being human Fall 2015

Detail of Self Portraits by various artists, and the Representative of Humanity by Rudolf Steiner with Edith Maryon

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12 From the Classified Section of a Newspaper of 2407, by Christian Morgenstern, translated by Christiane Marks

13 A World in Need, editorial by John Beck 14

14

“Imagine the Potential”: reGeneration, by Shepha Schneirsohn Vainstein

17 Lakota Waldorf School Building, by Truus Geraets

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Paul Cézanne, Self Portrait with Palette, 1887. See the Gallery, pages 33-36.

The Anthroposophical Society in America

General Council Members

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being human is published four times a year by the Anthroposophical Society in America

1923 Geddes Avenue

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Tel. 734.662.9355 www.anthroposophy.org

Editor: John H. Beck

Associate Editors:

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Design and layout: John Beck

Please send submissions, questions, and comments to: editor@anthroposophy.org or to the postal address above, for our next issue by 10/10/2015.

©2015 The Anthroposophical Society in America. Responsibility for the content of articles is the authors’.

from the editors

Welcome, Teachers & Parents!

Our spring issue was distributed to many of the member schools of AWSNA, the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. A larger number of copies of this issue are being sent both for teachers and for parents. Many parents already get the wonderful Renewal magazine edited by Ronald Koetzsch. What Renewal does for the Waldorf world, being human tries to do for the core impulse of “anthroposophy” and the whole movement around it.

So what is anthroposophy? If you know something about Waldorf education, you can simply say that what Waldorf aims to do for school-age children, anthroposophy is offering to adults. Unlocking our fullest capacities as human beings. Understanding our times so that we can participate fully. Finding our ultimate authenticity and what Rudolf Steiner identified as the one place of real freedom: knowing what we truly love, and acting from that.

In Feb a y 2011 th the 150th anni e sa y of the b th o R do f Ste ne the quarter y pr n pub ca ion o he Anthroposoph ca Soc ety n Amer ca took on he b i g h Thi f f th p phy ­­ i d id ldeve opmen and the ur her evo u ion o human culture and soc e y ­­ and he co ce o a o us th the hu a fu u e Each ss e nc des fea e a t cles on inita

To stay in touch with being human please go to our web page: anthroposophy.org/bh

Around this luminous core there are initiatives of exploration, understanding, healing, creativity, and new community such as you see inside—the anthroposophical movement. And this movement, and the Anthroposophical Society working at the core of it, is at a threshold. Just one hundred years ago Rudolf Steiner was asked whether such efforts could break through to support a new culture. World history and its own history caused the anthroposophical movement to adopt a cautious stance, and that has become a bit of a habit. But Steiner’s tools are designed for a global, cosmopolitan world, and ninety years after his death much of anthroposophy is still avant-garde. Other great and good ideas have emerged to help, but so far nothing has proven broad and high and penetrating enough to open the doors of a new world culture. Meanwhile, those of us who know it well believe that anthroposophy provides the means to “be the change,” helping each individual to find the place where she or he really wants to take a stand.

Emai s preferred; arge attachments (10MB+) a e usua y rece ved i ho p ob em Add ess posta mai to John Beck Editor Anthroposoph cal Soc ety in America 1923 Geddes Avenue Ann Arbor MI 48104­1797 We w cons der engthy subm ss ons for alternat ve presen at on here on anthroposophy org n the A t cles sect on We try to respond to a subm ssions etters eedback and nqu r es promp ly but fee free to check back you do no hear rom us n a reasonab e amount o me

To stay in touch you can subscribe—just visit anthroposophy.org/bh; to explore membership in the Society visit anthroposophy.org/join (being human is part of your membership). Enjoy what you find here, and feel free to share your thoughts to editor@anthroposophy.org or to the address below.

John Beck

HOW TO receive being human, or to comment or contribute

Copies of being human are free to members of the Anthroposophical Society in America (visit anthroposophy.org/join or call 734.662.9355). Sample copies are also sent to friends who contact us at the address below.

To contribute articles or art please email editor@anthroposophy.org or write Editor, 1923 Geddes Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

In this issue we present three reviews (on pages 46 to 54). John Beck makes a survey of some of the books newly available from the Owen Barfield Literary Estate, whose editor in chief is Jane Hipolito. For those not familiar with him, Owen Barfield was arguably the most brilliant and engaging of all English speaking anthroposophists. The Literary Estate is publishing for the first time three works of Owen Barfield’s fiction, and reissuing the 1962 masterpiece, Worlds Apart. Worlds Apart is presented in the form of a conversation -- a drama of ideas – engaging the “watertight” disciplines of space science, physics, evolutionary biology, positivist philosophy, psychology, theology, language and, yes, anthroposophy.

Had Worlds Apart been written today one of its conversational protagonists might well have been a fictionalized version of Thomas Nagel, the author of a highly controversial refutation of contemporary materialist reductionism, (for which Nagel has been accused by a number of materialist thinkers of intellectual treason), entitled Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Frederic Amrine, in his review of the book, examines Nagel’s presentation of several crucial issues—life, consciousness, human reason, the lawfulness of the universe and moral values—as to which reductionism can only stammer at an explanation.

Mr. Amrine proceeds to scrutinize critically the scientific consensus against Nagel’s “emperor’s new clothes” assessment of neo-Darwinian reductionism. He then proposes his own view, distinct from Nagel’s, that the failure of reductionism as an explanatory principle does not so much call for an alternative form of causality as a new and more radical paradigm that embraces indeterminacy and complexity. He suggests that the fundamentals of such a paradigm already exist in the works of Rudolf Steiner.

Finally, I have reviewed Massimo Scaligero’s A Treatise on Living Thinking: A Path Beyond Western Philosophy, Beyond Yoga, Beyond Zen. Scaligero was an original (and highly demanding) anthroposophical writer and teacher of the practice of living thinking that may be realized in the authentic practice of contemplation and meditation. Scaligero had a powerful influence on the writings of Georg Kühlewind, who, in addition to communicating his own original understandings, transformed Scaligero’s insights into clear and accessible language.

I have also examined in this review a problem sometimes encountered with anthroposophical writers of the last century, i.e., how to reconcile the brilliance of what they say with the questionable record of how they have acted.

being human digest

This digest offers brief notes, news, and ideas from holistic and humancentered initiatives. E-mail suggestions to editor@anthroposophy.org or write to “Editor, 1923 Geddes Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104.”

[www.anthroposophy.org/articles] Research of the life and times of Marion Mahony Griffin, including her understanding of her own and Walter’s contributions to the world, is continuing in Canberra with Laura Summerfield (+61-417 609 946, laura.summerfield@gmail.com) and Trevor Lee (+61 2 6291 3391, tlee@tpg.com.au). They are bringing insights to this from their own backgrounds in anthroposophy, biography work, architecture and psychology.

SOCIETY

Karl König Institute at Camphill Ghent

ART

Australia’s most famous anthroposophist honored in her native Chicago

On 9 May 2015, Marion Mahony Griffin was honored by the naming of a park in the Chicago suburb where she lived for the last stage of her life. With her husband Walter Burley Griffin, Marion was co-designer of Australia’s national capital, Canberra, after a worldwide competition in 1912. Even before then, Marion had achieved prominence by graduating in Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1884 and becoming the first female licensed architect in the state of Illinois and among the first so qualified anywhere in the world.

Read the full report with links to her legacy online

New Books for Educators and Parents

Camphill Ghent is an anthroposophically inspired community for elders in rural upstate New York, near the quaint village of Chatham and close to an extensive cultural life. The community itself hosts an outstanding chamber music series, and a new on-site addition is an office of the Karl König Institute for Art, Science, and Social Life. A physician and founder of the Camphill movement, Dr. König was one of the most important anthroposophical thinkers and doers of the generation active after Rudolf Steiner’s death. The institute’s original office in Aberdeen, Scotland, began the work of maintaining an archive. Seven years ago the first volume of the New Edition of Karl König’s Works was published; recent and forthcoming volumes are Social Farming—Healing Humanity and the Earth and Nutrition from Earth and Cosmos.

“Karl König showed directions and ways towards the renewal of medicine, educational theory, curative education, psychology, inspired from anthroposophical life and research. This applies as well for many areas of practical life.” The international website is at www.karl-koenig-archive.net and contact in the USA is Richard Steel, Camphill Ghent, 2542 Route 66, Chatham, NY, 12037 (r.steel@karl-koenig-archive.net), or telephone (518)-721-8410.

The Singing, Playing Kindergarten Daniel Udo de Haes, translated by Barbara Mees $22

Please

Naming ceremony for a Marion Mahony Griffin overlook near Canberra, Australia

being human digest

EDUCATION

AWNSA-Alliance New Relationship

In March the leadership and boards of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education and the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America announced that “together we are forging a new relationship based on our common foundation and perspective on what is best for children. Today a license for the Alliance use of the term Public Waldorf was signed, as was a Memorandum of Understanding that affirms and articulates some of the many ways the two organizations and our respective members can collaborate. The license empowers the Alliance to use the mark ‘Public Waldorf SM’ with acknowledgement that it is a service mark owned by the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America and used pursuant to a license.” The agreement is posted on the Alliance website (www.allianceforpublicwaldorfeducation.org ).

The letter concludes, “Waldorf educators, whether they work in independent or in public schools, hold Rudolf Steiner’s goal for education to be eloquently expressed in this quote: ‘Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose

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being human digest

and meaning to their lives.’ In all of Waldorf education lives the hope of providing new ideas for cultural and educational renewal in our communities. It is with tremendous excitement and hope that we look towards a future of working collaboratively in service to the children of North America.” The website for AWSNA is located at whywaldorfworks.org.

HUMANITIES Village University

From June 22 through July 8, in Concord, Massachusetts, the Village University was convened. The name is inspired by a hope of Henry David Thoreau: “...That is the uncommon school we want. Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men” and women.

The theme for the first week was:  The Genius of Our Land  in all her aspects, facets—which the conversations and gathering lived up to in many ways. The second week was devoted to the theme:  Translating Transcendentalism into a Language for Our Time.

A detailed account of these remarkable gatherings is posted online (anthroposophy.org/articles), and you can find out more about the impulse at www.concordium.us. The moving spirit of this vision is Stuart-Sinclair Weeks, Founder, Center for American Studies, Concord, MA 01742 (stuartbweeks@gmail.com).

“Archangel Michael: The Fiery Thought King of the Universe; How Can We Know Him?”

Theology was once a primary field of the studies now known as the humanities, but as localized in seminaries and committed to existing dogmas it is now a specialist field. Rudolf Steiner was a well-respected public intellectual in 1900, but when he began to speak dramatically about matters associated with theology, many turned away.

Steiner developed techniques to research consciousness and said he did that as his first step, looking at existing sacred texts and such only after finding his own way. To be understood, he then communicated his findings in known terms and concepts. Eventually he identified the archangel Michael as a primary inspirer of his work. Independent researcher Bill Trusiewicz has contributed a number of fine papers, under the title above, which are too long for being human to print. To four already posted we are adding a fifth now at anthroposophy.org/articles. It is wide-ranging and handsomely illustrated.

MEDICINE

What is anthroposophic nursing?

Recent issues have shared general and specific ideas and practices involved in anthroposophic medicine, and this issue includes the statement from the physicians’ association on vaccination (see page 29). Also in this issue is William Bento’s article about anthroposophic psychology (page 23). We recently asked Anthroposophic Nurse Specialist Elizabeth Sustick (esustick@gmail.com) for a thumbnail description of the nursing side. She replied:

“Anthroposophic Nursing (AN) is an expression of holistic care-giving, encompassing the physical and spiritual nature of the human being. Rudolf Steiner, PhD and Ita Wegman, MD collaborated in clinics in Arlesheim, Switzerland in the early 1900’s to develop a natural approach to medicine that would offer healing to the whole human being, body, soul and spirit. The nurses in their treatments work closely with the element of warmth as a bridge between the physical and spiritual being of their patients. This is of key importance in supporting and nurturing the patients’ own life-giving healing forces. AN practice includes external applications of therapeutic substances through teas, footbaths, compresses, embrocations (Einreibung ) and hydrotherapy. Nurses interested in AN have the opportunity to expand and deepen their nursing impulse in the art of healing and their own inner development through continuing education offered by NAANA. NAANA is affiliated with the International Forum for Anthroposophic Nursing (IFAN) at the Medical Section of the School for Spiritual Science, Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland.”

Online visit www.aamta.org/organizations/nurses/.

being human digest

AGRICULTURE

BD, Organic, Conventional soil compared ELIANT, European Alliance of Initiatives for Applied Anthroposophy (eliant.eu/en/news), coordinates the work by Steiner-inspired initiatives with complex regulatory structures, research, and information. A recent report, “Climate, Soil, and Effects of Herbicides,” notes that “the long-term trial comparing biodynamic (D), organic (O) and conventional (K) growing systems prove scientifically that organic and biodynamic agriculture produce soils with a significantly higher level of organic matter and humus than those of conventional agriculture.”

Beyond soil fertility, climate change make this important because “throughout the world the number of heavy rainstorms is increasing. Water that cannot be absorbed by the soil runs off as surface water... Agricultural land and villages are flooded and the damage and costs of reparation are huge.” All soil combines mineral content with organic matter, and it is “the organic matter in the form of humus and microbial biomass [which] can absorb and hold water.” Sterilizing the soil by use of herbicides and pesticides diminishes biomass.

