Journal Journalfor Anthroposophy

NUMBER 69 MICHAELMAS 1999 Look to the real, practical, material life, but look to it so that it does not dull you to the spirit which is at work in it.

Look to the spirit - but not for the sake of transcendental enjoyment or out of supersensible egotism, but look to it because you want to apply it selflessly in practical life, in the material world.

Make use of the ancient saying: “ Spirit is never without matter, Matter, never void of spirit,” in such a way that you say:

We want to do all material things in the light of the spirit and we want to look for the light of the spirit in such a way that warmth springs up for our practical activities.

Rudolf Steiner (translation by Joanna van Vliet) ISSN-0021-8235

Front Cover: A Michaelmas Motif by Kevin Hughes

EDITOR Sherry Wildfeuer ASSOCIATE EDITORS Philip Graham Donna Sturgis

The Journal for Anthroposophy is published twice a year by the Anthroposophical Society in America. Subscriptions are $15.00 per year (domestic); $18.00 per year (foreign). Authors’ opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Anthroposophical Society or of the editor. All correspon­ dence should be sent to:

Sherry Wildfeuer P.O. Box 155 Kimberton, PA 19442

Journal for Anthroposophy, Number 69, Michaelmas 1999 Copyright ®1999 The Anthroposophical Society in America All rights reserved.

Produced by Altair, Inc. CONTENTS Autumn Grandeur...... 6 Notes from an Experience of Illness and Aging...... 7 Evening Primrose...... 10 by M. C. RICHARDS What is Anthroposophy? ...... 11 by STEPHEN SPITALNY Is There a Method for Studying Anthroposophy? ...... 15 by PAUL SCHARFF, M.D. Who Has Stolen Our Holidays? ...... 25 by BERNARD WOLF Art as a Threshold Experience ...... 31 by VAN JAMES Materialism, Humanity, & the Future World: ...... 40 The World-Conceptions of Jesaiah Ben-Aharon and Ray Kurzweil Contrasted by BEN BINGHAM The Goals of Materialism: A Spiritual Perspective ...... 45 by WALTER ALEXANDER Choosing America as a Place for Incarnation ...... 53 or Immigration in the 20th Century by VIRGINIA SEASE Educating for Life: ...... 62 A Look at the Foundations of Waldorf Education by EUGENE SCHWARTZ Turn ...... 69 by CHRISTY BARNES A Psychology of Body, Soul & Spirit ...... 70 by RUDOLF STEINER • Reviewed by William Bento Because of Yolande ...... 75 by DORIT WINTER • Reviewed by Fred Paddock America’s Way ...... 76 by DIETRICH V. ASTEN • Reviewed by Stephen Usher A New Kind of Actor ...... 78 by HANS PUSCH • Reviewed by Gertrude Teutsch Science Between Space and Counterspace ...... 80 by NICK THOMAS • Reviewed by Jim Kotz

Cosmic Harbinger, an Astroclimatic Journa ...... 83 by DENNIS KLOCEK • Reviewed by Hubert Zipperlen Dear Friends, When Hilmar Moore retired after 10 years as the editor of this Journal, one of those special moments occurred, when there is a pause between an ending of one thing and a beginning of another. It was a time of reflection and ideas of what could be. During this time the newly formed Collegium for the School for Spiritual Science in North America realized that the Journal for Anthroposophy should become their responsibility. A member of the Collegium, Sherry Wildfeuer, was asked to be the new editor. The idea of the Journal as a common publication for the work o f the different Sections of the School for Spiritual Science began to inspire us. It wasn’t long after we started working with this picture that we felt the presence of our friend Joanna van Vliet (1939 - 1993). For those of you who knew her, we don’t need to say more. For those who never had the good fortune to meet her, Joanna was an example of how one person could embrace many, if not all, of the Sections and find the paths from one to another. Her presence confirmed for us this new task. She is very much a part of this issue. Anthroposophy has much to offer for the healing of our materialistic civilization. First, individuals must understand it and bring it to life. A second step is taken when such individuals cooperate in community and collegial endeavors that address actual needs and become beneficial on a larger scale. In this way life receives impulses for further development from Rudolf Steiner's insights. This Journal is dedicated to the continuing expression of these insights by active students of Anthroposophy. We hope it will provide inspiration and support for those who have been working with Anthroposophy for many years as well as those who are meeting it for the first time. As editors we join forces with authors to create a journal which draws light from the wellspring of the Spirit to illumine the challenges of our time and help us see our way toward a more healthy future. Contributions are welcome from authors who wish to collab­ orate in this endeavor. We are also open to receiving responses from our readers which may be printed in a future “Letters to the Editor” section. With Michaelmas greetings, Sherry Wildfeuer Philip Graham and Donna Sturgis Autumn Grandeur From: Imagine Inventing Yellow New and Selected Poems of M.C. Richards

Autumn grandeur lives in leaves From their first budding. Invisibly the colors layer Beneath the Green. When Cold breaks its hold, the old Leaf begins to die, disclosing As it goes, the red the yellow the bronze Array of dying. And so it goes With us as well: destined From our first life-filled shouts To die and the hour, the place, The final cause layered in our flesh As in the leaf - and all the brightness Of the life between, the gatherings. How wrongly we are taught: That death is enemy to life, when all our days Are in the palette of the dying green. Were it not for its loosening hold, There would be no theater Of color, no pageantry, no turning Leaves.

6 Notes From An Experience Of Illness And Aging by MARY CAROLINE RICHARDS

(Mary Caroline Richards died on September 10, 1999-Editor.)

have always been an active person - now, at 83, I am recov­ I ering from a serious illness that leaves me with low energy, disabled heart, and shortness of breath. It has been (and is) an interesting and surprising experience of a new way of "being" myself - inhabiting my body in a new way, no compulsion to be "creative" (painting, pottery, writing). When I woke up, after my heart attack, pneumonia, anemia onslaught, I was, in a way, a different person: weak, helpless, without energy or initiative, but INTACT, i.e. present to myself, in a subtle and sure way. Now I am quiet, slow, a bit unstable, and in good spirits. I like this new planet I am on - this new way of being. The doctors said I should rest (as if I had any alternative!) and I have enjoyed com­ ing to know the mystery and secret joys of REST - not diversion, not entertainment, not "relaxation" nor change, but REST: no sensory content, inhabiting myself as BEING, experiencing Being. Perhaps it is close to an I-AM experience. Before this illness, I had dreams of the I-AM. In the first one, I met I-AM and experienced myself for the first time without biography - for the first time, I knew myself not as a forever M.C. Richards, but free of identity, personality, and habits. In the second, I am slipping off my sheaths

7 8 • Mary Caroline Richards like loose garments: physical, etheric, astral, ego - and standing there as essential Being, I-AM. I recently came across a quote from Rudolf Steiner which seems connected to what I am describing: "When we raise ourselves through meditation to what unites us with the spirit, we quicken something within us that is eternal and unlimited by birth and death. Once we have experienced this eternal part in us we can no longer doubt its existence. Meditation is thus the way to knowing and beholding the eternal indestructi­ ble, essential center of our being." In the hospital I felt as if I were floating, on a raft, not adrift but softly buoyant, supported in empty space by the wishes and prayers of my friends, neither awake nor asleep, in what I came to call “cosmic doze!” Gradually, I was reincarnating, gradually becoming conscious of surroundings and people. Like Polaroid film, little by little some faint color, shape, more detail, landscape out of my window, trees, freeway, the bay, railroads, buildings, civilization and people with their bodies: four long appendages (arms and legs), head on top, hair in the back and face in the front, sounds, etc. At first I was in a private room. I like it - the quiet and isolation. Then I was moved to a room with one or two others. Different. I liked it, too. After a month in the hospital, I was moved to a Care Center for Assisted Living. I had my own spacious room, windows and flowers. It was a big institution - a hundred or more of us at meals in the dining room. I had breakfast alone in my own room. And sat alone in the dining room. I have been learning about energy. I have very little social energy. Talking and listening both take energy. Being present for other people’s energy discharge is tiring. I pace myself. I don’t go out - I can’t manage crowds and noise. I have few visitors now at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills where I have been welcomed in Kerria House - a room on the ground floor, easy access to bath- Notes From An Experience Of Illness And Aging • 9 room, back porch, and dining area. I don’t need much special care - help with bathing, laundry, changing bed, transport to doctor, mail, errands, prescriptions. Mostly I need a quiet place to be - to slowly gain strength and consciousness. I don’t need an activities program, radio or TV. I need a view out my window, flowers and trees, something good to eat, soli­ tude. A telephone, no movies. Nothing too stimulating. A little beautiful live music occasionally, not too demanding of attention and energy. I am not up to celebration and parties - I do not have enough social energy. But I am happy to know that others may be enjoy­ ing themselves differently. I feel emptied out - uncluttered. I have begun to knit a little, but still have an aversion to being "busy." How am I? I feel tired, I have low energy and some anxiety around my heart and my breathing. But at the same time I feel blessed, fortunate and happy, grateful, filled with the beauties of nature and the kindness of people. At the same time I am haunt­ ed by the convulsions of suffering in the world today - grieving for the hungry and the homeless and the hurt, wherever they are and whoever they are. In the care center where I was, many people were grieving for their homes which they had to leave or sell. I have not had that suffering. I have been deeply influenced by the archetype of home­ lessness. Rudolf Steiner says it is a state of initiation - non­ attachment. I have cultivated (my destiny?) the art of homeless­ ness - no property, furniture, children. Now it occurs to me (like a thunderbolt) that HOME may also be a state of initiation - one that is in store for me in some sense. I am touched and moved by the thought. Notes From An Experience Of Illness And Aging • 10

It is a surprising turnabout for me - this silence and inactivity, this sense of presence, and the new feeling of dependency on peo­ ple’s love and caring and patience. With my natural taste for para­ dox and the fusion of the opposites, perhaps it is not surprising that I find this new way so interesting and pleasurable.

Evening Primrose

Sitting in the roofless tent, listening...

See all natural forms, he said, not as forever fixed But as expressing a tendency toward another form

I saw you last night, evening primrose, preparing to open: In an instant you changed from bud to bloom, Pulling back the outer sheath as the petals expanded and Became flower. And the tendency then, barely visible, To lose moisture, to wilt, to droop, to shrink, to drop, To become earth.

I feel in myself the growing tips of age: To travel without an agenda, to seek a new furniture Of emptiness and silence where I can voluptuously sit As in a pool of warmth, living toward dying, Blooming into invisibility.

by M.C. Richards (August 24, 1997) What Is Anthroposophy? by STEPHEN SPITALNY

Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the uni­ verse. It arises in a human being as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling; and it can be justified only inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner need. He alone can acknowledge Anthroposophy, who finds in it what he himself in his own inner life feels impelled to seek. Hence only they can be anthroposophists who feel certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe as an elemental need of life, just as one feels hunger and thirst. Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts

nthroposophy is the spiritual fount from which springs AWaldorf education, the Camphill movement, biodynamic farming and gardening, Eurythmy, to name just a few of many sci­ entific, artistic, and social initiatives. This name is derived from two Greek words, anthropos and sophia signifying “the wisdom of the human being” , and expresses the lifework of Rudolf Steiner, 1861-25, Austrian philosopher, scientist, lecturer, and author. Dr. Steiner spoke on a wide range of subjects out of a great depth and breadth of wisdom, leaving us a handful of books and thousands

11 12 • Stephen spitalny of published lectures. Since his passing, many others have taken up his indications in their own work, adding to the body of knowledge known as Anthroposophy. Yet, the essence of Anthro­ posophy is the activity of self-education through which one can come to know one’s self and the world, an activity in which the human spirit probes into the nature of itself. The basis for all of Dr. Steiner’s work was his own path of self­ development and spiritual research. He often advised not just to believe what he said and wrote, but to think about and meditate upon the ideas he brought, to do one’s own spiritual research. Then one becomes active inwardly and can come to know for one’s self the truth. Anthroposophy makes no claims to be the only true path; it recognizes truths found in other spiritual paths. Rudolf Steiner said: “there is only one truth, just as the view revealed from the peak of the mountain is the same for all who stand there. There are, however, various ways by which the peak of the mountain can be achieved.”1 There is no body of knowledge that we must agree with, no doctrine, and no set of lifestyle rules. Self-directed activity is the key to this modern path of devel­ opment. It can only be done from the inside. No one can do it for us. Both the questions and the striving for answers must arise within us. Although it is a meditative path, it does not separate us from the world, but, rather, enables us to live more fully in the world and be truly present in experiences, feelings, and thoughts. It is a path of awareness and attentiveness in all aspects of life. This path of self-education leads to a transformation of think­ ing, feeling, and willing, the soul’s basic activities. Our everyday thinking is scattered and based on sense impressions, but we can transform it into an active, living thinking that is more flexible

______1 The Path of Knowledge and Its Stages, 1906. What Is Anthroposophy? • 13 and more self-directed. This relearning of how to think can be attained through disciplined, diligent effort. The transformation of our feeling life begins with paying attention to feelings: we experience and observe them objectively. This helps us to not be controlled by them, and at the same time to not deny them. Our willing is the most difficult to transform because it is the least con­ scious of our soul activities. The will, our capacity for doing, is ruled by instincts, habits, and desires, which we must first be able to observe objectively and then overcome. Often we act or speak out of ingrained patterns of behavior without thinking. We can strive toward choosing our actions instead of following habitual patterns of reacting. Taking up this active work on our own soul is a path of initiation leading to higher levels of thinking, feeling, and willing which Steiner described as Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition. There are a great many exercises that we can choose to prac­ tice on this path of initiation. They are not merely for our own development, but for the benefit of all.2 Indeed, there is an inher­ ent social element in the process of self-education. If we strive to make decisions and choose actions out of our highest intentions, then all of our social interaction may be lifted up to a higher level. Actions determined by our lower self separate us from other human beings; actions consciously chosen by our higher self serve to connect human beings. I believe this striving to raise our selves, our fellows and our world to a higher level is the essence of Anthroposophy. Rudolf Steiner promises us: “Insofar as we unite ourselves with the spirit of the universe, we become whole human beings, we receive impulses to search as human beings for the other human being, rather than pass one another by without under­

______2 See Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, for an excellent introduction to some basic exercises. 14 • Stephen Spitalny standing. The more we merely describe physical matter and then apply such descriptions to human beings, the more social life will be torn apart; the more we unite ourselves with the spirit, the more our hearts will open to other human beings. In this way, an education which allows the spiritual in the other human being to be found, provides the foundation for human love, human com­ passion, and human service, in the true sense of the word.” 5

______3 Describing the ideals and benefits of Waldorf education in Anthroposophical Pedagogy and Its Prerequisites, April 17, 1924, Bern, Switzerland. Is There a Method for Studying Anthroposophy? by PAUL SCHARFF, M.D.

