennis Dietzel (Central Region) Joan Treadaway (Western Region) Marian León, Director of Administration & Member Services Jerry Kruse, Treasurer being human is published four times a year by the Anthroposophical Society in America 1923 Geddes Avenue Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1797 Tel. 734.662.9355 Fax 734.662.1727 www.anthroposophy.org Editor: John H. Beck Associate Editors: Judith Soleil, Fred Dennehy Cover design & layout: Seiko Semones (S2 Design) Please send submissions, questions, and comments to: editor@anthroposophy.org or to the postal address above. ©2011 The Anthroposophical Society in America.

The responsibility for the content of articles is the authors’.

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Yesterday I returned to the U.S. after a week of meetings capped by the AGM in Dornach this past weekend. As I walked toward the Goetheanum on Saturday the 16th, people were swarming up the hill from all directions. The great hall began to fill as long lines wound their way down the stairs on each side. In the end, every seat was filled, and the overflow crowd was accommodated in the Grundstein Saal below, for a total of over 1250 people. The meeting opened with a brief selection of music and then Paul Mackay welcomed everyone and introduced the program. Sergej Prokofieff, Bodo v. Plato and Paul Mackay each gave a brief overview of their work and hopes for the present and future. Members then proceeded to take up the eleven motions — a process that lasted the better part of the next twelve hours.

During the General Secretaries meetings in the foregoing days, a decision was made to place the controversial second motion (no confidence) first on the AGM agenda, as it was the most far reaching and needed to be addressed early on. The sponsor of the motion gave an introduction, and then members were invited to speak. The General Secretaries had asked that Hartwig Schiller (Germany) and I speak on behalf of the General Secretaries. (This was my first occasion to speak in German in the hall! A translation of this talk follows.) There were perhaps a dozen who spoke before the motion was voted on. Also by pre-arrangement, we had decided not to contest the wish for a secret ballot, and that was indeed affirmed by a simple majority. We then went on to the actual casting of ballots, which were counted during the break. To the relief of the overwhelming majority, the final tally was: 11 invalid ballots, 156 abstaining, 257 voting for the motion of no confidence, and 876 voting against the motion.

Motion #1, regarding seven year terms and reaffirmation of Executive Council members, was approved. Then the three Vorstand members were put up for affirmation, and all three — Paul, Sergej and Bodo — were reaffirmed with substantial majorities. Motion #3 was no longer as relevant since the name Goetheanum had been removed by prior action of the Vorstand, but the remaining aspect of the name use was still debated. 372 voted yes and 492 no, meaning the members chose not to restrict the freedom of the Vorstand to determine the uses of the name.

The Weleda motion (#4) brought forth more heat than expected, with many doctors, former employees, and members speaking to the need to hold a special meeting to fully address the future of Weleda.

From my perspective, there seems to be tension between the need to produce and maintain the quantity and quality of anthroposophical medications vs business survival and the dictates of the marketplace, which seems to favor the cosmetic line. Leading figures took different points of view, but in the end the membership at the AGM voted to

authorize a special meeting, to be scheduled at a future date, so as to more fully deal with the evolution of Weleda (note that the society remains a major shareholder).

Anthroposophy Worldwide will no doubt carry more on the other motions, most of which did not receive sufficient support to pass or were withdrawn. One of the reasons why the process took so long was that several times along the way there were procedural motions that had to be dealt with, as well as numerous speakers to each motion.

One key message that I brought from our membership was the issue of worldwide participation and voice in such crucial decisions. Paul Mackay introduced possibilities which the General Secretaries have only just begun to consider. They include options such as proxy votes, selecting delegates from each country, Skype or virtual participation, or having certain motions first go to the national societies before they go to the AGM in Dornach. There are pros and cons to each of these options. Some national societies have tried one or another option over the years, and the exploration is only just beginning. These questions go to the very heart of our work together worldwide and need to be considered carefully. There is also a growing sense that the circle of General Secretaries can play a stronger role in the future, referring to what Rudolf Steiner called the “expanded executive council”. We were certainly fortunate this last meeting to have country representatives join us as they usually do for the spring meeting, which added depth and breadth to our conversations.

We heard two moving reports from our friends in Japan and New Zealand. The earth quakes of recent months have changed the human as well as physical landscape of these two countries. From Japan we heard personal experiences of the quake. A scene was described where a group of 14 eurythmists, in full veils, joined the crowds on the streets of Tokyo during the initial quake; the fear of contamination in the weeks that have followed as the earth, air and water are poisoned; the dislocation and loss of so many lives. Added to this were the stories from Christchurch and the unfolding of the great mystery of human compassion. What struck me most was the interconnection of human destiny on earth as the General Secretaries made contributions to the presentations: there had been Japanese volunteers who were helping in New Zealand only to be called home when their own disaster struck. The events in Japan caused a sea change in the German political landscape with the Green Party (including some leading figures in the anthroposophical

movement) receiving the most votes in regional elections.

Sue Simpson spoke of the fund set up to provide therapy for New Zealand children experiencing trauma, and how contributions have flowed in from around the world.

Before closing this report, I would like to also share one aspect of the 150th as reported by Bodo v. Plato in the General Secretaries meetings. He said that a year ago, he would have been happy if the recognition given to Rudolf Steiner in 2011 would have been half of what was accorded to the celebrations around Kant. To his delight and that of many members, the recognition given Rudolf Steiner has far exceeded our expectations. Full length articles have appeared in many newspapers and magazines, public conferences have been held (including a very successful one in Bologna attended by over 900 people, most of them not members), celebrations in towns around the world, resolutions passed by governments etc. In his usual provocative way, Bodo then asked: What can we learn about ourselves from the images that the media have given us thus far this year? He went on to list four points, which could become the basis for member conversations: 1. There is almost universal agreement that the work of the movement, the practical results of anthroposophy as seen in Waldorf education, medicine, biodynamics, etc. is generally excellent. The movement in this year of the 150th has received high acclaim.

2. The image of Rudolf Steiner that emerges is of a remarkable man, someone hard to understand but a truly unusual person with exceptional gifts. The extensive biographies attest to the fact that one cannot reduce him to a mere news clipping—that his investigations are far reaching.

3. The message flowing back to us from the celebrations is that the Society is almost invisible, if not irrelevant.

4. The members are portrayed as somewhat strange.

These kinds of observations can spur us forward to really look at what we are doing, where we have been successful, and where we need to go in the future. How can the separate endeavors in the movement be better linked with each other and the Society? How can we foster the genuine human? In this time of budget cuts, how can we emphasize the vital contribution of the arts, such as speech and eurythmy, which are unique to our work? How can we support the work of the Goetheanum as a research and cultural center that goes far beyond the walls of the building itself? And finally, in light of our recent AGM and the summer issue 2011

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social/political/human challenges around the world, how can we awaken to a new sense of community?

I hope these questions can weave through the work of our groups and branches in the months ahead as we work with renewed energy on realizing the potential of Anthroposophy and Rosicrucianism in our time, which serves not only as our theme of the year, but the challenge the world has given us today.

