AN APPROACH TO CONTEMPORARY QUESTIONS IN THE LIGHT OF ANTHROPOSOPHY The Golden Blade Spiritual Emptiness and Social Life Rudolf Steiner A Lecture, hitherto untranslated, given at Dornach on \3th April, 1919. How Old is the Earth ? G. Wachsmuth The Writing of the Gospels A d a m B i t t l e s t o n Michael and St. George (II) Isabel Wyatt Lament for the Makers H. E. Brading The Art of Eurhythmy Owen Barfield What is the Meaning of the E.E.G. ? Karl Konig, M.D. The Siege of the Senses Michael Wilson Two Poems Sylvia Eckersley R i l k e ' s W a y R. Lissau The Wind in the Tree E. L. Grant Watson Rudolf Steiner's 'Letters' (Vol 2) Owen Barfield Edited by Arnold Freeman and Charles Waterman 1954 PUBLISHED ANNUALLY SEVEN AND SIX The Golden Blade The Golden Blade Copies of the previous issues are available in limited numbers 1954 The contents include :— 1949 1950 The Threshold in Nature and in Spiritual Knowledge ; A Way Man Rudolf Steiner of Life Rudolf Steiner Tendencies to a Threefold Order Experience of Birth and Death A. C. Harwood in Childhood Karl Konig, M.D Goethe and the Science of the Spiritual Geography of Palestine Spiritual Emptiness and Soci.a.l Life . Future George Adams Emil Bock Rudolf Steiner 1 A Lecture, hitherto untranslated, A P o e t a n d a P a i n t e r W h a t i s a F a r m ? Albert Steepen C. A. Mier given at Dornach on \3th April, 1919 W h a t i s a H e a l t h y S o c i e t y ? Meditation and Time C h a r l e s W a t e r m a n A d a m B i t t l e s t o n How Old is the Earth ? . G. Wachsmuth 15 The Writing of the Gospels A d a m B i t t l e s t o n 2 5 1951 The Cosmic Word and Individual Man Rudolf Steiner Michael and St. George (II) . Isabel Wyatt 38 The Heavenly Hierarchies A d a m B i t t l e s t o n E t h e r i c F o r c e s Lawrence Edwards The Art of Eurhythmy .... Owen Barfield 53 Evolution and Creation E. L. Grant Watson Owen Barfield Form in Art and in Society What is the Meaning of the E.E.G. ? Karl Konig, M.D. 63 1952 1953 The Siege of the Senses Michael Wilson 74 The Coming Experience of Christ From Philosophy to Anthro- R i l k e ' s W . 4 . Y R. Bissau 83 Rudolf Steiner posophy Rudolf Steiner Heaven and Ascension The Threefold Structure of the The Wind in the Tree . E. L. Grant Watson 95 Emil Bock World George Adams Rudolf Steiner's 'Letters' (Vol 2) Owen Barfield 97 The Endocrine Glands Fantasia on Three Voices Karl Konig, M.D- A. C. Harwood Poems by H. E. Brading and Sylvia Eckersley 51, 82, 96 The Evolution of Music Michael and St. George (I) John Davy Isabel Wvatt Rudolf Steiner and the Theatre "Going Through the Mill" Arnold Freeman Maurice Wood Edited by Arnold Freeman and Charles Waterman Orders, enclosing 7/10 (or 1 dol. 20) for each copy, post free, should be sent to— Published at 3 Shipton Street, Sheffield 6 Arnold Freeman, 3, Shipton Street, Sheffield, 6 Price 7/6 (7/10 post free) SPIRITUAL EMPTINESS AND SOCIAL LIFE Rudolf Steiner A Lecture given at Dornach on April \3th, 1919* in finding it necessary to speak at the present time of the F*0Mthreefold the two social preceding order, anthroposophical lectures you will spiritual have science reused is that not actuated by any subjective views or aims. The purpose of the lecture yesterday was to point to impulses deeply rooted in the hfe of the peoples of the civilised world—the world as it is in this Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch. I tried to show how, from about the year 1200 A.D. onwards, there awakened in Middle Europe an impulse leading to the growth of what may be called the civic social order, Anthroposophy, a way of thought rather than a but that this civic social life of the middle classes was infiltrated by a body of dogma, springs from the work and teaching the remains of a life of soul belonging to earlier centuries—by those of Rudolf Steiner (1861—1925). He spoke of it as decadent Nibelung traits which appeared particularly among the "a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the ruling strata in the mid-European countries. human being to the spiritual in the universe". I laid special stress upon the existence of a radical contrast in mid-European hfe from the thirteenth until the twentieth centuries, culminating in the terrible death-throes of social life that have come The aim of this Annual is to publish writings upon Middle Europe. This incisive contrast was between the inner, which bring the outlook of Anthroposophy