Today many professionals have to have credits for continuing education in order to maintain licensure, and, because of this, I and my colleagues in the medical practice of the Fellowship Community Associates purchased a home study course. Each physician received three large compendia weighing 32 pounds, and we all received 41 tapes to share: we had a weighty task at hand. But then I paused to think that I was at the moment involved with a little booklet with three lectures by Rudolf Steiner entitled the Spiritual Relations in the Human Organism.1 This lit­ tle booklet weighed 4 ounces. I had been busy with it for a period of thirty years, and if I were to live another thirty years I would continue to be busy with it as before. Though the content of the 32 pounds of compendia was important in order to be recognized by our legal-medical system, and perhaps somewhat helpful for a few patients, the content of the little booklet was important for my life’s work, and my very existence as a physician. In the first tape I met a method of studying the compendia in order to take a test and pass, and a way in which the student should manage his mind-set so that he could take in the material and not suffer at the hand of the test. Thus, not only was a study

______1 October 20, 22, and 23, 1922 - Mercury Press, 1984.

15 16 • Paul Scharff method given, but psychological counseling as well. My thoughts turned to work with Anthroposophy. Should there be a study method in taking up Anthroposophy? This ques­ tion prompted the following considerations. Are there not many methods? In this essay five methods will be considered, suggesting that there are more. The last however, will not be so much a study method as a potential method for action so that learning can take place for those individuals who have to learn from work or are learning handicapped. They too may be interested to study and learn about a spiritual science. Now, if we turn to the study of and learning about Anthroposophy, it can be helpful to ask for a simple definition of Anthroposophy. Rudolf Steiner has given a direct and apparently simple definition. This is notable since he did not like definitions for the most part. It is that “Anthroposophy can lead the individ­ ual human spirit to the spirit of the universe.” Spiritual science can lead the human spirit, but it is not said that the human spirit is dragged along. One might say that the active human spirit is led. The communion process in religious ritual, where bread and wine are used, is an experiential path rather than a path of study. Yet it is possible to pose the thought that a purely spiritual com­ munion, a spiritual union is possible. With this latter form of com­ munion the idea serves instead of substance. This essay is based on this assumption, and attempts to point out circumstances in which the individual spirit can be led, or helped to make its way to the spirit of the universe. Next it is possible to speak of soul communion. Meetings and communions can take place in the three spheres of social life: in the spiritual life, in the seeking of human rights, and in the process of human association. Here we can speak of communing in spirit, with our fellow man as an equal, and as a brother within eco­ nomic activity. The third study method can be used as a founda­ tion for approaching this type of union. Is There a Method for Studying Anthroposophy? • 17

The Rosicrucian path Study is essential, in fact the first of seven steps on the path given by Christian Rosenkreutz. It is through Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual researches that we have come to be able to speak of this path and the steps that are connected therewith. These are out­ lined in a series of lectures entitled At the Gates of Spiritual Science. Study leads to the unfolding of a thinking which can embrace the whole of humanity and the world, including cosmos, so that an inner purification of the spirit takes place. Self-knowledge is gained at the hand of the world, and the world gradually becomes revealed in the human being himself. This is a first step on an occult path that takes the world into consideration. This stands in contrast to the mystical path, where it is solely the inner experiences of the striver that are essential and almost eliminative of the outer world. For the occult path of our day it means taking up what one can gain from an active sense life and what science has to give, and then taking up (studying) what an anthroposophical spiritual science has to say. This path is well suited to our time, asking for a spiritualiza­ tion of the intellect. Each in his own way has to find a method of study; however, this is for the most part based on being able to read, write, and manage arithmetic. Many who tread the Rosicrucian path have had some form of intellectual training. Let us now turn to methods of study where the intellect is active.

1) The method of the pure thinker - the method of Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Steiner himself provided the example and elaborated this method in the book The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. The subtitle “Results of Introspective Observation According to the Method of Natural Science” points to the fact that there is a method inherent in working with this book. It challenges those with intellectual capacities to think so strenuously that the think­ 1 8 • Paul Scharff ing activity becomes conscious and mobile. It was used to exam­ ine the thoughts of well-known philosophers of Rudolf Steiner’s time and can be used to understand modern thinkers as well. This method leads to ‘pure thinking’, which can be defined as “ pure spiritual activity” through which one can find a basis for moral action. Here the moral is a creative activity. ‘Moral intu­ ition’ is the term that is used in the book, and the individual able to manage this creativity is called the “ ethical individual” . Thus the individual spirit as thinker can commune with the idea as spir­ itual revelation. It is very difficult to think the thoughts of Rudolf Steiner as he presented them in his Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Human and Cosmic Thought. He has said himself, there will be a limited number who can travel this spiritual path, though on any path where knowing is involved the striver has to master thinking to a certain degree; and the path is strenuous. Yet one cannot achieve freedom without knowledge. Much depends on a person’s ability and the willingness to work. With this method the unable can become able.

2) The Carl Unger method - the method of abstraction This method can be found in a little booklet by Carl Unger - now out of print for years - entitled Steiner’s Theosophy.2 He shares how he has mastered the content of the book Theosophy to experience truths that arise out of strenuous thinking. Unger demonstrates his method by abstracting the introduction to Theosophy five times. The first abstraction is done with ten sen­ tences, the second with five sentences, the third with three sen­ tences, the fourth with one sentence, and the fifth with one con­ cept. This can be taken up by anyone willing to make such an effort with content of any nature, but here we are concerned with the content derived from spiritual-scientific research. The single

______2 The Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co., London, circa 1932 Is There a Method for Studying Anthroposophy? • 19 concept that Carl Unger comes to out of the introduction in the book is that the relation between the teacher and the spiritually striving pupil is that of absolute freedom. Carl Unger was a very careful thinker, and in the early years when individuals came to Rudolf Steiner seeking a spiritual path, and needing strengthening of their thinking capacities, he sent them to his friend Carl Unger. Unger was able to apply the think­ ing skill developed through Steiner’s philosophical method to other aspects of spiritual science. He unfolded his own method, which Rudolf Steiner later noted to have mathematical qualities and disciplines. 3) The method of exercises - a democratic method This method is carefully laid out by Rudolf Steiner in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, in which exercises are very carefully described. Nearly every person is able to take up this method; however, once again real effort is necessary. The democratic potential is present because the student begins with perceptions from the domain of nature available to all. Steps that lead from the sense world to the world of the spirit are described in detail. Thoughtful content is given along the way so that the pupil can develop a thinking capacity even if at the outset this capacity may not be an inherent strength. New thinking capacities are arrived at, but by exercises and practice. One might say the heart is the focus of this method, and a kind of feeling-thinking is an out­ come. This method, like the other two, does not seek to lead direct­ ly to moral action, yet the moral life is strengthened so that it is pos­ sible to say that this is a moral path to enlightenment, whereby the spirit of the human individual is led to the spirit in the world.

4) The method of the bookkeeper - the comparative method This method was given to Ehrenfried Pfeiffer by Rudolf Steiner, and it is from Pfeiffer that I first heard about it. He begged me to make use of it, as Rudolf Steiner made a plea to evolve a 20 • Paul Scharff deeper view of the threefold nature of man and the social order by this means. Some years later I heard that the same method was given to a young doctor who felt that she needed an assist with the “will to heal” and with “the courage” to take up a very serious meditative life. It is a method which takes the trained intellect as a starting point, and seeks to lead this intellect to other provinces of existence while ultimately activating the will for action. It helped Ehrenfried Pfeiffer take hold of biochemistry in a new way and lead his knowledge over to deeds which helped found and ground the Biodynamic method of agriculture. Later I discovered that Rudolf Steiner had actually given the same method to others, but not in such an obvious way. This can also be called a comparative method. Comparing forms, comparing organs, comparing languages and the like. Bookkeeping is one of the best ways to describe it since it is con­ nected with the exactness of working with numbers. Further it was the name of the method as it was given to me, and, I take it, as described by Rudolf Steiner. The method appears simple. In try­ ing to use it in a worthwhile manner, I can share that it took me at least fifteen years to find my way; I have used my version of the method in a satisfactory way for twenty-five years. Of course, oth­ ers may find their way much more rapidly, but the simple method will undoubtedly not turn out to be so simple, which is often the case. In a notebook, on the left page enter quotes taken from spiri­ tual science, quotes that need enlightening, and about which one has heartfelt questions. Next, on the opposite page place what one can find from other sources. Let the two stand, and ask how what has been placed on one page from spiritual science is equal or is not equal with what is gained from modern sources, be it science or others. A kind of search for a balancing, as with a mathemati­ cal problem can surface in the soul in the quest for truth. A sense for the firmness of an equation may evolve in one’s search for a Is There a Method for Studying Anthroposophy? • 21

“ balancing of the books” . It takes will to deal with this method, and persistence. It takes courage, especially when ten to fifteen years may be needed for a quote from spiritual science to gain sufficient meaning that what stands in the intellectual world can serve as an apparent equiva­ lent. One can also start with intellectual content given by the world (science, art, history, botany, psychology, etc.) and then one seeks a quote by Rudolf Steiner, a quote that can “balance the books” , as it were. What seems to take place is that the intellect may catch a quote by Rudolf Steiner, but what is more a reality is that a question lies buried in one’s heart. This rises up when one becomes intellectually involved and interested in a given revela­ tion from researches of spiritual science. One can say that the method reveals much about the current spirituality or lack of spir­ ituality in the world, but one’s own uniqueness surfaces as well. A great sense of independence can be gained from this method, and the balancing quest leads to a sense of creativity. It is little wonder that courage, the will to heal, the potential to meditate, the quest for the true makeup of the human being, and the search for social forms are all supported by this method. It is a method for the doer, the one who wants to serve. 5) The method of the day planner This fifth and last method is quite new and is not firmly based in direct indications from spiritual science. It can serve the non­ intellectual, and even the non-learner, as actions are the starting point and not ideas or perceptions. This is a method to try to deal with a very delicate activity in the soul life of the worker. In his book The Threefold Common­ wealth5 Rudolf Steiner pointed to the primal idea. This is the ten­ der area of the soul of those who work with their limbs, and can

______3 also called in later editions The Threefold Social Order or Toward Social Renewal 22 • Paul Scharff be thought of as polar to the pure idea. The pure idea is gained by the purification of ordinary thinking, and ordinary soul life. The primal idea arises from work and the cooperative working of human souls busy in institutions. Here a method is offered for making what is unconscious, conscious. It is based on practices that have evolved over the last twenty years in the Fellowship Community, an intentional, inter-generational, work-based, long­ term care community. Many in the community live with this method, but not many use it to its full potential. The first aspect is to plan the next day at the end of the day just past. A day-planner, or a number of day-planners, take this responsibility in the evening at the end of a full day. It is done in cooperation and exchange with those who will work together in many different types of activity (caring for the ill, caring for the land, and caring for the social processes of the community). All ages are involved: co-workers, volunteers, employees, and the older persons who live in the community. The planners have to look over the day gone by, and then look ahead to the needs that have to be served within nine work areas. A quality of selflessness can thereby arise. A second aspect of the method is that the day planners have to cooperate in an active and living way to create the future day of work out of the past. In a way a new day has to dawn not only with the rise of the sun, but in the souls who will participate in the coming work. Thus, a kind of redemption begins. Interests can be stirred, and a quest to grow and master the area of work. How to learn and how to teach become quite important as creative plan­ ning helps the will of those who work to become enlivened. A third component is up to each one who participates in such a process: the striving to bring a holiness to sleep. An effort can be made to ask what happens during sleep when one enters the spir­ itual world and meets those with whom one will work and spiri­ tual beings as well. A kind of devoutness of soul is needed to con­ Is There a Method for Studying Anthroposophy? • 23

template sleep with seriousness and sincerity. At night social diffi­ culties might take another turn, and then when souls meet they can see each other in a new light. (In a community with any degree of intimacy it is the interpersonal problems that often loom the greatest). A meditative prayer that Rudolf Steiner gave to a devoted pharmacist can be a support:

Take counsel with the angel at night He shows us spiritually the path of the day. Pray to the Christ in the holy night He shows us spiritually the year’s sense of destiny.

