NEWSLETTER

Anthroposophical Society in America

Summer 1984
Published by the Anthroposophical Society in America for its Members

Co n t ent s
Rudolf Steiner Gundhild Bock Kacer Christof Lindenau George ONeil and Gisela ONeil How Do I Find the Christ? (Oct. 16, 1918) The Anthroposophical Society: Name and Task of Members Groups A Historical Study Toward a Spiritual Practice of ThinkingA Guide for the Study of Anthroposophy. Part I, The Task How to Read a Book: A Study of Rudolf Steiners Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, Part VI PUBLICATIONS Brian Gray Barbara Betteridge Alice Wulsin Kenneth Melia Magda Lissau Patricia Kaminski Douglas Sloan Gisela ONeil David Bittleston Maria St. Goar Ruth Mariott Malcolm Gardner Gisela ONeil Stewart C. Easton Rudolf Steiner: The Tension Between East and West Rudolf Steiner: The Cycle of the Year as Breathing Process of the Earth Rudolf Steiner: An Occult Physiology Wolfgang Schad, Ed.: Goetheanistische Naturwissenschaft Vol. 3, Zoologie H.D. van Goudoever: A Contemplation About Rudolf Steiners Calendarof the Soul Rudolf Steiner: Man in the Past, the Present and the Future. The Sun Initiation of the Druid Priest and His Moon-Science Rudolf Steiner: The Art of Lecturing Heinz Mu eller: Healing Forces in the Word and Its Rhythms B. Masters & D. Bittleston, Ed.: Child and Man A. Bittleston & D.T. Jones, Ed.: The Golden Blade 1984 Harald Falck-Ytter: Polarlicht William R. Fix: The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution Hermann Koepke: Das neunte Jahr Geoffrey Ahern: The Rudolf Steiner Movement and the Western EsotericTradition MEMBERSHIP M. K. Maulsby Kimball at Eighty New Members and Members Who Have Died REPORTS D. Adams & S. Usher D.R. Dauenhauer Maria St. Goar Barbara Betteridge Patricia Kaminski L.F.C. Mees Rudolf Steiner Promotion Efforts of the Anthroposophic Press Anthroposophic Efforts in Seattle, Wash. The Southeastern Regional Group: Overcoming Isolation Mystery Play Performance in Los Angeles at Easter Eighth Annual Spring Conference in Fair Oaks, Calif. A First Impression of America On Plagiarism: The Story of Max Heindel (June 10, 1917) 28 28 29 29 30 30 31 26 27 16 16 17 18 19 19 19 20 21 21 22 22 23 24 2 4 9 13

NOTES Notes, Programs, Announcements 32

How Do I Find the Christ?

by RUDOLF STEINER Zurich, October 16, 1918
This is the last section of the lecture, How Do I Find the Christ, translated by Henry & Lisa Monges, published in 1941 by the Anthroposophic Press.

We live in the fifth post-Atlantean period and have advanced far into it, we live in the twentieth century. The consequence is that, when we as souls are bom, and enter the world of the senses from the supersensible world, we have experienced something in the spiritual world cen turies before. Just as the contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha gained, centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha, a complete understanding of it, so did we experience, while still in the spirit world, a kind of reflected image of the Mystery of Golgotha, before we were born, centuries before we were born. But this is valid only for the human beings of the present age. Present-day human beings bear within themselves, when they are born in the physical world, a kind of reflected splendor of the Mystery of Golgotha, a kind of reflected image of the experiences human beings had centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha. Certainly, this impulse cannot be perceived directly by someone who has no supersensible vision; but every one may experience the effect of this impulse within himself. And if he experiences it, he finds the answer to the question: How do I fin d the Christ? You find the Christ if you have the following experi ences: First, the experience of saying to yourselves: I shall strive for self-knowledge as far as it is possible for me to do so as an individual human personality. But nobody who honestly strives for this self-knowledge will, as a human being of today, be able to say anything but the following: I cannot comprehend what I am striving for. My power of comprehension lags behind my striving; I feel powerless in regard to my striving.This experience is very impor tant. This experience of a certain feeling of powerlessness everyone should have, who takes honest counsel with himself on self-knowledge. This feeling of powerlessness is healthy, for it is nothing but the sensation of disease. For, when we have a disease and do not feel it, we are just that much more ill. By realizing our powerlessness to raise ourselves to the Divine at any time in our life, we feel implanted within ourselves the disease we have described. And in feeling this disease we feel that the soul would be condemned by the body, as it is today, to die with the body. If we feel this powerlessness strongly enough, the change comes. Then there appears another experience which tells us that if we do not surrender to what we are able to gain only through our bodily forces, but if we devote ourselves to what the spirit bestows upon us, we may then overcome this inward soul-death. We are permitted to have the

possibility of finding our soul anew and joining it to the spirit. On the one hand, we may experience the futility of existence, and, on the other, the glorification of existence out of our own self, if we transcend the feeling of powerlessness. We may feel the disease in our lack of power, and we may feel the Healer, the healing power, if we have felt the powerlessness, and have become related to death in our soul. In feeling the Healer we feel that we bear something within our soul which can rise from death at any time within our own inner experience. If we search for these two experiences, we find the Christ in our own soul. This is an experience which humanity approaches. Angelus Silesius stated it in speaking the significant words: Christ cannot redeem thee The Cross of Golgotha from Evil can neer redeem thee, So long as it remain unraised within thee. It may be raised within us when we feel the two poles:
Powerlessness through our body, resurrection through our

spirit. This inner experience, consisting of these two parts, is that which draws us toward the Mystery of Golgotha. This is an event, in regard to which we cannot excuse ourselves by saying that we have no supersensibly developed facul ties. We do not need any such thing. We need merely actual self-knowledge, and also the will to combat pride, a fault which is so very common today, and which prevents the human being from observing that he becomes proud and haughty in respect of his own forces as soon as he depends upon them. If, with regard to our own pride, we are unable to feel that we have become powerless through our own forces, we are then unable to feel either death or resurrection; we shall then never feel the thought of Angelus Silesius: The Cross of Golgotha from Evil can neer redeem thee, So long as it remain unraised within thee. But, if we are able to feel powerlessness and recovery from it, we have the great good fortune of really having an actual relationship with Christ Jesus. For this experience is the repetition of what we experienced centuries pre viously in the spirit world. Thus we have to search for it in our soul here on the physical plane in its reflected image. Search yourselves, and you will find powerlessness; and after having found it, you will find redemption from it
the resurrection o f the soul by the spirit.

But do not let yourselves be misled in these matters through what is preached today by mysticism or even by certain positive confessions. If Harnack, for example, speaks of the Christ, his statements are not true, for the simple reason that what he says about the Christread it yourselves!may be said of God in general. What he says may just as well be said of the God of Jews, and just as well

of the God of the Mohammedans, of every God. Many people who today claim to be spiritually awakened say: I experience God within me but they only experience God the Father in a very weakened form, because they do not perceive that they are ill, but merely base their words on tradition.... Yet such people have no Christ; for the Christ-experience is not the realizing of the God in the human soul, but consists of two experiencesthe death of the soul through the body, and the resurrection of the soul through the spirit. And anyone who tells mankind that he feels not only the God within himself, as it is also claimed by the merely rhetorical theosophists, but who is able to describe two experiencespowerlessness and the resur rection from itonly such a person describes the true Christ experience. And he will find his way to the Mystery of Golgotha on a supersensible path; he himself will find the strength which stimulates certain supersensible forces and which will lead him to the Mystery of Golgotha. There is no need today, my dear friends, for giving up hope to find the Christ in ones direct personal experience; for we have found Him, if we have recovered ourselves from powerlessness. The whole feeling of nothingness, of futility, which comes over us when we, without pride, ponder over our own forces, has to precede the Christ impulse. Clever mystics believe they possess Christianity when they are able to say: I have found within my ego the higher ego, the ego of God. But this is not Christianity! Christianity must be based upon the sentence: The Cross of Golgotha from Evil can neer redeem thee, So long as it remain unraised within thee. Even the details of life make us feel the great truth of what I say, and we may rise from them to the great experience of powerlessness and the resurrection from it. My dear friends, it would be beautiful, especially in our present age, if human beings would, for instance, discover the following: There exists quite definitely a tendency toward truth, rooted deeply in human souls, and the intention to utter the truth in words. But just at the point where we intend to utter the truth, stop for a moment in order to think about this utterance of the truth, we make the first step on the path leading to the experience of the powerlessness of the human body in regard to Divine Truth. At the moment you actually practice self-knowledge in respect of speaking, you will hit upon something very peculiar. The poet felt it when he said: If the soul speaks, then, alas, the soul no longer speaks. On its way to become speech, our inner soul experience of truth be comes already dulled. It is not deadened completely in speech, but it is already dulled. And whoever understands language, knows that only proper nouns, which designate merely one thing, are true designations for this thing. As soon as we have generalized wordsthey may be nouns, verbs, or adjectiveswe no longer speak the full truth. In such a case truth consists in our being conscious of the fact that, with every sentence, we have to deviate from the

truth. Spiritual science tries to rise from this confession: with every statement you speak untruth, by proceeding in a certain way which I have often characterized. I have often told you that in spiritual science the matter of chief importance is not what is statedfor this would fall just as much a prey to this judgment of powerlessnessbut the matter of chief importance is how a statement is made. Try to follow up (you may do this also with my writings) how a subject is characterized from the most varied points of view, how the endeavor is made to characterize a thing from one side and then from another; only through this procedure are we able to deal with things. Anyone who believes that words themselves are something different from eurythmy is greatly mistaken! Words are simply eurythmy performed by the larynx, produced by the help of the air. They are mere gestures which, however, are not performed with the hands and feet, but with the larynx. We have to become conscious that we merely point to something, and that we gain a genuine relationship to truth only when we see in the word indications of what we wish to express, and when we, as human beings, in our mutual relationships bear in our selves the consciousness that words are really only indica tions. Eurythmy, among other things, wishes to point to this; eurythmy makes the whole human being a larynx that means, it expresses through the whole human being what ordinarily is expressed only by the larynxin order to make human beings feel again that, in speaking the language of sounds, they are making mere gestures. I say father, I say mother, if I generalize everything, I am able to express myself truthfully only when the other human being, together with me, has acquainted himself with these things in the social element, so that he under stands the gesture. We arise only then from powerlessness, which we can, indeed, feel in regard to language, and from it we celebrate the resurrection, when we understand that, in the moment of opening our mouth, we must already be Christian. What has become of the Word, of the Logos, in the course of evolution, can be comprehended only when the Logos is reunited with the Christ, only when we become conscious of the following: Our body, as instru ment of pronunciation, forces truth into a lower state, killing it partly on our lips, and we vivify it again in Christ, when we become conscious that we have to spiritualize it; that means, we must not accept speech as such, but we have to accompany speech by spirit-thoughts. This we have to learn, my dear friends! I do not know whether time will permit me in the public lecture tomorrow to call attention to what I am about to say. I should like to do it. At any rate, I shall say it here first. Should I repeat it tomorrow once more, please do not take it amiss. I shall now say here what I have said publicly in various places. We can make a peculiar discovery. I shall characterize it by a special case. I have intimately studied the very interesting essays which Woodrow Wilson has written, lectures about American history, American literature, American life. We may say

that this Woodrow Wilson has magnificently and power fully described the American development as it takes place from the American East toward the West. His descriptions are those of a real American, and these lectures, published in essay form, are very captivating. They are called Mere Literature, and Other Essays. We really learn to know the American nature in reading these essays, for Woodrow Wilson is the most typical American. Now I have comparedthis comparison can be made quite objectivelymany of the paragraphs in these essays of Woodrow Wilson, for example, with statements of Herman Grimm, a man who is a typical German of the nineteenth century, through and through a typical Middle European of the nineteenth century. Herman Grimms style of writing is just as agreeable to me as Woodrow Wilsons style is disagreeable. But this is only a personal remark. I love the style of Herman Grimms writings, and I feel the style of Woodrow Wilsons writings as something utterly repugnant to me; but at the same time I can be quite objective; the typical American Woodrow Wilson writes simply brilliantly, magnificently, especially about the development of the nature of the American. In comparing the essays of Woodrow Wilson and Herman Grimm, in which both wrote about the method of history, I had to consider something quite different. Let us take certain sentences of Woodrow Wilsons; they agree almost liter ally with the sentences written by Herman Grimm; and we may take sentences of Herman Grimm, and transpose them into the essays of Woodrow Wilson: they agree exactly. Any borrowing of one from the other is out of the question! This is not the point in question I wish to make, that any borrowing has occurred; this is absolutely out of the question. Here is the point where without becoming philistine, we may learn: I f two say the same thing, it is not the same. For here we have the problem: How is it that Woodrow Wilson describes his Americans much more impressively, much more suggestively than Herman Grimm ever did in his method of history, and that Woodrow Wilson speaks in his descriptions in sentences of Herman Grimm? How does this come about? This really becomes a problem. If we enter upon this, my dear friends, we find the following: If we follow up Herman Grimms style in everything that he wrote, then we see that every sentence is obtained by a hard, personal individual struggle; everything takes place in the light of the culture of the nineteenth century, but out of the most direct consciousness soul. Woodrow Wilson describes brilliantly, but he is possessed by something in his subconscious nature. There is a demonic possession. In his subconscious nature some thing inspires him to write down his literary productions. The demon that in a special way appears in an American of the twentieth century, speaks through his soul. There fore the brilliance, the power! Lazy people today so often say, when they read something, considering only the content: I have read this before, here or there. But today the time has come where mankind has to learn that the content is no longer of chief
4

importance, but rather, who it is that speaks; this is where the importance lies. We have to learn to know the human being from what he says, for the words are mere gestures, and we have to know who it is that makes these gestures. That is the thing with which humanity must become acquainted. Here we have a very great mystery of ordinary life, my dear friends. There is a great difference whether every sentence is struggled for by the personal ego, or whether it is inspired in some way from below, or above, or from the side. The writing that is inspired, for instance, has a more suggestive effect, for in reading what has been struggled for, we in turn have to struggle with every sentence. The time is approaching when we shall no longer direct our attention to the merely literal content of what lies before our soul, but we shall have to direct our attention above all to those who say this or that, not to the outer physical personality, but to the entire humanspiritual connection. If human beings ask today: How do I fin d the Christ? then we have to give such an answer. For the Christ cannot be reached through some kind of speculation or through comfortable mysticism. He may be reached only if we have the courage to immerse ourselves directly in life. And in such a case you have to feel the powerlessness also in regard to language, the powerlessness which the body has imposed on you through its being the bearer of speech and afterwards the Resurrection o f the Spirit in the Word. We have to feel not only that the letter killeth and the spirit maketh alivethis saying, too, is often misunderstood but even the sound kills, and the spirit has to revivify by concretely connecting every individual experience with the Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha. In this first step we find the Christ. Search for the human relationships! Do not merely consider the content of this or that sen tencehuman beings today are all too prone to do this but consider how the words emerge from the place from which they are uttered. This becomes more and more important. If many of our friends would consider this, we should not so often have to experience people who come and say: That person talked quite anthroposophically, or quite theosophically. You need only look it up! The words that stand there are of no importance, but the spirit from which they spring; that is o f great importance. We do not wish to spread words through Anthroposophy, but a new spirit, the spirit which is the Spirit of Christianity for the twentieth century onward.

The Anthroposophical Society: Name and Task of Members Groups A Historical Study
by GUNDHILD BOCK KACER
This article was printed in Mitteilungen aus der anthropo sophischen Arbeit in Deutschland, Michaelmas 1983. It was

translatedfrom the German by Maria St. Goar and is published here by permission.

When the Anthroposophical Society was rebuilt in Germany after World War II, those responsible in Stutt gart dispensed purposely with the founding of a branch. Instead, Wednesday was designated as a membership evening to make it possible for all participants of the quickly arising groups to gather for a common anthropo sophical meeting and, also, for active members to present what they have achieved in various fields of work. This loosely structured form was chosen for several reasons. One of them wasso it was saidthe idea of a constituted branch dated from the period of the Theosophical Society. This view particularly has given rise to various discus sions and to studies of the history of the Society. The present study has resulted. We will discuss here not the special situation in Stuttgart but merely survey certain aspects of the history of the Anthroposophical Society. The view has often arisen that there is a fundamental difference between a branch [Zweig] and a working group [Arbeitsgruppe]. The attempt is then made to define and explain this difference, a difference based largely on feeling and habit. The working group is thus seen as an organization, formed to work with a definite theme for a shorter or longer period of time, in which the individual members seek stimulation and enrichment for their own studies, perhaps limited to a specific field. In contrast, the branch is considered an organization with more pro nounced structure that, for the individual member, signi fies a greater obligation and, because of this binding nature, is designed to be more permanent. It is thought that only in a branch these two ideals are possible: The awakening to the soul-spiritual being of the other person as a community-building element, and the individuals awareness of the whole of the Society, of which he can experience himself to be a part through his efforts to find his way into anthroposophy itself, instead of satisfying personal interest and need in some select areas. This is one view. The other is based on the conviction that these same ideals can be realized without limitation in a circle of members, called a working group. Are we dealing here merely with a nominal issue? Is not the amount and intensity of the anthroposophic work essential, regardless of name, manner and form? Is not the need to understand and to master anthroposophic con tent ever more clearly, deeply and thoroughly the foremost concern of all? Nevertheless, it may serve as a stimulus to study how the term Zweig appears in the history of the Anthroposophical Society and how Rudolf Steiner uses the terms branch and working group. Proceeding from the concept branch one may visualize a tree, General Anthroposophical Society, with its small and large branches: twigs, branches, trunk, roots, and so on. Asking about details, however, we soon run into difficulties. Where are the roots? What about leaves, blossoms, fruit? How does the trees yearly cycle

compare to the spiritual life of the Anthroposophical Society, since man in his soul-spiritual life and quest for knowledge has in fact freed himself from the yearly processes in nature? If we ponder all these single ques tions we arrive at the answer that we can apply the picture of the tree only by disregarding the life of blooming and fading, essential qualities of the plant kingdom. The comparison can therefore not fully satisfy us. An interesting documentary report, published on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Karlsruhe Branch, includes a copy of the founding charter: Herewith it is acknowledged that the Karlsruhe Branch with the following council [Vorstand] members has been admitted as an integral branch of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in the first month of its 30th year. Recorded in Berlin on December 9 , 1904. It is signed: Dr. Rudolf Steiner, General Secretary, and H.S. Olcott, P.T.S., headquarters in Adyar, Madras, India. Here the term branch appears as the official desig nation for a group within the German Section of the Theosophical Society. Under the same date a printed form, with details filled in, concerning the founding of the branch was sent to Adyar. It states [in the original English]:
To the Recording Secretary, T.S., in Adyar, MadrasA charter was issued on 9. December 1904 to Herr Ludwig Lindemann to form Branch of the Theosophical Society at Karlsruhe to be known as the Karlsruher Zweig, Branch/ Lodge of the T.S., President Lindemann ... Yours frater nally, Dr. Rudolf Steiner General Secretary.

