NEWSLETTER
Anthroposophical
Society in America
SPRING 1980
Published by the Anthroposophical Society in America for its Members
CONTENTS
Hans-Werner Schroeder
Ernst Lehrs
Alan Howard
George O'Neil and
Gisela O'Neil
The Incarnation of Ahriman and the Asuras
Rudolf Steiner on the Work with Young People
The “Pre-Kamaloca” Experience of Old Age
Our Karmic Companions (The Human Life, Part 12)
2
5
7
9
PUBLICATIONS
Danilla Rettig
Stewart C. Easton
Stewart C. Easton
Celeste A. Shitama
Peter Stebbing
David Adams
Rudolf Steiner: Eurythmy as Visible Music
Bernard Lievegoed: Phases: Crisis and Development in the Individual
Walther Buehler: Living with Your Body
Lois Cusick: Waldorf Parenting Handbook
Goethe-Farbenstudio: Materials for Carrying Out
Goethe's Color Experiments
H. Biesantz and A. Klingborg: The Goetheanum: Rudolf Steiner's
Architectural Impulse
Other New Publications
12
12
12
14
15
15
16
MEMBERSHIP
Henry Barnes
Henry Barnes
(several friends)
Charlotte Parker
Margaret Barnetson
To the Members of the Anthroposophical Society in America
Reuther, Barkhoff, and Kerler Visit
Erwin Phillips Celebrates His 90th Birthday
A Note of Thanks
New Members
Ernest Schoenberg
Other Members Who Have Crossed the Threshold
17
18
18
19
19
20
20
REPORTS
Manning Goodwin
Leon Davies
Rene M. Querido
Preston Barker
Frederick Amrine
Alice Stamm
Richard Swerling
Eleanor Hill Edwards
Nathan Melniker
Ernst Lehrs
Arts in the Image of Man, 1979
Western Members’ Conference
Work in the Sacramento Area
The Rudolf Steiner Summer Institute
Seminar on Waldorf Education in Boston
The Seventh Artistic Method Workshop, Harlemville
Spiritual Experiences in Daily Life —in a Hospital
Exhibitions in Sweden, Summer 1980
Flashes from the Past —51 Years Ago
Response to Alan Howard’s Letter
21
21
22
22
23
24
24
25
26
26
NOTES
27
1
The Incarnation of Ahriman
and the Asuras
by HANS-WERNER SCHROEDER
(Translated by Maria St. Goar from “Mitteilungen aus
der anthroposophischen A rb eit in D eutschland,”
E aster 1979. Published with permission.)
In a previous article (Newsletter, Summer 1979),
we looked to the end of the century and the incarnation
of Ahriman in the next millennium. In order to fully
grasp the events connected with future develop­
ments, it will be necessary to include two additional
groups of beings which at the same time broaden the
view. One group concerns the activity of the Asuras in
the present and in the future; the other is the activity of
the socalled Sun Demon, whose mystery name is
Soradt. In this article, we shall mainly study the first.
(A subsequent article will deal with Soradt’s activity.)
PREPARATIONS FOR THE INCARNATION
IN THE N E X T M ILLENNIUM
In order to correctly characterize the activities of
the Asuras, we shall look once again at the prepara­
tions for Ahriman’s incarnation. In the 1979 article,
seven lectures were listed in which Ahriman’s incarna­
tion is referred to by Rudolf Steiner. The time in­
dicated by Rudolf Steiner was of particular interest to
us. It became clear that Rudolf Steiner always refers to
the following millennium or to the beginning of it. The
date of the end of the century is never mentioned in this
connection.
When we ask which motifs play a significant role
in Rudolf Steiner’s description of the preparations for
this incarnation, we arrive at approximately the follow­
ing seven. In the above-mentioned lectures, all or some
are repeatedly referred to. Abstract thinking, the
mechanistic, mathematical world view, is designated as
the dominant motif. Six others are listed in addition.
1. Abstract thinking, a mechanistic, mathematical
world view.
2. Preservation of the spiritual (libraries).
3. Faith in figures (statistics).
4. Action without interest (also: “Inability to be en­
thused about spiritual science”).
5. Factions, disharmony among groups of men, na­
tional impulses.
6. Materialistic interpretation of the Gospels
(leads to hallucinations of Christ).
7. Establishment of schools for the purpose of mak­
ing people clairvoyant.
It is evident in these seven motifs that, almost
without exception, they are connected with the manner
of human thought. Either directly or indirectly, they
are consequences of abstract thinking. In contrast to
these are the descriptions given concerning the ac­
tivities and efforts of the Asuras.
THE A SU R A S A S DESCRIBED
B Y RUDOLF STEINER
In attempting a survey of the lectures in which
Rudolf Steiner mentions the Asuras, we soon notice
that there are not many, all told. First, I want to list the
lectures known to me in which the theme is touched
upon:
Berlin, May 2 3 , 1904 (German GA93);
Berlin, October 7 and 17, 1905 (German GA93a);
Munich, June 2, 1907 Theosophy of the Rosicrucians;
Kassel, June 24, 1907 Theosophy and Rosicrucianism;
Berlin, May 16, 1908 The Influence of Spiritual Be­
ings Upon Man;
Nuremberg, June 22, 1908 The Apocalypse of St.
John;
Stuttgart, August 7, 1908 Universe, Earth and
Man;
Berlin, January 1 and March 22, 1909 The Deed of
Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers;
Duesseldorf, April 21, 1909 The Spiritual Hierar­
chies and Their Reflection in the Physical World;
Basel, October 1, 1911 The Etherisation of the
Blood;
Dornach, December 15, 1919 The Mysteries of
Light, of Space and of the Earth.
There are thirteen sources of which twelve appear
within seven years, from 1904 to 1911; the last doesn’t
appear until 1919 and there, in close proximity to state­
ments concerning the incarnation of Ahriman.
We now seek for answers to three questions in
Rudolf Steiner’s description:
How do the Asuras fit into the realm of the adver­
sary powers?
What effects are described?
What time span is given for their activity?
WHERE DO THE A SU R A S FIT IN?
In studying the above-mentioned statements by
Rudolf Steiner we soon realize that the Asuras belong
neither to the Ahrimanic nor the Luciferic beings, but
that they constitute a separate group of opposing
powers. (This despite the fact that Rudolf Steiner occa­
sionally identifies their name directly with Ahrimanic
effects. The reason for this is probably that in the past
the Asuras have as yet hardly appeared as indepen­
dently active beings. Instead, they have unfolded their
efforts through the Ahrimanic powers. They are begin­
ning only now to emerge as independently active be­
ings. In The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual
Powers Rudolf Steiner differentiates the activity of the
adversary powers in three directions:
Lucifer's influence in the sentient soul which has
come into being through the transformation of the
astral body;
Ahrim an's effect upon the intellectual soul, which
came about through the transformation of the etheric
body;
the influence of the Asuras is described as extend­
ing into the human consciousness soul and the ego,
whose activities in man are based on transformation of
the physical body. (Lecture of March 2 2 , 1909)
In the questions-and-answers to the lecture, “The
Etherisation of the Blood,” the influence of these three
powers is differentiated not according to the members
of man, but to their realms in the spiritual world. The
Luciferic beings are connected with the realm that
results in the “subphysical” as a mirroring of the astral
world. The effects of Ahriman are connected with the
mirroring of the lower Devachan, that of the Asuras
with the mirroring of the higher Devachan in the
physical world. Here, we have a second criterion in­
dicating that in the case of the Asuras, we are dealing
with an independent realm of beings within the adver­
sary powers.
Finally, from the lectures of June 2 and June 24,
1907, a differentiation arises as to the time when the
Asuric entities came into being. According to Rudolf
Steiner’s descriptions, the very beginning of the seces­
sion of the Ahrimanic beings must be fixed on the Old
Sun; that of the Luciferic beings on the Old Moon. The
secession of the Asuric beings occurred during the
evolution of Old Saturn. In these lectures, Rudolf
Steiner pictures how, along with the origin of the
human body, an influence proceeds from the Archai —
who there are also called “Spirits of Egoism” —which
transmits faculties to the physical body enabling it to
later receive the human ego:
To this end had the Spirits of Egoism, the Asuras,
to work.
Among them are to be found two kinds, apart from
slight deviations. The one kind has elaborated ego­
ism in a noble, self-reliant way, and has risen high­
er and higher in the perfection of the sense of
freedom: that is the rightful independence of ego­
ism. These Spirits have guided mankind through
all the successive planets, they have become the
educators of man towards independence.
Now on each planet there are also Spirits who
have remained behind in evolution, they have re­
mained stationary and not wished to progress. You
will recognize a law from this: If the most out­
standing fall and commit the “great sin” of not ad­
vancing with evolution, then they become the very
worst of all.
The noble sense of liberty has been reversed into
wickedness, into its opposite. Those are the Spir­
its of Temptation, and they must be taken gravely
into account; they lead to the evil side of egoism,
even today they are still in our environment, these
evil Spirits of Saturn. All that is bad draws its
power from these Spirits. (6. 2 . 1907)
He expresses it in a similar way in the second
above-mentioned lecture. I would like to quote the fol­
lowing details from it:
In striving after freedom and human dignity we
bear within us the influences of the Spirits of Ego
who followed the good path, and we bear within us
the seed of evil, because the influence of the Be­
ings who fell away continued to be active. This con­
trast has always been felt. Christianity itself
makes a distinction between God the Father,
Whom it considers as the most highly developed
Spirit of Saturn, and His opponent, the Spirit of all
the evil Egos and of everything which is radically
immoral, the Spirit who fell away upon the ancient
Saturn. These are two representatives of Saturn.
(6. 24. 1907)
We now have three criteria: The influence within
the members of man; the realms in which dwell the op­
posing powers in the spiritual world; and the time span
in which they abandoned the progressive activities of
the Gods within evolution. The conclusion is always
that the Asuras occupy the very highest position
within the threefoldness of the opposing powers.
Perhaps we should emphasize here that the above
outline is a first approach to a complex problem. The
entirety of Anthroposophy shows how spiritual en­
tities exhibit most diverse natures and activities. Even
after the Saturn and also the Sun evolution, some
Ahrimanic as well as Asuric beings continued to devel­
op; hence, a most complex picture arises of these en­
tities. The points given here are intended merely as an
initial outline.
W HAT EFFECTS A R E CONNECTED
WITH THE ASU RAS?
In the early statements (in the lectures of October
7 and 17, 1905), the basic motifs that reoccur later in dif­
3
ferent ways, are already expressed. They are connect­
ed with human sensuality, physical debauchery and the
development of black magic. The motif of sensuality
also surfaces in the lectures in The Deed of Christ and
the Opposing Powers; there in the lecture of March 22,
1909, the influence of the Asuras is described perhaps
most intensively:
For these Asuric Spirits will prompt what has
been seized hold of by them, namely the very core
of man’s being, the consciousness soul together
with the “I,” to unite with earthly materiality.
Fragment after fragment will be torn out of the
“I,” and in the same measure in which the Asuric
Spirits establish themselves in the consciousness
soul, man must leave parts of his existence behind
on the earth. What thus becomes the prey of the
Asuric powers will be irretrievably lost. Not that
the whole man need become their victim —but
parts of his spirit will be torn away by the Asuric
powers.
Perhaps it is appropriate here to insert a remark
as to method: Quotations such as the one above really
should never be repeated without reference to the
overall condition. We find that Rudolf Steiner always
placed descriptions of humanity’s future and the activ­
ity of evil connected with it into a most positive overall
context. Without this positive total view, such excerpts
take on a one-sided nuance that they should not have,
all seriousness and urgency notwithstanding. We
should mention that in the lecture from which the
above excerpt was taken, Rudolf Steiner makes com­
pletely positive remarks in conclusion. I would
therefore like to quote the end of the lecture:
So we see how Powers work together in the world,
how everything that appears to oppose the pro­
gress of mankind subsequently turns out to be a
blessing. . . . F or everything in the great world
Plan is good and the evil endures only for a season.
Therefore he alone believes in the eternity of the
evil who confounds the temporal with the eternal;
he who does not rise from the temporal to the eter­
nal can never understand the evil.
Another familiar quotation concerning the power­
ful activity of the Asuras is found in the lecture “The
Etherisation of the Blood.” Especially the so-called
“third force” is discussed here. It will be discovered as a
nature force and will contribute to the destruction of the
Earth.
This description of the destructive forces connected
with the Asuras is also placed within a most positive pro­
phecy concerning the future, namely a vivid description
of the activity of the Etheric Christ.
4
If we attempt to discern the difference between the
descriptions of the Asuric influences and those con­
nected with the incarnation of Ahriman, we arrive at an
interesting contrast that ought to be stressed here
(though perhaps the contrast should be viewed in even
greater detail). In preparation of Ahriman’s incarnation,
essentially the forces of thought are weakened in man.
Abstract thinking and its consequences lead to the
desired effects, namely materialism as a world view.
As we have seen, the Asuric influences reach far
deeper; they unfold sensuality and thereby take hold of
man’s bodily organization directly. They lead man from
a sensory world view to sensuality in human action.
They bring about not only isolation of the “I,” as happens
in the Ahrimanic realm by means of abstract thinking,
but a step-by-step destruction of the I - forces.
WHAT DATE CAN BE ASCRIBED TO
THE A C TIVITY OF THE A SU R A S?
From Rudolf Steiner’s descriptions it becomes evi­
dent that the influences of the Asuras begin in our age.
In some areas such effects can be concretely experienc­
ed. The main unfolding of the Asuric forces is, however,
still a matter of the future. This becomes obvious if we
consider that the Luciferic influence, for example, began
even during Lemuria and continued to evolve all
through Atlantean and post-Atlantean times until it
reached the summit of its development in Lucifer’s in­
carnation in pre-Christian times. The beginning of
Ahriman’s activity in regard to mankind was in Atlantis,
evolved through the post-Atlantean age and, as we have
seen, will reach its culmination in the next millennium.
This suggests that we can picture the very beginnings of
activity of the Asuric powers in our time, but that their
culmination occurs in the distant future. Their activity
is, after all, connected with the development of the
human “I.” They are called upon to confront this ego,
which in the future will develop to ever greater maturi­
ty, with the most powerful force of opposition. This will
be the case only in the future, when the human ego will
have attained ever higher degrees of maturity and
greater power. Related to this is the question, whether
the “third force,” mentioned by Rudolf Steiner, refers
already to atomic power. There are criteria in favor of
assuming that it too refers to a power that is yet to
emerge in the future.