(A quote from Rudolf Steiner - “This mystery of life is that man... every night looks, to a certain extent, at the events of the coming day, but without always carrying that vision over into full day-consciousness. It is his Angel who has that clear conscious­ ness” .) The fourth component is an exercise called the “review of the day.” (the Rückschau in German), going backwards from the evening to the morning. There are many ways to carry out this exercise, and it is complex enough that an essay could be written about just this. It requires only the script of the soul and how it has gone through the day. This review can evolve to be a kind of self-meditation in imaginative form. What can also surface is a delicate voice of conscience which is very real and helps with a capacity of judgment about oneself. One can also become more and more conscious of the sufferings of others. It is with this exer­ cise that it is possible to study what can arise as primal ideas out of one’s will, one’s deeds. Day planning, and pursuing the holiness of sleep can help to recover these creative ideas from the depth of the will for the future, while conscience points to the past day as a basis for moral actions for the day to come. A fifth support for the surfacing of the primal idea is to work 24 • Paul Scharff for a learning based on what can be called demonstrations. The teacher presents little or no intellectual content; the student grasps ideas by beholding the demonstration itself. This is related to what the young child achieves in imitation. These five components are offered as parts of a new work- study method. The term “learning and labor” was placed before the world by John Fredrick Oberlin in the 19th century. In our day it is the motto of Oberlin College. This way can help lead the spir­ it of man to the spirit of the universe. Oberlin successfully taught uneducated workers in southeastern France who needed skills and knowledge for their well-being and for work for mankind. The work was a presage of the industrial revolution but was human through and through. Oberlin was the father of the kindergarten movement, and a kind of apocalyptic soul. From spiritual-scien­ tific research we can learn that he had contact with his wife for nine years after her death. His wife, among the living dead, gave him the needed instructions to help educate the ignorant, ill, and impoverished people with whom he was working. Charts of the spiritual spheres where he had communion with his wife can be seen to this day in the museum in his village. His insights might be considered to approach what lived as primal idea in the will of those he taught. It is to the uncovering of the primal idea, alive in the will, that this latter method is dedicated. Who Has Stolen Our Holidays? The Search for a Michaelmas Festival by BERNARD WOLF

olidays have been commercialized. I need not expound. You Hcan list the countless ways that consumerism has usurped the meaning from our holy days and left us as spiritual paupers. Various ethnic traditions preserve colorful and engaging ways of celebrating, filled with artistry, pageantry, fervor, and emotion. To a truly modern person these cultural treasures may seem like glimpses into a remote past, exhibits in an anthropology museum. They are interesting to observe, but are they really relevant for life today? Is there a bona fide contemporary renewal of festivals, a modern way of celebrating, full of meaning? The course of nature through the seasons gives an important cycle on which to consider festivals. Those of us who live in the temperate climates, where the four seasons are visible and distinct, have an experience of the living being of nature in her four sea­ sonal dresses. The succession is ordered by the great cosmic move­ ments: of the sun through the zodiac, of the waxing and waning moon, and the ascent of the sun to the zenith and its descent again. The ascent of the sun, and the dominance of the day with its light and heat, accompanies the sprouting, budding, burgeon­ ing life of nature. The descent of the sun, with the growing dark­ ness and approaching cold, follows the maturing of nature into

25 26 • Bernard Wolf fruit and seed, and her dying away under the cloak of snow in the grip of freezing cold. What is the path of our consciousness throughout this cycle of the year? Does it follow the rise and fall of nature? As spring unfolds we are wont to spend more time outside and follow with our heart and mind the ever-more-revealing splendor and majesty of nature. Then the heat of summer draws us still further outside ourselves. With the very act of perspiration we flow beyond the boundary of our skin. Thoughts are spread, are vague, and we dream into our surroundings. Have you noticed with the cool nights at the end of summer the refreshing - sometimes surprising - feeling of returning to one­ self? From some wide expansive existence one contracts just enough to look around oneself and take up the challenges of the fall, back to school, back to work, back to a more normal self- consciousness. When nature dies away as fall moves towards winter, con­ sciousness no longer follows nature. Consciousness does not die with nature; it awakens. As the splendor of the sense-world fades, the power of thought grows stronger. It is heightened, deepened, sharpened. Winter is the time to ponder. Summer is the time to experience. Perhaps these aphoristic musings help the reader connect with experiences which show how the bearing of one’s conscious life changes and moves through the seasons in a lawful way. The times around the spring and fall equinoxes and the sum­ mer and winter solstices become potential high points in the year, points of culmination, points of transition. Have not cultures and religions often chosen these times for ritual and celebration? Are there spiritual beings - leading spirits - connected with these high points of the year? If spiritual beings can be recognized as being available to or interested in human beings at a particular time of year, this would give still another dimension to celebra­ Who Has Stolen Our Holidays • 27 tion. It could give meaning to our efforts to connect with super­ sensible beings who empower or ennoble us above and beyond the ruts in which we are stuck and the limitations in which we gyrate. Festivals could be an avenue for human beings to receive guidance and a helping hand, enabling us to direct our pursuits in life in a positive direction, to higher, more noble aims. It could be an opportunity also to offer nourishment through human effort and creativity to the gods who need what comes from us to continue in their tasks. Our materialistic culture has taught us that gods are the fabri­ cation of superstition and the ignorance of people who did not know any better. Some religions speak of faith or belief founded on the experiences of its prophets, but these experiences are not available to most of us today. Since the 1960s, however, there has been a rising New Age culture in which human experience begins to integrate again the invisible with the visible, the sense-percepti­ ble with the supersensible. Would we recognize a spiritual being when standing in its presence? Can we accurately explain experiences involving invisi­ ble entities? Mainstream culture does not give us the conceptual tools and the cognitive skills to recognize, differentiate, and explain. We can be confused, fooled, thrown off balance. We can ignore or dismiss such experiences - often gentle, subtle differ­ ences in mood or feeling - and easily forget them. Rudolf Steiner was a forerunner to our current New Age cul­ ture, teaching about the spiritual world from about 1900 until his death in 1925. The Age of Darkness, Kali Yuga, described in the ancient Indian culture and Hindu religion, ended in 1899. The dawning of a new age of light began, an age in which direct spir­ itual experiences and accompanying understanding have become accessible to human beings again. Rudolf Steiner shared clearly and precisely from his experience, and developed a vocabulary and conceptual framework on which to posit spiritual experience. 28 • Bernard Wolf

He also taught the methods of research by which any earnestly striving human being can humbly prepare to attain knowledge of the invisible worlds directly. The garment of a spiritual being is often the mood or feeling evoked in a situation. The qualities present and sensed reveal the defining attributes of the spiritual being involved. The person try­ ing to relate to spiritual beings can turn to the palette of qualities and moods that color his experiences and try to distinguish the leading qualities present. Is the experience elating or depressing? Is the mood open and free or is it heavy and burdensome? Does the situation respect the personal freedom of the participants or does it try to bind them? Does it bring harmony or dissonance? Does it engender warmth or coolness? Does it call forth action or rather passivity? Does it bring healing or turmoil? Does it bring about communion or alienation? With the help of the concepts found in Anthroposophy which have been confirmed by one’s own healthy understanding, a person can try to match experience with meaning. Through exercises to make the soul more open and sensitive to and discerning of moods, feelings, and qualities, a richer content of experience is available to bring together with the concepts found in Anthroposophy. Over time a more conscious relation to spiritual beings develops. Around the time of the autumn equinox we find the Feast of Saint Michael on the church calendar, on September 29. This fes­ tival may seem obscure to many of us, yet Michaelmas was singled out and highlighted by Rudolf Steiner for renewal, for raising to noteworthy importance, for giving its celebration world-wide sig­ nificance. Spiritual research shows that since 1879 Michael has been sending impulses for all of humanity towards us, impulses which respect the inner freedom of each individual but expect us to rise in our awareness to the spiritual world. Inclusion of the spiritual also means grasping the whole picture, the picture in which every Who Has Stolen Our Holidays • 29 person and every creature is an indispensable part. Michael’s impulse is meeting powerful opposition, as modern historic and current events show. The leading image for Michaelmas is that of Michael holding the dragon at bay. A supersensible figure - yet akin to that which is highest and best in each one of us - holds the writhing serpent- form down below, where it cannot harm. Michael gazes ahead, with his eye clearly on the goal, and the dragon - which would rise up and encircle the human form in order to constrict and squeeze out the heart - is kept in check. The lower nature, represented by the dragon with its earthly passions and drives, is unable to over­ whelm that which is noble and divine in each human being. The dragon is unable to crush the true organ of knowledge, the heart. Michael is a spirit who has long accompanied human devel­ opment. He has cared that human beings become free from all involuntary domination, even from the divine world. He waits for human beings, out of a free and self-determined will, to try to find the paths back to the spiritual world in consciousness and experi­ ence. He waits for us to seek the full truth of existence, granting courage and help to those who try to blaze a trail out of spiritual darkness to the light of true knowledge. He waits for human beings to overcome prejudice and pettiness so he can help us embrace a view that sees all humankind as sisters and brothers of one family. He waits for us to embrace a view of wholeness, of the interrelation of all things, a view that evokes responsibility and stewardship for what is under our feet, what is around us, and what is above us, joining hands with Mother Earth and the king­ doms of nature, with all of human society, and with the hosts of spirits aligned with the true progress of humankind and the uni­ verse. Waiting, he is there to meet each effort with help, so that what we begin can become something of significance towards true progress. Michael is the Regent of the Cosmic Intelligence - the thoughts of the interconnectedness of all things, all beings, all spir­ 30 • Bernard Wolf its - who yearns for human intelligence to grow in its compass to include the big picture. Adversary powers wish to seize and corrupt this Intelligence so that the picture of the whole is lost, and only the pieces that serve selfish ends are seen and manipulated. Piecemeal pictures and fragmented human minds under the grip of the adversaries lose the kernel for the husk. Yet the husk, if manipulated cleverly, brings tremendous personal rewards. Power, wealth, control, exploitation, and domination are some of the qualities that define the adversaries and those human beings who have lost their rela­ tion to Michael. Can you see that the circle of this meandering article is now complete? The commercialism that has usurped our holidays and stolen their vitality and meaning is one of the fruits of this piecemeal view. It is Michaelic to strive for the whole view. It is Michaelic to seek the spirit amid our materialistic existence. It is Michaelic to feel deeply and find the truth. “The Age of Michael has dawned. Hearts are beginning to have thoughts; spiritual fervor is now pro­ ceeding, not merely from mystical obscurity, but from souls clari­ fied by thought. To understand this means to receive Michael into the heart. Thoughts which at the present time strive to grasp the Spiritual must originate in hearts which beat for Michael as the fiery Prince of Thought in the Universe.” (Steiner, Anthropo­ sophical Leading Thoughts, “At the Dawn of the Michael Age”) In modest ways groups of people can incorporate these quali­ ties into a Michaelmas festival. No matter how incomplete, the effort, if genuine, will be met, and Michael’s mission for humankind and the earth will take a step forward. If we do make these efforts, no one can steal our holidays from us. Art as a Threshold Experience by VAN JAMES

s I stand before a blank white canvas on my easel I encounter Aa threshold; I have an experience of the boundary between sense-perceptible phenomena and supersensible revelation. If a work of art is to be truly successful it somehow retains this threshold character throughout its creation - for art is a threshold experience. Before art became decorative entertainment it served a reli­ gious and deeply spiritual purpose. Art was at one time used for ritual, meditation, initiation, and healing. Painted cave sanctuar­ ies, upright stones arranged as open-air temples, sand paintings and mandala images - all are examples of art that can bring about an encounter with the threshold. Rites of passage, reading the lan­ guage of the stars and the elements, diagnostic and curative ther­ apies, exercising and focusing consciousness in meditative practice - art was essential to all of the confrontations of self with world. For example, threshold experiences were common to medieval humanity, and the Gothic cathedrals with their architectural and sculptural forms, stained-glass windows, painted icons and murals, chanting, music, and ritual drama contributed to a total aesthetic, multi-sensorial experience that uplifted and promoted a transcendent state of consciousness. Even today, many indigenous

31 32 • Van James peoples have direct access to such experiences through their art forms. However, since the beginning of the scientific era, self- awareness has created a chasm between what Schiller in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man called the urge toward form and the urge toward substance. This gap in consciousness is often referred to as the abyss. As we begin to have experiences of this gulf in the soul, fear, doubt, and anger arise. The Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch, was not unfamiliar with such abyss experience. Living at the beginning of the 15th century, and as a likely member of the heretic Cathar movement, he often portrayed hidden themes in his unusual imagery, themes that dealt with the threshold experience and the soul’s abyss. One such painting is The Tribulations of the Soul (figure 1), first in a series of four pictures that included The Soul’s Enslavement, The Rescue of the Soul, and The Reunion of Soul and Spirit. In this particular image the soul is depicted as a naked human figure surrounded by three hostile anthropo- zoomorphic creatures. One attacker grabs the distressed soul by the hair, the second claws at the chest, and the third creature trips its victim while reaching for his arm. Clearly an assault is made upon the three soul forces of thinking, feeling, and will, which are centered in the head, heart, and limbs. All four figures are placed well below the horizon of the painting within a dark gash in the earth, within an abyss. Rudolf Steiner said, “ Fear...must not stop one from falling into the abyss of one’s individual self, for one climbs out of this abyss together with many spirits and one feels related to them; one is thus born out of the spiritual world, but one has taken in death...” (Wahrspruchworte-Richtspruchworte, p.76) The death experience at the abyss is what allows a resurrection in spirit. “ One loses one­ self on entering the spiritual world, but one knows that one will find oneself again.” (Esoteric Development, March 2, 1915) In the left panel of the Goetheanum’s red window, Steiner [Image: painting]Figure 1 - The Tribulations of the Soul, by Hieronymus Bosch, is one of four round pictures on the back of a panel painting called The Flood, in which the human soul is depict­ ed in an encounter with the forces of the abyss. [Image: drawing]Figure 2 - The left panel of the red etched-glass window, situated at the western end of the Goetheanum, was conceived by Rudolf Steiner as the soul’s meeting with the abyss. (Etching of window motif by Assia Turgeniev.) Art As a Threshold Experience • 35 depicts in etched glass the human soul atop a precipice with three ominous-looking creatures rising up out of the abyss below (figure 2). Wilhelm Rath describes this situation in verse form as follows:

But first, before I further tread Upon this steep and lonely crag, I must extend my gaze to the abyss. My aim must be to train myself To look into the depths with balance true. Courageously I must confess It is mine own abyss whose night Is nourished by the beasts That rise up from the depths. They are my share of dragon’s force. Who fain would rob me of my vision, And robbed me unawares till now; But from now on they shall be revealed. (The Imagery of the Goetheanum Windows, p. 10)

