The Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter Spring 2009 HeadinVolume #46 (Final Issue) Founding Editor: Fred Paddock Editor: Frederick J. Dennehy Contents Managing Editor: Judith Soleil Production: Judith Kiely 2 What’s Happening in the Library By Judith Soleil The library newsletter, a publication of the Rudolf Steiner Library, national library of 3 A Word from the Editor the Anthroposophical Society in America, By Frederick J. Dennehy is designed to keep library users informed of the contents of the library. It also fea- gReviews tures translations of articles from Euro- pean anthroposophical journals that ex- 4 An Unknown Destiny: plore the relationship of anthroposophy to Terror, Psychotherapy, and Modern Initiation the world, thus encouraging dialogue and By Michael Gruber. the mutual exchange of ideas. Review by Frederick J. Dennehy Letters to the editor are welcome. 6 Two New Contributions to Emerson Studies Rudolf Steiner Library Reviews by Gertrude Reif Hughes 65 Fern Hill Road Ralph Waldo Emerson: Ghent, NY 12075 The Infinitude of the Private Man [email protected] By Maurice York and Rick Spaulding. Anthroposophical Society in America Natural History of the Intellect: 1923 Geddes Avenue P lace you r m essag e h ere. Fo r m axim um i mpact , use two or t hre e se ntenc es. The Last Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Edited by Maurice York and Rick Spaulding. 8 Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love By Arthur Zajonc. Review by Frederick J. Dennehy 11 Annotations What’s Happening in the Library By Judith Soleil • AUTOMATION! I say this with a big grin, and I can’t say it too strongly. Af- ter researching options for almost five years, this fall we selected an electronic circulation program, OPALS (Open-source Automated Library System). This Web-based, open source system is reasonably priced and quite user friendly. The vendors are personable and responsive. In December we started working with the program and by mid-February had already catalogued over 2000 hold- ings. Judith Kiely, assistant librarian and budding library scientist, initiated us into the arcane world of MARC (machine-readable cataloguing), enabling our little crew to create catalog records that will be intelligible all over the world. Patrons will be able to search the library catalog (which is not yet complete, but is growing daily); view a list of new books; reserve books; and access their own records at: http://rsl.scoolaid.net. Contact us to create a personal account (necessary for reserve and access to patron records; you need not log in to view the catalog). Choose a username and password, send them to the library, and we will set up an account for you (we prefer email; you may also use postal mail or phone us). • Volunteers. Our automation project is progressing quickly thanks to the help of some new volunteers: Hawthorne Valley School student Thaddeus Sipe and community member Thomas O’Keefe. Our long-time volunteers Louisa Sierau and Elsie Helmke are exhibiting great patience as we work with the new and old systems simultaneously. William Furse, photocopier extraordinaire, has also contributed to the project with zest. • Postage. Some patrons like to include a donation when they reimburse the li- brary for postage (thank you!). When including extra, please note whether it’s a donation or “on account” for future postage charges. • Book search. The library needs another copy or two of “Thinking about Know- ing,” a pamphlet by Alan Howard published by St. George Book Service in 1985. We are also looking for the Rudolf Steiner Press (London) edition of Knowledge of the Higher Worlds: How Is It Achieved? translated by D.S. Os- mond and C. Davy. There have been several printings of that translation; we hope to obtain the blue and white paperback from 1969. • Transition. This will be the last issue of the Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter under its own imprint. As most of our readers know, the Rudolf Steiner Library is the lending library of the Anthroposophical Society in America. For over a decade the library has published a well-regarded newsletter, founded by librar- ian emeritus Fred Paddock, to keep readers informed about the library’s collec- tion. We are very happy to announce that in future our news, annotations, and reviews will appear in the Anthroposophical Society’s new publication: Evolv- 2 ing New for Members and Friends. We will have the opportunity to communi- cate with a much larger audience, and we hope to encourage more society members (and friends—who can join the library for an annual fee) to use the library. We are excited to participate in this new venture and look forward to hearing from many of you. ___________________________________________________________________ A Word from the Editor By Frederick J. Dennehy As many of you may know, the news, reviews, and annotations that have ap- peared in the Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter since 1991 