In this notification the dual name branch/lodgeappears. Zweig is therefore simply the German translation of the English term branch. Although in English branch refers to a branch of a tree or bush, it can also mean the branch of a river, that of a line, a firm or a bank. The German term branch of science [Wissenschafts zweig] corresponds to this. Accordingly, we should inter pret the use of branch in the sense of local branch of the Theosophical Society. Lodge is familiar to us from Freemasonry. Origi nally the word denotes a type of housing for occasional or specific use (weekend lodge, hunting lodge). Strictly speaking, the Masonic lodge is therefore the location of the meetingsomething secludedand this was then transferred to mean a group of members. Branch/lodge are thus alternative terms for desig nating a group within the Theosophical Society. Even though the term branch was the official designation for groups within the German Section, the word lodge was often applied, at least in everyday usage. Many members were probably familiar with lodges through their own membership, and since branches were in the early years also something secluded, lodge was used in Germany as well. (Ernst Weissert enjoyed relating that in Mannheim one went to the lodge. This is probably true for other locations.) Even Rudolf Steiner himself used occasionally the term lodge. Also, his lectures to the members were

announced as lodge lectures [Logenvortraege] in Mit teilungen fuer die Mitglieder der Deutschen Sektion der Theosophischen Gesellschaft [Newsletter for the Members ... ]. Edited by Mathilde Scholl, this was the official organ published by the Section (quoted in the following as Scholl Letters). Generally, however, Rudolf Steiner speaks of branches. He did so even before the founding of the German Section when he mailed suggestions and outlines of bylaws to the then-existing branches. Concern ing this, he reported to Wilhelm Hubbe-Schleiden, on e September 4 , 1902: Enclosed is the official circular for the branches. It was mailed to all ten branches_ _ Even before the founding of the Section the two designations branch and lodge were used side by side. In 1884 the Theosophische Societaet Germania was founded in Wuppertal, led by Hubbe-Schleiden. Within e this society there existed loosely formed groups, called associations [Vereinigungen]. Later, some of them became a branch or a lodge, and in some cases joined the Section. In the German edition of Vahan, then the organ of the Theosophical Society edited by Richard Bresch, there is the following notice on February 1902, hence before the founding of the Section: Two new German lodges. In Duesseldorf and Cassel, two promising new branches of the Theosophical Society have opened. Here the two terms appear even side by side. In almost every issue of the Scholl Letters (from Nov. 1905 to June 1914) there are lists of the branches within the German Section. Many of these have special names, for example the Franz von Assisi-Zweig in Malsch. Others are merely called Munich Branch, Stutt gart Branch, and so on. All the groups bear the name branch with the one exception of Lodge at the Grail [Loge zum Gral]. In the issue of April 1913, in the first listing after the founding of the Anthroposophical Soci ety, the lodge and its leader, Herr Ahner, no longer appear, signifying that this group has not joined Rudolf Steiner after the separation from the Theosophical Society. The fact that branch was the official name for a group within the Theosophical Society is given only the proper weight if we clarify the use of this term in the newly inaugurated Anthroposophical Society after the separa tion from the Theosophical Society. In March and April of 1913, the Scholl Letters, appearing as the first publica tions for the members of the Anthroposophical Society, include the minutes of the General Meeting of February 1913. On the final page of the April issue, there is a notice in large print below the heading Please Read!:
Upon receipt of this issue of the Newsletter, the esteemed leaders [Vorstaende] of the working groups of the Anthro posophical Society are urgently requested to send imme diately an alphabetical list of their members names and addresses to the office of the Anthroposophical Society, Berlin W 30, Motzstrasse 17. We ask the former branches of the dissolved German Section of the Theosophical Society to see to it that the membership cards, issued by us, will all be returned to us because they are demanded from us.

Thus, it is made clear, even through the different desig nations of the members groups, that something new begins, unconnected with the Theosophical Society. Not only the Society but the individual group is called by a different name! It seems, however, the members did not quite comprehend this change in terminology. This might be deduced from an additional notice in bold print in #5 of January 1914:
To the attention of the leaders of the working groups (called branches) concerning the mailing of the Newsletter.The esteemed leaders of the working groups (usually referred to as branches) of the Anthroposophical Society are kindly requested to hand a copy of the Newsletter each time upon receipt... to every member of their working group (called branch)_ To receive the Newsletter, the members of the _ working groups (called branches) are requested to address themselves to the leadership of that working group (called branch) to which they pay their membership dues. Only those members not connected with a working group (called branch) will receive... the Newsletter from the office directly.

Each time the new and obviously unfamiliar term work ing group is used, the old name is added in parenthesis! In the next issue of the Newsletter, of April 1914, the identical wording is repeated with this addition:
The esteemed members of the Anthroposophical Society are kindly requested to give each time, in all communica tions, their exact address and to name the working group (called branch) to which they pay their membership dues.

In a similar way the term working group shows up when the branches of different cities are listed. At first, the list is still titled, German Branches. Then, from 1914 on, the heading reads German Working Groups. In the case of branches with individual names, e.g. the KerningZweig, under the leadership of Toni Voelker in Stuttgart, is now listed as Kerning-Arbeitsgruppe. This particular group was chosen here as an example because, perhaps to a specially marked degree, it had the private and inward quality we connect with the idea of a branch. This group even went by the matter-of-fact term working group. Hereafter, the Scholl Letters as the organ of the Anthroposophical Society also publish the lists of the groups of other countries, together with the names of their leaders. The headings read: American Working Groups [AmerikanischeArbeitsgruppen], Belgian Working Groups, Danish, English, French, and so on, Working Groups. The English groups call themselves Group of Study, for example Zarathustra Group of Study, London. The French Groups go by the name of Groupe detude, for instance Groupe detude St. Michel, Paris, inaugurated on May 4, 1913 by Rudolf Steiner. Nevertheless, the terms branch and lodge lecture are used as before in the Scholl Letters. This shows that the introduction of the new term was not a bureaucratic measure to be carried out like an order. One can, however, discern the effort to bring new and original thoughts even

to the realm of externals. It also becomes clear that the use of one or another term is not merely a matter of externals but one of conscious reorganization that includes such details, attesting to the new independence. A special situation arose for those groups that had not merely constituted themselves as a branch but had expe rienced a festive dedication by Rudolf Steiner and had taken the name of a spiritual sponsor or protective patron. How these names originated, that a number of branches adopted, is a theme by itself. One might assume that Rudolf Steiner had chosen these names in a way similar to how later, upon the request by some parents, he gave names for their newborn children; and by the choice of such a name he had addressed the branch in question as an individuality of a higher kind. However, if one studies the addresses and lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave in dedicating such branches with individual names, one discovers that this was not the case. On the contrary, Rudolf Steiner underlines with special emphasis the importance of the fact that a certain name was selected by the members themselves. Two examples will be cited: Malsch, April 6, 1909: A branch comes into existence
that, out of the sincere desire of those united in this branch, has adopted a name with such a deeply inward connection to the whole of Chrstianity. Due to the profound needs of i those united in this branch, this branch calls itself the Franz von Assisi-Zweig.

Bochum, Dec. 21, 1913:

Our friends wish to dedicate their work and their branch to the name ofthat deity, regarded in northern Europe as the deity who is to return to declining humanity the rejuvenat ing forces, the spiritual forces of childhood----They wish to call their branch Widar-Zweig. May this name be a good omen.

The brief notices in the Scholl Letters include reports about the choice of a name, for example in Berne (September 1908):
Since the decision to found the Berne branch was made last fall, at the time Herr Dr. Steiner gave a cycle of lectures on the Gospel of St. John in Basle, it was possible to inaugurate our lodge solemnly on Dec. 15,1907 with eleven members. In connection with this lecture cycle, actively attended by us from Berne, the lodge chose the name Johannes-Zweig.

1910. (It came into existence alongside the other branch that met in the home of Frau Clara Smits; and it is not identical with the branch mentioned in 1902 in Vahan.) More significant than the origin of this branch, however, is the message of the dedication lecture. Here, Rudolf Steiner speaks with inmost words of the task of branches: Through their work, the next cultural period is to be preparedjust as such preparation occurred earlier in the Mystery Centers. The people within the Mysteries knew that through their work, forces were engendered and given to the beings of the higher hierarchies, who then could fashion that future part of mans being which, in the following cultural epoch was to be bestowed on humanity. Today, as if under the protection of the higher beings, the Spirit Self, which will descend during the sixth cultural epoch so as to unite completely with men, hovers above humanity. The ideals of brotherhood, of freedom of thought and of spiritual knowledge, toward which we today are aspiring, will then find their realization. Inas much as we have the vision of this spiritual goal and strive toward it, we are working on the preparation for the future. Rudolf Steiner introduces these lofty thoughts with a question: Why do we unite in working groups, and why do we cultivate within such working groups the spiritual treasure to which we dedicate our forces? He says that an outsider might well ask whether it did not suffice for a person to study spiritual science on his own and occa sionally attend a lecturewithout joining with others in formed groups. He speaks of the most friendly and most brotherly harmony in such working groups and of the attitude to be cultivated within them. In this solemn context, the word working group appears several timesa matter-of-fact term for us today and often conveying the underlying meaning of merely intellectual study of spiritual scientific contents in the pursuit of ones own interest. With this term, Rudolf Steiner, however, connects the brotherliness that, just as in the ancient Mystery Centers, includes the solemn obligation to pre pare in the right way the spiritual future of humanity:
In our fraternal working groups we perform work that streams upward to those forces that are being prepared for the Spirit Self.... It is only through the wisdom of spiritual science itself that we can understand what we actually do in respect of our connection with the higher worlds when we unite in such working groups. And the thought that we do this work within our working groups not merely for the sake of our own egoism but that it may stream upward into the spiritual worldsthis is the true consecration of a working group. To cherish such a thought is to permeate ourselves with the consciousness of the consecration that is the foundation of a working group within our spiritual movement. It is, therefore, of great importance to grasp this fact in its true spiritual meaning. We unite in such working groups ... whose work should be of the nature of coopera tion among brothers ... [that we] experience as a breath of magic in our working groups.

After the founding of the Anthroposophical Society in 1913, dedications of new branches occurred in Augsburg, Erfurt, Bochum, Duesseldorf, and finally on April 30,1918 in Ulm. From this we can observe Rudolf Steiners generous and open attitude toward the wishes of the members. The in dividual situation, though, of each loca tion would have to be studied. Doubtlessly, the bestknown lecture given by Rudolf Steiner at a branch dedication is the one published under the title, Commu nity Above Us, Christ in Us, Duesseldorf, June 15, 1915. This branch resulted from the introductory work of Prof. Craemer, of which the Scholl Letters reported already in

From a lecture given at the dedication of the Christian Rosenkreutz Branch in Hamburg, on June 17, 1912:

We are gathered here to ask the blessing of those spiritual powers who guide our spiritual scientific movementtheir blessing for a working group that, to meet its innermost needs, has created a center. Through the most varied symbols there are manifested in this center the impulses of our willing: namely our dedication to the spiritual powers, and the good will to serve them in the proper way.... We must become convinced that the founding of a working group is not merely an occasion to rejoice; rather it is the beginning of a great obligationespecially when one undertakes to adopt for this founding the name of that noble martyr_ With each founding of an anthropo _ sophical working group one accepts a grave responsibil _ ity_ Therefore, keep in mind that a working group is inaugurated here that will remain loyal to the principle: to transformby making accessible to human comprehen sionwhat flows down through the Christ from out of the spiritual world.

Does the plain term working group not take on new meaning through such words? Certainly, the way of working at that time and the small size of those working groups do not compare to our present conditions. Neither can they be compared to the changed conditions in the Anthroposophical Society, just a few years after the time of the above quoted lecture. Changes were caused by the influx of young people, particularly the academic youth. Nevertheless, our concern here is the way in which Rudolf Steiner uses the term working group. After World War I and especially after the burning of the Goetheanum, entirely new conditions and circum stances arose for the anthroposophic work. The year 1923 brought the height of endeavors to give the Anthropo sophic Society a new form that both groups could find room: those members who, until then, had carried the work and had been part of the history of the Anthropo sophical movement and Societythe old onesand the young people, rushing in with their various foundings and academic activities. Early in 1923, Rudolf Steiner de scribes with emphasis the spiritual task of the joint work within the various groups. What he states about the awakening to the soul-spiritual element of the other human being concerns, after all, the old and the young equally, and is not tied to any specific content of thought. He perceives a tragedy in the fact that although this awakening is being soughtespecially among the younger peoplethe actual talk about Society forms arises not out of such higher consciousness but from the sphere of everyday life. This is bound to lead to tragic misunderstandings and splits. On March 3, 1923, Rudolf Steiner said in Dornach:
Actually, the whole problem of the Anthroposophical Society is a tailor-problem. Anthroposophy has certainly grown, and the suit, the Anthroposophical Society because it has gradually become a suithas become too small.

Society besides the existing Society. He interprets this Independent Anthroposophical Society as a loose union of unattached anthroposophical associations. And in fact these groups never employ the term branch. They use the word circle [Kreis] to describe their efforts toward community. In the two lectures at the meeting of delegates in Stuttgart of Feb. 27 & 28, 1923, the term branch is not mentioned a single time although, especially during this meeting, intense discussions were carried on about the Anthroposophical Society and its forms of existence, and on this occasion Rudolf Steiner explained his decision to found the Independent (or unattached) Society. It is in this context that he speaks for the first time about the awakening to the soul-spiritual being of ones fellowman as a prerequisite for the common work to be lifted out of the sphere of egoism and controversy. For this awakening to a higher consciousness to occur, solely the good will and effort of all participants is neededand not by any means the closed form of a branch or the small size of a group:
Regardless of whether we have a small or a large anthropo sophical community, we can reach, in a certain sense, what has been indicated with this characterization. (Feb. 27, 1923)

The Christmas Conference of 1923 is for us an event whose spiritual significance and inner importance can hardly be fathomed. However, what Rudolf Steiner worked out and inaugurated in relation to the outer form of the newly founded Anthroposophical Society, may be viewed in the context of the development sketched here. How was the tailor-problem solved? How do content and form (suit) relate to each other after this re founding?
To give the Anthroposophical Society a form that would meet the needs of cultivating the Anthroposophical Movement, this was intended with the Christmas Confer ence at the Goetheanum. (Das Goetheanum, Was in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft vorgeht, Jan. 13, 1924)

Even the name, General Anthroposophical Society, includes what Rudolf Steiner emphasizes ever again from here on out: The consciousness of the age demands that the work of the Anthroposophical Society be fully public. The Society is open to anyone seeking it and showing interest in the existence of such a Society whose task is the cultivation of the spiritual life. The new autonomous responsibility and the element of freedom find expression also in the principles, formulated by Rudolf Steiner. Paragraph 11: Members may join together in smaller or larger groups on any basis of locality or subject. During the discussion of the paragraph, Rudolf Steiner added:
So far as the General Anthroposophical Society is con cerned, every group, even the Society of a country, is included in this paragraph. The General [allgemeine] Society is neither international nor national, it is univer-

It was exactly this tailor-problem that induced Rudolf Steiner to found the Independent Anthroposophical

sally [allgemein] humanand it will treat everything within its province as a group. In this way we bring life really based on freedom into the Anthroposophical Society, and also everywhere an autonomous life, wherever it wishes to unfold. (The Christmas Foundation Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society, Extracts from Rudolf Steiners addresses, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1980)

In these few sentences it becomes clear: The tailorproblem was solved by fashioning the outward form of the Society in as open and free a manner as possible. This form can never become too tight. It was designed for growth and transformation. It makes room for the most manifold and diverse groupings. Thus it has accommo dated also the new organizational forms of the Society in Germany that were forced upon it in 1946 by the Military Government and by the countrys division into four different Occupation Zones. At that time, working centers \Arbeitszentren] came into existence that still today offer the possibility of structuring and organizing the greatly increased membership. These working centers have long since become work relationships [Arbeitszusammenhaenge] filled with living human contacts: administrative groups in the sense of the principles. The form is capable of growth, yet the content must ever and again be created anew. To replace the old principles of a closed branch (and a branch leader in charge of it) with a structure that allows complete freedom for initiatives is possible, however, only by transferring the responsibility to each individual member, willing to be active for anthroposophy. The outward form can remain flexible and open to change only by being itself a part of living anthroposophic work. Forming and developing the outward forms becomes in itself an anthroposophic content. How this can Occur, Rudolf Steiner describes in the Letters to the Members, The Living Being o f Anthroposophy and Its Cultivation. He speaks about the duties of those members willing to be active; about the Leading Thoughts; about the shaping of the members meeting [Zweigabend] and the atmos phere that should prevail in members meetings. He presents all this after having sketched in broad outlines the history of the anthroposophical work, a background that alone makes clear and comprehensible the new and transformed structure brought about through the Christ mas Conference of 1923. During a specially solemn moment at the close of the Christmas Conference, in Rudolf Steiners words of farewell on New Years Day 1924, he chose again the word group to point out the spiritual task of the Anthropo sophical Society. (These sentences remind us of the weighty and lofty connotation the term group assumed in the earlier lecture in Duesseldorf.) His statement, then, will conclude our study:
Yesterday, a year ago, we were watching the blazing flames that were destroying the First Goetheanum,... so today we are justified in hoping that when the physical Goetheanum will again be there, we will have worked in such a way that

this physical Goetheanum will be merely the outward symbol of our spiritual Goetheanum. In Idea-form we take this spiritual Goetheanum with us as we now again go out into the world. We have laid the Foundation Stone here. Over this Foundation Stone is to be erected the building whose single [einzelne] stones will consist of the work achieved in all our groups now by the individual [einzelnen] members all over the world.

