JOURNAL FOR FORANTHROPOSOPHYJOURNALNUMBER 31 SPRING, 1980 ISSN 0021-8235

We find in the writings of Novalis a most wonderful and unique resurrection of the Christ-Idea.... If we steep ourselves in spiritual science, . . . and then turn to Novalis, something seems to spring to life wherever we look. Inspirations of the greatest grandure, matters of spiritual science, are to be found everywhere in his work — inspirations like lofty dreams of science. From Novalis there emanates something that finds its way into mankind like seed — seed which will spring to life in times to come ... a heralding of Christianity!

Rudolf Steiner From Earthly and Cosmic Man

Journal for Anthroposophy, Number 31, Spring, 1980 © 1980, The Anthroposophical Society in America, Inc. CONTENTS ESSAYS, ARTICLES, EXCERPTS Science and Poetry Arthur G. Zajonc 3 Goethe’s World Conception, a quotation Rudolf Steiner 11 Goethe as the Sage T. S. Eliot 12 Novalis: Spirit of a New Age Lona Truding 13 Novalis: Herald and Forerunner Albert Steffen 30 Christianity or Europe Novalis 41 Raphael J . K. Lavater 44 The Blue Flower Novalis 48 The Anthroposophical Path of Inner Schooling P. E. Schiller 51 Dangers of Early Schooling Dorothy N. Moore Raymond S. Moore 58 Two Responses to a Review of The Living Earth by Walther Cloos Can we Build a Bridge Between Anthroposophy and Conventional Science? K. E. Schaefer 66 Walther Cloos and The Living Earth, a Survey Wilhelm Pelikan 70 ILLUSTRATIONS AND POEMS Novalis, Friedrich von Hardenberg,a painting 2 Raphael, an engraving after a self-portrait 46 Poems by Novalis: From “Hymns to the Night” 27 From “Sacred Songs,” VIII 29 From “Sacred Songs,” XIV 35 “When no more figures ...” 44 REVIEWS Truth-Wrought-Words, Verses by Rudolf Steiner Kari van Oordt Translated by Arvia Ege A l Laney 76 Culture and Horticulture, W olf D. Storl Herbert H. Koepf 79 A New Image of Medicine, Vol. III, Edited by Schaefer, Stave & Blankenburg K. David Schultz 83 Three Books of Poems: Selected Poems, Rosamond Reinhardt 85 Calvin’s Jungle, Frank Newell 86 Instead of Eyes, Caryl Johnston Christy Barnes 87 Raoul Ratnowsky Daisy Aldan 89 Contributors to this Issue 91

1 [Image: portrait]NOVALIS Friedrich von Hardenberg

From an original portrait reproduced in Der Unbekannte Novalis by Heinz Ritter

2 Science and Poetry: Goethe's Synthesis

ARTHUR G. ZAJONC

Goethe presented his ideas on science over one hundred and fifty years ago. His thought has remained an historical-scien- tific curiosity. Frequently lumped together with the scientific work of such other German poets and philosophers as Herder, Novalis and Schelling, it is termed Naturphilosophie and often declared to be a reaction to the rationalism of the Enlighten­ ment. Certainly few scientists have chosen Goethe’s viewpoint as their own, although more recently an indication of sym­ pathy can be discerned in the philosophical essays of physicists Werner Heisenberg* and Walter Heitler** among others. In sharp contrast with the evaluations of history, Goethe placed more value on his scientific work than his poetic. In this vein we can repeat the oft quoted remark Goethe made to his secretary Eckermann on February 19, 1829, three years before his death: I do not pride myself at all on the things I have done as a poet. There have been excellent poets during my lifetime; still more excellent ones lived before me, and after me there will be others. But I am proud that I am the only one in my century who knows the truth about the difficult science of color, and in this I am conscious of being superior to many.

*W. Heisenberg, Across the Frontiers, translated by P. Heath (Harper & Row, 1974). * * W. Heitler, Der Berliner Germanistentag 1968 (Heidelberg, 1970). Transla­ tions by F. Amrine available on request.

3 In his introduction to Goethe’s Natural Scientific Writings, which he edited in the 1890’s, Rudolf Steiner concurs with Goethe’s evaluation and states “that the natural science of the future lies in the development of Goethe’s basic conceptions.”* If we are to resolve this conflict of opinion we must evaluate the place and significance of Goethean science in the development of science as a whole. The purpose of this paper will be to sketch, at least in its outlines, the pivotal position which Goethean science holds as a necessary cultural-scientific development able to give a new direction and method to scientific inquiry. The special significance of Goethean science for anthroposophical thought will only be indicated here, but will find a fuller treat­ ment in a future article. From our considerations I hope it will become evident that Goethe’s science was not a reaction against genuine scientific inquiry but rather a development of its own methods which will ultimately enable mankind to reach con­ sciously beyond the purely physical in its investigations to ob­ jective research into the moral and spiritual laws that guide human growth and destiny, and which reach into all of nature’s kingdoms and world evolution. Without this under­ standing of ourselves and our world we stand as children total­ ly dependent on the grace of God, unable to help Him help us. With this understanding, we can become the conscious cause of our own evolution; with it, we can strive to make of our Earth the star which it longs to become. In the centuries since the birth of western civilization in ancient Greece, human thought has gradually shifted from a god-filled cosmology to a view of Nature shorn of the spirit. Newton’s law of universal gravitation demonstrated that the same law governed the fall of an apple and the orbit of the moon. The many stunning successes of seventeenth and eigh­ teenth century science led to the conviction that indeed all of Nature would one day be explained as a vast mechanism based on the principles of attraction and repulsion (gravitational or electrical). To external sight, the world that surrounded

*R. Steiner, Goethe as Scientist, translated by O. Wannamaker (Anthro­ posophic Press, 1950) p. 250.

4 Socrates in the sixth century B.C. and the one that confronted Laplace in the seventeenth were essentially the same; but as man continued to gaze into that world, it was as though his sight had changed or withered. The night sky with its stars and planets was no longer the dwelling place of gods and the stage of myth. Nor was it even fitted with crystal spheres com­ prised of quintessential substance. Rather it, the Earth and we ourselves slowly came to be seen as born out of a primeval material nebula and governed by purely mechanistic laws. The logical culmination of scientific materialism and its mechanistic worldview was attained during the last half of the eighteenth century in the so-called Enlightenment: a period self-proclaimed by its leading authors as “the age of reason,” in contrast with the darkness and barbarism that had been man’s previous plight. During this period, the great discoveries and theories set forth by such figures as Kepler, Galileo, Newton and Benjamin Franklin made their way abroad. This was done not by the efforts of the scientists themselves but rather by men who popularized and published: men of letters such as Voltaire, and the French philosophes such as Diderot and Fontenelle. Roving scientist-magicians brought the marvelous phenomena of the new science to the intelligentsia of Europe and America. Every salon in Paris was filled with conversation about the new cosmology and psychology. Even in far-off Frankfurt, the young Goethe attempted (unsuccessfully) the construction of a then novel electrical apparatus. The worldview which is now a commonplace was then a novelty which caused great excitement. The world was seen as pure mechanism operating on Newtonian (or in Paris, Cartesian) principles. Fontenelle could say: “I esteem the universe all the more since I have known that it is like a watch. It is surprising that nature, admirable as it is, is based on such simple things.” Nor must we imagine that plant, animal or man are exempt from Fontenelle’s timepiece; for although Decartes placed man’s spirit beyond the extended material world (res extensa), Hobbes, Locke and their successors did not. Lamettrie was to write: “The human body is a clock, but an immense one and con­ structed with so much artifice and skill that if the wheel which

5 turns the second hand should stop, the minute hand would still turn and continue on its way. ...” One can justly wonder whether the reaction of the poet followed that of the philosophes. Perhaps unexpectedly we find that they, too, initially embraced the “New Philosophy.” Alex­ ander Pope wrote in his “Epitaph Intended for Sir Isaac Newton”: Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night; God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light. During the first half of the eighteenth century the poets were essentially unanimous in their welcome of the New Philosophy which freed them from the illusory nature of the sense world and gave them truth. The discoveries of Newton were so great that John Hughes could write in 1717: The great Columbus of the skys I know! ’Tis Newton’s soul, that daily travels here In search of knowledge for Mankind below. 0 stay, thou happy Spirit, stay And lead me on thro’ all the unbeaten Wilds of Day. Newton’s vision was seen as penetrating to the very core of ex­ istence and thus providing the poet with the beacon of truth which before had been found in myth and in nature as she ap­ peared to the senses. Yet as the Enlightenment gained momentum in the second half of the century, such sentiments began to change. By 1817, Benjamin Haydon in Britain wrote in his diary: The immortal dinner came off in my painting room. Words­ worth was in fine cue, and we had a glorious set-to on Homer, Shakespeare, Milton and Virgil. Lamb got exceeding­ ly merry and exquisitly witty, and his fun in the midst of Wordsworth’s solemn intonations of oratory was like the sar­ casm and wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear’s passions.

6 ... He then in a strain of humor beyond description, abused me for putting Newton’s head into my picture; “a fellow,” said he, “who believed nothing unless it was as clear as the three sides of a triangle.’’ And then he and Keats agreed that he had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to its prismatic colors. It was impossible to resist him and we all drank “Newton’s health, a confusion to mathematics.” Keats later expressed these same sentiments in his oft quoted lines from Lamia (229-237): Do not all charms fly A t the mere touch of cold philosophy?. . . Philosophy will clip an Angel’s wings Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, the gnomed mine — Unweave a rainbow. Across the channel in Jena, August Wilhelm Schlegel played host to similar gatherings. Besides his brother Friedrich, his visitors included the young poet Novalis, the theologian Schliermacher, the poet Tieck, the scientist Steffens and on rare occasions even the great master himself, Goethe. Here they spoke of the inevitable victory of the new poetry of the heart over eighteenth century rationalism. Clearly these are not the sentiments with which Newton’s theories were initially welcomed. By the time Euler, Lagrange and Laplace had finished their elaboration of Newtonian mechanics in France, the deterministic vision they represented was already being re­ jected by Romantic poets in England and Germany. But if the poet could no longer look towards the scientist for inspiration, to whom could he turn? The answer was to Nature herself and to that which it called forth in man. In place of the “truth” given by science, the poet turned to the pure, pristine sensory reality of nature unencumbered by hypothesis and mechanism. The culture of the folk was replac­ ing that of the intelligentsia, for here was to be found the

7 simple immediate joys and truths untainted by the trappings of mechanistic philosophy. Thus Herder encouraged Goethe to search out the popular folklore and poetic tradition of the Alsace region around Strassburg to find that poetry was not for the cultivated alone, but “poetry in general was a gift to the world and nations.” Truth was still being sought but now by an intuitive path quite different from the path of the “discur­ sive intellect.” Novalis recognized this contrast and expressed it in a fragment: The raw discursive thinker is a scholastic. The true scholastic is a mystical subtilizer. Out of logical atoms he builds his universe — he annihilates all living nature in order to put an artifice of thought in its place. His objective is an infinite automaton. Opposed to him is the raw intuitive thinker. He is a mystical macrologue. He hates rules and fixed forms. A wild violent life prevails in Nature — everything is alive. No laws — arbitrariness and miracles everywhere. He is purely dynamic. * Novalis recognized both extremes and also was fully cognizant of the dangers in either. While this cannot be said of all the Romantic poets, certainly Novalis and Goethe were not mere “raw intuitive thinkers.” This is frequently a source of great error. While they revolted against the world as automaton, theirs was not an arbitrary world. In their mature thought we see them striving for a synthesis of these polar attitudes towards the world. The intellect which can grasp the fixed, created aspect of nature (Coleridge’s “Understanding”) while different from the power of Reason, which is the faculty whereby the creative principles themselves are beheld, was also given its full due. Herein lies the great question which each of these figures faced, at least unconsciously. What can one set forth in place of the New Philosophy promulgated through the Enlightenment which is not merely a “Romantic reaction”? For

*Novalis, Hymns to the Night and Other Selected Writings, translated by C. Passage (Bobbs-Merrill, The Liberal Arts Press, 1960) p. 70. some it remained unanswered. Novalis sought its answer by an intense study of Fichte’s Theory of the Sciences, of mathematics, and of the technology of mining at the renowned technical academy in Freiburg from 1797-99. Yet Novalis was unable to bring his reflections to a real completion. It remained for Goethe to develop an approach to nature which is at one and the same time scientific and poetic. These two attitudes usually thought completely antagonistic became united in Goethe’s scientific studies. Philosophy need not be cold, need not clip the wings of angels. Our own Emerson clearly recognized the positive import and challenge of science for the poet. He tells us, “never did any science originate, but by a poetic percep­ tion.”* The poet’s sense of the harmony active within Nature need not be threatened by the results of science: And this undersong, this perfect harmony does not become less with more intimate knowledge of nature’s laws but the analogy is felt to be deeper and more universal for every law that Davy or Cuvier or Laplace has revealed. One senses in all these thinkers a like spirit striving for form and expression. It tells us that the essential core of the scientific attitude is not inherently evil or destructive. Rather it is the misapplication of physical laws to the living — that is to realms of Nature which go beyond simple mechanism — that is in error. It is our confusion of a mechanical thought-picture, or materialistic hypothesis, for nature and her laws which destroys the living, moral Nature familiar to the Imagination of the poet. What is this Imagination and can it have a place in true science? Emerson characterizes it for us in his essay “The Poet”: This insight, which expresses itself by what is called Im ­ agination, is a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the intellect being where and what it sees, by

*P. Obuchowski, The Relationship of Emerson’s Interest in Science to his Thought, Ph.D. thesis 1969 (70-4158) U. of Michigan, available from University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI.

9 sharing the path or circuit of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others. The path of things is silent. Will they suffer a speaker to go with them? A spy they will not suffer; a lover, a poet, is the transcendency of their own nature — him they will suffer. The condition of true naming, on the poet’s part, is his resigning himself to the divine aura which breathes through forms, and accompanying that. It would be difficult to find a more beautiful description of what Goethe sought in his science. By careful and patient observation the mind becomes “where and what it sees,” it follows the gentle growth of a plant, the changing colors of the sky “by sharing the path or circuit of things through forms.” This is an approach to Nature which, by being phenomenal, remains objective while also allowing the living harmony within Nature to remain unjaded by a superimposed mechanistic philosophy. In his observation of Nature, Goethe remained ever mindful of the higher unity which would reveal itself to his patient and developing soul. Thus the principle itself becomes experienced through a “high sort of seeing” as Archetype. True naming is the poet’s art. Or, in Steiner’s words: What appears in science as the Idea is in art the image.* To discuss Goethe’s science further would lead us too far afield. It has been done many times.** Our intention has been rather to place the struggles of Goethe and his colleagues with science in an historical perspective. In many ways we can see Goethe’s scientific attempts as a turning point. The long de­ scent of human experience from the divine into a deeper and

*R. Steiner, A Theory of Knowledge based on Goethe’s World Conception, trans­ lated by O. Wannamaker (Anthroposophic Press, 1968) p. 117. **A. Zajonc, “Goethe’s Theory of Color and Scientific Intuition,” American Journal of Physics, 44 (1976) pp. 327-33. H. Gebert, “Goethe’s Work in Color,” Michigan Academician (1976) vol. III, No. 3.

10 deeper connection with the purely material, culminated in the Enlightenment. Taken alone, its mechanistic philosophy must imprison man in “an artifice of thought ... an infinite automaton.” If rejected in its entirety, the world becomes wild, violent and arbitrary — purely dynamic. Goethe’s significant contribution lies in his discovery of a manner of scientific in­ quiry which allows man to approach the spiritual within Nature and man. Imagine the joy of young Rudolf Steiner when the scientific basis for investigation of the spirit stood before him in Goethe’s scientific studies, not as an abstract philosophy but as embodied in his botanical or color studies. Implicit within these scientific struggles of Goethe’s dwelt a whole world conception which could act as the foundation for what would become Anthroposophy. In Steiner, Goethean science was transformed into spiritual science, and the con­ scious ascent of man began.

From Goethe's World Conception

We must be familiar with the impressions which Goethe absorbed from all the manifestations of nature if we want to understand the full substance of his poetry. The secrets which he heard from the beings and becomings of creation live on in his own artistic creations and will reveal themselves only to those who harken to the messages that poets impart to us about nature. Those to whom Goethe’s observations of nature are unknown cannot plumb the depths of Goetheanistic art.* Rudolf Steiner

*Quoted in Das Goetheanum, 59 Jahrgang, Nr. 12.

11 From Goethe as the Sage T. S. ELIOT

From an address delivered in May, 1955, in Hamburg, Germany, and included in a collection of essays called On Poetry and Poets (Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York, 1957) under the title “Goethe as the Sage,” we quote T. S. Eliot: For most of my life I had taken it for granted that Goethe’s scientific theories — his speculations about the plant-type, about mineralogy and about color — were not more than the amiable eccentricities of a man of abounding curiosity who had strayed into regions for which he was not equipped. Even now, I have made no attempt to read his writings on these subjects. It was, first, that the unanimity of ridicule and the ease with which the learned in these matters appear to dismiss Goethe’s views, impelled me to wonder whether Goethe may not have been right — or at least whether his critics might not be wrong. Then, only a few years ago, I came on a book in which Goethe’s views were actually defended: Man or Matter by Dr. Ernst Lehrs. It is true that Dr. Lehrs is a disciple of Rudolf Steiner, and I believe that Rudolf Steiner’s science is considered very unorthodox; but that is not my affair. What Dr. Lehrs did for me was to suggest that Goethe’s scientific views somehow fitted with his imaginative work, that the same insight was struggling for expression in both, and that it is not reasonable to dismiss as utter nonsense in the field of scientific enquiry what we accept as inspired wisdom in poetry. I shall return to this point presently in another context; but, at the risk of exposing myself to ridicule, I will say that in conse­ quence of what Dr. Lehrs has written about Goethe’s science, I think I understand parts of Faust, such as the opening scene of Part II, better than before; and now I believe that Part II is a greater work than Part I — the contrary of what I had always been told by those more learned than myself.

12 Novalis: Spirit of a New Age* LONA TRUDING

In considering the life and work of “Novalis,” Count Friedrich von Hardenberg, several factors have to be taken into account. First of all, we should try to see him as he was in his own life­ time and then turn to the inspired writer revealed to us through the work he left behind. In this work Rudolf Steiner saw the potential means by which mankind could be rightly guided into the new era of the future. The historical and geographical background of a writer such as this is important, for from it the personality of the man himself gradually emerges in its true stature. All the creative work of Novalis was compressed into a few years before his early death at the age of barely thirty. Each of these years displays a new facet of his genius — we see the philosopher and natural scientist at work, the writer of beautiful fables and fairy tales, the novelist and the mystic poet of Christianity. To reach an understanding of these writings — some of which are uncompleted — means a transformation and vitalization of our thinking, making it an adequate tool to grasp the act of becoming rather than allowing it to rest in a mere comprehension of the past in whose creation we have had no part. We can be greatly helped in this both by immersing ourselves in the living language Novalis himself used and by immersing our own living spirit in the individuali­ ty that he is now, leading his past endeavors towards their future goal. From this basis we can make the effort to discover for ourselves this poet-philosopher as the pioneer who guides us through the period of metamorphosis which humanity has to

*Reprinted with kind permission from Anthroposophical Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2, Summer 1974. The content of this essay is based on the book by Friedrich Hiebel: Novalis, der Dichter der Blauen Blume (A. Francke Verlag, Bern, 1951).