In conclusion, two excerpts from the cycle The
Apocalypse of St. John will balance the somewhat
gloomy outlook of the future:
Consider that through the evil separating from the
good, the good will receive its greatest strength­
ening. For after the great War of All against All,
the good will have to make every possible effort to
rescue the evil during the period in which this will
still be possible. . . . Men speak of good and evil, but
they do not know that it is necessary in the great
plan that evil, too, should come to a peak, in order
that those who have overcome it should, in the very
overcoming of evil, so use their force that a still
greater good results from it..___The good would not
be so great a good if it were not to grow through the
conquest of evil. Love would not be so intense if it
had not to become love so great as to be able even to
overcome the wickedness in the countenances of
evil men. Therefore you must not think that evil has
no part in the plan of creation. It is there in order
that through it may come the great good.
(From lecture 8)
. . . men will often have the opportunity to open
their hearts to the spiritual world-conception,
which is today flowing through the anthropo­
sophical movement. There will be many, many op­
portunities, and you must not imagine that future
opportunities will only be such as they are today.
The way in which we are able to make the spiritual
view of the world known to others is still very fee­
ble. Even if a man were now to speak in such a way
that his voice were to sound forth directly like the
fire of the spirit, that would be feeble as compared
with the possibilities which will exist in later and
more developed bodies in order to direct our fellow
men to this spiritual movement. When mankind as a
whole will have developed higher and higher in
future ages, there will be very different means
through which the spiritual conception of the world
will be able to penetrate into men’s hearts, and the
most fiery word today is small and weak compared
with what will work in the future to give all souls
the possibility of the spiritual conception of the
world —all the souls now living in bodies in which
no heart beats for this spiritual conception of the
world.
We are at the beginning of the spiritual movement,
and it will grow. It will require much obduracy and
much hardness to close the heart and mind to the
powerful impressions of the future. The souls now
living in bodies which have the heart to hear and
feel Anthroposophy are now preparing themselves
to live in bodies in the future in which power will be
given them to serve their fellow men, who up to
that time had been unable to feel this heartbeat
within them. We are only preparing for the
preparers, as yet nothing more. The spiritual move­
ment is today but a very small flame; in the future it
will develop into a mighty spiritual fire.
(From Lecture 12)
Rudolf Steiner on the Work
with Young People
by ERNST LEHRS
Editor's note: We bring the following article in
memory of the author who died on December 31, 1979
in Germany, at the age of 85. As writer and as lecturer,
Ernst Lehrs has been known to many members in this
country. In 1933, 1956, 1958 and 1976 he participated as
a main speaker in the Summer Conference in Spring
Valley; in 1956 he traveled afterwards all the way to
California, lecturing at the various anthroposophic
centers. His Man or Matter, written originally in
English and published in the 1950's by Harper and
Row, has become an anthroposophic classic.
Ernst Lehrs’autobiography was recently printed
in Germany. We hope to bring an extensive review in
one of the forthcoming issues.
(Translated by Maria St. Goar from “Mitteilungen aus
der anthroposophischen Arbeit in Deutschland,” Sum­
mer 1971. Published with permission.)
Soon after the founding of the Independent
Anthroposophical Society on February 27, 1923, Rudolf
Steiner gave its executive committee a memorandum
—designated as such by him —in which it says in the
fifth paragraph, among other things:
“Out of their midst, lecturing and other work for
the public will have to arise.”*
For this reason a member of the committee asked
Rudolf Steiner during a discussion that took place some
time later: “When we want to speak to young people of
our generation of supersensible contents how can we
generate the necessary confidence towards what we
say? The same confidence that one gains towards you,
the proclaimer of spiritual science, once one has at­
tained the insight that you have explored the content of
spiritual science at the very source. To a certain extent,
we merely pass on what we have heard from you.” To
this, Rudolf Steiner replied: “In every case, you must
try to take hold of that one little corner of the super­
sensible that manifests in the sense world. In that way,
you create for yourself the platform of confidence on
which you can also speak of supersensible matters that
do not manifest to the senses,” —and here he turned to
the writer of these lines —“as I showed it to you this
morning during the lesson in the tenth grade.” To his
surprise, this person thus realized that during the
lesson that morning, a model had been shown of how to
address young people of every age so that confidence
*Contained in: Rudolf Steiner, Die Erkenntnis-Aufgabe der Jugend,
Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach.
5
could be established toward one who communicates
spiritual contents, and thus to the spiritual itself.
What had occurred during the lesson referred to
by Rudolf Steiner? I shall describe what has remained
vividly all this time in my memory.
As a theme for anthropology in the tenth grade,
Rudolf Steiner had designated “The organs and their
functions in relationship with the life of soul and spirit.”
It was the first time that I had spoken on this topic —a
good three months after I had begun work at the school
in Stuttgart. On that morning, in line with this main les­
son block, I discussed the human faculty of laughing
and crying. I knew what spiritual scientific anthro­
pology says concerning this: how the astral body can be
induced to contract, which leads to crying; how, on the
other hand, it can have cause to expand, which results
in laughter. In the first case, the breath is inhaled
spasmodically; in the second, it is exhaled in the same
manner. In each case, it is a reaction to a corresponding
external inducement. For the lesson, it was important
to point out to the students certain phenomena that had
thus become transparent to me so that, following along
my lines of comprehension, they would attain to the in­
sights befitting them. I was just at the point of remind­
ing them how, a few weeks earlier during the appear­
ance of the devil in the Christmas plays, the little
children in the front rows had laughed and how they
themselves had been angry at this, and what the reason
for all this was. I was convinced that, just as in the pre­
ceding days, here too, I was teaching “concretely” in ac­
cordance with the proposed theme.
As usual, unexpectedly, Rudolf Steiner entered
the classroom. Following a hint from him, I briefly in­
formed him of what we were doing. He countered with,
“Oh, I see, you are teaching psychology.” This was a
severe shock for me. Based on my experiences at the
university, I rejected “psychology” as something com­
pletely unjustifiable in its present form. I was faced
with having to learn how, in order not to remain
“psychology,” a description must be based on genuine
perception. To start with, Rudolf Steiner gave me to
understand in a friendly manner that I should continue.
He sat down on the chair that had been placed for him
in such a way that he could keep his eye on both the
class and the teacher. It didn’t take long before he got
up with the words that now he would like to add
something too. (He never did this without a friendly re­
mark to the students concerning the teacher and his
work, and this occasion was no exception.)
Stepping up to one of the front-row desks, he pick­
ed up a pencil lying there and pushed its tip into the
side of his other hand. He gave himself completely over
to what he was doing, something one could always ex­
perience in his case when he did something with his
6
hands. The result was rapt attention on the part of both
students and teacher. “What happens when one does
something like this?” he asked the class. “It pricks,”
somebody stated. “Yes, and if it pricks you very hard,
what do you have to do then?” There was no answer at
first; obviously the young people were embarrassed to
say that one would have to cry. Finally, he received this
answer from a girl. “Well, of course, one doesn’t have to
cry every time something hurts, but sometimes it does
happen. And now let’s see why on occasion one does
have to cry.” He stretched his left hand out to the
students and side by side with it the right hand with
the pencil. He then invited them to turn their attention
to what distinguishes the hand from an object such as
the pencil. He pointed out that both were something
bodily and physical, but that the hand was something
else in addition. “It is not merely something physical
but also something of the nature of soul and spirit.”
And once again, pushing the pencil tip into his hand,
with the same concentration on what he was doing, he
said, “You see, when I push the pencil in there like that,
something of the soul-spirit element of the hand is push­
ed aside a little, because there, in its place —can you see
it? —is the purely physical of the pencil. Now, we have
too much of the bodily there and too little of the soulspiritual and that is why it hurts.”
The next thing that happened is difficult to
describe without causing a misunderstanding.
Everyone was still taken up with what had been shown
and discussed, when Rudolf Steiner suddenly changed
his whole bearing. Moving back a bit to the blackboard,
he said the following with a quietly emphatic tone in his
voice, as though proclaiming a teaching: “Now I must
speak to you of a basic fact in man. The human being is
constituted in such a way that, if he is to be well, a
balance must exist between his physical-bodily part
and his soul-spirit aspect. If it is disturbed, he must im­
mediately remedy it. Think of a scale: If a heavier
weight is placed on one side, a corresponding one must
be put on the other side to restore the balance. And
now, you see” —and he came forward a few steps and
returned to the former bearing —“there, in the hand,
the balance is disturbed. Too much of the physical is on
one side of the scale and immediately one must put a
corresponding amount of spiritual weight on the other
side. Now I ask you: Where are we the strongest in the
soul-spirit element? It is where we are the most con­
scious. And where is that?” Answer from the rows of
the students: “In the head!” “Yes, and where the
strongest there?” Answer, “In the eyes!” “Yes, in the
eyes. And you see, we bring even more soul-spiritual
element to it by concentrating it very much there.
Then, this presses out the tears, and in the warm
stream of tears you can really experience yourself.”
After a little pause: “Now let’s see how things are
in the case of laughter. Just picture how it feels if
somebody tickles you on your feet. See, you already
have to laugh when you imagine this. The balance is
disturbed then too. Now, how is it: Do we have too
much of a soul-spirit element in the soles of our feet?”
No answer. “Well, perhaps you can try to recall tonight
before going to sleep what you have perceived
throughout the day with your eyes by means of the
sense of sight, and what you have observed with the
sense of touch in the soles of the feet while you walked
over the ground during the day. You will be able to tell
me even now that one has much less of the soul-spirit
element in the soles than in the eyes. Now, if somebody
tickles you there, more of the soul-spirit element is
drawn to that region, and again the balance is disturb­
ed. This time, there is too much of it on one side of the
scale. Again, something has to occur that once more
will restore the balance.” (With rapt attention, I myself
waited to hear what would come next: Correspondingly
more of a physical aspect on the opposite side of the
scale? But how? And why then the laughter? How sur­
prising then what came next, since it contradicted any
purely p h ysical-scientific thinking.) “Now, a
corresponding amount of the soul-spiritual has to be
taken off the other side. And this we accomplish by
laughing. By laughing, we make ourselves less con­
scious in the head, because we allow the soul-spirit ele­
ment to leave there and descend to the chest and the
limbs, where one is normally more in a state of sleep,
and one laughs, and laughs, and laughs.” And he hearti­
ly demonstrated this to the students. “Yes, this is how
it is with crying and laughing,” he said kindly to me and
left, waving a greeting to the students, and having re­
stored the connection between teacher and pupils with
a warm remark.
This is the example that Rudolf Steiner referred
to in the above-mentioned discussion when he said, “. . .
take hold of that one little corner of the supersensible
that manifests in the sense world.” I could therefore re­
late what was meant to the other members of our com­
mittee.
The “Pre-Kamaloca” Experience
of Old Age
by ALAN HOWARD
One of the on going pre-occupations of life at any
time is that of looking forward to the chief life-events of
the future; and a great deal of life’s current activity is
spent in preparing for them. One only has to scan the
course of human life to realize this. It starts almost at
birth, or soon after. The infant looks forward to going
to school; the student to starting his career; the young
person in love to getting married; the young married
couple to having their family; the older couple to their
children growing up and fending for themselves; and
finally they themselves to retirement. And each of
these stages is largely a preparation for the next one.
But what really major event in the line of such
events have retired people to look forward to? Only one
—death!
This mustn’t, and will not of course, be taken mor­
bidly; for retirement is, and can be, one of the happiest
and most useful times of life. None the less the only im­
portant “life event” that is to take place in the future is
one’s own death.
There is no reason, however, why this looking for­
ward and preparing should stop just because we are
old; or that the feelings connected with it should be
radically different in view of what that “event” is.
There is certainly nothing in the teachings of anthro­
posophy to suggest it. Quite the contrary. Everything
there emphasizes the continuity of life, and that the
part after death is an even more fulfilling continuation
of all that one has striven for before it. None the less
you rarely find people going around saying, “I’ve only a
few more years to live now. It won’t be long before I
die!” —with the same air of eager anticipation that they
tell you about looking forward to getting married, or to
starting their life’s career. And one would hardly ex­
pect them to, either. The conventions of our time make
it as improper to talk about death in such a way, as
some years ago it would have been to talk about one’s
sex life. In fact, death is the “obscenity” of the twen­
tieth century, as sex was of the nineteenth.
None the less, only to the degree that we can con­
template our own forthcoming death with a proper
anticipation —even if we can’t talk about it —can we as­
sess to what extent the teachings of anthroposophy
have gone any deeper than a well-substantiated hope.
Naturally, by anticipation I mean nothing of what
the psychologist would call the “death wish,” or a long­
ing for the after-death existence just because it seems
so much better than this. Anything of that nature
would be a wanton desertion from all the opportunities
7
for work and interest which still remain to the old just
because they are old. For one can look forward to death
in the sense meant here, and at the same time go on liv­
ing as actively, purposefully and enjoyably as life might
give one time and means to do so. For, unless one can
look forward to death in this way, one cannot co-oper­
ate with the death forces in such a way as to prepare
properly for it. One becomes instead the victim of those
forces.
This co-operation with the death forces in age con­
stitutes what might be called going through a prekamaloca.
Kamaloca is the state of existence after death
when we can no longer experience what we haven’t the
means and capacity for. Having no physical body we
cannot enjoy what the body gives us access to. But
because the desires for what is possible through the
body persist after death, we have to suffer the inability
to satisfy them until we can learn to do without them.
In age, however, we still have a physical body; but
there is such a marked diminution in its powers that it
imposes “pre-kamaloca” conditions on one that can be
very unpleasant indeed. For if, as anthroposophy
teaches, desire for the good things of life, like sexual en­
joyment, vigorous physical activity, “living it up,” in­
dulgence in good food and drink, can persist after death
when one hasn't a body at all then they certainly
can persist in age when one still has that body —but a
body which can mock one with its incapacity to satisfy
such desires. This is why many old people who take a
particularly strong line on morality and the way others
should behave don’t necessarily do so objectively.
There is no period in life so susceptible to moral and in­
tellectual hypocrisy as old age; and it is all the worse
just because old age is also obliged by reason of age to
live the morality it preaches.
Anthroposophists are fortunate, however, in that
they know that kamaloca is also a preparation for the
real experience of the spiritual life. Kamaloca is not
just the pain of obligatory relinquishment. One can
learn to go through it co-operatively if one knows its
secret —and its secret is that we want to go through it.
This, too, can play over into the pre-kamaloca of
old age.
Take for instance, the opportunity age gives for a
heightened objectivity and sensitivity of observation.
Physical circumstances have withdrawn us from the
bustle and busy-ness that others are engaged in. We
have more time to contemplate it all. It is all wrong for
busy, important, active people to pity the old just
because all they seem to want to do is sit on a park
bench, or in their favorite rocker on the porch. They
may be seeing much more of the “game” and what it all
means than the most active participants.