Toward a Spiritual Practice of Thinking

A Guide for the Study of Anthroposophy
by CHRISTOF LINDENAU
Translated by Frederick Amrine from the German, Der u ebende Mensch. Anthroposophie-Studium als Ausgangspunkt moder ner Geistesschulung. In memory of Alan P. Cottrell (1935-1984) who reviewed the text in the Autumn 1978 issue of the Newsletter. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, publisher, gave permission to serial ize the chapters of this workbook.

FROM THE FOREWORD: When Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, died sixty years ago, he left behind a literary legacy of books, essays and transcribed lectures which will fill an estimated 350 volumes when published in their entirety. There the reader finds manifold descriptions of the results of scientific research into the past and future evolution of humanity together with its present tasks, into the past and future evolution of the spiritual world as well as the processes and beings active there, and into the meaning of the freedom we are able to develop in the face of these facts. Rudolf Steiners writings offer themselves to those who seek a path leading to a world view that can comprehend equally the spiritual and material aspects of reality. Yet his works can be equal to the task only if the thoughts, born from this world-view but dead within the printed text, are brought to life again within the reader. This can happen only if the study of anthroposophy does not remain a matter of mere reading, but rather of working through the written text within ones own activity of thinking. These writings can accomplish their task only by calling forth within us something able in and of itself to transform our judgment, our deeds, our livesindeed, all of earthly existence, just as modern science has been able to do. The present work seeks to contribute to the cultiva tion of such study. It contains in reworked form lectures on a task dealt with by a group formed within the Anthropoophical Society in 1968 that has sought ever s since to realize a common goal. The group calls itself Arbeitsgemeinschaft fu Menschenkunde und Studien er gestaltung [Working Group for Spiritual Anthropology

and Forms of Study]. In keeping with the spirit of that group, I would like this fruit of our common work to be taken not as a text to be read, but rather as a workbook. It suggests ways in which students of anthroposophy can deepen their study or illuminate and further pursue experiences already gained. To my colleagues in the aforesaid Arbeitsgemein schaft I owe three things. Our search for varied and creative social forms within which to conduct our mutual study of anthroposophy gave me the opportunity to gain much experience in this area. The groups continuing interest spurred me on to elaborate further the insights we gained so that they could be put into words. Finally, the countless conversations which followed upon these pre sentations helped me to find viable formulations. In this latter regard, I would like to mention Wolfgang Schad and Thomas Gobel in particular, whom I thank for important e contributions in the area of physiology. With regard to the interest shown my work, let the name of Ilse Schuckmann stand for a long list of others. . . .

CHAPTER ONE THE TASK We live ever more exclusively in a man-made world, i.e. a world transformed, but also destroyed, by techno logy. Feasibility [Machbarkeit] is the great ideal of contemporary civilization that bears the stamp of techno logy. It reflects back upon our daily experience of life in two ways. The one great experience which it helps us to attain is that, to a great extent free from wearisome dependence on nature and from the conditioning influ ence of traditional cultures, we can really carry out what we design, think and plan. Inner security and conscious ness of freedom grow out of this. We experience ourselves as persons who are able to transform what we undertake into deeds. The other side of this civilization of the feasible makes itself felt where we are no longer the agents, but rather those acted upon. In many areas we see ourselves forced into a way of life which excludes us from the shaping of our own affairs, condemns us to an existence as passive onlookers and harnesses us into a world made by others. This gives birth to boredom, inner emptiness and fear. Even ones own existence is finally felt to be meaningless. However much the one side of con temporary civilization appears to fulfill our longings as individuals to shape our own lives, the other side robs us of this hope. Is the fate of individual freedom already sealed in this way? In his philosophical works, especially in his Philosophy o f Freedom , the first edition of which appeared already in 1894, Rudolf Steiner undertook to show how the individuals experience of freedom can be extracted from the raw ore of the experience just described and how, freed from the dross which attaches to it from the world of the feasible, it can be raised up into the clear light of thinking

consciousness. Viewed in this light, human freedom shows itself no longer to be limited to intellectual and technological activity alone, but rather capable of exten sion to all thinking and actionprovided that one accomplishes this extension by activating ones cognitional faculties oneself. In his anthroposophical works, Rudolf Steiner carries further what was begun in this way. He describes the paths by which the human experience of freedom, developed further through spiritual activity, is capable of entering realms of existence which gradually place us in a position to confront the other, oppressive experience of contemporary civilization creatively. The study of anthroposophical spiritual science is one of these paths. In elaborating spiritual science, Rudolf Steiner preceded from two fundamental experiences. The one is that there exists a realm of purely spiritual processes and beings which underlies the physical world; the other, that this realm can, like the physical, be investigated down to the smallest details if one acquires the requisite faculties. But it was a third fundamental experience which led Rudolf Steiner to the oral and written presentation of the results of his research: the clear insight that we must cultivate such a science of the spirit if we are to be equipped to perform the tasks for the future of humanity that modern civilization sets us. The study of this spiritual science has, understand ably, different meaning for different individuals. Even a single individual finds something different in it at differ ent times of life: new modalities of thinking that set free ones own seeking, questioning and striving; the first indications of a way of judging the facts and events in the world from the point of view of the spirit; finding paths leading to the experience of supersensible realms of existence; light that can illuminate the riddles of individ ual and human destiny; intuitions leading to a creative approach to ones task in life, etc. All these goals presup pose, however, an increased vitality in ones own powers of thinking, which, should it be lacking, can be developed only through a meditative practice of the activity of thinking [ein uebendes Verhaeltnis zur denkenden Beta etigung]. This living within thinking can of course be built up [eruebt] to a certain extent in study of an artistic, scientific, mathe matical or philosophical nature prior to the study of anthroposophical spiritual science itself. But this can also be done directly through studying spiritual science. This text hopes to promote the latter kind of study. Thus it addresses itself above all to those who are seeking insight ful ways of attaining vital, spiritual thinking in individual and group study of anthroposophy.
* * *

Modern humanity, whose attitude of soul bears the stamp of a consciousness directed toward objects, feels the world of spiritual processes and beings of which anthro posophy speaks to be alien. And this self-evident fact entails yet another: modern civilization is structured in such a way that only the human capacities which lead to the development of this object-centered consciousness are

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promoted and nourished. Thereby all our powers that are able to bring forth a consciousness of purely spiritual processes and beings, remain underdeveloped. For this reason Rudolf Steiner undertook to give our civilization the means and the institutions necessary to a meditative schooling through which a second, spiritual conscious ness complementary to the waking consciousness of external objects can be prepared and gradually developed. One of these means to the development of spiritual consciousness is anthroposophical spiritual science itself. Rudolf Steiner often spoke about the way in which it is to be used. He says for example in a lecture which he himself wished to have published:
Scientific literature contains certain data which one learns as information. Spiritual-scientific texts are not like this. They can become an instrument within the soul of every human being. [emphasis C. L.]

all reality what he imagined himself to be receiving as the mere communication of thoughts.(2)

If what Rudolf Steiner maintains here is true, then two fundamental questions follow immediately. The one is: But how do we attain a reception in thought of spiritualscientific reports such that they can become an instru ment in our own soul? The other: How do we come to realize that we have already experienced unawares what we imagined to be merely the communication of thoughts? Both questions lead to the proper surmise that, if this study of spiritual science is to be more than a mere acceptance of unrealizable communications, we must concern ourselves as much with the how, the way in which we receive and elaborate it, as with its content, the what.
* * *

And a few sentences later Rudolf Steiner elaborates this thought in the following way:
We will come more and more to see that a book written in a truly spiritual-scientific way is not like other books, that merely impart certain findings. Rather, it is like an instrument that enables one to attain such knowledge through ones own activity. Only one must realize that the spiritual-scientific instrument is totally spiritual, that it consists of certain deliberately enlivened representations and ideas. Moreover, these representations and ideas are different from all others because they are not pictures, but rather living realities.(l)

Here ones attention is directed immediately to the human being himself. By taking up a spiritual-scientific descrip tion and thinking it through, we acquire already the possibility of approaching spiritual reality itself. In the first, introductory chapter of one of his fundamental spiritual-scientific works, Rudolf Steiner emphasizes this point of view even more strongly:
The way we live in reading the descriptions of spiritual science is quite different from what it is when reading communications about sense-perceptible events. We simply read about the latter; but when we read communica tions of supersensible realities in the right way, we our selves are entering into a stream of spiritual life and being. In receiving the results of research, we are receiving at the same time our own inner path towards those results.

And, anticipating a criticism that might well be raised, Rudolf Steiner adds:
True, to begin with, the reader will often fail to notice that this is so. For he is far too apt to conceive the entry into the spiritual world on the analogy of sensory experience. Therefore what he experiences of this world in reading of it will seem to him like mere thoughts and nothing more. Yet in the true receiving of it even in the form of thoughts, man is already within the spiritual world; it only remains for him to become aware that he has been experiencing in

This study shall attempt to answer this double question neither with systematic plans of study, nor with methodological recipes, nor with determinate learning techniques or anything of the sort, but rather primarily with a spiritual-scientific study o f the human being as thinker. For a general discussion of the human being from the point of view of anthroposophical spiritual science, the reader must here be referred to the chapter The Essential Nature of Man in the book Theosophy and the chapter The Nature of Humanity in the book Occult Science: An Outline by Rudolf Steiner. The present study is limited to the human being as thinker. Thus there stands in the center of our considerations a series of metamor phoses of the souls perceptual, intellectual and cognitional activities, the structure of which is anchored in our supersensible organization. We shall want to discuss processes which take place in the supersensible part of our human being when we take up spiritual scienceindeed, science of any kindand work through it with our thinking. For it is by means of just these processes that we receive at the same time our own inner path leading to the realities of which spiritual science speaks. And expe rience shows that a structuring of anthroposophical study that takes into consideration the nature of these processes is more likely to make one aware that he has been expe riencing in all reality what he imagined himself to be receiving as the mere communication of thoughts than one that does not. Thus in the chapters that follow the reader will find a series of studies relating to the human being as student, together with a series of indications showing ways in which the student can, if he or she wishes, employ the results of spiritual anthropology [Menschenkunde] methodically. In this way the intent of the present work is to contribute to the various attempts within the anthropo sophical movement to give every activity relating to the human being a foundation in the spiritual anthropology of that activity. A spiritual anthropology of the developing human being must Thus in the chapters that follow the reader will find a series of studies relating to the human being as student, together with a series of

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indications showing ways in which the student can, if he or she wishes. Thus in the chapters that follow the reader will find a series of studies relating to the human being as student, together with a series of indications showing ways in which the student can, if he or she wishes, employ the results of spiritual anthropology [Menschenkunde] methodically. In this way the intent of the present work is to contribute to the various attempts within the anthropo sophical movement to give every activity relating to the human being a foundation in the spiritual anthropology of that activity. A spiritual anthropology of the developing human being must guide the work of the educator, and a spiritual anthropology of the sick and the healthy human being must guide the doctor if pedagogy and medicine are to contribute to an art of social renewal; in the same way, the structuring of individual and group study can tran scend mere learning techniques and become a social art, if it is founded upon a spiritual anthropology of the activity of study, or uses this to gain clarity and develop further. Whoever recognizes the intent of this book will also understand that many of the ideas concerning spiritual anthropology presented in the following pages are elaborated only to the extent that seemed necessary to reach our stated goal; their epistemological justification, etc., would in many cases require many times the space available.
* * *

One must be able to confront an idea and experience it; otherwise one falls into its bondage, writes Rudolf Steiner in the Preface to the first edition of his book The Philosophy o f Freedom Self-reflection reveals that we can lose our freedom with regard to an idea in two different ways. One is when our relationship to the idea becomes imbued with a subtle or a strong experience of intoxica tion. Then the thought is in danger of working within us as an unconscious drive, as the desire to realize the thought, cost what it may, or to speak about it in order to convince others, or, if not this, then at least to enjoy the thought itself. And all this without there ever arriving sufficient insight into the relationships, contexts, and conditions under which it is thought, spoken, or put into action, and without giving due regard to its consequences. In addition to this one danger to our inner freedom, namely that we become intoxicated with an idea and thereby become oblivious to its preconditions and conse quences, there is another. Here again it is not the thought itself that threatens our freedom, but rather our relation ship to the thought. The danger arises whenever our thinking becomes so razor-sharp and clear that we grasp an event in terms of a single logical chain of premises and conclusions; this one fragment of experience is so clear we forget that the same event appears different from different points of view, and is related to other premises and consequences, etc., as well. We purchase the clarity of the one experience at the expense of blindness to all others. W ile in the former example we were faced with thought h as a compulsion [Gedankendrang] that destroys freedom,

here we confront thought as a vacuum [Gedankensog]; whoever allows himself to be drawn into this vacuum believes that the one clearly perceived fragment of experi ence represents everything about it that can possibly be experienced.(3) Anyone who studies contemporary culture in this regard finds everywhere these two ways of relating to thoughts. And much that is unhealthy in contemporary culture can be traced back directly or indirectly to this cause. In the study of spiritual science we counteract these phenomena of compulsion and suction within the thinking life of the soul by developing a third relationship to our concepts and ideas. This can be made clear by considering the free relationship we are capable of developing toward the world of tools, instruments, machines, etc., that we have ourselves created. Wh ile animals are bound to the instrumentaria of their bodies and thus can live only in a specific environment and perceive only a specific part of that world, we humans are able, in keeping with our goals in each situation, to exchange freely certain tools and instruments for com pletely different ones; in this way we adapt to the varied parts of our environment when cognizing or acting. This same freedom is possible with regard to concepts and ideas as well. Once they have been worked out, concepts and ideas can also be used instrumentally. Then we no longer serve an idea, but rather it serves us, helping us to determine human goals and to find ways to attain them. The mental equipment that is given us to help us in mastering lifes tasks is, however, a vital, inwardly mobile instrumentarium that we ourselves must shape before we can employ it. The aim of studying anthroposophy is to attain such an inwardly free, human relationship in our work with the living concepts and ideas of anthroposophical spiritual science as well. Through this initial form of spiritual activity we make it possible to come into the right relationship not only to the physical world, but to the spiritual as well, and, actively uniting the two, to partic ipate in shaping the future of humanity.

(1)Liestal, Oct. 16,1916, Human Life in the Light of Spiritual Science (2)The Character of Occult Science, in Occult Science: An Outline (3)See in this regard the lecture of March 6 , 1917 in Building Stones for an Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha

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How to Read a Book: A Study of Rudolf Steiners

Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
by GEORGE ONEIL and GISELA ONEIL PART VI CHAPTER FIVE: CONDITIONS If you are ever called upon to give an anthropo sophical lecture and are in urgent need of a theme: recreate for your audience the content of this chapter. Youll never go wrong and youll be in good companywe have a list of five names, all prominent lecturers, who did this in the auditorium in Spring Valley (there must be others whom we did not happen to hear). Likewise, for an initial study with a new group, you couldnt find a more ideal text. (We have used it several times, each time a happy choice.) What is so unique about this chapter? Why such broad appeal? There are several answers. The chapter is self-contained, no background is needed to appreciate it. There is no esoteric or unfamiliar terminology or intellectual difficulty. And, too, no impos ing list of exercises (in contrast to the preceding and following chapters). The writing is compactjust a few pagesbut lyrical in style with an almost musical quality. The development is straight forward through the seven main themes. But there is more: although only persons with searching questions will come to anthro posophy, Americans are often not yet awake to philo sophical problemsas perhaps Europeans aresince they are more concerned with social issues and human relationships. This chapter speaks squarely to this need, and it speaks to the heart. Another aspect, perhaps the most important: the text is so deceptively simple that it reaches all levels of understandingthe beginner and the most advanced studentbecause there are here layers of thoughts and meanings, as one who works with this text will discover. OPEN TO THE WORLD THE SENTIENT SOUL ASPECT Each of the chapters differs in content and quality. Of the eleven, the first and the lastas prelude and finale form a frame. The remaining nine expound the path from each of the aspects of the ninefold human being. (This was presented in the opening article of this series.) Thus the fifth chapter describes the demands the student must fulfill in the realm of his sentient soul. Perhaps we can summarize the achievements to be gained so far with the admonition: Be prepared! (or expect disappointment). Boy scouts know, its their motto. (For orientation, we repeat here the first part of the books map.)

1 Prelude
Interview Reverence for Truth Ideas & I deals
In the course of the human life, the soul of sentience, of adventure in the world of the senses, unfolds in the twenties, from 21 - 28. It is striking how the themes of this fifth chapter appeal to the idealism of young people. Striking too, how two decades ago, in the 60s when the youth culture blossomed, some of these themes became the banner cries of various groups, spreading their ideals to large segments of society. Sentient-soul idealism can deeply stir ones sense of awe. If you happen to be over 28, dont assume that you might be beyond these concerns (in other words, dont look down your nose), for this portion of the soul is the vehicle for the creative spirit within the earthly sphere, opening the gateway to the wonders of the world. And without stability and firm mastery in the realms of perception and feeling (sentience), all intellectual striv ings would lose their life and substance. The modern path to the spirit is in no way weltfremd (alienated from life). It seeks to unite an understanding of both worlds. The emphasis here is on soul-life stability. The sentient soul must become firm in itself, achieve charac ter, if it is to be the basic instrument for further progress on the path. Either we work on it ourselves or life will teach us the hard way. We are never finished learning, acquiring strength, polishing all those soul-windows to the world. The task stays with us through life.