Torin M. Finser

From a short presentation given at the Goetheanum at the Annual General Meeting on April 16, 2011 Dear Friends and Members, I am Torin Finser, a General Secretary from the USA. Our members have sent me with a message that has three essential points: 1. They want to be sure that the voices of members around the world are heard. Can we in the future

find a way that members who cannot personally be present can nevertheless take part and have a vote in decisions?

2. We have approx 3,500 members in the USA. In the past weeks, many have sent me emails as individuals or as members of groups, and of all those who have communicated with me, not a single person expressed support for the second proposal. In fact, many shared their sense of pain that such a proposal of no confidence would even have to be considered.

3. Many members have asked that we set aside the internal conflicts that at times divide us, and instead focus on realizing the mission of Michael on this earth.

Finally, I would like to end on a personal note, which should be understood not as sentimentality but which is for me at least, a truth. Our dear Dr. Steiner is still with us, especially in this birthday year. He is still waiting for us, waiting for us to realize the full potential of the work he started 100 years ago.

Torin Finser

New Members

of the Anthroposophical Society in America, as recorded by the Society from 1/6 to 4/13/2011 Gayle Adams, San Jose CA Nancy Kay Anderson, Lambertville NJ Roxanne Anthony, Philadelphia PA Diane E. Aurelius, San Francisco CA Tiffany Baer, Kensington CA Douglas Baker, Wilbraham MA Matias Baker, Fair Oaks CA Lorien Barlow, Nyack NY Patricia R. Barrett, Charlottesville VA A Dale Bell, Ann Arbor MI Rachel K. Berk, Glenmoore PA Hannah Bleier, New York NY Margarete Bodmer, Clearlake CA Giorgio Bolis, Pennington NJ David Brick, Yanceyville NC Kelley Buhles, San Francisco CA Adela Chan, San Francisco CA Ted Curtin, Plymouth MA Cheryl Czyz, Dana Point CA Jennifer Dadek, San Jose CA Tabitha Danloe, Tucson AZ Chester L. Davison, Dallas TX 36 •

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Margrit Englehartson, Lacey WA Chelsi Espinosa, Fairbanks AK Suzanne Faulkner, Pittsboro NC Kristine Fiskum, Spring Grove IL Michelle Frandsen, Salt Lake City UT Christian Matthew Gough, Brooklyn NY Janet Graaff, Boulder CO Paige Hartsell, Shipman VA Amy Hedtke, Fair Oaks CA Kelly Hiselman, South Hamilton MA Cecilia Hunter, Milwaukee WI Amy Jeary, Honeoye Falls NY Michael Jocson, Howard Beach NY Carolina Kaiser, Sheffield MA Ajay Karwal, Fremont CA Christy Klinecewicz, San Diego CA Linda Haas Knudson, Deerwood MN Karl Kowalski, Healdsburg CA Joncheng Kuo, Orangevale CA Abigail Larrison, La Mesa CA Ursula Leonore, Warren ME Allen Livermore, Ghent NY

Elic Llewellyn, Cary NC Carrie Mass, Portland OR Joyce Muraoka, Anaheim CA Jennifer Schmitt, Kensington CA Sarah Schreck, Glenmoore PA Norbert Schultes, Phoenixville PA Katrina E. Schultz, Sacramento CA Lewis Dupont Smith, Philadelphia PA Laura Sock-Nardelli, Northville MI Allysun Sokolowski, Sunnyvale CA Katherine Splain, Massapequa NY Cheryl Staal, Lowell MI Stuart Stelzer, Clarksville AR Jordan Stone, Tampa FL Tracy Thornton, Great Barrington MA Laurel Trahan, Pittsfield MA Dori Urch-Mead, Mountain View CA A. Catherine Vouvray, Austin TX Christiana Wall, Ghent NY Ondria J. Wasem, West Windsor NJ Christine Waters, Corvallis OR Wendy Werner, Kent WA

Lexie Ahrens

September 9, 1927–February 16, 2011

From the eulogy by Rev. Erk Ludwig at the Christian Community, Spring Valley, NY, February 19, 2011

Lexie’s life demanded much of her, and she lived up to the many challenges. She was born Elisabeth Alexandra Bjönness in Hamburg, Germany on the 9th of September 1927. Her relationship with her German mother was distant; the relationship with her Norwegian father, catastrophic. Lexie had reasons to be afraid of him. She went through so much fear that, as she expressed later, hardly anything in her adult life could make her afraid.

From the beginning, life took her through fear to fearlessness, from fearlessness to courage.

Her two sisters were born much later, so that actually she grew up alone, yet not entirely without warmth. For there was her grandmother, “Omi,” the saving grace in her childhood. In her presence, Lexie felt safe, nourished, loved. Due to the conditions and dangers of the Second World War, the family moved to Oslo, Norway in 1942.

There Lexie was in a place of much greater outer safety, but having come from Germany in the middle of the war, she was shunned by her classmates and others. This social isolation caused a deep, even existential crisis. Yet where the danger is greatest, there the rescuing power is, too.

Lexie found this power. The 15-year-old girl attended weekly lectures of anthroposophical content. Did she understand it? She certainly did, on a level deeper than the mere mental level. She received spiritual substance, “life blood,” that which gave direction to her entire life.

In 1950, in her 23rd year, Lexie went to England to take the Waldorf teacher training there, probably to gain distance from her father. But the wisdom of destiny guided her to where she met those individualities who were to play an essential role in her life and inner spiritual development, Maria Röschl and Ernst Lehrs. Outstanding scholars, scientists and spiritual researchers, they pursued the anthroposophical path with deepest loyalty to Rudolf Steiner, and Lexie experienced the earnestness of their spiritual-scientific striving. This deep connection accompanied Lexie until the end of her life.

In 1952, Lexie landed on the shores of this continent, ready to begin her work in Waldorf education. It was a difficult beginning. The first grade she taught at Green Meadow did not continue, and there were other problems of a social nature, as though destiny confronted her once more with the question, which Lexie answered: remain-

ing committed to Waldorf all her life. The important and far-reaching event of the year in Spring Valley was that Lexie met Ehrenfried Pfeiffer—a pupil of Rudolf Steiner in the deepest sense and even his friend, a true spiritual scientist and an innovator of human culture. Few recognized at the time who Ehrenfried Pfeiffer was; among them, Lexie. In deep friendship they remained connected, even beyond the death of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer in 1961.

Between 1953 and 1959, Lexie lived in Atlanta, Georgia. She married Tino Ahrens, a professor of physics whom she had met at the age of 12 in Germany. They had two sons, Hanno and Cristofer. Their births were the essence of those years. The marriage could not last very long. They separated, without losing sight of each other, continuing to honor and respect one another. With her sons, Lexie moved to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, to work as a teacher at the Kimberton Waldorf School. The short distance from Spring Valley made the deepening of her friendship with Ehrenfried Pfeiffer possible as well; his death in 1961 was for Lexie a shattering experience.