8
One of the reasons why we aren’t more aware of
the spirit working into the Maya of our human activity
is because we are so completely wrapped up in that ac­
tivity. We ought to make times of withdrawal for our­
selves, when we can let things speak their own inner
nature to us. Old age makes us withdraw; but in doing
so it provides the opportunity to realize, perhaps for
the first time, how much of what is really going on is not
what it seems. One actually begins to see that there is
far more than the wills and desires of the separate
human beings behind all this human activity. The world
would not be as sane as it is if only human beings were
running it. The interplay of spiritual beings becomes an
intuitive, objective fact. One feels how easy it would be
to slip out of this physical body altogether, and not find
oneself in so strange an environment after all. One
doesn’t need to think about the spirit so much; one
senses its all-pervading presence.
One of the most difficult experiences of the kama­
loca period after death is the absence of the physical
body. We have become so attached to it in life, so iden­
tified with it, that when we no longer have it we feel
“emptied out,” as Rudolf Steiner puts it.
This too is prefigured in older life. Many a man
who has looked forward to his retirement finds that
there is a certain emptiness in the fact that he is no
longer part of it all. His job, his profession, which he
had spent a lifetime in perfecting, has become a kind of
other body which he didn’t know about until now he has
cast it off. He realizes now how very much he himself
was identified with it. Now, he no longer has it; only the
remembrance of it. “Thou wert that!” He isn’t that any
longer now. And he can only contemplate a world, in
which he was that, carrying on very well without him.
One has to let go, in age as well as after death. That
is essentially the kamaloca experience which one can
begin to learn here and now. If one doesn’t, then one be­
comes a nuisance to others as well as a misery to one­
self. How much do families, societies, countries even,
still suffer from those older people who won’t do what
the kamaloca of age is beseeching them to do —to let go.
And this happens when old people can’t look for­
ward to death and prepare for it. As a result they have
lost not only what they once had, but what is more im­
portant, what they might still have. That is, the crea­
tion of that new kind of life in which the spirit can
reflect itself in the mirror of an old age wiped clean of
all those things that dulled it earlier. And that is
something special; it is the Abendsonnenschein of
human life; something so special that it could even
make these young people, who seem to have every­
thing just because they are young, sit up and take
notice. Instead of looking at age with pity, if not with
loathing, they would find themselves asking, “What
have these old folks got that we haven’t got?” The
bridge across the age gap could be widened and
strengthened; and more and more young people be able
to cross it to the accompaniment of old Rabbi Ben
Ezra’s words:
“Grow old along with me,
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.
Our times are in His hand
Who saith, ‘A whole I planned;
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all
nor be afraid!’ ”
Our Karmic Companions*
by GEORGE O’NEIL and GISELA O’NEIL
THE NETW ORK OF AFFIN ITIES
If it be the hallmark of genuine anthroposophic ex­
istence to feel deep concern with the mystery of human
life, then it is the bonds of friendship, these ties of fami­
ly, companions, or colleagues, that constitute the main
elements of that mystery —of which we speak so
abstractly as “destiny.”
To be sure, each of us lives as an individual, strivingly; yet the uniqueness of each to a large degree lies
in the invisible web of human relations to which he
belongs. No two webs are ever alike. Touch a human
life and there is resonance springing from hither and
yon, unpredictably.
In the child the web exists for long potentially,
crucial connections emerging as though by hap­
penstance, their significance dawning later. Older folk
have their web in the wealth of life memories: places
and circumstance where people were met, but mostly it
is linkage with people, companions of part of life’s way.
Speaking of these companions: Some do follow us
through life, others only for a time. Some ties endure,
others end. When certain ones enter our life, nothing is
the same anymore, everything changes. Others but re­
main on the periphery —helping or harming perhaps, or
remaining neutral.
Among this array of characters on the life-stage of
each of us, we experience cycles of interest and
estrangements; attachments and disenchantments; an
endless variety —too rich for most to recall —of influ­
ences of parents, relatives, teachers and mentors of one
sort or another.
And often it is experienced in our own circles that
again and again, the same individuals are brought
*This is part XII in a series on The Human Life.
together in differing places and circumstances —as
though the weavers of these webs would make sure
that “missions assigned” would be accomplished.
THE STATE OF BEING CONTEMPORARY
Despite the variety of substance in human rela­
tionships —the help, the harm, or indifference; the love,
the animosity, or neutrality —something we have
strongly in common: we are all contemporaries. We are
simultaneously here on earth together. We belong to a
phase of time.
A reality it is: We incarnate in waves, appear as it
were in shifts, stay together in groups, with the mark of
our age upon us. “If you are with certain human beings
in a life on earth, then you were with them in a former
life,. . . and you were with them again in a life before it
. . . It is a fact that the continued life of mankind on
earth takes place in rhythms.”1
True, there are the strange instances of loners,
born out of time, bereft of intimate ties, as though born
too soon or too late —these are the exceptions.
Awareness in youth of contemporary existence is
less sharp than in age. But we can look back to realize
what an amazing array of elders stood about us, and
how blankly unaware we were of their interwoven
destinies, their tragedies, their joys, or their achieve­
ments. As we grew older, this mural of ancients reced­
ed into history, and all about us seemed to belong to us,
our time. And then, with the middle years, it gradually
dawns that a new wave is upon us. That we and they
are no longer one. Many of those who were “ours” are
gone. Our mentors, the authors we loved, the great ac­
tors, artists, or musicians. Eventually we become “sur­
vivors,” most of our contemporaries now live beyond
the threshold. The impulse to join them in thought
grows stronger. We remember “when,” and think of
the days that were. More and more we become aliens,
nothing seems to make sense anymore —these fads,
fashions, and trends so eagerly embraced by the new
wave, seem meaningless. That former experience of be­
ing contemporary gives way to estrangement.
ON WHAT WE OWE TO OTHERS
Our store of memories is every man’s treasure. It
gives a feeling of self midst the passing show. Yet look­
ing back over past events, we see not only ourselves
but many others too. We remember them, of course,
, but how much is concealed beneath our ego-centricity.
How little do we realize how much of what we are was
due to others, in years gone by.
There is an objective as well as the ordinary sub­
jective review of life. “Look back into your life and pay
less attention to what interests you in your own person
and much more to those figures that have come in con­
tact with you, perhaps also injuring you —often injur­
9
ing you in a helpful way. One thing will then become
evident to you and that is how little reason a person
really has to ascribe to himself what he has become.”2
What all it was that others made possible! What
would our life have been without them? Breaking
through this illusion of “I, me, my, or mine,” which veils
our memories, we come to a strange discovery. Imagine
having been born in some other setting, another family,
schooling, circumstance —how much of the present
“me” would there be?
Everything I am today, almost that is, came about
as effect from someone else. My language, my habits,
my personal traits, my learning —everything I normal­
ly consider to be what I am —came from parents, from
upbringing, from teachers, from those about me.
If during the formative years, we are molded by
people around us, what then are we, ourselves? At a
certain point we begin to realize that this “me,” my self,
is akin to some jelly-like fish —a shapeless, amorphous
glob, firmed up and given shape by destined impacts
from this side and that. It dawns upon us to what de­
gree we have been formed by the people around us.
A second thought occurs: Inherent in this im­
printing that gave us character, was of course our re­
sponse. Some we accepted, others we rejected. We
learned this and ignored that. Certain influences went
deep, others shallow. There was selectivity at play.
Those wondrous powers of imitation and learning, that
later faded away, were governed by something within
us. Down through the years, an inner destiny showed
its hand. Without knowing it, we chose to be formed by
those we loved, with whom we felt affinity. The “I” —
not yet manifest —was making the person we wanted
to be.
Much egotism could be overcome if we truly
reckoned with the influences others had on our life. The
miserable habit of self-absorption, to which most of us
are prone, can be weakened by awakening feelings of
gratitude, of appreciation, and recognition for the ex­
traordinary contributions others have made, and con­
tinuously make, toward our existence.
BONDS OF YOUTH AND BONDS OF AG E
Should we not search now for an overall pattern,
some design, by which to understand the interplay of
these human ties? Very few of us go all the way
through life with the same set of companions. Parents,
siblings, relatives, school friends and teachers: such are
they who influence us in the first part of life. Then for
most of us, great changes occur in locality and new
faces: Spouse, children, colleagues in work and ac­
quaintances —a different group entirely. Relatives and
old friends of earlier years recede more in the back­
ground.
10
We ourselves are indeed different, at first and
later. Our relationships even more so. In early years we
were the beneficiaries of care, others did things for us.
Later we must care for others, are called upon to con­
tribute and to sacrifice.
Put abstractly: our relation to start with is that of
“receiver,” later that of “giver.” Receiving and Giving
are the two main gestures of the two distinct halves of
life.
Can we not rightly ask here, why this drastic
change of role and of characters on life’s stage, as
though the script for the second act were almost
another play? Could it be that in previous lives
together, ties were formed which here in strange ways
are coming to fruition; and that alternation is an in­
timate part of destiny.
In a lecture in 19123 we find a thought that can
give us the key. One that can make us look about us
with awe at our friends; look back with questions and
wonder at those who launched us on our way. In mid­
life we meet again our former kith and kin. In childhood
we have about us those with whom we once stormed
life’s battlements. An alternation and a metamorphosis
of activities —of those more inner and those more out­
er, of those of home and world.
“A certain striking fact presents itself . . . In­
vestigation of encounters with other humans that arise
in the middle of life shows, curiously, that these are the
persons with whom, in the previous or in a still earlier
incarnation, a man was together at the beginning of his
life, in his earliest childhood . . . ”
"In the middle of life —as a rule it is so, but not al­
ways —a man encounters through circumstances of ex­
ternal karma, those persons who in an earlier life were
his parents . . . When a person, let us say, about the age
of 30 —enters into some relationship with another,
perhaps he falls in love, makes great friends, quarrels,
or has some different kind of contact, a great deal will
become comprehensible if quite tentatively to begin
with, he thinks about the possibility of the relationship
to this person once having been that of child and
parent.”
“Conversely, . . . those with whom we were
together in earliest childhood —parents, brothers and
sisters, playmates or others around us during early
childhood —they, as a rule, are persons with whom in a
previous incarnation we formed some kind of acquain­
tanceship when we were about 30 or so; in very many
cases it is found that these persons are our parents or
brothers and sisters in the present incarnation.
“Curious as this may seem, let us only try to see
how the principle squares with our own life and we
shall discover how much more understandable many
things become.”3
BREAK-UPS AND DEPARTURES
From this aspect too, some understanding may be
derived for seemingly a phenomenon of the day: those
short-lived ties in the name of romance, marital ad­
venture, or independent spirit.
Fraught with pain often, emotional distress or
tragedy at times —and frequently with stupid­
ity —some separations cut deep. Many were necessary,
as we later come to see. Some people can forget and
forgive, as though a bit of cosmic humor had been at
play.
Break-ups and endings are often riddles without
keys, unless we assume that there is more at work
than is visible to the eye. People do have business with
each other. And much of that of today was apparently
left unfinished in a former age, and is now in need of
rounding out. The following quotation4 suggests some
clues, with a moral or two as to the aftereffects of self­
ishness or the possibility of utter boredom.
“This is what we generally find. The two people,
who in a subsequent earthly life, had a friendship in
their youth which was afterwards broken —in an
earlier incarnation they were friends in later life. . . . If
you enjoyed a friendship with a person in the later
years of life, you have an inner impulse also to learn to
know ... him as a friend in youth. You could no longer do
so in that life, therefore you do it in the next.
“It has a great influence when this impulse arises
— in one of the two or in both of them —and passes
through death . . . In the spiritual world, in such a case,
there is something like a “staring fixedly” at the period
of youth . . . and you do not develop the impulse to learn
to know your friend once more in maturer years. And
so, in your next life on earth, the friendship of youth —
pre-determined between you by the life you lived
through before you came down to earth —is broken.”
“In all the instances of which I am aware, it has
invariably been so: If the two human beings had
remained united in later life, if their friendship of youth
had not been broken, they would have grown tired and
bored with one another: because, in effect, their friend­
ship in maturer years in a former life took a too selfish
direction.
“Selfishness of friendships in one earthly life
avenges itself karmically in the loss of the same friend­
ships in other lives.”
“It is so in many cases: Two human beings go their
way, each of them apart, say, till they are twenty;
thenceforth they go along in friendship. Then in the
next earthly life, correspondingly, we generally get the
picture of friendship in youth, after which their lives go
apart.”4
OUR TEACHERS AND WE
Teachers have great influence on our life, whether
or not we are aware of it. To a large extent, it is they
who determine in which cultural milieu we find our­
selves in later years.
But there are teachers —and teachers. Many we
forget who but shuffled us onward through the school
routine, left us untouched as persons. Yet there were
several who stood out. What of them? Individuals
whose impact evoked a response like a flower opening
to the sunlight: unfolding yet unborn potentials in us,
stirring the will to emulate, to identify, to work to
capacities we didn’t know we had. What was taking
place between us?
It is said of those who in adult years encountered
Rudolf Steiner, that some were able to give their life, as
it were, to the work at hand, and to their inner en­
deavors as well. This is true also of relations with lesser
individuals, yet still notably perceptible and concrete.
A mystery of Thy Will be Mine.
This finding-of-a-teacher theme is a chapter, vast
in itself. What we want in brief to explore is the secret
power at play in these precious instances, where seem­
ingly destiny shows its hand. For not only are karmic
ties from the past in evidence here, but the actual
metamorphosis of soul forces as well. Also, implications
for future lives.
It has always struck one with astonishment that
the foundations for thinking powers of the truly
modern consciousness-soul individual were laid down
in the Orphic Mysteries by the feeling-life of music.
That similar metamorphoses may be operative bet­
ween pupil and teacher is something that should bind
our attention. For this magical relationship to occur,
the appeal to the life of thinking and ideas, which the
great teacher makes, must have had its roots in exper­
iences of profound feeling in a previous incarnation.
The following reference can give us something to
reflect upon as to our own past, our present, and the
future we are shaping for ourselves now.
“People do not always feel contemptuous about
those who were their teachers; many look back with in­
ner happiness to those who educated them. When this
is so, the recollection can deepen into a very intimate
experience. It may come to us that between age 7 and
14, for example, we always felt obliged to do whatever
this revered teacher did; or we may realize that when
this teacher told us something we felt as though we had
already heard it, as though it were just being repeated.
It is actually one of the most beautiful experiences in
life when we remember something of this kind, feeling
that it was repetition .... It is our karma to have such a
teacher and it points to a previous life.”
“As a rule it is not the case that in the previous
earthly life the teacher was also our teacher; the rela11
tionship then was quite different. From a teacher we
receive thoughts, ideas, even if they are clothed in the
form of pictures; in true education we receive thoughts
and ideas. When this is the case it points back, as a rule,
to a relationship where feelings, not thoughts, were
communicated .... And the same may apply to the pre­
sent and a future earthly life.