ODYSSEY to EGYPT

December 20th 2015 - January 3rd 2016

Come with us, visit the sacred places of this ancient civilization and its Mysteries!

We will visit many of the famous and not-so-famous sites: The Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza

The tombs of the Valley of the Kings

The great Temples of Luxor, Karnak, Dendera, and more

Visit the anthroposophically-inspired community of Sekem

Cruise the Nile in a traditional dahibiya sailboat

With informal talks and eurythmy

Please have no fear to visit Egypt at this historic moment!

For details, please contact Gillian:

610 469 0864

gillianschoemaker@gmail.com

ANTHROPOSOPHY NYC

WORKSHOPS TALKS STUDY GROUPS

CLASSES FESTIVALS EVENTS EXHIBITS

UPCOMING EVENTS & PROGRAMS

HEALING PLANTS (MONTHLY LECTURE)

Wed’s 7pm: David T. Anderson, 9/16, 10/14, 11/18, 12/16

STEINER & KINDRED SPIRITS

Robert McDermott, Thurs Sep 17, 7pm

ART OPENING: “NEW WORK”

by David Taulbee Anderson, Sat Sep 19, 2–4pm

TECHNOLOGY IN EVOLUTION

talk by Andrew Linnell, Thurs, Sept 24, 7pm

MICHAELMAS FESTIVAL & POT-LUCK

Sunday, Sept 27, 4pm to 7pm

EURYTHMY (MONTHLY WORKSHOP)

Mondays 7pm, Linda Larson: 9/28, 10/19, 11/16, 12/14

ROBERT FROST

Andy Leaf, Open Saturday, Oct 10, 2pm

WHAT MOVES THE BLOOD

Fri, Oct 16, 7pm: Branko Furst, MD, new research on the heart’s role in life & health

CYMATICS

Wed Nov 11, 7pm, the art, science, & therapy of sound’s visible effects; Jeff Volk, Gabriel Keleman

Plus Weekly & Monthly Study Groups

Programs and resources in visual arts eurythmy

music drama & poetry Waldorf education

self-development spirituality esoteric research evolution of consciousness health & therapies

Biodynamic farming social action economics

Open Mon-Thurs 1-5pm, Fri-Sat 11am-8pm, Sun 11am-5pm; call for latest: 212-242-8945

“The most impressive holistic legacy of the 20th century...”

— NY Open Center co-founder Ralph White on Rudolf Steiner

The New York Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in America – 138 West 15th Street New York, NY – (212) 242-8945 www.

spiritual,

world & ‘outsider’ art

From the Classified Section of a Newspaper of 2407

by Christian Morgenstern, translated by Christiane Marks

August 5 !! Artificial Snowstorm in Thale (Harz Mountains) produced by Hotel Alpenrose utilizing the great Paper Scrap Snow Centrifuge owned by the American Nature Drama Imitation Company Brotherson and Sann.

American Agent seeks stuffed Noblemen. Paying top prices.

Resuming Tomorrow on a Daily Basis: Transformation of water into wine. Oysters, caviar, champagne, finest fruits for everyone, by a simple method!

Egon Schwarzfuss, Hypnotist (Across from the Ministry of Agriculture)

We invite the Society for Ant Games to gather tomorrow, the 17th , on Tempelhof Field to finish the great heap.

Phantasius Liptauer, Marketplace for Animal Games of all Sorts

offers ant costumes in brown and black, all sizes, manufactured strictly to the specifications of the S for A (“Society for Ant Games”).

Aphid costumes in all sizes also available, complete with accessories.

The Society for the Spread of Horrors of Every Kind

announces that simulated burglaries are now officially allowed by the police. As always, subscribers enjoy considerable benefits. Subscribe for a whole year, and you receive one attempted murder free, in addition to the three burglaries. For further details, see our catalogues and prospectuses.

English Church, made of rubber; easy assembly, with its own carrying case. 1550 Marks.

Upcoming Event: Launching of the first German Aerial Newspaper!

Six tethered balloons anchor the screen, which measures 800 square meters. It will be installed on Kreuzberg every evening after dark, projecting the latest news in letters visible at a great distance.

There are specially-made binoculars available to subscribers, in addition to tickets for seating in the attics and on the chimneys of our headquarters and its branches. We call to your attention that only subscribers have access to the special events we are planning, the first of which will be the full-size projection of every subscriber born on a Sunday.

An official reward of 3,000 Marks is offered for the capture of the balloon pirate who took the tiles off of the roof of the Köpenick Courthouse on the night of Monday to Tuesday.

Signed: A. Bilz, Aerial Police Officer

The Executive Council of the Society for Technical Issues, Division of Transportation, invites the public to the September 12 continuation of the discussion on the subject of laying tracks on water.

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For the Lonely: Memory-evoking fragrances, made up to your exact specifications by The Marketplace of Little Things to Make You Happy. Address telegrams to: Happiness House.

Diversion Apparatus: containing music, images, liqueurs, fireworks, brochures, lottery tickets, etc.

Tomorrow, Sunday: Grammophone-lecture by Professor Houston Shaw of the University of New Heidelberg, Massachusetts. Authentic proof that Henrik Ibsen, to whom the well-known dramas have been ascribed, is identical with Peer Hansen, former lecturer at the University of Christiania.

Seeking a Violinist –an excellent one – to play for my lizard.

Adele Süsskind , c/o

Main Post Office

Artificial Heads!!!

Those who do not purchase an artificial head are simply fools. Your artificial head is put on over your natural head and offers the following advantages: a) Protection from rain, wind, sun, dust – in short, all negative outer influences which irritate the natural head no end and prevent it from carrying out its intended function – that of thinking. b) Sharpening of the natural senses: With your artificial ears you hear about 100 times better than with your natural ones; with your eye apparatus you see as with binoculars; with you A.H. you smell more keenly and taste more discerningly than with their predecessors. And yet you do not need to make use of any of this; you can adjust the head in whatever way you wish; so you can switch it onto “dead,” too. The A.H. makes possible a completely undisturbed inner life. Closed rooms, monks’ cells, vernal solitude, etc. have now become unnecessary. You may isolate yourself even when surrounded by the densest of crowds. The A. H. is tailored to you personally and is lightweight for comfortable wear. It includes a battery which prevents the unauthorized from touching it. Since it needs no hair, the skull area can be used for advertising. If you are smart and open-minded, you can easily recoup the cost of the A.H. by renting advertising space there to a business you find congenial. You can actually make money via your A.H. more easily than by means of your natural head.

Translator’s Note: Christian Morgenstern was born in Munich on May 6, 1871 and died in Merano, Austria, on March 31, 1914, of the tuberculosis which overshadowed his entire adult life yet never hindered his work or touched his optimism and love of all of humanity. These relatively early futuristic ads are usually included with his Galgenlieder (Gallows Songs), which were first published in 1905. They are not as well-known, but considerably more translatable than the exquisite humorous poems, which rely so heavily on rhyme, meter, puns, etc. The ads are funny, of course, but also foreshadow every technical device available today to seduce us into worlds of virtual reality, sensation and horror, and distraction generally. Their only inaccuracy lies in underestimating the speed at which technology has moved!

In the preface to the 1962 edition of Morgenstern’s letters ( Alles um des Menschen Willen) his life-long close friend, Friedrich Kayssler, reminds us that Morgenstern’s “humorous” and “serious” poems have always formed a unit. Morgenstern called humor “a certain hard-to-define quality that can probably only be found where life is at the same time regarded with an unshakably earnest eye, as with the heart-felt love of a child.”

— Christiane Marks

A World in Need

Undertaking a Campaign for Anthroposophy in America

An editorial by John Beck

I have rarely written editorials in seven years as editor of being human. I do so now for three reasons. First, despite tremendous power and material wealth, humanity is not in good shape. Second, anthroposophy and other holistic, spiritual, and globally-aware impulses have proven that they can engage the deficiencies of the modern world and bring forth better approaches. Third, the Anthroposophical Society in America has arrived at a place of decision in regard to acknowledging the far-reaching cultural intentions of anthroposophy—intentions which speak clearly to open minds and hearts.

1. Starving in the midst of plenty

Human circumstances today, globally, include many shortages and problems. Our media thrive on threats; do they ever give accounts of the immense assets and resources which are available to us? How much work and value is being created today by machines? How much free activity is supported by energy resources we have learned to harness? How much is humanity empowered by an ever-growing access to the world of ideas? With all this abundance mere survival should not be in question (though for so many it still is). So there are historically unprecedented resources available for culture. Properly used, culture liberates, empowers, inspires, heals, helps us grow wise. Many millions of individuals use their free cultural time well, but we endure saturation advertising for empty entertainments—things that have been clearly identified as sleep-inducing social drugs.

2. Spirit works

As Thomas Meyer wrote recently in The Present Age, Rudolf Steiner’s saw a basic shift in humanity’s relationship with mind and spirit (Geist) as the deeper cause of the First World War and the turmoil that followed. In 1899, a five-millennium process of darkening of human consciousness ended. Like a cosmic dawning, new streams of consciousness started pouring in. Locked into materialistic culture and its principle of enforcement, few people could engage this new light consciously; instead, it fueled conflict. Many more people are now seeing reality in this new light and acting in accord with the spiritual

principle of empowerment. With necessary trials and errors, these actions have had profoundly positive results, including the ambitious and penetrating initiatives out of anthroposophy. And these alternatives are being noticed.

3. Light under bushels

If you have a light, you don’t hide it, you place it high to light the whole room. That ancient wisdom is the challenge anthroposophy is now facing. Rudolf Steiner gave us centuries’ worth of insights, questions, and projects. We need to keep renewing ourselves by engaging this gift, yet we must also try to make it available. Every human being today is making choices which will determine our individual futures—and humanity’s. Materialism toughens and hardens us; anthroposophy lights up interiors, builds capacities for healing, reawakens community.

For historical reasons, the Anthroposophical Society has been cautious in presenting its case to the world. German language and culture, highly appreciated in 1910, has been overshadowed by English. Special responsibility rests now on the Anthroposophical Society in America.

I find it a kind of signal from “behind the veil” that as the ASA has moved to shoulder these responsibilities we meet the financial challenges engendered by our past isolation. The ASA, a national organization concerned with all human needs, has a membership and budget suitable to a regional animal welfare league. We have overcome our traditions to start communicating more openly and to undertake stronger relationship building— the type of things that initiatives on the following pages like reGeneration and Heartbeet Lifesharing do so very well. And we are willing at last to say and to undertake “A Campaign for Anthroposophy in America.”

For decades I have been inspired by the astonishing ideas of anthroposophy and by its caring, creative, committed people. I can express that now in a few clear words: “anthroposophy is being more consciously human, becoming more fully human, and acting more humanely in all of life.” And I also know that this campaign will succeed as we begin to reach out with authenticity to each other, to others in our movement to create a worthy culture, and to all others who are trying to wake up into a better world.

IN THIS SECTION:

Waldorf parent Shepha Schneirsohn Vainstein liked her school so much that she started organizing people to use Waldorf to create a better world.

People on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota think Waldorf can help sustain their whole culture.

In Vermont, Heartbeet Lifesharing has so many wise ways of making community that they now need a proper space for it.

The Avalon Initiative just organized an important gathering to work on rediscovering the fundamental inspiration of teaching.

The soul or psyche is the center of anthroposophy’s picture of the human being. The late William Bento has helped get anthroposophic psychology established in North America.

Every role an actor takes on is an initiative, and Maria in Steiner’s mystery dramas is a very special challenge.

What do anthroposophical doctors think about vaccination? Read their statement on page 29.

“Imagine the Potential”

life, learning,

Waldorf alumna and teacher Karen Gierlach recently shared with Members of the Section for the Social Sciences a report from Shepha Schneirsohn Vainstein, president of reGeneration, on a Waldorf teacher training event in Palestine. We pass it along, prefaced by reGeneration’s vision statement, goals, and key activities, including its work in development of “social capital.” — Editor Vision. Children of all faiths growing up in the Middle East have a basic right to experience a wholesome environment that cultivates the empathic foundation, the motivational drive, and the personal and social resources to be able to create a sustainably peaceful, productive, and prosperous society as adults.

Goals. Contributing to the field of social change and equal access to education, reGeneration seeks:

• To back grassroots, interfaith and multicultural education with social technologies that fosters cooperation between Jews and Arab in Israel.

• To bring educational achievement among Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians of the West Bank on par with Jewish Israelis through increasing access to high caliber education for all children; and,

• To cultivate a diverse cadre of interfaith supporters who use their financial and human capital to promote our mission.

Objectives:

• Support Ein Bustan, a joint Jewish-Arab Waldorf school in Israel

• Build the capacity of Tamrat El Zeitoun, the first Arab Waldorf School

• Introduce and facilitate the development of Waldorf education in Palestinian schools in the West Bank Strategy

• Organize Waldorf education workshops and training for Arab Waldorf teachers

• Support programs in California that focus on overcoming preconceptions and building bridges based on our common humanity.

Background and Strategic Context. On five continents there are over 1,000 Waldorf educational institutions, community epicenters fostering wholesome environments in the classroom and in the home. This growing global educational community is creating a ripple effect promoting UNESCO’s values of equality and tolerance, transforming families and ultimately society worldwide. In the Middle East, outside of an initiative in Egypt, there are no Waldorf schools in the Arab world.