13 undergo, and is the bearer of the new cognition of the Christ within the Michael stream of the future. In the case of Goethe, Rudolf Steiner left us the legacy of his own work on the interpretation of Goethe’s conception of the world, leading it further into the new form of the Spiritual Science of Anthroposophy; in the case of Novalis the task falls to us. Novalis gives us only glimpses of an ultimate synthesis — glimpses of a vast vision of the world as a whole. Yet we can through these glimpses, incomplete as they may be, see the possibilities afforded us. We may regard them as small seeds which contain a great power of germination in our own time. This is what we might term “Novalis now.” Novalis in his own time had already gained the highest recognition in his own country. Then, gradually, the non- German world began to realize his greatness. Foreign research began with Thomas Carlyle’s Essay in 1829. Carlyle, with his profound knowledge of German literature, remarked in this essay that Novalis was a figure of such importance in German literature that no student could pass him by without attention. He wrote:

... Novalis, a man of the most indisputable talent, poetical and philosophical; whose opinions, extraordinary, nay altogether wild and baseless as they often appear, are not without a strict coherence in his own mind, and will lead any other mind, that examines them faithfully, into endless considerations; opening the strangest inquiries, new truths, or new possibilities of truth, a whole unexpected world of thought, where, whether for belief or denial, the deepest questions await us.

Under the deep impression of Carlyle’s essay, F. S. Stallknecht of Harvard University translated Novalis’ novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen in 1842 and wrote in his preface:

Novalis resembles among late writers the sublime Dante alone, and like him sings to us an unfathomable mystical song, very different from that of many imitators who think that they can assume and lay aside mysticism as they would a mere ornament.

14 M. J. Hope, the translator of Novalis’ Fragments, Hymns to the Night and other works, wrote in the American edition: Thinkers such as Pascal, Coleridge and Novalis arise at intervals — to rouse men’s minds from their lazy acquiescence in the conventional. All those who are not bound by the chains of dogma or prejudice, all who are real seekers after truth, must receive with gratitude these sparks and flashes of a deep-thinking spirit. Maurice Maeterlinck introduced Novalis to the French- speaking world late in the nineteenth century. This great Belgian poet, author of Pelleas and Melisande and The Blue Bird also translated many of the Fragments. In 1895 he uttered these memorable words: He (Novalis) does not torment himself. He never seeks himself in fear and trembling. He looks down on the scene below with gentle detach­ ment. He gazes at the world with the attentive curiosity of an idle angel, distracted by far-away memories. But the first real re-awakening of the poet-philosopher from the darkness of the mid-eighteenth century happened through the spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner, who opened up wide vistas of the destiny of this being we know as Novalis, bringing coherence into our picture of his life and work. Today, over two hundred years since the birth of Novalis, the growth of his spiritual stature has not been arrested. Friedrich von Hardenberg was born on May 2, 1772 at the Castle of Oberwiedenstadt in Lower Saxony. From behind the historical personage there emerges with ever enhanced significance the creative genius who chose to call himself “Novalis.” This pseudonym has its roots in family history: in previous centuries several Hardenbergs had taken the name “von Rode” (from the German verb “roden,” which means “to clear the land”), the latinised version of which is “de novali.” The name thus seems to have meant “one who clears the land — a path-fmder or pioneer.” The destiny of Novalis was bound up with the very fact of this symbolic pen-name.

15 Novalis was a sickly child, dreamy-eyed and slow to develop. His father, Count Erasmus von Hardenberg, who was in the Army in his youth, was now a director of the Saxon Salt Works. Having led a wild and free life, he changed his character completely after the death of his wife and became a dignitary of the Lutheran sect who called themselves “Pietists.” It is interesting to see the whole cultural and religious situation of the times into which Novalis was born. From France came the movement of “Enlightenment,” which we might consider as equivalent to the present-day “Intelligentsia,” and whose chief representatives were the French writers Diderot, Corneille and Voltaire, proudly calling themselves “Free-thinkers.” This new movement also took hold of Germany and here it was represented by Moses Mendelssohn (grandfather of the com­ poser) and writers such as Hamann, Nicolai and Lessing — the last, the noblest of them all. Lessing’s strong love of justice and scorn of narrow intolerance are well expressed in his play “Nathan the Wise,” as is his universal attitude to various religions and their equality. Truth was superior to mere knowledge and out of it came the rationalistic attack on dogmatic Christianity. “Enlightenment” was the ensign of the Age of Reason, raised against the highly charged emotionalism of the Romanticism which flowered at that time. The search for “The Blue Flower” was the ideal quest of the romantic poets and Novalis was the finest representative among them. Between these two opposing cultural streams stood Goethe, a giant, accentuating these polarities by his unifying idea of metamorphosis, which culminated in the union of Science, Art and Religion. When the strict and dour father of Novalis decided to send his ten-year-old son to the fraternity of the Church, hoping he might there be confirmed in the pietistic tradition, the boy strongly resisted the orthodoxy of the Brotherhood and his resentment turned into open revolt. His father despaired of him and the bitterest blow of all was his refusal to stay with the Brotherhood, the “Herrenhuter” (Herrenhut is a town in Saxony, hence the name). The best solution, though surrender

16 on the part of the father, was to send the boy to his uncle at Lucklum in Brunswick. To the boy, his uncle’s estate, Lucklum, acquainted him with an altogether different aspect of the life of the times. It was the new era, marked by wit, elegance and fashion, irony and irreverence. Here, in his uncle’s library, the boy found works that would never have crossed the threshold of his puritanical father’s house. There was Goethe’s early tale The Sorrows of Young Werther, the works of Wieland and Lessing, Shakespeare and Cervantes and the books of the French En­ cyclopedists, Diderot, Voltaire and d’Alembert. It would be hard to imagine a greater contrast between the Puritan com­ munity of his home surroundings and the sophisticated Rococo world of the country house at Lucklum. Here, there were countless guests — officers from Prussia, knights of the Order of the Electorate of Saxony, poets and politicians. Unwittingly they drew the dreamy, unsophisticated boy into their at­ mosphere of rationalistic scepticism allied with the “Enlighten­ ment’s” tendency towards intellectual snobbery. What the uncle envisaged for his nephew was an important career in the Government service. He saw him as a future Minister of the Saxon Cabinet and was concerned with moulding him into a man of the world. The uncle cultivated the social graces of the rural aristocracy while the father banned all these social forms and ways as sinful. Under the impact of these conflicts the boy soon became aware of himself as an individual and acquired an astonishing independence of judgment. The young Friedrich’s thirst for knowledge was all- encompassing. He now requested from his uncle an Italian grammar and a catalogue of Italian books. This was a period of ferment and of most importance during this time was his approach to the world of antiquity. This meant another step towards independence. He became familiar with the works of Euripides, Aeschylus, Theocrites and others. He went to Eisleben to attend the upper classes of the “Gymnasium,” the traditional German High School, where he lived in the home of the Principal who himself taught him the classical languages. As a member of the Upper Form at the “Gymnasium,” he

17 became wholly immersed in the study of antiquity. However, all the translations he had made were imitations or mere stu­ dent exercises, revealing no poetic or linguistic originality. Yet it seems as though a deeper wisdom guided the immature hand as it leafed through the books — suddenly halting at certain places — for finally words welled up from his very depth, free­ ly flowing, neither imitative nor labored, but with primal force. In the autumn of 1790 his father sent him to Jena to study law, where — as destiny would have it — he chose Schiller as a teacher and gained in him an elder friend. This occurred during the second year of Schiller’s active professorship. For the first time in his life Friedrich von Hardenberg found himself in the living presence of a genius. This time it was not the dim spirit of some dead reformer that moved the young student. Here “was a great man in the flesh.” But the Schiller whom Friedrich knew was not the lyric and dramatic poet, but the philosopher and historian. Schiller’s study of Kant’s philosophy lay just ahead of him. Kant exerted a wide influence at that time. His work became Friedrich von Hardenberg’s first introduction to philosophic thought, arousing the interest that was to become the guiding star of his creative work; there is, however, no proof that he became an ardent follower of Kant. To his creative and artistic mind, Kant’s philosophy became, rather, a source of inner con­ flict. There can be no doubt whatever that the influence of Schiller was the crucial experience of his years in Jena. The enthusiasm Friedrich felt for Schiller was more than uncritical hero worship. To him, Schiller was not merely an authority on history, he was the poet of philosophy, a creative artist, con­ cerned with the history of the world, the creator of the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man — in fact, one of mankind’s greatest teachers. But Friedrich’s father had now decided to recall his son from Jena and send him instead to the University of Leipzig. Returned to his home, the young man wrote a letter to Schiller, vowing unswerving loyalty and assuring his friend that he would fight for him against all his enemies with the

18 “fiery zeal of Elias, who drowned the priests of Baal, the enemy of the One and Only God, in the River Kidron.”* Three weeks after his twenty-first birthday Friedrich enrolled at the University of Wittenberg. Here, wherever he turned he was treading the same ground once trod by Luther. Here, at the scene where Luther nailed his 95 theses against the Pope and the practice of Indulgences on the door of the Court Church, Friedrich at last completed his law studies. He also immersed himself in the study of ecclesiastical history. In the history of the Church he sought to trace the true evolution of Christianity. At that time Friedrich’s friends became more and more disturbed by the manner in which he scattered his studies. He dabbled in history, without becoming an historian, he pursued mathematics, without system; and his scientific interests were casual. His studies in ecclesiastical history occupied but odd hours — yet he was inescapably an emulator of Schiller. So we find him seeking desperately to find his equilibrium between the extremes of Jena, Leipzig and Wittenberg. Friedrich then went to Arnstadt as a law clerk in the District Justice Court but in the evenings he pursued his own studies. On November 17, 1794 he started on an official journey with his senior associate which took him to the estate of Captain von Rockenthien. Here he met Sophie von Kuehn. The hour of destiny had struck. The relationship with Sophie von Kuehn and the events which emerged from it cannot be easily under­ stood by conventional standards. Sophie was not yet thirteen years old, her womanhood was unawakened, she was a school­ child who still had difficulties with her spelling, uncertainly putting down her words in the Swabian dialect of Saxony. She was ten years younger than von Hardenberg and had led a sheltered life in the house of her stepfather, von Rockenthien. The spontaneity of her sunny, childlike nature enthralled von Hardenberg from the first moment, but this does not ex­ *Here Novalis erred. Elias drowned the priests of Baal in the River Kishon at the foot of Mount Carmel. Whereas according to the Gospel of St. John, ch. 18: Jesus crossed the Brook Kidron (Cedron) with his disciples, among them John, the Evangelist, and went into a Garden, i.e. Gethsemane.

19 plain the awakening of his soul and the enhancement of his spirit that sprang from their meeting, giving force to his whole life. It is impossible to believe that his soul had ever before been touched by such an inexorable faith in the destiny of love such as Sophie’s — it overwhelmed his whole being. On Sophie’s thirteenth birthday the two became secretly engaged, but only a year later she fell ill and he idealized her as a lofty image of all poetry. During her serious illness his love and devotion seemed redoubled. On Sophie’s fourteenth birthday, when she had scarcely recovered, the engagement was publicly announced. In July, 1796 the disease erupted anew and Sophie lay at the point of death following an operation. She suffered agonies at the clinic of the Court and the first sorrows and forebodings of death overshadowed their youthful happiness. Four days after her fifteenth birthday Sophie died. Von Hardenberg henceforth began —like Orpheus — to seek her in the underworld of his soul. Her death became the rebirth of his spirit. All his preoccupations turned into brooding melancholy and his former scattered interests gave way to contemplative calm. His being found its center. The earthly name of his departed bride fused with the symbol of the heavenly Sophia and gave birth to the mystery of love by which Friedrich von Hardenberg became the poet — Novalis. This love purified Novalis and remains an unique event in his life, utterly individual in character. The spirit of Novalis developed. Against the background of Fichte’s philosophy of the Ego, Novalis developed a living awareness of the Ego’s own being. When Goethe heard of Sophie’s illness, he visited her as she lay at the clinic in Jena. He related how deeply moved he was at the sight of her innocent suffering. On the Good Friday after Sophie’s death Novalis wrote to a friend: I shall not conceal from you that I could not regard Goethe as the apostle of beauty had he not been moved by the very sight of her. Surely it is not passion, it is too inexorable this feeling that she is one of the noblest, idealist figures ever to walk the earth. Novalis felt that from this death new powers of healing, of endurance and of resistance were born in his soul. A new in­ 20 ner life began to blossom in him. Sophie’s death had fallen during Lent. About Easter he himself had felt as if he were to follow her in death. He struggled with the temptation of suicide. But during that time he also had an experience quite new in nature and importance. He wrote: When going for a walk it was my joy to grasp the true meaning of Fichte’s Ego and this concept of the Ego struck me like a flash of intui­ tion. What I feel for Sophia is not love but religion. Absolute love, in­ dependent of the heart — love founded in faith — such love is religion. A single lapidary phrase rose like a guiding star on his destined way: “Christ and Sophia.” Novalis’ inexhaustible imagination conceived soaring plans for work. Thoughts which particularly inspired him were those of the philosopher Schleiermacher: Every man is a priest to the degree that he draws others into himself and into the field he has mapped out as his own. Novalis never wanted to separate the poet within him from the priest and seer. The picture Novalis created in his contem­ poraries was expressed in these words: On the first impression his appearance recalled those devout Christians whose nature is simplicity itself. His deep-set eyes carried an ethereal fire. He was wholly a poet. He seemed to speak and to write from a deep sense of the past, from an originality of spirit which, however, found it difficult to express itself in terms of the present. Few men have left such a deep impression on their contemporaries. Ludwig Tieck, a writer of the time, who met Novalis in 1800 and became a great personal friend and, later, his editor, described him as he was shortly before his death at the age of barely twenty-nine: Novalis was tall and slender and of noble proportions. He wore his light-brown hair in long clustering locks, which at that time was less unusual than it would be now; his hazel eyes were clear and glancing; and the color of his face, especially of the fine brow, almost transparent. Hand and foot were somewhat too large, and without fine character. His look was at all times cheerful and kind. For those who distinguish a 21 man only in so far as he puts himself forward, or by studious breeding, by fashionable bearing, endeavours to shine or to be singular, Novalis was lost in the crowd: to the more practised eye, again, he presented a figure that might be called beautiful. In outline and expression his face strikingly resembled that of the Evangelist John, as we see him in the large noble painting by Albrecht D uerer, preserved at N uernberg and M uen­ chen. In speaking, he was lively and loud, his gestures strong; I never saw him tired; though we had talked far into the night, it was still only on purpose that he stopped, for the sake of rest, and even then he used to read before sleeping. Tedium he never felt, even in oppressive company, among mediocre men; for he was sure to find out one or other who could give him yet some new piece of knowledge, such as he could turn to use, insignificant as it might seem. His kindliness, his frank bearing, made him a universal favorite; his skill in the art of social intercourse was so great that smaller minds did not perceive how high he stood above them. Though in conversation he delighted most to unfold the deeps of the soul, and spoke as inspired of the regions of invisible worlds, yet he was mirthful as a child; would jest in artless gaiety, and heartily give-in to the jestings of his company. Without vanity, without learned haughtiness, far from every affectation and hypocrisy, he was a genuine, true man, the purest and loftiest embodiment of a high immortal spirit. With the writing of the Fragments Novalis began his creative work and referred to them as literary “seedlings.” These fragmen­ tary flashes of insight matured slowly, effecting transformation. They marked the starting point of the way in which the thinker was to become the poet, the poet in turn the seer. For him, philosophy was the altar on which poetry received the consecration of priesthood. Philosophical thinking guarded him against the danger of mere emotionalism and brought him clarity, balance and self-discipline. These qualities became the prerequisites of Novalis’ recognition of Goethe’s significance. “The Goethean treatment of science — a project of mine ...” noted Novalis in his Fragments. He was among the first to recognize the significance of Goethe’s natural scientific writings. Novalis was a pioneer when he proclaimed pro­ phetically that Goethe was the first true physicist of his time and has, in fact, made history in the field of physics. For 22 Novalis, Goethe the physicist occupies the same position in the field of physics as does Goethe the poet to other poets. The characterization of Goethe’s perception of the world was carried even further through Novalis. He observed with unique preci­ sion Goethe’s imagination, his reason and power of abstract thought in a new light. He never abstracts without at the same time constructing the object to which the abstraction cor­ responds. This power of abstract thought with a creative syn­ thesis marks Goethe’s method of “Apperceptive Judgment” (anschauende Urteilskraft) as Goethe himself described it almost a generation later. (We may render it as perception of the living Idea in the very act of seeing. It is what enabled Goethe to perceive the Ur-plant in every actual plant.) In Goethe’s work Novalis saw the perfect indivisible union of art and science. Here, too, he was a pioneer in the under­ standing of Goethe. In his notes, referring to Goethe he writes:

In Goethe freedom grows with culture and the readiness of the thinker. The poet is but the highest stage of the thinker. The division between the poet and the thinker is only on the surface; in reality there is a deep in­ visible union. For the truth and the discipline within him are even more exemplary than they seem.” In his interpretation of Goethe’s “Fairytale” Novalis used Goethe’s own concept of metamorphosis, his morphological thoughts about polarity and enhancement. His final interpreta­ tion of the “Beautiful Lily” is found in his Fragments: Perfection speaks not merely on its own. It expresses the whole world related to itself. That is why perfection of every kind is shrouded by the veil of the Eternal Virgin which the slightest touch dissolves into the seer’s cloud chariot. She is the manifestation of a Higher World. The true fairytale must be a prophetic presentation, an idealized presentation, an absolute presentation all in one. The study of Goethe’s Fairytale became the starting point for Novalis’ Magic Idealism. Novalis was a philosopher with no systematic structure of ideas. The path of his philosophy led from Kant’s dogmatism 23 to Fichte’s Ego-philosophy and at last to magic idealism. He called this idealism an “omnipotent organ in philosophy.” His fundamental formulation of his magic idealism reads: “The world must be romanticized,” by which he means, “a qualitative raising to a higher power.” It was for him an inner faculty. “In this operation the lower self becomes identified with the higher self. This activity is still wholly unknown.” It is an act of im­ agination, an activity of the highest order and marks the highest mission of self-development — to attain what Novalis called: The ego of one’s own ego. The basic question of his magic idealism is whether super­ sensible knowledge is possible. According to Kant, pure mathematics and pure science refer to the forms of an outer sen­ sibility. What science then, asks Novalis, refers to the forms of inward sensibility? Is there still another way open for going beyond oneself reaching other beings or being affected by them? The answer is given in the thoughts of his Magic Idealism. Novalis considered this Idealism as an attempt at a universal approach to the wisdom of the Bible. He thought of the proto­ type of his “Bible” as a universal encyclopedia in the sense in which he found it in Goethe’s Fairytale as “grand history sym­ bolically rejuvenated.... The Bible begins nobly with Paradise, the symbol of Youth, and concludes with the Eternal Kingdom, the Holy City.... The history of every individual man should be a Bible.” The Bible is for Novalis the synthesis of knowledge, art and religion. It comprises past, present and future. In its turn toward the future it is apocalyptic. He ques­ tions further: “Cannot the preparation of several gospels be envisaged? Must it always be historical? Is there not a gospel of the future? Are there not higher influences within me to blaze a trail of my own into the primal world?”

