He Gomen Blade the Golden Blade
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- w m ' • • I * 1 « • • ♦♦ •»» • » • « • • \m he GoMen Blade The Golden Blade TWENTY-SIXTH (1974) ISSUE Editorial Notes 3 C o m e t s a n d t h e M o o n Rudolf Steiner 9 L e t t e r s o n C o m e t s Elisabeth Vreede 23 Initiation : Old and Modern . A . I V . M a n n 37 Threefold Ideas in English Life A. C. Harwood 49 Economics and Consciousness A d a m B i t t l e s t o n 61 The White and the Black Races L. F. C. Mees 78 Curative Eurythmy Margarethe Kirchner-Bockholt 90 Search and Protest in Popular Songs .... Joscelyn Godwin 96 Poems by Peter Gruffydd, Charles Austin and Allyn Moss B O O K R E V I E W S New editions of Rudolf Steiner's Leading Thoughts and his Mystery Centres Lectures—Roszak's' Where the Wasteland Ends'—Norman Macbeth on Darwinism—J. G. Bennett on GurdjiefP—Kervran's ' Biological Transmutations'—Shorter notices Edited by Charles Davy and Adam BIttleston Price 85p Published by the Rudolf Steiner Press, 35 Park Road, London, NWl 6 XT, for the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain The Golden Blade EDITORIAL NOTES Copies of the following back issues are still available from the Rudolf OURinto time being is in new general social very institutions. unsuccessful This whenlack of itsuccess tries to bring was Steiner Bookshops—35 Park Road, London NWl 6XT and 38 Museum evident on a world scale, between the wars, in The League of Na Street, London WCIA ILP—or other bookshops. tions; and the United Nations does not inspire much enthusiasm or confidence, though it has been dignified by the heroic purposes of Dag Hammarsjdld. Where more limited institutions have been Conscience and Astonishment The Recovery of the Living Source brought into being, for special purposes, or among groups of nations, Rudolf Steiner of Speech Rudolf Steiner they tend to linger on, without anyone being satisfied, because there is nothing to put in their place, or to change them would be too Ephesus and the Castle of the Grail The Forming of Destiny in Sleep Emil Bock ing and Waking Rudolf Steiner diflicult—as with the two Germanies and Berlin. At best, perhaps, Poetry and Knowledge in an Age Language and Discovery they are complex organisations which work, but are waiting for of Science Charles Davy Owen Barfield inspiration and for a soul; for example, the European Economic Words are Death and Resurrection Some Uses of Language in Modern Community. John Turner P o e t r y P a u l M a t t h e w s With regard to one of the greatest and most evident needs of the Eurythmy and the Word Shakespeare*s Troubled Kings Cecil Harwood A d a m B i t t l e s t o n world, the acute poverty in large parts of Asia, Africa and South The Eurythmy Figures America, there is a terrible disparity between the need and the Personal Memories of Dr. Karl Inner Language and Outer Lan institutions which have been set up to meet it, or have begun to Konig guage John Davy Berta Konig, Tblla KdNio and Aus • Wahrspruchworte * include relief of it among their duties. It has long been recognised A.N. Rudolf Steiner that the under-developed countries need capital, on terms which Dolphins^ Children of the Sea Sayings from Various Times would be acceptable to them politically and economically, and that Karl KdNic Rudolf Steiner Incomes Policy and Personal Equality and Justice private investment would be very far from satisfying this need. To Fulfilment Gerald Rowe C h a r l e s D a v y provide loans of various kinds, but particularly those that seem The Protestant Speech in the Family likely to help developing countries most effectively, the World Bank, Gertrude M. Ward A d a m B i t t l e s t o n and associated with it the International Finance Corporation and the Price 38p post free Price 88p post free International Development Association, are at work. But at Nairobi, in September, 1973, Mr. Robert MacMamara, president of the World Bank, made what has been described as " a INDEX TO THE GOLDEN BLADE passionate appeal for a huge increase in, and for a radical redirec 1949-1973 tion of, the world's development effort." He spoke of the 800 ^ easy way of locating pticles in the Golden Blades of the last twentv- million people who live in " absolute poverty," denied the basic articles may 15®/®be found, alphabetical as well as one list ofof subjects authors which indicating should where be of value thei necessities of life. Ofiicial development assistance from the better- when author and exact title are not known. off countries is " acutely inadequate," being " only half the modest From Rudolf Steiner Press target of 0.7% of gross