“Seeding the Middle East with an educational philosophy that embraces

the arts, the earth and all the children.”

In Israel the number of schools using Waldorf

reGeneration Vice-President Noor-Malika Chishti ritually pours water over the hands of Shepha Schneirsohn Vainstein at the concluding ritual of Celebration of Abraham where the organization’s interfaith work and support of educational projects for Jewish, Christian and Muslim children in the MIddle East was honored at the Celebration of Abraham in Davis, California, in January. We each washed the other’s hands and the breaking of a loaf of bread together symbolized of respect and connection.

Tamrat El Zeitoun—an Arab interfaith Waldorf school educating children from kindergarten through fifth grade in northern Israel.

educational techniques has steadily increased in the Jewish community since 1989 when the first school started with 13 children. Today there are more than 4,000 Jewish children in 16 Waldorf schools in every major city in Israel. Additionally, in Israel there are over 100 kindergartens using these methods and three Waldorf high schools opened in the 2009/2010 year. The annual student growth rate is over 10% per year.

Consistently each year approximately 60% or more graduates from the Waldorf high school in Israel sign up to perform an extra year of volunteer community service to work with Jewish and Arab individuals who are homeless, drug addicted, or orphaned—in comparison with 2% of Jewish high school graduates overall. Waldorf school graduates in Israel testify that the values they received in school had a major influence on their decision to do volunteer service benefitting the community.

reGeneration’s initial phase included conflict resolution training for faculty and teens in Israel, support for our Palestinian Teacher Training, and support for a high school peace leadership program in the Galilee. The high school program was a two-pronged educational model promoting Jewish and Arab coexistent participation in Israeli society while addressing the high drop-out rate and low performance for matriculation of Israeli-Arab high school students from a public high school. Though the high school program in itself was successful, we made two critical observations. One was that we saw that the educational gap between Jewish and Arab high school students was too large to try to effectively remediate at such a late stage of development.

From this observation we decided it was far more productive to support an equal education for both Jewish and Arab students from the earliest years. We also observed how important it was for the Jewish and Arab communities to share a common goal in which they could work together to achieve.

Because of the unprecedented growth of Waldorf education in the Jewish community and the nascent development of this humanistic education within the Arab community, reGeneration decided that the most effective intervention for equal opportunities in education in Israel was to support two pilot education programs, Ein Bustan, the first Arab/Waldorf kindergarten in Israel and El Zeitoun, the first Arab Waldorf School in Israel. Both

of these programs, along with our Palestinian Teacher Training have a high potential for positively impacting society in the Middle East. Today we support an education in the Middle East that builds resiliency in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim children while promoting new capacities for this generation to shape a stable and sustainable future for all.

Building social capital

reGeneration is a member of Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP), a coalition of over sixty organizations, and the United Religions Initiative (URI), a coalition of grassroots interfaith organizations from over seventy countries around the globe. The two schools it co-sponsors in Israel, Ein Bustan and El Zeitoun, are affiliated with the Inter Agency Task Force on Israeli Arab Issues.

Last November a concert, “Together in the City of Angels,” launched the newly established Southern California Muslim-Jewish Forum. reGeneration worked with sixteen Jewish and Muslim organizations to establish the Forum as an umbrella body to strengthen MuslimJewish ties in the Greater Los Angeles area. Everything from the event committee to the performances are examples of Muslims and Jewish working together. Members of the forum are the Academy of Jewish Religion California; Bayan Claremont Islamic Graduate School; Beth Shir Shalom; Claremont Lincoln University; IKAR; Islamic Center of Southern California; King Fahad Mosque; Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue; MECA Young Professionals; Muslim Public Affairs Council; New Ground; Pacifica Institute; reGeneration; Sufi Order International; Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills; Valley Beth Shalom; and the Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

Teacher Training in Palestine

Letter from Shepha Schneirsohn Vainstein

Palestinian educators in Jenin in the West Bank are enthusiastically talking about their wonderful ten days at the recent West Bank Waldorf Institute [WBWI] held at Al Quds University’s Open Campus in Jenin from February 15 to February 25, where we were able to produce a West Bank version of the Public School Institute held at Rudolf Steiner College for the past twenty-three years.

One hundred twenty eager Palestinian kindergar-

ten and grade school teachers came from throughout Jenin to be part of this immersive workshop. The WBWI was a window into how to provide an engaging and healing education for Palestinian children growing up under the chronic stress of conflict. The Palestinian educational community welcomed learning methods on how to educate children in a manner that promotes creative thinking while cultivating a culture of safety, peace, and respect in their classrooms.

The teachers learned about recent research showing powerful advantages that high quality early childhood education bestows, whose major benefits can emerge much later in the adult lives of their students. Palestinian kindergarten teachers began to learn how to create these environments for young children while grade school teachers learned how to give engaging lessons using the arts, movement, and singing games developing a multiplicity of skills.

In an overflowing room of 180 people, the program was emceed by WBWI’s Coordinator, Dr. Rola Jadallah, who recently had been inducted into the Women in Science Hall of Fame of the United States Embassy in Amman, Jordan. The opening ceremony included comments from the Governate of Jenin, Jenin’s Director of Education, the President of Al Quds University in Jenin, psychologist and Director of WBWI Dr. Wael Mustafa Abu Hassan, myself, and Rudolf Steiner College Chair of Early Childhood Education, Lauren Hickman.

With initial attendance way beyond the expected number, it turned out that word had spread throughout the Al Quds student body that a great class was being held on the top floor of their university so the first few days we had a huge number of unregistered drop-ins until we tightened our check-in procedures with our administrative assistants. Even then we had forty kindergarten teachers and eighty grade school teachers in attendance. It was very touching

It was deeply gratifying to see how we were connecting the Palestinian educational community to a global Waldorf educational community embracing all children, regardless of religion, race or nationality.

to be told how much people enjoyed the WBWI faculty who taught with great patience and such open hearts. Thankfully, filmmakers captured on video the first two days and the final three days of these historic moments. This footage will eventually become part of a documentary on Waldorf education in the Middle East, scheduled for release in 2017.

One of the highlights of the WBWI was to see how the Palestinian teachers cherished Aida Awad, the founding kindergarten teacher from Tamrat El Zeitoun, the Arab Waldorf school in Israel. The Palestinian teachers knew Aida had studied in Hebrew at a Jewish Waldorf Teacher Training in Israel and that she had transposed what she had learned into Arabic and the Palestinian culture. They appreciated her warm welcoming demeanor and were amazed by her ability to captivate children in such a magical and tranquil way. Also greatly appreciated by the Palestinian teachers were classes taught by Lauren Hickman of Rudolf Steiner College and nationallyrecognized Waldorf consultant Anna Rainville, who has taught at Rudolf Steiner College’s Public School Institute for the past twenty-three years. Waldorf alumna Karen Gierlach provided classes on adult development based on the reflection of each individual teacher’s own unique biography. Group singing was provided by Julia Anna Katarina, an English Waldorf graduate, musician, and opera singer who is fluent in Arabic. In addition, reGeneration’s Middle East Liaison and Way of Council trainer, Itaf Awad, worked with seventeen Palestinian school counselors giving them an experience of how the Way of Council can teach their students deep listening skills and build a sense of community. The work with Itaf was so valued by the school counselors that Itaf has made plans to continue to come from Israel to Jenin to work with them once a month. Before giving my own lectures on the developing brain of the young child, I met with Itaf’s group of Palestin-

WBWI’s Waldorf teachers (left-to-right): Aida Awad, Lauren Hickman of Rudolf Steiner College, California award winning teacher, Anna Rainville

Aida Awad, WBWI’s “Waldorf Rock Star”—Math Lessons for Grade School Teachers—Handcrafts for Kindergarten

ian school counselors who informed me that televisions are ubiquitous in preschools and kindergartens throughout Palestine. I there- fore included a talk on how the American Academy of Pediatricians has recommended absolutely no screen time for children under two and how recent research in brain development validates the holistic Waldorf approach to educating young children in a manner that physically helps the brain grow more primed for creative thinking and executive functioning. We all made a strong case for keeping television out of the kindergarten and Aida Awad highlighted the daily rhythm in her classroom as a model of how the Waldorf kindergarten’s calm and consistent routine serves as an important foundation, a healing environment for children growing up in stressful conditions.

It was deeply gratifying to see how we were connecting the Palestinian educational community to a global Waldorf educational community embracing all children, regardless of religion, race, or nationality. For further highlights please see West Bank Institute of Waldorf Inspired Education on Facebook [www.facebook.com/WBIWIE].

“What is next?” Although we are waiting for the results of our pre- and post-surveys, it already has become apparent that the Palestinian teachers hunger for more exposure to Waldorf methods for their students. Training to become a Waldorf teacher requires a significant time commitment and deep inner work to learn how to embody the Waldorf approach. We developed a Committee for Palestinian Waldorf Inspired Education to field applications from Palestinian kindergarten teachers who want Waldorf early childhood education training. We are in the midst of refining criteria for the selection of these teachers and soon will be developing the program and its accompanying budget.

It was extremely moving to see the faces of these Palestinian teachers glow in joy from what they were learning, knowing that these experiences were creating an educational foundation from which their own students will benefit. Something truly magnificent happened in the West Bank! If we are persistent, it can only bring something good and productive to the troubled Middle East.

Shepha Schneirsohn Vainstein co-founded re:Generation [regenerationeducation.org]. She received her Masters of Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and is a psychotherapist practicing in Los Angeles specializing in trauma recovery and personal empowerment. She is a facilitator of Nonviolent Communication and the Way of Council. A long time Waldorf parent and advocate, she continues to volunteer at her local public Waldorf-Method school, the Mariposa School of Global Education in Agoura Hills.

Lakota Waldorf School Building

by Truus Geraets

It has been a miracle that some 150 people responded to send a message of support to the Lakota Waldorf School [www.lakotawaldorfschool.org ] and a check of $10,000 earmarked for building. We understand that building a new class room is now urgent, as a big recruiting drive will bring in many new enrollments, and because the school has now two buses to pick up children from further afield.

Our check, we hope, will stimulate bigger building grants from other sources. The administration is currently talking with a log cabin builder from the Black Hills, to make a proposal of building a tipi classroom out of wood. Another piece of good news is that an experienced Waldorf teacher by the name of Barbara Booth has committed herself for a year to be the mentor for the teachers.

Administrator Isabel Stadnick’s own children, who grew up on the Reservation, are now both studying Waldorf education at the Goetheanum in Switzerland. The older one is presenting just now [April 2015] her thesis about the future of the Lakota Waldorf School, where high school students could learn trades in workshops and sell their goods in retail outlets. Also, how to make the Lakota Waldorf School an interesting destination for tourists. All this with the aim to make the Lakota Waldorf School ultimately self-sustaining.

Because it may take a few years to work towards the realization of this fantastic plan, let us continue to show them our support in keeping the ball rolling, the ball, which has already been pushed by so many people. We can’t thank you enough for that.

Truus Geraets (truus.geraets@gmail.com) is a eurythmist and social activist working through The Center for the Art of Living.

A Community Center for Heartbeet

Heartbeet Lifesharing is the newest Camphill community in North America. I became aware of Heartbeet at the Anthroposophical Society’s fall conference in 2009 when Hannah Schwartz shared its story of community outreach and engagement.

Hannah grew up in Camphill, and just out of college she and her husband Jonathan Gilbert bought a farmhouse in Hardwick, in Vermont’s “Northeast Kingdom,” a beautiful region of small New England towns. Fifteen years later Heartbeet Lifesharing is a local institution and widely known for inspiring, youth-oriented conferences. After houses and a barn, it is now building a community and cultural center, “the heart of Heartbeet.” “It will be a venue for gatherings, concerts, festivals, plays, conferences, and many special events—a multi-purpose theater, seating 175 people, will be the core of the building.”

Out of $2.2 million there is just under $300,000 to raise. Hannah hopes that will be in place by year’s end so that the building can be finished by March. The fundraising “is beautiful work as it is all relationship building around something truly meaningful.”

The following is drawn from newsletters, pamphlets, and the Heartbeet website (www.heartbeet.org). Several pictures are from a fine video by Corey Hendrickson. — Editor

The mission

The Camphill impulse is multi-dimensional. An early mission statement described Heartbeet Lifesharing in part as “an initiative that recognizes the importance of interweaving the social and agricultural realms for the healing and renewing of our society and the earth. We fully acknowledge and live out of the understanding that every human being is unique and unrepeatable. In light of this insight, our mission is to offer both a vacation and respite program and a permanent residential program for developmentally disabled individuals that focus not on a person’s disability but rather on his or her capacities.”

Today, Heartbeet is a vibrant lifesharing Camphill community that includes adults with developmental dis-

abilities. Working from a philosophy of social therapy, Heartbeet has become recognized as an innovative model of care for individuals with special needs. It is a fully licensed Therapeutic Community Residence.

“In Camphill you approach who you meet in a very different way. We’re not care-givers, we’re caring for each other. So really we’re recognizing each human being as having a destiny to fulfill.”

— Heartbeet co-founder Jonathan Gilbert

Five extended-family homes form a supportive environment that enables individuals to discover and develop their unique abilities and potential. Heartbeet provides work and artistic opportunities, which help adults with special needs participate in the community in a meaningful way. This means:

• healthy and fulfilling adult relationships

• building practical and artistic skills

• meaningful vocational experiences

• integral membership of a caring community

• love of lifelong learning

• openness for new experiences

• social and self-awareness

• mutual trust and respect.