This “primal world” of his own becomes for Novalis what he called “The Lore of Man.” Proceeding by the Goethean method which all organic processes govern, he arrived at the

24 ultimate cognition that these were living forces of human nature too: When the spirit dies, it becomes inhalation. When man dies, he becomes spirit exhalation. May there not be death yonder as well and its fruit, earthly birth? Novalis has learned something of the deeper layers of human nature by listening to the secret and intimate rhythms of the heart. From the heart glows the fiery spell which his magic idealism has continued to cast over the world ever since its first appearance in his Fragments. Novalis ends his fragment on the magic idealism with a chant of the Resurrection. All the sun becomes a light in us. The manifestation of God the Father is light and warmth. These are the cosmic powers of love that kindle the flame, the divine spark in the individual self. This flame is without, as well as within, cosmic light as well as human warmth. The resurrection applies not alone to mankind in general, but also to the in­ dividual man. It is an event immanent in the self. These “spiritual seedlings” as Novalis called his thoughts on magic idealism have found rich soil in Anthroposophy. Here they will be nurtured and grow and mature to bring manifold fruits in the future. This need for a new growth of Anthro­ posophy into the future was Rudolf Steiner’s deepest concern and was closest to his heart throughout his life until the very end. Therefore he refers to these “spiritual seedlings” in the magic idealism of Novalis in the lecture given at Dornach on Michaelmas Eve, 1924, and known to us as The Last Address. Though given at Michaelmas, our thoughts turn to it at St. John’s-tide also. Dr. Steiner referred his listeners to the chapter in his book Christianity as Mystical Fact on the miracle of the Raising of Lazarus, where he dwelt on the mysteries concern­ ing Lazarus and the Beloved Disciple. In the Last Address he opens up to us yet wider connections into the past, taking us to Elias and St. John the Baptist, gradually bringing us,

25 through Raphael, into our present time, showing us the true significance of the being, Novalis. He said on this occasion: When we read the Fragments of Novalis, and give our­ selves up to the life that flows so abundantly in them, we can discover the secret of the deep impression they make on us. Whatever the eye can see and recognize as beautiful, whatever we have before us in immediate sense-reality — all this, through the magic idealism that lives in the soul of Novalis, appears in his poetry with a well-nigh heavenly splendor. With the magic idealism of his poetry he can make the meanest and simplest material thing live again in all its spiritual light and glory. And so we see in Novalis a radiant and splendid forerunner of the Michael stream which is now to lead you all, while you live; and then, after you have gone through the gate of death, you will find in the spiritual supersensible worlds all those others — among them also the being of whom I have been speaking to you to-day — all those with whom you are to prepare the work that shall be accomplished at the end of the century, and that shall lead mankind past the great crisis in which it is involved.

26 From Hymns to the Night — by Novalis Ever replenishing Inexhaustible words And tidings of great joy Fell like the sparks Of a God-lit spirit From His friendly lips. . . . But soon His sacred life Was made a sacrifice For man’s deep fall. He died in His youth; Tom away From the beloved world, From His weeping mother And His friends. His holy mouth emptied The dark cup Of unspeakable sufferings. In horrible anguish The hour of the birth of the new world Drew near. Hard, He wrestled with the terrors of ancient Death; Heavy, lay the weight of the old world upon Him. Yet once more He looked kindly at His mother. Then eternal love came, at last, With releasing hand — And He departed. For a few days A deep veil hung Over the roaring sea, over the dark, quaking land. Countless tears His loved ones wept.

27 Then the mystery was unsealed; Heavenly spirits heaved The aeon-old stone From the gloomy grave. Angels sat by the slumbering One — Delicate embodiments Of His love-illumined dreams. Till, suddenly awakened, in new God-outpouring glory, He clomb aloft to the very apex Of the youthful, new-born world, — Buried with His own hand, In the forsaken cavity, The corpse of the old world That had died, together with Him, And with a strength almighty, laid upon it The stone which no power shall again upheave. Still Your loved ones weep Tears of joy, Tears of deep feeling, Of unending thanksgiving, Over Your grave. Startled with joy Ever they see You As You newly arise, And with You, themselves too. . . . Behold You hasten, Full of longing, Right into Your Father’s arms, Bringing with You Young humanity, Grown now youthful as a child, And the invincibly refreshing chalice Holding the golden future.

28 SACRED SONGS VIII Novalis

I say to everyone — He lives! And has arisen from death, That He is present in our midst And ever gives us breath. I say to each and each one says The same to every friend — That soon in every heart shall dawn New heaven without end. . . . The cruel path He had to tread Leads into heaven’s dome, And each who listens to His word Shall share His Father’s home. Now no one any longer weeps If someone’s eyes are closed, For, late or soon, they’ll meet again When pain to gladness grows.... He lives — that each through Him remain Though outcast, ever blessed! And so shall this day be for us A world-renewal Fest

Translations by Arvia Ege

29 NOVALIS Herald and Forerunner* With Rudolf Steiner’s Last Address, on September 28, 1924, in mind

ALBERT STEFFEN

We cannot speak about Novalis in any adequate way with the ordinary intellect-formed expressions that convey only what has been, what has already become. We must first re-form our thinking into an instrument that is able to grasp this activity of becoming. All the archivist’s science will not suffice to bring him face to face with Novalis’ spirit-stature. His quotations can only project countless dated and distorted pictures of the poet’s eternal individuality. If, however, we want to understand the living being of Novalis, we must awaken language out of its deadened condi­ tion; that is, we must experience its sounds and music in their fresh, original power once more. And to do this we must feel them inwardly in their intrinsic nature as purely as they em­ body themselves in the air when they come from our lips. There they create certain forms: O an enclosing form, Ah an outbranching one; E points the way to the above and the below — and when it unites the O and the Ah, it gives and takes from each, and leads them both further. We can add A which firms the soul and U that grounds it. These aeriform vowels receive contours from the consonants and finally they produce the life-lending, picture-and-form-creating forces that dwell in the physical body. This invisible being that permeates the visible one is not subjugated to death; it has the power to set the forces of resurrection astir within itself. And it does this *Die Botschaft von Novalis by Albert Steffen (Verlag fuer Schoene Wissen­ schaften, Dornach, Switzerland, 1972). Translated by Christy Barnes.

30 when it experiences the Word as such — that means the whole range of spoken sounds which is known as the Alpha and Omega. Rudolf Steiner alludes to this in one of his fundamental lec­ tures on eurythmy. Earlier, in the ancient, high culture of pre-Christian times, speech was still wholely embedded in the cosmic. It could en­ compass all the forms that have created the human body. It was the supersensible portion which sculptured its sensible counterpart. Since the Word became Man (incarnatus est), speech, too — which took part in his fall into the physical — can be upraised again and, inasmuch as it is so, may become the expression of the supersensible. Spoken sounds transmuted into motion, in accord with their inner nature, lead to an experience of the etheric. Our inner nature, in so far as it permeates the etheric body, is impressed upon the air whenever we speak. As we combine sounds, words arise. When we gather together all the sounds from the beginning to the end of the alphabet, a very complex word comes into being, a word that embraces all word- possibilities. And at the same time, this word comprises Man in his etheric being. Before there was a physical human being upon earth, there was an etheric one, for etheric man is the basis for physical man. What, then, is this etheric man? Etheric man is the Word that encompasses the entire alphabet. Speech can once more become the Logos that created man­ kind. When you immerse yourself in the works of Novalis, you may have an experience that can be compared to the up- springing of plants: refreshing and rapture-filled, ensouled through and through with sweetness like the blossom’s being, only of a more conscious kind — a spiritual growing and un­ folding; yet not of the vegetative sort that springtime engenders, rather a spirit growth such as the soul knows in autumn. As a young man Novalis wrote to Schiller:

31 I live and float in the fresh f all air, and new rivers of the joy of life flow into me with each breath I draw. This lovely landscape and a good-natured harmlessness into which I am dissolved enchant me over into the blossoming kingdom of phantasy that floats, in an even-as-magical, ephemeral mist as does the far-away landscape under my feet. I rejoice in the last smile of nature’s waning life and the mild sun-glance of the colding heavens. Fruitful ripeness begins to pass over into decay, and for me the sight of nature’s slow dying is almost richer and greater than her springtime blossoming and quicken­ ing. I feel more attuned to noble, awe-filled feelings than in the early year when the soul swims in inactive, delightful receptivity and enjoyment and, instead of withdrawing into itself is drawn outward and dissipated by every attractive ob­ ject. Just this wrench from so many lovely and loved objects makes one’s sensibilities more concentrated and more in­ teresting. And so I also feel myself never so attuned and recep­ tive to the high and holy Muse as in autumn. As Novalis, when he was not yet twenty years of age, awoke to a recognition of his own personality, he became aware of the spirit birth that accompanies nature’s fading. We find him born into a family that consisted of an active father, a gentle mother, seven sons and four daughters, all reverently inclined, as though united in an archetypal com­ munity of ancient origin. Death took an early toll of many of these brothers and sisters. In his biography, Ludwig Tieck describes a game that Novalis used to play with his brothers. “Each of them presented a genius: one, a genius of the heavens, another of the water, a third of the earth. On Sunday evenings, Novalis told them tales of myriad and most wondrous happenings in these various kingdoms.” Early in his life he became acquainted with Friedrich Schlegel, whom he called his high priest of Eleusis — then with Fichte, whose theory of knowledge, with its basic concept of the “I and not I,” was for him such a profound experience.

32 Later he came to know Schelling and his therapeutic ideas, also the great geologist and professor of mining and mineralogy, Abraham Gottlob Werner, the gifted physician Johann Wilhelm Ritter, the theologian Schleiermacher, to name only a few of the significant personalities of the circle that Novalis liked to think of as a group of disciples — although, in all love and respect, he recognized only too well the one-sidedness of each. He took them all into his heart. But it was none of these who awakened the poet within him. For this it was necessary that a child, the not yet thirteen-year- old Sophie von Kuehn, should meet him. For him, love for her became religion. For there dawned upon him, together with the image of her innermost nature, the higher being of all mankind. To be sure he took note of her young-girl idiosyn­ crasies and described them delightfully in the diary passages in Klarisse. What might be called her faults were of small conse­ quence to him and fell away from her when, at the age of fif­ teen, she died; so that the pristine, primordial kernel of her being shone out more and more significantly. When you read his characterization of her, you have to marvel at this young poet’s gift for observation and his sense of reality. His love is determined from the spirit. Despite its inwardness, he remains objective. He describes Sophie von Kuehn exactly as she impressed others. Tieck wrote that she was “robed about by tenderness and majesty.” Much that may have seemed still undeveloped in her was so because of her physical environment, but gave her the opportunity to use her spiritual powers for transformation. Her higher being unfolded with the most beautiful nobility as she became ill, was operated upon and suffered un­ speakably. The unending patience with which she bore the pain made an unforgettable impression on everyone who came near her — upon Goethe, too, who visited her and whose words were conveyed to Novalis. Novalis had battled with the greatest inner intensity to be able to acknowledge, fully and without reservation, this poet whom he considered to be the greatest and yet not great enough. He was convinced that

33 Goethe must and would be surpassed. And it was Goethe himself who did this. At that time he had not yet written the second part of Faust nor Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman’s Years. But Novalis revolted: Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship may be called throughout prosaic and modern. The Romantic sinks to ruin, the Poesy of Nature, the Wonderful. The book treats merely of common worldly things: Nature and Mysticism are altogether forgotten. It is poeticized civic and household history; the Marvelous is expressly treated therein as imagination and en­ thusiasm. Artistic Atheism is the spirit of the book.. . . Great economy, achieving a poetic effect through prosaic, cheap material.* In 1797, he wrote to Professor Woltmann: That Goethe was affected by Sophie’s heavenly image has made him dearer to me than all his famous works. Now I am really fond of him; he belongs to my heart. I will not hide from you that I could not think of him as the apostle of beau­ ty if he had not been moved simply by the sight of her. Surely this is not passion — I feel it too undeniably, too coolly, too much with my entire soul — that she was the noblest, most ideal figure that has ever been upon earth or shall be. Raphael’s self-portrait that I have just come across in Physiognomik** is the most speaking likeness of her that I have yet found, even though it surely does not do him justice. Did Goethe plait a silent wreath for her? Oh, that I were sure of that! From the illness that Sophie endured so heroically, she wrested an inner beauty that surpassed even her outward loveliness; and so she became for Novalis a representative of the beauty of all mankind. After her death, the primordial im-

*Translation by Thomas Carlyle in his essay on Novalis. **See pp. 44, 46 in this issue of the Journal.

34 age of beauty itself approached him in its original purity. Sophie became Mathilde, Cyane, the blue flower — yes, one has to say, an organ through which to behold all that is divine. Out of the blue flower, her eternal egohood unfolded itself. All of her that was earthly took flight like a cloud of dust into which the grave mound had dissolved, and which he now left behind him. With Sophie, he made his way past the door of death to the primaeval image of beauty, the Mother of God. In countless pictures I behold thee, O Mary, fondly brought to light, Yet of all these can none enfold thee As once my soul had thee in sight. I know but this, the World’s uproar Since then has melted like a dream, And in my heart forevermore Unnameably sweet heavens gleam. * Novalis, who longed to follow Sophie in death, accompanied her in her further development through spiritual-soul regions. We can follow this journey through the changes in his poetry, especially in Hymns to the Night, but also in many of his Fragments. It is, step by step, an inwardizing and widening of his being, which, however, never ends in world-estrangement. For his interest in the spiritual-within-the-earthly grows greater, never less. He took up especially an altogether new impulse in medicine. Therapeutic methods that appeared at this time — galvanism, the theory of excitation, processes of oxydation and carbonization and their role in the science of healing — interested him intensely. He entered the sphere from which the impulses of healing flow, the sphere of Mercury. In his lecture of September 28th, 1924, Rudolf Steiner points out the path taken by the Novalis-soul. We can find its reflection in his works. Through Sophie’s suffering and death,

*Translated by Rex Raab.

35 and through his experiences in following her spirit-soul, Novalis discovered in himself, as he put it, “a power ... which with careful nurturing can develop into an extraordinary energy.” He accompanied Sophie on her soul journey backward toward her childhood, from her fifteenth year when he first met her; and the younger she became for him, the more ra­ diant her image. He experienced the holy powers of growth that shape the harmonious upbuilding of the body, the rhythms that underlie the pulse of heart and lung, in which the cosmic melodies of the spheres come to expression. Viewed from the spirit, her illness showed itself as a musical problem. Sophie inspired him to medical studies and discoveries. To him who longed to follow after her in death, she gave the will to live. She wanted to experience, through his love, what powers of healing there were on the earth which she had had to leave so soon: the healing forces in the minerals, in the plants, in the sciences, arts and communities of mankind. Through him she wanted to experience the effective activity of the Greatest of All Healers that has ever walked the world, the discipleship of the Christus.

II It is a spiritual-scientific experience as well as a general one that the human soul which links body and spirit must embark upon its own self-education from that moment on, when it has the possibility of becoming free and of releasing itself from the forces which have guided it up to that time (the religious doc­ trines, the traditional precepts, beliefs based on authority). In our time, it is through the spirit that we must raise ourselves to our full humanity. The human soul, which in the course of historical develop­ ment has membered itself into the sentient soul (in the Egypto- Chaldean-Assyrian cultural epoch), into the intellectual soul (in the Greco-Latin) and into the consciousness soul (in the pre­ sent time beginning in the fifteenth century) — this soul must,

36 if it is not to take a backward step, experience a transforma­ tion of will and of consciousness brought about through self- education. Rudolf Steiner points to this again and again; and he shows us the path to it in a multiplicity of ways. We build up the consciousness soul by schooling our obser­ vation in the most exacting way possible — comprehensively and from many points of view. But then it is important to turn away from our sense impressions and percepts, away from our memories and everything that is connected with them, and now to establish an inner emptiness of soul and give ourselves over to pure thought. In this way, through a power of percep­ tive inner judgement which has become free of the senses, we discover that still another capacity of the soul reigns behind those impressions that approach us from without and are preserved in our memories: a soul capacity that can be brought into the spirit’s field of vision. After sufficient schooling, im­ aginations arise in this empty consciousness and reveal themselves as pictures of experiences from before birth: Out of the consciousness soul — so Rudolf Steiner affirms — the imaginative soul develops. The intellectual soul maintains itself in the weaving of thoughts. These may consist of representations taken from the sense world. But that is not what is essential. Essential is the active faculty of soul that sets them in motion. This faculty allows itself to be transformed through the inner gesture of a thinking which maintains itself independent of sense percep­ tion. It allows itself to be transformed thus into a spiritually receptive organ for ideas. In this way the intellectual soul grows into the inspirational soul, as Rudolf Steiner calls it. The sentient soul arises when nature-given, body-bound urges, desires and passions move our inner being. When we control, re-form and purify these, the sentient soul becomes an organ for the perception of the soul-spiritual element in other beings. Through such cleared spaces in our own souls, we can come to experience others within ourselves. The sentient soul transforms itself into the intuitive soul, which we can only touch upon here but which Rudolf Steiner describes extensive­

37 ly. This also encompasses the human soul that undergoes catharsis, and lives on after death. Only with a soul schooled in this way can we fully grasp a poet like Novalis. When we look at his face, as it has come down to us through pictures, we are astonished by how childlike these features are and yet how wise. It is as though an angel gazed out through them, so much have they preserved from the pre- earthly and anticipate the after-earthly. A spirituality become natural and a naturalness grown spiritual, a heavenly in­ nocence gazes out at us — intimate and open, so that we seem to look straight into his heart. We find the same harmony between inner and outer in his style also. Something ethereal breathes from his sentences — as though from an archetypal plant, the leaves of which, arranged round the flower stem at definite distances, create the same ef­ fect as musical intervals. Out of such a form, only a blossom that is the color of the overarching heavens can shine: the blue flower that is not to be found upon earth. Novalis loved to look at the Madonna and Child. The Child spoke to that in him which had experienced rebirth through the death of Sophie von Kuehn and awoke the higher man in him. With this being’s spirit eye, he gazed out into the physical world and found there the god-given powers of growth. Novalis wondered before he thought, and therefore his thoughts about everything he saw on earth are connected with their origin. When we read his Fragments, we find a spirit at work there that turns back to the primaeval beginning where the Word was with God. The same is true for the most ordinary everyday affairs that came his way. Through this inborn ability, which he constantly schooled, he always saw his friends in their highest humanity. He was able to ignore their failings and mistakes. He saw himself together with them in a primaeval community. The pictures he uses to describe it are taken from the past, to be sure, but they point to the future, to a festival of world renewal. Novalis has

38 been reproached for his Christianity or Europe on grounds of its Catholicism. Goethe advised against its publication. Henrik Steffens wrote: “There appeared late in his collected works a defense of Jesuitism; and yet I would like to assert that he maintained in all its purity the inner moral freedom whose higher development forms a secret thread which links the purified attitude of heart and mind with the divine, the con­ cept of grace and righteousness through faith which is the ac­ tual life element of the Protestant Church.” But something far more all-embracing than any Church lived in Novalis. He stood over and above the kind of conver- sionism into which, later, Friedrich Schlegel fell, and above Wakenroder’s effusiveness of heart. Novalis looked not only to a new humanity but to a new earth. A supersensible council stood before his vision, the model for which he found in the Middle Ages. This model resembled Raphael’s paintings, especially the powerful one called The Eucharist, companion-piece to the School of Athens. Novalis’ Christianity or Europe harbors the Greek impulse in a manner similar to the Gospel of St. John. “Was Raphael a soul-painter? What does that mean?” asks Novalis in one of his Fragments. Just as, when he was immersed in Sophie’s immortal being, a portrait of Raphael resembling her came before his eyes, so there rises behind the words in which he presents his Christiani­ ty or Europe Raphael’s mural of the Disputa. He wanted to make the Christ impulse real for his contemporaries from the view­ point of a new revelation. And part of this was the conception of repeated earth lives as he sought to give it form through his creative phantasy in Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Reincarnation had become a certainty not only for him but for Sophie von Kuehn — for her quite independently as is shown in his characteriza­ tion in Klarisse. At her death she was sure that she had lived before and would live again. The pain that she had to bear after repeated operations on the liver and which she overcame so bravely, added a heavenly power to her earthly innocence. After her death she became his guide.