national product set for 1975 by the United 15p post free. Nations." He circulated a table showing the percentage of gross CHARLESruABi IN ClarkeGreat (Haywards Britain Heath)by Ltd. 4 EDITORIAL NOTES EDITORIAL NOTES 5 national product now being contributed by economically leading to be bigger than most. Relatively few, perhaps, in any part of the countries, from 1970 to 1976. Over this period the U.S contribution world, will feel that behind the physical appearance there is a spirit is shown as falling from 0.31 % to 0.21 %, and that of Britain as ual reality. constant at about 0.4%. For Rudolf Steiner there was nothing physical which was not the Though the developing nations, taken as a whole, are increasing expression of living spirit—as there was nothing spiritual which their productivity, they are not doing so enough to lessen the gap does not somewhere find its manifestation in the physical. When between them and the " developed "—or should one say bluntly he spoke of the comets, it was to indicate that spirituality of the " rich " ?—nations; for the past twelve years the difference in average mightiest, most humanly significant kind lay behind the phenomena. income per head has steadily widened. And there are considerable In the lecture printed here, he makes the contrast evident between differences among the poorer countries; according to the The the moons in the solar system and the comets. Today the sense of Economist, in 25 of the least-developed countries the GNP per head desolation that the earth's Moon gives on its surface—and the has not grown at all in the last five years. " Probably close to one merciful contrast of the earth's fertility—have come nearer to us all. billion people in the developing world have annual incomes of less Now it may be that we are called to look afresh at Comet Kohoutek, than 100 dollars, and 300 million among them (130 million in India with its splendid transience, and ask what is to be read in this sign alone) have less than half that amount." This poverty is not only written across the heavens, among the constellations close to the in rural districts; in India there is nearly as high a proportion of northern hemisphere's winter sun. needy families in the towns. Each year when new comets appear, a long and difficult work T o give one-two-hundred-and-fiftieth part of our production towards begins through which astronomers try to establish what their orbits bettering this situation seems meagre indeed. (Of their small are. This may take several years after their first appearance, national product, the ancient Hebrews thought it right to give the though, even for the strongest telescopes, their visibility will be only Temple one-tenth). But at "the largest gathering of financial a matter of months. From the visible positions the attempt is decision-makers the world has ever known" no considerable made to calculate a possible elliptical orbit, which might show that change in policy emerged; the best that could be offered was that a comet could be expected to return in a number of years. Such in twenty-five years the gravest poverty might be overcome. an interval could range from three years or so to many thousands of The rich countries, although they have been experiencing boom years; it may suggest that the comet is the same as one recorded conditions, are tragically preoccupied with their own problems of within historic times. But comets have in common—as is described inflation and fluctuating exchange rates—and the United States in detail by Dr. Elizabeth Vreede in this issue—that they come from with hitherto unimagined strains on the Constitution. The World regions far from the sun, that they pass near to it and swing round it, Bank—which they largely control—cannot really engage their so that their path in relation to it is close to a parabola. attention. In speaking of the spiritual nature of the Sun, Rudolf Steiner Has the conscience of the world, which seemed to be stirring, again and again correlated it with beings who, in the ancient Chris fallen again into a perilous sleep? tian tradition which bears the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, * « « are called Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai. These are the beings of the central. Second Hierarchy; they are often named by Rudolf From about the end of November 1973 to the middle of February Steiner Spirits of Wisdom, of Movement, and of Form. The sig 1974 we may be able to wonder at the spectacle of Comet Kohoutek nificance, the capacity for movement, and the characteristic under —before sunrise until Christmas, and from the New Year after sunset.