Inner courage and balance of soul is required of us if we are to cross this threshold of self-knowledge so that we will not be lost forever within the abyss of being. In the early 1980s I was on a panel of artists at the Arts in the Image of Man conference at Dominican College, where the poet Robert Bly pointed out that James Joyce observed this abyss expe­ rience in an interesting way in art. Joyce indicates in his autobio­ graphical novel, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, how there is a gap between what he calls “ proper and improper art.” Improper art is of two kinds: one type of improper art is didactic in nature because it tries to teach us a lesson - a lesson we may not wish to learn. It is aggressive, in-your-face art that attacks in the tradition of the avant garde (a French military term). Didactic art works out of antipathy, inducing fear by means of violence. An example might be, to discourage drunk driving by showing graph­ ic images of automobile accidents with dead and mutilated bodies 36 • Van James of offenders and innocent victims. It isn’t pretty, but it is true. Joyce calls the other type of improper art pornographic, not because it promotes sexual material, but because it prostitutes itself, sells itself by way of sentimentality and sympathy. It seduces the observer and draws us in by playing upon desires. This type of improper art might show a shiny new automobile in a spectacular landscape with handsome, happy people enjoying life - obviously because of the car they own. It isn’t true, but it is pretty. Both forms of improper art deny freedom by pushing or pulling the observer one way or another. Proper art is the “thin line of quiet” created by a dynamic balance between these two extremes. Proper art, however, is beautiful and true, a delicate threshold experience which carries one over the abyss of improper arts. Rudolf Steiner also saw two dangers in the arts: on the one side, copying outer nature, and on the other, trying to illustrate ideals or spiritual experiences. Again, one is the urge toward form, the other is the urge toward substance. One direction solidifies into objective realism of authoritative impressionism, the other disperses into subjective extremes of fanciful expressionism. All creativity arises out of these two tendencies, and when a subjec­ tive-objective balance can be achieved between the two streams genuine art unfolds its magic. In 1501, Michelangelo began his famous sculpture of David (figure 3), choosing to depict the shepherd boy and future king not in the moment of victory, as was the tradition, but before his deci­ sive battle with the giant, Goliath. David looks left according to the medieval belief that God protects one’s right but leaves one open to evil on the left. He awaits his fate with the mixed emo­ tions of fear and courage expressed upon his brow and in the taut muscles of his body. Michelangelo portrays David metaphorically as a citizen of Florence, facing the city-states and foreign armies that in the artist’s time threatened Florentine independence. David is also the representative of early Renaissance humanity, possess- [Image: photographofsculpture]Figure[Image: 3 - Michelangelo’s David, was begun in 1501, and represents humanity at the threshold of a new era. 38 • Van James ing all the gifts of the ancients, yet standing on the brink of an expectant and uncertain scientific age. He is fashioned according to the old Greek aesthetic, in a last glorious image of the god-like human being. He stands, anxious upon the threshold of a new era in which the divine in humanity will be lost. He anticipates the challenge that awaits as he gazes into the abyss that the unseen Goliath represents. For the last five centuries Michelangelo’s David has served as a picture of the human condition on the cusp of a dawning onlooker-consciousness. In Rudolf Steiner’s colossal wood sculpture, The Representative of Humanity (figure 4), a new David, perhaps wor­ thy of the next five centuries, is shown in movement, striding for­ ward, now fully in the midst of the abyss. Between the contract­ ing forces of the chilling abyss below and the expanding power of the fiery abyss above and around, the representative of true human potential creates a balance at the threshold of matter and spirit. Rudolf Steiner carved this wood group in a style he called expressionistic-impressionism, and, although he referred to his artwork as “ just a beginning,” one can see in it an attempt to find the freedom between form and substance, between didactic and pornographic art. In this way art is raised out of mere decoration and entertainment to a realm of spiritual significance. Art becomes what it is intended to be - a threshold experience, a bridge across the abyss. [Image: photographofsculpture]Figure 4 - The Representative of Humanity, by Rudolf Steiner, was carved during and following the First World War. Referred to as The Group, this 36-foot tall elm wood sculpture depicts the threshold encounter of humanity’s Representative with opposing cosmic forces. Materialism, Humanity, &; the Future World: The World-Conceptions of Jesaiah Ben-Aharon and Ray Kurzweil Contrasted by BEN BINGHAM

(This article and the one following reflect the fact that Jesaiah Ben-Aharon has been in America for a sabbatical year, sharing thoughts and working intensively with several anthroposophical communities - Editor.)

he following article introduces the important spiritual scien­ Ttific work of Jesaiah Ben-Aharon. It does so in the context of our materialistic times. Ray Kurzweil's The Age of the Spiritual Machine (Knopf: 1998) provides a bold contrast to Ben-Aharon’s anthroposophical work, epitomizing the techno-tendencies that are the ultimate consequence of mankind’s accelerating separation from God. Whereas Kurzweil confronts modern man with the possibility that we are fast becoming victims of the very technolo­ gies we have created, Ben-Aharon highlights mankind’s potential for inner freedom. Named Inventor of the Year in 1990 by his alma mater, MIT, Kurzweil has developed and sold four high-tech companies and is best known for his print-to-speech and speech-to-text inventions. Now chairman of the technology Board for NASDAQ, the high- tech stock exchange, Kurzweil enjoys credibility in today’s world. Much of what he predicted in his last book, The Age of Intelligent Machines (Prentice-Hall, 1988), has come true, including the emergence of a world-wide information system for the masses, techno-warfare, and the defeat of the world chess champion by a computer. Ray Kurzweil is a proponent of virtual reality. He predicts that

40 Materialism, Humanity, & the Future World • 41 we will soon create techno-perceptions to satisfy our desires. Meetings will seem to take place on a beach in Hawaii, for exam­ ple, with all the pleasant sights, sounds, and smells chosen from a menu. More critically important, Kurzweil predicts that we will soon “mix and match” human characteristics with machines. By 2020, still using flat microchips, a small PC will match the capac­ ity for memory of one human brain. Then, by using a geodesic form reminiscent of Buckminster Fuller’s dome architecture, the intelligence of a whole village will fit into the memory of one lap­ top; soon after, the same laptop’s memory, Kurzweil predicts, will hold as much intelligence as the minds of all human beings on the Earth. He speculates that through advances in biotechnology, clones of human bodies will become achievable, so that within our lifetime we may have to deal with computers residing in “ human” bodies. These “ beings,” who may look and act like the individual whose memories and personality have been “ down-loaded” into them, may boast far more intelligence than any single human being. They may even claim to have spiritual experiences based on these memories. Kurzweil is aware of the philosophical implications. He bold­ ly states that we live in a unique time, when the philosophical questions posed by Plato and Aristotle will come up against the ultimate test: what is the human being if it can be copied in all aspects of body and soul? However, Kurzweil is unwilling to attempt an answer, taking the easy intellectual escape route: it is an unanswerable question, beyond the scope of scientific thought. Instead, Kurzweil titillates his audience by touting “ benefits” such as artificial intelligence implants, perfect sexual encounters free of the complications of relationship, microscopic computer implants to monitor and overcome illnesses and handicaps, and even immortality in the form of humanoid hardcopies! Jesaiah Ben-Aharon, in sharp contrast, supports Rudolf Steiner’s assertion that only thinking that is free of the physical 42 • Ben Bingham body, as gained through spiritual striving, would allow the human being to gain the perspective needed to cope with this anti-human, godless future. In contradistinction to Kurzweil's assertions that one cannot know the spirit in oneself and especially not in others, Ben-Aharon’s work builds on the basis of Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom, which proves our ability to know the reality of the Spirit. He has diligently cultivated this knowledge through his own individual striving and through years of wrestling with the spirit of community. Since 1979 Mr. Aharon has been involved in founding, managing, and guiding the Harduf Community, an anthroposophical kibbutz in Israel. Harduf’s intention was to become part of Israeli society as a recognized institution, part of a larger social whole. This aim was achieved in 1985 when the com­ munity was formally accepted into the United Kibbutz Movement. Outer acceptance would have been meaningless without the insights gained through working intensively with human relation­ ships. Balancing and harmonizing the different, often opposing and conflicting faculties and tendencies between individuals and the group required insight which holds the whole of the commu­ nity in view, regarding the whole as an organism in its own right. The human challenge, as Ben-Aharon sees it, is to find a way that every human quality and capability might find its best place, from which the whole can be served and nurtured. Anthroposophy nourished and supported the people in Harduf through the challenges of daily practical and social life. The spiritual work, celebration of festivals, and the Israeli culture created the necessary foundation for a constantly growing and changing community. A deep understanding was gained in the inter-working among the different anthroposophical practical fields and institutions founded at Harduf. However, the funda­ mental insight from these years of work, in Ben-Aharon’s words was “that the Christ being is the source of true brotherhood and harmony in the social field, because the Christ offers to human Materialism, Humanity, & the Future World • 43 beings today, through His inspiration, a unique synthesis of two elements: Truth and Love. Self-knowledge about our own human failures, shortcomings, sins and misconduct must not be avoided or suppressed, but, instead, embraced and integrated into our stream of human growth and becoming. This can be shown to bring positive lessons on the long road to maturity and creative responsibility. The Love that He (the Christ) demonstrates is not blind, it is a fully conscious, truthful love, a love of truth and the truth of love in one and the same stream of light and power.” This theme is developed further in Mr. Ben-Aharon’s two books: The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century, and The New Experience of the Supersensible (both published by Temple Lodge, London, 1993 and 1995, with translations in German, French and Dutch). The first book, in Ben-Aharon’s words, “describes the spiritu­ al events that transpired in the years of the Second World War. It is described how, in the midst of this greatest catastrophe ever in human history, the Christ and the beings working with him, were helping to bring about a transformation of evil into future good. What was suffered on the earth by people of all nations and all races, and particularly by the Jewish people, was the result of human beings’ refusal to open their hearts and minds, and change their habitual materialistic world-conception. The call resounding so strongly in our time, ‘Change your heart, because the kingdom of Spirit is at hand’, went unheeded. Materialism and scientism alone, without a new spiritual world conception and practice, must of necessity lead in our age to recurrent cataclysms and suf­ fering. Only a courageous spirit of freedom, exploring the depths and breadth of human consciousness, discovering yet unknown provinces and powers of knowledge, can lead humanity further in a positive, up-building manner.” Ben-Aharon describes and expands upon Rudolf Steiner’s indi­ cation that, beginning in the 1930s and 40s, and on for the next 2500 years, more and more unprepared souls will attain clairvoy­ 44 • Ben Bingham ant capacities, including the ability to perceive the reappearance of the Christ in the supersensible, etheric realm. However, for many, without spiritual discipline, such natural experiences of the spirit would be followed by aberrations. Materialistic thinking would overwhelm memory for such spiritual experiences, leading to an even lower state of being than that of humanity during the age of darkness; a state of being that, for example, would have Kurzweil's humanity subjugated to superior computerized clones. On the other hand, Steiner predicted that others, with spiritual inclinations, would tend to throw out all modern science as unnec­ essary and evil. Ben-Aharon points us toward the healthy response between these two extreme possibilities, recognizing the bridge- work needed between modern science and unconscious spiritual experience. There are millions of human beings who might strengthen their connection to the spirit by developing true free­ dom in their thinking. Thinking capacities that are not subject to whims or the dictates of mechanistic thought are now essential. Ben-Aharon’s second book, The New Experience of the Supersensible, is, in the author’s words, “ devoted to a description of the exploration of the new ways in which new consciousness can be developed. It demonstrates that the overcoming of the death forces, the forces of ‘the tree of knowledge’, by means of the new forces of ‘the tree of life’ (the Christ power), is a prerequisite for such development. By means of this overcoming, a ‘resurrec­ tion of cognition’, of knowledge and of science, can be practiced and empirically, experientially, achieved. A bridge can thus be constructed that leads gradually from ordinary physical cognition and science to Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy, that explores and investigates the hidden realms of existence with clarity of judgment and precision.” Taking up this task will address the challenges put to us by the Spirit of our Time. The Goals of Materialism: A Spiritual Perspective by WALTER ALEXANDER

ost of us probably cannot accept the idea that we ourselves Mare “fictions” produced by our DNA molecules. In the materialistic-scientific worldview that has steadily gained ascen­ dancy in the last few hundred years, however, we are considered to be just such fictions. Increasingly, the dominant scientific belief is that Self and consciousness are mere epiphenomena, that is, illu­ sions produced by the physical brain at the service of the DNA’s desire to survive. Within this purely physical-quantitative world­ view, there is literally no place for us as whole human beings - for spirit, soul, or for our deepest questions and yearnings - since everything ultimately boils down to measurable but meaningless matter. Medical researchers are now unraveling the genetic script at the core of the cell and reading its secrets. They predict confident­ ly that they will soon be able to renew organs or even prevent aging itself. And, why not? If the purpose of existence is the sur­ vival of our individual DNA, then trying to live forever makes at least as much sense as passing our genetic signatures on in modi­ fied form to our offspring. Maybe we should take note when med­ ical science strides past curing disease and alleviating suffering, and chooses as its targets aging and death. Maybe, here at the mil­

45 46 • Walter Alexander lennium’s shore, we should pause to examine closely where this materialistic worldview is heading. Can we keep the great gifts of science - the precise observa­ tion, clear thinking, and technological prowess - without negating the reality of our Self and our consciousness, which is, after all, where all science (New York Branch of the Anthroposophical Society, Jesaiah Ben-Aharon addressed these issues under the theme: Where is materialism going? According to Ben-Aharon, the primary goal in the first half of life is learning to be here, to grow into the physical body, to adjust to physical, social, and cultural life, and to bring into balance what the material world offers. Making bodily existence the goal of life after that, however, begins to be non-human, because it ignores the fact that we begin to excarnate. Here Ben-Aharon is referring to Rudolf Steiner’s view of the evolution of consciousness. Steiner taught that alongside the phys­ ical evolution of humanity, individual human souls have been undergoing their own dramatic development through incarnating, excarnating, dying, and being reborn. However, such development did not begin in some “primordial physical ooze,” but rather in a descent from union with divine beings1 to ever-deeper incarnation in physical bodies. In that process, instinctive experience and knowledge of spiritual realities and wisdom have been lost while