39 As Dante followed Beatrice into Paradise — or rather fol­ lowed the angel that dwelt within her — so Novalis Sophie. And yet it was different for Novalis — as is told us by both their names, through which the poetry of destiny utters a reali­ ty. Novalis followed wisdom, Dante bliss. The forces of childhood which Sophie’s higher nature kept and guarded led her, still during her lifetime — as they did Novalis — to the certainty of reincarnation. For the medieval pair, Dante and Beatrice, this still remained concealed. In Novalis’ poetry, other forms and colors emerge than in Dante’s. Novalis is a beginning; Dante an end. If you take Novalis into your soul, you build an organ for the future; while there emerges through Dante’s poetry the lawfulness of ancient temple buildings that were erected with the plumbline, triangle and circle. His grandiose epic echoes the proportions of the pyramids. But the shapes that indwell the poet soul of Novalis were not yet formed at all. His life was too short for him to find them. Every fragment of his that you read stimulates you to con­ tinue his path. In him the poetry of coming centuries is fore­ shadowed. (Parts III and IV will follow in the next issue.)

40 From Christianity or Europe* Excerpts from the Last Portion of the Essay

NOVALIS

To a brother I will lead you; he shall talk with you, that your hearts shall open, and you shall robe your withered, beloved expectation in a new garment, clasp it close and recognize once more what hovered before you, but which your clumsy, earthly understanding indeed could not capture. This brother is the heart-beat of the new age; whosoever has felt it, no longer doubts its coming and steps, with sweet pride for his contemporaries, out of the throng to join the new band of disciples. For this brother has made a new veil for the Holy One, which flowingly betrays the heavenly structure of her limbs, and yet is able to wrap her more chastely than any other. The veil is for the Virgin what the spirit is for the body, its indispensable organ, the folds of which are the alphabet of its sweet annunciation; the endless play of these folds is like music, for speech is too bold for the Virgin — her lips open themselves only unto song. To me it is nothing other than a solemn call to a new archetypal assemblage, the mighty beat of the wings of a passing angelic herald. They are the first pains. Let each prepare himself for birth!. . .

* Old and new worlds are joined in battle; the inadequacy and incompetence of our national organizations have become ap­ parent in terrible phenomena. ... It is impossible that the

*Translated by Arvia Ege.

41 worldly powers should bring themselves into balance. A third element, that is worldly and superearthly at the same time, alone can absolve this task. Between the battling forces no peace can be sealed; all peace is only an illusion, merely a lay­ ing down of arms. From the standpoint of the cabinets, or popular consciousness, no unity is thinkable.... Let neither power hope to destroy the other. All conquests here are of no avail; for the innermost citadel of each empire lies not behind earthly walls and cannot be taken by force. . . .

* Who knows if we have had enough of war; but it will never cease if we do not grasp the palm-branch which a spiritual power alone can hold out to us. Blood will flow over Europe until the nations recognize their frightful insanity which drives them vainly in circles; until touched and softened by a heaven­ ly music they step in a motley coalition before olden altars, ex­ perience the words of peace, and have celebrated with hot tears a great love-feast, as a festival of peace, upon the smoking battlefields. Only true religion can awaken Europe once more, can reconcile the peoples and install Christianity with new splendor visibly upon earth in its ancient function of minister­ ing peace. Have not the nations, in reality, every part of man except his heart, his sacred organ? Will they not become friends, even as those beside the coffin of a loved one? Will they not forget all enmity, when Divine Compassion itself speaks to them, and one and the same misfortune, one lamentation, one common feel­ ing fills their eyes with tears? Will not dedication and the will to sacrifice lay hold upon them all-powerfully and do they not now long, actually, to become friends and confederates? Where is that ancient, cherished, alone-beatific belief in the reign of God upon earth; where is that heavenly trust of human beings in one another, that sweet reverence for the out­ pouring of a God-inspired heart, that all-embracing spirit of Christendom?. . .

*

42 The other parts of the earth wait for Europe’s reconciliation and resurrection, that they may join and become fellow-citizens of the heavenly kingdom. Should there not be in Europe, soon again, a community of truly consecrated natures; should not all those truly related in religious striving be filled with longing to behold heaven upon the earth and gladly unite, joining their voices in holy choirs? Christendom must become living and active once more and form again for itself a visible Church, without regard for the boundaries of nations, an organism which takes into its bosom all souls who thirst for the super-earthly and which gladly is the mediator between the old and new world. It must pour out again the ancient plenty-horn of blessing over the peoples. From the sacred bosom of a venerable Euro­ pean council, Christendom will arise, and the function of awakening religion be carried out according to an all-encom­ passing divine plan. No one will then any longer protest against either Christian or worldly compulsion, for the essence of the Church will be true freedom and all necessary reforms will be carried out under its leadership as peaceful and proper processes of the State. When and how soon? That is not to be asked. Only, pa­ tience! It will, it must come, the holy time of eternal peace, when the new Jerusalem shall be the capital of the world. And until then be serene and full of courage in the midst of the dangers of the times, comrades of my belief. Proclaim with word and deed the divine Gospel, and to that eternal, immea­ surable faith remain true even unto death.

43 Raphael

JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER

Johann Kaspar Lavater, the Zurich theologian (1741-1801) was one of the most profoundly influential writers at the end of the eighteenth century. His four volumes, Physiognomische Fragmente (Physi­ ognomical Fragments), Leipzig and Winterthur 1775-1778, with their beautiful engraved illustrations were in everybody’s hands. It con­ tained, amongst others, comments on the portraits of famous people. The text accompanying the one of Raphael, here reproduced, is astonishing for its intuitive insights. Lavater speaks of Raphael as an “apostolic man,” even though with a qualification, and uses at the end of his chapter the biblical quotation referring originally to Christ: “I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof” (Luke 11:6). This clearly shows that he is fully aware of the high spiritual rank of Raphael and of his sacred mission on the earth. Other passages like the ones referring to love, ecstasy, and poetry, in opposition to cold reason, strike main themes and key words in Novalis’ writings. They are explained especially strongly in his celebrated “Hymn,” “Few ever know the mystery of love,” and the famous poem that Novalis hoped to use in his Heinrich von Ofterdingen: When no more figures, numbers, ciphers Are felt the keys to all the creatures, When those who kiss or those who sing Know more than those a-studying, When turns the world to freer life And then returns unto itself, And when again of light and shade A marriage for true clarity’s made, And in the fairy tale and poem The world’s eternal history’s known, Then, faced with one mysterious word, The whole perverted age flees forth!

44 They are all the more interesting in the light of the connection established by Rudolf Steiner between Raphael, Novalis, and St. John, since the figure of St. John the Evangelist also exercised a profound power over Lavater’s imagination all his life. Lavater wrote an extensive commentary on The Gospel of St. John, and took seriously Christ’s statement in the Gospel that he wished for John to remain until He returned (John 21; 22-3: “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die ...”). Thus when he heard of a community of Christians in Denmark who believed St. John to be alive upon the Earth, and sought spiritual revelations from that source, Lavater’s excitement could hardly be contained, and in 1793 he made the arduous journey from Switzerland to Copenhagen by coach in order to meet them, hoping through them to find St. John. Lavater speculated in the diary he kept while travelling that the Evangelist either had been “resurrected” (“auferweckt”) or “dwelt invisibly (like Moses and Elias at the time of Christ) upon the Earth” in order to perform Christ’s work. Lavater was disappointed by the Danish group, but never abandoned his cherished belief that St. John was dwelling or active on the Earth with him. Konrad Oberhuber and Frederick Amrine

Raphael ... is and remains to my mind “an apostolic man”; by that I mean that he was, in comparison to the other painters, what the Apostles were in comparison to the rest of humanity, and in his appearance he ranged as high above the level of the common man as his works tower over those of common painters. Even the worst portraits of him show this — and the best portraits of such a man cannot possibly capture the ideal of the original in the brow, the eye and the mouth. Here is yet another picture of him, after one of the best drawings of him that we have, and that he probably produced himself. . . . Is it possible not to see in this countenance the simple, elevated character of all his works? No parts conflicting with each other! nothing strained! misplaced! distorted! nothing sharp, bony, violent! — everything so modest, so full of feeling!

45 [Image] An[Image] Engraving after the original Self-Portrait From Physiognomische Fragmente by Lavater

By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University

46 so receptive to pleasure!... This countenance could be idealized, but then it would inevitably fail to express the inef­ fable simplicity that lends Raphael’s works such humanity. The works of ancient Greek art are also simple, but they lack the humanity and intimacy that, despite their majesty, is so striking in many of Raphael’s best pieces. All his paintings of Mary, Jesus, St. John, Joseph have such a domestic, bourgeois, familiar quality — and it is just this which seems to me to radiate so brightly from the countenance that we have before us; — radiant in the whole of the composition, in the pose, in every feature. Love and rapture; simplicity and exalted poetic understand­ ing fill the entire countenance. Poetic understanding, devoid of all cold rationality, of that faculty which tears apart and then reassembles mechanically, or patches-up as best it can. In this open, artless, inoffensive brow that we see here before us is effortless receptivity — and in the space between the eyebrows as well. No spectator, no political thinker, no metaphysician, raisonneur — nor any hero or soldier — has a brow so shallowly arched, broad and smooth. The eyebrows are entirely those of the poetic painter. Not intellect, not wit, not artistic reflection — only art-soul, nature-soul, love or art that is feeling for nature — in the eye! The right eye, although too hard in the etching, is yet how full of naturalness and love! The tip of the nose is filled with expression of the purest nobility. And the mouth — what an eternal cipher of loving, exalted feeling and yearning innocence! In the hair alone is so much expression of the exalted feeling of simplicity, of the entire soul of Raphael, and of all Raphael’s works. Oh, if only God were to send me such a living man! How I would grasp his knees and say: “I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof.” ... Whenever I wish to awaken feelings of Divinity within me, I think of Raphael’s Creator! Translated by Frederick Amrine

47 The Blue Flower*

NOVALIS

This is the introduction to the whole narrative of Heinrich von Ofter- dingen ... the “Blue Flower” there spoken of being Poetry — the real object, passion and vocation of young Heinrich — which, through manifold adventures, exertions and sufferings, he is to seek and find. His history commences thus: The old people were already asleep; the clock was beating its monotonous tick on the wall; the wind blustered over the rat­ tling windows; by turns, the chamber was lighted by the sheen of the moon. The young man lay restless in his bed; and thought of the stranger and his stories. “Not the treasures is it,” said he to himself, “that have awakened in me so unspeak­ able a desire; far from me is all covetousness; but the Blue Flower is what I long to behold. It lies incessantly in my heart, and I can think and fancy of nothing else. Never did I feel so before: it is as if, till now, I had been dreaming, or as if sleep had carried me into another world: for in the world I used to live in, who troubled himself about flowers? Such wild passion for a Flower was never heard of there. But whence could that stranger have come? None of us ever saw such a man; yet I know not how I alone was so caught with his discourse: the rest heard the very same, yet none seems to mind it. And then that I cannot even speak of my strange condition!. . .”

*The introductory paragraph and translation are taken from “Novalis,” an essay by Thomas Carlyle.

48 The young man lost himself, by degrees, in sweet fancies, and fell asleep. He dreamed first of immeasurable distances, and wild unknown regions. He wandered over seas with in­ credible speed; strange animals he saw; he lived with many varieties of men, now in war, in wild tumult, now in peaceful huts. He was taken captive, and fell into the lowest wretched­ ness. All emotions rose to a height as yet unknown to him. He lived through an infinitely variegated life; died and came back; loved to the highest passion, and then again was forever parted from his loved one. At length towards morning, as the dawn broke up without, his spirit also grew stiller, the images grew clearer and more permanent. It seemed to him he was walking alone in a dark wood. Only here and there did day glimmer through the green net. Erelong he came to a rocky chasm, which mounted upwards. He had to climb over many crags, which some former stream had rolled down. The higher he came, the lighter grew the wood. At last he arrived at a little meadow, which lay on the declivity of the mountain. Beyond the meadow rose a high cliff, at the foot of which he observed an opening, that seemed to be the entrance of a passage hewn in the rock. The passage led him easily on, for some time, to a great subterranean expanse, out of which from afar a bright gleam was visible. On entering, he perceived a strong beam of light, which sprang as if from a fountain to the roof of the cave, and sprayed itself into innumerable sparks, which col­ lected below in a great basin: the beam glanced like kindled gold; not the faintest noise was to be heard, a sacred silence encircled the glorious sight. He approached the basin, which waved and quivered with infinite hues. The walls of the cave were coated with this fluid, which was not hot but cool, and on the walls threw out a faint bluish light. He dipt his hand in the basin, and wetted his lips. It was as if the breath of a spirit went through him; and he felt himself in his inmost heart strengthened and refreshed. An irresistible desire seized him to bathe; he undressed himself and stept into the basin. He felt as if a sunset cloud were floating round him; a heavenly emotion streamed over his soul; in deep pleasure innumerable thoughts

49 strove to blend within him; new, unseen images arose, which also melted together, and became visible beings around him; and every wave of that lovely element pressed itself on him like a soft bosom. The flood seemed a Spirit of Beauty, which from moment to moment was taking form round the youth. Intoxicated with rapture, and yet conscious of every impres­ sion, he floated softly down that glittering stream, which flowed out from the basin into the rocks. A sort of sweet slumber fell upon him, in which he dreamed indescribable adventures, and out of which a new light awoke him. He found himself on a soft sward at the margin of a spring, which welled out into the air, and seemed to dissipate itself there. Dark-blue rocks, with many-coloured veins, rose at some dis­ tance; the daylight which encircled him was clearer and milder than the common; the sky was black-blue, and altogether pure. But what attracted him infinitely most was a high, light-blue Flower, which stood close by the spring, touching it with its broad glittering leaves. Round it stood innumerable flowers of all colours, and the sweetest perfume filled the air. He saw nothing but the Blue Flower; and gazed on it long with nameless tenderness. At last he was for approaching, when all at once it began to move and change; the leaves grew more resplendent, and clasped themselves round the waxing stem; the Flower bent itself towards him; and the petals showed like a blue spreading ruff, in which hovered a lovely face. His sweet astonishment at this transformation was increasing, — when suddenly his mother’s voice awoke him, and he found himself in the house of his parents, which the morning sun was already gilding.