Perhaps it also strengthened her inner independence. In 1965 Lexie, together with two couples, all of them teachers, moved to Sacramento, California. The school there was about to fold. Lexie and her friends had come to revive the school. They succeeded to do so and to help develop the school further.

Ten years of fruitful work followed. How did this come to an end? Lexie has always been a good friend, but with her choleric temperament, she could be quite abrupt and judgmental, even about friends. About the end of her work at the school in Sacramento her own words were: “I became ineffectual.” Leaving the school cannot have been summer issue 2011

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without pain, but what weighed on her soul was the quesadventure. She moved to Bucks County in 1993. In the tion, expressed in her own words: “What must my colcourse of the preparation of the kindergarten, Lexie found leagues have gone through to come to the decision to let footprints, as it were, of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. Not far from me go?” This is how her sense of truthfulness spoke. where she lived there was Beverly Hall, the center of the The end in Sacramento opened yet quite a new chapRosicrucian Brotherhood. Forty years before, Ehrenfried ter, the title of which can be “The Grand Piano.” Lexie Pfeiffer had often been here as a guest, to take a break moved to San Francisco in 1975 and in 1976 opened the from his big work load and to have conversations about coffee shop on Haight Street named the Grand Piano, occult questions with Swinburne Clymer, the Grand from the family Steinway that somehow found its way to Master of the Brotherhood. In a building on the beautiAmerica and now into the coffee shop. There it was the fully kept estate of Beverly Hall, the kindergarten could central piece, and in frequent use. How can the Grand be opened which developed into the school which today is Piano be described? Lexie had the gift not only to decorate called River Valley School. Lexie was a kind of godparent but to penetrate places with beauty. The guest felt surof the school, always having the wellbeing of the school rounded by an atmosphere of beauty, warmth, and light. at her heart. Many individuals among the teachers and Here people could meet, here actual conversations could parents asked for her advice, came seeking conversation take place. In addition to concerts, there were poetry readwith her or to attend a study group she offered. The conings, lectures, Christmas plays, eurythmy performances tact with so many seeking human beings and the developand classes. The Grand ment of the school were Piano was a cultural fofor her a source of great rum of its own kind. It joy indeed. was sold in 1985, but The last few years Lexie Ahrens, Chestnut Ridge NY; died February 16, 2011 one can still encounter she spent at the FelThomas Braden, Keene NH; died February 11, 2011 people who speak about lowship Community.

Hanna Dreifuss, Torrance CA; died July 2010 their visit to the Grand She often expressed her Hilde-Maria Frey, Harrisburg PA; died February 7, 2011 Piano and about their gratefulness for what Eleanor Paul, Spring Valley NY; died September 3, 2010 meeting with Lexie. she received there. It beOne day a friend of longed to Lexie’s destiny Leslie Poindexter, Cincinnati OH; died December 28, 2010 Lexie’s was on his way that she had to find her Olga Porumbaru, Suffern NY; died December 23, 2010 out of the Grand Piano, way alone. As a child and a man stopped him and adolescent she was at the door and asked, “When will there be a Waldorf alone. She went to England alone, where, however, she school in San Francisco?” The friend had never seen this found her mentors, as she called them, and found in man before or since, but told Lexie, who had had similar Spring Valley the profound friendship with Ehrenfried experiences lately. The question had come to her: why was Pfeiffer. While she felt deeply connected with them even she where she was? Thus it was clear: it was not teachers after they had died, on the earth she often felt alone. She or parents who asked for a school, but the request was told a friend that the first word she knew was “aleine”— “in the air.” This is how the efforts began that led to the alone—and “it has been stuck to me ever since.” She had founding of the San Francisco Waldorf School. Lexie was many friends, but deep down she had to go her way alone. one of the founders, and essential among them. Looking This requires courage, and courage she had. back, Lexie said that the ten years of the Grand Piano Another motif is that Lexie was actually homeless. were the happiest time of her life. And also this time had Where was her home? She loved North Germany, longed run its course. for that part of the world, but left it at a young age. She After years of social work with AIDS patients, Lexie spent the happiest years of her life running the Grand was considering returning to the east coast. A friend saw Piano in San Francisco, felt almost homesick after she left a notice at Rudolf Steiner College from a group in Bucks San Francisco to be of service to Waldorf education in County, Pennsylvania who were looking for people with Bucks County. She was active on the earth, and she could life experience to help them start a Waldorf school. The be active because she knew her true home to be the spirifriend brought it to Lexie, who was ready for this new tual world. She is well prepared to enter into this world.

Members Who Have Died

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Hilde Maria “Little Rose” Frey Died February 7, 2011

From the Harrisburg PA Patriot-News:

Hildegard Maria “Little Rose” Lisa Frey of Harrisburg died February 7th at Forest Park Health Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A native of Göttingen, Germany, Hilde Maria was the daughter of Otto Frey and Dr. Gerta Stucklen Frey. She was the English language publisher, editor, and distributor of the enlightened artwork/poetry of Ymelda Hamann Mentelberg, a renowned European dancer and artist. Hilde Maria retired as a holistic practitioner and was the founder of Wellness Springs Chalet— an initiative for healing art modalities. She was a member of the School of Spiritual Science, The Christian Community, and for 44 years, the Anthroposophical Society in America. Founded by Rudolf Steiner, the Society cultivates the life of the soul through community. She helped pioneer Central PA groups and in 1995 was a co-founder of Susquehanna Corps de Michael—Anthroposophical Society in Hershey. She is survived by two sisters, Almut Scwerd and Eva Schumann, both of Germany, as well as kindred spirits of Susquehanna Corps de Michael and Anthroposophia Study Circle. Memorial contributions may be sent to: Anthroposophical Society, PO Box 717, Maytown, PA 17550.

From the Newsletter for the SE Pennsylvania Branch of the Anthroposophical Society, by Bernadette Warman:

Imagination at the Threshold: “Briar Rose” performed for ‘Little Rose’ The puppet troupe of Susquehanna Waldorf School (Marietta, PA) recently traveled to an elder care facility to offer a special performance of the fairy tale classic, “Briar Rose.” Typically, Susquehanna Waldorf puppet plays foster student imagination by bringing the magic and meaning of fairy tales to life. However, the recent production at Forest Park served to clarify how imagination can also prepare the ‘young at heart’ for the defining experience of elder life: crossing the threshold to higher worlds. Susquehanna Waldorf puppeteer, Carolyn Mogey performed for octogenarian Hilde Maria ‘Little Rose’ Frey, who was recently admitted to Forest Park Health Center in Carlisle (near Harrisburg), Pennsylvania. Members and friends of Susquehanna Corps de Michael—Anthroposophical So-

ciety in Hershey graciously assisted with set-up. As Carolyn performed, the tale of “Briar Rose” was narrated by Waldorf parent and Corps treasurer, Bernadette Warman.