______1 The view that early man concocted the great myths and cosmologies to explain incomprehensible natural phenomena is not borne out by the historical record - which shows the impulse to explain to be a relatively recent phenome­ non. The works of Owen Barfield lay out the evidence for this position with great clarity and thoroughness. Barfield shows that holding on to such myopic revisionism slams shut many doors to understanding. The Goals of Materialism • 47 human individuality, autonomy, and engagement with material existence have gradually been gained. Guiding the pace and long arc of this descent from pre-history to contemporary times are great spiritual beings and human initiates both on and behind the world stage. From this perspective, the apparent loss of great spir­ itual traditions of the past is not wholly tragic, but necessary for the development of human individuality, freedom, and love - none of which can arise when human awareness is overpowered by instinctive experiences of union with divinity. The final stages of this descent and separation have allowed the development of logical and scientific thinking in the West. Steiner says that 1899 marked the end of Kali Yuga (the tradi­ tional Sanskrit name for the age of darkened consciousness) and the beginning of the ascent back towards the spirit. Materialism in a truly negative sense, according to Ben-Aharon, has existed only since the end of the 19th century, when human consciousness began crossing the threshold away from the physical. After that point, a change was required. “In this stage our task is to shape our personal biography, karma, and social tasks from the stand­ point of the spirit,” Ben-Aharon said. But making the turn from descending to ascending evolution is difficult and, as our century bears witness, full of travail. Steiner wrote in 1920, in the midst of the devastated Germany after World War I, “We must familiar­ ize ourselves with the thought of the vanishing of a civilization.”2 It is entirely vain, he said, to think that old habits of thought and will can continue. The ascent is not empty-handed, but requires unprecedented degrees of conscious intention, knowledge, and awareness. “Ascending along the same path that we descended,” Ben-Aharon said, “we should strive to carry with us all of the best gifts we have

______2 Rudolf Steiner, The Search for the New Isis, Divine Sophia, Mercury Press, Spring Valley, NY, 1983, p. 46. 48 • Walter Alexander developed on the way down and integrate them with a new spiri­ tual consciousness on the way up.” Making the climb more diffi­ cult are two opposing spiritual powers that work into human evo­ lution. One operates through impulses of contraction, hardening, and denial of the spirit, and the other works through expansive impulses toward blissful spirituality detached from earthly experi­ ence and responsibility. While the two often work together in var­ ied and subtle ways, the drying, sclerotic tendency predominates in the materialistic culture of our time. The danger is that in place of a transformation and an uplifting of the material world, there will be a continuation of momentum from the past towards deep­ er incarnation. This might lead to an overpowering welding of the soul/spiritual component of our being to the physical body. Many aspects of contemporary culture promote this possibility. With the foregoing as background, we may re-examine the goals of genetic manipulation. Embryonic stem cells, undifferenti­ ated ‘immortal’ germ cells capable of limitless multiplication, become subject to mortality when they ‘descend’ into specializa­ tion to become cells of a particular tissue or organ type. Genetic research is after a specific prize: to ‘trick’ the cells into specializ­ ing while retaining their immortal genetic characteristics. The result will be immortal tissues and organs. While the first applica­ tions will be replacement of diseased tissues and organs (already in progress in angiogenesis, the replacement of blocked coronary arteries through gene therapy), the strengthening vortex stirred between scientific inquiry and public demand will hasten us to the next plateau. After all, why wait until the vicissitudes of aging and experience allow weakness and disease to enter the body? The time to apply miraculous genetic strategies is at the height of phys­ ical vitality and beauty - to achieve the dream of immortal physi­ cal life, not as today with the patchwork grotesqueries of cosmet­ ic surgery, but by sustaining the whole body at the peak of bloom! The junction of the genes and the etheric body, Ben-Aharon The Goals of Materialism • 49

explained, is the precise place where the incarnating soul and physical body delicately meet. The etheric body, in Steiner’s con­ ception, bears the body’s life and formative forces (the level of the plant). The astral body carries desires and consciousness (the level of the animal) and the higher Ego bears the ‘I’ or individuality. After birth, gradual incarnation of the higher human ‘bodies’ con­ tinues. After physical maturity, the space for the soul and self to develop further is created through experiencing, maturing, bodily aging, illness, and ‘letting go.’ In this picture, individual karma and world destiny are worked out during repeated earth lives in human meetings, rela­ tionships and events. But the goal of youthful, physical immortal­ ity is incompatible with letting the soul/spiritual (astral/Ego) “ live and play with the organs for only 30, 40, or 50 years,” Ben- Aharon said. Preserving embryonic gene expression through med­ ical techniques would solve the “ problem” from the materialistic point of view; however, it would have serious consequences for human development from the spiritual perspective. Keep in mind that the etheric body is essential in interactions between people connected by karma. Genetic manipulations will prevent the nec­ essary entrance of the higher more human parts of human nature into the physical-etheric. Recognition between souls will not occur, meetings will be missed, and karma will be disrupted. When the artificial or sub-natural methods of biotechnology are used to grasp the living substance from below, the outcome is an increase of matter and substance, rather than an increase in true life force and living quality. “When you tap the original life forces of the embryo, they are not available for developing con­ sciousness and morality, and the soul will lose its possibility of becoming human,” Ben-Aharon said. What will be preserved is physical strength and vitality linked to the kind of abstract intelli­ gence which furthers contemporary technological achievement. The science that has been mastering an understanding of the 50 • Walter Alexander forces of sub-nature (electricity, magnetism, and atomic energy) will foster an increasingly virtual experience on the earth. It will mechanize and manipulate conception and reproduction to pro­ duce painlessly ideal (physical) children, while eliminating the burdens of responsibility and relationship (expressions of the soul and spirit). A likely result is a world ruled by a race of intelligent animals - beings filled with powerful instincts toward pleasure and dominance, but without the innocence of animals, and surely without the compassion of humans. Though many will reject - or not be able to afford - the riches of such a future, others will almost certainly buy into it. The increased materialization of the etheric and physical bod­ ies will have a further effect. Death will become more difficult, and euthanasia will become common. The potential consequences for individuals after death are beyond the scope of this article. They are consistent, however, with Ben-Aharon’s overall picture of a two-pronged assault on human evolution. One occurs through a splitting of humanity to prevent human souls from car­ rying and healing their karma - and from understanding the trans­ formative processes of incarnation, excarnation, death, and rebirth. The other assault occurs through the robbing of the earth’s life forces to feed material ends. This suffering encompass­ es not just agribusiness’s destructive chemical drenching of the earth for short-term increases in crop yield, but also the disruption of the whole evolutionary process of a humanity linked inextrica­ bly with the earth. “The incarnation of humanity is a wounding process of the earth,” Ben-Aharon stated, “and after the middle of evolution, we should be in a position to give back more and more. It is the same as with any child - there is the pain of childbearing for the mother, but then there is the hope that the child will repay the debt some day, become a healer at some point.” Ben-Aharon emphasized that we should not consider gene therapy an overarching evil in itself, but rather one detail in a The Goals of Materialism • 51

broad picture. Neither should we assume an anti-scientific or anti- technological attitude. Instead we can objectively question the impulses served by technology - and the results promised. After all, three or four decades ago, the prophets of progress still blithe­ ly projected a vision of idyllic communities where labor saving technological miracles would expand time for leisure and creative activity. Souls sufficiently naive to believe that dream are hard to find today. Many will find the materialistic course illusory, repugnant or corrupting and reject it. Among these, many will move towards an equally erroneous rejection of the blessings of material life. The healing path, Ben-Aharon stated, partakes of both polar streams, embraces them, and strives to carry the karma of the individuals in them, encouraging them toward a middle course. “The middle path is that which takes up more and more the tasks that the spir­ itual worlds have performed for us on the way down. That means choosing relationships over separateness, taking up karma in free­ dom through love - and giving back to the earth and society,” Ben-Aharon said. For this, the science that strengthened and sharpened human consciousness during the downward course of incarnation will have to understand how the human and natural world interpenetrate and support each other. This middle course also disallows a rejection of death. “ Only those will be able to die who make dying a daily affair by being humanly productive, and spiritually and socially creative,” Ben- Aharon said. Then death is not a terrible transition, but a human, natural, spiritual process. Now that humanity has begun its excar­ nation (death) process, the conscious cultivation of such an atti­ tude is crucial. Our time is extraordinary, mythic. Never before has humani­ ty held in its hands such powers of destruction and creation. The protections and leeway once afforded young humanity have been torn away, and evil ranges the earth with unprecedented license. It 52 • Walter Alexander is essential that spiritual knowledge, once closely guarded within esoteric traditions and confines, become open and available. “Today, day-to-day social and general human life are just incom­ prehensible without spiritual knowledge,” Ben-Aharon stated. “Without it, a great part of humanity will be blinded entirely.” Good will be seen as evil, and evil as good. It seems that this cataclysmic century is ending with a choice: to squander the fruits of our long evolution here, or to transform these fruits, our selves, and the earth, through love in freedom. How we decide will answer the question: Where is materialism going? Choosing America as a Place for Incarnation or Immigration in the 20th Century by VIRGINIA SEASE (Summary of a lecture given at the New York City Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in America on February 13, 1999)

Each person who finds a relation to Anthroposophy treads a unique path of study and meditation that fits his or her specific life situation. Besides this more individual aspect, however, there are general themes that are timeless in their nature and yet sometimes demand attention at a specific moment out of inner historical necessity. As we enter the next century, and thereby the next mil­ lennium, such a theme, in my estimation, centers on the relation of the human being to the spiritual hierarchies. This acquires spe­ cial importance for America due to the unique situation of its folk- spirit. Whereas other countries such as Italy, Norway, and France have a guiding folk-spirit that is at the level of an Archangel, America does not have an archangelic being as its folk-spirit. America has a being that is higher in rank, an Archai-Being, but this Archai-Being has remained behind in the normal course of evolution. This is in the sense of service, not as a failure, as when certain hierarchical beings do not progress normally and thus stay at a lower degree. The Archai-beings are also designated by Rudolf Steiner as the Spirits of Personality. From an external perspective, especially if one has immigrated to America, the qualities of personality

53 54 • Virginia Sease appear much stronger here than in other places in the world. One often hears the phrase: “ In America everybody is some body,” and for those who have immigrated to America even in childhood, the great test often seems to be how to become “ somebody” . How can one activate one’s personality, which is not even the earthly ego, in order to project a countenance? Otherwise a nagging fear creeps in that one will get “ lost in the shuffle” , unknown and invisible. Even when a person says “I” it serves only to differenti­ ate himself/herself from the rest of the world. Exactly this may give the impression of extreme superficiality in America. The eternal ego, the essential entelechy, is not encapsulated with­ in the earthly ego. Rudolf Steiner spoke about the relation of the “ earthly I” to the “ eternal I” in London on the occasion of the founding of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. As one delves into Anthroposophy one can acquire the feeling that Rudolf Steiner often brought certain insights in specific places. He knew that there were people there who could take up the insights in a com­ prehensive manner and allow them to find a footing in their souls. I gaze into the darkness. In it there arises Light - Living Light. Who is this Light in the darkness? It is I myself in my reality. This reality of the I Enters not into my earthly life; I am but a picture of it. But I shall find it again When with good will for the Spirit I shall have passed through the Gate of Death.1

______1 Given in London on the evening of September 2, 1923. The lecture leading up to this meditative verse is published under the title: 'Man as Picture of the Living Spirit'. The meditation is quoted in Verses and Meditations, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993. Choosing America • 55

So this is the picture of the eternal I. Our own Angel-being helps to mediate between the eternal I and the earthly I of the human being. Thus we speak of our Guardian Angel bringing intuitions, impulses for deeds, warnings. Another question presents itself today for many people all over the world: What is the relation of the eternal I of the human being to the Christ? At the conclusion of An Outline of Esoteric Science the Greater Guardian of the Threshold is revealed to the esoteric pupil as the Christ Being. And in a meditation given to an esoteric pupil at Easter in 1924 Rudolf Steiner addresses this rela­ tion:

In the Evening after the Review of the day: From Grace May there stream to me Wisdom May Wisdom bring forth Love for me May Love take part in Grace May Love create Beauty for me May Beauty bring me Grace. (Peace of Soul)

In the Morning: A star above one’s head, Christ speaks from the star Let your soul Be carried By my strong force I am with you I am in you I am for you I am your I. (Peace of Soul)2 (Transl. V.S.)

______2Perm ission for translation kindly given by the Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland. See Rudolf Steiner, Collected Works, GA267, Dornach, 1998. 56 • Virginia Sease

When the human being says “ I” to differentiate himself/herself from other beings, the I is directed outwards. When, however, a person strives to experience the I and turns inward, then from the soul-spiritual sphere this brings one into connection - whether consciously or not - with the spiritual hierarchies. This explains why, for example, one can feel such an inward identification with one’s country. Also, we can see why, along the path of self-knowl- edge, we can come to the question: which spiritual beings are especially active in America, and what is their nature? It is important to remember that, wherever an individuality incarnates on Earth, whether he/she is born in that location or moves there, two factors play an important role. One factor con­ cerns the etheric geography of that location; the second factor is centered upon the mystery of the Double. Concerning the first, Rudolf Steiner inaugurated an etheric geography that Guenther Wachsmuth3 then developed further in his early writings. He differentiated four types of ether: warmth ether, light ether, sound or chemical ether, and life ether. These are parallel to the conditions of physical warmth, air, fluid, and solid earth. Even though the ether qualities are mixed at any given place, generally one specific ether-type predominates according to the geographic location. Following the indications of Guenther Wachsmuth, if we take the Atlantic Ocean as a point of departure, from the East Coast of North America to the British Isles and then over to the middle of Europe the sound ether connected with flu­ idity predominates. Tradition maintains that the sound ether meets the light ether, the airy element, approximately in the area of Vienna. The light ether then extends eastward over to about the Ural Mountains in Russia, where it encounters the warmth or fire

