Anthroposophy

Journal for ANTHROPOSOPHY N U M BER 72 EASTER 2001 Anger, like a clawing demon nips into me. Fangs bared to devour sink into my own flesh. Passion flaming outward consumes me. My own anguish yells at me from without. I, unreasonable, demand reason in others. I, hateful, expect love. I, miserly, long to be given. I- He, Friend of Friends, forgives and heals by Joanna van Vliet Journal for Anthroposophy Easter 2001 Number 72 Front Cover: An Easter Motif by Kevin Hughes Calligraphy by Anthony Bloch Editor Sherry Wildfeuer Associate Editors Philip Graham Donna Sturgis Correspondence should be sent to: Sherry Wildfeuer, PO Box 155, Kimberton, PA 19442 Published by The Anthroposophical Society in America All rights reserved ISSN-0021-8235 Printed by Circle Graphics, Eagleville, Pennsylvania CONTENTS Goethean Conversation Revisited ............................................................5 bv EILEEN KING Crucible by ROBERT K A R P ............................................................................... 13 Goethe and the Riddle of Nature .............................................................14 by DOUGLAS MILLER There’s Something about Peach Blossoms ............................... 22 by HOWARD PAUTZ Verse by THEODORE VAN V L I E T ...................................................................3 4 American Prophets ........................................................................................... 3 5 by SIEGFRIED FINSER Henry B. Monges (January 4, 1870 ~ July 19, 1954) ............... 4 4 by HENRY BARNES Wild Geese by RICHARD NEAL ..........................................................................5 8 Goethe and Love ................................................................................................. 5 9 by KARL JULIUS SCHROER • Reviewed by Linden Sturgis Percy MacKaye: Poet of Old Worlds and New .............................. 6 2 by HENRY BARNES • Reviewed by Carol Williams Awakening the Will: Principles and Processes in Adult Learning ...........................66 Practicing Destiny: Principles and Processes in Adult Learning by COENRAAD VAN HOUTEN • Reviewed by David Schwartz Proverbs of Purgatory ..................................................................................... 71 by JOHN WULSIN • Reviewed by Eugene Schwartz Autism - A Holistic Approach ...................................................................73 by BOB WOODWARD AND DR. MARGA HOGENBOOM • Reviewed by Ingelore Maier [Note: nextpage[4]wasblank&isdeletedhere]About the C ontributors.................................................................................. 75 Goethean Conversation Revisited by EILEEN KING ... The work of such a group does not consist in a number of peo ple merely discussing ideas. Its members should feel so linked with one another that human soul wakes up in the encounter with human soul and are all lifted into the spiritual world, into the company of spiritual beings, though it need not be a question of beholding them. We do not have to see them to have this experience. Rudolf Steiner, Awakening to Community, Lecture IX. or those of us who have wondered what is missing in our work Fas members of the Anthroposophical Society, the last years leading up to the new millennium have been a time of urgent ques tioning. Has there been something we should have seen, should have done? Why are there so few members worldwide and why do so few young people find their way to Anthroposophy? Why are we not more skilled at living community and building bridges to others? And perhaps the most persistent question: why have we not been more effective in the world? Where is the living spirit in our movement? In the last few years, it has been painful for me to acknowledge the ring of truth in the image many people have of anthroposophists: we appear to be narrow, repressed sectarians who are dogmatically bound to Rudolf Steiner and his voluminous work. Our critics would say that we prefer reading and decanting bizarre and high-flown theories rather than understanding and 5 6 • E ileen K in g working with the reality that lies all around us. It is understand able that, knowing the living reality of Anthroposophy, we might be tempted to reject this criticism out of hand. But isn’t it also true that many of us sense that what passes as anthroposophical life is a mere shadow of what Steiner envisioned and what it could still become? Over thirty years ago, teacher, biodynamic farmer, author and translator MarJorie Spock posed these same questions. It is as per plexing today as it was back then that her extraordinary insights about how each of us can participate in bringing new life to the Anthroposophical Society have been for the most part ignored or (at best) now and again been taken up in small circles or communities. In the first part of her monograph, Group Moral Artistry: Reflections on Community Building (copyright 1983), she wrote: “There is every indication in Rudolf Steiner's plays and lectures that he expected genuinely social attitudes to flower among the anthroposophical membership as a result of esoteric striving. When