will now be appearing in the Anthroposophical Society’s new publication: Evolving News for Members & Friends. Although the format will change, we will continue the impetus established by emeritus librarian Fred Paddock. In addition, we hope to begin including re- views of contemporary publications of likely interest to members and friends that are not necessarily in the library’s collection. The new publication will appear quar- terly, and will reach a much wider audience than did the Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter. This final issue under our traditional imprint features reviews by Gertrude Reif Hughes of two contributions to Emerson studies by anthroposophists Maurice York and Rick Spaulding. The first book is Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Infinitude of the Private Man, a biography of the individual Rudolf Steiner regarded as the “Goethe of America.” The second is The Natural History of the Intellect: The Last Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a collection of Emerson’s final lectures, delivered at Har- vard University in 1871. These lectures present not merely Emerson’s understand- ing of the reality of the spirit, but his experience of it. I’ve had the privilege of reviewing two recent publications by Lindisfarne Books. The first, An Unknown Destiny: Terror, Psychotherapy, and Modern Initia- tion—Readings in Nietzsche, Heidegger, Steiner, by Michael Gruber, is a challeng- ing and intense rethinking of the meaning of initiation in a time of the “universali- zation of terror,” presented with reference to the works of Nietzsche and Heidegger, and particularly to the insights of Rudolf Steiner. The second publication is Medita- tion as Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love by Arthur Zajonc. Mr. Zajonc’s book is a transparently clear and practical guide to the practice of cognitive meditation as developed by Rudolf Steiner and as informed by thirty years of the author’s own meditative experience. We look forward to continuing communication with all of you under a far- reaching new format born out of an exciting new impulse. 3 An Unknown Destiny: Terror, Psychotherapy, and Modern Initiation— Readings in Nietzsche, Heidegger, Steiner Lindisfarne Books, 2008, 165 pgs. By Michael Gruber Review by Frederick J. Dennehy In the ancient mysteries, initiation was a matter of strict secrecy. The mystery schools that surfaced in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond were rare and cloaked from the world, but the path to initiation was clearly marked. In the dense, exigent, admonitory prose of his An Unknown Destiny: Terror, Psychotherapy, and Modern Initiation—Readings in Nietzsche, Heidegger, Steiner, Michael Gruber tells us that in our time the nature of initiation has changed, changed utterly. There has been a “rupture in human destiny” that forces us to live outside of any transcendent framework and exposes us to the all-encompassing worldview of our time, the “universalization of terror.” As Mr. Gruber under- stands it, the universalization of terror is inevitable in a world where destiny un- folds in the absence of any common meaning or purpose. A materialism obsessed with control and security marginalizes ethics, ontology, intimacy, and connected- ness with the earth and the spirit. Under its dominance we have spiraled downward into an accelerating cycle of fear, violence, and revenge that constricts every min- ute of our lives. Mr. Gruber urges us to consider that the only way to emerge from this decline is to embark on a wholly new initiatory path. Modern initiation will be a path to an unknown destiny. Only when we cease to clutch at prizes, when we acknowledge that there is no identity we can be sure to “have” at the end of the process, will we be able to participate in an “unconditioned openness and detachment from preformatted determinations.” Then we may ex- perience an interpersonal, heart-centered imaginative cognition that offers the best possibility of freeing ourselves from terror. This “heart thinking” is not a purely inward activity projecting outward into an indifferent universe. Initiation is not a form of self-betterment, but a commitment to discover the soul of the world, whatever it may be. Accordingly, Mr. Gruber’s pre- scription does not hold itself out as a “cure.” The list of possible “side effects” is not pro forma. Robert Sardello, in his exuberant foreword, refers to Mr. Gruber’s vision of a new psychotherapy as “nothing less than an excursion to the land of death without a map.” For the author, the venue for this experience is the therapeutic encounter. The most promising modern path is psychotherapy as an initiatory rite: a partnership be- tween the tormented patient and the therapist, walking together on the same initiatic path of openness and surrender to an undefined future. The fully committed thera- pist has a capacity to respond, in the face of vulnerability, to the shrill voices of madness and the whispers of death.