NUMBERJOURNAL FORANTHROPOSOPHY 33 SPRING 1981 ISSN 0021-8235 Anthroposophy itself must become like an inner festival of Resurrection for the human soul. It must bring an Easter mood into man’s world-conception. Rudolf Steiner From Festivals and the Mysteries, April 19, 1924 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. Vignette by Van James. Journal for Anthroposophy, Number 33, Spring, 1981 © 1981, The Anthroposophical Society in America, Inc. CONTENTS EASTER THEMES To Awaken through Courage Friedrich Hiebel 3 Forgiving Georg K uehlewind 5 Novalis and the Easter Thought Christopher Bamford 15 Fragments Novalis 23, 68 The Self-Chastisement of a Derelict, a short-story Albert Steffen 25 The Mysteries of the Black Sea Lona Trueding 34 The Guardian Spirit of Research into Destiny Friedrich Hiebel 39 MUSIC The Life and Work of Valborg Werbeck-Svaerdstroem J uergen Schriefer 43 Thoughts on the Work of Valborg Werbeck-Svaerdstro e m J u e r g e n Schriefer 51 Thoughts on Singing, Aphorisms Rudolf Steiner, Karl Gebert 58 Gracia Ricardo Hilda Deighton, Gina Palermo 59 The Singer as Instrument Theodora Richards 69 POEMS Lines on Easter John Scotus Eriugena 13 Persephone; Here is a Wonder William Ward 24, 92 Easter, The Song of Awakening Man Arvia Ege 32 The Very Heart of Heaven Rex Raab 38 Argolis, St. Johnstide Michael Ronall 74 Love George Herbert 79 To Golden Butterflies David Adams 80 ILLUSTRATIONS Spring Thunder Shower, black and white Van James 2 Gracia Ricardo, a photograph 60 Gracia Ricardo, Lilia Harris, Mathilde Scholl, Marie Steiner, photographs 63 REVIEWS The Three Years, Emil Bock Susan E. Lowndes 72 Lost Christianity, Jacob Needleman Alan Howard 75 Fairy Worlds and Workers, Marjorie Spock Ruth Pusch 81 Jinchi-Gakku Kenkyu, Anthroposophical Research, Yoshiharu Kasai Maria St. Goar 83 Toward Wholeness: Rudolf Steiner Education in America, M. C. Richards Amos Franceschelli 87 Contributors to this Issue 92 1 [Image: slanted-linedrawing]Spring T hunder Shower Van James To Awaken through Courage* FRIEDRICH HIEBEL Again and again Rudolf Steiner calls upon and awakens within us the soul element of courage, and most particularly did he do this at the laying of the foundation of our work at Christmas, 1923. By calling our attention to courage with special emphasis, important perspectives in the soul-life of present day humanity are revealed. This involves an experience of the human soul which usually lies deep within his subconsciousness, and through the power of conscience is connected with the Guardian of the Threshold, who stands before the entrance to the spiritual world, turning back, for their own good, those who are not sufficiently prepared. Today, Rudolf Steiner then told us further, man develops con­ cepts and ideas which, in accordance with the nature of our times, he chooses to use only for the physical sense-perceptible world. These apply to everything weighable, measurable and so forth, but not to the nature of the gods. Such thoughts are not worthy of the gods; they are of no value to spiritual beings. Therefore thunder resounds to the souls who have succumbed entirely to the materialism of these ideas that are spiritually unworthy and valueless. It thunders to them, when in sleep they seek to pass the Guardian of the Threshold: “Do not cross the threshold! You have misused your ideas in the sense-world. You must remain with them on this side, for you cannot take them with you into the divine world without being paralysed in your souls. ” *Reprinted with kind permission from Das Goetheanum. 3 Again and again Rudolf Steiner speaks of this process of paralysis, which proceeds in our time from the soul-realm, if we seek to experience our own spiritual nature without purify­ ing our soul capacities and permeating our thought activity with spiritual reality, a process which can lead to the destruc­ tion of the bodily basis of our nervous system. Those, however, who do seek to spiritualize their thought processes through a striving for knowledge of the spirit, for a true spiritual science, these are protected from the dangers of such paralysis if they are able to pass the test of soul courage. The voice of courage, urging man to soul-wakefulness, sounds in exhortation as the antidote to the misuse of thought content for purely physical import which leads to paralysis. And when we look about us today, such paralysis and its results in illness, war, terrorism, conflict and world chaos is becoming present in the life of humanity as never before. Referring to these forces of destruction which permeate