______3See Guenther Wachsmuth, Die Aetherische Welt in Wissenschaft, Kunst und Religion, Vol 2., Dornach, 1927. Choosing America • 57 ether. The warmth ether projects from the eastern part of Russia across the Pacific Ocean, over the Hawaiian Islands to the West Coast of North America and on to the Rocky Mountains. From there eastward to the Atlantic, the major portion of North America is under the life ether, the earth element. In view of the life-ether predominance over such a large area of North America, it seems important to consider how Rudolf Steiner described this ether in another context. In lectures in Torquay, England in 1924, he mentioned the special task of the vital radiation, the vital ray. “These life radiations are the rays which now must enter into our age as something beneficial; because with all of the impulses which should be given in the Michael Age, the connection with the mastery of the life radiation, the vital radiation, should gradually occur. Mainly one must learn not to work in a lifeless, dead way with that which comes from the spiritual, but directly in a living manner. To find living ideas, living concepts, living viewpoints, living feelings, not dead theo­ ries, that is the task of this Age”4 (Transl. V.S.) As this task of the Michael Age is connected with the vital radiation, we may explore its relevance for America and for a per­ son either born in America or who has immigrated to America. A characteristic of America may be summed up as openness. It is open for all kinds of strange phenomena, but it has also always been open to regard seriously the spirit as a reality. We may recall the story connected with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was a hot, humid day in Philadelphia, and the deliberations had extended over many hours. Finally, Benjamin Franklin spoke in a vociferous manner that they had all had so many thoughts about what they should do, but had they ever thought to ask the “ Lord of Light” how they could proceed more

______4See______Rudolf Steiner, August 18, 1924, in Torquay, in True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985. 58 • Virginia Sease fruitfully? In America it is especially possible to allow the fruits of working out of a spiritual impulse to become visible, to take on physical form. With regard to the second factor, every person has a so-called geographic Double (not just Americans!). We are not considering now the astral Double, which sometimes has been described flip­ pantly as the leftover baggage from previous incarnations that must be dealt with. Rudolf Steiner describes the geographic Double5 as an Ahrimanic being who enters into the human being just before the moment of birth and remains with him until just before death. It is important that the Double does not go through death with the human being, which would affect his post-mortem situation. The Mystery of Golgotha prevented the double from ever gaining enough strength to cross the threshold of death because as the blood of the Christ Being flowed into the earth, the very substance of the earth was changed. The earth itself is, how­ ever, the attraction for the geographic Double. In accordance with the earth configuration and its etheric components, the Double chooses, as it were, the human being with whom it wishes to dwell. The human being has nothing to say about this choice! The Double works through the human will forces, which have a natural connection to the earth, and through the forces of intel­ lect. Whereas these beings possess a tremendously strong will and an incredibly sharp intellect, they cannot gain access to human beings in the realm of feelings. The “ beat of heart and lung” , as the Foundation Stone Mantram6 expresses the middle sphere of the human being, is excluded from the influence of the Double. Thus, the Double accompanies us throughout our earthly life and takes hold of as much of our will and our thinking as we have not

______5See Rudolf Steiner, Lecture of November 16, 1917 in St. Gallen, Geographic Medicine, Mercury Press, New York, 1986. 6 See Rudolf Steiner, The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society, 1923-24, Anthroposophic Press, 1990. Choosing America • 59 been able to permeate with our ego forces. We can see an underlying connection between the geographic Double which thrives especially well when, as on this continent, the mountains run in a north-south direction in relation to the electro-magnetic pole and the life ether, which is connected to the earth element. We can think of the mighty Rocky Mountains in the West and the Appalachian chain in the East. Furthermore, in addition to the geographic Double we must reckon with two other powerful polar opposite beings: Ahriman and Lucifer. The former tries to approach the human being from the future, stimulating a hardening into a programmed form, while the latter, enters from the past and promotes complete license, often a lack of commit­ ment, dissolution of form, and yet also encourages the artistic pre­ disposition. How can a person in America, whether born or trans­ planted here, keep the essential aspect of his life configuration in place? He is challenged to exercise the regulatory effect of his ego as it permeates his thinking, feeling, and will nature. Because of the life-ether predominance on this continent it can be especially helpful to turn to the Spirits of Wisdom or Kyriotetes, through whose sacrifice in the distant past of Earth’s evolution the life body of the human being was formed. These beings relate especially to the rhythmic system of the human being, which is excluded from the strong influence of the geo­ graphic Double. The Holy Rishis of the ancient Indian epoch experienced the many beings of the Kyriotetes Order of the Sun as a unity. They called that unity Vishvakarman. Later, in the ancient Persian epoch, Zarathustra experienced this Kyriotetes realm in the Sun as Ahura Mazdao, which was really like a window to see the Christ, the Being of the Sun. Through the Kyriotetes the world ether streams to the earth. That is their great task. How can we become more aware of what we might call the “countenance” of the Kyriotetes? It is not easy to come from pic­ 60 • Virginia Sease tures or abstract ideas into a possibility of reading their signature. To read the signature of each hierarchy represents a future task for humankind. For the Kyriotetes it is helpful to study the gesture and physiognomy of the plant world, as the group-souls of the plants live in the Kyriotetes sphere.7 Another way is to work with the metamorphic qualities of eurythmy forms. Whether one does eurythmy actively, watches a performance, or internalizes the drawings of the eurythmy forms which Rudolf Steiner created, one can enter into an inwardly mobile situation that brings the signature of the Kyriotetes closer. We have enhanced possibilities during the Michael Age, as Michael is the Intelligence or Regent of the Sun, whose regency will last approximately 300 more years. During this time, “ in a definitive form the cosmic forces of the Sun will pass over into the physical body and the etheric body of the human being.” 8 This enhances the effectiveness of the task of the Kyriotetes. The ether­ ic body has great possibilities for freedom when it is not totally involved in growth processes, reproduction processes, and so on. The free part of the etheric body can work with ideas, with ideals, and with memory. Within this free part the forces of the Sun can become active. This provides then greater access to the cosmic etheric world where, in certain situations, the Christ being may also be perceived. Bearing these various considerations in mind, we realize that in a place like America, which has strong geographic double forces on the one side and the enhanced life-ether relationship to the Kyriotetes on the other, the free middle region of the human being, which comes to expression in the “ beat of heart and lungs,” gains ultimate significance. Rudolf Steiner gave a meditation for

______7See Rudolf Steiner, lecture of April 14, 1912 in The Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature, Anthroposophic Press, 1992. 8See note 4, lecture of August 21, 1924. Choosing America • 61

America, which many people have lived with for decades. Its dimensions encompass the dangers of superficial personality traits that prevent feelings from penetrating really deeply into the heart sphere, and also draw attention to the hierarchical beings that support every earnest striving.

May our feeling penetrate Into the center of our heart And seek, in love, to unite itself With the human beings seeking The same goal, With the spirit beings who, Bearing grace, Strengthening us from realms of light And illuminating our love Are gazing down upon Our earnest heartfelt striving. Educating for Life: A Look at the Foundations of Waldorf Education

by EUGENE SCHWARTZ

n the year 1919, Germany was awakening to the painful reali­ Ities resulting from its defeat in World War I. All was in conflict. The Right battled the Left, workers struggled with their employ­ ers, and the younger generation refused to follow the impotent paternalism of the past. In Stuttgart, a group of workers in the Waldorf-Astoria Cigarette Factory recognized that the errors of the past were doomed to be repeated unless the harsh and lifeless methods of Prussian pedagogy were abandoned and replaced with a schooling that truly suited the needs of their children. Emil Molt, the factory’s prescient owner, asked Rudolf Steiner, Austrian scientist, philosopher and social thinker (1861-1925), to develop a school based on a picture of the child as a being of body, soul, and spirit, in which teachers would teach out of love and respect for their students. Over the course of a full and intense summer, Rudolf Steiner assembled a group of men and women who were to become the founding faculty of the “Free School”, ‘free’ implying that the school was beholden neither to the Church nor to the State, not that it was permissive. The curriculum and methodology that Steiner laid down at the time were based on a developmental approach to the child, and challenged the teacher to develop and deepen an understanding of the nature of childhood as a prereq­

6 2 Educating for Life • 63 uisite for teaching.1 The Waldorf curriculum was meant to be a melding of art and science, out of which the child’s natural sense of reverence would arise. Under the warm and active tutelage of their teachers, children would be provided with a creative alterna­ tive to the passive and pressured school experience so tragically typical of that time and ours. Few of the individuals Rudolf Steiner gathered had any prior training in educating young children, and, while several had advanced degrees in specialized fields, they were destined to teach other subjects, about which they knew very little. Steiner’s approach was revolutionary at the time, and in many respects remains so. Waldorf teachers would be effective, he argued, not because of what they already knew and had achieved, but because of what they were becoming. What qualities were looked for in this first group of teachers asked to pioneer a new way of educat­ ing? Steiner sought striving, self-reliant individuals, enthusiastic and determined persons, able to weave the threads of separate subjects and disciplines into a rich and vital educational tapestry. Behind the Waldorf philosophy and methodology stands Steiner’s more comprehensive world-picture known as Anthro­ posophy, in which the capacity of the human being to develop is pivotal. The healthy integration of the human soul forces, Thinking, Feeling, and Willing is at the center of this process. Along with this view of human development, a fundamental con­ cept underlying the Waldorf approach to education is that of the four-fold human being. That part of the human being perceived by the senses is what Steiner calls the Physical Body. At death, or through the severance of any part of that body from the whole (the cutting of the hair,

______1The essential content of the training Rudolf Steiner gave to teachers in this period can be found in The Foundations of Human Experience (Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, NY, 1996), Practical Advice to Teachers, (Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1976), and Discussions with Teachers, (Anthroposophic Press, 1997). 64 • Eugene Schwartz the loss of a limb), the physical body will revert to the same chem­ ical components found in the “lifeless,” mineral world. Hence the physical body can also be called the mineral body. One stage higher than the physical body is the Etheric Body. Although invisible to our ordinary senses, the effects of this body are evident in all that sustains our life processes: Steiner also terms this member of our being the Life body. It bears within itself the “memory” of our form (body of formative forces is a third term used in describing it) and, in its interplay with our physical nature, carries our predisposition to health or illness. The immune system recognized by modern medicine is one of the “ effects” of the etheric body that manifest in the physical world. The Astral Body is even subtler in nature than the etheric body. It is this member which is often termed the soul or soul body; Steiner also identifies it as the body of wishes and desires. The etheric body gives us life, but it is the astral body that gives us sentience (however dreamlike it may be) and the capacity to move towards those objects or images we desire. Whether what we desire is as simple as food and shelter or as grandiose as world domination, the astral body is active. That which allows the human being to experience his individ­ ual nature is termed by Steiner the I-AM or Ego. This Ego is at once the most universal and the most individual aspect of our being. Hence everyone can call himself “ I” but we can call no one else by that name. This Ego “ wears” the three other bodies like so many veils, expressing itself through them all, yet remaining inef­ fably unique. It is this I-AM that constitutes our spiritual nature, eternal and divine in essence. In Steiner’s anthroposophical worldview, the whole world is a macrocosmic reflection of the human microcosm. From this per­ spective, each of our four bodies finds its echo in an “ element” of nature. Thus, the physical body is of the nature of earth, the ether­ ic body of water, the astral body of air, and the Ego is akin to fire. In terms of the “ kingdoms of nature,” we share our physical body Educating for Life • 65 with the mineral kingdom, our etheric body with the plant world, and our astral body with the animals. The Ego is shared with no other kingdom: only the human being carries this “ divine spark” of self-consciousness into earthly life. The Ego ceaselessly works upon the three other bodies to spiritualize and perfect them. Hence the Ego stands as the teacher of the bodies of the human being, raising the lower into the higher by virtue of its eternal nature. In this respect the activity of the Ego is the prototype of all human education. In his numerous lectures to teachers, Rudolf Steiner elaborat­ ed upon the picture of the four-fold human being by emphasizing its development in time. Although we are four-fold beings from the moment we are born, each of our bodies incarnates, fully expresses itself, that is, at a different point in our life. From birth until age seven (or about the time of the second dentition) our physical body is most active, and the child’s consciousness is bound up with processes of assimilation and growth, as the ether­ ic body works upon the physical body from without. From seven to fourteen, the etheric body increasingly assumes the same con­ tours as the physical body; it now dampens down its organic activity, and its forces are metamorphosed into the newly arising forces of memory. From fourteen to twenty-one, the astral body becomes dominant. The life of desire grows strong, as does the life of ideals; the ability to reason is born amidst the turmoil of the life of emotions. At twenty-one the Ego is truly “ born” within us. From this point on, education becomes increasingly a matter of Self-education. The process of becoming “ adult” and fully human now begins. How then do we educate children, knowing that the child’s own Ego will later guide and educate the self through life? How do we work in accordance with principles that ask us to honor and work with the soul and spiritual nature of the young person? Must teachers be clairvoyant in order to be certain that they are teaching in the proper way? 66 • Eugene Schwartz

We may, indeed, need only the “clairvoyant” faculties that we are already using without being aware that we possess them. For example, a mother can always tell when her child is not feeling well; with some experience, she can usually tell in what way the child is not feeling well. And every teacher knows the “glow” radiated by a child who is healthy and, as we say, “ full of life.” The teacher’s faculty does not arise as naturally as the correspon­ ding faculty in a mother, but must be cultivated and brought to a stage of conscious awareness. These “ judgments” or intuitive impressions are based on perceptions of the child’s etheric body. Moreover, Rudolf Steiner’s description of the freeing of ether­ ic formative forces (from the task of building the physical body) during the child’s second seven-year period is intriguing and also central to an understanding of Waldorf education. The very same forces that member us, that place our heart, lungs, and liver in relation to one another, that organ-ize us into a decidedly human form, are in that period released to re-member, and to organize our life of memory. We could say that the etheric memory forces are at their most powerful in the first seven years of life, but Steiner took pains to stress that they are not meant to be accessed for the purpose of memorization. In the first years of life, these forces are meant to serve the child’s growth, purely and simply. It is certainly possible to divert them in order to teach a young child to memorize the alphabet, a simple reading vocabulary, or times tables. Once diverted, however, these etheric forces no longer serve their primary mission, and the membering and organization of the child’s body - the foundation for its health and vitality in later years - will be less perfect than if those forces had been allowed to go their own way. Waldorf education is unique in that it recognizes the sacredness of these health-giving, creative forces that live in the child, and their appropriate working during the first and second seven-year periods of life. The Waldorf pre-school and kindergarten, the foundation experience on which the whole of the child’s education for life Educating for Life • 67 rests, is a setting that provides a clear alternative to the intellectu­ al approach that withdraws etheric forces from their rightful field of activity. This latter has proven to be inimical to the child’s rev­ erence for life; indeed, it is inimical to the education of the whole human being as we understand it, as well as to life itself. The atmosphere of the Waldorf kindergarten appears, at first, to be devoid of any of ‘educational’ accoutrements. The kinder­ garten teacher Charlotte Comeras describes a typical Waldorf set­ ting: “the room is warm and homelike and the teacher is busy doing one of the many tasks involved in the life of the kinder­ garten. If there is another adult in the room, he or she also will be occupied with something or other - maybe carding wool to make a puppet, or mending a torn play-cloth. Around the room are bas­ kets filled with pieces of wood, fir cones, or large pebbles from the beach. Others are piled high with play-cloths or pieces of muslin in beautiful soft colors. All are neatly folded and ready to become whatever the children imagine them to be - a roof or wall of a house, the sea, pasture for sheep to graze, a shawl for a baby, or a veil for a queen. The possibilities are limitless. On a shelf stand many puppets: a prince, a farmer and his wife, a child, a wise old woman.... They can bring a castle to life or make a farm, re-enact a scene of human activity, or be used to tell a story. These are just a few of the many things that the children will see when they come into the kindergarten.”2 Of no less significance is what is not in the kindergarten room: there are no “educational” toys, (there are very few objects that could be construed as “ toys” at all), there are no books, no posters, no bulletin boards, no computers. There is none of the hardware issued by the Industrial-Educational Complex, and there is no software (unless we want to characterize soft dolls of wool and cotton as soft ware). Pedagogically speaking, it would appear

