Book Reviews

Integral to the formation of our solar system and its planets, Bosse then presents basalt. We begin to discern a fundamental difference between basalt and granite. This section ends with chapters about the nature of time. Once more, I will revisit these few pages from now on; sense of time now goes far beyond my scientific training about radioisotopes.

The formation of the solar system in space and time. Granite and its relation to living substance versus basalt, which covers the ocean floors and lies beneath granite on the continents. Bosse has set the stage for the third section of the book that he has titled, “The Separation of the Nature Kingdoms from the Human Being.”

I was able to follow section three with the help of Bosse’s time charts; chapters set out the Earth’s history in chronological order, beginning with the Polarian epoch of Old Saturn and on through to the present. Starting with mere suggestion of any form, on into gelatinous, albumen- like, watery-airlight-filled environments and the myriad variations of transformations from liquid and gaseous forms of elemental fire, air, water, and earth to the more solid form of today’s Earth. In contrast, basalt holds no direct history with living beings. With this everincreasing density that took aeons to evolve into the solid planets as we know them now, Bosse’s premise is that granite formed within the etheric realm as did all living things surrounding the earth, and then eventually came to rest on its surface. In contrast, basalt makes up the planet that it fell to.

This third section, chronologically organized by epochs, encompasses the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, including various combinations of these kingdoms. Bosse illuminates how their origins and evolutions relate to this magnificent comprehension of granite and how completely different its origin is from basalt.

The majority of photos in the book are from Bosse, and he created his own charts. In addition, interspersed throughout the book are quotes, paintings, and drawings from Steiner that increase in number as Bosse’s story progresses. Bosse has created a reiteration of Steiner’s cosmology embedded in his geological knowledge and insights. In particular, he includes Steiner’s paintings of the earlier epochs that are also found in the book by Hilda Raske about the First Goetheanum. Synchronously, I was reading Raske’s book while reviewing this one - a bonus geologic perspective that deepens study of the hierarchies.

Bosse ends the book with a concise and useful summary of Goethean observation. This ending holds the eloquence of a seemingly simple yet deeply wise suggestion—that I can observe our world with Goethean methods and experience a true education, different from what I recall memorizing by rote in a physical sciences course. True wealth. Thank you, Dankmar Bosse, for this gift.  of Him … found Him again within, in the feeling and experience of sorrow and pain.” 19

In the same lecture, Rudolf Steiner speaks of the relation of pain and sorrow to spiritual knowledge:

“All true and great understanding is born of pain and sorrow. If one seeks to follow the path into higher worlds by those means of knowledge described in Anthroposophy, then one can only reach one’s goal through an experience of pain. Without suffering, without suffering a great deal and having thereby become free from that element in pain which drags one down, one cannot come to know and understand the spiritual world.” 20

To experience fully the tragedy of Rudolf Steiner’s death, to be willing to endure the pain of this tragedy, is to create an inner space allowing for a certain quality of relation to him in spirit.

To experience this pain and sorrow is to open oneself to accompanying him in the reality of that tragedy, to accompany him in his loneliness of soul.

To become aware of the magnitude of this tragedy can be deeply disorienting. One can easily feel lost and rudderless, without a clear path forward for Anthroposophy.

But we are still left with the mystery of the final impulse that Rudolf Steiner gave us: the “Foundation Stone of Love” and its Meditation as a ground for a community of individuals united in spirit and in the striving to provide an earthly home for the spiritual stream of Anthroposophy.

Rudolf Steiner left us some words of encouragement:

“[The spiritual stream of Anthroposophy] will continue to exist in earthly life only when human beings can remain faithful to it. Otherwise it will continue to exist apart from earthly life. Yet it will go on existing in connection with life on earth if human beings find the strength in their hearts to remain devoted to it.” 21

There are some who believe that with Rudolf Steiner’s death, his final impulse had clearly failed, and that he has separated from the Anthroposophical Society.

Others believe that the Christmas Conference guaranteed the eternal and unconditional unity of the Society with the pure spiritual stream of Anthroposophy and with the being of Rudolf Steiner.

But is there yet a deeper dimension to this situation, a third way of seeing it?

In our age of freedom, there can be no automatic and unconditional unity when it comes to this spiritual impulse, which Rudolf Steiner called “a New Turning Point of Time.” 22 And is it not true that we can unite spiritually only with what we are willing to prepare ourselves to accompany in soul – with what we are willing to make spiritually real within ourselves? And would this uniting not require a continuous striving, even an embodied striving, to preserve the living unity?

A candle flame will not burn forever on its own; its life depends on the care of the substance in which it has been enkindled. And yet, even if a candle has been neglected and its flame extinguished, it can still be rekindled by another candle whose flame has been tended.

In The Philosophy of Freedom , Rudolf Steiner explores the question: Do we have freedom of will?

The answer is not a simple Yes or No. The answer is: We have the potential to become free, but it all depends on how we cultivate our inner activity and consciousness .

In the same way, it only makes sense that this final mystery and impulse of life given by Rudolf Steiner would now live as a potential that depends on our inner activity in order to find its way into earthly conditions, to be made real.

This mystery is the paradigm of how to raise our soulforces closer to their true archetypes, so that we may, as the Foundation Stone Meditation enjoins us, truly live, truly feel, and truly think.

To truly live:

Practice spirit-remembering , in depths of soul, where in the wielding World-Creator-Being, your own ‘I’ comes to being in the ‘I’ of God.

To truly feel:

Practice spirit-sensing , in equanimity of soul, where the surging deeds of world-becoming unite your Continued from page 15

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