Hilde Maria ‘Little Rose’ Frey, a founding member of Susquehanna Corps de Michael, called the performance electrifying! Post production discussions revealed Hilde Maria’s sensitivities regarding color, material and stage setting. Concurrent with the commentary, each puppet descended the stage in turn to meet with Hilde Maria, a seasoned puppeteer in her own right. As ‘Little Rose’ illumined the room with her observations, ‘Briar Rose’ approached the elder rose. ‘Briar Rose’ was then held close to receive a kiss. Further conversation centered on why puppet faces are intentionally left ‘blank’. Free of the fixed characterizations resulting from earthly stitching, the outwardly blank faces afford a suitably neutral backdrop for the inner projections arising out of each beholder’s living imagination.

There were many special moments, but a favorite was when ‘Little Rose’ reached out to kiss the frog—right on the kisser! She smiled and revealed a secret: she had dreamed of the frog the previous night... The dream afforded premonitory insight into a birthing process. In a remarkable example of imagination at the threshold, ‘Little Rose’ disclosed how the frog provided a signpost to the dawning awareness of a new life on the way. ‘Little Rose’ then asked to have her head and neck wrapped in the beautiful green, plant-died silk. She experienced this green not in connection with the earthly forces of growth, but with a ‘new pink’—the color of a fresh new life in the spirit. Ah, ‘Little Rose’ was in bliss as she bathed in the color of a coming spirit-life!

Puppeteer Carolyn Mogey, knowledgeable of the importance of this work for those in the later stages of life, was profoundly moved by the experience. She instructed us to always let them see first and discuss later.

Carolyn continued, this is how children experience the world; first they see, then words come later. And so it was.

What we all saw was true and living experience. Words seemed pale by comparison. There is nothing as rich and real as being there, with and for, each other. Our sweetest blessings to ‘Little Rose’ and all souls at the threshold to higher worlds. summer issue 2011

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National 150th Anniversary Fall Conference Rudolf Steiner’s Vision: How can we create a future worthy of the human being?

News & Events

How does Rudolf Steiner’s vision lead to a future world worth living in? How are we working to help create this world?

Anthroposophy helps us develop the forces needed to bring this about. How do we ensure that anthroposophy itself stays alive and keeps evolving? What will we think or do differently because we have participated in this conference?

These are among the questions that the conference planning committee has been living with over several months, with an eye to creating a conference that will bring anthroposophists together in the momentous 150th anniversary year of Rudolf Steiner’s birth.

Our enthusiasm has grown as we have identified a wealth of resources in our communities for addressing our questions. In fact, we find ourselves with an “embarrassment of riches,” and some difficulty finding time and space for all of the valuable offerings available to us. To put icing on the cake, the Youth Section and the Council of Anthroposophic Organizations will be gathering in Portland in advance, and have agreed to participate as well.

Our keynote speaker will be Virginia Sease, who will be coming to us from the Goetheanum especially for the occasion. We will also focus on the Foundation Stone Meditation, including special eurythmy performances, as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of eurythmy. We will bring Rudolf Steiner into the room with an artistic evening on Friday. A wealth of participatory workshops addressing many different aspects of anthroposophy, conversation, artistic activities, celebratory activities and good food will round out the weekend.

What You Can Do To help give a sense of the future, host a table to show how you or your community are working in light of anthroposophy.

Or to offer a sense of what Rudolf Steiner has meant to you, send or bring poetry or

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brief prose on the subject, to be posted at the conference. For either of these aspects, contact Valerie Hope, 2606 SE 58th Ave, Portland, OR 97206; 503-775-0778; valerieannhpdx@aol.com.

Bring or send anthroposophically inspired art work for an art exhibit. Contact Elizabeth Kennamer, 256-652-8336; bethkennamer@yahoo.com.

And join us in Portland, Oregon, October 14-16! Fliers and registration materials will be available in May. For more information contact the Society office at information@anthroposophy.org or 734662-9355.

Dates: October 14-16, Portland, Oregon

The Nineteen Lessons of the First Class and a Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s Birth Dear Friends, In order to acknowledge the many gifts we have received through Rudolf Steiner and to honor the 150th anniversary of his birth, we wish to convene as members of the School of Spiritual Science from August 7-12, 2011, at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California, for the Nineteen Lessons of the First Class. Classholders from both the U.S. and Canada, in cooperation with members of the Collegium of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, will present the nineteen Class Lessons in freely rendered form.

It will be a significant spiritual event to participate in three Class Lessons per day, and in this way enter deeply into every step of the unfolding path of the Michael School. Our anthroposophical work here in North America will be greatly enriched.

In addition, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s birth, a series of lectures focusing on Rudolf Steiner’s life and work, as well as artistic offerings, will take place in the evenings.

Also planned are times for conversations on important themes. These will be open to all members and friends of the Anthroposophical Society.

Astrid Schmitt-Stegmann Shawn Sullivan Patrick Wakeford-Evans MariJo Rogers Virginia Sease The Conference Committee Conference Cost: This conference of the First Class of the School of Spiritual Science is an important deed for the West Coast and North America. In order to bring this about, we estimate that all of the costs and needs can be met if each person contributes $350 for the conference. It is our intention to open the conference to any member of the School of Spiritual Science who feels called to attend. Since not everyone is able to pay $350, we ask you to contribute as fully as you can, hoping for more generous support from those who are able to provide it. Any contribution over $350 is tax deductible. We also welcome support from individuals or groups who may not be able to attend. The full amount of such donations is tax deductible and supports the working of the First Class.

A $10 donation per evening program is suggested for those who are not already attending the Class Conference. Pre-registration is not required for the evening sessions. Dr. Michaela Glöckler’s late afternoon discussions will be focused on the needs and questions of new friends and members and will be free of charge.

Please remember to bring your blue card for all Class Lessons. No cards are necessary for the evening events that are open to all members and friends.

Registration: The national office in Ann Arbor is handling registration for this conference. Please tear off and fill out the registration form from the brochure and return it to the address noted.

Our beautiful Stegmann Hall has limited seating, so we expect this special event to fill up quickly. Please preregister to ensure that there is a place held for you.

Please include a note regarding any special needs we should be aware of with your registration form.

Location: The conference will take place on the campus of Rudolf Steiner College, 9200 Fair Oaks Blvd., Fair Oaks, California 95628. Maps of the campus and surrounding community will be

provided, including information on local restaurants and services. There are beautiful walking trails through the biodynamic garden and along the American River nearby. The weather in August can be hot, but the humidity is typically quite low. Conference rooms are air-conditioned.

Questions: Contact Becky McGrath at 530.308.7251, rmcgrath333@yahoo.com.

We look forward to seeing you in Fair Oaks in August!

Dates: August 7-12, Rudolf Steiner College

1911: Rudolf Steiner in Italy and the Second Mystery Drama Rudolf Steiner had been invited to lecture at the Philosophical Congress in Bologna in 1911. He and his companions visited several Italian cities and took a rare vacation... Here is Guenther Wachsmuth’s account: For a period of recuperation from very strenuous activity and in order that Frl. von Sivers, who was accompanying Dr. Steiner, might recover from the results of an accident of many years earlier, a villa was rented for a period in Portorose, a health resort in the general area of Trieste. Here there were magnificent views in various directions and the possibility of excursions into the country and of a visit by a short steamer trip to Trieste, where Dr. Steiner could supply himself with books, and had the opportunity to inspect an extraordinary arrangement of the skeletons of the whole animal kingdom in the Museum of Natural History, a rare opportunity for visualizing the metamorphoses in evolution, to which he had many times referred.