50 The Anthroposophical Path of Inner Schooling: A Survey

PAUL EUGEN SCHILLER

Among the bewildering multiplicity of spiritual paths today, what distinguishes the anthroposophical path of inner development? On what basis can it claim to be a modern and Christian path to the spirit? How does it differ from the characteristically Eastern and oriental path? These are questions which must arise in the mind of every student who encounters the often overwhelming scope and magnitude of Rudolf Steiner’s work. On what authority does it stand? Is it, as is frequently claimed, the only true path to the spirit in our time? In his recently published volume, The Anthroposophical Path of Inner Schooling (Der anthroposophische Schulungsweg, Ein Ueberblick; Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, Dornach, 1979), Paul Eugen Schiller makes no claim that his is the only possible ap­ proach to the anthroposophical path, nor that other ways of characterizing it may not be equally justified. What he has done, however, is to survey the path of spiritual development, as Rudolf Steiner described it, starting with his earliest presentations and following them through to the culminating years of his lifework. What arises for the reader is a beautifully structured and comprehensive characterization of the path as a whole, the preparations which it requires, the actual discipline of school­ ing, the crossing of the threshold, and the ultimate understanding of the path as a modern process of initiation based on a science of the spirit. The volume concludes with a bibliography which guides the student to 83 of Steiner’s works, both books and lectures, which illuminate the path of development from one point of view or another. Many of the works included are referred to a number of times, and each time the exact

51 passage in Steiner’s lecture or written volume is expressly mentioned. In this way, the bibliographical references become a sequence of doors open­ ing out into Rudolf Steiner’s vast lifework, penetrating it always with the question in mind: by what means do I, as an intellectually disciplined contemporary person, achieve an inwardly coherent and reliable, step-by- step approach to the realities of supersensible experience? Never is the em­ phasis merely on experience for its own sake, nor upon theoretical understanding, but always on the living union of clear understanding with the immediacy of inwardly active, fully conscious experience. The chapter published here in translation is the second in the book and gives just that structural overview which can be so helpful to the student who wishes to orient himself in relation to the path as a whole. There is no question but that this chapter should be followed as rapidly as possible by others and eventually by the publication of the entire translated book. The author writes with the modest authority of a disciplined thinker and observer who has devoted his life to the pursuit of spiritual science. As a natural scientist, Schiller helped to build up the physics laboratory at the Goetheanum, devoting himself in particular to experiments with the sensitive flame as a means of observing and transmitting form-giving im­ pulses in a highly responsive physical medium. Throughout his years of scientific work at the Goetheanum, Schiller was active as a lecturer and seminar leader which took him to many countries of Europe as well as to Australia, New Zealand, and on two occasions in the 1950’s, also to the United States. His new volume, published this September in the Goetheanum pocketbook series with Walter Roggenkamp’s handsome cover design, is an important contribution; it provides the serious seeker of spiritual knowledge with a most beautifully balanced and comprehensive survey of the anthroposophical path, thus enabling him to reach his own, independent conclusions as to its place among the many, many avenues of approach to spiritual life in our time. —Henry Barnes, translator

52 Chapter Two: The Structure and Composition of the Anthroposophical Path Rudolf Steiner writes in the Preface to How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds: “If someone, in his own spiritual life, intends to apply what is communicated in this book, it is very important that he is able to place before his mind’s eye with the greatest possible exactitude of characterization those paths of soul development that are described here.” With this remark the pupil of spiritual knowledge is given a practical guide-line which he cannot take too earnestly. It is often repeated, above all in connection with the description of the exercises and meditations that are to be carried out. The pupil is expressly called upon to acquire an exact knowledge of the structure according to which the anthroposophical path of inner schooling is built up — and to do so not only by acquainting himself with the exercises in detail but in their relation with the totality of the presentations. He is thereby able also to follow a guiding principle which runs like a golden thread through all of Rudolf Steiner’s indications: the recommenda­ tions and the rules of practice are not to be taken up blindly, in unquestioning faith. Before carrying out an exercise or a meditation, the pupil should make himself aware to which level of schooling it belongs, how the exercise works, what develop­ ment it calls forth and what pre-conditions must be worked through before undertaking the exercise. The following outline and the brief description which belongs with it provide for the student an initial survey of the single steps along the anthroposophical path of inner develop­ ment. The chapters which follow after will characterize these steps in greater detail. (It should once again be emphasized that herewith only one of the possible ways of surveying the path of knowledge is indicated. Other ways of relating things are entirely possible and are equally justified.) The sequence of exercises and meditations presented here is not to be adhered to rigidly. It has already (in an earlier chapter) been men­ tioned that Rudolf Steiner, in a lecture about his first Mystery

53 Drama, draws attention to the fact that the individual must, through his independent activity, discover and experience that sequence of exercises which is appropriate for him. The Structure of the Path of Inner Schooling Preparation Study of Spiritual Science Fundamental Moods Development of the “Six Attributes” Cultivation of Thinking, Feeling and Willing Control of Thinking, Feeling and Willing Sense-free Thinking, Feeling and Willing Schooling Conditions and Dangers Meditations: General Guide-Lines The Unfolding and Forming of Pictures Development of Higher Organs Body-free Life of the Soul The Crossing of the Threshold Initiation The Christian Path of Initiation The Rosicrucian Path of Initiation The Initiation Path of the Present Day Spiritual Science The Level of Imaginative Cognition The Level of Inspirational Cognition The Level of Intuitional Cognition The importance of the Preparatory Stage is unfortunately often underestimated. The soul organism of human beings to­ day is by no means so constituted that it may immediately serve as a suitable basis for an esoteric schooling. Professional attitudes, commitment to a group or to a political party, and

54 the opinions and mental attitudes which are at the root of what is presented in the media and in the daily press to a great degree determine contemporary thinking. The pupil of spiritual science must learn to think independently. He must make his thinking mobile and must learn to develop it in accordance with reality. — Sensitivity of perception and feeling have become impoverished and one-sided. They are conditioned preponderantly by bodily processes. On the other hand, by means of skilful manipulations, generally focussed on the sub­ conscious, perception and feeling are directed into channels today which serve certain trends and fashions, or strivings for power. Also in this connection, independence must be cultivated; the world of feeling must undergo a widening, a deepening and differentiation. — Man’s will-life today is on the whole only a response to influences and demands that come to him from outside. It is self-understood that the human being should live up to the obligations which life imposes on him. But he should also, in freedom, unfold will impulses which have their origin in his spiritual life. Thus it is the Preparatory Stage which must, in a healthy way, unfold the capacities of thinking, feeling and will. Rudolf Steiner described in detail in the first part of How to Attain Knowledge ..., as well as in the second half of Occult Science how the basis for an inner schooling can be created through study of the findings of spiritual research, through the develop­ ment of certain fundamental moods of soul and through a cultivation and control of the attributes of soul which are ours as a result of birth and education. With the actual schooling an entirely different task is put before the pupil of the spiritual path. At the preparatory stage, with the help of certain exercises, he worked to make flexible, to broaden and deepen the attributes with which he was originally endowed. Now new attributes are to be developed in his soul-spiritual organism by means of meditation. Soul and spirit organs are to be developed which make possible percep­ tion and cognition within purely soul-spiritual realms beyond the limits of the physical, sense-perceptible world. But such a

55 development calls forth decisive transformations. In order that the possibilities for error which can arise at this stage may be avoided, Rudolf Steiner describes the conditions inherent in the inner laws of development and draws attention to the dangers which arise when these conditions are not fulfilled. — At first, general guide-lines concerning the particular characteristics of meditative work, as well as examples of fun­ damental meditations are given. There then follows the “Un­ folding and Forming of Pictures.” The first supersensible perceptions generally occur in the form of pictures. Therefore the relation which exists between a purely soul-spiritual ex­ perience and its manifestation in an imaginative picture must be thoroughly worked through and understood. The develop­ ment of such higher supersensible organs of perception is in­ dicated by means of a number of examples. In early publica­ tions such organs are called “lotus blossoms” — linking on to a word usage customary at that time. Later Rudolf Steiner uses the designation: soul organs, spirit organs. The observation, experience and cognition of purely soul-spiritual facts and oc­ currences take place under conditions of higher consciousness. But these presuppose a complete emancipation and in­ dependence from the bodily-physical, presuppose in other words a body-free life of soul. At later stages of this schooling powerful inner experiences and earnest testings arise which are connected with the cross­ ing of the threshold to the spiritual world. Rudolf Steiner has on many occasions described the significant and deeply incisive transformations that the pupil of the spiritual path has to live through as he crosses the threshold. It is especially in his third Mystery Drama that he most fully describes these transforma­ tions. — The development that is common to all humanity has also led to a transformation of the bodily, psychological and spiritual organization of the individual. As a consequence, that process by means of which man is endowed with the capacity of spiritual sight also had to change. The process of initiation has altered during the course of the past millennia and must now, in the present day, be carried out in a new and different way.

56 If, as a result of initiation, the spirit-pupil has undergone an inner transformation such as has been indicated here, he becomes a perceiver, an observer of the more immediately ac­ cessible realms of the supersensible. The anthroposophical path, however, does not have the task only to develop super­ sensible perception, a mere clairvoyance. Such a path would not be able to give the human being of today, and even less of a future time, those insights and impulses which are necessary for the fulfillment of the tasks which are now arising and are needed for the development of a new culture. To achieve this a fully conscious and exact knowledge of the spirit, a spiritual science is required. Three levels of consciousness, which is to say, three levels of knowledge are to be developed in this science of the spirit. The first level, that of imaginative cognition, leads into the world of creative, formative forces. The dynamic, formative organisms of forces of the kingdoms of nature, of the solar system and of the universe become thereby experienceable. — By means of knowledge won through in­ spiration, there is revealed to man that this “world of dynamic forces” is the active manifestation of creatively working beings. The spiritual investigator perceives himself to be “inspired,” to be inwardly “enfilled” by such beings. — In intuition, “the highest mode of cognition to which human beings can present­ ly ascend” is achieved. It leads to an innermost experience of spiritual beings and of man’s spiritual “core of being.” A “standing-within-the-Godhead” in full consciousness becomes possible.

57 Dangers of Early Schooling*

RAYMOND S. MOORE DOROTHY N. MOORE

We are now living in an explosive era of research and develop­ ment which is new to the world. Many answers have been sup­ plied, yet with all the skill and speed at their command, too many legislators and educational planners have not made systematic use of the evidence available. Research has had minimal impact on educational planning. More simply stated: research is ignored. The final result is that children are the victims. It is urgent that research be brought together from the various areas of child development and that these studies be in­ terrelated.... They then supply surprisingly greater power than the sum of them when viewed alone. They also present a more accurate picture and provide practical insights for im­ plementing truth. Any effort to present a systematic picture of these early childhood research areas will appear vulnerable from some point of view. However, a few areas which should be common focal points for all early childhood educators and planners in­ clude: (1) social-emotional maturity and factors of parental attachment (affective development), (2) perception and neuro­ physiology (sensory development including vision and hearing), (3) the ability to perceive in an orderly way (cognitive develop-

*Reprinted by permission from A New Image of Man in Medicine, Vol. III, In­ dividuation Process and Biographical Aspects of Disease, edited by Karl E. Schaefer, M.D., Uwe Stave, M.D., & Wolfgang Blankenburg, M.D. (Futura Publishing Co., New York, 1979).

58 ment, (4) comparative performance of early and late school en­ trants, and (5) parental attitudes and potential for change. The first three of these areas combine to form a school readiness index in much the same way as the mental age and the chronological age are factors in determining the intelligence quotient (IQ). When a child brings together reasonable levels of maturity in each of these areas — affective, sensory, cognitive and motor development — we suggest that he has reached an integrated maturity level (IML). Such a readiness factor as the IML should be a useful tool and considered basic for every child’s school entrance plans. There is now no such guide, and the determining of school en­ trance age for any given child is haphazard at best. Yet the IML may be one of the most crucial factors in the child’s ultimate achievement and stability. When a reasonable IML balance is achieved, we can say without serious risk, this child is ready to attack systematically the basic skills. Until that time, the demands of typical school programs are a threat to him. For most children the IML, as we will shortly show research suggests, is reached between ages eight and ten or eleven — much the same age at which students began school in the unhurried years before our technological age. . . . Sensory Development From birth a child gives evidence of perceiving things through his senses — bright light, loud noise, loss of body sup­ port, touch, etc. As he grows older, however, his sensory responses to stimuli become more specific and directed. While some of this can be attributed to experience, there are also physical changes in the brain which make possible a more specific focus of the senses. For many years neurophysiologists have noted there are in­ teresting changes in brain rhythms related to chronological age. As the very young child grows past the first year or so, he tends to move away from the very slow delta rhythms into what electroencephalographers describe as the theta waves. These rhythms are not yet fully understood, yet some scientists

59 believe that they may be related to the area of the hypo­ thalamus and other low centers. Consequently, during this period we should not be surprised to find the young child dominated primarily by his emotions rather than reason. This may continue until age seven or eight or older. . . . Reading, thought by many to be a simple task, actually in­ volves a number of complex mental processes. In order to understand what he reads, a child must be able to connect the new thoughts with things he has already learned. Then he must retrieve these thoughts from his memory and integrate them with new information. So he is constantly analyzing and then synthesizing or putting things together. Some young children are unable to distinguish letters within words or parts of letters. For example an “F” may not be distinguishable from an “E” or a “p” from a “b” or a “d.” For a child to read well, he must be able to visualize the shapes of the letters and the words. But to do this, he must be able to reason out their structure and to retain them in his mind so that he can build other words on them in the future. This is relatively easy for a typical child of eight or ten, but may be formidable for a five or six-year-old who often becomes frustrated and gives up reading, with resulting anxiety and motivational loss. It is not surprising teachers often find that first-graders lose many of their reading skills by the end of their first summer vacation. Apparently, the young child needs freedom from experiences that demand accommodation to such tasks as reading and writing which require abstract reasoning abilities. Elkind (1972) notes that “... it must be remembered that while young children do learn easily, they learn by rote and imitation rather than by rule and reason. Their learning is capricious, non-selective and arbitrary; it is not the kind upon which for­ mal learning should be based.” Elkind (1969) further suggests that “the longer we delay formal instruction, up to certain limits, the greater the period of plasticity and the higher the ultimate level of achievement.” A small child, even at two years of age or younger, might be able to recognize words, but certainly by age five or six.

60 However, if he is required to read or write or use numbers consistently and is not yet ready to use them perceptively, he often becomes frustrated and turns away from the basic skills (which require such reasoning) rather than experience the anxiety of failure. Effects of Early Reading upon Eyesight Coinciding with the findings of neurophysiologists and psychologists are studies by eye specialists. There are enough studies to seriously suggest young children are not ready for the visual-perceptive aspect of reading until they are at least seven or eight. In 1963, Henry Hilgartner, an ophthalmologist, reported to the Texas Medical Society a 50-year clinical study which he and his father, also an ophthalmologist, had made of the in­ cidence of myopia (nearsightedness) in children. They found the earlier children start to school, the more frequently near­ sightedness is discovered between the ages of 8 and 12. In 1908 only one nearsighted child was found to about eight far­ sighted (hyperopic) children. This ratio was considered normal for American children at that time. But beginning in 1908, Texas dropped its school entrance age to seven, and by 1930 the ratio had changed to one nearsighted child for each two farsighted children. In 1930 Texas again dropped its school en­ trance age, this time to six. By 1940 the ratio was one to one. And with television and even earlier schooling more and more common in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the ratio changed by 1963 to five abnormal (nearsighted) youngsters for every one who was normal (farsighted). Dr. Hilgartner (1972) reports that the situation has worsened since 1963. Frank Newton (1972), a Dallas ophthalmologist, in checking his own records found the Hilgartner figures agreed largely with his. The Hilgartner and Newton data have been criticized by some as not clearly establishing a causal relationship be­ tween early schooling and myopia. Yet there seem to be no other likely causes for these phenomenal changes. So if parents and educators wish to avoid risks of visual handicap, they should urge those states now inducing early enrollment to

61 reconsider their age laws. Hilgartner (1963) makes specific ap­ plication to the modern school: During the three or four hours that the beginner, age six, is in school he is using all the ocular muscles for accommodation and convergence, in order to see the pictures, drawings, etc. I f he were outdoors, playing robber, soldier, or other games, he would not be using his eyes excessively for close work. The in­ ternal and external recti, the superior and inferior recti, as well as the obliques would not be working excessively to make the child see a single object. George Milkie (1972), Director of Professional Development for the American Optometrie Association, concurs on the mat­ ter of close work and myopia. He writes: “All clinicians concur that evidence that close work does seem to be associated with the beginning progression of myopia cannot be ignored.” Hilgartner concludes with a suggestion for change in the rearing of young children under eight. . . . I think it is not necessary to advocate elaborate theories as to the cause or causes of myopia [in young children], since the chief cause is perfectly obvious, if we will only give it proper consideration. In my opinion, the primary cause of the great increase in the number of myopes in our country is that children are re­ quired to start to school at the early age of six, instead of being allowed to grow for another year or two. Outdoor play and fresh air, rather than confinement indoors at school, would help solve the problem. Somewhat similar discussions have been followed by Rosner (1973) and by Morency (1968) in auditory perception. Rosner explored the correlates between auditory and visual perceptual skills as they relate to primary grade reading and arithmetic achievement. He found learning to read appears to depend heavily upon auditory skills. Morency says that in some children these skills — auditory discrimination and auditory memory, that is the ability to retain and recall speech sounds — are not well-developed until the ninth year. 62 In intersensory research, Birch and Lefford (1963) found the ability to make various intersensory judgements follows a general law of growth and improves with age. They report full effectiveness in the integration of vision, touch and certain muscle coordinations is not reached until seven or eight years of age, and not until the eleventh year were there a minimum number of errors of judgement. It would seem, then, while a child is constantly learning through his senses — taste, touch, smell, hearing, vision, etc. — and can profit by experiences in his environment, there is little to be gained by forcing him to practice skills which de­ mand a judgement which he simply cannot make. At least, he cannot make these judgements in a consistent and satisfying way, and anyone who induces or forces him to do these tasks too early threatens anxiety, frustration and eventual loss. Studies of the learning of physical skills (walking, stair climbing, etc.) have shown that early stimulation or practice does not contribute to the total development of the skill. In fact, practice may be counter-productive if it creates fears or anxieties. When, however, a child’s strength and coordination have developed to the point where he can perform a task, he will do so if he has the opportunity and the motivation. There is reason to believe the same principle applies in neurophysio- logical development. Definitive studies in this area are under­ way, and more are needed. . . . As stated earlier, much of the idea of early stimulation resulted from Benjamin Bloom’s (1964) conclusion that, in terms of intelligence measured at age 17, the individual develops 50 percent of his mature intelligence during the period from conception to age four. Arthur Jensen (1969), after carefully checking the Bloom report and applauding its more reliable aspects, specifically warns that the finding of half the statistical variance of adult intelligence by age four does not lead to the conclusion that persons develop 50 percent of their mature intelligence by age four. This is an example of a case in which a statistical artifact leads to an unwarranted and fallacious conclusion. Yet Bloom’s misleading conclusion con­ stitutes one of the most frequently-used bases of the recent preschool planning. 63 The ability to reason with enough sophistication for formal school tasks comes only after the integrated maturity level has been reached. Although cognitive research analysts were not dis­ cussing the IML concept as suggested in this report, they have approached this same topic in various ways (Piaget, 1963; Rohwer, 1971; Elkind, 1969). Thus the maturing of cognition, of knowing and understand­ ing, enables the child’s learning to proceed at a pace which was not possible prior to reaching his IML at around ages eight to ten. Things that would have required hours of boring drill and frustrating practice a year or two earlier can now be learned in a relatively short time. It is unfortunate that many children have lost their interest in learning by this time. Their boredom and frustrations lead on a negative cycle to indolence, anxiety, and in many cases, to violence. They have been forced to learn when they were not ready, and have concluded that it is useless to try. Their learning becomes shelved on a motiva­ tional plateau. However, those who start later move with little frustration, their readiness providing intrinsic motivation that moves on in an increasingly productive cycle, as noted in the following.

School Entrance-Age Studies From still another area of experimentation, comparative studies of early and late school entrants indicate that later en­ trants do excel in achievement, adjustment, motivation, social- emotional development and leadership in general. Usually, children remaining at home until later than average, do better than average. Studies in this area have been made of young­ sters from high, middle and low socio-economic levels, and measurements have been taken at virtually all grade levels with substantially the same results. Halliwell (1966) concludes that later entry usually means greater success. Says Halliwell: The analysis of the reviews on entrance age and school suc­ cess in the elementary school indicates conclusively that ... early entrance to first grade does result in lower achievement.

