arts & ideas IN THIS SECTION: More than thirty years ago Virginia Sease was called to the Goetheanum’s Executive Council where she brought a US-American and English-language perspective; now she turns the mirror back onto this side of the Atlantic. Terry Hipolito brings his own breadth of vision to a review of Robert McDermott’s masterful cultural survey Steiner & Kindred Spirits. Out on our Pacific coast a strangely significant European named Kaspar Hauser was remembered last fall; Penelope Baring tells us why. Our Gallery celebrates the inspired work of the Free Columbia Puppet Troupe. Free Columbia was also central to an installation called the Lazarus Project; included was an opera of sorts leading thoughts from ancient Egypt to tomorrow, from smartphone to “artphone” to “heartphone.”
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being human
Why Anthroposophy Needs America a reflection by Virginia Sease At the Annual General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society in America, in the Threefold Auditorium in Chestnut Ridge, NY, on October 8, 2016.
Dear Friends, we have at some time in our life decided to become members of the General Anthroposophical Society, which actually means the Universal Anthroposophical Society, because this society is for universal humanity. Within this universal society we may experience especially two aspects which belong to all countries, all peoples of the world today. But they will manifest in a manner which expresses the specific circumstances of their language, their geographical location, their nation or people. We will focus on America but mainly upon the United States of America. The one aspect is anthroposophy, which could come to expression as philosophy, as a huge body of knowledge reaching into many artistic, scientific, and practical directions initiated by Rudolf Steiner. The other aspect concerns the nature of the being of anthroposophy. Rudolf Steiner described this being in The Hague on November 18, 1923 at the founding of the Anthroposophical Society in Holland. Later in 1924 he added further characteristics. For me, it is somewhat amazing that Rudolf Steiner only brought this description ten years after the formal founding of the Anthroposophical Society, from February 2 to 4, 1913, following the separation from the Theosophical Society. We may consider the ten years as a period of grace to allow the new impulses to be born and to become somewhat established. First we will look at a part of the very lengthy report of this event from February 2 to 4, 1913 in the News for Members, edited by Mathilde Scholl. With all the forces of the intellectual or “Gemüt” soul the super-human being, Philosophia, was taken hold of by a departing cultural epoch. She [Philosophia] was regarded as a being passing in the flesh among people; but however becoming more and more pale and shadow-like, this most splendid figure [Philosophia] seemed to appear to a then forward-striding modern humanity of the 5th cultural epoch ... But there is a new Sophia which is now approaching the longing of a new culture ... Not Philosophia, the child of the intellectual soul—but Anthroposophia, the daughter of a higher level of knowledge, Spirit Self. Deeply embedded into our human consciousness soul, woven with the forces of our own I-being, thus we see how that seed as Anthroposophia has to fulfill its earthly destiny.1 It seems very important now, in retrospect, to perceive exactly how Rudolf Steiner approached this particular theme at the end of the lecture in Holland. First he mentions how essential it is to not only read or to listen to anthroposophical knowledge but to experience the content of anthroposophy with our heart, with our Gemüt [this is difficult to translate; perhaps “heart-warmed thinking”—VS]. Then, more and more, anthroposophy appears to us as something living, as having beingness. We will become aware of how something knocks on the door of our heart with anthroposophy and says: “Let me in, because I am you yourself; I am your true human-beingness” [German: Wahre Menschenwesenheit]. Anthroposophy does not just want to tell us something, but with this true human-beingness anthroposophy wants to fill the human soul and the human feeling [Gemüt]. Then, when we let Anthroposophy into our heart after she has knocked, then Anthroposophy brings to us, through what she herself is, true human love.”2 1 [transl. V.S.] “The Hour of Birth of Anthroposophy or the New Sheath for Immortal Spirit Form.” [“Die Geburtsstunde der Anthroposophie oder der neuen Hülle für die unvergängliche Geistgestalt.”] Mitteilungen für die Mitglieder der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft (1913-1914), No. 1, zweiter Teil, April 1913; (hrsg. Mathilde Scholl), S. 331. Not yet available in English translation. This quotation was not mentioned in the lecture at the Annual General Meeting in October 2016. (V.S.) 2 Rudolf Steiner. The Supersensible Human Being, Conceived Anthrosophically, CW 231, Dornach 1999, Lecture of 18 November 1923.