Independence & success flourish. It is a place where differences fade and diversity is celebrated!

Because of Heartbeet, the hopes that we had for Max at his birth—of a happy and productive life surrounded by loving family—have been restored.

The youth conferences

Rachel Schwartz (now Rachel Knauf) was prime mover in ten years of twice-yearly Heartbeet Youth Conferences. Themes included “The Whole Human Being in Relation to Karma” and “Learning the Signs of Destiny through Thinking and Artistic Experience.” Three conferences explored, four at a time, the experience of the twelve sense identified by Rudolf Steiner: lower senses of touch, life, movement, and balance; middle senses of smell, taste, sight, and warmth; and the upper senses, hearing, word, idea, and perceiving the “I” of the other.

Conference #20 was “Know Yourself and Change the World”: finding the courage to begin (Joan of Arc for inspiration), making connections between inner work and social justice and transformation, karma and reincarnation, the new clairvoyance, and more. The coordinating role passed to Annie Volmer with the next conference, “Encountering Thresholds: The Courage to be Vulnerable.” Annie wrote, “Heartbeet remains committed to the destiny of these very special events. We are working hard to fill Rachel’s shoes!”

In fall 2014 a new direction came: an International Camphill Youth Conference. As Haleh Wilson reported to being human , “Nearly eighty attendees came together to frame important questions about prevailing dynamics between the generations of Camphill. After four days, such questions had been identified, parsed, and refined, and participants had struck new friendships of the kind that serve increasingly to knit Camphill together as an international community.”

This year the Second International Camphill Youth Conference offers “An Anthroposophical Initiative: At the Altar of the Present Moment—An Exploration of Selfless Collaboration.” It welcomes those, young and old, who will to carry the spiritual impulse of Camphill into the future. The organizers write:

Since parting from the last conference, members of the planning committee have been mindful of the deep suffering of humanity on a world scale as well as in our communities, our relationships, and our selves.

We’ve been led to ask what it might mean to become a selfless collaborator in our time—to learn to gently ask the healing questions for our brothers and sisters in pain, and to cultivate vulnerable spaces wherein we give of our listening and our compassion. The last conference brought us down a path much like Parzival’s, where we came, each in our own way, to recognize our individual failures and the failures of our communities and of modern humanity. What happens when that self-knowledge is given over to the healing forces of the Christ who spoke, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, there shall I be”? How do we take up this sacred responsibility for the altar of the present moment which exists between human beings? Have we advanced far enough in our inner striving that we can offer our own suffering at this altar, that it may be transformed through Community into the courage to meet others in the present moment, and to hold—as conscious, selfless deed—their suffering as our own?

Can [the Parzival] story encourage our own intergenerational collaboration? We have a sacred responsibility for one another. This thought will be at the heart of our explorations together.

“To strangers I think it will be interesting for them to learn what Heartbeet is about. It’s up to them if they want to come and support, it’s up to them, it’s their own calling if they’re ready. Being supportive means to bring of your utmost self, and I think that’s important.”

— Annie Jackson, resident

We see so much promise in Max’s future now. His life at Heartbeet is a dream come true.

— Amy Gleicher, parent

A view of Vermont’s “Northeast Kingdom” [photo: Patmac13, CC 3.0, Wikipedia]

The building impulse

Six years ago Per Eisenman wrote, “Our temporary conference community…has been coming together faithfully for nine years. The Heartbeet Lifesharing community hosts us and grows around us, like a time-lapse movie of a growing flower. Every six months there is a new development, a new home, new barn, new coworkers.” But this unfolding was interrupted in January, 2013: “Heartbeet Lifesharing’s new home, Sophia House, nearing the end of construction, was destroyed as a result of a chimney fire. We are deeply thankful that no one was hurt! Our hearts are heavy, but we are slowly getting off our knees. Although this is a tremendous setback, we are working hard to continue embracing the vision and enthusiasm that has filled the air at Heartbeet over the last year.”

Out of the ashes of Sophia House came the impulse to build a community center. Reporting from last fall’s meeting Haleh Wilson wrote, “On September 20, 2014, 101 years since the laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum, a Heartbeet ceremony incorporated conference participants in a poignant visual reminder of Camphill’s basis in anthroposophy and the legacy of Rosicrucianism. A vast cross [of ashes] was laid on the site where Heartbeet will soon commence construction on its Community Center. Participants joined Heartbeet community members to form a circle around the site while seven bunches of red roses were laid in the circuit that appears on the Rose Cross, a symbol that urges us toward renewal. ... Certainly in the moment of that September 20th ceremony, the Rose Cross image seemed to speak to the events of today’s Camphill movement, a call for renewal in the face of forces seeking to change us: the cross on the Earth, the wide circle around it, people joining hands, voices lifted in song.”

Joan Allen, who just passed away and designed many

if not all the Camphill Halls in the USA, planted a further seed in conversation with Hannah Schwartz. “The idea was to have something that pre-dates the materialistic nature of our times, or came before its full onset, built into this inevitably modern building. I was coming home at high speed from a long trip when through the trees the colors called me to turn around.” On display in an antique store was an 1830s stainglass window from a church in New Haven, Connecticut. “The window itself is mostly a deep blues and reds with golds, Tiffany-style with motifs of a swan and the lamb as well as a special cross between the two big panels.”

There are many powerful things happening in Hardwick but the one I am most excited about is Heartbeet. The sheer humanity that is practiced there every day is an antidote to what is wrong with the world at large.

— Mateo Kehler, Co-Owner of Jasper Hill Farm and a new board member of Heartbeet

Community benefits

The new community hall will be a powerful, integrating space, in service to Heartbeet, the “Northeast Kingdom,” the international Camphill community, and the anthroposophical movement. The benefits, including cultural, educational, economic, and environmental one, have been carefully planned out.

For Heartbeet itself the Community Center answers the need for more space. “Our growing community is squeezed to capacity. With five lifesharing homes, we can no longer comfortably meet under one roof or welcome the local community to the extent that we would like. The ability to gather together is essential to building community life, and keeps everyone connected through shared experiences.”

Hannah Schwartz speaking at a community meeting.

Heartbeet has a limited number of designated building sites, so the Community Center is multi-faceted, with a multi-purpose theater, seating 175 people, as the core of the building. It also houses therapy rooms, a community library, a bakery and processing kitchen, and ad-

The final push

Hannah Schwartz writes, “In January we thought we were finished planning, but we needed to go back to the drawing board to keep the building within budget. Now, with the help of our tireless advising team, we are excited to say that we love the final building plans, and feel that we have just what we need and not an inch more.

“The building will soon start its material manifestation! We hope to break ground in late summer, though the exact date will depend on permitting. Imagine with us the festivals, plays, group meals, life celebrations, music and art that will fill this space! It will bring relationships, joy, inclusion and understanding that will resonate within Heartbeet and far beyond.

ministrative offices. Paper-making, weaving and felting workshops can expand into the old administrative spaces. Massage therapy, fitness classes, art exhibits, quiet study space, and computer access are available on site! Baking and food processing for the entire community take place in the Community Center kitchen, providing a training workshop for Friends with special needs.

The most important thing that Heartbeet brings to our area is a broader perspective on diversity. I love watching friendships develop, discomfort melt away, as Heartbeeters integrate into the community, spreading their own brand of love and joy. Every town needs a Heartbeet.

— Pete Johnson, owner of Pete’s Greens

From its beginning Heartbeet has participated in the annual town dinner, and for the last four years family and friends have gathered at a local church to celebrate a Passover Seder.

“In the new center there will be space to host regular community meals together, and expand our ability to connect and host other Camphill communities and anthroposophical events. There will be an inclusive, noncompetitive environment for a broad range of quality arts events, including plays, concerts, dance performances, contradances, readings, and lectures. It expands opportunities for collaboration with local artistic, cultural, and educational groups.”

“We are all living and breathing with anticipation of the community center. This building will be the bridge to allow the gifts and treasures cultivated within our community to reach the surrounding extended community and will make collaboration possible with the many already interested parties that have approached us. Once construction has started we will begin formalizing plans for upcoming activities, and I hope that within the next year you will come and see some of these dreams and initiatives underway in this amazing new space! To date we still need the last $300,000 to get us across the finish line. A profound and humble thank you to all who have brought us this far!”

Hannah Schwartz (hannah@heartbeet.org) is Executive Director of Heartbeet Lifesharing, on the internet at www.heartbeet.org and

on Facebook.

Sign for Hardwick’s annual community dinner.

Community music-making at Heartbeet.

Authentic Assessment in Education

by Patrice Maynard

On Saturday, April 25, at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, a few more than 60 people from different arenas of education gathered together to discuss how to recapture the imagination of teaching as a vocation, student assessment as something other than a test, and education as an art, not a technical delivery system.

The Avalon Initiative [edrenewal.org ], a research project of The Research Institute for Waldorf Education [waldorfresearchinstitute.org ] in collaboration with the Hawthorne Valley Association’s Center for Social Research [thecenterforsocialresearch.org ] sponsored and formed the day’s work. We accidentally met hot on the heels of the recent round of Common Core testing in New York and the successful “Opt Out: Refuse the Test” effort. Up to 200,000 families opted out and kept their children home or requested that their children stay at school in study halls on the testing days. This number is up from 60,000 in the last round and is a statistically significant slice of the 1.1 million school-age children in New York.

Public, charter, independent schools, homeschoolers, and Waldorf school teachers and administrators were involved all day in lively presentations and discussions of vital imaginations for the future of education and cultural renewal in education.

A panel comprising Katie Zahedi, PhD, assistant professor at SUNY New Paltz and former principal at the Red Hook Middle School, Heinz-Dieter Meyer, PhD, Associate professor at SUNY Albany, and Carol Bärtges, doctoral candidate and teacher of comparative literature at the New York City Rudolf Steiner School, launched the day with vibrant ideas about a new approach to teaching, learning, and accountability in America. Gary Lamb acted as primary convener and moderator for the day with Patrice Maynard acting as facilitator.

Katie spoke of the success of the Opt-Out

movement, which she helped to energize and foster in New York State; and of the sacred relationship between teacher and student, unmeasurable with technology-driven testing. Heinz-Dieter Meyer spoke, as he has all over the world, and with particular clarity in India and in his classes in the United States, of his vision of the administration of education in which teachers play a pivotal role in determining appropriate assessments and accountability measures with politics and economic interests uninvolved. Carol Bärtges spoke of her years of experience in the classroom and how she assesses students using her own intuitive capacities and expertise in her Waldorf school. Carol also spoke of research being published by Academica Press, Assessment for Learning in a Waldorf School , chronicling the means of assessment used in Waldorf schools without a single, standardized test (available from www.waldorfpublications.org ).

One highlight of the day’s activities was the presentations by four eighth and ninth grade students who read their poetry about their experiences taking the language arts state tests. Poised and clear, these young people gave a chilling description of what the tests do to children during the test-taking hours. One of the members of the support team from Omega cried when she heard them rehearsing. She has been a teacher herself and appreciated deeply the eloquent expression of despair, anxiety, boredom, and wishes these students captured in their poetry.

We all left with new understanding of how the artificial barriers of “public and private,” “us and them,” “Republicans and Democrats,” are distractions from the high vocational calling of “teacher” that we, who teach or support teachers, all share. The day was remarkable and important for the future of education in America.

Patrice Maynard (patrice@waldorf-research.org) is Director of Publications and Development at the Research Institute

Education.

for Waldorf

Carol Bärtges regaled teachers with stories of assessment as a Waldorf teacher and explained the new publication Assessment for Learning in Waldorf Classrooms, peer-reviewed research on nontesting approaches.

Gary Lamb introduces local public school 8th and 9th grade students who read poems of what it is like to take standardized tests.

On a beautiful sunny day at Omega Institute Heinz-Dieter Meyer spoke of the need for teachers to be free of political and economic control of education.

Patrice Maynard (l) and Katie Zahedi (r) spoke of the artificial divide being made between public schools and private schools, when all teacher are vocationally called to serve children. Katie spoke of the sacred space between a teacher and her students that defies digital measures.

In small group discussions, Waldorf, private, public, homeschool and charter school educators spoke of professional evaluations done by relevant professionals.

An Emerging Anthroposophic Psychology

by William Bento, PhD

In recent years, William Bento worked with distinguished colleagues to establish a professional presence and training in North America for a psychology imbued with the insights of anthroposophy. The article that follows is one of his last; he passed on from a stroke on June 5th. — Editor

Introduction to an Anthroposophic Psychology

I will attempt to give an abbreviated view of the context out of which Rudolf Steiner brought forward his ideas in the Berlin lecture series of 1909, 1910 and 1911, now published and entitled, A Psychology of Body, Soul and Spirit. Its former title was Anthroposophy (wisdom of the body), Psychosophy (wisdom of the soul), and Pneumatosophy (wisdom of the spirit). If one lives with the idea that Steiner was taking every opportunity to address the origin, nature and destiny of humanity, many developmental aspects of his talks fall into place.

If one lives with the idea that Steiner was always taking every opportunity to address the origin, nature and destiny of humanity, many developmental aspects of his talks fall into place.