64 ... the advantages of postponing early entrance to first grade programs as they are presently conducted are very real. In some instances there seem to be possible advantages to early school entrance. Birch (1954), and Cone (1955), com­ pared bright, early school entrants with average normal-age entrants. It is difficult to make a valid judgement here beyond the fact that bright youngsters do better than average. . . . None of these studies favoring early school entrance stand up under careful analysis, and little research appears to be available which supports early school entry. On the basis of his research on child development, Kagan (1973) presents still another angle on early entrance. He states: I think my work suggests we’ve got to stop the very early, and, I think, premature rank-ordering of children in grades one, two, and three. We decide too soon.. . . We arbitrarily decide that age seven is when the race starts.... And then we classify them prematurely. Let’s use the example of puberty. Suppose we decided that fertility was important in our society and that fertility should occur at age 13. Then if you’re not fertile at 13, we conclude that you are never going to be fer­ tile, and we give you a different kind of life. It’s illogical, because that 13-year-old who is not fertile now will be next year. Rank correlations from Husen’s (1967) study of mathematics teaching in 12 countries were analyzed by William Rohwer (1971). He found, essentially, the earlier children went to school, the more negative their attitudes were toward school­ ing. Husen (1972) subsequently expressed agreement with Rohwer’s analysis.... When the research in these areas — social emotional growth, neurophysiology, sensory, and cognitive development, etc. — is interrelated, there is a remarkable similarity of findings respecting age of readiness — around eight to eleven — for the beginning of formal schooling. The findings are much more powerful when brought together than when examined in each area separately.

65 Two Responses to a Review of The Living Earth by Walther Cloos Can we Build a Bridge Between Anthroposophy and Conventional Science? KARL E. SCHAEFER, M.D.

Ralph Brocklebank has written a controversial review of The Living Earth by Walther Cloos {Journal for Anthroposophy, No. 29), which calls for some comments. On the one hand there is a seriousness in Mr. Brocklebank’s plea — that Rudolf Steiner’s indications be confirmed by con­ ventional scientific studies and observations — which elicits sym­ pathy. On the other hand, existing scientific concepts are ac­ cepted as laws or the “ultimate truth,” which they are not; and there enters into the discussion, at times, an approach which has no place in a balanced review appropriate to such a book. I have spent my professional life in scientific work and have attempted bridge-building efforts between Anthroposophy and conventional science. My comments are based on this experi­ ence. Let me begin with an historical note. In his lecture on January 1, 1924 (Christmas Foundation Period), Rudolf Steiner refers to a remark by Dr. Zeylmans that it is not possible to build bridges from conventional medi­ cal science to anthroposophical medicine. Steiner then goes on to support this statement of Dr. Zeylmans and emphasizes that “if we are only interested in having our papers accepted by medical scientific establishments and conform to their standards, we will not get anywhere with our tasks.” He expresses his hope that the new Clinical Thera­ peutic Institute in Arlesheim, under the direction of Dr. Ita

66 Wegmann, would be able to develop a new medical system out of the orientation of Anthroposophy. What this means is that at Steiner’s time, the sciences did not contain concepts which would have made it possible to build bridges to Anthroposophy out of the impulses then pre­ vailing in science. However, Rudolf Steiner has given indications as to how such bridges could be built from Anthro­ posophy to the conventional sciences. One of the first steps a scientist has to take is personally to connect himself with a special field in science so strongly that he is able to transform it. This particular field of science will thereby undergo an individualization process: it is simply taken out of the all-embracing, anonymous, impersonal one-ness of all science. A second step can be the use of a phenomenolog­ ical approach: sorting out data, seeing where there are innate relationships which are usually covered up by the use of conventional statistical methods. When thoughts developed in connection with such efforts en­ lighten the essential observations made, the phenomena them­ selves begin to speak. This language usually leads you towards the concepts that Steiner has given. To emphasize: the phe­ nomena speak, not the investigator with “Steiner-derived preconceptions.” It takes long years of arduous work to achieve this. An example is given in the phenomenological description of the threefold organization of man presented in The Basis of Individual Physiology (Futura Publ. Co. Inc., N.Y., 1979). The data were collected, according to conventional scientific methods, in anatomy, physiology of rhythms, respiration and sense perception, among others. They clearly demonstrate the existence of a threefold organization which provides the basis for an “Individual Physiology.” This represents a major depar­ ture from the presently held concepts of molecular physiology which cannot include the individual. As a matter of fact, a number of concepts which are generally accepted in scientific medicine had to be turned upside down, e.g., the notion that function is an attribute of the cell was changed with Rohen’s demonstration that function appears before cells have differen­ tiated.

67 Walther Cloos’ book, The Living Earth, is similar in its ap­ proach, inasmuch as the phenomena are worked out. It calls on the reader to take these phenomena into himself and medi­ tate on them. There is, however, no direct exchange or con­ frontation with the conventional sciences, as in the book, Basis of an Individual Physiology. This has to be made by the reader himself or might form the topic of a new book. This somewhat long introduction is necessary in order to provide a proper perspective. Turning to some specifics in the review itself, we find that Brocklebank takes up the problem of the living and dying planet and claims that Cloos writes “as if a living plant or animal were subject to living forces alone and only become subject to physical forces when dead.” I have read the book and must state that I did not find any place in which Cloos expressed himself in that way. It is quite evident from Steiner’s lectures, and from the writings of Cloos, that any organism with a physical body is, at all times, subject to physical forces. A good description of the relation of the “living” and the “dead” from a leading physicist, Heitler, appears in the book, Toward a Man-Centered Medical Science (Futura Publ. Inc., 1977): 1. “Inanimate matter, for which the laws of physics and chemistry possess complete validity. Here matter is ‘dead.’ 2. Matter endowed with vegetable life, in which these laws are integrated within teleological pro­ cesses of growth and development that transcends them.” It is very hard for me to understand how Brocklebank could possibly accuse Cloos of being confused about the nature of an organism and about life processes. The reason may be that Brocklebank adheres strictly to the presently accepted concepts in conventional science as “ultimate truth,” not being aware of how much these concepts are questioned within conventional science itself. I refer to the discussion on “Criteria of a Living System, Origin of Life and the Nature of Living Matter” by Paul Weiss, Rockefeller University in Toward a Man-Centered Medical Science. 68 If I take literally Mr. Brocklebank’s expressions, that “those physical forces that produce the crystals and gemstones also enable us to chew our food and see distant objects,” I have to conclude that he believes in the stimulus-response scheme of vision. This naive, materialistic concept of sense perception is now more and more abandoned by conventional scientists, due to the recognition of the role played by the “active” part of sense perception (Intentionality) as outlined by Hensel (Basis of an Individual Physiology). I must state that, in reading this review, I have been bothered by the intrusion of “typical scientific jargon,” that is to say of an approach to which scientists are often exposed at conventional meetings. It is not uncommon to call a competi­ tor “confused” and end up with the rhetorical phrase, “Surely, the matter is important enough to deserve a better treatment” (to be given by the critic!). However, this review has positive aspects. It points out a very real need. If anthroposophical work is gradually to transform the cultural mainstream toward the end of the cen­ tury, it must be presented in such a way that it bridges the gulf between anthroposophical concepts and the body of essen­ tial observations available to the public. Cloos’ book was never intended to accomplish this. Its pur­ pose is to stimulate anthroposophists to develop new ideas. The recent article by Dr. Weckenmann, “An Attempt to Gain Broader Viewpoints for the Prescription of Spa Treatments” (Beitraege zur Erweiterung der Heilkunst, Nov.-Dec. 1979) is an example of such an influence stemming from the Cloos’ book. It offers a great deal to those who are interested in meditating about the past and present of the planet Earth. We ought to have a spectrum of anthroposophic books on this important subject, treating different aspects. There is room for a book which takes up the problem of the living and dying planet where Cloos left off, and which evaluates the present developments in geological sciences according to their potential for contributing to a more dynamic image of the development of the earth. Maybe that is the contribution we might ask Ralph Brocklebank to consider. I sense that he may already have done something in this direction, because he speaks about 69 his geological “experience.” He should be encouraged to follow this up and perhaps develop his interesting remarks about the role of plate tectonics further. May I suggest to Mr. Brocklebank that a conference of anthroposophists and non-anthroposophists knowledgeable on this subject be organized to review the whole matter. I could wish that the outcome would be a new book. This would be a creative act, and more healing than anything else said in this matter.

Walther Cloos and The Living Earth A Survey

WILHELM PELIKAN

A review of this book has already appeared in the Spring, 1979 (No. 29, p. 84) issue of the Journal for Anthroposophy. Its author compared the findings of Walther Cloos with his own knowledge of geology and thereby provided the readers with the judgements of a professional geologist. However, I believe, there are readers for whom this is not enough. They want to form their own judgements. The follow­ ing is intended for them. It is a non-judgemental, extremely condensed summary of the contents of the book. First, a few words about the author: Walther Cloos was born in south Germany in Darmstadt on June 22, 1900. At the university he studied not only geology, but as a student of pharmacology he took courses in botany, chemistry, mineral­ ogy, biology, and physics. He soon encountered Anthropos­ ophy and Rudolf Steiner. At the Weleda he developed into one of the leading contributors and came into close contact writh a large circle of medical doctors. He made significant contribu­

70 tions towards the development of new medicines in accordance with the directions given by Rudolf Steiner. He became a pioneer in the discovery of new paths in research. In this his teachers were the mountains, mines, meadows of medicinal plants and the world of animals. His knowledge was derived from experiences in these worlds and not through compilations from books. His guide through the inanimate world is the con­ viction of the primacy of the spirit over matter and of life over all that is dead. Walther Cloos is the author of a series of significant books in which he attempted to show how our understanding is expanded when modern problems of the earth sciences, astronomy, evolution and the history of man are brought together with the results of Rudolf Steiner’s research in spiritual science. We now turn to the book itself. It was first published in 1958. Since then there have been several more editions and in 1978 it appeared in English. Its tone is set by a motto from Goethe with a commentary by Rudolf Steiner. In the foreword the objective and point of view are explained with a request that the book be viewed as a venturesome attempt to explain the kingdoms of nature as remnants of life-processes of the evolution of man, with a full knowledge of the extent to which this view is in contradiction to the current academic views. In the introduction, a survey is given of the various rock forma­ tions and the evidence in them of plant and animal life, as well as suggestions that rocks which do not contain fossils could also be the final products of life-processes. The most important ex­ amples known today are described and are supported by good photographs. In this way reference is made to a primeval life whose character must have been completely different from that of today, much more powerful, comprehensive, and uniform. But what was its origin? What kind of forces served to dif­ ferentiate it? Where did these forces originate? The answers to such questions determine whether one is to be led by knowledge derived from spiritual science to comprehend the “stages of life” of the earth or by the current academic views. Walther Cloos has uncompromisingly followed the first of these alternatives in the remaining fifteen chapters of the book.

71 The first chapter begins with a survey of the structures in the world of rocks which he divides into four groups. This is a preparation for the second chapter which contains the nucleus and origin of the entire book. Cloos presents in a few lines (with a photo copy) some notes made by Rudolf Steiner in a notebook near the end of his life. They have the character of hieroglyphics. This book contains the only attempt known to this reviewer to decipher these lines. Cloos approached this task over a period of many years with his extensive knowledge and without any of the prejudices of our times. He approached them the way Champollion treated the stone of Darnietta. The notes are quoted below to acquaint the reader with the situa­ tion. In porphyry there dies the world-plant-animal, then in schist (slate, shale) dies the being of plants, in limestone the being of animals, and in salts there is extinguished the being of man — the other pole is sulfur in which mineral essence is con­ sumed (burned). Mineral being burns in sulfur/ plant being stratifies heat in schist/ plant-animal granulates feeling into porphyry/ animal being preserves form in limestone/ man composes thoughts into salts. Man incorporates into the earthly through sulfurousness/ with the essence of schist he accomodates himself to the earthly/ by wakening feeling in accordance with the essence of porphyry he links himself and forms himself as a human being in lime­ stone/ in order to create the basis for thought in salt deposits. To decipher these notes Cloos had to consult not only all his scientific knowledge and experience, but also the many-sided results of research in spiritual science which are available in Rudolf Steiner’s work, especially Occult Science, An Outline and the lecture cycle on “Mysteriengestaltungen” (GA-232). His findings are given in the remaining chapters of the book. From the book Occult Science he derives the description of the three stages which preceded our universe, especially of the “Old Moon” with its three kingdoms; a mineral-plant, an animal-

72 plant and an animal-man realm which have evolved into the four kingdoms of the fourth stage of creation, our earth stage. This readily explains the numerous relationships and accomo­ dations, the examples of symbiosis, the communities of living beings, and the wonderful mutual support which are exempli­ fied on the earth. It makes possible the comments in the following chapters on “the world of mineral-plants and their characteristics,” about “plant beings and their formation of schist,” about “animal beings and limestone” and to explain how “the human being is extinguished in salt.” This is followed by chapters on “The Secrets of Petroleum,” “Sedimentary Rocks,” “Vulcanism and the Awakening of Fire-forces (Prime­ val Heat as a State [or Condition] of Life).” Rock formations become indications which reveal the life processes that have left their traces in these stony tablets. (The copper chloride crystallization technique developed by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer at the suggestion of Rudolf Steiner shows that the mineral world can reveal such etheric forces. The addition of traces of substances derived from living organisms to solutions of copper chloride results in characteristic forms in the needle-like crystals that form when the salt is precipitated from the solution by evaporation of the solvent [water]. These forms are an expres­ sion of the etheric forces acting in the traces of substances added to the solution.) Not only signs of past life are incorporated into the rocks, but also nuclei for the future. How this is meant is shown in chapter eleven: “The Origin of Rocks and Radioactivity.” The radioactive substances were deliberately incorporated into mineral substances as “ferments” for future disintegration dur­ ing the separation and subsequent hardening processes of the mineral kingdom. Cloos compares this disintegration process to the processes which plant seeds undergo when they mature, dry, harden and disintegrate while their nuclei nourish them­ selves from the seeds, concentrate all the life forces and thereby carry the past into the future. A certain type of radiation is also given off in this process. This is because nature, as stated by Goethe, has invented death in order to have lots of new life.

73 Chapter twelve deals with the unique world of minerals, meteoric stones and metals, which reach the earth even today from certain directions of the cosmos. Their appearance is re­ lated to processes on the sun. These cosmic substances are com­ pared with rock formations on the earth, and ingenious con­ clusions are drawn about the structure of space, the creation of matter and their relationships. On this subject, too, Rudolf Steiner expressed himself (1923) to the effect that “the substance of meteors and falling stars is radiated from the sun as light in reaction to the formation of sunspots.” (Details are given in the book.) The two following chapters deal with metals and their place in the earth. On this subject also, Cloos bridges the gaps which separate modern geology, mineralogy, biology, anatomy and medicine. It was already indicated in chapter twelve that the metals are gifts of the cosmos to the earth. They are already incorporated into the earth at the time of the creation and differentiation of our solar system, participated in its stages of life, and were incorporated into all beings on the earth. The differentiated dynamics of each of the metals con­ nected them with the differentiation involved in the formation of the various organs of the physical bodies of living beings on the earth — in the most noble and complete way in the case of man. Rudolf Steiner termed the etheric body of man “a seven­ fold metal” and showed the relationship of the various metals to the organs and how the metals serve as mediators between the corresponding planetary forces and the organs. The medicinal properties of metals are a result of these relation­ ships. Cloos again starts out by viewing the entire earth as a living organism, in order to trace the formation of the ore bodies of the various metals and their organ-like distribution in the earth. This relationship of metallic elements and earth life is shown by the metallic content of coal deposits. These include copper, nickel, molybdenum, vanadium, tin, bismuth, uranium, thorium and iron. Such is also the case for oil shale deposits. They show this connection between metals and life more clearly on a higher level. Then Cloos ends with man, the being which did not evolve from beings who were at lower

74 stages of development than he, but who divested himself of these beings and the principles which govern them. (Because of this he can become a free being.) The last chapter, “The Evolution of Man and the Process of Rock Formation,” is based on the conviction that the clearest view of the evolution of the earth, although it has left traces in all kingdoms of nature, is given by the evolution of the highest being on earth. Ernst Haeckel stated that in the embryonic development of man, the entire evolution of man is recapit­ ulated. Rudolf Steiner has shown for the first time that the same is true for the earth itself. On the basis of these ideas, Cloos has correlated the stages of man’s embryonic devel­ opment with the processes of the formation of minerals and rocks. From the fertilized ovum, a grapelike cluster of cells, the uniformly “granulated” morula, develops; as cleavage develops, the cells are arranged in layers and formed into a hollow sphere (blastula), and out of these forms there develops the three-fold physical body. During this development, processes involving silica are connected with the outer form, those in­ volving limestone with the formation of the inner structure. Beside these, Cloos places the granular structure of the prime­ val rocks, the layered schists (slate), the cavity forming qualities of porphyry and the limestone excreted by animals. It is regretted that these few sentences are inadequate in report­ ing the rich content of this chapter. The author of the book ends with an expression of his certainty about the path he has taken and the full realization that he has not yet reached his goal. However, it is certain that the true “Universitas,” after which so many strive, lies in the interrelation of the facts of natural science with the results of research in spiritual science. For creation itself is in unum versus, directed to one goal: the human being.

The Living Earth — The Origin of Rocks and Minerals by Walther Cloos was translated by K. Castelliz and B. Saunders-Davies and printed by Lanthorn Press, 1978.

75 TRUTH-WROUGHT-WORDS, Wahrspruchworte and Other Verses by Rudolf Steiner, translated by Arvia MacKaye Ege; Anthroposophic Press, 1979; 209 pp.; cover design by Rudolf Steiner, executed with English lettering by the translator, stamped in gold on blue cloth; $12. It is a greatly demanding world into which a poet steps when attempting to translate Rudolf Steiner’s poetic works. There each syllable, every sound is in its true creative place, every rhythm so constructed that the spiritual substance may best interpenetrate the form and force of the verse. Such a bold venture, which only an artist with a lifetime of work in Anthroposophy might contemplate, Arvia Ege has taken on successfully to bring us a comprehensive collection of beautiful verse. This book fills a real need of those who, without a knowledge of German themselves, still seek access to this very important artistic side of Rudolf Steiner’s work. The volume includes many verses from Wahrspruchworte'. verses for children, verses for special occasions, for health, for the dead and for meditation. Included also is the Norwegian “Dream Song of Olaf Asteson” with Steiner’s remarks on its significance. There are excerpts from Mrs. Ege’s translations of the Mystery Dramas, begun in 1940, and the book closes with prose passages from lectures on Truth, Beauty, Goodness and Love. The German originals of the verses appear on facing pages, offering also to those who know the language well the oppor­ tunity of enjoying a fuller experience of the poetry. And especially in the sensitive, poetic translations of the Mystery Plays may we experience the important role played by the elements of sound and rhythm in bringing human speech into the English language. As poet and student of Eurythmy, the translator has steeped herself for this purpose in the musical and sculptural qualities of the vowels and consonants and their cosmic origin. In her foreword, Mrs. Ege sees translation as a digestive process out of which life forces spring and she describes this active process of transforming in a highly imaginative manner.