______2Charlotte Comeras, “ Creative Play in the Kindergarten” , Child and Man, July 1991, Vol. 25, No.2, p.10. 68 • Eugene Schwartz to be something of a black hole. It is no wonder that a respected independent school headmaster serving on an accreditation com­ mittee that was visiting Green Meadow Waldorf School in New York State, remarked after his initial visit to the kindergarten, “This room is like something out of the nineteenth century!”3 Unlike the assertively educational objects and spaces that fill a mainstream kindergarten room, the environs of a Waldorf kinder­ garten take on meaning only when there are children present who can imbue them with meaning. Through natural imitative capaci­ ties - the “ signature” of the etheric body - children learn by watching and doing. The importance of the kindergarten teacher as a model cannot be underestimated. As she cleans and cooks, mixes paints, or carefully lays out crayons for drawing, her ges­ tures and attitudes are embraced by the children’s etheric bodies and work formatively, inculcating habits that will last a lifetime. The development of habits through imitation is the educational method of the Waldorf kindergarten. The independent school headmaster I quoted earlier said on the last day of his visit: “When I first saw the Waldorf kindergarten room, I thought to myself, ‘This room is like something out of the nineteenth century!’ But after spending a week on your campus, watching the little children play and watching the older kids learn, I realize now that this school is providing education for the twenty-first century.”4 These two comments from a visitor to the Waldorf School, one at the beginning and the other at the end of his visit, express a per­ ceptible reality: Waldorf Education was founded in response to the past, lives in the present, and educates towards the future. It is an education for life.

______3In conversation, a member of NYAIS Accreditation Visiting Committee for Green Meadow Waldorf School, 1988. 4Ibid. Turn

O Horror! Hope Lost beyond hope... That we At last can learn And in torment earn The goal for which the angels yearn: That we become the hierarchy To turn Earth’s dear, lost corpse To love-sprung, love-created, Love creating Love-Creation?

By Christy Barnes

6 9 A Psychology of Body, Soul & Spirit by Rudolf Steiner

Anthroposophic Press: Hudson, NY, 1999

Reviewed by William Bento

The Anthroposophic Press has republished a series of twelve lectures by Rudolf Steiner given in Berlin from 1909-1911. Its for­ mer title, The Wisdom of Man, of The Soul and of The Spirit, has been revised to A Psychology of Body, Soul & Spirit. The transla­ tion is by the able Marjorie Spock with a thought-provoking introduction by Robert Sardello. In the spirit of making Rudolf Steiner’s worldview more accessible to a wider audience, the Anthroposophic Press has to be highly commended on this publi­ cation. The Press can be applauded not only for its overall fine presentation of this important work, but also for its discernment in selecting a series of lectures that meets the culture’s yearning to re-think paradigms of human nature and human destiny. In October 1902, Rudolf Steiner accepted the position of General Secretary of the German Theosophical Society, proclaim­ ing at the outset his mission to promote a western, esoteric, and Christian approach to occult matters. He did this in his inaugural lecture, entitled “Anthroposophy” , which established the German section of the Theosophical Society. Seven years later Rudolf Steiner addressed the General Assembly of the German Theosophical Society with a fuller exposition of his intentions to establish Anthroposophy as a path to comprehend the world and the nature of the human being. In the four lectures given in October 1909, subtitled “Anthroposophy” in this new book, he delivers insights “ to contribute further to a firmer foundation and

7 0 Book Reviews • 71 greater order of the Anthroposophical Movement.” These lectures contain key elements of Anthroposophy, the “Wisdom of becom­ ing human.” These first four lectures were followed up by a sec­ ond set of four given in Berlin, November 1-4, 1910, entitled “ Psychosophy: the Wisdom of Living Soul.” Steiner gave the third and final set of four in Berlin, December 12-16, 1911, entitled “Pneumatosophy: the Wisdom of Spirit Striving.” During these three years, which began with the publication of Occult Science - An Outline, Rudolf Steiner seemed to have become strongly convinced of the need to present Anthroposophy beyond the narrow confines of the Theosophical Society. He endeavored to meet the culture of the time and infuse it with a spirituality that encompassed a wide range of concerns. His capac­ ity to penetrate the mysteries of human physiology and the inter­ dependence of the human being and the supersensible world cur­ rents lie in seed form in his “Anthroposophy” lectures. All that springs forth from the Anthroposophical Movement as healing arts of a culture-renewing impulse can be found condensed in the language of the Soul so aptly described in his lectures on Psychosophy. The clarity and objectivity of spiritual science so prevalent in Rudolf Steiner’s works can be read succinctly in the lectures on Pneumatosophy. “As regards the doctrine of the Spirit, we stand at a turning point. It will be possible through spiritual science to pass beyond Aristotle only if one provides a scientific basis for reincarnation. Such a scientific basis, however, has never been provided up to the present time.” With these words we can sense how Steiner’s task and destiny was already emerging in these three years. In these twelve lectures lie Rudolf Steiner’s lifework in seed form. Robert Sardello suggests that readers begin with the lectures on Psychosophy, proceed to the lectures on Pneumatosophy and conclude with the lectures on Anthroposophy. It is not an arbi­ trary suggestion, nor is it merely the bias of an educator working 72 • William Bento

in the field of spiritual psychology. As the new title of the book makes explicit a focus on Psychology, so does Sardello center his introductory remarks on a rethinking of psychological frame­ works and methods. He proposes clearly and quite convincingly that this book can serve as a model for psychological thinking. In his concluding remarks he emphasizes an important aspect of therapeutic psychology: “Therapy does not or should not, consist of doing anything. Rather, it is an act of remembering the fullness of soul life and the soul’s involvement with spirit, and remember­ ing the fullness of the soul and spirit fabric of embodiment.” I would like to suggest that remembering is a doing, a doing with one’s whole being. It is a sacramental act of communion with the soul and spirit sources of true healing. Although one could infer this from Sardello’s comments, the literal reader may miss it. Sardello warns of the danger in attempting to replace the term (and field of) Psychology with Psychosophy. It is a provocative statement, yet one well worth considering. I would prefer to believe that Steiner coined the term specifically to differentiate his own understanding of the spiritual nature of the soul from those in the new (at that time) field of Psychology who dismissed the soul’s relation to spirit. He did not call it a ‘spiritual psychology’, but, rather, a term that emphasized the wisdom within the soul based upon an understanding of Anthroposophy. This is a point worth emphasizing. If a true Psychosophy (literally ‘wisdom of the soul’) is to emerge, it must share the same intent that Sardello expresses. That is, it must engage in the mainstream of our culture and bring something new and valuable to a diverse and multi­ faceted field of Psychology that has grown and developed since the early decades of this century. In approaching A Psychology of Body, Soul & Spirit, the mod­ ern reader will discover that each of the three sets of lectures demands a slightly different type of knowledge and mode of thinking. Book Reviews • 73

Entering into the “ Anthroposophy” lectures requires a basic understanding of Rudolf Steiner’s works. Steiner carefully identi­ fies the senses in a sequential way and then associates them with spiritual beings and processes dynamically interweaving with the human body. He builds these concepts into the image of a cube and then animates the cube by describing how the supersensible world currents act upon the human being. It is these enigmatic, living thoughts that can be found at the core of much of Audrey McAllen’s The Extra Lesson. To activate a comprehension of these lectures one must find a meditative means of developing what Steiner refers to as imaginative, inspirational and intuitive sense(s). In this way the cube does not remain a static spatial set of concepts, but a dynamic formative force in movement through time. In the last lecture of this series Steiner demonstrates this capacity of comprehension by following the world currents across the globe throughout human evolution and relating them to the building up of the higher senses of man. At this point in his research Steiner had only identified ten senses. By 1916 he had added the two senses of touch and ego, respectively the lowest and highest of senses in his hierarchical schema. Reading the “ Psychosophy” lectures, on the other hand, does not require a background in anthroposophical concepts. Steiner takes his listeners/readers on a purely phenomenological journey into the landscape of the world of soul and invites us to view it with new eyes. Sardello’s introduction is an excellent guide in this respect. Within these lectures Steiner expands the boundaries of conventional psychological examination, which rests primarily on an analysis of the past. He opens up the contemplation of the soul living in the future as well as the past and present. Philosophical inquiry sets the tone of the “ Pneumatosophy” lectures. Spiritual striving becomes the main thrust. In his intro­ duction, Robert Sardello refers to three main aspects of this striv­ ing: I- consciousness in the soul, moral qualities of soul (selfless­ 74 • William Bento ness), and creative imagination. Steiner’s own concluding words model his objectives: “With the ending of these lectures on Pneumatosophy, I feel more keenly than ever how sketchy and merely indicative a picture could be given in these four hours. And the same thing holds true for the lectures on Pneumatosophy as for the two previous series on Anthroposophy and Psychosophy: they were meant to serve as indications only. You will find, if you pursue them that they contain rich material that can be worked with in a great variety of ways.” With the re-publication of these lectures every seeker of the wisdom within Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science has the opportu­ nity to work with his indications in such a way that the soul can be renewed and the spirit infused with a will to be more fully and creatively human. Whether read as a seminal text in spiritual psy­ chology or as a guide to deepening one’s relation to the path of Anthroposophy, this book is bound to be an invaluable addition to the library of professionals and laypersons alike. Because O f Yolande by Dorit Winter Golden Gate Publications, 1997, 115 pp. 650-363-8355, em ail: [email protected] $14.95 plus shipping and handling

Reviewed by Fred Paddock First printed in the Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter, vols. 21/22 By permission

This has been my favorite book of the past six months. A novel. Well, more than that: a novel about writing a novel. But more than that: a deeply meditative philosophical search. One can hardly even describe it as prose: when read with all one’s attention, and best, in one sitting, the experience is closer to poetry, or music. The book is filled with intelligence, yet it is not one’s mind that is most affected, but one’s soul. In the book, a suggestive German word is applied to an extraordinary person: Geistesgegenwart (something like “presence of spirit” ), a word I feel also applies to the book as a whole. It is truly a work of the consciousness soul: not only is it a story of a story, but it manifests constantly a con­ sciousness of consciousness. It is not only one of the most moving works wrestling with the horror that was the Holocaust, but it is also a book wrestling with whether the author - or anyone - can or should, has the moral right, to try to find the meaning of this event of pure evil. At one point, Dorit speaks of any “ resolution” here being “ unseemly.” There used to be a wonderful word in English before it got banalized: the word “ tact.” Dorit’s insights into living patterns and her deep, deep humility in meditating on the unimaginable, is a model of “tact” in its original sense.