“Let us suppose that in this present life a man
feels drawn by warm, inner sympathy to some other
person with whom life does not bring him into specially
close contact, whom he merely meets but to whom he is
strongly drawn. In such a case it may happen that these
feelings of sympathy lead to the other becoming his
teacher in a later life.”5
QUOTATIONS FROM RUDOLF STEINER
1. 7 December 1918, Dornach, Lect. 5 in The Challenge of the
Time.
2. 8 February 1912, Vienna, Lect. 3 in The Mission of Christ­
ian Rosenkreutz.
3. 24 February 1924, Dornach, Lect. 4 in Karmic Relation­
ships, Vol I.
4 . 1 March 1924, Dornach, Lect. 5 in Karmic Relationships,
V o l.I.
5. 30 May 1924, Dornach, Lect. 25 in Karmic Relationships,
Vol. II.
(For reasons of space, the culmination of this theme will follow in
the next issue.)
PUBLICATIONS
EU RYTH M Y A S VISIBLE MUSIC by Rudolf Steiner.
Eight lectures given at Dornach, February 19 to 27,
1924; Rudolf Steiner Press, London; second edition
1977; 125 pages; $13. Distributed in the U.S. by An­
throposophic Press, Spring Valley, N.Y.
A real discovery awaits anyone who will explore this
lecture course. It is not necessary to be a eurythmist to find
the content illuminating in reference to music, poetry, and
self-development.
Rudolf Steiner brings clarity to the understanding of
language and its activity as a vehicle for man’s spirit. In­
sight is given to the relationship between speech and music.
As the lectures unfold, their beauty can be perceived
through the growing awareness that the constellations of
sounds in words, and the spheres of musical tones, intervals,
moods, and harmonies can become as endlessly astonishing
as the world of stars becomes to the astronomer. Once the
laws and relationships are explored, the doors to the in­
dividual’s further pursuit of knowledge stand ajar.
Man is an instrument for audible music when he sings,
but he becomes an instrument for visible music when he
moves according to pitch, rhythm, tonality, consonance,
dissonance, and so forth.
From lecture to lecture we are led with a dynamic that
is itself artistry. The student finds that through movement
he can discover a realm that is inside of music. When we are
at the point of hearing the audible tones, we are on the out­
side of music listening into it. When we penetrate to the ex­
12
perience of the mood and gesture out of which the tone
arises, then dies away —we enter the music itself and are
one with its inner life.
Now, in the present, when many cul-de-sacs exist as ex­
pressions of sound and movement, it can be a joy to realize
there is a superbly conscious form of musical movement,
grounded in the fundamental elements of music.
These lectures lead the reader to a creative source for
the art of music which lies in his own being, but which also
connects him to the realm of the world’s great music. They
are unique and important to the artist in each of us.
—Danilla Rettig, Wilton, N.H.
PHASES: CRISIS AN D DEVELOPM ENT IN THE
INDIVIDUAL by Bernard Lievegoed; 250 pages; $5.95.
LIVING WITH YOUR BODY, by Walther Buehler,
M.D.; 116 pages; $4.25. Both books published by Ru­
dolf Steiner Press, London, 1979.
It is not clear why these two books should have been
chosen as two of the first group of books to be published in
the new Pharos Series, a pioneer venture of the Rudolf
Steiner Press in London, which evidently has as its purpose
the presenting of Anthroposophy to a wider public than is
usually reached by the books of this Press. However inter­
esting they may be in themselves, neither is likely, in my
opinion, to attract very many newcomers to the study of An­
throposophy. Having myself written a book on the same sub­
ject as long ago as 1949, I bought Dr. Lievegoed’s book in
the expectation that his far greater knowledge of
psychology and his far greater experience would be en­
lightening for me, and that it would fill in the many gaps in
my knowledge which I have never filled in since attempting
so prematurely at the age of 42 to write my book on anthro­
posophical psychology. I have read several times Dr. Lieve­
goed’s stimulating little book Towards the Twenty-First
Century: Doing the Goody and have always been impressed
by the profound knowledge of Anthroposophy visible on
every page of that book. But this one was, quite frankly,
most disappointing to me, and I think it will be to all an­
throposophists who read it, at least those who read it in the
hope of learning what Anthroposophy has to say on the sub­
ject.
In fact, the allusions to Rudolf Steiner and his insights
are very rare, and from them no one would be able to learn
anything very substantial about him. The few references are
certainly favorable enough, but they are overwhelmed by
the mass of material drawn from the works of various
psychologists, mostly German and Dutch, who have express­
ed themselves on this subject. A reader ignorant of Steiner
would gain the impression that his principal contribution
was the names he gave to the three successive epochs of the
soul that begin at the age of 21 —the sentient soul, the intel­
lectual soul, and the consciousness soul —though he would
not learn why he gave them these names and their variants.
He would learn from the longest and most interesting
passage on Steiner in the book (pp. 204-211) that his thought
is “the most elaborate and existential form of personalism,”
a characterization that he might or might not find enlight­
ening, and he would certainly discover that the author is
also a “personalist.” Elsewhere also we are made aware of
the fact that the author accepts the idea of repeated earth
lives, though this view is not in the book also attributed to
Rudolf Steiner.
It is, indeed, evident that the book was written for a
public unacquainted with Steiner, presumably Lievegoed’s
own professional colleagues, especially those psychologists
who have discovered for themselves through their own ob­
servations the successive stages of human life who are given
very full credit in this book. It is especially interesting for
those of us who have studied Steiner’s indications for our­
selves to see how well the findings of these psychologists
tend to confirm them —though no more so than the empirical
observations provided in that excellent journalistic account
by Gail Sheehy, published in the United States as Passages.
Lievegoed also makes good use of his own specialized ex­
perience as counsellor to industry, and his examples on the
crises he has observed in the lives of young businessmen are
one of the most interesting features of the book. But aside
from the fact that the writing in the greater part of the book
is likely to prove heavy for the general reader, such a reader
if he is familiar with Anthroposophy will wonder how a book
on this subject can be written without any reference at all,
however veiled, to the importance of reincarnation and kar­
ma, not even in the otherwise good chapter on relations bet­
ween the sexes. After all, karmic elements are present at
each stage of life, especially its first half, and explanations of
events accompanying these stages can never be truly con­
vincing and satisfactory without taking karma into consid­
eration.
If the book had indeed been intended for anthropo­
sophists or even general readers, the bibliography at the
end (quaintly called “recommended reading” since almost all
the titles are going to be inaccessible to the general reader),
could have been greatly improved. It is confined almost en­
tirely to the writings of other professionals in this field.
More than half the titles are either in German or Dutch, and
even the English titles are with a few exceptions highly spe­
cialized. The reverse is true of the books by Rudolf Steiner,
which give the impression of having been selected by some
editor who knows the names of his fundamental books but is
not familiar with the texts really concerned with the sub­
ject —for example, The Education of the Child, or The Kar­
ma of Vocation. It is also, in my view, unfortunate that the
publishers saw fit to omit all information concerning the life
and career of the authors of these two books. We are left in
ignorance of their qualifications for writing them, and have
to glean whatever information we can from the personal ob­
servations made in the books themselves. When a lifehistory has been so varied and indeed fascinating as that of
Dr. Lievegoed, the decision to say nothing about these
things seems incomprehensible. His pioneer work as a
medical doctor in the field of child psychiatry, his founding
of a home for curative pedagogy, his specialty of music
therapy, and above all his founding of that unique anthro­
posophical enterprise the Netherlands Pedagogical Insti­
tute, with branches now in the leading countries of Western
Europe —all these achievements, together with his last one,
the founding of the first truly anthroposophical university in
Dreibergen, Holland, make clear the depth of his commit­
ment to Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner. Such a commit­
ment would not have been visible from this book in itself.
Walther Buehler is at least identified as a medical doc­
tor, although his long association with an anthroposophical
hospital is nowhere mentioned. Those familiar with Anthro­
posophy, especially Rudolf Steiner’s teachings about the
threefold nature of the human organism, will recognize at
once the anthroposophical orientation of his book, even
though no specific reference is made anywhere to the small
book published in English in 1970 entitled The Case for
Anthroposophy, the substance of which is drawn from
Steiner’s The Riddles of the Soul However, Dr. Buehler
does devote his first chapter to elucidating Steiner’s
discovery of the threefold nature of the human organism,
and this he does in an exemplary manner. But curiously
enough, though he gives Steiner credit for this discovery,
his references to the m atter are quite exceptionally
misleading, even in a book intended for the public. In a foot­
note on page 30 Steiner is said to have presented in his book
Von Seelenraetseln (1917) his idea of the threefold human
organism after “thirty years of research.” From this extra­
ordinary statem ent it would appear that Rudolf Steiner was
some kind of medical research worker, whereas on several
occasions, including at the opening of the Christmas Founda­
tion meeting, he himself explained that he had long ago ar­
rived at the idea of the threefold human organism but allow­
13
ed it to mature within him before speaking of it. Only be­
cause the knowledge had indeed matured was he able to pre­
sent to the members the Foundation Stone itself, with its
spiritual picture of human threefoldness. The only other
reference to Steiner in Buehler’s book is his mention of
Steiner’s famous remarks on children’s toys, remarks which
might place him in the category of a child psychologist.
Neither of these books, therefore, places Steiner at all
clearly for the general reader, and neither is therefore likely
to bring those ignorant of his work any nearer to Anthro­
posophy and its founder than they were before. But at least
Buehler’s bibliography or “recommended readings” do in­
clude several titles concerned in a general way with his sub­
ject, and most of these are lecture cycles by Steiner himself,
all except one being still in print or likely to be reprinted
soon.
Living with Your Body is nevertheless in its essence a
wholly anthroposophical work. It is entertaining as well as
enlightening, especially, as far as I was concerned, in the
lively discussion on how the digestive system functions; and
the reader will certainly at the end have a more accurate
idea of the nature and functioning of the human organism
than he will find in the usual textbooks on anatomy and
physiology. And since the book is short and the translation
seems excellent, anyone who is willing to accept the ex­
istence of a soul and its relation to the body will be amply
rewarded for his efforts. The book can therefore be recom­
mended without reserve to anthroposophists, for whom the
idea of a soul is acceptable but who may be somewhat vague
in their understanding of how it lives in the body.
Walther Buehler, indeed, tells us that it was his main
purpose to elucidate this particular m atter, and it was
doubtless to emphasize the point that he gave his book the
title it bears in German, Der Leib als Instrument der Seele
(The Body as Instrument of the Soul). It may be conceded
that in our valetudinarian age the English title Living with
Your Body is likely to attract more readers, especially if the
book is carried by health stores, whose clients will expect to
be given pointers on how to take care of this, their most priz­
ed and delicate possession. But I certainly wonder how
many members of the general public will ever have asked
themselves the question attributed to them so confidently
by the author on the very first page of his book. Medieval
philosophers and perhaps some of their modern successors
may have asked “how the soul actually lives in the body” and
“in which organ is the seat of the soul?” But the ordinary
modern reader?
None of these minor cavils in any way invalidates the
excellence of the book itself, which could have the effect of
stimulating medical doctors and other men of science to
revise and rethink their own too often primitive ideas on
how the human organism actually works, and in what ways
it differs from a mechanism.
Neither of the books under review has an index and
both would have been more useful if an index had been in­
cluded. In particular, Dr. Lievegoed’s book, which is twice as
long as Dr. Buehler’s, would have benefited from one, and
would have enabled it to be used as a book of reference, and
have helped anthroposophical and other readers to find
their way in the jungle of unknown names. Both books are
14
very well presented, with attractive covers and apparently
solid construction, doing credit to the publishers who de­
signed the entire series, and to the famous printing house
that was given the contract for them.
—Steward C. Easton, St. Gaudens, France
WALDORF PARENTING HANDBOOK -U se fu l In­
formation on Child Development & Education from
Anthroposophical Sources by Lois Cusick; self-pub­
lished/typed/offset; 209 pages; $8; available at the An­
throposophic Press and St. George Book Service.
Usually books on child development are written from a
purely medical or psychological or spiritual standpoint. This
book brings all aspects together. It describes the child in a
new and striking way. Where else would one find such a
phrase as, “The little child is most awake and conscious in its
limb movements?” This type of language, however un­
familiar to the average parents, is still accessible and clear.
The explanations of discipline will help the current
generation of young parents. Raised in permissive house­
holds, many find it difficult to be disciplinarians without hav­
ing feelings of guilt and uncertainty. Here are good, clear ex­
planations of the need for order, rhythm, and discipline.
They help you realize that guilt is perhaps more appropriate
if you don’t discipline your children!
There is a helpful statement of the problems of TV.
Aside from pointing out its dangerous effects on the delicate
developing organs of perception of the child, this section
shows parents another direction they can go, other ac­
tivities and environments they can create. This discussion, as
well as a large portion of the book, is a good advertisement
for the Waldorf school, with its magic world of fairy tales
and imagination for the young child.
But even for parents who can’t get their children to a
Waldorf school, the book gives ideas of what can be done at
home if they understand the developmental stages the child
is going through.
The first chapter is problematic. It begins at a
somewhat obscure, esoteric place. Some people might find
it too technical and complicated. It’s interesting and rele­
vant, but it brings together so many currents of thought and
ideas: the Bible, the Elohim, biology, and the esoteric. It
could put off someone unfamiliar with any of these sources.
One truth which this book points out for the teacher is
true for parents as well: You have to be centered yourself in
order to pass this on. To handle your children you have to be
able to handle yourself. The author points a direction for
both parent and child which should help to get through to
the next century as whole and sane people.
—from a review by Celeste A. Shitama, Gainesville, Fla.
A BOX OF M ATERIALS FOR CARRYING OUT
GOETHE'S COLOR EXPERIM ENTS. Assembled and
made available by the “Goethe-Farbenstudio,” Goethe­
anum, Dornach, Switzerland. (Orders to be sent to H. O.
Proskauer, Amselweg 9, CH-4143 Dornach, Switzer­
land. Cost: Sfr 30.— plus postage of Sfr 5. — airmail, or
Sfr 3.20 surface mail.)