Another source of special local scientific interest was the so-called “salt gardens,” into which ocean water was admitted, to evaporate rapidly in the heat of the sun, leaving behind ocean salt. Dr. Steiner later referred physicians many times to the healing power of this Adriatic salt. There were visits to Pirano, home of the famous composer and violinist Tartini, and to Aquileia, an ancient central point of Christian culture. Alexander Strakosch has reported very interestingly about this visit to Aquileia. He

wrote: “First we visited the Basilica, but the mosaics, a work of art of outstanding interest even by reason of its huge size of 20 by 40 meters, had not as yet been uncovered. After a short pause before the gigantic christening font in front of the church, in which the christening was still performed by complete immersion, we went to the museum. Naturally, we were concerned to distract Dr. Steiner’s attention as little as possible, but he beckoned me to him and pointed out a marble head of Socrates in a glass case. It is not a stylized presentation but quite natural. ‘Just see how like Tolstoi he looks,’ Dr. Steiner said. On the way to the station, which lay somewhat apart from the little town, the road runs through an open field; and, as we walked in a northward direction, the view opened upon the broad plain and the mountains, over which storm clouds gathered with the speed characteristic of the south. It was the hour of homecoming for man and beast after the day’s labors. Peasants came toward us, some with their tools over their shoulders, others driving homeward the weary oxen, harnessed to the yoke today exactly as in the Roman times. The people greeted Dr. Steiner out of a natural feeling of respect which the country people have not yet lost, and he returned friendly acknowledgment.”

Rudolf Steiner, in spite of his unusual external appearance—he was mostly clad in black and unconsciously stood out in the common run of persons through the measured dignity and confidence of his movements and gait and the marked character of his features—yet remained in con­stant friendly relation with all who came into contact with him, with peasants and philosophers, workmen and authors, simple people and scientists. Every one felt at once that this was a man who respected not only the outer but the inner worth of every person, who could establish contact with anyone without the need that either person should have to surrender or veil his individuality. In the atmosphere created by him there was an element of such kindliness and ease of approach that one laid aside quite unconsciously in intercourse with him

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the spiritual armor that must so often be kept ready in dealing with other human beings, and felt at once completely at ease, no matter what one’s disposition.

Seldom can a person of our time have called forth so much natural affec­tion and respect and also such frankness, merely through his presence.

Dr. Steiner was invited to lecture in Trieste, where he spoke on May 19 on The Secret of Death as Key to the Riddle of Life... in the hall of the Schiller Verein, which had been founded by the Austrian poet Robert Hamerling. Hamerling’s home had been in the same district, the so-called “Waldviertel” [“Forest District”] of Lower Austria, from which Rudolf Steiner’s parents also came. It was a work of Robert Hamerling whose perfection and imperfections helped to determine Rudolf Steiner’s decision as he was reflecting on the nature of artistic creation and of beauty and wrote his brochure Goethe as Father of a New Aesthetics in Vienna in 1888-89... He continued always to regard Hamerling’s writings with affectionate interest...

At the end of May, the decision was made to pause for a time in a moderate climate before returning from the southern latitude to the north. A villa was rented for several weeks at Veldes (Bled), on the Lake of Veldes, situated amid the beautiful mountain landscape between the Karawanken Range and the Julian Alps. From the house and garden, surrounded by meadows, a view opened across the lake toward the mighty mountain range, a landscape combining vast expanses with charm in unique degree.

Just at that time Rudolf Steiner was working at his second Mystery Drama, The Soul’s Probation, which, in its medieval scenes, is set in the period and the country of knights’ castles and monastic orders, and he told us later that the underlying experiences had been derived from spiritual impressions and history of the district of the Wechsel Mountains, situated in Styria.

This is the district where the knightly orders, the Moravian Brotherhoods, and the monastic orders confronted one another, and where also those primitive antimony mines were located which

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play a role in that part of the drama. The mountain landscape of the Karawanken Range, in the midst of which he was now spending a few weeks in May 1911, must undoubtedly have awakened the memory of that other moun­tain region so familiar to him...

At the end of May the trip was continued from Veldes to Carinthia, Styria, and Upper Austria... In the region of Klagenfurt was Mar­geregg Castle, owned

by Ritter von Rainer, a member of the Society. He was especially interested in new ideas in agriculture, and had made many experiments in the effort to obtain wholesome bread, for which Rudolf Steiner had given advice on the occasion of such visits. The agricultural movement which Dr. Steiner initiated on a large scale in 1921-24, was at that time still unborn...

After lecturing in Graz on his work, Knowledge of the Higher World and Its Attainment and on Evolution of the World and of Man, and in Linz on Karma and Reincarnation, he transferred his activity to northern Europe. Lectures in Copenhagen, from June 5 to 8, on The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind contained weighty indica­tions regarding the laws of evolution and events in spiritual history. In the preface to the printed edition of these lectures... Rudolf Steiner ...added that “he had reasons for allowing this work to appear just at this point in time.” The lectures proceeded from a description of the spiritual potentialities which man brings with him at birth, and show how these potentialities in successive world epochs have brought to the earth, through reincarnation, new impulses and forces out of man’s cosmic spiritual home. The planned spiritual guidance of the whole of mankind thus becomes visible. The intervention of the Hierarchical Beings and even that of the highest, the Christ Himself, effect in this way in the course of history even the changes that come about in the earthly constitution of the human race.

This working of the spiritual even down

into the earthly processes will in future have to be explored by humanity. Guid­ ance along this path is available; only, man must have the will to follow it consciously...

[In Munich], during the first half of July, the rehearsals went forward for the three artistic festival performances announced for August... Again the actors often received the final portions of their text from Rudolf Steiner during the rehearsal, while he was still com­pleting the second play at night. Many voluntary helpers worked day and night to complete the costumes and scenery. Then, near the middle of August, some 800 visitors from many countries arrived in Munich. On August 13, the festival dramas at the Munich Gartnerplatz Theater began, with Schure’s Sacred Drama of Eleusis by way of introduction.

On August 13, Rudolf Steiner’s first Mystery Drama, The Portal of Initia­tion, was performed; and on August 17, the second, The Soul’s Probation. In this second Mystery Drama the fact of repeated lives on earth is brought to expression on the stage, uniting scenes of medieval times with events of the present through the action of certain characters in both periods.

It was, indeed, a strange experience for the whole audience, after the performances had ended, to emerge from this entirely new kind of world, filled with Spiritual Beings, into the every-day life of the city. All were conscious that there was spiritual significance in the fact that a large number of persons—for the first time since the ancient Greek Mysteries— again went out into the world to unite a knowledge of the reality of the Spiritual Beings and Powers with the practical life of the century. In these Mystery Dramas, moreover, there appeared not only as formerly the remote, unfamiliar spiritual worlds; nor were these dramas to serve merely for the purpose of catharsis, but

they were to awaken in the beholder the realization that, within us, these Spirit Powers are in a conflict every moment of the day. It was with a new attitude of mind, therefore, new aims, that one consciously confronted one’s fellowmen, every ordinary phenomenon, and every ordinary task.