our whole modern civilization, and the means for overcoming them, Rudolf Steiner said at that New Year time: The image of modern man, with his decadent civilization and decadent schools, asleep before the Guardian of the Threshold, is actually not to be found among the circles of those who earnestly and full-heartedly strive for knowledge of the spirit. Among these there is present only one exhortation — the exhortation which says: “In addition to the perception which you already have of the voice from the spirit lands, you must develop the strong courage to be true to and to stand boldly for this voice — for you have begun to awake!. ” The voice calling on man to awaken through courage, this is the other pole, the other symphonic variation in the life of present day civilization. And in closing he said: This should be for us a festival of con­ secrated effort, not only for the beginning of a new year, but for the beginning of a Cosmic Turning-Point — a cosmic new beginning. In this sense, then, as an Easter event, let us therefore look now with courageous gaze and expectation into the future. Translation by Arvia Ege 4 Forgiving GEORG KUEHLEWIND Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Our trespass — our debt — is made up of everything that, ac­ cording to our capabilities, talents and faculties, we could possibly give to others, but which we withhold from them, because, through our own natures, we are directed, compelled to this withholding. This gesture of holding back ranges from not-doing — omission — to taking — unjustly; ranges from the passive form of indifference to the aggressive form of hostility and hatred. This “holding back” belongs to the zone of life: as antithesis to that which knows no “closing off": no allegiance to race or nation, to temperament, habits or to any kind of past — and in it there is no mirrored thinking. A living form must be closed in order to become the bearer of consciousness. On the other hand, understanding itself — life — should, in man, be wholly open: like the plant, like the primal image of the plant. This means: to experience thinking as life. Living thinking, or momentary intuition — intuitive knowledge — enables me to recognize what I have caused in another human being, and how I have done it, especially when he has turned against me. In this sense, it is an explicit sign­ post for my self-knowledge, which I should take to myself with gratitude. Through this I come to understand why it was necessary for him to rise up against me, why it was necessary to bring him into this situation. All the responsibility rests ob­ jectively with me. Recognizing “the reasons” only helps me to 5 understand where my own weakness lay. This weakness — how did it affect the other, so that he was forced to turn against me? I do not need to “forgive” him; there is nothing there to forgive. Just to understand this and to ask him for forgiveness: that is how I forgive him; that is how my own trespass is forgiven. The meaning of the plea is: “Give us the self-knowledge necessary to discover our trespass, our guilt against the other; otherwise it will continue on until the time when it is discovered.” When we really behold the guilt in ourselves, it is forgiven; we no longer have any guilt-feeling. It is not true that the other has any debt to us. So long as we assume that, we are trapped in our own guilt. So is our wrong-doing forgiven. And as to the wrong-doing of the other, it becomes clear: it was our own. When the search for fault in ourselves reaches deep enough, we come not only to its immediate and actual cause, but to the underlying guilt itself: to the essence of separateness, the core of self-ness, the not-willing, not-giving, not-yielding, not- forgiving being in us: we come to the one who wants to re­ main as he is, and so denies us entrance into the spiritual world. But this threshold has existed since the primeval debt. And so the examination of the genealogy of a debt can lead back to the beginning. That is the meaning of debt: it is for this and because of this that it exists. It is not a question of a knowledge concerning the debts and indebtedness of each human being, but of an experience: the concrete experience of the current indebtedness that can lead to the recognition of the contours of our own imperfections. The Gesture The spiritual schooling, the concentration, meditation, the exercises, remain mere maneuvering motions of the ego in the interest of its own existence and strengthening, so long as man does not know the fundamental gesture, that of humility.