A review not of a book, but of a do-it-yourself kit may be
a bit unusual. In this case, however, it makes good sense,
since the materials assembled here are intended as an ac­
companiment to the book Theory of Colours by J. W. Goethe
(published by M.I.T. Press in an inexpensive paperback edi­
tion). As everyone acquainted a little with Goethe’s text will
know, the book is only half the equation. The other half lies
in our observing the phenomena and performing the ex­
periments described at every stage for ourselves. The Far­
benlehre communicates itself only through experience, and
not through force of argument. And since most of us, unless
we rouse ourselves, incline to shun practical exertions, it is
not very surprising that the Color Theory has not entered
the general culture. (A second reason, its lack of quan­
titative mathematics, can only be mentioned here.) Goethe
to Eckermann:
My Color Theory is difficult to pass on, since it needs
not merely to be read and studied, but to be done, and
that has its difficulties.
Thus it becomes clear how essential are the prisms,
plates, colored films, etc., required for doing the experi­
ments. The search for these materials can often be
frustratingly inconvenient and time consuming. Waldorf
teachers will perhaps have most to gain from the availability
of the basic and essential materials in a single and inexpen­
sive outfit.
The contents (offered at very marginal profit, and, to
keep the price down, obtainable only from the “GoetheFarbenstudio”) are mainly for the “subjective” experiments,
as Goethe called them. Included are three plexiglass prisms
(acute-angled and equilateral), 16 plates in black and white
as well as in gray tones and color; one colorless, semi­
transparent panel; one lens; six transparent colored films;
and instructions, in English, on how to use the materials.
Perhaps the single most unusual and effective item is
the turbid panel (made of an especially suitable fiber glass).
This shows the “primal phenomenon” most strikingly. It is
precisely this experiment that most often poses problems
for teachers, because a really suitable medium is not always
to hand. Good opaline glass, for instance, which is otherwise
the best available material, has more and more disap­
peared from antique shops.
It is altogether a splendid deed on the part of Mr. Pro­
skauer and the “Goethe-Farbenstudio” to bring out this
Materialkasten, which is in great demand already in Ger­
many. It is a deed which should go far to help realize
Goethe’s aim. A second, more elaborate kit, serving for the
“objective” experiments, is planned for later in the year. No
Waldorf School or Institute, as it seems to me, should be
without both of them. And no household should be without
at least the first one.
—Peter Stebbing, Dornach
THE GOETHEANUM: RUDOLF STEIN ERS ARCHI­
TECTURAL IMPULSE by Hagen Biesantz and Arne
Klingborg, with contributions by Ake Fant, Rex Raab,
Nikolaus Ruff; translated by Jean Schmid. Rudolf
Steiner Press, London, 1979; 131 pages; $27.50.
It was with great eagerness that I began to read
through this long-awaited translation of the unofficial
“catalog” for the 1978 traveling exhibition on Rudolf
Steiner’s architectural impulse, “50 Years of the Goethe­
anum.” And I was not disappointed. Designed by Arne
Klingborg, this paperback volume is a feast for eyes and
soul, offering an abundance of black and white and color il­
lustrations, interspersed with related marginal quotations
from Rudolf Steiner.
With the other major books on Rudolf Steiner’s archi­
tectural work as yet untranslated (e.g., Carl Kemper Der
Bau and Erich Zimmer Rudolf Steiner als Architekt von
Wohn- und Zweckbauten) and Rudolf Steiner’s important
lectures Ways to a New Style in Architecture out of print
since 1927, The Goetheanum makes a welcome and sorely
needed contribution in English-speaking lands to our
knowledge of this fundamental aspect of Anthroposophy.
Those spiritually renewed architectural forms which Rudolf
Steiner remarked were so much needed just in the West
have been a nearly invisible feature of most anthro­
posophical life in North America.
Steiner in his studio with the model o f the Goetheanum
The bulk of the book’s text is written by Hagen Bie­
santz, and this reader finds it to be the most useful section.
The author presents a step-by-step account of the develop­
ment of Rudolf Steiner’s architectural concepts from the
first attem pts at the Munich Congress of the Theosophical
Society in 1907 through the model building in Malsch of
1909, the interior space of the Theosophical Society in S tutt­
gart of 1910, the Johannes Building planned for Munich in
1911, and finally the first Goetheanum from 1913 to its de­
struction on New Year’s Eve 1922/23.
Here at last is also a concise, clear exposition of the fun­
damental stylistic principles of Rudolf Steiner’s anthro-
15
posophical architecture, presented in such a way as to
distinguish them from other superficially similar move­
m ents —particularly from A rt Nouveau/“Jugendstil.” One
would only hope that, through a wide circulation of this book
(and perhaps also its accompanying exhibition), aesthetic
concepts such as spiritual functionalism, variable
equilibrium, metamorphosis, and “living wall” might become
familiar realities among architects and art critics of our
time.
An essay on “Rudolf Steiner’s Aesthetics” follows. This
is succeeded by chapters from Ake Fant on “Rudolf
Steiner’s Architectural Impulse in Modern Architectural
History”; from Rex Raab on “The Goetheanum in Profes­
sional Literature”; and from Rex Raab and Nikolaus Ruff, who
describe the building experience of some of the chief prac­
titioners of anthroposophical architecture in our century,
followed by an illustrated “Index of Architects,” giving brief
biographical and artistic information on 86 architects who
have developed Rudolf Steiner’s conceptions in a fruitful
variety of ways.
—David Adams, Spring Valley
OTHER N E W PUBLICATIONS —In addition to those
reviewed above, the following copies have been re­
ceived by the editor. Some of them will be reviewed
in the forthcoming issues.
Anthroposophic Press:
Rudolf Steiner: The Arts and Their Mission
Rudolf Steiner Press:
Rudolf Steiner: The Evolution of Consciousness (Pharos
Series)
Rudolf Steiner: The Foundation Stone
Beppe Assenza, Paintings with Text by Herbert Witzemann
Michaela Strauss: Understanding Children’s Drawings
Margareta Hauschka, M.D.: Rhythmical Massage
Francis Edmunds: Rudolf Steiner Education (Pharos Series)
A. C. Harwood: The Way of a Child (Pharos Series)
Owen Barfield (ed.): The Voice of Cecil Harwood
Craig Giddens (comp.): Bibliographical Reference List of
the Works of Rudolf Steiner in English Translation, Vol. II
16
Floris Books:
Heidi Britz-Crecelius: Children at Play —Preparation for
Life
St. George Publications:
Friedrich Kempter: Rudolf Steiner’s Seven Signs of Planetary
Evolution
Carl Unger: Trials of Thinking, Feeling and Willing
Dawne-Leigh Publications:
A collection of children’s books
Hawthorne Press:
Caryl Johnston: Instead of Eyes, Poems
MEMBERSHIP
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE
ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA:
Dear Friends,
The Society’s Council met over the weekend of
February 23/24 in New York City and in Spring Valley and I
am glad to be able to report to you that there was a most
fruitful conversation concerning the transformation of the
Council which will find new roots in the regional life of the
Society and which will, at the same time, strive toward a
more flexible, less cumbersome differentiation of its func­
tions. You may remember that the movement toward
greater regionalization and differentiation of function was
embodied in the recommendations which were developed
last July in Ann Arbor at the meeting of delegates from the
West, Midwest and East together with the Executive Com­
mittee of the Council in America. These recommendations
were described in full in the Chairman’s Report to the
Membership in the Autumn issue of the N ew sletter and pro­
vided the basis for our discussion at the recent meeting of.
the Council. They were accepted by the Council with the
understanding that the new General Council of the Society
in America would develop and refine its own procedures and
would maintain the flexibility to allow for the emergence of
new regions without itself once again becoming numerically
unwieldy. The acceptance by the Council of the Ann Arbor
proposals means that each of the three presently establish­
ed regions will now select one, two or three members who
will be asked to serve as the nucleus for the new General
Council. The members so selected will, in their turn, co-opt
up to six additional individuals who have distinguished
themselves through their service to Anthroposophy and to
the Society either through professional work or in one or
another special field or through their leadership in member­
ship work or in the General Section for Anthroposophy in
the School of Spiritual Science. The intention was expressed
to have brought the new General Council into existence
when the present Council meets once again in February
1981.
The Council’s confidence to undertake this final step in
its own transformation was based in its perception of the
emergence in each region of a new calibre of regional
membership work that is leading toward greater regional
cooperation and toward the establishment of regional
organs ready and able to act on behalf of the membership.
Hermann Rubach reported to the Council on the
gradual evolution of regional collaboration on the West
Coast, starting with the work by John Brousseau (Los
Angeles) from 1974-77 who, as the first western coordinator
for the national Executive Committee, devoted much time
to visiting groups and isolated individuals and awakened a
sense for the possibilities of a more active give-and-take
within the membership stretched out over a thousand miles
from San Diego to Seattle and into the Vancouver area of
British Columbia. This initial impulse has led to a number of
fruitful members’ conferences, to joint workshops and
retreats, and culminated at the members’ meeting in
Berkeley last November 29-December 2 in the stepping for­
ward of active members from Los Angeles, Sacramento and
the Bay Area who offered to serve as an interim Council for
the membership in the West. They made it clear that they
were willing to take this step because they have worked
together anthroposophically over a considerable period of
time and have gotten to know each other through this work,
but, thereby, they did not wish to limit the possibilities for
others to join them and for the group to evolve its own ways
of becoming active. The members of this interim Western
Council are: Virginia Sease, Samuel Glaze, Abraham Entin,
Leon Davis (Los Angeles); Richard Lewis, Rene Querido,
Franklin Kane, Ann Matthews (Sacramento); Mary and Her­
mann Rubach, Gudrun Monasch, Mickie Frykdahl (Bay
Area). The members present at the Berkeley Conference
warmly welcomed this initiative and recognized this new
council as taking responsibility on behalf of the membership.
In the Midwest, Ernst Katz described the same process
as having taken a different form. As reported by Edward
Schuldt in the Winter 1979-80 issue of the Newsletter, the
membership conference that met last November in South­
field, Michigan, had confirmed the establishment of a Search
Committee whose task was to find three to five midwestern
members to serve on a new Board who would act on behalf of
the membership, reporting to it at its next meeting in
November 1980. Ernst Katz reported that four of the five
potential members of the Midwestern Board have been
s e le c te d and t h a t th e y a re : W e rn e r G las
(Southfield-Detroit), Traute Page (Chicago), Burley Channer
(Toledo) and Mary Smith (Ann Arbor). They will work
together this year, will evolve their own guidelines and
report to the membership in the Midwest next autumn.
Members of the Council in the Eastern Region (of which
there are altogether 36!) reported that they have met four
times since last May and that those present at the fourth
meeting on December 8 in Spring Valley agreed to serve as
the nucleus of a regional council. It was agreed that this
group would accept responsibility and establish continuity
while remaining open and flexible as it works toward a more
definitely organized form of regional cooperation. The pre­
sent Council members plan to meet again during March and
to report to the membership as soon as possible thereafter.
Those present in Spring Valley on December 8 were:
Preston Barker (Washington), Henry Barnes (Harlemville),
Hiram Bingham (Spring Valley), Siegfried Finser (Spring
Valley), Manfred Maier (Beaver Run), Peter Menaker
(Spring Valley), Finbarr Murphy (Spring Valley), Gisela
O’Neil (Pomona), Ekkehard Piening (New York), John and
17
Nancy Root (New York), Edward Stone (Phoenixville), Colin
Young (Spring Valley), Robert Ziegler (Boston).
What is particularly encouraging, in my opinion, about
the changes that are taking place is the spirit in which they
have been prepared and are being undertaken. There is no
interest in organization for its own sake. There is positive
recognition that the forms should conform to the life and the
needs of the organism rather than the other way around. It
is who the people are, how Anthroposophy lives in them,
that is important and the goal of any change should always
be “more Anthroposophy” as Rudolf Steiner expressed it
when he described the new life that should come about
through the re-foundation of the Society at Christmas 1923.
Further reports will be forthcoming as developments
occur.
—Henry Barnes, Chairman of the Council
During World War I he served as an officer in the Austrian
army. Later he had to suffer the hardships and the uproot­
ing of the Jewish people. After the turmoil, he settled in
Philadelphia and worked in the shipping industry. The years
of retirement were spent in New York City.
Alongside the external events went his inner develop­
ment and his interests as an anthroposophist. He had met
anthroposophy during his years in Vienna. The significance
REUTHER, BARKHOFF, AND KERLER VISIT
We recently received the good news that Frau Dr.
Gisela Reuther, Treasurer of the General Anthroposophical
Society, Herr Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff and Herr Rolf Kerler,
both from the Gemeinschaftsbank in Bochum, Germany, will
visit the United States and Canada during April. They have
been invited to attend the Annual Meeting on April 12 and
will visit several centers of anthroposophical work in
various parts of the country. Unfortunately, they can not
make as many stops as they would like as their time is
limited.
Their primary interest in visiting this country is to
meet with those who have the experience and the interest to
develop new social ways of dealing with money and finance.
Many members are undoubtedly aware of the numerous in­
itiatives arising out of spiritual-scientific work which have
been realized in Germany thanks to the possibilities offered
by the Gemeinschaftsbank. Our visitors hope to meet
members and to gain impressions of some of the ways in
which Anthroposophy is active and alive in American prac­
tical and cultural life. They also want to gain insights into
the American way of dealing with social and economic
realities.
—Henry Barnes, for the Council
ERWIN PHILLIPS CELEBRATES
HIS 90TH BIRTHDAY ON JUNE 13
Erwin Phillips left many anthroposophic friends behind
in the New York City area when, a few years ago, he joined
his daughter and her family in Upland, California.
From Wischau, Maehren (today Czechoslovakia) via
Vienna to America, on to the far West; he has lived a
modern destiny of many changes.
Our friend was born as the oldest son of a “Schammes”
in the Synagogue, and was later educated at the Technische
Hochschule in Vienna (diploma in mechanical engineering).
18
of this encounter for his life can be glanced from a brief
write-up in the 1970 “Who’s Who” edition of the Andrew
Freedman Home where he then lived. It tells of Erwin Phil­
lips, at age 80:
“Entered the Home February 1960.
“Is a member of the Anthroposophical Society in NYC,
Center in Switzerland.
“Was leader of the Goethe Study Group at the Goethe
House in NYC.
“Conducts ‘Excursions in Philosophy’ study group in
our Home.
“Exhibits his paintings at the Home on Founders Day.
“Is leader of the ‘Reading and Discussion’ group at the
Home.”
Perhaps here we have a key to his extraordinary youth­
fulness: This interest in others, the sociability (who in his old
age can make so many close friends as he did), the willing­
ness and discipline to conduct regular study groups and to
help others; and last not least, the fruits of individual study.
As at the Freedman Home, so at the Society: His
reliable participation; conducting study groups and giving
lectures from time to time; forming friendships. One of his
loyal friends reports how they met: “The very first evening I
attended at the Society, Erwin came over to me, asking,
‘Are you here for the first time?’ ”
Something must be said about the Goethe Group, the
only German-speaking Anthroposophic group in New York
City. No longer existent, it had a very active life in the 50’s
and 60’s. Most of the members were Austrian. They met on
Tuesdays from 8-10 p.m. first on the West Side (93rd), then
at the Goethe Library (Lexington and 56th), and since 1961
at the Goethe House (1014 5th Ave.) —reminding us of the
days when nightly travel was still feasible in that city.