From Guenther Wachsmuth, The Life & Work of Rudolf Steiner, p. 156-9

2011: The Second Mystery Drama at Threefold Auditorium Barbara Renold, who has directed Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas since 1984, describes this year’s conference: In August 2011 the Spring Valley Drama Group will present Rudolf Steiner’s second mystery drama, The Soul’s Probation, on the Threefold Auditorium stage in Spring Valley, NY. The production will take place during the course of a special conference, August 17–21, to mark the 100th anniversary of the play’s first performance in Munich, Germany.

In this drama the reality of former incarnations is placed on the stage. We don’t only hear about the previous lives of the main characters, but see their actual life situations in the Middle Ages portrayed on the stage. We see how the deeds and attitudes of one life set the stage for the thoughts and relationships in another incarnation. The way the different characters of the drama react to the perception of their retrospect varies greatly and determines much of the continuing course of their present life. The real necessity to take on responsibility for former deeds is a challenge which only few are capable of fulfilling. For others, the perception of a former life is so daunting that they are unable to find their way back into their present life situation. In a time when it becomes increasingly difficult for human beings to find their true calling and destiny in life, The Soul’s Probation can show in archetypal pictures some of the spiritual challenges

that underlie this struggle. Even though reincarnation and karma are often popular subjects in our modern times, a true understanding and sense of the consequences of this knowledge too often are lacking. The struggles which Capesius, Johannes, Strader and Maria face are very familiar to those of people who live in the 21st century. What Rudolf Steiner placed in the stream of dramatic history 100 years ago, is probably more real now than then. We hope you can join us in working with and contemplating this astonishing dramatic work of art, 100 years after it was first given to humanity.

Details are online in the events listings at anthroposophy.org and you can register at www.threefold.org/events. Questions? Contact Barbara Renold, 845-3560674 or barbararenold@yahoo.com.

Dates: Wednesday–Sunday, August 17-21

Entering into the 21st Century Spiritually Report of the Third International English Conference at the Goetheanum, 2–7 August 2010 From the outset, last summer’s International English Conference at the Goetheanum had a strongly festive quality. Organized by Cornelius Pietzner and Virginia Sease, Entering into the 21st Century Spiritually was a thoroughly cordial, joyous, lively, and enlivening experience for the approximately 250 participants, who came to the conference from all over the world, not only the English-speaking regions. Every aspect of the conference was supported by the Goetheanum’s apparently inexhaustible staff, who went to great lengths to make each participant feel welcome and at home. They spoke English all through the week, a wonderfully hospitable gesture. The students in the Anthroposophical Studies in English program guided tours, served as door people, and answered innumerable questions with cheerful aplomb and kindness.

Entering into the 21st Century Spiritually also had the gracefulness, integrity, and spiritual depth of the true festival.

These aspects were especially carried

by the artistry which permeated the conference. Entering into the 21st Century Spiritually opened and concluded with artistic presentations; moreover, each day opened with artistic activity and closed with an artistic performance.

Even by anthroposophical standards, the artistic events were outstandingly fine—so fine, in fact, that they constituted a significant festival of the arts in themselves For example, the performance which opened the conference, Pieces in Color by Scriabin, was a wonderful interweaving of sight and sound, Alexander Scriabin’s music (evocatively performed by Hristo Kazakov) closely coordinated with a magical light-display (by the superbly talented Peter Jackson) that bathed the Goetheanum’s stage space in the colors Scriabin envisioned in connection with the tones. On both the technical and the artistic levels this performance was an awe-inspiring tour de force. Later in the week, Hristo Kazakov gave a completely accomplished, deeply insightful performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, another highlight event of the conference. Born in Bulgaria, where he received his artistic training, Mr. Kazakov is now entering into the international phase of his career. It was a true privilege and delight to hear this master artist in Dornach; efforts are underway to arrange a concert tour for him in North America.

The conference also included two stellar eurythmy programs—Mirror in the Mirror, given by the Goetheanum’s Eurythmy Ensemble together with Harwig Joerges (piano) and Nicolas Gadacz (violincello), under the direction of Carina Schmid; and Water Islands: Searching in Sound, performed by Maren Stott (eurythmy), Geoffrey Norris (speech), and Alan Stott (piano). Ronald Koetsch brought a genial and witty evening of stand-up comedy, Anthropo-Who?, and the drama Aeschylus Unbound: Stepping out of the Greek Mysteries into the Future of Theatre received its Goetheanum premiere, lovingly enacted by Laurie Portocarrero and Glen Williamson.

Like the artistic performances, the conference’s lectures, artistic workshops, and thematic groups encom-

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passed an exceptionally wide range in content and in style; and for this reason people of widely different interests, tastes, aptitudes, and learning styles found that Entering into the 21st Century Spiritually was directly meaningful for them. A sampling of the artistic workshops’ and thematic groups’ titles gives an indication of the diversity of topics and approaches that this conference provided: Nature Observations as a Spiritual Path with Johannes Wirz, Music Eurythmy with Silke Sponheuer, The Esotericism of the East (India) with Aban and Dilnawaz Bana, Contemporary Challenges in Biodynamic Agriculture with Andrew Lorand, Beyond Language: Rudolf Steiner in Translation with Marguerite and Douglas Miller, Beyond Survival with Paul Mackay and Philip Thatcher, The Power of Anthroposophy in the Darkest Corners with Kathy Serafin and Fred Janney, Parsifal and the Seeker of the Spirit Today with MariJo Rogers, Supporting the Karma of Illness in Anthroposophical Medicine with Molly and Quentin McMullen.

The conference’s enlivening spirit of inclusiveness and cosmopolitanism was enhanced by the fact that while it was underway, people of all ages and backgrounds—neighborhood children, family groups, visiting scholars, hikers with their rucksacks, miscellaneous tourists—were thronging to the brilliant exhibition, Color—Experience and Experiment, which then occupied every available inch of floor space and wall space in the Goetheanum’s rooms and corridors. As it happened, I was in the Goetheanum a good deal during the conference week, and so I saw for myself that throughout the Goetheanum’s open hours, from early morning all the way to closing time on every day of the week, visitors pored over the many ingenious and fascinating displays created by the exhibition’s organizers, Johannes Kühl, Nora Löbe, and Matthias Rang, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Goethe’s Theory of Color.

Authenticity was another hallmark quality of Entering into the 21st Century Spiritually. Speakers, group leaders and participants alike shared discover-

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ies and concerns that they had earned through their own lived experience, and they worked together to find genuinely constructive responses to the manifold challenges of our times. In this important aspect the conference reminded me of a passage in Rudi Lissau’s book Rudolf Steiner: His life work, inner path and social initiatives (Hawthorn Press, 1987): “If we make it our habit to link Steiner’s statements to the evidence of facts, to questions of our moral and spiritual existence, to our own modest spiritual experiences anthroposophy will no longer be an intellectual exercise but will spring to life” (p. 161).