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RUDOLF STEINER S ST YL E OF WRITING

THE OVERVIEW: DYNAM ICS OF THE UNFOLDING IDEA

Unless we penetrate beyond the content to the style of each chapter, we miss half the message. The beginner, of course, has to wrestle with the content, but for work in study groups and for those wishing to get beyond the beginners phase, concern with the how becomes as important as the what In the lecture of Jan. 1, 1919, recently published in English for the first time (in How Can M ankind Find the Christ Again?), Rudolf Steiner describes his style of gestal tendes Denken (form-producing, shaping, sculpturing, or formative thinking) and contrasts it with the ordinary thinking we all tend to use:
The second way of thinking is a totally different process, a completely other way of thinking. . . . It is a shapeforming manner of thinking. If you look more closely, if you follow what I have tried to indicate in my various books on spiritual science, you will realize that the difference does not lie so much in the content that is impartedthis can be judged from various other viewpoints; but the way of seeing the whole world and of coordinating that knowledge, the entire mode of thought presentation, is a different one. This is shape-producing; it gives separate pictures, rounded totalities; it gives contours, and through contours, color. Throughout the entire presentation in the printed books you will be able to see that it has none of the dismembering character that you find in modern science. This difference of the how (the mode of thinking) must be brought out just as emphatically as the difference of the what (the content of subject matter). There exists a formative (gestaltende) way of thinking that has been developed with the especial purpose of leading to the supersensible worlds. If you take the book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, where such a path is marked out, you will find that every thought, every idea in it is based on this formative thinking. This is something essential for our time. For this formative thinking has a quite definite quality. . . . If you exercise creative, formative thinking (gestaltendes Denken), thinking that allows for metamorphosis, I could also say Goethean thinkingrepresented, for instance, in the shaping of our pillars and capitals [of the First Goethe anum]; used too in all the books I have tried to give to spiritual sciencethis thinking is closely bound up with the human being. Only the beings connected with the normal evolution of mankind can work creatively, sculp turally as a human being works within himself with thinking. . . . You can never go astray on a wrong path if through spiritual science you engage in formative think ing. . . . For the Christ Impulse stands in the direct line of formative thinking.

Angels never make mistakes. They never think step by step. They see their cosmic thoughtsall at once! Humans some day will become angelic. Meanwhile, the practice of Idea -Anschauung, of living into the develop ment and totality of a chapter idea, will bring us a touch closer to that goalin the realm of thinking. To help the reader achieve an overview, Steiners beautiful text was reduced here (in the neighboring chart) to a series of maxims. The conscientious reader will turn to the original and verify each one for himself. To be observed: there is an opening set of three paragraphs on the teacher/pupil relation; a closing set (four paragraphs) on the moral implications; between these unfold the guiding seven conditions for cultiva tion of soul health and vigor. Each of these seven conditions (paragraphs four through ten) describes what may be seen as a cure for a current crisis-situation in society. Each condition could well be expanded into a separate article. And the seventh condition includes the earlier six. It presumes that miracle of inner balance, and formulates the goal: a unified, harmonized soul life will establish the inner quiet, the poise needed for the first successful steps on the path to higher knowledge. The sequence of the seven conditions proceeds from Outer to Inner: ascending from bodily health; through life-sensitivity; and reality of thoughts and feelings; to the Being of man. Then in polar descent: from steadfastness of will and creative sacrifice; through grati tude, love, higher cognition; to harmony. Together: the seven great tones of sevenfold man resounda living thought organism. It was given thus in a form able to evoke the magical power of coming alive in the soul of the student: as totality, as Anschauung. Worthy of being inscribed indelibly in the soul by meditative effort, it can become the basis for conversation with the Higher Self and the Angelos.

Florin Lowndes drew the overview chart.

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C h a p te r V CONDITIONS FOR SOUL STABILITY BASIS FOR ALL PROGRESS ON THE PATH
Paragraphs * Theme * Organism

The R e a l Self found Within

Outer

7
n Thoughts &Feelings e r I
P o t e n t Forces Be Strong!

Soul S tren g th s C u l t iv a t e them!

S t e a d f a s t the Will! Love the Doing - N success ot Sacrifice is Giving Be thankful! Appreciation awakens Love Harmony -the Goal! No extremes Inner Poise!

Interlinked
O ne with World Be s e n s i t i v e !

Life F o r c e s
We are re s p o n s ib le !

Health first Body & Mind Take care!

The Whole Man H o ld the balance!

Persistent efforts expected

Left f r e e -

Inner Spirit Shapes its outer Form

Love of Man widens to love of Existence Build, t r a n s f o r m do not de s tr o y

No coercion

W o r k & Dedication make for Progress

Teacher advises Pupil Initiates

Learn to learn! Listen w/o reaction

Be Prepared!
The P a th is Adventure-some

Preparation ends (Next: Results)

PUBLICATIONS
THE TENSION BETWEEN EAST AND WEST by Rudolf Steiner. Introduction by Owen Barfield. Ten lectures in Vienna, June 1-5 and June 7-11, 1922. Anthroposophic Press, second printing 1983; 188 pages, $8.95 In June of 1922 Rudolf Steiner returned to his beloved Vienna, where he had spent his student days. Once the sparkling center of culture and art in Central Europe, still a beautiful and delightful city, postwar Vienna had been plunged into an atmosphere of gloom and despair. Devaluation of currency permitted visitors to live in luxury, while threadbare Austrians could scarcely afford basic necessities. Confusion, anxiety and fear prevailed. A Pentecostal flame arose in the midst of this chaos during the twelve-day West-East Congress of the anthroposophical movement. Rudolf Steiner hoped that the Congress would establish a spiritual foundation from which ascending forces might counter the forces of destruction. Vienna was specially suited, both geographically and through its people, to create a spiritual bridge between East and West. Individuals attended from various parts of Europe, from America to the west and as far away as Japan to the east. Mutual understanding was sought among companions from across the earth at a time when international understanding was at its lowest level. Each day lectures and discussions were shared on scientific topics, artistic themes and religious questions; performances of classical music and eurythmy highlighted the artistic presen tations. Rudolf Steiners evening lectures brought each days theme to its culmination. He spoke to approximately 2000 p eo p lemany of them standing in the packed hall. He addressed their readiness for knowledge, their capacity for thinking, for testing themselves, weeding out the old, and for acting out of insight. The reader will recognize that these lectures are not easy; they present spiritual insight into major problems and lead toward a new world view. Anthroposophy and the Sciences, the first five lectures of June 1-5, point toward modern dilemmas of knowledge and suggest some surprising solutions. Natural Science must be developed into spiritual science, which seeks to be its soul and spirit. Psychology must be advanced into meditative experi ence leading to the eternal in human nature. The Role of East and West in History has slowly led to the separation of religion, art, and science, which must now find an inner spiritual unity in the souls of men for trust to develop between East and West. The fourth lecture, given on Pentecost, contains a poignant imagina tion: the raised crucifix, bearing the body of the Redeemer, symbolically stands between the Eastern Buddhistic view of life and the Western ideal of resurrection through willful human activity. Limits of knowledge of outer world and inner self, so essential for our capacity to love and to develop a reliable memory, can be extended by supersensible cognition to reveal a paradoxical truth: the world is seen as inner self, and the inner self as world Cosmic Memory. Following a performance of Bruckners Mass in F Minor as requested by Rudolf Steiner, he resumed lecturing on June 7-11 on the theme Anthroposophy and Sociology. In Individual and Society he speaks about the question of freedom and its relation to intellectuality, compares human life-cycles to history, and presents an overview of the Waldorf impulse. In "The Individual Spirit and the Social Structure we see how history is now deployed in geographic space, pointing clearly to a three fold world view. Our failure to comprehend the true role of human labor and integrate it into the social order is The Problem (Asia-Europe). Our Prospects of Its Solution (Europe-America) involve taking hold of the unconscious, youthful forces of will. The path From Monolithic to Threefold Unity requires recognition of the role of Liberty in spiritual life, Equality in legal and political life, and Fraternity in economic endeavors, the three spheres working together. Carl Stegmann, who was present as a young man at these lectures, remarked on the thundering ovations greeting Rudolf Steiner as he entered and left the hall. He points out that Steiner proposed a new world view that went beyond his earlier Threefold Social Order; here, his scope was more universal, and new boundaries defined East, Center and West. The promise of America is spoken of in these lectures as never before; from the impulses given in Vienna, Rev. Stegmann and many others have turned their destinies toward planting and nurturing the seeds of anthroposophy in the West, as well as turning their inner gaze to comprehend the East. These lectures bear powerful forces for realizing a threefold world unity. Brian Gray (Fair Oaks, Calif.)

THE CYCLE OF THE YEAR AS BREATHING-PROCESS OF THE EARTH by Rudolf Steiner. Five lectures, Dornach, March 31 - April 8 , 1923. Translated by Barbara Betteridge and Frances E. Dawson. Anthroposophic Press, 1984; 88 pages; $7.95 & $14.00 (cloth) When a Member asked Rudolf Steiner whether it was better to read fifty cycles once or one cycle fifty times, Steiner reportedly opted for one. This cycle would be a good choice. On occasion Steiner went so far as to say that learning to feel the seasons of the year in all their significance was one way to prepare for seeing the etheric Christ (so Adam Bittleston reported in the 1960 Golden Blade.) This Easter cycle, subtitled The Four Great Festival Seasons of the Year, forms the central part of what we might call a trilogy of festival cycles, beginning with the Holy Nights of 1922-23 (The Spiritual Communion of Mankind) and concluding with the cycle of Michaelmas 1923, Anthroposophy and the Human Gemuet (recently published under the title Michaelmas and the Soul Forces of Man). In the Holy Nights lectures Rudolf Steiner mentioned for the first time the importance of celebrating the festival of Michaelmas in our age. The Easter cycle then takes up the impulse, describing what is needed for men once more to become festival-creating, especially to establish a Michael festival in such a way as to assure that ascending forces shall prevail in evolution. Together, this festival trilogy and the Soul Calendar (given eleven years earlier) are revelations of this path, which should lead from conscious participation in the cycle of the year to conscious communion with the divine.

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In Steiners picture of the festival year the four seasonal festivals form polarities, like a great cross: St. Johns polar to Christmas, Michaelmas to Easter. Upon this cruciform structure the year lives and breathes in a kind of lemniscate. The living Earth-soul which is held within the Earth in winter is breathed out into the cosmos from spring to summer, then breathed in again from fall to winter, bearing with it certain nature elemen ta l, and beyond these the forces of Christ with Michael at his right hand. Mans soul participates in this process. Many students have found the drawing of the lemniscate with which Steiner closed the first lecture an endlessly rewarding subject for meditation, also in relation to the Soul Calendar. The crossing-point of the lemniscate can be seen as indicating the time just before Easter and just after Michaelmas. Steiner speaks of Easter and Michaelmas as holding the balance between the summer mysteries of the heights and the winter mysteries of the depths. The following day Rudolf Steiner sounded the call for a renewal of the Easter festival. Today the time is come, he proclaimed, when the Easter thought must again awaken as a living thought. This living thought can then give birth to a Michael thought which alone can provide the inspiration for renewal of the social life. The central lecture, devoted to developing the impulse of the Michaelic will, stands as one of the greatest Michaelmas lectures in the literature. In the central passage of the cycle we read:
To feel the becoming of the thought in ones self, the gleaming up of the idea in the human soul, in the whole human organism of man, to be akin to the yellowing leaves, the withering foliage, the drying and shriveling of the plant world in nature; to feel the kinship of mans spiritual beingness with natures spiritual beingnessthis can give man that impulse which strengthens his will, that impulse which points man to the permeation o f his will with spirituality. In so doing, however, in permeating his will with spirituality, the human being becomes an associate of the Michael activity on earth.

In astounding pictures taken from the Akashic record Rudolf Steiner describes, in the closing pair of lectures, the celebrating of the four festivals of the seasons in the ancient Mysteries, echoing and expanding the content of the other two cycles in the trilogy. The origin of human singing from bird song, connected with St. Johns, provides a delightful passage, once the reader gives himself up to its dreamy repetitiveness. But he would do well to heed Steiners warning: Echoes of the [old] festivals have persisted, but naturally everything was changed when the great Event of Golgotha entered in. It is in all a stirring book. It would be hard to read it without sensing what Guenther Wachsmuth, who experienced the cycle first hand, meant when he wrote of these sacred hours which carried the inauguration of the spiritual cult of the festival times at the Goetheanum to a new stage of development. Barbara Betteridge (Santa Paula, Calif.)

AN OCCULT PHYSIOLOGY by Rudolf Steiner (eight lectures given in Prague, March 20-28, 1911). Rudolf Steiner Press, London, reprinted 1983, 205 pages; $9.95 For those who have been studying this book for years from contraband, dog-eared Xerox copies, the reprint of this crucial cycle of lectures is a most welcome event. In these lectures Steiner offered potent seed-forces for an exploration of physi

ology, laying down the foundations of the study of human life processes. Physiology, unlike anatomy, concerns itself with what is in movement in the human organism, what flows between organ systems, the continuous metamorphosis from substance to spirit, from spirit back to substance. The mood of these lectures, then, is one of tremendous reverence, as they approach the deepest mysteries of the human being in his relationship to the cosmos. Steiner says at the beginning of this cycle that, It is not without reason that I myself have only reached the point where I can speak upon this theme as the result of mature reflection covering a long period of time, and the reason to which he refers is the need to cultivate this reverence before the being of man as a revelation of spirit. This mood of reverence is conveyed not only in the rich content of this cycle but in its meditative unfolding, which evokes the essential nature of life processes perhaps more powerfully than the content itself. Steiner himself says, early in the cycle, that it will be impossible to understand fully what is offered in the early lectures without what is given in the final lectures: a complete circle of thought is formed, in which the end meets the beginning, re-enlivening it and allowing deeper reflection to peel away layer upon layer of common illusions. Beginning with the essential duality in human experience the outer world and inner lifeSteiner guides us through a series of pictures of dualities within the human organism, revealing countless facets of this relationship of what is inside to what is outside. The first picture presents the contrast between the brain and spinal cord, protected from the outer world within their bony sheath, and the rest of the organ systems. Though it is physically protected from the outer world, it is through the nervesense system that we make our most immediate encounters with what is outside us, while the organs more exposed physically to the outside maintain a much more inward existence. Having pictured this primary duality, Steiner penetrates further, differ entiating the brain (thinking) from the spinal cord (action), and finally the outer portion of the brain, which mediates waking consciousness, from the inner portion, a metamorphosed spinal cord, which is more concerned with dream life. The essential duality of nerve-sense system and inner organs is then developed further, with the heart-blood system introduced as the mediator between outer and inner. Steiner describes the blood moving through us as a tablet on which are inscribed on one side the sense impressions from the outer world and on the other side the inner vital life mediated by the organs of nutrition. Just when we may think, however, that we have outer and inner fixed in their proper places, Steiner suggests that the inner life of the organs is actually the transformed outer world of the cosmos. And through the nerve-sense system, outer impressions enter inner life via the soul activities. The blood in its constant movement faces both the world outside us and the world within, just as the ego stands poised between earthly life and supersensible life. A further duality is introduced between the brain, which conveys outer impressions to the blood, and the sympathetic nervous system, which Steiner describes as keeping the inner vital activities from reaching consciousness. From this polarity, Steiner gives remarkable insight into two potential paths of spiritual development: the quest into the macrocosm in which, through the development of Imagination, one frees the nerve forces from the blood, thus loosening oneself from the ordinary ego and piercing the veil over the sense world; and the quest within, into the microcosm, seeking through mysticism to bind the sympathetic nervous system to the blood, thus piercing the

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veil within, but also resulting in a dangerous immersion into the ego. Steiner then shifts to another facet of the human duality, contrasting the transformation of nutritive substance, particu larly by the spl en, liver, and gall bladderin which outer e substance is completely transformed before meeting the blood with the direct penetration of the outer world into the human being via the oxygen which the blood absorbs, untransformed, in the lungs. A collision of these two forces in the blood takes place at the heart, and the harmony between them is brought about by the activity of the kidney system, which disposes of excesses emerging from one pole or the other. A further unfolding of these dualities appears in the contrast between the outer world as it is absorbed directly and physically in the lungs and the direct but non-physical absorption of the outer world via the sense impressions and the soul activity involved in percep tion. Here Steiner contrasts a physical breathing process with a spiritualized breathing process, again mediated by the blood. The interplay of bodily, soul, and spiritual forces as they manifest themselves in relationship to the four members of man and to the three soul faculties leads to the tremendous complex ity that we encounter when trying to penetrate outer appear ances. As Steiner indicates, a particular organ system is merely a physical reflection of supersensible force systems which then guide the deposit of substances. Further dualities are explored in later lectures: the lymph system in relation to the blood system; the bony system in relation first to the skin and then to the blood. The bony systems fixity of form and impermeability to outer influence are con trasted with the bloods determinable substance which is sen sitive to every stirring within. The bony system, formed from past incarnations and now deadened, withdrawn from the egos influence, provides a support for the whole ego organization of this lifetime, while the blood, alive in the fullest sense, is the instrument of the egos present activity. These larger systems are then associated with much more delicate physiological proc esses connected with the souls activities: the salt-formation of the thought-process in the individual is associated with the cosmic thought-process of the past, reflected in the deposit of bone; the warmth activity of individual willing is associated with a cosmic warmth of the future that can imbue the human ego, carried by the blood, with compassion that will transform the earth. Having woven together an image of the entire human being through unfolding this sequence of dualities, Steiner brings all the systems into mobility in very specific descriptions of activities undertaken by all the organ systems in harmony. A powerful example is Steiners exploration of the activity of excretion at different levels: physical excretion in the differ entiating of nutritive substances; etheric excretion in the secretion of glands; astral excretion of the skin, related to the nerve-sense system; and ego excretion in the bloods constant flowing, changing, and differentiation of substances. Through all these forms of excretion the human being achieves con sciousness, becoming aware of himself from within and without through the resistance and discerning involved in the activity of excretion: this is I, this is not I; this is within, this is without. Steiners occult physiology is truly a hidden one: when we look at the living human being, we see none of these mysterious activities that are constantly at play in the organism; neither can we see them when we dissect a liver or kidney on a laboratory table. Only through attaining the same mobility in thinking that is active in the force systems behind the physical deposits of the

organs can we hope to apprehend the true nature of human physiology. Steiner offers such a fluid mobility of thinking in this cycle: he presents the results of his own cognition, yet, even more important, he demands a similar mobility in our own thinking, without which we would be unable to grasp the shifting relationships that unfold breathtakingly before us: man/ cosmos, inner/outer, conscious/unconscious, nerve/organs, brain/spinal cord, blood/nerve, blood/organs, lung/spleen, heart/kidney, lung/nerve, bone/skin, bone/blood, excretion/ absorption, death/life. After studying these lectures one feels as if woven into the formative stages of a crystal, surrounded and penetrated by the threads of truly living thoughts. Alice Wulsin (Spring Valley, N.Y.)