After Paul Hohenberg’s death in 1956, it was Erwin
Patricia A. Smith
Transferred from Canada
Barbara A. Cavanaugh
Royersford, PA.
Judith Duncan
Transferred from Hawaii
Robert C. Cleaveland
West Germany
Anne H. Robinson
San Antonio, TX.
Helen Jacobsen
Kimberton, PA.
Robert E. Creese
New York, N.Y.
Kenneth Jacobsen
Kimberton, PA.
Valerie A. Hastings
Glenmoore, PA.
Hazel Ferguson
Forest Hills, N.Y.
Joel W. Mueller
Panarama City, CA.
Janet Twarogowski
Phoenixville, PA.
Philip Wharton
San Francisco, CA.
Francis H. Twarogowski
Phoenixville, PA.
Ann B. Willcutt
Boston, MA.
Robert P. Berube
Hudson, N.H.
Jon G. Patterson
Berkeley, CA.
Billie M. Hill
Phoenixville, PA.
Brian D. Lynch
Southfield, ML
Edward R. Hill
Phoenixville, PA.
Sara B. Kiesel
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Grace N. Scott
Washington, D.C.
Linda E. Moore
Transferred from Great Britain
William Kiesel
Brooklyn, N.Y.
William M. Riggins, Jr.
Ithaca, N. Y.
Antje Ghaznavi
Transferred from Canada
Robert Schiappacasse
Oakland, CA.
Lora Valsi
Huntington Woods, ML
Allison Kent
San Francisco, CA.
K. Holly Byrkholder
Monsey, N:Y.
Pingala Devi
Carmichael, CA.
Joan Condon
Denver, CO.
Janette Zuzalek
Copake, N.Y.
John H. Ganajian
Reseda, CA.
Phillips who for many years guided the work: Studies in
Goethe’s Faust I & II, texts by Rudolf Steiner, and oc­
casional anthroposophic lectures in German. The meetings
provided a center in a foreign milieu for those who brought
with them the background of the cultured class, most par­
ticipants having had academic experience (lots of
doctorates), each searching in his own way for the realities
of the spirit. The Viennese “Gemuet” was warmly
cultivated, creating thus a spiritual family in the wilderness
of the homeless souls.
To Erwin Phillips now achieving 90 —who at the age of
80 listed as foremost in his biographical data, “Is a member
of te Anthroposophical Society” —his grateful fellow-members join his many friends in sending him salutations and
heartfelt good wishes.
Mr. Phillips’ address: c/o Kaichen, 918 Carson St.,
Upland, CA 91786.
Contributions to the above were made by:
Ilse Gruenberg, Lotte Rumsen, Fred B. Stern, and
Margot Winter.
A NOTE OF THANKS
FROM CHARLOTTE PARKER
Charlotte Parker wishes to convey her thanks to all
those who have remembered her birthday and sent kind
messages which will be of great help to her as she enters her
91st year.
N E W MEMBERS:
Anneliese Boltze-Holl
Transferred from Germany
Helen O. Lobree
Transferred from Switzerland
Rosemary Gebert
Transferred from Great Britain
Margaret P. Chambers
Transferred from Great Britain
Suzanne Berlin
Transferred from Switzerland
Lawrence D. Weier
Canyon County, CA.
19
IN MEMORIAM:
ERNEST SCHOENBERG
June 4, 1901-February 2, 1980
In thinking about Ernest Schoenberg, his gentleness,
modesty, and concern for others come quickly to mind. He
was also a very private person, reticent about his personal
life. Born in Vienna, Austria into a musically talented fami­
ly, he had a keen mind and a sensitive ear. His health was
frail and remained so throughout his life. His physical
growth stopped prematurely, but he met the challenge of
the business world, becoming an accountant and rising to a
supervisory position in a bank.
Although Rudolf Steiner gave many lectures in Vienna
in those days, it was only after his death that Ernest found
Anthroposophy and joined the Society. The Nazi takeover of
Austria brought extreme danger to Ernest. With the help of
anthroposophists in Germany and Italy, he made his escape,
and eventually found refuge on a boat bound for New York.
At the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society in
America, he met Margaret Lloyd and Olin Wannamaker,
who became his friends and helpers in his search for a new
life in this country. He worked as an accountant for many
years in New York and Pennsylvania. Wherever Ernest
Schoenberg lived, his love of classical music (he often travel­
ed considerable distances to attend concerts) brought him
great joy.
20
Intense anthroposophical study, alone and with others,
occupied the central place in Ernest Schoenberg’s daily life.
His deepest desire was to share his knowledge of Anthro­
posophy with anyone open to receive it, but response was
disappointing. Lonely, he visited anthroposophic friends and
attended meetings of the St. Mark’s Group in New York Ci­
ty whenever possible. He would sit quietly in the group,
speaking only when questioned, but then with clarity and
the capacity to stimulate discussion from a fresh aspect.
In 1970 Ernest Schoenberg moved to Santa Barbara,
California. In this more easy-going, relaxed community his
wish to meet and work with new people came to fulfillment.
Besides joining members of long-established study groups,
he reached out more and more to people who had never
heard of Rudolf Steiner. It was his quite extraordinary love
of young children, especially babies, that enabled him to
meet their parents. Totally unselfconsciously, he would ap­
proach any little child he passed on his walks in the parks.
Whenever his strength permitted, Ernest Schoenberg
traveled to Los Angeles to attend meetings and lectures.
His sudden death from a second heart attack shocked all of
us whom he had not wanted to burden with worry over his il­
lness.
It is noteworthy that the “Virtue of the Month” for the
time when Ernest Schoenberg crossed the threshold is:
“Reticence becomes meditative strength.” What better
words to express his being? We can think of him now, freed
from a too-small, too-frail body, adding his strength and
courage to the forces working for mankind.
—Margaret Barnetson, Sepulveda, Calif.
OTHER MEMBERS WHO H AVE CROSSED
THE THRESHOLD OF D EATH
Margaret Deussen, July 5, 1979
from Spring Valley, N. Y.
Joined the Society in 1924
Johannes N. Hiensch, August 31, 1979
from Swarthmore, PA.
Joined the Society in 1954
Gertrude Schoewe, Nov. 8, 1979
from New Berlin, WI.
Joined the Society in 1936
REPORTS
ARTS IN THE IMAGE OF MAN, 1979
Fair Oaks, California
The second summer of “Arts in the Image of Man” con­
tinued the successful bringing of gifted artists and teachers
from Europe and America to the West Coast for workshops
in arts. Participants voiced appreciation; attendance was
doubled; and many new contacts were made.
Julius Knierim and Paer Ahlbom brought new musical
awareness (including consideration by four Waldorf schools
of using Choroi instruments in the first grade). It was a
musical summer with Miha Pogocnik, Julian White, and
others.
The growing network of anthroposophical institutions
showed their wealth in teaching experience. Persons giving
workshops included Ursula Koepf and Anne Stockton of
Emerson College, Rene Querido of Rudolf Steiner College,
the continental Europeans, and others.
Women’s questions, landscape gardening, masks,
eurythmy, Ira Progroft’s “Intensive Journal,” and Rudolf
Steiner’s Mystery Drama were among the varied workshop
offerings. The program was anthroposophical at heart and in
organizational personnel, but also attempted bridging
through cross-cultural and cross-spiritual open dialogue.
The Europeans brought art experiences and pedagogy
out of the vast reservoir of decades of work in the multitude
of institutions abroad. They learned of the problems to be
faced in America and returned perhaps somewhat
“humbler,” with more respect for the work here and with
their own workshop contribution yeasting in the enthusiasm
of participants. They took back to Europe their own tales of
enthusiasm, hopefully benefiting work in the future here.
Franklin and Betty Kane led a well-planned and copious
workshop on the splendors of Waldorf education to the eye
opening of many a parent, prospective and public school
teacher.
Next summer Jurgen Schriefer from Germany will give
tone quality and voice training, arising out of his work with
the indications by Rudolf Steiner and Valborg WerbeckSvardstrom. With Miha Pogocnik he will give a week on
Beethoven. Other workshops during the 1980 summer will
be given by Helmut von Kuegelgen (early childhood and
Waldorf education), the Kanes, Rene Querido, Ira Progroft
and Robert Bly in poetry and myth, puppetry, poets, clown
drama, clay, music, painting, eurythmy, and drama. The
theme: In Search of a New Myth.
—Manning Goodwin, Sharpthome, Sussex, England
WESTERN MEMBERS’ CONFERENCE
Berkeley, Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 1979
Advent began for the 78 participants with this week­
end conference on “The Michael Path to Christ: Developing
the Eye Within.” Members from as far away as Hawaii and
as nearby as the neighboring house met at the tranquil
facilities of a seminary high atop the Berkeley Hills. The set­
ting was magnificent: in good clear weather the vista of San
Francisco Bay stretched out 1100 feet below; and above in
the night sky the moon approached fullness.
Suggested prior study material had included Practical
Training in Thought and letters from The Michael Mystery.
At registration Friday night we were assigned blind to five
groups, based simply on order of arrival. Each of these al­
ready comprised at least two members well prepared to lead
the way, and at least one of the conference planners. In
three sessions beginning on Saturday, each group developed
its own explorations and its own artistic expressions. It was
clear that all derived new insights and made new friend­
ships.
Our two lecturers provided context and inspiration.
Henry Barnes developed his presentation on “The Trans­
formation of Thinking” through helpful analogies and mag­
nificent imaginative pictures. On the second evening Carl
Stegmann addressed the question, “How Can We Enliven
the Central Life Impulse of Anthroposophy?”, with powerful
clarity.
Eurythmy (with Veronica Reif) and speech (with Sophia
Walsh) also wove into the days’ activities. Meal times were
alive with conversation as the experiences from different
groups were shared in wider fellowship. And in two plenary
sessions, questions about the proposed reorganization of the
Society in America were raised and discussed.
This conference was arranged as part of the initiative of
a number of active members from different western Bran­
ches who have met several times throughout the year and
who were now recognized enthusiastically as an Interim Re­
gional Council until a more definitive form is established.
From its opening gestures of “Hallelujah” performed
by the eurythmists to the closing recitation of the Founda­
tion Stone Verses, this was a transforming event for us. We
now look forward to the next conference set for the weekend
of Palm Sunday in Los Angeles.
—from a report by Leon Davies, Los Angeles
21
WORK IN THE SACRAMENTO AREA
The anthroposophical work in the Sacramento area has
been growing steadily in the last few months.
Public lectures: Nine public lectures were given as part
of the regular Tuesday Evening Series from October 16
through December 18, 1979, on three themes: “The 100th
Anniversary of the Michael Age,” “Building a Bridge Be­
tween the Living and the Dead,” and “The Lights of
Advent.” These lectures were given by Richard Lewis, Rene
Querido, and Carl Stegmann.
The Celebration of the Twelve Holy Nights was
centered around the Michael Mystery (Rudolf Steiner’s let­
ters of 1924), and they were held in the homes of different
members. It was heartening to witness how well these even­
ings were attended and how a truly festive mood was
created.
Rudolf Steiner Seminars: Four weekend seminars were
conducted since the fall on the following topics: “The
Rhythms of Nature in the Life of the Growing Child” in
Sebastopol; “Discovering the Spirit of Childhood: Educating
for the Future” at American River College in Sacramento in
celebration of the United Nations Year of the Child; and
more recently “Health, Nutrition and Education for the
Future” in San Francisco; and “Medicine, Mental Health and
Nutrition Based on Spiritual Science” in Sacramento/Fair
Oaks. Lecturers and artists included: Ruth Buck, Irene Ellis,
Herbert Fill, Betty and Franklin Kane, Maulsby Kimball,
Rene Querido, Veronica Reif, and others.
The Threefold Social Order and the Contemporary
Crisis of Mankind is the overall title of ten seminars, in
eluding a weekend workshop on Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold
Social Order impulse. Apart from dealing with the cultural
and judicial spheres, a special emphasis is placed in this
series on examining the role of money and the economic
sphere. It is particularly appropriate in view of the fact that
the Templar Trust Credit Union was founded in January
1980 by a group of anthroposophists who are active in the
social and pedagogical life of northern California. (The central purpose of the Templar Trust Credit Union is to serve
the financial needs of an ever-growing number of anthro­
posophical endeavors in the immediate area and at large.) A
new departure is being made in this series by having three
or four speakers working together on a theme as a panel.
After a brief introduction, we attem pt to develop a
conversation on the subject of the evening. This approach
has proven to be very stimulating.
Two weekends have been arranged on the theme of
Early Childhood with Elisabeth Haas, Switzerland, and
Margaret Meyerkort, England.
Recently the coordinating committee of the Faust
Branch, which now comprises some 130 members, took the
initiative to arrange a gathering of delegates of the various
anthroposophical endeavors in the larger Sacramento area,
in order to share thoughts and future plans for the work. To
our amazement we found that no less than 24 different in­
itiatives arising out of Rudolf Steiner’s work are active here,
including for example: Sacramento Waldorf School, Rudolf
Steiner College, Christian Community, Auburn and Nevada
City Waldorf Schools, Somerset Home for Handicapped
22
Children, the Ark (a toy and book shop), the Village Mill (a
health food store and restaurant), Community Guardian,
Templar Trust Credit Union, Arts in the Image of Man,
Beers Book Center, Distributors of Rudolf Steiner Press,
Waldorf Industries, a financial consulting service, a number
of other activities in the fields of painting, eurythmy, toy
making, astrosophy, book publication, healing, etc. As a
result of these many activities congregating in this area, the
need for a common vision is becoming more urgent.
We welcomed a number of eminent guests to the area:
Dr. Philip Incao from Harlemville who gave us two
stimulating lectures and saw many patients; Dr. Herbert
Fill from New York City, who —in addition to being the main
speaker at two Rudolf Steiner Seminars —gave a lecture on
the theme “The Mental Breakdown of a Nation”; Coenraad
van Houten and his wife Djobs conducted a vigorous week­
end on “The Individual and Community.” The arts were
especially highlighted when we were given a most
memorable violin recital by Miha Pogacnik with piano ac­
companiment by Norma Brown. The concert drew a large
audience of enthusiastic listeners. Presently, for five weeks,
M.C. Richards is teaching and inspiring our students in the
Foundation Year as well as in the Teacher Training Course.
She will conduct a weekend workshop for the public on “Ex­
ploring Connections Between Clay, Drama and Gesture.”