His view on cosmology was both anthropocentric and Christ centered. He wished to reveal the esoteric beginnings of humanity from the standpoint of the cosmos. Each time he told the cosmological story layers of insight were added to his book, Esoteric Science: An Outline. The telling of the story compelled the listener to enter into picture building, imagining what cannot be seen by the sensible eye. In fact, it prompted one’s “I” to develop an organ of supersensible cognition. We can simply refer to it as imaginative cognition. I need not elaborate on how Steiner refuted the “Big Bang Theory.” Rather than to speak of abstract forces Steiner brought the living being-ness of the Cosmos by introducing the many beings of the Spiritual Hierarchies who served the Godhead. Hence the origin of the human being does not begin in some primal soup, but within the imaginative powers of the Godhead wherein all manner

of beings cooperated in a unity and for a divine purpose. Civilizations of our forefathers always told the stories of their relationship with the Cosmos, honored the many spiritual beings that participated in the human creation, and conducted rituals and ceremonies to invoke their continued participation in human evolution.

In this particular series of lectures Steiner addresses the nature of the Human Being, as he can be understood from the standpoint of the senses and from the phenomenological view of the soul. There is very little borrowing of ancient ideas about the soul nor is there much reference to modern concepts and formulations of the anatomy of the soul. Steiner attempts to bring a descriptive narrative of soul processes in which we are involved all the time. It is presented in a form that accentuates our own experiences and places them in a cohesive developmental context. And as such it bypasses the thorny dilemmas of theoretical and philosophical debates about the human soul. In today’s world there is a great deal of confusion, skepticism, and delusions about the nature of the human soul. The term “psyche” used by Freud had the meaning of soul . This term meant something much larger than the narrow meaning it has today. Soul meant a dimension that was both sacred and at the core of one’s character. Unfortunately, soul as used by Freud was translated into English as merely being mind . Although mind was in vogue in the Western world at the turn of the 20th century, it left out the greater dimension of the soul and its relationship with the cosmos. The whole birth of psychology suffers from a loss of a genuine understanding of soul. It has as a consequence been fraught with an intellectual convention of materialism. Fundamentally the soul has been abstracted from the spirit and driven deeper into the mechanisms of the body. In an approach to Anthroposophic Psychology realignment between body, soul, and spirit is sought for. This search is not for a new set of concepts to illuminate the realities of soul life, but to reinstate the heart of psychology. To state it succinctly, psychology offers us a path of knowing what lives as soul warmth and soul light when we take interest in each other’s lives. Psychology must not be relegated to an individual affair. It is a collective responsibility to create healthy conscious community that connects us to each other, to the endowment of the resources of the Earth, and to the wonders of the Cosmos. Emphasis on the “I” as the spiritual executor of the

soul is given a high premium in an anthroposophic paradigm. The “I” becomes the bearer of one’s destiny. It navigates through the karmic conditions set up by previous lives and contributes to the future course of humanity. But most important of all is its responsibility for imparting meaning to our individual development. In the realm of psychotherapy the “I” is the great transformer of our soul life. There the spirit must be found and be engaged with at the most profound level. Soul wisdom must be united with love for the spirit. When this attitude is fully embraced psychotherapy no longer becomes an intervention to alleviate pain and suffering, it becomes a means to bear and transform pain and suffering into wisdom and love. The path of Anthroposophic Psychotherapy and Counseling becomes a path of initiation, a path of self-education in the fullest sense of the word educare, to draw out one’s sense of destiny.

In The Riddle of Humanity (1916) Rudolf Steiner offers a schema that connected the twelve senses and seven life processes to the zodiac and the planets respectively. In the last 99 years there have been research and therapeutic practices within the anthroposophical movement that have given these correlations validity. And we can take heart that this work has been done. As we stand one year from the centennial of the lectures of The Riddle of Humanity we may take hope that a more thorough approach to applying this schema to the human soul may take place. Not in a prescriptive manner, but as a map to navigate the ever evolving terrain of the soul.

Ancient wisdom practices always had the cosmos in mind when any attempt at restoring health or intervening in a healing process was undertaken. But today, in world that has ignored the cosmos and relegated it to mere superstition and myth, we must rediscover the reality of living within the cosmos. Not only as we can determine it as the vast celestial space that enfolds us but as the dynamic realm of living forces that permeates the interior space within us. In the Psychosophy Seminars that took place from 2001 to 2004, preceded by five years of annual conferences exploring the mental health paradigm from an anthroposophical viewpoint, a group of us attempted to facilitate an experiential and cognitive learning of the innate relationship between cosmology and psychology.

The two individuals who were primarily responsible

for crafting the Psychosophy Seminars curriculum went on to obtain higher accredited degrees and licensure in the field of psychology. James Dyson, MD, went through training in one of the foremost schools of Psychosynthesis in London and graduated with a Master’s degree, and I attended the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and graduated with a PhD in clinical psychology, procuring a license to practice in 2006. From the culmination of the Psychosophy Seminars to the present we have continued to collaborate on researching ways in which an Anthroposophic Psychology could fructify the mainstream psychologies, and particularly the transpersonal approaches to psychology that have acknowledged the spiritual nature of the human being. Although another cycle of Psychosophy Seminars could not take place there were a number of gatherings under the title of the Psychosophy Circle, wherein alumni met to support each other’s continued studies and research. Each meeting was followed by public workshops. Dr. Roberta Nelson, who attended and facilitated groups in the Psychosophy Seminars, joined Dr. Dyson and myself in copresenting content. These events would not have been nearly as successful were it not for the insightful guidance of our eurythmists, Karen Derreamuax and Gillian Schoemaker, also graduates of the Psychosophy Seminars. As time went on a most remarkable event occurred at a Medical Section conference in September 2012 in Dornach, Switzerland. A report on this conference can be found in full text at APANA [apana-services.org ]. The conference addressed anthroposophical approaches in psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychosomatics. During this time a group of psychotherapists met under the guidance of Ad and Henrietta Dekkers from Holland. At the conclusion of these meetings the International Federation of Anthroposophic Psychotherapy Associations was founded. I was fortunate to be in attendance and a founding member of IFAPA. It was not long after this event that I recognized the time for an accredited and/or certified training in Anthroposophic Psychology had come, a dream held by Dyson, Nelson, and myself. As destiny would have it a core group of individuals rallied around the emerging task and agreed to make the ideal a reality. as two other anthroposophically inspired psychologists committed to form the Anthroposophic Psychologists Association of North America with

Psychology must not be relegated to an individual affair. It is a collective responsibility to create healthy conscious community that connects us to each other, to the endowment of the resources of the Earth, and to the wonders of the Cosmos.

us. These two individuals are on the core faculty of APANA: Dr. David Tresemer, one of my most significant collaborators in the research and development of New Star Wisdom, and Dr. Edmund Knighton, a fellow graduate of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and a talented psychologist in the field of teaching psychosomatics. I hope having shared context to the emerging relationships involved in the APANA initiative, the reader may gain a sense for the guiding ideals in this endeavor.

A psychology emerging from an anthroposophic cosmology

In the word itself cosmology reveals its study. It etymologically means the logical order of the origin and development of the Cosmos. Embedded in the meaning of the word cosmology is the sense of a teleological significance to the purpose of existence. Is there a higher study than this? With the loss of a consensus cosmology in Western civilization we have fallen into an abyss of abstractions. The Big Bang Theory is a perfect example of this. The theory itself suggests we are all here by chance without any higher purpose. Such a view coupled with the vast array of stars in our known galaxy can give rise to a feeling that the human being is an insignificant creature. It also lends itself to the argument that there is no moral world order to abide by. In this perspective any assertion that there is a moral world order is viewed as mere speculation or a myth at best. The very idea that for millennia men and women have believed and prayed to a God, whether known and unknown, has been dismissed as an aberration instead of being seriously considered that the need for a God is a central factor in man’s search for meaning.

There is an existential terror in living with the notion that the culmination of one’s life is nothing more than a pile of ashes. Although most people do not give much thought to this popular belief, it nevertheless impacts a majority of people even though it is below the surface of consciousness. It is astounding that so few professionals in the field of mental health ever give much attention to a client’s world outlook and how it shapes their soul’s disposition. In America we are so mesmerized by a culture of amusement and distraction that little time is spent in serious reflection on the values and purposefulness of our

lives. Thirty years ago Neil Postman brilliantly characterizes this phenomenon in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985). Seven years later he wrote Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture (1992). In this epic work he identifies one of the most crucial issues facing our post-modern world—the proliferation and intoxication with technology. He not only makes an astute diagnosis of the ills of the post-modern world, he addresses the cause behind the illnesses of our time. He declares that the rise of technopoly is due to a lack of cosmology guiding Western civilization. Indications gained from cosmological aspects provided a compass by which to navigate the course of the future and understand the terrain of the past. Technopoly has filled a vacuum and provides the magic, which was once a task of the spiritual and religious institutions of society. And who can deny the magic afforded by technology! Spiritual and religious institutions are hard pressed to maintain their own viability in the face of the countless scientific and technological advances proclaiming to lead humanity into a progressive future. By comparison such institutions are seemingly antiquated and insufficient to capture the minds and hearts of the younger generations. In describing the nature of the human being metaphors abound that make the machine the template for understanding the species of humankind. The brain is a computer, the heart is a pump, the functioning of vital organs are the result of a well oiled machine, etc. What we have surrendered in our culture to technopoly is the image of the human being. It is no longer sacrosanct. It is subject to all sorts of phantasmagoria, for instance the robotic-man where the body parts are interchangeable as with the many animated superheroes with extraordinary powers.

The phrase “man is made in the image and likeness of God” is no longer an unquestioned proposition. It once evoked the image of the cosmos as the face of God. The likeness of God provoked a relationship to the creative powers in the human being. Let us take a page from the ancients, which described the image of God within the form of the human being. Rudolf Steiner reveals this relationship in his lecture series in Christiana (Oslo), Norway from June 2-12, 1912, entitled Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy, and Philosophy. At this time he imparted the correlation between the zodiacal signs and

There is an existential terror in living with the notion that the culmination of one’s life is nothing more than a pile of ashes. Although most people do not give much thought to this popular belief, it impacts a majority of people even though it is below the surface of consciousness.

their glyphs to the human body parts. He referred to it as the Mysterium Magnum, the Great Mystery. Although Steiner did not expound upon the glyphs, it was a wellknown fact among ancient astrologers and esotericists that the glyphs were not abstractions. They were drawn from initiates with clairvoyant perception. The down streaming light from the stars within a particular constellation imprinted upon the physical body. These sculpting etheric forces not only contained a creative capacity, they contained moral impulses as well. And with each sign of the zodiac there were spiritual hierarchical beings at work gifting the human being with senses to apprehend the divine creation.

We can imagine the glyphs of the zodiac as the living skeletal form of the human body. Consider these sculpting forces as light that is infused with wisdom. It bears the archetypal forms of all living things, and as such the entire macrocosm is contained in the microcosm of the human being. “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God” (Gospel of St. John, Chapter 1 verse 1). The Logos lives in the light. And the light reveals the mystery of Life. For ancient humanity this was understood and proclaimed in many ways. From the Spirit the human being was created, created in the image and likeness of God. An Anthroposophic Psychology seeks to make this declaration a guiding principle. By uniting Star Wisdom with Soul Wisdom APANA strives to provide an impetus for a renaissance of the living spirit of Anthroposophia for the twenty-first century!

William Bento PhD, Founding Executive Director of Anthroposophic Psychology Associates of North America (APANA), crossed the threshold on June 5, 2015, just before his 64th birthday. He had created many different relationships with many clients as a psychologist, a mentor, and one who consulted the workings of the heavens (astrosophy—astro, star—Sophia, wisdom). He nurtured the development of psychology at Rudolf Steiner College, where he worked for several years. He wrote Lifting the Veil of Mental Illness, contributed to Signs in the Heavens: A Message for Our Time , and contributed to The Counselor (see below). His annual Holy Nights Journal tracked those important nights between December 24 and January 7, helping many find insights into the year past and the year to come. His final achievement was the establishment of APANA, for which he gathered an excellent faculty who will continue to offer this program in the United States.

Update from david tresemer : APANA offers two certificate programs in Anthroposophic Counseling Psychology, one at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California, and the other in the Hudson, New York, area. These groups meet three times a year for three years, nine seminars in all. The mission statement of this initiative, and the name of the seminar series is “Re-membering PsychoLogy through Relational Anthropo-Sophia.” After the passing of William Bento, we have reorganized our excellent faculty (see www.APANA-services.org ). Both of the seminar series are now closed to additional students; we will likely offer another series beginning in August 2016. APANA is completing negotiations with Burlington College, Vermont, to grant accredited academic credit for an IMA (Individualized Master of the Arts), or BA, for those attending the certificate program. We are completing registration with NBCC to offer Continuing Education credits for licensed professionals. The certificate program is open to all who have an interest in a spiritually oriented counseling approach. See below for our main publication to date.]

The Counselor ... as if soul and spirit matter. Inspirations from Anthroposophy

by William Bento, PhD, Edmund Knighton, PhD, Roberta Nelson, PhD, David Tresemer, PhD, from SteinerBooks

The art of counseling is practiced in many settings. An uncle counsels a troubled niece. A licensed professional clinical counselor (LPCC) works in a treatment center for drug addicts. A counselor can also be everything in between the two. If you consider everyone who mentors another—from life-coaches to police officers to wedding planners to lawyers to intimate friends—counseling includes all of us. Whereas mainstream counseling psychology has been moving increasingly toward cognitive and pharmacological approaches, this book brings us back to a psychology of soul and spirit. Through the guidance of Anthroposophy, the becoming human being, and Sophia, and divine wisdom, counselors will rediscover here an approach to people that has the heart of soul, and the light of spirit.