one puzzles why this has not yet generally been the case, it becomes clear that though our minds may take in Anthroposophy as concept, earth-habituation is so deep-ingrained in all but our private meditative moments that we do not see esoterics as an all- permeating way of life, which, if pursued, radically changes social intercourse. Until that time, we remain even as anthroposophists earth-corrupted natures, with the tendency to follow earth’s dark ened way in our human dealing.” Ms. Spock went on to point out that, in general, members seemed sublimely unaware of the esoteric nature of meetings since they came in casually chatting, doing business, catching up on some matter or other. Attention to the convener was often scat tered since the outside world was still very much present. She also described the damage that unconscious sympathies and antipathies can do to the social fabric, and pinpointed the very real Goethean Conversation Revisited • 7 danger of lionising “special” personalities, which in fact only iso lates them. As a remedy she suggested the creation of groups devoted to listening: “Listening perceptively has social consequences beyond esti mating. “First, there is what it does to the soul of the listener. A mira cle of self-overcoming takes place within him whenever he really lends an ear to others. If he is to understand the person speaking, he must withdraw his attention from his own concerns and make a present of it to the speaker; he clears his inner scene like one who for a time gives up his home for others’ use while himself remain ing only in the role of a servant. Listeners quite literally entertain a speaker’s thought. “ Not I, but Christ in me” is made real in every such act of listening... “ One understands how grave sins of omission can be when one considers the potential fruitfulness that is lost to man and the uni verse through every failure to let the sunlight of our interest shine on the souls of our fellow earthlings. Neglect of such gardens of the spirit means for all of us a greater scarcity of nutriment and beauty than there need be, and at the same time an encouraging of weeds, which spring up rankly in all empty ground. “Not only do ideas burgeon in response to listening: when groups reflect and entertain them, they take on the many-sided, cosmic fullness that belongs to thoughts as universals. And there is at least one further miracle attendant on listening, one akin to the miracle of loaves and fishes, in that the proliferat ing seed of living thoughts falls on the soul-ground of the hearers, as many as are truly listening, and begins in each a fresh evolu tionary cycle. “Finally, groups that foster the fundamental, social art of lis tening create a common higher consciousness, able like a Grail cup to receive and dispense the magically quickening lifeblood of the 8 • E ileen K in g spiritual world. Nor will those who hearken perceptively to living men fail to sensitise their listening also to the unseen dead and to those other hosts of heaven who may be seeking to inspire them.” The art of listening, as MarJorie Spock describes it, contributes to the body social as a vehicle for community building. However, she envisioned “listening groups” not only contributing to social needs, but also asking, “ ...how is life generated? What develops it most strongly in the body social? Must it be left to chance or grace? Or can it be planned, as a farmer takes measures to assure a harvest?” She goes on to say: “What may be learned for the shaping of esoteric social life from such considerations? Is it not that interchange is all-impor tant? That too-great dependence on the lecture form - which makes the lecturer the sun pole, his audience the moon - scants a balanced life of soul in the listeners and hence in the Society? Does our Society not suffer drastically from insufficient life through having failed to take a course that would have developed life more vigorously in the rank and file? Could there, indeed, be a rank and file if we had based group practice on the recognition that every member is a unique spiritual being, a unique treasure house of humanness, from which the common life might be enriched? “ ...What is proposed here, is rather, dialogue in the sense of Goethean Conversation.” Many readers were intrigued with the idea of Goethean Conversations, so at their urging Ms. Spock developed her thoughts further in Part II of Group Moral Artistry: The Art of Goethean Conversation. She begins with an excerpt from Goethe’s Fairytale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily: “Whence came you hither?” asked the golden king. “ Out of the clefts where gold dwells,” replied the serpent. “What is more glorious than gold?” “Light!” Goethean Conversation Revisited • 9 “What is more quickening than Light?” “Conversation!” What concept of conversation could Goethe have had that led him to elevate it above the gloriousness of gold or the quickening powers of light? This question led MarJorie Spock to consider deeply the ways that groups of people speak together.

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