All of these strengths came together in the festive final session. There was choral music—a beautiful offering by the participants in Astrid Prokofieff’s artistic group. Cornelius Pietzner gratefully acknowledged the conference’s outstandingly vast scope and diversity of contributions. And in the concluding lecture of the conference, Rudolf Steiner’s Indications: How Does the Christ Impulse Work Today? Virginia Sease expressed the wish that everyone who participated in Entering into the 21st Century Spiritually will take this experience “transformed into impulses to work for the Christ Being in the inner freedom which we have as our privilege during the Michael Age.” For many participants, these words articulated the spirit of loving, responsible integrity which informed the entire conference.

Jane Hipolito, Placentia, CA

Rudolf Steiner Library New Book Listings/ Annotations

by Judith Soleil Anthroposophy—Rudolf Steiner From the History and Contents of the First Section of the Esoteric School: Letters, Documents and Lectures: 1904–1914, (CW 264), trans.

John Wood, SteinerBooks, 2010, 493 pgs.

Rudolf Steiner was asked to give esoteric instruction immediately after his appointment as general secretary of the German section of the Esoteric School of Theosophy in 1902. This history of his teaching activities contains specific exercises he gave his pupils, primarily documented in letters. Taken together, the lectures, letters, and other content presented here provide a glimpse of the birth of the anthroposophical movement out of the theosophical movement of the 19th century.

Six Steps in Self-Development: The ‘Supplementary Exercises’, compiled

by Ateş Baydur, trans. Matthew Barton, Rudolf Steiner Press, 2010, 88 pgs.

Rudolf Steiner presented pupils with the “six exercises” very early in his work as an esoteric teacher, saying that they were capable of balancing any harmful effects of meditative practice and of lending the soul inner certainty and security. This helpful little book contains most of Steiner’s statements on the exercises, taken from throughout his lectures and works. With a chapter devoted to each exercise, they are described in detail and from different perspectives. Extensive notes and references make this a most valuable guide.

Strengthening the Will: The ‘Review Exercises’, selected and compiled

by Martina Maria Sam, trans. Matthew Barton, Rudolf Steiner Press, 2010, 105 pgs.

“Review and meditation can be seen as the two pillars of self-development which, with the supplementary…exercises spanning them like an arch, form the gateway through which we can enter into conscious experience of the spiritual realm…. [R]eview brings the sleeping experience of our daily lives to awareness” (from the introduction). A valuable handbook comprising Steiner’s indications for the review exercises from throughout his lectures and works.

Anthroposophy—Agriculture The Agriculture Course, Koberwitz, Whitsun 1924: Rudolf Steiner and the Beginnings of Biodynamics, Peter Selg, Temple Lodge, 2010, 193 pgs.

The indefatigable Peter Selg presents

here a study of the context for the eight lectures that launched biodynamic agriculture in 1924. He highlights Rudolf Steiner’s intentions for the course by drawing widely on available literature and numerous archival materials. Selg shows the vivid contrast between the health-bearing quality of these lectures and the concurrently emerging forces of cultural and political destruction that would lead to the Second World War. Cosmos, Earth and Nutrition: The Biodynamic Approach to Agriculture, Richard Thornton Smith, Sophia Books, 2009, 298 pgs.

The author states that the aim of this book is to create a bridge between mainstream science and Rudolf Steiner’s insights and suggestions, and to offer the wider organics movement a basis for acknowledging biodynamic concepts. He is also concerned to promote innovation.

Topics include the ecology of the farm organism; food quality and nutrition; planetary influences; seed quality; and the vitality of water, among others.

Anthroposophy—Architecture The Goetheanum: A Guided Tour of the Building, Its Surroundings and Its History, Hans Hasler, Sophia Books, 2010, 96 pgs.

The author first saw the Goetheanum through binoculars at age fifteen, and has since become intimately acquainted with the building and its environs. Here he presents a detailed “tour,” generously illustrated with color photos and architectural diagrams. This book provides an accessible introduction to anthroposophical architecture and design, and includes a bibliography for further study.

Anthroposophy—General Zwischen Himmel und Erde: Anthroposophie heute [Between Heaven and Earth: Anthroposophy Today], (DVD), Christian Labhart, dir., mindjazz pictures, 2010, 82 min.

This German film with English subtitles presents varying attitudes toward anthroposophy in interviews with seven individuals. We meet a Swiss Waldorf teacher and her class; a eurythmist who has become a political activist; a farmer-

pedagogue; a member of the Vorstand at the Goetheanum (Bodo von Plato); a young journalist; a European eurythmist who is the artistic director at the Sekem cooperative in Egypt; and a professional singer, a Waldorf graduate, who is conflicted about the role anthroposophy has played in his life.

Abenteur Anthroposophie: Rudolf Steiner und Seine Wirkung [Anthroposophy, an Adventure: Rudolf Steiner and His Initiatives], (DVD), Rüdiger Sünner, dir., Atalante Film, 2008, 110 min.

What is anthroposophy and how does it manifest in the world today? This German film with English subtitles visits important milestones in Steiner’s biography (Lower Austria, Vienna, Weimar and the Goetheanum in Dornach), Waldorf schools in Germany and Africa, and the anthroposophical [biodynamic] Sekem Farm in Egypt. Supporters and critics alike speak about Rudolf Steiner.

Anthroposophy—Death and Dying Laughing in a Waterfall: A Mother’s Memoir, Marianne Dietzel, Laughing Bridge Publishing, 2010, 277 pgs.

Laughing in a Waterfall is a mother’s story of her daughter’s life and death and of their continuing relationship. At age five, author Marianne Dietzel’s daughter Nina met her friend Kirsten. Thirteen years later, both girls were killed in a car accident.

After the accident in New York State, where Nina and Kirsten were attending a Waldorf high school, the support of the community in holding a home vigil for the girls gave Marianne courage to face her unfathomable loss.

This poignant memoir offers insights into how to create a new culture around the sacred threshold of death and keep a living connection to those on the other side.

Anthroposophy—Society The School of Spiritual Science: An Orientation and Introduction, Johannes Kühl, et al., Temple Lodge, 2010, 140 pgs.

This book aims to describe the nature, intent, and methods of the School of

Spiritual Science and its place in modern culture. It describes the school’s three prerequisites for membership and studies its connection with the Anthroposophical Society and the anthroposophic movement. It features descriptions of the various sections in the school, and practical information regarding the process for becoming a member.

Rudolf Steiner’s Research into Karma and the Mission of the Anthroposophical Society, Sergei O. Prokofieff, Temple Lodge, 2010, 46 pgs.

In this lecture, the author gives an overview of how the spiritual hierarchies and Christ, the Lord of Karma, work in the ordering of human karma. He discusses karma and the mission of the Anthroposophical Society, with indications as to what needs to happen before that karmic mission can be fulfilled.