to bear soul-life of the widespread middle-class, and that of the descendants on questions and activities of the present time. of the old knighthood, of the feudal overlords, of those in whom vestiges of the old Nibelung characteristics still sursayed. These latter were the people who really created the political hfe of Middle The title derives from a reference by Rudolf Steiner Europe, whereas the bulk of the middle class remained non-pohtical a-poUtical. If one desires to be a spiritual scientist from the practic^ to an old Persian legend. "Djemjdid was a king point of view, serious study must be given to this diff^ence of som- who led his people from the north towards Iran, Ufe between the so-called educated bourgeoisie and all those who held and who received from the God, whom he called any kind of ruling positions in Middle Europe at that time. I spoke of this in the lecture yesterday. Ahura Mazdao, a golden dagger, by means of which he was to fulfil his mission on earth It We wiU now consider in rather greater detail why it was tlmt the really brilliant spiritual movement which lasted from the time represents a force given to man whereby he can act of Walter von der Vogelweide until that of Goetheanism and then upon and transform external nature". abruptly coUapsed, failed to gain any influence over socid hfe or to produce any tLughts which could have been fratful in that sphere. Even Goethe, with all his power to unfold great, all-embracing ideas * «iv lectures. Die eeisiigefi Hintergriinde der sozialen kindpJil "FrompemS^sioLf a Torthl the Rudolf"riorrunrevisld Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, the lectuW. Published Switzer by land, and in agreement with the Rudolf Steiner Publishing Company. in many domains of life, was really only able to give a few indications the one I have made about Hermann Grimm—not thinking of him —concerning which one may venture to say that even he was not quite as a personality but as a typical representative of the times—raises clear about them—as to what must come into being as a wezi; social order the question : how comes it that such a true representative of Middle in civilised humanity. Fundamentally speaking, the tendency European life has no inkhng of how to think about the spiritual, towards the threefold membering of a healthy social organism was about the spirit ? It is just this that makes Hermann Grimm the already present in human beings, subconsciously, by the end of the typical representative of Middle European civilisation. For when we eighteenth century. The demands for freedom, equality and frat envisage tliis brilliant culture of the townsfolk, which has its start ernity, which can have meaning only when the threefold social order about the year 1200 and lasts right on into the period of Goetheamsm, becomes reality, testified to the existence of this subconscious longing. we shall certainly perceive as its essential characteristic—but wthout Why did it never really come to the surface ? valuing it less liighly on this account—that it is impregnated m the This is connected with the whole inherent character of mid- best sense with soul but empty of anything that can be called spint. European spiritual life. At the end of the lecture yesterday I spoke That is the fact we have to grasp, with a due sense of the tragedy of of a strange phenomenon. I said that Hermann Grimm—for whom it: this brilliant culture was devoid of spirit. What is meant here, I have always had such high regard and whose ideas were able to of course, is spirit as one leams to apprehend it through anthroposo- shed light upon so many aspects of art and general human interests phical spiritu^ science. of bygone times—succumbed to the extraordinary fallacy of admiring such an out-and-out phrasemonger as Wildenbruch ! In the course Again and again I return to Hermann Grimm as a representative of years I have often mentioned an incident which listeners may have personality, for the thinking of thousands and thousands of scholarly thought trivial, but which can be deeply indicative for those who men in Middle Europe was similar to Ws. Hermann Grimm wrote study life in its symptomatological aspect. Among the many con an excellent book about Goethe, containing the substance of lectures versations I had with Hermann Grimm while I was in personal contact he gave at the University of Berlin in the seventies of the last centu^.