GOETHEANISTISCHE NATURWISSENSCHAFT; Volume 3, Zoologie, edited by Wolfgang Schad. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1984; DM 32.We live in a time in which Stephen Jay Goulds entertaining essays on such obscure topics as gall midges, fresh water clams, Irish elks, sponges, quahogs, mites, etc. are collected into best selling books for the general reading public. The array of such books and the many television programs on animals and animal behavior show that many people are interested in the animal world. However, most of these works show the behavior of animals through the neo-Darwinian lens, if not through the lens of sociobiology or selfish genes. In one reaction to such interpretations, best-selling author and biology watcher Lewis Thomas remarks that he cannot listen to the thrush outside his window singing its complex song, and compress it into a picture of a bird saying, Im here, keep out(males or Im here, please come into my territory (females). Thomas feeling is that there is a special something else in a thrush song which can only be interpreted as an expression of thrushness. Zoology and animal behavior (ethology) are the themes in this third book of the four-volume Goetheanistische Natur wissenschaft series. The essays in this collection take a closer look at the something else we feel when we carefully watch the lives and forms of animals. The collection contains 12 articles by the following authors: Andreas Suchantke (5), Friedrich Kipp (5), Thomas Goebel (1), and Wolfgang Schad (1). The topics are: bird migration, display patterns in birds, the language of insect forms, convergent evolution in skeletons of different animal groups, teeth patterns in mammals, the influence of light on living forms, a challenge to the Darwinian interpretation of mimicry in butterflies, forms of mollusks, and questions on the validity of natural selection and the Darwinian interpretation of survival of species. Half of the articles in this collection appear in the biblio graphy of Wolfgang Schads Man and Mammals. Here one can find some of the seminal insights which were incorporated into Schads book, which is the best-known detailed work on Goethean biology available to readers in English-speaking countries. Science is a conversation between the observer of living nature (biologist) and nature, but it is also a conversation between biologists and biology watchers. May these articles provide ground for dialogue, challenge, criticism and insight. Kenneth Melia (Orangevale, Calif.)

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A CONTEMPLATIONABOUT RUDOLF STEINER S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL by H. D. van Goudoever. Translated by Giselher Weber. St. George Publications, 1984, 50 pages; $6.95 In this short summary of lectures H. D. van Goudoever, with warmth of heart and wisdom of soul, describes the yearly journey of the human soul with way stations along a fourfold path. This path, beginning anew each year at Easter, is capable of raising us to different levels of soul experience. Van Goudoever shows how working with the verses of the calendar can open up the possibility for the new Christ experience: The appearance of Christ in an etheric body and the imaginative vision of the soul seeing itself as Madonna is the destiny of mankind and has worldwide significance. We learn to appreciate the Calendar of the Soul as a yearly path of transformation with the birth of the spirit child in the womb of the soul as a goal. Working with the Calendar may also be expressed as the practice of awakening the Christ consciousness within oneself. The text includes Giselher Webers English rendering of Rudolf Steiners verses of the Calendar, a boon to all who labor to find right translations. One can readily agree with J. Phillip Nusbaum in his Foreword: We feel this small volume would justify its publication for the English-speaking world even on the merits of the verses alone, as one more conscientious effort to incarnate them into our life in this language. This study will surely prove invaluable to all who seek a way to connect themselves with one of Rudolf Steiners most elusive yet also most centrally vital creative gifts to humanity. Magda Lissau (Chicago, Ill.)

wisdom of the stars received as inspiration. The Druid priest was concerned with retaining the purity in nature. He knew well the elemental beings that work beneficially in plants, but he also saw these same beings grow to gigantic size, and work destructively through such weather phenomena as hail, fierce winds, biting cold or searing heat. Agricultural practices were conducted in absolute rhythm with stellar influences, and the herbal medi cines were to reconcile the ravaging weather giants with the gods. Nevertheless, this nature culture met its demise when the forces of the intellect entered with the writing of the Runes. Gradually, the harmonious connection was broken and the Druid priesthood sank into decadence. As intellectual day consciousness replaced former dreamlike states, spiritual vision of nature was lost, although Steiner identifies Druid remnants in the atavistic capacities of such men as Jacob Boehme, Paracelsus or Swedenborg. A natural world order could never have granted true freedom to humanity, and the death-like intrusion of the intellect was necessary. It is the Deed of Golgotha that makes possible a new moral world order, replacing the natural one. The abstract intellect, however, can not experience the Golgotha Event, but rather the new state of consciousness, now emerging in humanity: a heightened state of waking, concerned with the human will as it acts on the nervous system. When we have understood the past, know of the future, and feel ourselves a bridge between them, can we begin to acquire the new faculties. The Druid cosmology of the past contains the seeds of the new will-wisdom of the future. In the Michaelic culture now approaching, a new relationship with the elemental world must be forged to heal the Earthnow from the vantage point of a heightened will-awareness, but prepared by the ancient Druid priest. Patricia Kaminski (Nevada City, Calif.)

MAN IN THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE THE SUN-INITIATION OF THE DRUID PRIEST AND HIS MOON SCIENCE by Rudolf Steiner. Four lectures in Stuttgart, Sept. 1416,1923 and Dornach Sept. 19,1923. Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982; 82 pages; $5.00 This lecture series, delivered shortly after Rudolf Steiner returned from Penmaenmawr, England, sheds light on impor tant aspects of Druid cosmology. In fact, Steiner refers to the Penmaenmawr visit as a very important event in the history of the anthroposophical movement, in bringing deeper recogni tion of certain soul forces in ancient humanity, which contribute to the evolution of human consciousness. Rudolf Steiner characterizes the Druid sensitivity for measuring and interpreting the Cosmos as one quite different from our modern telescopic astronomy, which merely calculates and transfers an earthly understanding to the larger universe. The monuments of the Druid priest cromlechs and stone -the circleswere instruments by which the Cosmos itself could be read, through clairvoyant discernment of the shadows cast by these stones. Unlike modern astronomy, which seems remote from the Earth itself, the cosmic Sun-wisdom of the Druids was a profound nature-knowledge that produced a superior agricul ture and plant medicine. The Druids are described as possessing, a kind of uncon scious memory of Sun and Moon elements existing in the Earth before the Sun and Moon were separated from it. Initiation rituals guided the Druid priest into the depths of the Earth, while holding fast to the anti-gravitational forces of the Moon. The living spirit in nature was perceived imaginatively, and the

THE ART OF LECTURING by Rudolf Steiner. Six lectures, Dornach, October 11-16, 1921. Mercury Press, 1984; 118 pages. For anyone deeply concerned with the difficult and urgent task of relating anthroposophy to the present human situation, this is an important set of lecturesone that will repay careful reading, discussion, and thought. Becauseforemost and throughout, and with a richness of insight and illustration these lectures deal with the art of lecturing itself, it would be easy to overlook their wider importance. But these lectures can, in fact, be read on at least two interrelated levels, both of which offer important guidelines if anthroposophists are to speak meaningfully in todays world. The course is always about the art of lecturing, and the subject is presented as pecisely that, an art. There is here no kit bag of ready-made techniques to produce the instant lecturer. Nor, Rudolf Steiner makes clear, could there be. What is crucial is to understand that which must go into lecturingin pr parae tion and presentationand, above all, to live into this under standing and to nourish it in practice. What such careful preparation and presentation entail is developed by Rudolf Steiner with detailed discussion of such wide-ranging considera tions as the different and appropriate ways in which thinking, feeling, and willing must all enter into the preparing and giving of the lecture; the task of joining thought with experience; the composition of the lecture; the appropriate forms of delivery for different subjects; the place of humor; the use and kinds of notes

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when these are needed; and so forth, reaching from the general to the very concrete. And because lecturing involves the whole person, in speaking and listening, Rudolf Steiner takes up, with practical suggestions, the improvement of speech. (The practical exercises for speech development are in German and, hence, of limited use to English-speaking readers; nevertheless, the prin ciples involved are important.) Steiner relates anthroposophical lecturing to other forms of public speaking in past and present, and concludes that beyond the older traditions of beautiful speaking and correct speaking, anthroposophists must strive for good speaking, a characterizing style, which connects effectively and meaning fully with the tasks of life. This is the element of truth, he says, in the utilitarianism of modern humanism and pragmatism, which is to be taken up and transformed. On principle, therefore, crucial to all anthroposophical lecturing, and stressed repeat edly, is the need to understand from the inside the mind and heart and circumstances of the listenerhis background, lifesituation, and inner-life of consciousness and concepts. And this important principle points to another level on which this course of lectures can be read. These lectures would repay some thoughtful reading and discussion by all who are not satisfied with our efforts so far to bring anthroposophy into genuine engagement with our most pressing modern problems and dominant ways of thinking. To this reviewer at least, three principles or considerations emerge that offer some real help, and challenge, in this regard. The first has already been mentioned; namely, Rudolf Steiners insist ence on the need to understand the listener. Steiner gives an excellent illustration of what is involved. He is speaking in 1921 to a small group of Swiss who will be engaged in lecturing on the threefold social order. He speaks directly to the needs and self-understanding of this audience, opening up for it the meaning of the threefold social order, and helping these future lecturers grasp those points which meet the needs and thinking of the proletariat and middle-class audiences they in turn will be addressing. Just as he did with pragmatism, Steiner attempts to show some of the points of contact between anthroposophy and the proletariat (there will be a few surprises here, I suspect, for some readers) and the middle-class bourgeosiepoints of contact which then have to be trans formed, for understanding does not mean naive adoption nor categorical rejection of the others position. One encounters increasingly today the question, that while anthroposophists are often quick to show how they differ from other movements, do they have no common ground with others that would make genuine engagement and dialogue possibleand necessary? Rudolf Steiner would seem to suggest that this is a good question, and one that we would do well to wrestle with. Another important consideration is Steiners insistence that the way to present anthroposophy must be continually re thought in connection with the time, place, circumstance, and conscousness of the people involved. Every sentence, says i Steiner, that is possible in a certain connection is today impossible in another connection. (p.32). He says to his listeners in 1921, for example, that the threefold social order as he first presented it needs to be re-worked thoroughly in a completely different form for England and America. There is no room here for any kind of anthroposophical fundamentalism which would seek to preserve unaltered some given formulation of anthroposophy. Can speaking and living out of anthropo sophy in our time require less attention to this task of continually renewed understanding and interpretation?

Finally, Rudolf Steiner urges anthroposophists to be aware of and interested in the events of the times. Here, as elsewhere, is his oft-repeated urging that anthroposophy never be allowed to become a sect in which, under cover of practicing esoteric knowledge, one takes refuge from the world. For example, Steiner observes that the indifference of the bourgeois middleclasses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to what was really going on in the world actually turned the spiritual life into ideology, and left the proletariat no alternative but to regard all spiritual talk as, indeed, ideological. One implication seems to be that a strong antidote to any tendencies of turning anthroposophy itself into mere ideology is a vital interest in what is happening in the world. To be sure, anthroposophy rightly grasped will itself evoke this deeper interest and understanding, but it requires those who strive for a genuine knowledge of the times. (p. 114) Steiner says: What we need above all is energy, courage, insight, and interest in world events on a broader scale! Let us not isolate ourselves from the world, not get entangled in narrow interests, but be interested in everything that goes on all over the world. (p. 118) For all who wish to find a deeper relationship in anthroposophy for them selves, with others, and for our times, these deceptively simple lectures have much worth pondering. And for those who would lecture, they are essential. Douglas Sloan (New York City)

HEALING FORCES IN THE WORD AND ITS RHYTHMS by Heinz Mu eller. Translated by Jesse Darrell. Rudolf Steiner Schools Fellowship Publications (distr. by St. George Book Service) 1983; 101 pages; $8.95 A craftsman of old had to pass through learning stages of apprentice and journeyman to become eventually a master in his field. Waldorf teachers go through similar phases. Taking on a class for eight yearsthe first time around is surely an apprentice situation. The experienced teacher could be likened to the journeyman, having greater certainty, knowledge and skill. Even in public school education we speak now of master teachers who are to guide others. True masters, however, are rare: those who create and speak out of their own insight, not merely repeating what others have said and achievedmasters who educate and heal, who reach the moral will of individual children. Such a Masterwith capital M to be surewas Heinz Mu eller. Cultivate speech in yourself and your children with the greatest care, since far and away the most of what a teacher gives his children comes to them on the wings of speechRudolf Steiners personal advice became Mu ellers central task. And there was more early help: a daily six-week speech course given by Steiner to a small groupMu eller among themin Steiners private study in Dornach. This was followed by personal talks (at various places) that covered whatever the young Mu eller was able to ask and comprehend. In 1967, after 42 years of Waldorf teaching, Mu eller pub lished in a small book the mature fruit of his lifework, centered on the report verse. For the uninitiated: this is a short poem to be created yearly by the classteacher for each child, to go with the written report but meant for the child himself, a verse that can show the individual child the direction in which he should strive (Rudolf Steiner.) Quite a task! It concerns not just a suitable poem but one specifically written to be recited by the child regularly in class during the following year.

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Heinz Mu ellers mastery is formidable: his loving knowledge of the individual childs moral needs, his creative skill, and his achieved know-how. He tells of the healing effect different meters have on the temperaments, and on weaknesses of thought, feeling, or will; he describes the effect of different voweland-consonant combinations; and he gives practical sugges tions for improving sloppy speech in individuals or class recitation. This educational gem has now become available in English, translated by veteran teacher Jesse Darrell. A labor of love and astounding skill: there are 181 sample verses whose thought content and imagery, meter and rhyme, and vowel-and-consonant emphasis were all transposed into English! To any apprentice, journeyman, and even master in Waldorf education this small book is truly a gift, and also to parents who are spiritually awake to the needs of incarnating souls in their care. Gisela ONeil (Spring Valley, N.Y.)

with the encouragement of Ruth Pusch, started trying to fill the gap left by the sad demise of Education As An Art. We were allowed to take on this name as our sub-title by the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. Now our circulation is over 5,000 with 54 U.S. Waldorf schools subscribing. Our aim is to have teachers throughout the movement inspiring one another with reports from their classrooms. Also, we should like to be an ambassador, introducing Waldorf education to parents and students. The Waldorf Schools Fund has given us a grant for the August 1985 issue to be sent to a thousand U.S. colleges and universities. The North American side includes myself as editor, about twenty liaison editors in different schools, Alan Howard, Dan Dorr as advertising manager and Diane Schmitt as circulation manager. Daniel Bittleston (Larkspur, Calif.)

CHILD AND MAN-EDUCATION AS AN ART edited by Brien Masters & Daniel Bittleston. Steiner Schools Fellowship; 48 pages; $3.00 per copy or $4.50 per year (two issues) from Diane Schmitt, 1823 Beech Street, Wantagh, NY 11793 Child and Man is just about fifty years old today. It was founded in the 1930s by Cecil Harwood, but in none of the early volumes is a date to be found. The journal was clearly intended to be timeless and indeed the contents of the very first issue are as interesting and as relevant today as ever. A complete collection of all the issues makes a very useful reference library on Waldorf education. I first came across Child and Man in 1965 when taking my first class at Michael House School, where Alan Howard was teaching and editing. By 1969 Alan had become correspondent for North America, a position he still holds with a regular, thought-provoking Comment. In the Winter 1983 issue, he wrote: It is the enslavement of the human spirit that is to be feared, not the Bomb; and the real enemy is not Russia nor America, but those beings of the unseen world who can seduce the human spirit through magic and fear. When I became a fairly frequent contributor, the journal had no color, no illustrations. For seven years I subscribed to Arne Klingborgs Par Vag, the Swedish Waldorf schoolsjournal; I understood very little but loved the colorful childrens work and the many photographs, financed, I discovered, by a large grant. Such glories were considered totally impossible for us. But in 1976, Art Osmond, an American colleague, and I raised funds and persuaded the editorial board to let us take over. We doubled the price and launched the first issue with the cover and seven pages in full color and sixteen other illustra tions, including a photo of Green Meadow School. Waldorf education could, after all, be described as colorful in contrast to the other varieties. Eileen Hutchins and I were co-editors and we tried to make the journal representative of the whole Englishspeaking world. That first illustrated issue had a report on the North American Waldorf schools by Francis Edmunds, on Vancouver Waldorf School by Alan Howard, and a halfpage ad for Education As An Art. The circulation immediately doubled to 2,200 and contin ued to rise. We were solvent. In 1981, I moved to California to begin my third voyage through the classteacher years at Marin Waldorf School and,

THE GOLDEN BLADE 1984 Work and WorklessnessJapan and the West edited by Adam Bittleston and Daniel T. Jones. Rudolf Steiner Press, London; 151 pages; $9.95 This years issue deals mainly with two themes. The first concerns mans experience of work and unemployment. The second looks at Japans culture and relationship to the West. A lecture by Rudolf Steiner, Elemental Beings and Human Destinies, included in this issue, throws light on both subjects. The section on Work and Worklessness brings a number of short articles. The Meaning of Work concludes with the profound observation that when we bring devotion to our worldly tasks, love is born as a creative force for the continuing good of m a n k in d Work & Destiny goes more deeply into how man can understand himself in relation to the work he does. This is followed by nine brief essays on specific vocations and how, through looking at what a person accomplishes in the social context, even the lowliest work can become a true service to the human community. A Dustman Speaks gives the reader a new awareness of how vital this menial task is to societys welfare. A Cooks Delight shows the significance of the housewifes task in providing nourishing food for her family. I Am A Plumber, The Actor, What Is A Research Worker?, Tinker, Tailor, Banker, Teacher, A Doctors Approach, and even T he Satisfaction of Computer Programming all try to view the individuals contribution to the community. The two articles, A New Vocation: Eurythmy and Counseling & Priesthood show how healing forces can flow into the social life through a new approach to human work. In Japan and the West, the reader is introduced to Japanese poetry, the Haiku. This art form, at first strange to Western ears accustomed to the wealth of words our poets use, can be appreciated if taken somewhat like meditations. Rudolf Steiner once described the butterfly as the plant freed by the whole cosmos. Moritake in the fifteenth century made the same observation when he wrote: A fallen flower Flew back to its branch! No, it was a butterfly. Individuality and Community in Japan is written in the form of a dialogue between a Japanese and an Englishman and explores the difference between social attitudes in the East and

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in the West. The individual's identification with a group and with his nation contributes to the economic success of Japan. This is also pointed out in the next article, Japan and the World Economy. The need for new spiritual impulses in Japan is highlighted in a brief description of the Japanese language and speech. The section ends with Notes on Japanese Painting which includes several color reproductions of Japanese paintings and a brief history of this art form. A concluding third section, titled Messengers of the Light, presents a biographical sketch of Wellesley Tudor Poole and a review of Alan Cottrells Goethe View of Evil by Owen Barfield. s Maria St.Goar (Chattanooga, Tenn.)

be hard put to translate this veritable paean and do justice to the exalted, creative, visionary and apocalyptic language. Benesch, who met the poet, calls him a true initiate. The books jacket design is backlighted by polar light curtains in delicate hues of greens and green-gold. They invite you to open the covers, to discover whats between them, to explore what is old, what is new, what is yet to come, promising beauty, mystery, knowledge and enlightenment. Ruth Mariott (Louisville, Tenn.)