A Youth Conference is being planned for May 16-18,
1980, under the theme of “Meditation East and West: Paths
to the Supersensible” We hope that during this conference
we can present Shakespeare’s “Tempest,” performed by the
students of the Foundation Year with eurythmy and music,
as a major event for the community.
As we are entering the last two decades of this century,
it becomes more and more crucial —as was voiced at the
Meeting of the Thousand in Dornach at Michaelmas
1979 —whether we can develop the tolerance, wisdom and
strength to learn to work together fruitfully as anthro­
posophists. One can sense already in our many activities
that this is the basic challenge with which we shall have to
struggle.
—Rene M. Querido
THE RUDOLF STEINER SUMMER INSTITUTE
Natick, Mass.
On the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the
Rudolf Steiner Summer Institute, it becomes essential for
the wider anthroposophical community to be informed of the
life and possibilities of this work.
In the mid-1960’s, at the request of the Council of the
Society in America, Prof. Ernst Katz of Ann Arbor compiled
a list of anthroposophists in this country who were college
professors. This list contributed to the plan of bringing an­
throposophical professionals together for course work
available to students of diverse interests and abilities. The
beginning initiative was carried by Clopper Almon of
Washington, D.C., who cleared the way and laid the founda­
tions. The first session became a reality in Spring Valley,
summer 1974.
The most dramatic feature in the Institute’s evolution
is what has developed socially. Several motifs are worthy of
note.
Attending the Institute’s second session in Penn­
sylvania was nutritionist Gerhard Schmidt, M.D., from Dor­
nach. As an initiative arising from his course, the Institute
implemented a catering section that could put into practice
spiritual-scientific indications concerning nutrition. This
work is now in its fifth year. All the meals are prepared by
professional cooks, who are on the Institute staff, in a kit­
chen well equipped for instructional purposes. A support
team of approximately 25 scholarship students work and
learn in the kitchen. This “hand work” is articulated by the
“thought work” developed in Schmidt’s beginning and ad­
vanced nutrition classes.
For the past two years a large portion of faculty and
students have assembled for a series of evening meetings to
examine current events in the light of anthroposophy. The
Institute session begins and closes with day-long meetings
of faculty and staff to discuss not only internal problems, but
to evaluate how the Institute might best serve the needs of
our age. Social dimensions and possibilities begin to emerge
in addition to individual teaching and learning tasks.
Two exploratory programs planned for summer 1980,
not mentioned in the published course offerings, are note­
worthy. 1) A working seminar, composed of faculty and
students involved in anthroposophical adult education, will
address the challenges Rudolf Steiner set forth for this work
(e.g., see The Essentials of Education or The Roots of Educa­
tion). 2) Seminar work initiated by the scientists will study
the etheric formative forces.
In 1979, published proceedings began with Stewart
Easton’s “And Another Strong Angel —A Study of the
Cosmic Mission of the Archangel Michael in Antiquity and
Now According to the Teachings of Anthroposophy.” Three
cookbooks have also been printed.
Under consideration for the future is a tutorial program
in which students may carry the course work with a par­
ticular instructor through the whole year, from summer
session to summer session. The Institute seeks to provide
not only introductory material, but to serve in the further­
ing of advanced work as well.
One fact not readily seen in the following course list for
session 1980 is that the overall faculty-student ratio is ap­
proximately 1:3.
• Descent of Music into the Physical Nature of
Man —Alfred Bartles;
• 12 Senses and their Nature and Significance for
Science, Art, Education, and Daily Life —John Davy;
• Wolfram Eschenbach’s Parzival —Burly Channer;
• Physical Form as a Vehicle for Spirit —Lawrence Ed­
wards;
• Meaning and Purpose in the History of Mankind —
Stewart Easton;
• Cultures of Europe —Johannes Gaertner;
• Watercolor Painting —Maulsby Kimball;
• Plant Between Sun and Earth —Olive Whicher;
• Opera —Anthony Taffs;
• Goethe’s Color Theory Applied, Painting —Lois
Schroff;
• The Physiology of Freedom, Threefold Man —Ger­
hard Schmidt;
• Nutrition for Beginners —G. Schmidt;
• Eurythmy, Beginning and Intermediate —Elizabeth
Hunter, Dawn Schmidt, Janet Williamson;
• Creativity in Clay and Words —M.C. Richards;
• Threefold Social Philosophy —Clopper Almon;
• Anthroposophy and Christianity, an Introduction —
Terry Neville.
• Anthroposophy and Christianity, the Second Course
—John Hunter;
• Greek Myths as Spontaneous Depiction of Human
Development —Leo Heirman;
• Early Childhood Development —Janet McGavin;
• Philosophy in Evolution —Robert McDermott;
• Poetry Workshop —Daisy Aldan;
• Basic Anthroposophy —Hans Gebert.
Rudolf Steiner Institute, July 27-August 15, 1980.
Robert Hill, Registrar, R.D. 2, Box 199, Phoenixville, Pa.
19460.
—Preston Barker, RSI Secretary, College Park, Md.
SEMINAR ON WALDORF EDUCATION IN BOSTON
February 2, 1980
The spacious hall of the First Armenian Church of Bel­
mont was nearly filled with people who had come to hear
about “A New Vision of Educating the Child,” and the group
singing with which the day-long seminar commenced im­
mediately transformed the buzzing anticipation of the au­
dience into a harmony, a warm feeling of community that
would only grow in the course of the day. In his introduction,
faculty chairman Steven Levy spoke of this new impulse,
but also announced a new impulse in the life of the young
school: the faculty now felt ready in a way it never had
before to reach out, to present their art before a wider
public, to move from the church into a building of their own
and to grow. In every way it was to be an auspicious day.
Henry Barnes then spoke on the image of the human be­
ing that underlies Waldorf education. His talk was at once
vivid and precise; both a firm foundation for the workshops
and lecture that followed, and a splendid example of the con­
trolled imaginative thinking that Waldorf education seeks
ultimately to foster. Some stayed to discuss these ideas fur­
ther with the lecturers; the rest attended workshops by the
faculty of the Belmont School on the Waldorf curriculum in
the lower and upper grades, painting, and the celebration of
rituals and festivals in school and in the home. Many
lingered for conversations during the lunch-break, and all
returned for a second lecture by Ekkehard Piening entitled
“Education Towards Freedom and Dignity,” a fine preview
of the high school curriculum in which examples of older
students’ work bespoke eloquently the freedom and dignity
they had been allowed to achieve. Workshops on handcrafts,
painting, eurythmy, and art and music in the kindergarten
followed. Throughout the day there had been a fine balance
of wise experience and youthful enthusiasm. All felt the
seminar had been a resounding success.
—Frederick Amrine
23
THE SEVENTH ARTISTIC METHOD WORKSHOP,
HARLEMVILLE, December 27-31, 1979
Some thirty persons came together to consider the
theme “Sun and Moon Forces in the Transformation of
Evil.” Basing this year’s work primarily on two lectures by
Rudolf Steiner, From Symptom to Reality (IV and V), the
day’s work led the participants through different ex­
periences: in eurythmy with Kari van Oordt, painting with
Donald Hall, and in the afternoons, music with Renate
Sachs.
Like two pillars, the realities of form and substance
stood before us as the two elements of composition essential
to all artistic work. The artistry required to play freely with
both, and the discipline necessary slowly to master this in­
terplay were ever-present themes in vivid and dynamic
discussions as well as in several contributions from the ar­
tists. One of the most significant threads weaving
throughout the conference, and especially pertinent to the
world of 1980, was Rudolf Steiner’s statement that “The
most important contribution of art to the evolution of man­
kind is the training it provides for an understanding of
future [social] problems.” I have added the word “social” so
as to indicate the development Steiner makes in the ensuing
pages of lecture V. Here he gives us an extraordinary
description of how art affects the social aspect of man’s be­
ing, and indeed determines whether he becomes a social be­
ing or not. Through the course of each day’s artistic chal­
lenges, the attem pt was made to experience consciously
what this could mean practically. One was aware that four
days is hardly long enough for such work! And yet, the stirr­
ings of new insight into the several arts and into artistic in­
tention or method became glowing sparks for each of the
participants, awakening from several artistic standpoints a
sense for the essential nature of “becoming” in man. To that
end such workshops are like a gift for artists working in our
various centers.
Seven eurythmists attended the conference and accom­
panied by Betty Hamilton, gave a festive evening of move­
ment and music.
Older members carried the original spirit of the work
but perceived readily and enthusiastically many of the new
and fresh impulses coming from the younger participants.
All who participated expressed their wish to meet
again in a year’s time and to be posted on how the next
theme will develop.
—from a report by Alice Stamm, Spring Valley
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES IN DAILY LIFE —
IN A HOSPITAL
I had often heard it said by people far wiser and more
experienced than myself that we all have spiritual ex­
periences every day only we just aren’t aware of them. I had
never given that idea much thought until I started working
at Temple University Hospital, a large university teaching
hospital in the middle of the black ghetto of North Phila­
24
delphia. Like most big city hospitals Temple Hospital has its
share of horror stories, stories of sadness, death, and
despair. It also has a wealth of stories of courage, and joy,
and perseverence in the face of adversity.
A very special place in the midst of this teeming chaos
is the intensive care nursery (ICN) where the premature in­
fants are placed immediately after birth. Most of the infants
are merely in need of a warm, quiet place where they can
grow to normal full-term size after which time they are sent
home. Some of the infants, however, are quite sick. Their
livers and respiratory systems are in the poorest of states
and because they often lack the sucking reflex all their nutri­
tional needs must be met intravenously.
It was in connection with preparing these special in­
travenous nutrients that I first came in contact with the
nurses and doctors of ICN. I noticed right away that there
was a special sensitive quality which pervaded the unit. The
harshness which one often encountered in other units was
absent. The nurses and doctors in ICN were more patient
and considerate of each other than their colleagues in other
units. I had observed a similar phenomenon in the maternity
ward of another hospital in which I had worked.
The cause of this phenomenon eluded me until one day
while making rounds with the neonatologist in charge of
ICN, we reviewed the case of one infant who had been par­
ticularly ill. In the words of the physician in charge, the
premature baby had “had every right to die.” This infant
had come into the world with severe liver and respiratory
problems and had required intravenous nutrition for over a
month. He had “graduated,” so to speak, from the room
where all the critically ill infants were kept to the room
where those infants without serious medical problems were
kept. The liver and respiratory problems were resolved and
oral feedings had begun the week before. The physician in
charge concluded his review of the case with the words,
“Now he’s ready to be born.” As soon as he said those words
the image of the purple window in the south of the Goethe­
anum flashed momentarily in my mind and I knew at once
the source of the special quality of ICN. The premature in­
fants were still so close to the gate of birth that they had not
put on all the “sheaths of adjustment” which we as adults
try to hide behind. This enabled the spiritual beings which
stand at the gate of birth to exert an effect even on the most
hardened adults.
As soon as I realized this, I also realized that in the In­
tensive Care Nursery the beings which stand behind both
purple windows must be immediately present.
This experience enabled me to look at Temple Hospital
in a very different way than I had previously viewed it. A
hospital is a very special place. On the one hand the spiritual
beings which stand behind the gates of birth and death are
always close by. Yet at the same time it is often necessary to
deal with and treat people in a very physical way.
It is interesting to consider that many of the spiritual
experiences described by Raymond Moody M.D. in his book
Life A fter Life occurred during Cardio-Pulmonary Re­
suscitation procedures which treat and view man complete­
ly as a physical being. There the patient is quickly and com­
pletely divided among the various health care professionals.
The anesthesiologists are gathered at the patient’s head try­
(This report comes from one of our American members,
an architect, who is getting first-hand experience at setting
up large-scale anthroposophic exhibitions.)
teaching tool. It is entirely possible that the catalogue will
be one which could be used in introducing architecture to
the curriculum of schools.
A number of the people who are working on the Liljevalchs exhibition also worked on one which took place
there in 1976. That show was a general introduction to
anthroposophical activities —biodynamic farming, Waldorf
pedagogy, etc. —and was a very successful one for the
museum. It wasn’t simply the fact that many people attend­
ed, but that as the museum directors had requested, they
became engaged in what they saw. Their ability to see and
respond actively was stimulated by the material and the
style of presentation. Portions of it are still travelling
around, and a large part of it has just returned from a wellattended stay at a museum in north central Sweden.
The second exhibition which is being nurtured in offices
and ateliers hereabouts will take place in Soedertaelje, an
industrial city midway between Stockholm and Jaerna. It
will principally be an adaptation of the Goetheanum Ex­
hibition which originated in Dornach in 1978 and which has
been travelling throughout Europe since then. However it
will also include a very interesting portion concerning the
construction of a “Folk Hus” as a result of a people’s move­
ment in the late nineties as a kind of local counterpoint. The
Goetheanum portion of the material is presently being view­
ed in Vienna, will be seen in London in January, and will ar­
rive here in the spring.
There are three exhibitions which are currently being
developed by various groups for the summer of 1980. One
will be in a contemporary art museum in Stockholm. It will
be called “Unfulfilled Functionalism.” In the summer of 1930
a landmark exhibition on functionalism was held in Stock­
holm, and a number of institutions throughout Sweden are
picking up the theme for a 50-year event in 1980. Arne
Klingborg helped to prepare some of the displays in 1930 as
a student at the A rt Academy and has been invited by Liljevalchs Konsthall to produce the 50-year sequel.
The subject of the exhibition will be architecture: Its
present, “Post Modern” reality ranging in extremes from ur­
ban skyscrapers to hand-built cabins in the forest. The
development of “Modern” architecture focusing around the
Bauhaus and other European Functionalist movements of
the early twentieth century. A review of the three streams
of building design —historicism, technology and free art —as
they waxed from the early middle nineteenth century until
the beginning of the twentieth. An introduction to architec­
ture as a curriculum subject in Waldorf education, with ex­
amples of work from Christoffer Skolan in Stockholm. A
brief presentation of metamorphosis in architecture and ar­
chitectural ornament. And a presentation of the activities
and buildings of Jaerna as an example of a new “style” in ar­
chitecture which has developed out of a community’s work­
ing life.
As you can tell from the range of the contents, the ex­
hibition will be quite a text in itself for the study of the
origin and meaning of contemporary architecture and its
potential future. All of the buildings and environments will
be shown through drawings and paintings; photographs will
not be used. And that too will constitute quite a new
The third exhibition will take place here in Jaerna. The
first anthroposophical curative home was opened here in
Jaerna in 1935. Since then, six other homes, two work
schools for the handicapped, several biodynamic farms, a
bakery, a mill, the Rudolf Steiner Seminary and other ac­
tivities have been established. It has been estimated that
approximately 1,000 people are employed or supported by
anthroposohically-grounded operations, and unless I miss
my guess, nearly all of them —men, women and children —
will be involved in “Milieu Which Gives Life” during the
summer of 1980.