Reflections on “Reflections on Playing Maria”

by Travis Henry

From Chanticleer December 2014

To find ourselves, we must unfold that power first that penetrates into our inmost being. The word of wisdom says in truth: Evolve yourself, in order to behold yourself.

Rudolf Steiner, The Portal of Initiation, Scene Eight, spoken by “Maria”

What did you need to do in order to prepare to play the role of Maria in the Mystery Dramas?

Out of this question asked of actress Laurie Portocarrero by the Berkshire-Taconic Branch, arose the presentation that took place on November 22, 2014.

The following double question became, for her, the only place from which to begin: Who and what is Maria? And who is Laurie Portocarrero?

Many of us have witnessed her skillfully portraying a role on stage, or have experienced her poised, smiling presence as a colleague or passing acquaintance. Yet on this evening, up on Windy Hill, we got to hear not only the behind-the-scenes story of what it was like for her to play Maria in the Mystery Dramas, we also glimpsed the biography of Laurie herself. What an honor. Afterwards, someone in the audience observed how nice it is to hear the biographies of those in our midst...before they die! Otherwise we pass like ships in the night.

The glimpses of her life ranged from her childhood in the sunny soul warmth of Latin America... to her beginning as a Waldorf student in Washington, DC. ...to the biographical synchronicities which needed to happen for her to become the actor and human being she is

today...to her vocational evolution from “not a Maria” (in the words of one-time mentor and speech teacher, Christy Barnes) into quite a fine portrayal and embodiment of Maria.

Having performed one Mystery Drama each year for the past four years, this past summer she and the rest of Barbara Reynolds’ cast performed all four plays at the significant international conference held in Spring Valley, New York in August. Laurie shared that for the main characters, each play contains six times as many lines to memorize as an ordinary play. That means last summer, she and her fellow actors performed the equivalent of 24 “ordinary” plays in the span of a couple weeks. Twice. Once for a public full-dress rehearsal (which I was lucky to attend along with a van-load of friends), and then the real deal. A beautiful and heroic accomplishment.

Following the summer performance, she and Glen Williamson have been touring anthroposophic communities throughout the United States and Canada, performing excerpts from the scenes with Maria and Johannes. Laurie has served as Maria in the Mystery Dramas for six years. Besides perhaps a few actors in German-speaking countries, how many individuals have so immersed themselves in this role, for such a span of life?

Laurie frankly shared some of the challenges of this performance. Whereas in the previous four productions, she gladly made herself available to coach and advise her fellow cast, composed mostly of amateur volunteers, this year she felt as if she were pregnant with quadruplets and was impelled to pare down everything in life to the barest essentials. In this way, though, she unexpectedly felt

Maria in her medieval incarnation as a priest, between the adversary powers, is advised by the spirit of her teacher Benedictus, in the 2014 performance of The Trial of the Soul, Rudolf Steiner’s second mystery drama [Photo: Threefold Educational Foundation]

Laurie Portocarrero

more akin to Maria’s expectant, space-creating quietude. Maria. The name resounds from ancient times. Laurie shared how in the Mystery Dramas, Maria is one who holds the space for others to become who they are striving to become—a space where something new and fresh may enter into the community. Maria’s power of witnessing attention is a circle within which the new social mysteries unfold. Laurie brought the well-known quote by Christian Community priest Adam Bittleston pointing out that “In the new mysteries the whole earth becomes an altar... our friends and colleagues become for us, though we and they may know but little of it, the terrible and wonderful actors in the ceremony of our initiation.” Maria is also the one whose thinking, feeling, and willing are most balanced: both radiant and enveloping. She is devoted to the spiritual world and its aims for our time. One could say Maria is a picture of the higher or spiritualized self we are each striving toward.

As a portrayal of the most advanced student of Benedictus, the actor takes on the mantle of what could be called a priestly, sacerdotal role. Laurie’s long experience playing Dona the Priestess in Aeschylus Unbound turned out to be a preparation for this.

Yet Maria is not perfect. Laurie shared how in the

Leaving a Legacy of Will

first drama, Maria experiences that, like the Beautiful Lily in Goethe’s Fairy Tale, her loving interest in others evokes their own self-destruction. Her overwhelming pain of soul drives her in the second play to her spiritual teacher Benedictus, seeking karmic insight. He discloses to her that she was chosen to be the bearer of a great “cosmic being.” The seemingly harmful effects she has on those she loves is only because this Being must burn up in her and in others all that is temporal and less than eternal: “...What flourishes for higher life must bloom from death of lower being.”

Laurie herself experienced something like the Lily’s wilting touch, in that as the preparations for this summer commenced, all of her usual circle of friends disappeared through various coincidences—a long-distance move, a new job—and whoever new she tried to lean on, somehow become unavailable. She felt that she was “not allowed” to have that external support during this unique experience. In this way she came to lean only on deepening reserves of vertical relationship to the spiritual world.

Laurie also shared about how Maria struggles with her own “dragon of self-conceit”—of subtle spiritual pride. Yet she continually surmounts and overcomes these inner and outer hindrances, and as the story unfolds, she

For more information, contact Deb Abrahams-Dematte at deb@anthroposophy.org

stands among the circle of friends who supersede the Mystic League.

A few further anecdotes from Laurie’s story:

Laurie’s mother promised the Washington Waldorf School that if they let her attend for extremely lowered tuition, Laurie would grow up to serve anthroposophy. No time limit was mentioned on this term of service! Thankfully, Anthroposophia is surely a more gracious master than Rumpelstiltskin.

As a nine-year-old, Laurie entered her new classroom on the cathedral grounds...on the same day that twentythree-year-old Barbara Reynolds first walked into that same room as her class teacher.

From an early age, Laurie wanted to be an actor. She would speak entire Shakespeare plays in her room, playing every role! In the 5th grade class play, Laurie coveted the lead role of Pallas Athena. Miss Reynolds, “for pedagogical reasons,” gave the part to another girl, while Laurie was assigned the role of a foot soldier, with no lines. In rehearsals, the other girl’s acting did not look promising, but on the day of the performance, something clicked and she stunned the audience, by “becoming” gray-eyed Athena. Decades later, the role of Maria, who is a human face of Sophia, is in a way the fulfillment of that long-ago wish.

After the closing at Windy Hill, Laurie expressed: “I am so grateful to have been asked the question that led to this presentation! And to be given the opportunity to live with the character of Maria, into my own destiny.”

In regard to Laurie’s further course of life, I wonder: What’s next?

Travis Henry is author of a remarkable series of books, newsletters, and works of art about the threefold organization of human society and social healing. Links to the various works are found at http://sites.google.com/site/threefoldnow

Laurie Portocarrero trained in the Chekhov method under Ted Pugh and Fern Sloan, and has studied and taught movement, drama and speech in the US and abroad. A member of The Actors’ Ensemble, Walking the Dog Theater, Shakespeare Alive!, and Threefold Mystery Drama Group, Laurie has recently been seen in The Mystery Journey of Johannes and Maria, The Little Prince , Under Milk Wood , Touch of the Celtic , and Thornton Wilder’s 3-minute pieces. With the Threefold Mystery Drama Group, she has played Maria in Rudolf Steiner’s four mystery dramas. Laurie directs The Art of Acting: Drama as a Path of Inner Development (www.threefold.org/education/art_of_acting), a year-long course beginning October 10th. Waldorf-educated, Laurie holds a BA in Theater Arts, and also trained at Sunbridge College and Rudolf Steiner College.

Vaccine Statement

Recent and recurrent concerns about mandatory vaccination and parental choice in vaccination have included media statements that associate anthroposophy with a position. Here is the position statement of anthroposophical MDs.

From the Physicians’ Association for Anthroposophic Medicine (PAAM):

There is no formalized policy on immunization within the practice of anthroposophic medicine. The decision to vaccinate or not is based on the parents’ consent and the physicians’ consideration of the child’s unique development, health, and immune system status.

General guidelines:

1. The patient or legal guardian has a right to full disclosure and informed consent. The physician’s obligation is to “present the medical facts accurately to the patient or to the individual responsible for the patient’s care and to make recommendations for management in accordance with good medical practice. The physician has an ethical obligation to help the patient make choices from among the therapeutic alternatives consistent with good medical practice.” (AMA’s Code of Ethics regarding informed consent, section 8.08)

2. Forced or mandatory vaccination is unethical and by definition in total violation of “informed consent.”

3. The physician must honor the parents’ or patient’s right for self-determination to object to immunization according to the State laws regulating vaccinations.

4. The physician’s creed must be “do no harm.”

5. The physician must accept unvaccinated children in his/her practice. It is unethical and irresponsible to refuse medical care to non-vaccinated children.

6. PAAM supports a reassessment of the “one size fits all” approach regarding multi-dose vials and standardized vaccine schedule.

7. PAAM supports long-term studies for safety and efficacy of vaccines.

A healthy social life is found only when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living. —Rudolf Steiner

arts & ideas

IN THIS SECTION:

The California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS) helps give San Francisco a justified reputation for advanced, global thinking. President emeritus Robert McDermott and four graduate students share how welcoming it is for anthroposophy.

Our Gallery wanted to join the “selfie” craze. We felt that as long as oil paints and etchings were involved, that might be ok.

Waldorf history teacher

Paul Gerlach wanted to talk with his colleagues about the importance of history teaching—both for Waldorf schools and for the future of humanity. We are invited to listen in.

ASA General Secretary and educator Torin Finser is a popular author, blending the everyday with the esoteric so matter-offactly that we wanted to share something.

Max DeArmon—another CIIS grad student!—is deeply involved in social activism and film-making. He thinks Waldorf schooling is a great preparation for that.

Mary Evelyn Tucker is a notable activist in the academic world. She succinctly unfolds why Pope Francis’ ecological stance is important.

Spirituality Affirmed by CIIS

by Robert McDermott

As a distinguished teacher and university administrator and a noted leader of the anthroposophical movement in America, Robert McDermott is uniquely qualified to talk about anthroposophy’s challenge in being received in the academic world. And when he suggests that the California Institute of Integral Studies is welcoming to anthroposophy, he can invite young graduate students to give evidence, as four do here. — Editor

If Rudolf Steiner were alive today and applying for a position in a philosophy department, his resume would show that from age 21 to 28 he was the editor of the national edition of Goethe’s eight volumes on natural science, for about five years he taught courses in social science at night school for returning adults, and he was the author of two books on epistemology and ethics. Yet I suspect that he would not be appointed, nor even granted an interview at any university in the United States—except at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), a university that explicitly affirms a pluralism of spiritual world views and practices.

Founded by Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri, a professor of Indian and Western philosophy, and a spiritual teacher in the tradition of Sri Aurobindo, CIIS adheres to seven ideals, three of which affirm the integration of the spiritual with the intellectual:

• The integration of body-mind-spirit. It values the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, creative, somatic, and social dimensions of human potentiality.

• The study and practice of multiple spiritual traditions and to their expression and embodiment throughout all areas and activities of the Institute community.

• Many learning modalities and ways of knowing—intuition, body-knowledge, creative expression, intellect, and spiritual insight. Along with varieties of Buddhism, Hinduism, meditation practices, Earth-based spirituality, and Jungian archetypal cosmology, anthroposophy is thriving at CIIS.

Fully accredited since 1981, CIIS has 1500 students and four schools: School of Professions Psychology and Health, School of Consciousness and Transformation, School of Undergraduate Studies (which offers a bachelor of arts completion), and as of July 1, 2015, a fourth school, the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM). Each of these four schools, and each program in these schools, has a slightly different relationship to whatever counts as spiritual. In general, the contemporary mantra, “spiritual not religious,” is the norm. I am aware of at least a half dozen students in these schools with a strong connection to anthroposophy or Waldorf education, or both. I have invited three students with such a connection to write a brief account of the ways that they have integrated in their academic study their anthroposophical world view or practice.

Most of the students with a connection to anthroposophy are attracted to the program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness (PCC), founded in 1994 by Richard Tarnas (author of Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche). Students enroll in this program, which offers both masters and doctoral degrees, in order to study Jungian topics with Richard Tarnas and Sean Kelly, inspiring cosmology courses offered by Brian Swimme (see Journey of the Uni-

versity that Brian co-wrote with Mary Evelyn Tucker and narrated), integral ecologies studies with Sean Kelly, and the relationship among ecology, spirituality, and religion with Elizabeth Allison. Anyone interested in comparative spiritual philosophies studies with me. Most students study with all five of these core faculty.

Except for someone born into a family of anthroposophists, most anthroposophists have very few family members or friends who read Rudolf Steiner and exhibit an interest in anthroposophy. But as I acknowledge in the preface to my new book, Steiner and Kindred Spirits (SteinerBooks 2015), three of my four colleagues have co-taught with me courses substantially devoted to Steiner and anthroposophy. Brian Swimme and I have taught a course on Steiner and Teilhard de Chardin and I have taught many courses on Steiner and anthroposophy both on my own and with Rick Tarnas and Sean Kelly. I have also served on committees for students in PCC and in other departments whose dissertations prominently include Steiner.