THE BONE PEDDLARS: SELLING EVOLUTION by William R. Fix. Macmillan, New York, 1984; 337 pages; $18.95 This book is much more than a well-researched critique of paleoanthropology. First and foremost it is a valiant and enlightening attempt to lift the question of the origin of man out of the ruts of the creationists/evolutionist debate. Through introducing the book with a lively description of his own evolution as an author, William Fix quickly brings the reader to feel comfortable with the whole subject. He relates how his interest was first piqued by the incautious, dogmatic tone of the responses of the scientific community to the pressures of biblical fundamentalism. Why were the scientists being so defensive if the evidence was as overwhelming as they claimed? And on the other side, why were so many people reverting to the pre-scientific, literal interpretation of Genesis? Fix then de scribes how in trying to protect its weak points, science becomes ever more extreme and ultimately discredits itself entirely. It becomes a secular religion espousing a crass materialistic doctrine. Referring to Carl Sagan he says, Sagan invokes accidents the way others invoke God. In light of this, the resurgence of fundamentalism is not surprising: If millions are ignoring the evidence of geology, for example, it may not be that the dulcet tones of Jerry Falwell and other prime-time preachers are utterly irresistible, but that the scientists themselves are driving them away in the first place with their vacuous absurdities. His interest fully aroused, Fix then plunged into the intricacies of evolutionary theory and paleoanthropology. There he found that almost every ancestor of man ever proposed suffers from disqualifying liabilities that are not widely publicized, and furthermore, that the presentation of fossil evidence for human evolution has long been and still is more of a market phenome non than a disinterested scientific exercise. Fix documents his view of the history of paleoanthropology in the first half of the book (entitled A Tour of the Boneroom). Here it is possible to mention only the major features of this tour. Fix is not out to scuttle the evolutionary lineage of man on principlehe simply wants to get behind all the outrageous claims made about it. He proceeds by using the internal inconsistency of the fossil evidence to clear the field of most of the proposed ancestors of man, including such standbys as Neanderthal man and Peking man, as well as recent additions like Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis). Along the way Fix points to the factors that keep the popular misconcep tions alive: the temptations of fame and fortune, the national rivalries, and the all too human reluctance to eat crow. He concludes this section by observing that after 120 years of paleoanthropology it is still the anatomical resemblance of apes and men that is the strongest evidence in favor of evolution. In the second part of the book (A Wider Perspective), Fix tries to lay the basis for a more fruitful discussion of mans origin

POLARLICHT by Harald Falck-Ytter; photos by T. Loevgren. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1983; 195 pages; DM 58.Other than explorers, Eskimos and Lapps, relatively few people have experienced the Aurora Borealis and/or -Australis. These magnificent, mysterious curtains of light, ever changing, swaying, flowing in an absolutely stunning display of colors from the palest reseda-green to the deepest, but diffused red, were for many years the only worthwhile winter showother than the starry shoals of the Northern skiesfor me and my family in the dark nights of Alaska. Sometimes, when it was very cold, we could even hear them: a tinkling, swooshing, delicate sound, described by some as glittering, harmonious. Northern ers call it the Music of the Spheres: the soft touch of angels playing the heavenly harp while the lights oscillate. This book, greeted like an old and very special friend by those who remember, provides also a marvelous journey for every nature lover, for everyone who appreciates rare photo graphs and even rarer art, for anyone who wants to know more about the phenomena of polar lights. This book, as Friedrich Benesch in his foreword points out, is the first complete work about polar light in German. No such other, should it exist in any language, could possibly equal it. The author has encom passed here with vision, great love and scientific accuracy all available information about the Auroras. Polarlicht is on its way to being translated into English, but a true lover of fine books could be satisfied with the work at hand: 22 full-page color photos, various self-explanatory charts and illustrations, 8 lithographs by the Danish painter Harald Moltke (1871-1960) themselves highly valued works of art and collectors items in their timeand a reproduction of a woodcut by explorer Fridtjof Nansen. It is impossible not to feel deep reverence and be truly awe-inspired when turning the pages, slowly. The text itself comprises eight chapters, dealingin balanced proportionwith different aspects of the polar lights: mythical, historic, scientific. The newest discoveries and exact analytic results of geophysics and astrophysics are amplified. They gain more meaning in the light of anthroposophy and a deeper, more spiritual world vision. The Auroras are seen not only in context with the planet, around which they blossom, but with the whole planetary system. While serious exploration and studies have only recently been done, the phenomenon itself has long been taken as one akin to thunder and lightning. The polar lights originate in the upper spheres, where the earth surrounds itself with the magnetically caught winds of the sun. The books final crowning chapter features interpretations and part rendi tion of the Northern Light Epos by Theodor Daeubler (18761934) to whom the whole book is also dedicated. A translator will

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than is possible in the present public debate in the United States. He begins by demonstrating that the Darwinian theory of evolution survives today largely because it is an object of genuinely religious devotion. In this demonstration he draws heavily on Norman Macbeths book Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason. He speaks of that advocate of common sense, Norman Macbeth, and titles one of the chapters T he Lawyers Whistle; one may well regard the whole book The Bone Peddlers as a continuation of that earlier appeal to reason. Fix turns next to the creationists: he points out that the book of Genesis contains two accounts of creation, which are contradictory in places if taken in the literal sense that the creationists insist upon. In the geological record he does not find much evidence for a recent creation of the earth and he suggests that the whole literal interpretation of Genesis is bad Bible scholarship. Having shown that both the evolutionist and creationist theories have many weak points, Fix takes a positive tack andborrowing from parapsychology, modern physics and ancient religious literatureintroduces two theories of his own; these he feels take into account the spiritual dimension of man without proposing a series of miracles that are intrinsically inscrutable. In the theory of psychogenesis, a new species may arise through the interven tion of spiritual agencies at critical stages of embryonic devel opment; in the (unhappily named) apparition theory, the physical body of man is regarded as having condensed from a more spiritual condition. Fix concludes with the sociological observation that today, although the materialistic biologists are woefully unaware of it, there is a deep tide running in the direction of things of the spirit. Ultimately, the deeper problem of the scientists is not the challenge of the fundamentalists, but rather their own lack of appreciation of the multiple dimen sions of man himself. This book succeeds through its own humility and sincerity in breaking the deadlocked conceits of the evolutionists and the creationists. It points in a new direction and is itself a significant symptom of this direction. It chronicles the self-imposed erosion of evolutionary science and portrays how ripe the situation is for a new direction in these waning years of the century. It is also, however, a plea for help, for it does not completely escape the dualism which it recognizes must be overcome, Fix has yet to realize that it is the hypothetico-deductive method itself that must be superseded in science. It is not enough to shift the content of study from physical to spiritual phenomena (as in parapsychology), the method of study must change as well. Theory and phenomenon must no longer remain separate, or as Goethe put it, the phenomena must themselves become the theory. When Fix recognizes this method he will also no doubt recognize the significance of Rudolf Steiner, the man who most consistently applied this method, above all to the evolution of man. (Fix does include Steiners Life between Death and Rebirth in the bibliography, but does not mention him in the text.) Malcolm Gardner (Spring Valley, N.Y.)

DAS NEUNTE JAHR (The Ninth Year) by Hermann Koepke. Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, Dornach 1983; 121 pages The human life unfolds in seven-year rhythms under the guidance of the hierarchies. This regularity is broken by two early incisions when the luciferic and the ahrimanic streams enter. The first occurs around the age of three with the birth of

the luciferic memory-self and the child learns to say I; the second, in the tenth year (at 91/3), brings an ahrimanic thoughtcapacity, enhancing greatly the feeling of self. The latter establishes the split between me and the world. The child begins to distinguish between what he sees and what he thinks. (Rudolf Steiner describes the entrance of these two streams, and the educational measures to balance the second, ahrimanic stream in a lecture in Augsburg, March 14, 1913.) This book, The Ninth Year, is about the second, momen tous change in the human life. (The author speaks of the ninth year the way the Italians name the centuriesquatrocento for the 15th. The book concernswhat we callthe tenth year.) Hermann Koepke, a Waldorf teacher in Dornach, details the physiological and psychological changes and the educa tional implications. By reconstructing two parent interviews and a parent evening with the class teacher, he first approaches the theme from the outside, observing the tenth-year change and relating it to home and school. Then he brings seven autobio graphical recollections, including those of Bruno Walter, Dante, and Rudolf Steiner. In the third section, titled T he Second Seven Years, he attempts to clarify the physiological and psychological changes by contrasting different age groups. He draws on Rudolf Steiners educational lectures and on other anthroposophic writers. There is an appendix relating the tenthyear change to a half moon node, and an effort to correlate the teeth-change pattern with form drawings that Rudolf Steiner gave in a lecture cycle in Ilkley (August 1923). And there are 54 footnotes, witness to thorough and thoughtful work. For Waldorf teachers of the younger grades this book should prove a great help. There are, however, some limitations: Koepke bases his illustrative material, demonstrating the crucial help provided by Waldorf education, on the curriculum of the third grade. This implies that third graders have completed the ninth year (and that the school entrance age for first grade is the completed seventh year). In our schools, however, the children are at least a full year younger, and the tenth-year change occurs here mostly in the fourth grade. Nor do we seem out of tune with the curriculum , since Rudolf Steiners indication for introducing in a Waldorf school the second morning verse, beginning with I look into the worldaffirming the new consciousnessis for the fifth and not the fourth grade. Koepkes third part, based on Rudolf Steiners Menschen kunde works with anthroposophic conceptse.g., the unfolding of the three systems in man; head and will poles; or that the head-spirit is still asleep in the first gradermaking the text accessible only to thoroughly prepared readers. Also, the use of sphere, moon, and rays, that Rudolf Steiner showed in other contexts as components of the human form, portraying here the human figure as bearer of systems (head, rhythm, and limbs) would strike an unprepared reader as quaint, to say the least. These caveats should not distract from the books merit as a valuable study for Waldorf school faculty. It can help teachers to anticipate the tenth-year change, and to guide the children in their care (and their parents) more consciously through this difficult phaseinstead of having to react, perhaps bewildered, to the obvious manifestations of this change. Gisela ONeil (Spring Valley, N.Y.)

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THE SUN A T MIDNIGHT: THE RUDOLF STEINER MOVE MENT AND THE WESTERN ESOTERIC TRADITION by Geoffrey Ahern. The Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, England, 1984; 7.95 Editors Note: To bring Stewart Easton review in this issue, drastic s reduction of the original length was necessary. The resulting omis sions and some rough spots in the text are the responsibility of the editor. The publishers state on the jacket that this is the first critical study of the Steiner cult by an informed outsider. The author claims to be both informed and an outsider, insisting he has never hidden his independence from Rudolf Steiners revelation, and while doing his research he was never con verted. The contents bear out this claim, but on several occasions Ahern says he was also an empathetic outsider. Taken literally, this statement cannot be true. Empathy means the power of projecting ones personality into, and so fully understanding, the object of contemplation (OED). After a careful reading, I find more antipathy (though possibly uncon scious) than empathy. Whatever Aherns conscious intentions, much of his writing exposes the movement and its founder to ridicule. His method of research may be an empathy explicitly assessed by a consciousness that is trying to be honest, but most readers will find his non-empathetic feelings take precedence over objectivity. Aherns age is not given, but I will guess he is now in the later part of the intellectual soul period, his early thirties, and that his field work was completed at what he calls early middle age, which he identifies as 29! Only at such an age could he believe himself capable of assessing Steiner and the movement, even placing it within the entire esoteric tradition of the West, and concluding his book by offering a theory of esotericism subsuming his personal enquiries into anthroposophy and his extensive reading in Western esotericism. In view of this attitude toward anthroposophy, it is extra ordinary that the author became a member of the Society, having applied in Great Britain. As he says, the statutes formulate only one necessary commitment of the applicantthat he considers as justified the existence of an institution such as the Goethe anum in Dornach, in its capacity as a School of Spiritual Science (Statute #4). But Statute #2 states, that the persons gathered at the Goetheanum at Christmas 1923 are convinced that there exists in our time a genuine science of the spiritual world which it is the task of the Anthroposophical Society to cultivate. It is evident the author has no such conviction and does not accept there exists any genuine science of the spiritual world. It follows that he cannot believe the Goetheanum, as a School of Spiritual Science, to be justified. He is critical of almost every aspect of anthroposophy, not because of the way it has been applied, but as spiritual teaching or, as he always calls it Steiners revelations. This book originated from a thesis presented at the London School of Economics to enable the author to win a doctorate. The subject was The Anthroposophical Movement in the United Kingdom; its gnosis and the thought-world and identity of its members. The author examined the social status of the Members, their cultural interest outside anthroposophy, and similar matters. The founder of anthroposophy was also scruti nized from the same point of view. Research into the thoughtworld of Members is difficult because Rudolf Steiners teach ings constitute the greatest part of anthroposophical thought. I would have advised the doctoral candidate to look into the

periodical literature written by Members other than Steiner, perhaps yielding clues to their thought-world. But there is no sign that Ahern consulted the Journal for Anthroposophy, or the British Anthroposophical Quarterly, or the current Anthropo sophical Review, though he used some issues of the British Newsletter. Neither he nor his assistant and collaborator ex amined the very extensive German literature. Instead he pre ferred to do field work, consisting of 18 interviews averaging three hours each with Members in London, who were taking courses in speech formation and eurythmy at Rudolf Steiner House. Since the average age of those interviewed was about 30, the sample was scarcely representative. Ahern admits that willingness to be interviewed was in inverse proportion to the age of the Members approached. Perhaps older and more knowl edgeable Members refused to be interviewed, leaving him little choice. Since he has respected the anonymity of those inter viewed, we cannot tell whether they possessed authentic infor mation. The rest of his field work appears to have consisted of a three-week visit to the Camphill Community in Botton, Yorkshire, visits to biodynamic farms, and a eurythmy perfor mance that he failed to appreciate or understand. The lessons we ought to learn, as anthroposophists, is how our behavior and comportment, including our vestimentary preferences, affect outsiders. The numerous errors and mis understandings in this work should remind us how careful we must be when explaining anthroposophy to outsiders, especially those who write about it The examplary accuracy of Ronald Kotzschs article from the East/West Journal published in the Spring Newsletter does credit to those who answered his questions, to the author himself, and the spirit of his enquiry. If the readers of Aherns book seek accurate knowlede of anthro g posophy, they should look elsewhere because it is impossible to distinguish truth from opinion, and fact from misinformation. For Americans it will come as news that Spring Valley in New York State was bought with an inheritance after the Second World War, especially if, like myself, they paid a visit to the Threefold Farm in the 1930s; or that in New Hampshire there is an attempt to establish a local currency (based on windmill energy) which is an integral part of anthroposophical living. If Aherns membership figures for other countries are reliable, we in France, with 1040 members are way ahead of most Societies, including the Scandinavian, although he credits us with apparently relatively few citizens belonging to the movement. Information on the history of the Society provided in a chapter called The Establishment of a Cult, is scarcely more reliable except when he quotes directly from Steiner. Having obtained access to the Bockholdts book on Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman and to old English newsletters, he gives some information not widely known, but managed to confuse the two protagonists of the book, speaking once of Ita Wegman as the putative Ebani! Nor did Ahern check the culture to which this pair belonged, referring to it as Assyrio-Egyptian. We learn Steiner became a highly controversial figure in postwar Germany, but hear immediately that anthroposophists still seem to be slightly disappointed that this attention died down with the apocalyptic sense of chaos. An archetypal sentence reveals Aherns major preoccupation: Esotericism generally appealed to the socially privileged, perhaps because, without being personally threatening to their status or pockets it gave them experiential relief from convention and cosmological comfort. Steiners admitted association with the Yarker rite (explained in detail in his Autobiography) is used to associate him with an esotericism that is said to have practiced sexual magic.