Here are a few of the planned installations: At the
Seminary, there will be a medical garden with a wide range
of plants and wonderfully carved wooden “people” demon­
strating their organic complaints in the vicinity of the ap­
propriate healing plants. There will be a kitchen garden
showing how one can begin at home to raise herbs and food
in a healthful way. There will be a play garden for children
with large, sculptural toys which will later be installed in a
playground in Soedertaelje. There will be an architecture
garden, demonstrating the concepts of horizontal, vertical,
and lateral through structural elements. There will be sev­
eral biological and botanical displays around the moss
garden, the ponds, and in the forest.
There will be an open air theatre where activities will
take place during the long daylight hours of June and July.
There is usually a summer program of courses in biodynamic
methods, general anthroposophy, Waldorf pedagogy, Choroi
instruments, and other themes; this summer it will be ex­
panded to include more lectures, performances, eurythmy,
music, improvisations, and theatre events. In addition there
will be a coffee garden or two where people can sit and try to
absorb all th at’s going on around them along with a little
ing to establish an open breathing passage. One physician is
rhythmically pumping the heart in order to maintain blood
circulation (his title is “pump”) while another doctor is doing
a cutdown to expose a suitable vein for intravenous ad­
ministration of drugs. The pharmacist mans the drug cart
and prepares the IV bottles, and finally one doctor who is
director of the team (his title is “head”) mans the elec­
trocardiograph and determines what drugs shall be ad­
ministered and determines whether the code shall be con­
tinued further or terminated.
It sometimes takes extreme situations such as the
therapies administered in the Intensive Care Nursery or
during Cardio-Pulmonary-Resuscitation to make us aware
that the spiritual world is always close at hand. It is close to
us not only in extreme situations, but in the daily round of
events which meet us every day.
—from a report by Richard Swerling, Downington, Pa.
EXHIBITIONS IN SWEDEN
SUMMER 1980
home-baked cake or other treat.
A word about the people who are carrying out the
above tasks or other aspects of “Exhibition, 1980”: Many
workers have been collaborators for years. Others are
streaming in to be a part of this particular series of events.
Still others will come for brief periods of time —like the Ar­
chitects Conference from May 5-May 11, 1980 —and will
carry out specific work in large groups.
—Eleanor Hill Edwards, Jaerna, Sweden
FLASHES FROM THE PAST - 51 YEARS AGO
Carl Unger, whose name may be familiar to present-day
anthroposophists through the recent republication of his
book The Principles of Spiritual Science, was one of the
more unique personalities within the Anthroposophical
Society.
Born in 1878, he became acquainted with Theosophy at
the turn of the century and went to Berlin in 1904 to hear
Rudolf Steiner lecture and to meet with him. From 1905 on­
wards, he was Rudolf Steiner’s personal pupil and began his
own lecturing activity in 1907. He was advised by Steiner to
work in the field of epistemology and from 1913 on, he was
involved in the administration of the Anthroposophical
Society in Germany, of which he was one of the Committee
of Founders, the other two being Michael Bauer and Marie
von Sievers (later Marie Steiner).
Carl Unger’s life came to a tragic end on January 4,
1929 as the result of a bullet fired at him as he was about to
enter a hall in Nuremberg to deliver a public lecture on
“What Is Anthroposophy?” He was fifty years old. It was ad­
judged that his assassin was deranged. His sudden death
was keenly felt and there was an outpouring of feeling of
loss and bereavement that indicated the high esteem in
which he was held.
The British journal “Anthroposophic Movement” for
the year 1929 carried several obituaries and appreciations of
his work. Albert Steffen wrote, “He wanted, above all, to
secure the personality in its free and human essence; and in
this, he was in the highest degree selfless.” . . . Marie
Steiner wrote, “A dauntless leader on this road is taken
from us. A man who had developed so far as to be able to
answer all the demands which the present epoch makes
upon its leaders. Scientifically and technically schooled, in­
tellectually and morally unimpeachable, he was able to
represent our Movement in such a way that the high level
desired for it by Rudolf Steiner might be maintained.”
The most poetic memoir perhaps was the one written
by Mathilde Scholl (17th February 1929) under the title “The
Art of the Spiritual Goldsmith”: “Carl Unger was one able to
read the book of Revelation which Rudolf Steiner presented
as a gift to humanity in his ‘Leading Thoughts,’ and to read
it in the sense of understanding it by experience. To him
there sounded forth from the ‘Leading Thoughts’ . . . a new
language, the ‘Language of the Spiritual Soul.’ ..
Another tribute was from his friend and co-worker in
the Threefold Commonwealth movement, Emil Molt, direc­
26
tor of the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory and co-founder
with Rudolf Steiner of the original Waldorf School, who
wrote the following words (31st March 1929):
“. . . Within the Anthroposophical Movement, with
which he had been connected for decades, his personal work
won him recognition as a leader.
“In the outer world Unger found an increasingly large
public, who received his lectures with growing interest.
Reverence and respect came to him from all sides as the in­
spired and inspiring representative of Rudolf Steiner. His
crystal-clear thinking, the severe scientific method with
which he tackled the problems of the anthroposophical
world-outlook, his comprehensive knowledge in all spheres
of modern science, were admirable. In addition, Carl Unger
was skilled in every branch of art, was himself something of
a musician, and consequently had at his command an unusual
amount of general culture; but his purely human qualities
were the most beautiful thing about him. We might envy
him his superior intellect; his high degree of culture aroused
our astonishment; but his noble disposition and the fine
traits of his character compelled our love...
—Nathan Melniker
A RESPONSE TO ALAN HOWARD
(Letter to the Editor, Autumn ’79)
The original letter from which the following text has
been prepared was sent to Alan Howard personally by
Ernst Lehrs during Advent, a few weeks before his death on
December 31, 1979. With celerity —though not knowing the
“deadline ”—Mr. Howard replied promptly on December 18,
asking permission to publish the letter. The dramatic tim­
ing, despite slow holiday mail service and the distance bet­
ween Vancouver and Eckwaeldten, in Germany, made it
possible for Mr. Lehrs to discuss this request with William
Mieger and to give him oral directions concerning the
editing. A fter his death, these were passed on to Rene
Querido who took on the work. He writes, “An attempt has
been made to edit it as carefully as possible, retaining the
sense and the substance of what the late Dr. Ernst Lehrs
wished to convey. ”
—ed.
I am writing in response to your inquiry in the Autumn
’79 issue of the American Newsletter concerning what
seems to you to be a “secret Society” within the general An­
throposophical Movement.
As an original member of this “circle” which came into
being with the help of Rudolf Steiner 57 years ago, I feel
obliged to convey as far as possible a picture fitting its true
nature. At the time of the so-called Youth Course [available
in English under the title “The Younger Generation,” An­
throposophic Press] held by Rudolf Steiner in 1922, some of
us who had carried the initiative for this course out of im­
pulses shared and agreed by us during a preparatory period,
approached Rudolf Steiner in all modesty about the possibil­
ity of receiving common material for inner work. Our ques­
tion had been prompted by realizing the rapid crumbling of
human society in its different spheres. This was at the same
time that the inevitable failure of the Threefold Com­
monwealth Movement became apparent. We felt that some­
thing quite definite ought to be undertaken which would en­
sure the continuity of the anthroposophical substance re­
gardless of external conditions. For this purpose, purely in­
dividual meditations carried out for one’s own spiritual pro­
gress —indispensable though these are —would not suffice.
What we were striving for, or so we put it, was a “Schulung
als Dienst” (a path of inner striving as service), whereby one
wishes to serve the Spirit of the Time, i.e. Michael.
After a number of preparatory conversations between
Rudolf Steiner and those of us who had requested them, a
meditative content was passed on to us which Rudolf
Steiner said was given “im Auftrag der geistigen Welt” (on
behalf of the spiritual world). At the same time, the manner
of its use as well as indications of how to pass on this
meditative work to others striving in a similar direction was
explained to us by Rudolf Steiner. He then further helped
the birth of this community and said that we should regard
it as having been “gestiftet” by the spiritual world itself.
(Rudolf Steiner distinguished clearly between begruenden
= to found, and stiften = to institute, to endow; the former
refers to an impulse originating in the physical world, the
latter to one coming directly out of the spiritual world
working down into the physical.)
This took place in a solemn act. Rudolf Steiner also
handed down to the initial group a pledge which, by being
read in the presence of others who already belong to the
“Circle,” constitutes a commitment purely to the spiritual
world. We were the first to do so on Rudolf Steiner’s advice
by reading these words to one another.
Subsequently Rudolf Steiner met twice with the mem­
bers of this community endowing them with two esoteric
lessons, the second of which was held on December 30, 1923,
that is during the Weihnachtstagung (the Christmas Foun­
dation Meeting). It took place in a room of the Glashaus; and
on this occasion, Frau Ita Wegman and Frau Marie Steiner
accompanied him as guests. From what Rudolf Steiner said
with regard to Dr. Wegman’s presence, we realized that this
work was in a way linked to the newly formed Hochschule
(School for Spiritual Science). In subsequent months, Rudolf
Steiner made himself available to us whenever required
either personally until his illness or in writing until shortly
before his death.
In 1961 the Vorstand in Dornach was thoroughly in­
formed about these matters to their complete satisfaction.
The connection between the members of this commun­
ity is established solely through the same mantric words
meditated by each individually. No earthly initiative is ever
undertaken by its members by virtue of belonging to this
community. In some places friends foster meetings from
time to time of those locally in reach. Here again they do so
following the advice by Rudolf Steiner to engage in conver­
sations and Gespraech about spiritual matters, e.g. based on
the content of the two esoteric lessons, if they wish to do so.
The community has no name of its own and Rudolf
Steiner recommended that we should keep it so. However,
in the opening part of the second lesson he said, “I am ad­
dressing myself today to the youth in you. For you are after
all the esoteric youth circle.” This has prompted some
friends to refer to it as “der Jugendkreis,” but usually when
it is mentioned it is spoken of as “der Kreis” (the Circle).
I hope that through my description it has become clear
that this community is in no way an institution on earth and
that there is no secrecy about its work. It is much rather a
question of tactful discretion steering a middle course bet­
ween secrecy and indiscriminate broadcasting. Friends find
this work who feel within themselves questions arising of a
nature similar to those which have led to the original forma­
tion of this community. Experience has shown that in­
dividuals earnestly seeking answers to vital inner questions
are often led by personal encounters to situations where this
work may become known to them. It is then a matter of
whether one is able, prepared and willing to undertake re­
sponsibly the specific meditative work described above.
—Ernst Lehrs, Advent 1979
NOTES
Since 1933 there have always been Anthroposophical
Summer Conferences at the Threefold Farm in Spring Val­
ley. Sometimes also A rt Conferences —and while Ehrenfried
Pfeiffer was alive, Science Conferences. Many lecturers and
artists from abroad were first introduced to this country
by way of the work here in Spring Valley. However, this
summer we are taking a “Sabbatical” and although there
will be an Agricultural Conference, the regular Summer
School, regretfully, will be omitted.
—Bettina Kroth
*
Efforts are now under way to bring the exhibit of
Rudolf Steiner’s architectural impulse, “50 Years of the
Goetheanum,” to North America in 1981. This is a large,
professional-quality exhibit, containing about 150 large
placards and photographs, seven architectural models (in­
cluding some original models by Rudolf Steiner), and as­
sorted mounting and display equipment. The exhibit has
traveled all over Europe and is potentially available to tour
North America in the near future.
But we must undertake most of the necessary legwork,
arranging, and financing. Some of us are currently ap­
27
proaching museums, galleries, and universities with regard
to the exhibit. An English translation of the exhibit
“catalog” is now available from the Rudolf Steiner Press
(see book review). If you are interested in helping with this
project in any way, or if you know a particularly good pos­
sibility in your area for a gallery or exhibit hall which might
be interested in sponsoring the exhibit, please contact me as
soon as possible: David Adams, 227 Hungry Hollow Road,
Spring Valley, New York 10977, (914) 356-1033.
Last fall, the Detroit Waldorf School encountered a
very serious problem with its heating system. Many friends
contributed to the School’s Furnace Fund for “Project
Heat.” We would like to express our appreciation to all who
came forth with their contributions, and in particular to
those donors whom we could not personally thank because
no address was available for them. We hope this serves as
an acceptable substitute for a personal letter of thanks.
—Dina Soresi Winter, for the Faculty and Staff
*
*
From 1980 on, the Mercury Star Journal will appear
once a year, in the same format as the Sternkalender, pub­
lished yearly by the Mathematical-Astronomical Section of
the School of Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, Dornach,
Switzerland.
Volume VI will comprise:
(1) an astronomical Star Calendar for the period Easter
1980-Easter 1981. This is translated from the German S tern­
kalender, prepared for 1980-81 by Suso Vetter for the
Mathematical-Astronomical Section.
(2) Astrological Studies by Elizabeth Vreede and Willi
Sucher. These were first published by the MathematicalAstronomical Section at the Goetheanum in 1935.
$8 (U.S.A.). Mercury Star Journal Temple Lodge
Press, 51 Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith, London W6
90L.
An intensive seven-day painting course, with classes in
drawing and eurythmy, will be given at Donald Hall’s studio.
Theme: “Awakening Imagination”; time: July 11-17; place:
Harlemville. The course is intended especially for Waldorf
teachers.
Further information: Donald Hall, R.D. 2, Harlemville,
Ghent, N.Y. 12075.
*
*
*
Over 800 lectures by Rudolf Steiner and over 300 lec­
tures by others are available on cassette-tapes. This is a non­
profit project and a personal initiative of Mr. Rick Mansell,
from whom a list of available cassettes may be obtained.
Rick Mansell, 506 Pacific Coast Hwy., Redondo Beach,
CA 90277.
“Announcements” or “Notes” should (when possible)
not exceed 100 words. And please! typed, double-spaced.
—ed.
Gisela O’Neil, Editor
Ilse Gruenberg, Editorial Assistance
Florin Lowndes, Layout
Philip Raiten, Typesetting
Final Dates for Receiving Contributions:
(when possible typed in double-spacing)
March 1 —Spring Issue
June 1 —Summer Issue
September 1 —Autumn Issue
December 1 — Winter Issue
Rudolf Steiner quotes are published in agreement with the Nach­
lassverwaltung.
All communications should be addressed to the Editor, c/o Anthroposophical Society in America, 211 Madison Avenue, New York,
N.Y. 10016. Copyright and all other rights reserved by the Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Responsibility for
the contents of the articles contained herein attaches only to the writers.
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