76 Goethe saw a translation as either a wilted flower revived in a glass of water to live for a while, or as a picture painted by an artist’s hand to live on canvas forever. There is life and form in these translations; life which has gone through the wilting process, through death and been resurrected into another language by an artist’s hand. We may sense here the years of shaping and reshaping, chiselling and forming which have gone into the capacity to recreate. She tells us that “No translation of his mantric verses can hope to render what flows in the original,” but here is ample evidence that this translation can bring us nearer to an experience of it. Turn, for instance, to page 21: “The light-outsparkling one” for Der lichterfunkelnde; or to such a line as “In the ether ocean’s color shimmer” (p. 43) and “World-emburgeoned Being” for Weltentsprossenes Wesen (p. 37). Is not here also the cosmic ele­ ment creatively at work? Although the content and clarity of thought are paramount, the meaning is kept true to the poetic flow in human speech without violating the language. Almost never is there a depar­ ture from the form and rhythm into which the original is cast. This book can be a source of encouragement and inspira­ tion. Readers may return time and again to its pages to restore strength and find freshness of soul in time of stress. It may also be useful in organizing Festival programs. Who, then, is this that brings us these so beautiful transla­ tions? If we could look back across the years to the summer of 1923, we might see there, faintly through the dusk settling over the Dornach hills, the fleeting figure of a young person, knapsack on back. Past the charred remains of the Goetheanum she moves swiftly down the slope, and as she runs she chants silently in time with her footsteps: “I shall come back. I shall come back.” The young Arvia MacKaye has just come into the presence of Rudolf Steiner, heard him speak, and now she is hurrying to rejoin her Wandervogel group of American students sent to Germany to meet Youth Groups there. She has stolen a day from the schedule and set out alone to see this man about whom she has been told.

77 Even at that early period, Arvia MacKaye was widely recognized as poet, painter, sculptress, and ever since that fateful summer day, those considerable talents have been lov­ ingly dedicated to the tasks left us by Rudolf Steiner. All that stemmed, artistically and karmically, from this first hurried dash to Dornach cannot be listed here, so many they are; but if we shift the attention back to this latest gift from her, we may scan more than half a century of unceasing anthropo­ sophical achievement. Arvia MacKaye is the daughter of poets, the granddaughter of a famous actor-manager, builder of theaters, and the widow of Karl Ege, who was one of the outstanding figures of Waldorf education and anthroposophical endeavor. While still at college, she was commissioned to sculpture the heads of men of note and of American Indians in Taos, New Mexico; and she has pieces in museums, poems in anthologies. From child­ hood she associated with poets such as Robert Frost, Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters, E. A. Robinson, Witter Bynner. Kahlil Gibran gave her drawing lessons and the father of W. B. Yates did her portrait. She met Rabindranath Tagore and also knew two Presidents — Theodore Roosevelt, whose guest she was at Sagemore Hill, and Woodrow Wilson, with whose daughter she acted in the production of her father’s Bird Masque. Later, Mrs. Ege was a founder of both the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City, and, together with her husband and others, of the Rudolf Steiner Farm School in Harlemville, N.Y. For the former, she set up the curriculum for painting and handwork and taught these subjects for many years. And that beautiful Christmas Play acted by continuing generations of Eighth Grade children is from her pen. The list is long and it is not yet complete. With this splen­ did volume of translations off the press, Arvia Ege turned im­ mediately back to a biography of her father, Percy MacKaye — one of America’s distinguished poet-dramatists, friend and collaborator of Albert Steffen — and to prepare still another volume, a book of her own lovely verse. Kari van Oordt and A l Laney

78 CULTURE AND HORTICULTURE, A Philosophy of Gardening by Wolf D. Storl, illustrations by Midge Kennedy; Bio-Dynamic Literature, Wyoming, R.I., 1975; 435 pp.; $9.50. This title appeals to our interest and promises to meet a real need. There are those who garden for commercial purposes and depend upon questionable technology. Others garden for the love of it, as a hobby, enjoying their relation to plants, bees and a plot of land. But gardening can mean more than either of these. It can help one to find a deeper understanding of nature and to develop true human values. It is primarily for this group that Mr. Storl’s book is intended. Well over half of the book is devoted to philosophical and cosmological aspects — both from a modern and an historical viewpoint — which include long passages interspersed with other material in the section that deals with facts and practices. A great abundance of topics is presented, yet a holistic ap­ proach is intended: “the concept of the archetypal garden ... is central to our concern.” The author tells a very readable story about what has led him to write the book. Trained in ethnology, he came to the Camphill Village in Aigues Vertes near Geneva while gather­ ing material for a thesis. In this place for curative education, he found an interesting social setup, devoted and reasonable people, and a bio-dynamic farm and garden which produced results — all this in spite of “a metalanguage, a complicated system of symbols” which sounded strange. Storl stayed for three years instead of one, as originally intended, and after­ ward added more to his experience with bio-dynamics before returning to Rogue Community College in Oregon, where the opus was completed. The repertory of concepts off the academic mainstream which is given in the first part of the book is rather complete. After a glance at history and the concerns of more recent times, Storl introduces two early “pioneers” of organic agriculture: Sir Albert Howard and Rudolf Steiner. Who was Steiner as he is pictured here? “(He) was trained in the natural science tradition, but in order to understand the thought that

79 lies in bio-dynamics, one must realize that he connects also with the insights and terminology of the pre-Enlightenment scientific tradition in such a way that the modern mind can deal with them, permeating them with intellectual clarity.” And a bit further on: “Steiner felt it was his mission to help recom­ bine these ancient wisdoms and poetic insights with the find­ ings of modern science, testing each for their soundness.” Steiner was not a compiler as this sentence suggests. Storl either does not know or has bypassed the fact that although Steiner employed the traditional terminology to some extent, the content which he presents is the result of his independent spiritual perception. These he then presented in such thoughts as are appropriate to the modern scientifically trained mind. This is a point which he has stressed repeatedly. Is it necessary to point this out here? We think it is. To lump together in the same style of presentation anthroposophical thought and tradi­ tional concepts — similar as some of them may sound — takes away from the soul awakening power which spiritual truth has in its modern form. The topics dealt with in the first part of the book can only be listed: the four elements; alchemical concepts; microcosm — macrocosm; imaginative perception; the spheres. There is also a chapter on the transmutation, creation and destruction of matter — certainly one of the “evergreens” for alternative seekers. To be sure, Steiner also speaks about transmutation. What he means by this, however, would require a detailed discussion to explain his use of the term “nitrogen” or “element” in the pertaining passages of his lectures. In Part I of the book are included sections on Goetheanistic science, evolution, heredity, and finally a concise report on Steiner’s lectures on agriculture. What does one gain from this Pantheon of ideas, by a syn­ cretism of age-old and newer concepts? The number of con­ cepts is amazing. To many it may be fascinating to realize how many points of view have existed and do exist, apart from those which we learn in school nowadays. The danger that the quantity and variety of these will encourage mere intellectual “knowing” rather than a search for deepened experience is close

80 at hand. This is not what Storl wants: “This should be by no means a purely intellectual exercise ... bio-dynamics is con­ cerned essentially with consciousness expansion” (pp. 42, 43). Whether he succeeds is another matter. Perhaps the range in his manner of presenting things may best be pictured through examples. When discussing “imaginative perception,” Storl con­ trasts the descriptions of the melting of hoarfrost in two ways. The first, as a contemporary would tell it, we will not repeat here. The second is how an “imaginative explanation” might be given: “Helios, the sun king, is approaching; heralds in pink and blue vestments announce his approach. Gnomes and dwarves, who work with the crystallizing forces of nature, with ores and precious stones in the dark recesses of the universe do not like to see the sun directly And they are certainly not on speaking terms with the dumb sylphs who dance on the sunbeams. So they scramble back into the earth, causing rust­ ling sounds as they snatch up their precious crystals, losing most of them to the undines, the water spirits, who turn the crystals into liquid” (p. 65). This sounds a bit “thought out.” On the other hand there are such welcome passages as this one on page 94: “How does one arrive at the correct Idea that belongs to the phenomena? Not by hypothesizing or postulating something that does not exist (such as metaphysical explanations), but by staying with the phenomenon, seeing it in one light and then in another, observing the coincidental aspects that make up the whole, the gestalt, etc.” One issue, alas, cannot be avoided. On page 190, an old misprint in the first edition of the Agricultural Course (on the oc­ currence of silicon in the earth) is preserved. On page 195, the dandelion preparation is listed as No. 504 and is said to help regulate potassium processes. The correct number is then men­ tioned on page 347 as 506. To mention only potassium in this context and not silica as well is misleading. On page 42, something is said about agricultural conferences held by Rudolf Steiner at the Goetheanum. These did not occur. On pages 345 and 346, Storl says that of both preparations 500 and 501, equal quantities, “a pinch the size of a pea” are used. This is not so. On page 161, the “edaphon” is used as a name for the

81 A-horizon in a soil profile. Edaphon means something else. And the B-horizon is an horizon of accumulation rather than eluviation. There are a large number of similar errors. A sec­ ond edition would need careful checking on the text from cover to cover. The second part of the book includes chapters on soils, nutrients, cosmic and atmospheric influences and factors, com­ posts and liquid manures, companion plants, crop rotations, weeds and pests, preparations, the garden calendar, nutrition and a few appendices. Storl does not mean to assemble “how to do it instructions” which can be found elsewhere, including bio-dynamic and organic literature. His objective is the under­ standing of these environmental conditions of growth and how man can improve them. To this end, contemporary knowledge, but also history, traditional lore, folklore, etc. are included in the presentation. The chapter on cosmic influences concludes with sound advice: “It may be said that planning at the right phase and sign (this refers to moon influences) can be one of the many factors that lead to successful gardening. The good soil must be there, for it is the soil with its teeming life that is mainly receptive to these influences. If all the other factors are handled well — the crop rotation, companion planting, good soil husbandry, composting and good watering — then plant­ ing by the signs will be an extra plus. By itself, astronomical gardening does not guarantee a great garden; by the same token, if a good planting day has to be missed because of weather or of other commitments, it will not be, in itself, catastrophic.” Modern horticulture based on contemporary science pro­ duces impressive quantitative results. But it has become destructive of quality and of the life and other resources of the earth. A change for the better must be based on a true science of living nature which embraces the earthly and the cosmic en­ vironment as well as upon a motivation that springs from man’s head, heart and will. W. Storl’s book is intended to con­ tribute to this wider dimension. It has its merits and its prob­ lems. We expect that it will be widely read — not primarily in academic circles, but rather by the many who are looking for

82 alternatives in organic and bio-dynamic gardening. However, they will need to develop judgement. The search for the spirit needs patience and concentration. Then intellectual knowledge can be followed by independent experience. However modest the first steps towards true experience may appear, it will be these steps which count. Herbert H. Koepf

A NEW IMAGE OF MAN IN MEDICINE, Volume III: Individuation Process and Biographical Aspects of Disease; Edited by Karl E. Schaefer, Uwe Stave, and Wolfgang Blankenburg; Futura Publishing Company, 1979; 233 pp.; $17.50. This is the third and final volume in a series of excellent, well-written, thought-provoking scientific examinations of mod­ ern medicine, health care, and related human services. Most of the articles in this book are based on presentations made at a scientific conference entitled “Man-Centered Physiolog­ ical Science and Medicine” held at Herdecke, Germany from September 24-28, 1973. The three editors and ten contributors are American and European professionals trained in either the medical, psychological, or behavioral sciences. Each recognizes that contemporary medicine, and related health care and human services professions have not been able to provide ade­ quate solutions to the major problems of modern society. Each presents considerable compelling evidence in support of our transforming our ways of thinking about and understanding the human being, our health needs, and our social problems. A pioneering effort is made to present a systematic examina­ tion of the interrelationship of the unique physiology of each individual with the educational, disease, familial, and other social factors of the individual’s environment. Thus, the attempt is made in providing human services to introduce a “man-centered,” “problem-centered,” or “patient-centered” humanistic approach in contrast to the conventional one which has become increasingly “method-centered.” The volume is divided into three parts. In Part I, the

83 physiological basis of the individuation process is described, and compelling evidence is offered in support of physiological- maturational criteria for school entrance. Considerable infor­ mation is provided stressing the importance of the typically human, prolonged juvenile phase; and although there are cur­ rent worldwide trends towards shortening this process, exciting data is presented which indicates that the educational approach in Waldorf schools may have an impact on the physiological development of children which helps to reverse this acceleration trend. In Part II, Lievegoed discusses the phases of the human life cycle from the point of view of an image of man that in­ cludes body, soul, and spirit, emphasizing that “prior to adulthood man develops mainly in terms of biological- psychological influences; then the older he grows the more individual spiritual-moral development comes to the fore” (p. 110). Such an approach illuminates an inner and outer human biography and indicates how crises in either human arena can contribute to disease. Finally, Part III of the book discusses historical changes in concepts of the nature of disease and man, and reviews current biographical, familial, and social aspects of cancer, cardiovascular, and mental disease. In offer­ ing a more “man-centered” psychiatry, Blankenburg encourages the development of a new method of reviewing case histories which considers “the relative significance of mental illnesses or handicaps in the individual’s life history without immediately reducing them to genetic, environmental, and psychodynamic factors” (p. 215). In conclusion, although many reductionistic scientists and health care professionals could take considerable issue with the entire book, this volume, the entire series, the editors, and the contributors are to be commended for kindling a guiding light illuminating our way toward a more enlivened, human, scien­ tific, artistic approach to the future solution of major societal problems. This volume and the entire series are highly recom­ mended reading for both professionals and laypersons. Any truly open-minded, free thinker will not want to miss the op­ portunity to come into contact with these stimulating, thought- provoking, compelling ideas. K. David Schultz

84 THREE BOOKS OF POEMS The following books, all published during the past year, are the work of anthroposophists. They are each rooted in and flavored by very different soils, but all reach up towards the same sun of spirit knowledge. This is a challenging time in which to write poetry. To what extent can the poet in each of us resurrect language and imagination in the sense of a Novalis or an Albert Steffen? This surely means that one must strike even deeper roots into both the soil provided by the past and the spirit sources of poetry. The brief accounts below do not attempt to be reviews, but rather to give glimpses, impres­ sions of the books, so that the reader may become aware of their character and will hopefully be stimulated to read the poems themselves. For if, when reading, you are taken up into the original creative process itself, isn’t this the true, healing, refreshing meaning and use of poetry? C.B. [ChristyBarnes]

SELECTED POEMS by Rosamond Reinhardt; Outpost Publications, 1979; 20 pp.; $1.75. Available from 175 East 79 Street, New York 10021, and 7 Mill Drive, Henfield W. Sussex BN5 9RY, England, c/o Swire. Rosamond Reinhardt has steeped herself since her childhood in Shakespeare and the English poets, and so she has an unerring sense of finely-wrought language, phrasing and classic imagina­ tion. She is already known to many as the translator of The Three Candles of Little Veronica by Manfred Kyber, and has also put thirty-three of his poems into English in Genius Astri. Her own poems have appeared in various periodicals throughout the years. Although she is a master of the sonnet and other classic forms, a large part of this book is written in free verse. The words are beautifully chosen, and she has a keen ear for assonance, tone-color and the subtleties of rhythm and melodic line — the balance of too little and too much. In “Seascape” and “White Lilac” there is both the freshness and the nostalgia

85 which so often springs from the Greek tradition. In “Progress” she tells how “The great gods have gone down/ Into the cavern of un­ numbered days.. . . What shall we do for beauty with Aphrodite dead? ... Where shall we look for wonder, now faith is overthrown? ... Where shall we find the truth now, when everything is proved? Beginning with “Human,” both style and content become more contemporary: He is a man, borne here on rushing wings/ From unremembered spheres.. . . Let be:/ He is a human being. So are we. Now she takes us to the Nazi gas chambers and to heart- surgery in South Africa; then swings us into the contrasting at­ mosphere of two love poems, lyric not only in language but in their awareness of the power that overbridges separation. Two strong sonnets set a new and broader theme in which the dark stain of history spreads and deepens, and she asks, What vast pre­ dawn may cast a shade so deep.. . . What unimagined light? The question is answered in the next two poems which speak of the Christ, poems that evidence the knowledge of spiritual science. The book concludes with a charming sonnet written in the language and spirit of Shakespeare himself. There is a beautiful sense of form throughout the entire volume, not only in language, poetic music and imagination but in the inner se­ quence, the architecture of a life that may be found there.

CALVIN’S JUNGLE AND OTHER POEMS by Frank Newell; Henry Goulden Ltd., East Grinstead, Sussex, England, 1979; 38 pp.; £1.50. This is a small, handy-shaped volume consisting of short poems written in various parts of the world: Switzerland, New York, Egypt, Denmark, Germany and in many corners of England. The author, an honors graduate of the London School of Economics, has worked as a teacher and journalist in the Middle East, Scandinavia and Switzerland. The Congres­ sional Record published his account of a visit to the United States. During the war, he served in the Intelligence Corps in North Africa, Italy and Germany. For the last sixteen years he has been Foreign Editor of The London Times Educational Supple­ ment. 86 Four of the poems are headed “From the Chinese,” and a number of others have something of the same character: short, simple words, put to paper with swift strokes — terse, direct impressions, in which much of the substance is conveyed through what is unspoken — in the spaces between the words. The effect comes largely through simplicity and occasional jewels of color as in “Autumn”: Gold birds from the north/ Winging to warmth./ Apples yellow falling/ Leaves reddening/ White mists ris­ ing/ In mornings cool. You find this lyric quality again in “Lon­ don Evening,” “A Rose,” and others. In further verses, automation, or the banal and sordid elements of modern life are set into significant perspective: .. . parasitic clocks . . . lifeless air/ On which floats the cry/ O f a sun- starved child. There is a wonderful awareness of light in such poems as “The Wind”: Stars are more than stars,/ They are the shin­ ing/ Eyes of gods. There are poems after Rilke and Valery, love poems, and poems that breathe an earthy contentment. They are all crowned by the next but last one, “The Garment (after Christian Morgenstern).” Here the poet strikes powerfully into new depths and heights, into the atmosphere of the future: Then naked go forward,/ In only light enclosed,/ To new places and times,/ To fresh burdens of pain./ Until through myriad changes/ A god so strong emerges/ That to the spheres’ music you/ Your own creation sing. This is a strong poem — some of that poetry, perhaps, that Novalis foreshadows — for it awakens us to the poets in ourselves.