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When the notes are consulted, we are referred to a book published by Aherns publisher and written by one Christopher McIntosh called The Rosy Cross Unveiled claiming Yarker belonged to an Order that practiced sexual magic. The same statement is again referred to later as if McIntosh was a reliable authority. On affairs of the Society, Ahern does not fare much better. He attributes the 1935 crisis in the Society to differences between German-speaking and non-German speaking Members. The book is riddled with words like seems, appears, perhaps, probably, and possibly showing he did not verify what he said. For example, after speaking of Marie Steiners marginal cultural origins, which he compared to Steiners own lowerclass origins, he calls her Steiners conservative-minded widow who spoke no English. The smallest enquiry from an informed source (such as my own biography of Steiner) would have revealed she was an excellent linguist, like so many upper-class women of Baltic origin, having translated for Steiner, among other languages, from the English. It would have been easy to discover that Mr. Dunlop was still the General Secretary of the AS in GB during the schism from Dornach in 1935, and that it retained the original name, the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. It was not carefully named by Cecil Harwood, who was not General Secretary until 1937. This should be enough to show something of the nature of the authors field work. Ahern in his prologue admits that he cannot expect to uncover all the multiple diversities of the movement, but expresses the hope that the limitations inherent in any intro duction by an outsider are not so great that the enterprise as a whole is invalid. As an insider of many decades I can only say that his hopes have not been realized. It is not the numerous errors which vitiate it, nor the limited research. The enterprise was doomed from the beginning by the attempt to use criteria for judging the Society and Movement that are not applicable, leading to gross distortions and useless conclusions. What earthly use is it to enquire into the class origins and economic status of members of the Society, or to speculate about Steiners success as a substitute father-figure for Members who disliked or disagreed with their real fathers? How does such research help solve any problems of the modern world or add to human understanding? It never occurs to Ahern to look for spiritual explanations. He does not believe in Steiners cosmogony, holding with most academics that new ideas are simply syntheses of old ones. Therefore, the task is to trace these ideas into the past. Ahern assumes Steiner was familiar with older gnostic and esoteric ideas which he used to construct his own synthesis, designed to appeal to certain categories of Western society. In particular, Ahern maintains that Steiner was intellectually beholden to the Valentinian Syro-Egyptian gnosis of the second century A.D., and he pictures Steiner possibly studying original Western esoteric works in medieval Latin (to which improbable activity he was led by his scholarly reflexes), He speculates that Steiner seems to have derived his idea that since 1879 we have been living in a Michaelic age from the Magus Trithemius (perhaps through Eliphaz Levi) and that he may have been aware of a light-hearted esoteric work, Le Comte de Gahalis (1670), which theorizes about elemental spirits called, as in his later system, gnomes, sylphs and salamanders. To explain Steiners particular syntheses Ahern uses Carl Jungs theory stating that gnostic and esoteric cosmology is a psychological projection. The chapter The Evolution of the

Macrocosm makes use of this notion, attributing Steiners teachings on the Crystal Heaven (pre-Saturn) to the Steiner familys sense of past paradise . . . before they experienced the marginalities involved in working for the new railway. In describing Old Saturn, Steiner was perhaps in touch with some very early pre-conscious states of being from his own infancy, or even foetal life; the pralayas . . . could relate to sleep, or, more psychologically to the need for periods in which con sciousness can assimilate new development. When the Saturn consciousness advances to that of sleep, Steiner, Ahern tells us, may have been projecting his infantile experience. The rebellion and conflict on Old Moon, could relate to his childhood sense of being an outsider and the tension when he was an adolescent between his intuition and the contemporary materialist philosophy. It should be clear enough that the book is valueless as a study of the Rudolf Steiner Movement, and that Aherns research methods could not have led to anything much better. The material on the Western esoteric tradition does include some interesting passages and a few well formulated sentences and insights, but his presuppositions about anthroposophy and Western esoteric tradition prevented him from coming to any real understanding of either. Therefore, let me say how I think Mr. Aherns enterprise could have been carried out. It would have been possible for him to have decided to hold as a possible hypothesis that Steiners teachings were true. It was not compulsory for him to be converted but only to be truly empathetic and see whether his research would lead to any greater understanding of the world, humanity, and the process of evolution. Did what Steiner taught make any sense, not in the light of Aherns studies and prejudices, but in its own light? In other words, assume that it might all be true. Where might this have led him? It would have led him to the key concept of the evolution of consciousness, a topic to which he scarcely gives any attention, though crucial for any understanding of anthroposophy. This concept would have explained how a man of our time was able to acquire all the knowledge that Rudolf Steiner possessed, includ ing the cosmogony to which Ahern devotes so much attention. There have always been some men who had knowledge of the higher worlds, able to read, as Steiner could, in the Akasha Chronicle. But the time had not yet come in human evolution when this kind of knowledge could be given out in clear conceptual form. This had to wait for the development of the consciousness soul. If Trithemius the Magus and Eliphaz Levi spoke prophetically of the coming age of Michael, they knew of it in advance through their own clairvoyance. They did not have to take the idea from others, any more than Steiner did. When I was talking about this book with an English Member he asked only one questionwas it well written? I told him that readers who did not have a special interest in the subject would find it difficult to plow through the convoluted sentences, even when they conveyed a clear meaning and were not just so much verbiage as they often were. Would new readers be tempted to read the book and learn a good many things about anthroposophy that are not so, or would the writing discourage them, he then asked. I told him I doubted they would be so tempted. Then we can be assured, he said, it will sink without a trace. While not wishing any personal ill to either author or publisher, I can only hope my friend is rightfor reasons that have surely become clear in the course of this review. Stewart C. Easton (Colmar, France)

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M E M B E R SHIP
MAULSBY KIMBALL AT EIGHTY I was born in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 20, 1904 and grew up there. The home atmosphere was a cultured and artistic one with regular reading aloud of poetry and fine literature. My mother was a very artistic person and a very good painter in oils. My father was a lawyer whose loves were playing quartettes, where he was a violist, and collecting paintings. I was a typical second born (in the sense of Karl Koenig), unresponsive to guidance and without a sense of duty: a problem until late adolescence. Looking back, I experience this early rejection of convention as the seed of my creative freedom as an artist. However, problems caused wear and tear on my parents, the trying of several schools, even the co-founding of one of the first progressive schools in the country, the Park School, in Buffalo.[ ] i K y b s l u M f r t o h p : e g a m I lectures aloud in the evenings, and through this I became immersed in anthroposophy. Out of this background, and together with others, I formed and conducted the Bryn Mawr Art Center (1937-1955). I also headed the art department of the Haverford School for twelve years (1945-57). I spent a year in the army and a number of months doing projected drawings in perspective for a helicopter company as part of the war service. Earlier there were many months of doing medical illustrations, first for the anatomy department of the University of Pennsyl vania and later as a freelance illustrator. Meanwhile, in 1933 the Anthroposophical Society had invited Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, Guenther Wachsmuth, and Hermann von Baravalle to the U.S. for a lecture tour. In 1939 Baravalle returned to this country to become a significant influence for the development of the Waldorf school movement. From time to time I invited him to lecture. In 1949 Baravalles sister, Elisabeth (Ilse) Metaxas came from Europe to teach eurythmy at the Kimberton Farms School and at Adelphi College. The first summer she was here I invited her to join us and teach eurythmy in the summer school we had in Maine and in 1952 we were married. A few years later, we lived in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., I painting and teaching, and Ilse conducting a eurythmy school at the New York headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society. As time went on I became more active in the anthropo sophical work. This began with a special project for the centennary of Rudolf Steiners birth in 1961. We formed the Rudolf Steiner Exhibitions Trust, which borrowed paintings from anthroposophical artists in Europe, and circulated exhibi tion groups of these and other anthroposophical material to hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the country, often accompanied by lectures. In 1962 I became yet more active in Society work and for ten years, up to 1972, was president and then executive director (as well as member of the council and of the executive committee) of the Anthroposophical Society in America. This called for many classes and lectures throughout the country. In 1974 Ilse and I immigrated to South Africa, where we spent 21 months. Ilse taught eurythmy, and I taught painting, lectured, and exhibited in various South African cities and Rhodesia. The high point for each of us was a series at the St. George Cathedral in Capetown, and 20 lecture demonstrations at the University of Capetown. My painting has developed its character over the years. At first it was straight repr sentation. Then I became influenced by e the dynamics of the French moderns. In the 1930s one of the outstanding anthroposophic artists, William Scott Pyle, came to Philadelphia as a patient of Dr. Kilgus. In a few sessions spent with him I became deeply influenced by the possibilities of cosmic quality in painting and imagination directly out of color. I have worked to develop this through the years. This has led to the exhibiting of paintings world-wide, and having pictures in collections in sixteen countries on four continents, most recently two paintings in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard where the curator, Konrad Oberhuber, commented: Maulsby Kimballs art is music made visible in color and form. Throughout the years the study of anthroposophy has been a major continuing influence. I attribute to several years of

I cannot remember much of the child-age drawing and painting. The conscious urge to engage in art was awakened by the drawing in a biology class. Later, I found myself living near the Art Students League in New York City. There I participated in evening drawing classes for about five years. I became friends with a very talented younger, well-established painter, Jay Connaway, and spent many hours watching him paint, living into the remarkable qualities of his painting. Eventually, I acquired a set of oil paints for my first halting efforts at paintingunbelievably bad but engrossing. Then came one of the most vivid and significant moments of my life. One day I was painting. Suddenly I experienced an inner flash of knowledge that painting and a life of art were to be mine. It was like a revelation, certainly the speaking of my inner being as I had never experienced it before. From that moment I had a sense of purpose and direction. This called for a reorientation of life. I left New York City, moved back to the family home in Buffalo, and for the next two years studied intensivelymorning, afternoon, and eveningat the local Albright Art School. In 1930 I moved to Philadelphia and met a remarkable esoteric teacher and therapist, Dr. Ella D. Kilgus, a student of Rudolf Steiners work. She worked actively to bring her patients to a spiritual transformation. I remained in close touch (19301955). For years we had summer classes in painting in Sullivan, Maine, where Dr. Kilgus had a summer home. We read Steiner

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weekly eurythmy classes the metamorphosis from conventional painting to a much more flowing and imaginative way of working. Ilse was our fifth eurythmy teacher and I have often said that I have married my fifth eurythmy teacher. This work in eurythmy did much towards developing the musical quali ties in my painting. I had been brought up with music, had studied violin when very young and then piano, later viola and for a number of years had played viola in quartettes. At the age of sixty, I started singing lessons which led to a rich musical experience. I always had an instinctive sense for handling things in music, but in my painting I had to labor the hard way through all possible problems. Having had to work so hard to achieve living qualities in painting has helped me to understand these problems when teaching and helping others. Life called on me to teach from preschool-age children to real old timers, including a number of guest-teacher blocks in Waldorf schools and teacher-training classes. The most recent teaching task was painting classes for foundation-year and teacher-training students for several years, at the Rudolf Steiner College in Sacramento.

Gertrude S. Schneider Lake Oswego, OR Josef Towner Fair Oaks, CA Claude Julien Carmichael, CA Mary Osborne Carmichael, CA William N. Ritch, Jr. Carmichael, CA Constance Ann Michael Cincinnati, OH John P. Michael Cincinnati, OH Eva Kudar Fair Oaks, CA

Robert George Mays Chapel Hill, NC Suzanne Brooke Mays Chapel Hill, NC Gonda Verhoeven-Bremer Southfield, MI Teresa S. Thompson Southfield, MI Karen Frishkoff Ghent, NY Bernard C Wojan W.Hartford, CT Verena R. Buhl Transf. from Netherlands

N EW M EM BER S

Ilana W. Graham Fair Oaks, CA Gerald R. Hershberger Troy, MI Sandra Holland Inverness, CA James J. Kotz Venice, CA Ronald M. Krupp Temple, NH Christine Meyer Granada Hills, CA Donald C. Meyers Richmond, VA Katherine M. Scharff Spring Valley, NY Sabine Seiler New Orleans, LA Susan E. Walter Davis, CA Joseph Weitner Chicago, IL

Patricia Zimmerman Fair Oaks, CA Richard John Anderson San Francisco, CA Stephen Bloomquist Belmont, MA Marilou B. Coats Chattanooga, TN Gwendolyn Eisenmann Brixey, MO Paul Gierlach Detroit, MI Beth Ann Grib Belle Vernon, PA Karl Levin Hollywood, CA Terry Levin Hollywood, CA Angelika N. Mahle Carmichael, CA Carol K. Rudolph Detroit, MI

M E M BE R S W H O HAVE C R O SSE D TH E T H R E SH O L D O F DEATH

Ursula Stuber, Nov. 30, 1983 from Great Barrington, MA Joined the Society in 1952 Valdene Sachs, May 10, 1984 from Denver, CO Joined the Society in 1946 Peter Escher, May 19, 1984 from Spring Valley, NY Joined the Society in 1944 Laura Blickfelt, May 21, 1984 from Los Angeles, CA Joined the Society in 1935 Fowler Hamilton, June 7, 1984 from Greenwich, CT Joined the Society in 1975 Rick Mansell, June 8, 1984 from Redondo Beach, CA Joined the Society in 1949 Dietrich V. Asten, July 7, 1984

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R E PORTS
PROMOTION EFFORTS OF THE ANTHROPOSOPHIC PRESS May 26-29 the Anthroposophic Press exhibited its books at the annual American Booksellers Association convention in Washington, D.C. This is the largest annual book event in America, where well over 4,000 publishers and booksellers appear for three and a half days to attend seminars, meet, and exhibit their wares in booths and displays. This year included book promotions featuring such celebrities as Racquel Welch and Rosalyn Carter. With the help of a eurythmist, the Anthro posophic Press brought to life for the convention visitors our recent publication, An Introduction to Eurythmy by Rudolf Steiner, through demonstrations of eurythmy in our booth. Many curious persons were attracted to the eurythmy, and a good number were already familiar with the name of Rudolf Steiner, particularly through the Waldorf schools. (However, some took our color poster of the book to be a promotion of the rock group The Eurythmics!) The Press has made significant progress in its new focus on getting the books of Rudolf Steiner and other anthroposophical authors it distributes before a much wider audience. Within the last few years the two largest bookstore chains in America, B. Dalton Books and Walden Books, have begun stocking Press titles. (Look for them in your local shopping mall!) Many Members have asked for an update on the reception of Steiners The Boundaries of Natural Science and the effect of its widespread promotion. The results are not yet fully in, since three major scholarly reviews of the book will appear only in early summer 1984. It is possible, however, to report that more than 1,000 copies were sold during the first three months of sales (October to December 1983). Since then sales have steadied to a regular trickle averaging fifty-some copies a month. It is significant that many of these orders are arriving from public and university libraries. Several new books scheduled to appear in late 1984 or early 1985 will be promoted in a similarly energetic fashion. The first of these, Secrets of the Skeleton: Form in Metamorphosis by L.F.C. Mees, the Dutch physician, is a profusely illustrated Goetheanistic study of correspondences between human bone forms, leading the reader to consider these as evidence for the realities of reincarnation and etheric formative forces. Another is a translation of Art and Human Consciousness (Ideen zur Kunstgeschichte) by Gottfried Richter with a foreword by Konrad Oberhuber. Also richly illustrated, this is the only anthropo sophical book offering a complete, if aphoristic, survey of art history from ancient to modern times. A third translation, The Rediscovery of Color by Heinrich Proskauer, is more than a normal book on Goethes color theorythe boxed volume will include a prism and replicas of Goethes own experimental color cards so that readers may themselves perform and experience Goethes original color experiments. Theodore Roszak has promised to review this book, which he already knows in German. 1985 will also see the appearance of a collection of essays by Jochen Bockemu ehl, Wolfgang Schad, Hermann Poppelbaum, and others methodically introducing a Goethean scientific approach to the etheric forces, tentatively titled Paths toward a Phenomenology of Nature Finally, as we who are fully occupied with the production and selling of books strive to remember, anthroposophists cannot rely on the printed word by itself to communicate the living realities of anthroposophy. The printed word, as a tool of Ahriman, must be enlivened through human meeting and conversation. However, this must be human contact of the right sort. Just today we received a telephone call from a man in a large midwestern city who wanted to use a 1977 catalog to order books. He said he had found Rudolf Steiners books very valuable and had been reading them on his own for about ten years. He asked almost desperately for centers of anthroposophical study and life where he could discuss these ideas. He said in the past he had encountered too many unbalanced or kooky types among the local anthroposophists he met and had never found anyone intelligent with whom to converse about anthroposophical ideas. Nor is this an isolated instance in our experience at the Press. It only reinforces for us the need for sensitivity, openness, and restraint in approaching newcomers to anthroposophical conceptions and activities. David Adams and Stephen Usher (Spring Vall y, N.Y.) e

EFFORTS IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON An addendum to the report given by Susanne Szekely at the Annual General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society as reported by Henry Barnes in the Autumn1983 issue. There have been several people who pioneered the anthro posophical work in the state of Washington, which may be symptomatic of other situations. In September of 1975, Ronald Moss, a member of the Society, invited Steven Roboz of Vancouver to give the first public lecture, on Reincarnation and Karma, in Seattle. A weekly study group resulted. I attended this lecture and joined the Society the following year. In 1976, Mr. Moss opened the Rudolf Steiner Book Store in his home. In 1977, we procured a booth at the Good Earth Fair and in 1978 a booth at the first Environmental Fair, both held in the Coliseum. This activity led to the securing of over 100 names of people interested in Waldorf education. Then Mrs. Szekely became involved in helping to work toward the first Waldorf school in the area. She graciously opened her home to anthroposophical speakers invited to Seattle. The first was Hans Gebert in May 1979. Our mailing list continued to grow. We had lectures on education, and Veronica Reif gave a lecture/workshop on eurythmy, thereby increasing the interest in eurythmy. In 1979, Rene Querido gave a Wagner Seminar in conjunction with the Wagner Ring Festival held at the Opera House each year. We continued to represent Rudolf Steiners work in most public fairs from Olympia north to Bellingham. By 1980 the time was right for teachers and parents to meet. After one-and-a-half years of unrelenting work, a suitable place was found to house the first Seattle Waldorf Kindergarten. Simultaneously, the Kinderhaus preschool and the Dolphin Bay School, on Orcas Island, opened their doors. In 1981, some of us formed Friends of Anthroposophia a non-profit entity to further Rudolf Steiners work. We also began

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distributing Weleda products, and raising funds from the sale of toys, and the proceeds from lectures. In 1982, we sponsored the Golden Garden kindergarten. In the past two years we have formed the Silver Star Glove Puppet Theater, presenting monthly shows for the local public and other areas of the state. Two additional family events were established: a Childrens Christmas Festival, and a wondrous Unicorn Festival in celebration of Pentecost. Public events include a recent significant Grail Seminar by Rene Querido, and a planned Death-and-Dying Seminar with Dr. and Mrs. Reitsma and Ilsa Kolbuszowski. There are now two groups in Seattle, each working from a different aspect of anthroposophy, giving their best at a time of stress, both financially and personally, to do the much needed work. More needs to be accomplished, however, and we welcome those wishing to become part of our endeavor. The journey upstream is not easybut it will bring new life at its end. Dolores Rose Dauenhauer (Seattle, Wash.)