Waldorf education and biodynamic agriculture are spiritual precisely because they go beyond the material in both directions: they affirm both interior depth (or deep interior) and transcendent height (the spiritual influence of the cosmos). A third way would be length: both Waldorf and BD take account of the evolutionary past and distant future...

Here are three reasons why John Beck and I thought readers of being human might want to know about this comfortable relationship between anthroposophy and CIIS. Considering the aggressively secular posture of higher education in the United States it must be counted as good news that there is at least one university that is unabashedly affirmative of spiritual world views and disciplines, including anthroposophy. It is important for faculty and students at other universities to be able to point to a university with a history of the successful integration of academic and spiritual learning. Second, students of anthroposophy should know where research has been generated, and often published, on anthroposophical ideas and practices embedded in standard academic fields including philosophy, psychology, social sciences, and arts. Third, it seems to me important for anthroposophists to know that there is a university where they can earn a bachelors, masters, or doctoral degree without having to leave at the door their commitment to anthroposophy.

A student of anthroposophy in an institution that includes many spiritual teachings and traditions will want to be able to explain the ways in which anthroposophy is spiritual. Even the Waldorf approach to education and

biodynamic agriculture, perhaps the two best ways to introduce and defend anthroposophy, do not immediately reveal their spiritual content. Waldorf is good for children and BD is good for food but how are they spiritual? As Steiner explained repeatedly and brilliantly, the opposite of spiritual is materialism—not material, which is positive, but a view of matter which denies spirit. Waldorf and BD are spiritual precisely because they go beyond the material in both directions: they affirm both interior depth (or deep interior) and transcendent height (the spiritual influence of the cosmos). A third way would be length: both Waldorf and BD take account of the evolutionary past and distant future with respect to child development and the nurturance of Earth.

With the students of Hinduism Steiner affirms the reality and efficacy of Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita, with the Buddhists he affirms the enduring compassion of Buddha. More, much more, Steiner vividly depicts the ways that Christ and Sophia reconcile the immanent and transcendent, as well as spirit and mater. There would seem to be no spiritual text, teaching, or tradition with which anthroposophy can’t be shown to be in positive relation. Anthroposophy affirms all realities and denies only the limits to reality placed by ideological materialism and religious fundamentalism.

Perhaps the most positive contribution of CIIS to spirituality (and contribution of spirituality to CIIS) is in its pervasive willingness to explore and share diverse spiritual world views and practices. Most classes and faculty meetings begin with meditation or a spiritual reading. Spiritual perspectives and ways of knowing appear in lectures, class discussion, and written work. Tolerance is not total: a faculty meeting might begin with a reading in Sanskrit of the names of the Divine Mother but has never begun with a reading of the litany of the mother of Jesus closely associated with the Catholic Church. The reason for this preference is obvious: CIIS in general does not approve of a religious institution that is dogmatic, exclusivist, or harshly judgmental, especially concerning sexual morality. Its favorite spiritual teacher appears to be His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Thanks to Laudato Si, Pope Francis is emerging as a religious leader who, as is often said, is doing all that he can to move an allegedly unmovable institution. More

important, what both the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis exhibit is a combination of wisdom and compassion: wisdom in knowing realities higher and deeper than matter and compassion in serving all such realities including matter. At CIIS this combination of wisdom and compassion counts as the home base of spirituality.

Robert McDermott is President Emeritus of the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco, as well as Chair, Philosophy and Religion, and Program Director, Philosophy, Cosmology, & Consciousness. He has served on and chaired the boards of a number of anthroposophical initiatives and served on the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America.

Entanglements of Freedom

by David Steinrueck

The fibers of the universe are experienced and enacted in fundamentally different ways, folding into the unique agency of every individual being.

I have always been someone to question and cross the normative lines of the world. In an early incident in my life, walking down a flight of stairs (instead of up, as my mother wanted me to), I shouted, “But I am going up!” What is “up” anyways? As we learned from Kafka’s Red Peter in A Report to an Academy, the fibers of the universe are experienced and enacted in fundamentally different ways, folding into the unique agency of every individual being. It is this unique burst of personhood that is welcomed and celebrated in the Waldorf education. In this way, rather than inundating and shaping the student with certain information, the gifts of each child are respected and integrated into the classroom community. In my Waldorf education, I was able to explore my own experience of the world and learn the skills to critically question normative cultural practices. And this is, in fact, the real philosophy of freedom: the freedom to trust oneself and adventure outside of the narrow self-regenerating economic, political, and cultural traditions (held together by reason). The PCC program has enabled me to continue this line of critical inquiry and self-development on the graduate level surrounded by a supportive community of fellow adventurers.

At its core, the PCC program is a place to explore knowledge. Although this may seem like the bare minimum requirement for any graduate program (or any level of schooling for that matter), the ability to fully explore

the ontological and epistemological conditions of the universe in higher education is exceedingly rare. As we are seeing in universities around the world, non-STEM related fields [science, technology, engineering, mathematics]—those not driven by clear, objective outcome goals—have been devalued, underfunded, and phased out. By offering a contingent, open-ended learning environment, PCC has provided me with a structure to push the boundaries of knowledge; the philosophical works that we engage with do not provide answers, but, instead, act as sign posts along the endlessly shifting trails of the universe. The friendships that I have developed with professors and colleagues are, likewise, built on a foundation of radical inquiry and openness to unfamiliar territory and experience. This learning environment has allowed me to use deeply transdisciplinary methods of inquiry to explore the subjects I am most passionate about: the interactions between subjectivity, politics, and the Earth. In the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program, I have found a place to go “up” in whatever direction I choose, supported by a rigorous community of learners.

From Waldorf to CIIS: Knowing Imagination

by Becca Tarnas

Why do Waldorf students learn to knit? Why are we introduced to the letter M through the story of a doublepeaked mountain, or to V through a tale told in a steep valley? Why are numbers split by Prince Divide, but increased rapidly by Princess Multiply and her little companion butterfly named Of? Why is each classroom wall painted in the ascending order of the rainbow’s spectrum?

As a child in a Waldorf School, the reasoning behind the lessons we engaged in—whether of craftworks and art, bodily expression and poetic movement, of color, sound, and story—were not usually explained to us. In Rudolf Steiner’s pedagogy, the importance lies as much in how a subject is taught as it does in what is taught. Waldorf Schools create not only a unique curriculum, but a unique environment, an atmosphere that one inhales on

David Steinrueck was in Waldorf through 8th grade; he is an MA student at CIIS.

Above from top: Marie Ellenrieder, Self-portrait as a Painter (1819); Vincent Van Gogh, self-portrait sketches age 33 (1886); young Paul Gauguin (1877).

Gallery: The self-portrait

Modern “onlooker consciousness” intensifies self-examination. This becomes a public act in the self-portrait where artists also try out technique and often “put on” characters like an actor. This gallery presents examples from the 1500s to 1924. The acceleration of subsequent decades has led us by way of Frieda Kahlo’s mysteries, Cindy Sherman’s nonself-portraits, and Francis Bacon’s traumatic ones, to the exploding “selfie”! What is it all for? Are we rehearsing for some kind of universal self-recreation?

Below, old masters: four self-portraits of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528, age 13, 22, 26, and 28) bespeak in eyes and hands his very awake consciousness. Next row, four by Raphael (1483-1520, age 16, 23, 26 and 35) with his famous serenity.

Women painters were creating self-portraits from the 1500s: Caterina van Hemessen (1548), Sofonisba Anguissola (1554), Artemisia Gentileschi as a Lute Player (1617), Élisabeth Sophie Chéron (1672), Mary Beale (1675); second row, Rosalba Carriera (1715), Anna Dorothea Therbusch (1777), Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun (1782), Marie-Gabrielle Capet (1783), Maria Cosway (1787).

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) painted and drew several dozen self-portraits. In the earliest (above, at age 20), the easel and canvas seem to overwhelm the young painter. Some of the many subsequent self-portraits appear to be introspective, but as a group they are clearly essays in character with the artist’s own features pressed into dramatic service. Shown right and above are works from age 22 to 28.

In the later 19th century women began to be known as painters. Below, Lady Elizabeth Southerden Butler née Thompson (1869), Mary Cassatt twice (1878 and 1880), Marie Bashkirtseff (1880). Bottom row, Suzanne Valadon (1883), Elisabeth Nourse (1892), Olga Boznanska (1893), Suzanne Valadon again (1893), Zinaida Serebryakova (1909) at the dressing-table.

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) was a world artist, his ancestry and childhood part Peruvian, his first language Spanish, his life unfolding in France and Denmark, Panama and Martinique, Tahiti and the Marquesas. The self-portraits shown above date from 1885-1896. Context plays a strong role with art objects in the background including (second row, left) his own famous painting “The Yellow Christ.” The last is titled “ Self-portrait near Golgotha.”

Art and theology were family callings for Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) but he came to art late; his first self-portraits date from age thirty in Paris. If Rembrandt is testing characterizations, Van Gogh probes inner being and suffering as he becomes ever stronger in observation and technique. The last image here (bottom row, clean-shaven) was a birthday present to his mother.

Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) leaves us one smiling portrait (left) from 1889. By 1910 (middle row below, with hand on brow) she has begun an astonishing project of expressing humanity’s suffering through the medium of her own face. Left-to-right, top row 1889-1901, middle 1904-19, bottom 1920-24.

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) admired Gauguin and in her own short life brought a gentle, reflective naturalism into self-portraits (1902 above, others 1906-7).

a day to day basis. If one word could be chosen to capture what such an environment nurtures and develops, it is the capacity of the child’s imagination. If the portal of imagination is allowed to remain open, if it is nourished and kept safe, strengthened and tested through adolescence to maturity, then the reasons behind the teaching of every form of creative practice—from material arts, to etheric movement, from astral knowledge, to personal wisdom— become apparent on their own.

While the spiritual science of anthroposophy is not explicitly taught to Waldorf students, except sometimes as an optional course to graduating high school seniors, the place within the student’s soul in which spiritual science can come to be understood is nurtured through the long arc of the curriculum. When the time comes to leave the imaginative womb of Waldorf education, questions regarding the why of Steiner’s methods may come forth.

As a graduate student whose childhood was shaped by Steiner’s educational approach, I found that the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at CIIS felt like a mature extension of my Waldorf schooling. Here I was invited not only to continue to keep the doorway to the imaginal open wide, unlike at many other universities and graduate institutions, but I could also begin to explore the reasons behind the form of education that shaped me. Not only is Steiner directly taught in PCC, but many of the graduate program’s other courses can engage with questions initially brought forth by some of my high school and even grade school classes. A continuity of ideas flows between these forms of education, which I feel stems not only from a recognition of the body, soul, and spirit as channels of knowledge and wisdom, but also a profound respect for the power of the imaginative vision.

Becca Tarnas (beccatarnas.com) attended Waldorf pre-school through high school. She received her M.A. in Philosophy, Cosmology & Consciousness and is now a CIIS doctoral student in Ecology, Spirituality, & Religion, writing a dissertation on Jung and Tolkien.

An Anthroposophist Goes to CIIS

by Jeremy Strawn

I came to the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program deeply inspired by anthroposophy. This started for me fourteen years prior, when I lived my twenty-first year on a biodynamic farm. I liken this to com-

ing home, as I felt I had found the synthesis of spiritual perception and practical, Earth-healing work I had been seeking. As I continued to delve deeper in my relationship to anthroposophy, the world became ever more suffused with warmth, love, and meaning, growing in contrast to the modern scientific view of things. In an attempt to plumb the depths of the philosophical underpinnings of this division, I returned to academia, and earned a B.S. in Biology, all the while striving to understand Steiner’s epistemology and a Goethean way of science (and continuing to farm). Following this, I was four years a Waldorf high school science and math teacher, which occasioned even further explorations into questions of science and the relationship of human consciousness to the natural/spiritual world.

Along the way, there grew in me a passion for projective geometry. In the course of my time studying and teaching this lawfully imaginative form of geometry, it became increasingly clear that this was an amazingly rich landscape, but few, and nearly none outside anthroposophical circles, had access to it. This then was the focus that brought me to the PCC program at CIIS, to see how projective geometry, and more generally, anthroposophical science, could be integrated into the larger, more global project of consciousness transformation in which we find ourselves today.

Here, I discovered both an academic environment in which to hone my geometric and philosophical ideas in a broader context, and a vibrant community of individuals “seeking the same goal.” Becoming familiar with the visions of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo, and most profoundly of all, Jean Gebser, my perspective, previously monochromatically influenced either directly or indirectly by Steiner, took on all-new dimensions. Akin to triangulating a location by sighting it from more than one vantage point, adopting the perspective of others with similar visions as Steiner brought me to see facets that he, being one man living in a particular cultural and historical context, could not convey. But, dedicated as I am to an anthroposophical path, this also served to clarify my location on this path, and to affirm my intention of fostering a greater awareness and practice of projective geometry.

As I continued to delve deeper in my relationship to anthroposophy, the world became ever more suffused with warmth, love, and meaning, growing in contrast to the modern scientific view of things.

For me, this was one of the greatest benefits of embarking on the PCC journey, and engaging with this diverse, compassionate, scholarly community. It expanded

my horizons beyond anthroposophical circles, and simultaneously crystallized a vision of projective geometry as a path of epistemological inquiry, etheric perception, and ultimately, a practical means of cultivating a kind of holistic, ecological, or integral thinking well suited to transforming our modern scientific materialism into a spiritual science.