INSTEAD OF EYES by Caryl Johnston; Hawthorne Press, 1979; 48 pp.; $4.45 with postage; Box 202, South Egremont, Mass. 01258. Caryl Johnston is a native of Georgia who has chosen to live in New England and is presently working at the Great Barr­ ington Rudolf Steiner School in Massachusetts. She has taken her title from a verse in the Bible which appears on the fly leaf: “Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be 87 to us instead of eyes.” The content of the book, up until Part III, is drawn from the Old Testament. Six fairly long poems, dealing with Eden, Cain, the Tower of Babel, Abraham and Isaac, are followed by “Noah’s Vineyard,” a drama in verse, and “Marriage in Cana.” On the title page she states that “Grateful acknowledgement is given to the works of Emil Bock.” The first and continued impression is one of almost epic strength and a great wealth of imagery. The rhythms are full and urgent, especially in the ballad-like opening lines and in “Bringer of Stillness”: I did not sleep, I could not wake;/ no dream had I save what I spake/ when daylight broke the clouds behind/ and I rose with stillness in my mind. At times there appear to be ir­ regularities which, however, actually add to the vigor of the ef­ fect. Throughout, assonance and occasional rhyme seem to well up out of the words themselves. The sounds create palpable impressions: Clouds rumbled and the rain . . . our tongues thickened like sludge ... the sea/ whose wrinkled sleeves whorled the shells/ and made them murmur dreams. Soul and physical images are often mingled, as Laughing, they lit the company to a blaze/ from eyelids that sparkled out with power.. . . The molten enthusiasms poured from our skins, in a poem which ends, angels dived, dividing our voices. “Noah’s Vineyard” is a powerful drama with modern implica­ tions, a drama of the consequences of precocious desire for in­ ner experience. Ham is told that It is dangerous . . . to tear away the veil that hides/ the stars by day, but he wants to hear what Adam heard. Given this gift, he calls out, 0 free at last, unloosed, unreined,/ unlimited and dizzy in my heights!/ I freed an eagle where my head was hid:/ . . . M y breast is boundless; in the cavern/ a lion crouches . . . my loins are clanging like the sea/ where the bull is roar­ ing, stamping! — Like a mighty tree whose roots/ . . . boom betrayal to the trunk, he falls. I have seen, says Enoch’s Daughter, the being of a man/ fly apart, by head and heart and heel,/ three spokes that hold the turning wheel. After this disaster of impatience, Noah returns to the mountain whose every .. . lineament spells patience, the patience which ripens and harvests fruit, knowledge and growth of spirit in its rightful time. These are arresting poems. RAOUL RATNOWSKY: Sculpture, Models, Sketches, Aphorisms; 71 photographs, cloth; Urachhaus Verlag, Stutt­ gart; 168 pp.; Price DM 62 ($40.00). Form needs to become alive: Fire — the fire of one’s own soul. And if this fire is not granted as an ever waxing flame, no work of art, no living form can come into existence. Fire — Fire — Fire! The path of free non-objective art need not be the path to abstraction, the path through an ice-cold realm, but that through “Christ in me.” . . . The form of the future, the absolute form is itself Fire. In such aphorisms which form part of the book, Raoul Rat- nowsky, lies a key to a deeper understanding of this modern sculptor’s work. The excellent photographic reproductions in this attractive book make possible a wider recognition of the integrity, spiritual insight, and earnest human striving of an anthroposophist who is dedicated to expressing experience of a higher reality through knowledge enhanced by a lifetime’s con­ cern with the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. Born in Switzerland, in 1912, of Russian heritage, Rat- nowsky’s talent for sculpture revealed itself at an early age, and studies and work followed. In 1952, he took over the leader­ ship of the Section for Sculpture at the Goetheanum in Dor­ nach, a position he still holds. At a time when the sculptor Joseph Beuys is creating an in­ ternational sensation in the world of art — with his construc­ tions made from mounds of animal fat, felt, iron, blood and “a $94,000 beer cooler,” work which seems to result from dehumanizing neurosis or sheer cynicism, made in the present cult of ugliness in art — Ratnowsky’s stature in contrast becomes more evident. Beuys, incidentally, has pretensions to Anthroposophy, but as the saying goes: “By their deeds, ye shall know them”; one only can conclude that he is intentional­ ly or unintentionally misconstruing its tenets in a destructive manner. Raoul Ratnowsky on .the other hand, in contrast to many contemporary sculptors, is not creating intellectual abstractions, playing games, making form arrangements out of any and all materials, pouring plaster casts to create horrifying realistic

89 scenes, using so-called “ready-mades” — but as a conscious artist, he is striving to bring forth his creations through the ex­ perience of meditative discipline, the encounter of self and cosmos which is the basis of all art of value. The light and force which stream in from the periphery meet and mingle with the light which issues from the human soul. This tends to produce a strength which expresses truthfully the experience of the evolving free individuality through art. Thus he is in the ranks of the true avant-garde, not in those of the heirs of Sur­ realism, Dada and their weak and often debased offshoots: death movements when used in the present day. The processes of transformation and metamorphosis are his deep concerns, as the work springs and evolves from the seed of meditation and comes to definition in plasticity. Implicit in his works is an intensity born of understanding the tension which exists between mass and form, between gravity — stassis — and resurrection. Ratnowsky’s sculptures are not subjective­ ly emotional creations, narrative heroic scenes, symbol or allegory, but individualized realizations of spiritual experiences. Yet, it would be incorrect to believe that his works are in­ humanly and abstractly objective, for as he himself states, works of art must have their origin in the events of life and personal destiny. His artistry transforms his vision to univer­ sality and a new reality. The sculptor’s works in wood, stone, bronze, often capture the gesture and essence of fire, of flight, of transubstantiation — fixed in a form, yet not static, but which somehow tran­ scend the limitations of the material and move into a poignant silence. This victory over substance seems achieved by his grasp of inner rhythms, not peripheral forms. Laymen as well as students of all arts will find this book of quality, with its perceptive introductory commentaries by Dr. Johannes Anderegg and Inge Thoen and the aphorisms from the sculptor’s journals, an inspiring guidepost. The volume is a worthy summing up of the lifework of Raoul Ratnowsky at this mature period of his achievement in sculpture. Daisy Aldan A page from the book appears on the back cover of this issue.

90 CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE ARTHUR G. ZAJONC — Assistant Professor of Physics, Amherst Col­ lege, Mass. • RUDOLF STEINER — (1861-1925) Inaugurator of Anthroposophy and the School for Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. • T. S. Eliot — (1888-1965) Major English poet. • LONA TRUDING — Pianist, lecturer, writer; living in England. • NOVALIS — Pseudonym of Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772-1801), notable German poet of the early Romantic school. • ALBERT STEF­ FEN — (1884-1963) Swiss poet, dramatist, novelist; President of the Anthroposophical Society, 1925-63; editor of Das Goetheanum from its incep­ tion to his death. • JOHANN LAVATER — (1741-1801) Swiss author and theologian. • KONRAD OBERHUBER — Curator of Drawings, Professor of Fine Arts, Harvard University. • FREDERICK AMRINE — Assistant Professor of German Language and Literature, Harvard University. • KARL ERNST SCHAEFER M.D. — Former Director, Physiolog. Institute, University of Heidelberg, Germany; Director of Biomedical Sciences, Naval Medical Research Lab., Groton, Conn; Visiting Professor of Environmental Physiology and Medicine, Brown University. • WILHELM PELIKAN — Botanist and pharmacognocist; author of Heilpflanzenkunde, (Medical Botany), Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, D or­ nach, Switzerland. • KARI VAN OORDT — Co-founder of the Eurythmy School, Spring Valley, N.Y.; former teacher of eurythmy, Rudolf Steiner School, New York City. • AL LANEY — Free-lance journalist; former sports writer for the New York Herald Tribune; author of Paris-Herald: the Incredible Newspaper and Covering the Courts. • HERBERT H. KOEPF — Ph.D. Agronomy, Hohenheim University, Germany, Director of Agricul­ tural Branch of the Anthroposophical Society, Switzerland; Professor of Bio- Dynamics, Emerson College, England; author of Bio-Dynamic Agriculture, Anthroposophic Press, N.Y. • K. DAVID SCHULTZ, Ph.D. — Staff Psychologist, Waterbury Hospital Health Center, Waterbury, Conn. and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology, Yale University School of Medicine. • DAISY ALDAN — Poet, translator, teacher, editor. Her latest books are Between High Tides, poetry, Folder Editions, N.Y.C.; and A Golden Story, a novel, published with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Errata: In Journal #30, due to the printer’s errors, the inside front and back covers were exchanged; the name Reginald Raab, translator of Towards a Michael Culture by Albert Steffen, was omitted from page 15; and on page 25, line 8, the word pretty should, of course, read petty.

91 EDUCATING AS AN ART The Rudolf Steiner Method Edited by Ekkehard Piening and Nick Lyons Twenty-five essays by teachers of long experience, beautifully conceived, executed and illustrated. The most comprehensive book of its kind yet available, it provides rich and readable, first-hand material about and out of the classroom in Kindergarten, Elementary and High School, as well as on most of the arts, on discipline, imagination and youth. The Rudolf Steiner School Press 15 East 79th Street, New York, N.Y. 10021 $7.95

All orders accompanied by check will be sent postpaid, otherwise postage will be billed.

CALVIN’S JUNGLE and OTHER POEMS by Frank Newell Lyrics written in various places from New York to Cairo, spanning the two middle quarters of the 20th century. £1.50 Paperback Available from St. George Book Service HENRY GOULDEN BOOKS 22 High Street, East Grinstead, Sussex RH19 3AW.

STAFF: Christy Barnes, Editor, Jeanne Bergen, Sandra Sherman, Editorial Assistants; Janet Hutchinson. Subscriptions. Published twice a year by the Anthroposophical Society in America. Sub­ scriptions $6.00 per year. Back numbers may be obtained upon request from Journal for Anthroposophy, 211 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Title Design by Walter Roggenkamp.

92 THE ARTS AND THEIR MISSION by Rudolf Steiner

A new edition of eight lectures given in Dornach, Switzerland and Oslo, Norway, in 1923. Expertly trans­ lated from the original German by Lisa D. Monges and Virginia Moore, Ph.D.

“Clearly Rudolf Steiner belongs to an age-old stream flowing sometimes aboveground, sometimes below, but never, since the beginning, dry. “In another sense he is unique; and these eight lec­ tures touching on architecture, sculpture, painting, cos­ tuming, music, drama, poetry, and the new art of eu­ rythmy, increase his extraordinary contribution to an ancient discussion. His frame of reference is nothing less than cosmic. Or say ‘the immanent space in the heart.’ ” —from the introduction by Dr. Virginia Moore 128 pages, Clothbound, $7.95 Paperbound, $4.95 THE ANTHROPOSOPHIC PRESS 258 Hungry Hollow Road Spring Valley, New York 10977

93 EmersonCollege A centre for adult education, training and research based on the work of Rudolf Steiner.

Foundation Year: A year of orientation and exploration in Anthroposophy. Education Course: A one-year training course in Waldorf Education. Agriculture Course: Introduction to fundamentals of bio-dynamic agriculture and gardening. Centre for Social One-term and one-year courses of training in Development: social questions and practice. Arts: Opportunities for further work in sculpture, painting or eurythmy, following the Foundation Year or equivalent. For further information, please write to: The Secretary, Emerson College, Forest Row, Sussex RH18 5JX, England.

WALDORF INSTITUTE OF MERCY COLLEGE 23399 Evergreen Road • Southfield, Michigan 48075

Offers five full-time programs for graduates and undergraduates

ORIENTATION YEAR (ANTHROPOSOPHICAL STUDIES) TEACHER TRAINING EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION SPECIAL (CURATIVE) EDUCATION BIO-DYNAMIC GARDENING Fully Accredited Directors: Werner Glas, Hans Gebert, Ralph Marinelli Telephones: Office - 313-352-8990; Student Residence - 313-352-4061/63

94 The ‘GOETHE-FARBENSTUDIO', Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, has made available a do-it-yourself kit (No. 1), mainly for the ‘subjective’ experiments of Goethe’s Color Theory. The contents include: 3 Plexiglass Prisms, 16 Plates, 1 Turbid Panel, 1 Lens, 6 Transparent Colored Films and Instructions (in English) on how to use the materials. Orders should be sent to: Heinrich O. Proskauer, Amselweg 9, CH - 4143 Dornach, Switzerland (Cost: Sfr 30 .— plus postage of Sfr 5 .— airmail, or Sfr 3.20 surface mail).

AWAKENING IMAGINATION AN INTENSIVE SEVEN-DAY PAINTING COURSE Especially for Waldorf Art Specialists and Waldorf Class Teachers — Other Applicants Welcome When we enter into the creative world of color, we begin to realize what the significance of Art can be: Art is a world process in which we can become intimately involved, and which can lead us beyond our own nature into the sphere of creation. For this we must awaken Imagination and Fantasy within ourselves. In this course we will concentrate on color and eurythmy which can lead to the awakening of these faculties. The painting will be given by DONALD HALL at his studio in Harlemville, together with eurythmy by OWEN DE RIS. July 4 to July 10, 1980 Mornings: Eurythmy for 1 hour; followed by Painting for 2 hours. Afternoons: Eurythmy for 1 hour; followed by Drawing for 1-1/2 hours. For further information please contact Donald Hall, R.D. 2, Harlemville, Ghent, New York 12075.

95 Vorankuendigungen 1. Halbjahr 1980 Romanisches Der Mensch und sein Neuauflagen: Katalonien Tempel Mutter Erde - Korn und Brot Kultur - Kunst - Geistesgeschichte Band II: Griechenland Von Elisabeth Klein Von Diether Rudloff Von Frank Teichmann 2. Auflage, 56 S., 28 farbige Bil­ Ca. 200 Seiten, ca. 120 teils farbige Ca. 240 Seiten, ca. 80 teils farbige der, Pappband DM 24,- (lieferbar) Abb., zahlr. Zeichn. u. Skizzen, Abb., Ln. ca. DM 54,- (ca. Mai) Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit Ln. ca. DM 64,- (ca. Mai) Nach dem Aegypten-Band erscheint Die Gralsgeschichte. Von Rudolf Mit diesem spannend geschriebe­ jetzt der zweite Teil von Frank Meyer. 3. Aufl. (frueherer Titel: nen und reich bebilderten Werk Teichmanns kunstgeschichtlich­ »Der Gral und seine Hueter«), 384 wird dem interessierten Leser erst­ mythologischer Untersuchung ueber 5., Ln. DM 34,- (Ende Maerz) mals ein fundierter Zugang zu ei­ die Tempelbauten der Menschheit ner fast vergessenen und bisher un­ als Spiegel ihrer Bewußtseinsent­ Meine Lebensbegegnung terschaetzten Kunstlandschaft eroeff­ wicklung. Griechenland bildet da­ mit Rudolf Steiner net. Insbesondere die katalonische bei einen besonderen Schwerpunkt Von Friedrich Ritteimeyer Romanik erweist sich dabei als ein in dieser auf drei Baende angelegten 9., um mehrere Dokumente und ganz bedeutendes Kapitel europae­ Arbeit. Beitraege erw. Auflage, ca. 250 S., ischer Kunst. »Wissenschaft und Literatur« ueber kart. ca. DM 24,- (April) den Aegypten-Band: »Eine bessere Meditation Wegweisung ist gegenwaertig am Zwoelf Briefe ueber Selbsterziehung Buchmarkt kaum zu haben.« Von Friedrich Rittelmeyer Mystik im Barock 10. Auflage, 304 Seiten, kart. ca. Das Weltbild der Teinacher DM 26 - (Ende Maerz) Lehrtafel Vom Wesen der Trinitaet Von Ernst Harnischfeger Die drei Botschafter Ca. 180 Seiten, 69 teils farbige Ein Maerchen von Peter Marginter Von Alfred Schuetze. 2. Aufl., ca. Abb., Ln. ca. DM 42,- (ca. April) mit Bildern von Roswitha Quad- 200 S., kart. ca. DM 18,- (April) Die »kabbalistische Lehrtafel der flieg Das Ich in der Verantwortung Prinzessin Antonia« in Bad Tein- 24 Seiten, durchgehend farbig illu­ fuer die Welt ach ist ein einsamer Hoehepunkt striert, Pappband DM 24,- (liefer­ Zehn Lebensbilder einer Jahrhun­ esoterischer Kunst in der Barock­ bar) dertwende. V. Barbara Nordmeyer zeit mit reichem kabbalistischem, Dies ist ein Maerchen fuer jedes Al­ 2. Auflage, 200 Seiten, 10 Abb., gnostischem und rosenkreuzeri­ ter, eine Parabel vom Streben des kart. DM 16,- (lieferbar) schem Hintergrund. Das bedeuten­ Menschen, voller Tiefsinn und Profile des Jahrhunderts de Gemaelde wird hier erstmals um­ Nachdenkenswertem, aber auch fassend dokumentiert und inter­ voller Humor und Bilderreichtum Durchblicke. Von Barbara Nord­ pretiert, nachdem seine Bedeutung fuer Kinderherzen. Roswitha Quad- meyer. 3. Auflage, 116 Seiten, 10 nach den Betrachtungen Fr. Chr. flieg hat aus dieser literarischen Abb., kart. DM 14,- (lieferbar) Oetingers voellig vergessen und erst auch eine bibliophile Kostbarkeit Zeitgewissen in den letzten Jahren von einigen geschaffen, ein ungewoehnliches Biographische Skizzen. V. Barbara Kunstwissenschaftlern neu erkannt Geschenk fuer Phantasiebegabte je­ Nordmeyer. 8. Aufl., 192 S., 11 wurde. den Alters. Abb., kart. DM 16,- (lieferbar)

Urachhaus

All titles in German. For catalogue, please address: Verlag Urachhaus, Postf. 131053, 7000 Stuttgart 1, West Germany.

96 Rudolf Steiner Farm School SUMMER PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN

Summer at Hawthorne Valley Farm — A creative summer experience for children ages 9-12: farm chores, swimming, hiking, artistic work at Hawthorne Valley Farm. Four weeks, starting June 28th. The Agawamuck Wilderness Adventure — A challenging six weeks of learning to live in harmony with nature. Back packing, canoeing, rock climbing in the Berkshires, Catskills and Adirondacks. Forest ecology, swimming, music. Age 13 and older. Six weeks, starting June 28th.

Write or phone: R udolf Steiner Farm School, RD 2, H arle m ville, G hent, New York 12075 Tel. (518) 672-7120 weekdays until 4 o'clock

Weleda Baby Products For skin not yet hardened to the outer world

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Baby Oil supports natural oil shield of baby’s skin, Baby Cream is blended provides gentle warmth. with beeswax. A moisture Please send for “Warmth and Your Baby” barrier, it soothes, helps Write Weleda, 841 So. Main, Spring Valley, N.Y. 10977 prevent chapping. [Image: photographofsculptureby]Raoul Ratnowsky