THE SOUTHEASTERN REGIONAL GROUP: OVERCOMING ISOLATION. It will be two years this August that we were officially recognized as a group within the Anthroposophical Society. Members, and friends who are students of anthroposophy but not yet affiliated with the Society, have met for several years, from three southern statesTennessee, Georgia and Alabama. We have even had visitors from Louisiana and Florida. It all began more than two decades ago as a Member here or there attempted to make contact with another anthroposophist. When I first came to Chattanooga in 1954, one other Member lived here, Mrs. Harriete Hujer whom I encountered by acci dent. After we discovered that we were fellow anthropo sophists, we met regularly to study together. Some time later, Ilse Burckhardt, another Chattanoogan, who had contact with the Christian Community in Germany, was referred to me. She became a Member and a close friend, joining our weekly studies until her move out of the state and her death soon afterwards. Occasionally, someone else would join us and leave again. Visiting anthroposophists from around the country and Europe were welcomed with open arms. Enviously, we heard of the active group life elsewhere As my children grew up, I was able to travel more. Thea Pflanze in Maryville, Tenn. was given my address by the Christian Community in New York. We would meet occasion ally to read a lecture together. A member of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society, Barbara Benz, came to Chattanooga. (It was one of those strange coincidences that she and I had a mutual friend in Germany who introduced us to each other.) My son Edward became a Member at age 21. Through Patricia Sivils, eurythmy graduate from Spring Valley, a former Chattanoogan who had had no prior contact with us, we met fellow-Chattanoogan, Fred Coats, who had become a Member through Patricia, and his wife Mary Lou, who has now also joined the Society. All of us formed a local study group in 1980 and have since been meeting every Monday night. Some years ago, Helene and Walter Sawert, both Members, moved from Chicago to Auburn, Ala. Bob and Faye Kwapien were the only other anthroposophists there. Helene made an attempt to contact Members in the three states; the response was disappointing. Those of us who did reply visited Auburn and from this first gathering evolved the decision to meet for the four

festivals of the year, either in Chattanooga, Maryville or in Auburn. We became good friendsanthroposophists trying to overcome our isolation. Things continued like this until Walter Sawerts death in August of 1981. Several of us were able to visit Walter in Alabama before he died and shared in Helenes grief. Early in 1982, during our Easter gathering here in Chattanooga, we discovered to our surprise that, independent of one another, several of us had had the same idea: As each person arrived, it was one of the first things that were brought upwe should become an official group! We resolved to take the necessary steps. Subsequently, we felt that surely it was Walter Sawert who from the spiritual world had guided us, helping to bring us together in a new way. Now we are a small group of about a dozen Members but we are growing, with more friends joining. And it appears that now we shall be meeting once a month in addition to the four festival dates. That came from a request by Bill Crow of Marietta, Georgiathe only actual Member in that whole state. I marvel at how things have changed! We are indeed overcoming our isolation but it requires effort to do so. From Maryville, Tenn. to Auburn, Ala. takes over six hours to drive one way. Occasionally, someone spends the night. We have met several times on Sundays in a motel room we rented outside Atlanta. That way, some of us had to drive only two hours. Mostly, however, we meet in Auburn or Chattanooga. (Naturally, when everybody arrives after hours of travel, there has to be nourishment for the body as well as for the soul. We sit down to a home-cooked meal.) The actual meeting lasts about three hoursthen comes the long drive home. These efforts are all well worth the time and trouble. We feel that the darkness of isolation has been replaced by lights of friendship built on our mutual love of anthroposophy. We are a small group but a fine spirit prevails among us. We realize we must deepen our own commitment to anthroposophy and bring more persons to join our work. We are inspired by these human contacts, by the joy of sharing with others our most precious treasureanthroposophy. Maria St. Goar (Chattanooga, Tenn.)

MYSTERY PLAY PERFORMANCE IN LOS ANGELES AT EASTER 1984 It was a historic event for us when a group of students of the Mystery Plays turned into performers and shared seven scenes of The Portal of Initiation as well as the prelude and the interlude with ail appreciative audience. Too few Members nowadays are fully aware of the artistry and significance of Rudolf Steiners Mystery Plays. The heart of Anthroposophy is to be found in them, expressed in human karmic relationships evolving over several lifetimes. There is no parallel in literature. Artistically, the plays offer a guideline for the future. They are rewarding on every level of approach, for the individual but even more for a group. For some five years, a sizable group has come together for a few weeks each year to study the Mystery Plays, under the guidance of Sophia Walsh from Dornach. Sophia is an experi enced performer and teacher, who now spends half her time in Los Angeles, particularly in connection with the Anthropo sophic Studies Course (sponsored by the Los Angeles Branch). As part of their work together the group often dramatized a scene. Sharing three scenes with interested family and friends

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was another step. Finally they were emboldened to offer more. To encompass seven scenes and the prelude and inter ludea feat that demands three hours of performing time required drafting new players to assemble a cast of twenty (with a man for each male part). The players came from three counties, and on the great evening an audience came from five Southern California counties and two in Northern California. It was truly a California celebration! We were not disappointed. The level of communication between cast and audience was of a high order as the cast shared the inspiration they had gained from the play. What Sophia Walsh had been able to bring forth from a group of amateurs in so short a timeprojecting their speech effectively and credible actingwas a remarkable achievement. Not the least of the contributing elements was the costuming, primarily the work of a new Member, Pamela Carty. The only discordant note in the overall artistic impression was the painfully inadequate environment offered by the school facilities of Highland Hall. The play should give us all an added incentive to provide a more ideal home for anthroposophy here in Southern California. Barbara Betteridge (Santa Paula, Calif.) EIGHTH ANNUAL SPRING CONFERENCE IN FAIR OAKS, CALIFORNIA May 18-20, 1984 How can we build a bridge between our thoughts and deeds, allowing the Christ impulse to permeate the middle realm of our social life? This question was posed in early January when a committee of twelve (representing the Sacramento Faust Branch and the Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks) met to prepare the theme of the Spring (Youth) Conference. We began with study and discussion of Love and Its Meaning in the World, and Spiritual Guidance of Man, by Rudolf Steiner. Through these knowing ideals, a bridge was built to the actual doing organizing the conferenceand thus created a group experience of living in both spheres of activity. About 80 persons attended the Spring Conference, with local areas well represented as well as more distant points in California and surrounding states. Special guests were Mark Finser and Katherine Scharff of New York, who brought news of world-wide initiatives and of plans for the International Youth Conference at the Goethenum in July. Dietrich V. Asten a presented the keynote lecture on Saturday morning, character izing the struggle to Christianize human life as a challenge confronting the human ego, in solving the Pauline riddle of not I but Christ in me. The ego develops through a threefold process of soul unfolding, beginning with the sentient souls longing to experience life through Beauty, the intellectual souls task of ordering life by the principle of Truth, and the consciousness souls striving toward Goodness. The ego must experience a new wholeness through the Christ in me. Such a wholeness does not negate the individuality, for the host must be home when the Guest arrives. Thus our spiritual/social goal is not one of uniformity but rather sanctified individuality, so that the Christ can work through each of us. On Sunday morning, Merlin and Rene Querido amplified these ideals through themes from Shakespeares Midsummer Nights Dream (performed the previous evening by the Foundation-Year students of the Rudolf Steiner College). In this play human love lives in the feeling life, modulated by the rhythms of Nature. In pursuit of love we can either lose hold of ourselves,

becoming submerged by the elemental world, or find expression of our highest ideals. Only a balance in the triangle of thinking, feeling, and willing can allow for a fourth soul force of egodirected genuine love to rule our lives. The actual heart of the Spring Conference was experi enced through artistic and social exchange. Singing and eurythmy, and small-circle sessions (led by the organizing committee) allowed the opportunity for the larger topics to come to expression. At the final symposium we felt that a bridge had indeed been built among those gathered. A touch of the Christ impulse had been experienced in our social life together and we could return with renewed strength to our individual task in the world. Patricia Kaminski (Nevada City, Calif.) for the Spring Conference Committee A FIRST IMPRESSION OF AMERICA by L.F.C. Mees From Das Goetheanum, Oct. 16, 1983. Translated by Maria St. Goar. In 1968, I flew to America for the first time. I was to give lectures at the Anthroposophical Society in New York City. Reservations had been made at a hotel nearby. As I entered the hotel lobby, a gentleman approached me with outstretched hand and asked in an almost radiant, friendly voice, Hello, how are you? I thought he must be an acquaintance whom I could not recall. I reached out my hand, too, and greeted him warmly. He asked what I was planning to do. I told him of my scheduled lectures at the Madison Avenue address and that I was glad that I could go there on foot. He warned me, however, saying, Dont forget that it will take you three-quarters of an hour. (The blocks in New York City are long!) He then inquired about the topic of my lectures. I replied that it would be drugs. How interesting, he said, what are you going to say about it? I thought, the man is interested, and proceeded to give a brief summary. But his eyes lost interest increasingly; soon he turned to another guest just arriving, approached him with outstretched hand and greeted him with, Hello, how are you? in the same effusive tone of voice. Since that time it has dawned on me more and more that this little episode is indicative of a characteristic featurenot only in America, but everywhere elseemerging in many human encounters. Initial friendliness, even cordiality, is followed by decisive withdrawal, by wishing no longer to be claimed, no longer to be intensely involved, not willing to give up ones own private sphere. First the friendly encounter, then determined dismissal. Expressing this in eurythmy gestures: meeting a person cordially, putting your arms around him with a gesture of affection, friendliness, and if you will, love, although not physically but with the soul. Then, with equal conviction, pushing him away and off to the side. Embracingpushing away. Embracingpushing away: OK, OK! (One who is unfamiliar with this eurythmic movement should have it demonstrated to him.) The word okay originated in America. Various explana tions are given for its origin. But I am not interested in how it came about. I am mainly interested in why this expression has taken over practically the whole world. Not only in New York, but the world over, adults as well as children constantly say, okay.

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In earlier times, human beings lived in groups. Much of this group element was retained into our century. Meanwhile, man was educated to greater self-reliance, independence. There is a danger that the crowd, the masses will replace the former group attitude. How strongly do we experience this at the present time! Yet we live in the age of the consciousness soul, and it is necessary that the human being shall learn to experience that he is an individuality. Is this okay not a significant symptom? Nevertheless, one senses: things should not remain on the level of this okay. What was once group and now threatens to turn into crowd should some day become community. F or that to become a reality, every person must learn to recognize the human quality in his fellowman, because okay will not offer a way out of the social difficulties of the present age.

The book was published in America, under the title of Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conceptionand even that was a plagiary. Some people might have said: Well, after all, that is American and perhaps one can expect nothing else. But here in Germany there was a publishing company, managed by a Dr. Hugo Vollrath. He was quite eager to translate the book into German, and he did so, bringing it out as a series of Letters of Instruction. His preface stated that some of the contents had, it was true, first been given in Germany, but had had to mature in the pure air of California! In the literary world proper such scandalous procedure is unthinkable. It is a scandal which ought everywhere to have been recognized as such -and it would have been, had there been any soundness of judgment. I would really like to count the names of the people who knew the facts. Few take any interest in such matters, however, and so they recur. Then there was a man who had been a Member for many years (membership could no more be refused to him than it could be refused to Herr Grashof who wrote his book in America under the name of Max Heindel.) This other man, Max Seiling, wrote a book titled Who Was Christ? In this bookalthough not to the same extent as Grashofhe compiled all kinds of things taken from my lecture courseswith the motto that knowledge should not be withheld, but belongs to the world. (The person from whom he had copied the motto was very angry because its original author had used it in quite a different context.) And then Herr Seiling added: Dr. Steiner has, it is true, indicated certain details, but everything needs to be developed. You can understand, my friends, that this book had to be rejected by the Anthroposophical Publishing Company in Berlin, to whom Seiling applied with the request that they should publish it He thereupon became an opponent. (1) Rudolf Steiner received the following letter at the time: Dear Sir, May I venture to approach you with a question, or indeed with more than one question? I must mention first of all that I am here on a short visit, and that my home is in Salina, Kansas, U.S.A. In that town some time ago, two friends and I procured a book that had been recommended to us by the Esoteric Library in Washington, D.C. The title of the book is Rosicrucian CosmoConception or Christian Occult Science, by Max Heindel. We were struck by the curious way in which, in the preface. Max Heindel refers to the name of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, the main lines of whose teachings are said to resemble his etc., etc. In short the preface caused me, and subsequently my friends, to read your books Initiation and Its Results and Theosophy. It is a riddle to us why whole sentences in the Cosmo-Conception can be compared almost word for word with those contained in your books, so the thought occurred to us: Has Max Heindel borrowed from you the teachings he is trying to spread in Americaabove all, in California?.. .

RUDOLF STEINER ON PLAGIARISM THE STORY OF MAX HEINDEL From a lecture given in Leipzig, June 10, 1917 . . . There must be more virility of judgment. We must face the facts that in our Society things happen that could only happen there and nowhere else! I am going to speak of an occurrence that happened some time ago now, but I will mention a recent one as well. A certain Herr Grashof became a member of our Society. For a time he attended lectures in every town where they were given; he was always there. Naturally you may ask: Why was he admitted to membership? In certain circumstances it is impos sible to refuse admittance to people, especially if they are introduced by trusted persons. It would be a question of foreseeing the future! Suppose a man like Grashof were to come and I were to say: We cannot admit him. Well, why not? Oh, because later on he will be a traitor to the Society. One cannot adopt this attitude about something that has not happened yet, but will only happen in the future. Such people quite obviously must be admitted to the Society. This man Grashof attended every lecture that he possibly could. He borrowed notes made by the Members and copied them all. And what people were unwilling to give him he extracted through the intermediary of the person who had introduced him. Then, after a time, he returned to America, whence he had come, and wrote a book, compiled from everything he had heard in the lectures and found in the books and had also amassed from unpublished lectures. But he made no mention of this. He wrote a preface to this book in which he said: I heard this and that from Dr. Steiner but felt that I was not ready for it Then I was ordered to go to a master (a Master in the Transylvanian Alps of course!) and from this Master I learned the deeper truths that I still lacked. The deeper and higher in this book is copied down from my lectures and books and from notes made by other Members.(l)

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N o te s
FROM THE OFFICE: Reprints of the article, " he Legacy of T Rudolf Steiner, in a brochure format (3-panel, half-page size, printed front and back) are available from the Societys offices in the following quantities and costs (postage included): $.50 for single copy, $.35 each for 2-10 copies, $.30 each for 11-25 copies, and $.20 each for 26-100 copies. Checks should be made out to the Anthroposophical Society, RD#2, Box 215, Ghent, NY 12075. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. Bill Hunt Anne Stockton, of the Tobias School of Art (East Grinstead, England) writes: Americans will join in a sense of loss to learn of the death of Rudolf Marcus in Forest Row on March 21, 1984. Some will remember his inspired modeling course in Spring Valley some ten years ago. Many visitors and Emerson students will recall with gratitude Rudis healing hands as he devotedly gave his massage learned in Holland and Germany. Rudolf Grosses Die Weihnachtstagung als Zeitenwende will soon become available in English, titled: The Christmas Foundation, Beginning of a NewAge. Written by the former president of the General Anthroposophical Society, and published by the School of Spiritual Science, Dornach, in 1976, the book is being translated by Johanna Collis, London, and will be published by Steiner Book Centre, North Vancouver, Canada. A PROGRAM IN PAINTING (beginning in September 1984) in accordance with the artistic training developed on the basis of Rudolf Steiners indications by the painter Gerard Wagner in Dornach is being offered under the auspices of the Threefold Educational Foundation. Classes are conducted by Peter Stebbing, and the program includes a study of Goethes Color Theory and art history. For further details, write: Threefold Painting Program, 285 Hungry Hollow Road, Spring Valley, N.Y. 10977, (914) 353-5020. THE ECONOMIC BASIS FOR WALDORF EDUCATION, PAST AND FUTURE MEETINGS: A second workshop was held at the Waldorf Institute in Southfield, Mich. May 4-6, 1984. The speakers were Warren Ashe (from Michael Hall, England), Werner Glas, Siegfried Finser, Christopher Schaefer, and Arthur Auer. Mr. Glas spoke on trusteeship, fund raising, and the life of Waldorf schools. Mr. Ashe spoke on the Waldorf movement, and the threefold social order. Three workshops dealt with financial problems of the Waldorf educational movement, fund raising for operating budget, and questions of school development. (This meeting was made possible in part from grants from the Waldorf Schools Fund, Gemeinnutzige Treuhandstelle e.V., and Iona Stichting.) The third meeting will be held in Sacramento, Calif, on Oct. 26-28, 1984. The first meeting was held in Spring Valley in November 1983. Three main themes being addressed in all the meetings are: 1) the social basis for education, 2) the financial administration of Waldorf schools, and 3) the funding of Waldorf education. The series is intended for parents, teachers, and others involved in the finances of Waldorf schools. Lecture tapes, notes, and summaries are available of both meetings. For more details, contact Ann Stahl, 285 Hungry Hollow Road, Spring Valley, New York 10977. Donald Samick MICHAELMAS CONFERENCE IN AUSTIN, TEXAS (Oct. 5, 6, & 7 , 1984): A group of Members from seven Texas cities and towns is sponsoring an anthroposophical conference titled Is There a Christian Path to the Spirit in Our Time? Lectures will include Introduction to the Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, a Path of Knowledge, and Anthroposophy and Practical Life. Henry Barnes will be our main speaker. Also planned are eurythmy workshops and a performance by three eurythmists, members of the Midwest Performing Group. Following the conference a meeting will be held and Mr. Barnes will speak on The Anthroposophical Society as Rudolf Steiners Last and Greatest Work of Art. We will then discuss how Members of Texas and surrounding states can work together to further the aims of the Society. We are also hoping to hold a meeting of the First Class. Conference fees: individuals $35 until August 31, then $40; couples $55; students $25. Contact the conference secretary Eileen Menke, Star Route 1-A, Box 73-0, Dripping Springs, Texas 78620, (512) 858-7420. The Boca Raton Waldorf School, Florida, now completing its 11th year as a nursery and kindergarten, is seeking an experi enced class teacher, committed to anthroposophy, to take the first grade in September 1984. Please contact the school at Box 951, Boca Raton, FL 33429 or call (305) 391-4278.

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All editorial communications should be addressed to the Editor of the Newsletter: Mrs. Gisela ONeil, Pomona Country Club, Spring Valley, NY 10977, (914) 354-3386; all other communications should be sent to the office secretary, Anthroposophical Society, R.D.2, Ghent, NY 12075, (518) 672-4601. Copyright and all other rights are reserved by the Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Responsibility for the contents of articles attaches only to the writers.