75 America’s Way by Dietrich V. Asten

Anthroposophic Press, Hudson, New York

Reviewed by Stephen E. Usher

Originally published in 1983, this penetrating look at America by the late Dietrich Asten is again available. In the first section titled “ Land of Unlimited Possibilities,” Dietrich paints a picture of contrast and polarity. The American continent is, on the one hand, full of powerful nature forces where “Arctic cold and trop­ ical heat struggle with one another. ... the mountain ranges in America run north-south and facilitate air movements in that direction.” The power of the elements and the great expanses of space allow human feelings to expand and create a sense of buoy­ ancy and youthful drive. On the other hand, the continent mani­ fests numerous symptoms of dying. The mountains of the west, for example, seem to be crumbling away when contrasted to the mountains Dietrich recalled from his native Europe. After the initial description of the polarity inherent in the nat­ ural environment, the book proceeds to describe four aspects of American life. These are: the tendency to be quantitative, to rely on numbering and reckoning; the tendency to view persons and relationships from the perspective of behaviorism; the tendency to analyze human motivation from the perspective of needs with emphasis on Maslow; the tendency to approach life pragmatical­ ly with reference to William James. These tendencies together describe aspects of “Americanism.” “Americanism,” is often used pejoratively. Dietrich was well aware of this but he asks the important question, “What and

7 6 Book Reviews • 77 where is the spiritual potential of America that still lies dormant in the womb of materialism?” The second half of his book shows the potential. It explores how the four tendencies have a positive side that can be cultivated and spiritualized. When this is brought about, the enormous capabilities of America can be harnessed for meeting the legitimate material needs of the planet, and thereby serve as the foundation for the emergence of real brotherhood. This review closes with a few observations about Dietrich Asten. Dietrich was a high-powered American businessman. He was CEO of a $ 100-million corporation with plants in numerous U.S., Canadian, and European locations. Dietrich was also a European, who became a permanent US resident in 1950 at the age of 28. By the time of writing this book in 1983, he had spent 33 years in the USA. Those of us who had the privilege of being his friend, as I did from 1979 to 1984, remember him as a man filled with energy, dynamism, and a great sense of humor. In a remarkable way he combined in his person an American business­ man, a European, and a deep student of Anthroposophy. The book is written out of the rather unique perspective that Dietrich’s biography offered him. The qualities and perspectives of the man shine through the sentences. I recommend the book most highly. A New Kind of Actor Letters About Marie Steiner and Her Work with the Actors on the Goetheanum Stage in the 30s by Hans Pusch

Mercury Press, 241 Hungry Hollow Rd., Spring Valley, New York 1998

Reviewed by Gertrude O. Teutsch

What is a man to do when the woman he loves must stay for a long time on a continent unreachable by phone? What is he to do, but write? If at that time he is also experiencing the creation of a new art-form through one of the greatest artists of the centu­ ry, his writings have invaluable content. Ruth Pusch is making available such a treasure by sharing let­ ters she received from September 1930 to June 1932 while she was teaching in America. Her then friend, later husband, Hans Pusch, was in Dornach, Switzerland. He was one of those talented, enthusiastic, persistent actors with whom Marie Steiner developed a new form of art, the art of formative speech and of acting. What seemed to be love-letters kept in a box, Ruth Pusch now recog­ nizes as an important record of the growth of this art, and they are the central content of a book which she has drawn together. The book includes a foreword by Virginia Sease, an introduc­ tion by Ruth Pusch, an “Appreciation” of Marie Steiner von Sivers by Jorgen Smit, and biographies of the first actors and actresses working with Marie Steiner. It is an excellent description of one of the most essential but least known initiatives brought by Rudolf Steiner: the art of speaking so that, as Ruth Pusch states in her introduction, “the curtains of the theater can now rise on performances that carry

78 Book Reviews • 79 the new Mysteries out into the world.” Almost daily, Hans Pusch wrote about whatever moved him. Again and again we learn how Marie Steiner carried out her task. Awe inspiring is the way she guided these strong individuals to greater and greater understanding, finding specific tasks for each one. Equally impressive is her straightforward way of solving problems. He describes how sections of Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas, for which the Goetheanum Building was originally built, came to life, how artist and role were brought together in a wise way, how Goethe’s “ Faust” was brought to the stage, how the Speech Chorus worked. Other observations deal with well-known speakers, the political situation, and with performances in other locations. And then there are his walks into nature. In putting together all these elements, Ruth Pusch has opened a view into the nature and meaning of this new art. The book is a valuable history, allowing insight into the uniqueness of Anthroposophy through telling of the work of one specific field. And it brings to life one of the actors, whom we might consider an example of all the effort and talent that was active then, an inspiration for our time. Science Between Space And Counterspace by Nick Thomas

New Science Books & Temple Lodge Press, London, 1999

Reviewed by Jim Kotz

In the physics community, especially since the development of non-Euclidean geometry by mathematicians, there has been inter­ est in the possibility that worlds or spaces other than the familiar Euclidean one exist. On the web recently, I read a response to a question about the existence of ‘parallel universes’: “There could be parallel universes... So far, however, nobody really knows any way of going from our universe to another one, so it is really hard to prove or disprove any of these theories!” 1 In his book, Science Between Space and Counterspace, Nick Thomas explores the exis­ tence of another space, called counterspace, and in so doing takes the reader/observer on one possible path to demonstrate its exis­ tence. Counterspace is a space dual or polar to our own, and is its direct opposite in many ways. For example, what is experienced as center in space is experienced as periphery in counterspace, and vice versa. Similarly, the inside of a sphere in space is the outside of the sphere to counterspace perception. The difficult thing for us (at least most of us) is that we do not perceive counterspace direct­ ly. However, we can begin to know counterspace through imagin­ ing its properties, which are illuminated in Thomas’s work. Science Between Space and Counterspace may generally be divided into two parts. First, it reviews the mathematics of coun­

______1 See the Argonne National Lab web site, “ Ask a Scientist” archive: Astronomy, http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/archive.htm.

80 Book Reviews • 81 terspace and the development of mathematical tools - resting on a mathematically rigorous framework built on projective geome­ try - and second, it presents the author’s ideas on the linkages between the two polar spaces and related phenomena. Thomas’s germinal idea about linkages between space and counterspace is that the entities of these spaces interact in such ways as to produce stress and strain, giving rise to many physical phenomena. It is the cognizing of these phenomena that consti­ tutes the science between... of the title. As a simple example, the nature of space-counterspace interactions can be approached by considering what would happen to a solid cube that existed in both spaces simultaneously and was moved according to the geo­ metric constraints of either space. One finds that the cube cannot remain a cube for all possible motions, that is, it will be ‘strained’ so that it undergoes ‘stress’, and will thereby change shape in one of the spaces. Many physical phenomena - such as the cube and its transformed counterpart - can be found in the linking between space and counterspace. These phenomena typically involve stress-strain relationships, as in that of the cube, and relate more strongly to the space in which the strain primarily manifests. By dualizing (that is, juxtaposing and considering at the same time both its spatial and counterspatial being) an object’s existence in space - a light photon, for example with its counterpart in coun­ terspace, a light cone - one can then find a form for the interac­ tion taking place between space and counterspace. Depending in which space the strain manifests, one finds, on one hand, the phe­ nomena of the classical elements and their states (Fire - heat, Air - gas, Water - liquid, Earth - solid), or, on the other, the classical ethers (warmth, light, chemical activity, and life). A most impressive result of this basic thesis along with the appropriate linking is the derivation of the law of gravity in the same mathematical form as originally found by Newton. Nick Thomas is able to derive the law from space-counterspace inter­ 82 • Jim Kotz action. He goes on to consider a wide array of phenomena, addressing the paradoxes of quantum physics along the way, and indicating how they might be avoided altogether when seen from a counterspatial viewpoint. These insights may well point toward even more fruitful research and synthesis in the future. It is noteworthy that the author considers at several points the indications of Rudolf Steiner, not as starting points, but as checks on his assumptions. For example, choosing a particular form of light in counterspace (e.g., the light cone) leads to the result that light has no velocity there, agreeing with descriptions of light by Steiner.2 Nick Thomas also builds especially on the work of George Adams in trying to construct a bridge between quantita­ tive mainstream physics and qualitative Goetheanistic physics. It is admittedly an unfinished work, pointing the way toward future investigation. This book may be difficult going for many readers, but with effort, I feel its meaning is within the grasp of anyone who takes it up seriously. A person with college-level science and math skills will certainly be able to follow it. The ‘proving’ of counterspace’s existence and a more detailed description of the phenomena link­ ing counterspace and our familiar space may well depend on us. For, according to Rudolf Steiner, direct experience of counter­ space, which anthroposophists also know as that of the etheric realm, is within each healthy person’s ability to grasp, provided he/she develops the appropriate organs of sense.3 This is the chal­ lenge Nick Thomas invites us to start taking up in Science Between Space and Counterspace.

______2 See Chapter 13, Science Between Space and Counterspace. 3 The idea of developing new senses is accepted by some modern scientists: a prominent physicist speaks of this regarding “our perception of mathematical reality.” See J. P. Changeaux and A. Connes, Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics, (Princeton University Press: 1995), p. 39. Cosmic Harbinger, An Astroclimatic Journal by Dennis Klocek

Reviewed by Hubert Zipperlen

In these days of extreme climatic conditions including weath­ er patterns that perplex even the most experienced sky-watcher, a new journal that seeks to research these phenomena and make predictions on the basis of recent historical precedents is welcome. Cosmic Harbinger, a new journal produced by Dennis Klocek and available at www.cosmicharbinger.com or at RO. Box 1274, Carmichael, CA 95609-1274, is based on more than twenty years of research in which Mr. Klocek has studied eclipse phenomena, planetary movements and weather events. He has noticed pre­ dictable patterns emerge. Now, Mr. Klocek seeks to involve his subscribers in a guided phenomenological study of the events shaping our weather, and aims to make accurate predictions two months in advance with a 60-percent rate of success. If this accu­ racy rate should be realized, his research would be a major con­ tribution to our understanding of the inter-working between the cosmos and the etheric sheath of the earth. For a fee of $18.00 subscribers receive a month-by-month analysis for the coming storm season, the period from June through February of the next year. The journal is composed of a series of articles predicting upcoming climatic patterns, their dura­ tion, intensity and prospective date of change. Each new sub­ scriber also receives a complimentary copy of the 22-page refer­ ence manual, Keys to the Cosmic Harbinger, containing three introductory essays. This manual promises to elucidate the cosmic

83 84 • Hubert Zipperlen and climatic phenomena being compared and contrasted, and thereby enrich the subscribers’ participatory experience. One could imagine that observing weather phenomena under such tutelage would be richly rewarding. I have worked through the three introductory articles and found them to be most interesting. Mr. Klocek examines phenom­ ena on a broad scale: the direct and retrograde movement of plan­ ets in our solar system; solar and lunar eclipse cycles and patterns; the El Nino and La Nina phenomena in the Pacific; and the atmospheric jet streams that move weather into and through North America. While Mr. Klocek does not purport to explain why we have experienced a record-setting drought in the East, or why droughts in the Midwest and West seem to be followed by extreme floods, yet, the potential to understand these regional phenomena seems clear. If we could comprehend the interplay of cosmic and climatic events within the wholeness of the earth’s etheric, we might then be able to apply these large-scale insights to understanding the weather in our own locales. Weather is, of course, experienced within a broad spectrum of specific, localized factors such as the presence or absence of large numbers of motor vehicles, motorboats, etc., deforestation, or, the local acreage under biodynamic cultivation, to name a few. Promoting a deeper and broader understanding of our weather is a worthy and neces­ sary endeavor. For this reason, I would urge any interested indi­ vidual to support this new initiative: Cosmic Harbinger - An Astroclimatic Journal. About The Contributors

Walter Alexander, a freelance medical writer and former high school English teacher (public and Waldorf), writes about conventional medi­ cine and occasionally about alternative and complementary medicine. He is an active member of the New York branch of the Anthroposophical Society.

Christy MacKaye Barnes is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is a for­ mer Waldorf School teacher, and has recently co-edited The Power for Resurrection’s Flight, an anthology of poems by Albert Steffen translat­ ed from the German, published by the Adonis Press, Harlemville, NY. She received a diploma in the art of speech formation from Marie Steiner in 1 9 4 0 .

William Bento resides in Boulder, Colorado and has a private practice as a psychotherapist. He and his wife conduct Gradalis Seminars, an adult education program based on Anthroposophy. He is co-author of Signs in the Heavens. William travels and lectures extensively. George Benjamin Bingham draws from many pioneering experiences. Trained at Emerson College, England in Biodynamic Agriculture in the early 70s, he helped found the Triform Camphill Community, graduated the first class of the Emerson Waldorf School in North Carolina, and helped found two high technology companies. He recently graduated from the Spatial Dynamics Institute.

Van Jam es is a freelance painter and graphic artist, an art instructor at the Honolulu Waldorf School, and Chairman of the Anthroposophical Society in Hawaii. He is the author of Ancient Sites of Hawaii an d the award winning Ancient Sites of O’ahu. His latest book, Spirit in Art: Pictures of the Transformation of Humanity, will be available soon.

Jim Kotz met Anthroposophy while in graduate school in Detroit. He worked in industry for over 17 years in technology development and teaches science part-time in W aldorf Schools.

Fred Paddock has been the librarian of the national Rudolf Steiner Library in Harlemville, NY for 27 years.

M.C. Richards, writer, poet, potter, painter lives in Camphill Village Kimberton Hills and is currently preparing a retrospective show of her work “Imagine Inventing Yellow” at Worcester, Massachusetts Center for Crafts, October 9 - November 10. Her latest book is Opening Our Moral Eye, published by Lindisfarne Press. Paul W. Scharff, M.D. For the last forty years Dr. Scharff has been involved in the effort to work out of an Anthroposophically-extended Medicine, with a background in two medical specialties. He is a co­

85 86 • Contributors

founder of the Fellowship Community, and the Medical Director for the Rudolf Steiner Fellowship Foundation. He has been busy with anthro­ posophy for the last fifty years, with an interest in the methodological approaches to a Spiritual Science, as a fundament to a path of medita­ tion and initiation. He is the representative for the Medical Section to the Collegium of the School of Spiritual Science on the North American Continent at this time.

Eugene Schwartz is Director of Teacher Education at Sunbridge College. He lectures internationally on Waldorf education, and is the author of nine books, including the recently published Millennial Child (Anthroposophic Press). He is the father of four, and lives with his wife Susan in Spring Valley, NY.

Virginia Sease was a Waldorf teacher in Los Angeles and a member of the Pedagogical Section Council in North America. She now serves as a member of the Executive Council (Vorstand) of the world-wide Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland, and is leader of the Section for Eurythmy, Speech, and Music.

Stephen Spitalny is a student of anthroposophy whose day job for the past ten years has been kindergarten teacher at the Santa Cruz Waldorf School, in California. He has written numerous articles, including one for an earlier edition of the Journal for Anthroposophy.

Gertrude Teutsch admired the actors in Dornach as a youngster, and became a member of the Anthroposophical Society at 20. Her life’s activ­ ities: fine art, teaching, family care, and now, children’s books.

Stephen E. Usher holds a MA degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in eco­ nomics from the University of Michigan. After completing his degrees he spent two years as a staff economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. From 1980-1988 he was Managing Director of the Anthroposophic Press. Currently he works as an economic consultant, serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Spring Valley School of Eurythmy, as a Trustee of the Rudolf Steiner Charitable Trust, President of the Goetheanum West Giving Group, and as Consulting Editor for Trans Intelligence.

Bernard Wolf is a Director and houseparent at Camphill Special Schools, Glenmoore, Pennsylvania, an anthroposophical community for the edu­ cation and care of children with special needs; member of the Anthroposophical Society since 1972; member of the School for Spiritual Science since 1974.

Hubert Zipperlen lives in Camphill Village Kimberton Hills and has been part of the Camphill movement in Scotland, England, and America for 50 years. Prior to that he was in business designing lumber drying kilns as an engineer. He has had a lifelong interest in gardening, the weather, and the stars. [Advertisement:] Rudolf S teiner College

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