Anthroposophy—Science Energizing Water: Flowform Technology and the Power of Nature, Jochen Schwuchow et al., Sophia Books, 2010, 117 pgs.

Research into energetic water quality—and particularly into the creation of molded surfaces that enliven water and support the biological purification of its chemical and organic elements—goes back to the pioneering work of George Adams and John Wilkes during the 1960s. The invention of “flowform” technology in 1970 carried this research further, providing the world with one of the first modern biomimicry eco-technologies. This book outlines the background of the research and the application of the flowform method today.

Anthroposophy—Society—Biography Adam Bittleston: His Life, Work and Thought, Kenneth Gibson, Floris, 2010, 265 pgs.

Recognized as one of the foremost theologians of the Christian Community in Great Britain, Adam Bittleston was a gifted writer, longtime editor of The Golden Blade, and a beloved spiritual counselor. This new biography is the first of Bittleston, and also contains a selection of his writings, including all his articles on Shakespeare.

summer issue 2011

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A residential community for adults with developmental challenges

We are a Rudolf Steiner inspired residential community for and with adults with developmental challenges.

Living in four extended-family households, forty people, some more challenged than others, share their lives, work and recreation within a context of care.

Daily contact with nature and the arts, meaningful and productive work in our homes, gardens and craft studios, and the many cultural and recreational activities provided, create a rich and full life.

• T H E A RT S • • MEANINGFUL WORK • • R E C R E AT I O N •

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l u k a s c o m m u n i t y. o r g

SteinerBooks order phone 703.661.1594 www.steinerbooks.org The School of Spiritual Science An Orientation and Introduction Johannes Kühl, Bodo von Plato, et al.

ISBN: 978-1-90699-916-2 $24.00, paperback, 144 pages

In 1924, Rudolf Steiner established the School of Spiritual Science within the framework of the newly reestablished Anthroposophical Society. This book represents a beginning attempt at describing the nature, intent, and methods of this pioneering school and its place in modern culture. It describes the school’s three prerequisites for membership and studies its connection with the Anthroposophical Society and the anthroposophic movement. It also examines the role of its “First Class” in relation to Steiner’s original intentions and the responsibilities of its representatives.

The bulk of the book involves descriptions of the various sections in the school, contributed by those who are currently their leaders. These descriptions indicate how the school connects with daily work in various areas of life, in keeping with an esotericism based on the idea that “life and its depths can be confronted in the most energetic way.”

being human

Understanding Ourselves as Embryo 4 DVD Set with Jaap van der Wal, PhD, MD

• COMMUNITY SPIRIT •

For information regarding placement possibilities, staff, apprentice or volunteer positions available, or if you wish to support our work, please contact us at:

46 •

Embr yo In Motion

This seminar explores how human prenatal development expresses the essence of human spiritual unfoldment. Understanding the stages of embryological development provides a basis for therapeutic recognition of embryological forces in all later stages of life. This seminar is a rare opportunity to hear a world authority on modern embryology through a unique synthesis of scientific and spiritual principles.

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PortlandBranch.org

A History of the School of Spiritual Science The First Class Johannes Kiersch Translated by Anna Meuss ISBN: 978-1-902636-80-1 $50.00, hardcover, 288 pages

The School of Spiritual Science and its individual sections was initiated by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference (1923–1924). His intention, in his own words, was to present “the esoteric aspect.” It was to have three classes, though only the First Class was instituted before Steiner’s death in 1925. Recently, the written records on which the teaching of the First Class is based have been published in both German and English, which has given rise to a number of questions. Presented here is an overview of the First Class and its development, from the early esotericism developed by Rudolf Steiner while still connected with the Theosophical Society, to the period following World War II. The author provides individual commentaries on the first “mediators” of the school, including Lili Kolisko, Harry Collison, and Count PolzerHoditz. The book also presents some thirty-seven original documents in an extensive appendix, which features personal notes, letters, and speeches connected with the Esoteric School.

Johannes Kiersch presents a balanced history of the birth and development of the First Class and its struggles that followed Steiner’s death. As Kiersch states, “The aim has been, above all, to come as close as possible to the sources and offer historical material for individuals to form their own opinion.”

LILIPOH Special Edition

SOCIAL RENEWAL:

centerpoint

Fifty Years of Camphill in North America

Articles covering the founding and diversity of Camphill communities in North America.

Camphill Communities’ impact extends beyond the communities themselves to families, friends, neighbors, local tradesmen and professionals.

The communities are stewards of more than 2,500 acres of land, applying organic and biodynamic methods to bring harmony and healing to the earth. The issue includes a timeline of communities, articles and stories from the communities, plus photos and poetry.

ANTHROPOSOPHY NYC LECTURES, WORKSHOPS, ART EXHIBITS, FESTIVALS, STUDY GROUPS

RUDOLF STEINER BOOKSTORE

Works of Rudolf Steiner and many others Spiritual research, Waldorf education, personal growth, Goethean science, Biodynamic agriculture, holistic therapies, the arts, and more

www.asnyc.org SUMMER/FALL HIGHLIGHTS

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June 12, Sun 11am–5pm - Phoebe Alexander: Color & Meaning/Color as a Language of the Soul Water Color Painting Workshop June 15, Wed 7pm - David Anderson - Architecture June 18, Sat 1pm - Dan Mackenzie – Open Saturday: Creating Your Own Program for Spiritual Training: A Crash Course June 19, Sun 9am - Far-Outing to “Pacem In Terris,” in Warwick, NY, Frederick Franck sculpture garden June 25–26, Sat/Sun 10am–5pm - Martha Loving: Light, Darkness, Color: Watercolor/Meditation Workshop June 25, Sat 7pm - Phoebe Alexander - Goethe’s Colored Light Experiments June 26, Sun 8pm - Peter Selg: Rudolf Steiner as a Spiritual Teacher

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Sept 17, Sat 1pm - Carole Johnson & Serguei Krissiouk: Open Saturday: Nutrition & the Spirit, pt 2 Oct 1, Sat - Michaelmas Festival Celebration Oct 27, Thu 7pm - Georg Kühlewind Memorial Lecture: Fred Dennehy the New York Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in America 138 West 15th Street, NY, NY 10011 (212) 242-8945

summer issue 2011

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Transform your life!

Teacher Preparation and Summer Study

Week-long Summer Courses July-August 2011

Become a Waldorf Teacher!

Study, Relax, Renew!

We offer courses for teachers and for those interested in learning more about Waldorf education. Check out our website for this summer’s inspiring line-up of courses.

Preparing for the Grades 1-8, Early Childhood courses, topics for Middle School & High School educators, & courses for teacher development & inner practice & more!

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Waldorf Early Childhood Teacher Education Next cycle begins summer 2012 Program Director Susan Howard

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We are committed to the transformation of the whole food system, from farm to table, drawing inspiration from the spiritual-scientific insights of Rudolf Steiner, from which a holistic form of organic farming called biodynamics has been developed that continues to grow and evolve around the world