I - - RUDOLF STEINER Recollections by Sme of his Pupils i f: PUBLISHED BY THE GOLDEN BLADE 1958 jm RUDOLF STEINER Recollections by Some of his Pupils Rudolf Steiner In England G e o r g e A d a m s - - _ . I R e l i g i o u s R e n e w a l - . E i i i i l H a c k - 22 ExrERIENCES IN THE RKAI.m of D r a m a t i c A r t Gottfried Haass-Berkow 36 Birth of the Waldorf School from the Threefold Social Movement H e r b e r t I h i h n - - . 5° Widening the Art of Healing - Grete Kirchner-Bockholt 71 The Rising Generation - . E r n s t L e h r s - - . 81 One of the Young Doctors K u r t M a g e r s t i i d t - . - . 97 The Beginnings of Eurhythmy L o r y M a i e r - S m i t s - - . 103 New Directions in Agriculture Ehrenfricd E. Pfeiffer - - - 119 Rudolf Steiner as Personal Teacher M a r i a K o s c h l - L e h r s - . '31 A t t h e W a l d o r f S c h o o l - - . Karin Ruths-Hoffman - - . 137 The Birth of Curative Education - A t b r e c h t S t r o h s c h e i n - - . 146 The Last Years G u e n t h e r Wa c h s m u t h - 156 Rudolf Steiner In Holland /'. IF. Zeylmans van Emmichoven 171 This volunae is a translation of ' Wir Erlebten Rudolf Steiner'. edited by M. J. Kriick von Poturzyn and published by the Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart, who retain the copyright. Edited by Arnold Freeman and Charles Waterman Price m/6 (11/6 post free) from the Rudolf Steiner Bookshop, 35 Park Road Loudon, A. II./, or the Rudolf Steiner Book Centre, 5,, Bloomsbury Street, RUDOLF STEINER IN 1920 Loudon, W.C.I. An etching by the late Professor Karl Bauer, Munich, from a sketch made during a lecture. By courtesy of Hans EUhn, Arleshetm. Im ■■ FOREWORD rriHE German original of this symposium was planned and edited RUDOLF STEINER IN ENGLAND by Maria Josepha Kruck von Poturzyn, and we should like to George Adams offer her our warm thanks for her unfailing help in arranging for the English translation. In her own foreword to the German edition, she wrote: Theplayed spiritual an lifeimportant of England part andin Rudolf the English-speaking Steiner's life-work. world This was a natural outcome of his allotted task in relation to the Spirit "Since 1925. when Rudolf Steiner left the physical plane, a of the Time. For in the phase of history beginning in the 15th whole new generation has grown up. Many of his first pupils, who centmy A.D. Qcnown as the Fifth post-Atlantean Epoch) the Celtic, were able to work with him and under his eyes in the various fields Anglo-Saxon and Germanic peoples became the bearers of the of anthroposophical activity, are no longer with us. The newcomers forward trend in human evolution, even as the Greek and Latin have been rightly anxious that a human picture of the great teacher peoples had been in the preceding epoch. The spiritual gifts of should be called to life from the individual memories and ex these more Northern peoples are revealed in two more or less complementary directions, finding their characteristic expression periences of those who knew him, and we are grateful for all the hitherto where the English and the German languages are spoken. books which have tried to do this and have been published in the Precisely inasmuch as he was so deeply rooted in the cultural comrse of years. heritage of the German-speaking people among whom he was bom, "The essential aim of the present collection has been to bring and in particular of his Austrian homeland, Rudolf Steiner's world wide mission stood in the midst of this polarity. Thus in the very together pupils of Dr. Steiner from the widest possible range of first of his philosophic works, his introductions to the scientific callings who have not yet recorded their recoUections of him, and writings of Goethe, he enters into the conscious and unconscious have played an active part in carrying forward the impulse he wrestlings of the great German poet with the world-outlook which gave for the renewal of culture and civilisation. Their personal through the English scientists and thinkers—^Bacon, Newton and memories are set down here in contributions which follow no fixed Locke before Goethe's time and Darwin shortly after—has so pattern and are intended to be no more than sketches, for the com greatly influenced the modem world. prehensive picture, which the younger generation asks for, is some Yet in an even wider compass, far beyond theoretical and scientific questions, Rudolf Steiner had a deep inner connection thing that no single person ever saw." with the spiritual sources that underlie the native trend of English life and thought. Among his closest friends during his early years in Vienna were men and women such as Friedrich Eckstein and For us, the English editors, it remains only to express our Marie Lang, who throughout their lives were in close contact with the English-speaking world and drew many of their leading inspira gratitude to all the friends who undertook the exacting work of tions from it. Indeed, it was in those early years that the founda translation. Our thanks are due also to the German publishers and tions were laid for the decisive step he was to take fifteen years the German contributors for their ready assent to the project, and later, when to the utter amazement of the scholarly and literary to the contributors with command of English for their help in circles among whom he lived and moved in Berlin, he suddenly revising certain chapters. became a leading figure in the Theosophical Society. Nourished though it was to a large extent from Oriental sources, the Theo By issuing the English volume in this form, in place of an sophical Society derived its character from the mental outlook and ordinary Golden Blade, we are able to offer it at a considerably spiritual aspirations of the American and English people among lower price than would have been possible otherwise. We hope to whom it was founded. In his Autobiography Dr. Steiner relates resume normal publication of the Golden Blade next year. how among the English-speaking members of this Society, though he himself could not have worked in their style, he found "a spiritual focus from which one could worthily take one's st^ if A. F. one was deeply and tmly concemed for the spread of spiritual November, 1957, C W . knowledge." And in a lecture where he gives an outline of his early life, he tells how in Vienna in the 1880's he was among the first to acquire and pass on to others the booklet which became one ,, At the outbreak of the first World War I was an undergraduate of the classics of the theosophical movement. Light on the Path ^ at Cambridge. That was the moment when I first heard of Rudolf written down by Mabel Collins. Steiner. During an unforgettable holiday at a lonely spot on the In Rudolf Steiner's open heart and comprehensive mind every Suffolk coast I read right through his Outline of Occult Science. shade of the spiritual wrestlings of his time was Uving ffis clear- The book impressed me deeply. Unlike some other theosophical thinking and yet heartfelt participation in all contemporary trends works, it made no attempt to come to terms with scientific orthodoxy, came to life agam in his personal relation to his pupils, who found but the author did at every point state clearly and in a scientific their way to him from every conceivable direction in the manifold spirit the ground on which he stood. You knew where you were; and often contradictory Ufe of our time. He would encourage you felt the writer understood and shared the scientific outlook. every one of us along his chosen path, no matter how great the As to its spiritual content—^it was the English edition, with that seeming contradictions in the advices he gave to one individual or impressive portrait where he is sitting with his hands haff-folded another. Each of us therefore will have amazingly diverse thingg looking straight at you and yet far beyond—^it made a "timeless" to relate from our intercourse with him. This aspect of his being ^ impression on me. I cannot remember thinking. "When did the too—reflected however imperfectly in those who became his pupik author live, or is he living now?" Despite the modem style and —reveals the true picture of mankind in modem time I mean context, he seemed to writ^from beyond all special times. not only what we have to tell about him. but what we ourselves In the summer of 191or^ined the "Emerson Group" of &e became, quickened by our encounter with him. The picture of Anthroposophical Society in London. The meetings began with Man for which the present age, through all mistakes and failings the verse. " From the luminous heights of the Spirit . .". specially is sincerely striving is made manifest in the way Rudolf Steiner given by Dr. Steiner for this Group to its leader.