The Influence of Steiner on My Philosophical Development

by Matthew D. Segall

I began studying philosophy during my senior year of high school. Alan Watts, Carl Jung, and Friedrich Nietzsche were my initial guides. Their application of deep metaphysical ideas to everyday human life resonated with the feeling I’d carried since childhood that more was going on here on earth than most of the “adults” in charge seemed to let on. I entered college excited to pursue such ideas further, but was quickly disillusioned by the state of academic philosophy. My professors did little to encourage wonder or the love of wisdom. Instead, they instructed me on the correct usage of logical fallacies and on the proper materialistic interpretation of various scientific theories. Philosophy was discussed as though it was nothing but a valueneutral exercise in linguistic clarification with little connection to the mystery of being human.

For the rest of my time as an undergraduate, I continued my journey into genuine philosophy outside of class by following a trail of clues through old books written by heretical mystics and intellectual misfits.

For the rest of my time as an undergraduate, I continued my journey into genuine philosophy outside of class by following a trail of clues through old books written by heretical mystics and intellectual misfits. I eventually stumbled upon and was intrigued by the works of Rudolf Steiner. He seemed to have something insightful to say about almost everything! I was initially overwhelmed by the sheer

volume of his output and had no idea where to start. It was not until enrolling in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program at the California Institute of Integral Studies that I was able to openly study, discuss, and apply his ideas within the context of an academic community of fellow wisdom seekers. The unique combination of the intellectual and the spiritual at CIIS allowed me to reintegrate what I had been forced to disintegrate during my time at a normal university.

My dissertation topic, because it takes esoteric knowledge of higher worlds seriously, would almost certainly be impossible in any other philosophy graduate program. The working title is Etheric Imagination in Process Philosophy: Toward a Physics of the World-Soul . One of the core commitments underlying my thesis linking the etheric formative forces of nature and the process philosophical imagination is that human consciousness is deeply interwoven with and a participant in the creative evolution of the cosmos. For materialists who believe consciousness is an epiphenomenal accident with no efficacious connection to reality, and for creationists who believe each human soul is independently created at birth and enjoys a destiny entirely separate from that of the physical universe, I expect my arguments will ring hollow. While I hope my research will help in some small way to shift the popular culture away from the false dichotomy of these dueling fundamentalisms, I recognize that there are limits to what verbal argument can accomplish.

Steiner’s influence on the formation of my dissertation topic should be clear to anthroposophists. More than anything else, Steiner has taught me the necessity of intuitive thinking in philosophy. The dynamic unity of subject and object, or consciousness and cosmos, cannot be shown at second hand by way of logical disputation, but must be directly experienced as the product of one’s own free inner activity. Reading Steiner, especially his book translated into English as Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path, has helped forge my identity, not just as a human being, but as a member of a wider cosmic community of beings.

Matt Segall (msegall@ciis.edu) is Executive Assistant to the Academic Vice President of CIIS. He began to study the writings of Rudolf Steiner after coming to CIIS. Well known from Footnotes2Plato blog, he is now a doctoral student, writing a dissertation on Schelling, Whitehead, and Steiner.

Jeremy Strawn is a Philosophy, Cosmology, & Consciousness program alumnus. He taught Waldorf high school for four years and was BD farmer. He led a workshop at the 2014 Fall Conference of the Anthroposophical Society in America.

History Three-folded

by Paul Gierlach

A long-time Waldorf history teacher invites his colleagues and interested others to a conversation about the impact of how history is taught...

There was a time when the Waldorf science curriculum had to prove itself in the mainstream. About thirty years ago or so most questions that came to a school faculty concerned the viability of “Waldorf science.” Those times have passed, and Waldorf grads matriculate at universities around the world with realizable intentions of having a career in any of the sciences. The same was and is true in the field of mathematics. As far as I know no one in his right mind has ever questioned the fact that Waldorf students have a close affinity to any of the arts. That includes literature in all its manifestations. But what about history?

History has not proved itself. Nor is it a “given” that Waldorf students are immersed in the histories. We might be inclined to think that such an oversight is no big deal, but actually, it is. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that it undermines the purpose of Waldorf education. Waldorf education is a response to Rudolf Steiner’s inability to inculcate into the mainstream of post-World War I society the realization that society is an organism with three interpenetrating members distinct in character and purpose. The thought was, of course, that were we as citizens to really understand social forms and impulses in their threefold character,—were we to note, consider, and eventually understand relationships between society and the nature of human beings,—then and only then we would create a society that was suitable for human habitation and ongoing human evolution. The three-fold society organism did not play a role in the “peace talks” at Versailles, and there has been war ever since. Waldorf education is meant to foster all things three-fold.

The high school history curriculum provides a framework for an elaboration of the three-fold nature of society, but do we teachers actually create in the children an awareness of the forces that create cultural identities, legal responsibilities, economic relationships? Rudolf Steiner

did not make up the existence of these forces; actually, all historians deal with them. Even journalists do. We are allowed to mention them without crossing that line where we would “teach anthroposophy.” Have we forgotten that for the past hundred years or so historians have moved away from the Old History approach to understanding our past (those appreciations of history from the point of view of important leaders, national strife, etc.) and have embraced New History (that which concerns itself more with social realities that are common, such as feminism and even post-modernism)?

In point of fact, it is modern to look for a way to explain us and our ancestors to ourselves and call it history. The hidden strength of our pedagogical approach is the biography, true. Yet, we need more than that these days since we find ourselves compelled to be more and more explicit in every area of our teaching.

The fact that we Waldorf teachers as historians are asked to appreciate history from the point of view that includes an existence between one death and a rebirth into a subsequent life, and from the point of view of active spiritual presences in evolving earthly activity, does put us outside the mainstream. But it is much too early to worry oneself about such things. We are not out to teach three-folding; rather, we are going to foster an ability to uncover the complexities of social intercourse of all kinds in all individuals and races and nations and times with “three-fold questioning.” It is enough for us as high school teachers to open students’ eyes and instincts to the presence of these forces. Perhaps our students can do little with the concepts at first, but the impulses can certainly live in them as more than the “limited view” mentioned in the next quotation. In Rudolf Steiner’s Soul Economy we find the following:

If school subjects are introduced in the wrong order, students project their own experiences and understanding of purely physical laws into the social sphere and into their understanding of history. And since this way of seeing the world has deeply penetrated educational practice, the general public is quite willing to look for natural laws in practically every area of life , so that one may no longer suggest that historical impulses originate in

The three-fold society organism did not play a role in the “peace talks” at Versailles, and there has been war ever since.

the spiritual world. Again, this is reflected in the current principles of education. Children are encouraged to develop a firm belief in what they have been taught in physics and chemistry, so that later on, as adults, they will maintain this limited view in their outlook as a whole. (page 19, my italics).

There is no call to teach the three-fold social order; all we need to do is help the future citizens of all the nations on earth touched by anthroposophy to find it. Our teaching will be a continuum of discovery, for the acknowledged facts of history will lose their status as truths and prove more valuable as exempla . True, we should know conceptually something about the three-fold social organism before looking for it, but we can best learn about its intricacies and mysteries by finding its activity in historical events and conundrums.

Let me just mention a few examples of what I mean before wondering out loud if there is anyone reading this article who feels the same way about this pressing responsibility and wants to do something to further an anthroposophical reading of history and consequently an understanding of humanity.

I know of no Waldorf school that does not teach a “Revolutions block” in grade 9. We teachers move a lot of blocks around, but not that one. Before I even write the words, many of you are saying “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” Rudolf Steiner stated that this impulse was premature, that the society was not ready for it, and it led to bloodshed. It takes some effort by us teachers to cite all that was premature so that we create a fair picture of the specific times; it is a bit more work to speak of the French Revolution as a template for the many revolutions that have followed it; yet this we do so we can have one dependable viewpoint of modern times. When we have a four-year overview of the three-fold social organism, we can find the Imaginations needed to treat the three nouns liberté, égalité, fraternité as living forces. Unless a school offers the block in which students create their own societies within the framework of these forces (Idealism and Humanity), the Revolutions block is the best place to introduce the three-fold social organism as theme, as fact, as aspiration.

12). By using the previous sentence we can not only intuit but prove in a phenomenological way that the spirit that must express itself in a three-fold manner in our materialistic, present times manifested itself differently in times past.1 To uncover that spirit—it would be to discover the motherlode of historical verity!

We are not out to teach three-folding; rather, we are going to foster an ability to uncover the complexities of social intercourse of all kinds in all individuals and races and nations and times with “threefold questioning.”

The “Ancient Civilization” block is very handy for our purposes. As any history book will show, all cultural, political and economic activities were united in one ruler. Howsoever often he, and sometimes she, was changed, the spiritual idea remained fast bound to the times: the gods spoke through someone, and everybody else listened. In one’s own tribe or village or city, that is. Of course, other languages spoke out directives from different gods with the same conviction, and warfare was inevitable—as was innovation and migration and change. In this block, we teachers can advance the notion of threefoldness itself by framing our understanding and appreciation of it within 1) the physical elements of geography, climate, altitude, etc., that gave a form to the different civilizations; 2) the soul characteristics of customs, languages, religious beliefs, political forms, economic activities that linked different civilizations together; and 3) spiritual impulses evident in what Karl Jaspers called the Axial Age. It was that time (roughly 600-300bce) when thinkers and other influential men—they were all men from what I can tell—incarnated in a wide swath of the ancient world from China to Greece to jolt certain cultures into new directions, especially as regards personal spirituality (in opposition to ritual) and thinking (in opposition to acceptable explanation). All this we can find in the recognized fact: culture was everything. (We can in the same block nudge the students to an awareness that that change is an important historical event and so point out to them a substantive fact that bears much pondering.)

Students meet a curriculum that leads them from Sentient Soul times (2097-747bce, grade 10) through the Intellectual Soul epoch (747bce-1413ad, grade 11) to our modern Consciousness Soul times (post-1413ad, grade

The moment we think the thought: ancient civilizations were all cultural , we might be tempted to think: the civilizations that follow in the next age are all political. But such is not the case. However, it is easily discovered that what characterizes the Intellectual Soul age is the gradual change of a predominantly cultural sphere into one that wants also to be recognizably human: the political. Now we have in history a chance to explore two 1 Rudolf Steiner said as much in his Christmas Day laying of the Foundation Stone of the Anthroposophical Society in a reference to the Greeks.

spheres: cultural and political, with economics following the lead of the most powerful. Let’s remind ourselves that the Romans not only borrowed their gods from the Greeks but then proceeded to rename them and make contracts with them! This very conflict of what actually exists (the gods in their splendor, especially in Sentient Soul times) and what the mind creates (the ideas of gods who are suspiciously unable to speak any longer) is the conflict between Nominalism, the thought that reality is a construct of human thinking, 2 and Realism, the conviction that there is a spiritual component to our thinking and our life, even if we are unable to access it directly.

Is the endless conflict between civil and secular order (read power) not a defining element in the Medieval block? I prefer to trace the transition from the Sentient Soul one-ruler type (which we find in Charlemagne) through the discord between nations and between commoners and royals that characterize Intellectual Soul activity (which is clearly evident in the brilliant, powerful, and dysfunctional family of Henry II and Catherine of Aquitaine) to the beginning of the modern state with its penchant for organization (in the reign and realm of Louis XI) which prefigures the Consciousness Soul activity of modern times. But there are many ways to discover and present the forces of culture, politics, and economics in their shaping of the facts as we know them.3 (A hidden benefit of this approach is that we can make evident what is often overlooked in our work: people thought differently in earlier times.)

Economics is the force of the Consciousness Soul age. Rudolf Steiner commented on this new fact as World War I ended and the new world order became evident. We find it ourselves in our own lives. We live it every day. It is hardly possible to read an article on any subject these days in journals and newspapers that does not somehow reference the economic sphere.4

Economics is a block in grade 12 that can lead students to appreciate the essential fraternal aspect of this

2 These days we say construction of the human mind, not human thinking, which shows how far we have come along the great Materialism Trail.

3 Rudolf Steiner directs our attention to the transition from the Intellectual to the Consciousness Soul activity of human beings in Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, specifically but not exclusively in the First, Second and Third Studies of Michael’s role in human evolution.

4 In The Corporation, Joel Bakan offers a compact overview of the rise of the corporation and society’s ensuing demise.

impulse, especially when the teacher approaches it as a science. What contrasts can be drawn! Another block, Symptomatology, is by its nature designed to lead the student beyond the facts that are evident to the spiritual impulses that are present but veiled. It is a block that can summarize four years of work in the high school and be that moment when three-folding is unfolded in its verity. Yet, this block cannot stand on its own, for the students can only appreciate its import and impact if they have been led for three previous years to see the cultural, political, and economic forces that have always been part of our social existence. I have talked enough for now. (And yet have only touched the surface of the enquiry.) Let me simply add that as history teachers we are tasked with the creation of society in the future. This is no longer the time to think of history as dealing with the past. It deals with the future. For the Consciousness Soul age is of the future. Is it not true that the spirit speaks to us all, in many ways? It is our job, I would say, to help students learn to listen to it as it sounds out its daily toll.

Facts of history are, indeed, events; yet the phenomenon is not the impulse. As high school teachers we need to open up the unseen world for our charges; we need to embrace the unseen and perhaps the immediately unknowable. For me, serendipity is the new intellectuality. I have come to believe that what is serendipitous for us is actually a common sense of the spirits who inform our world.

And I wonder if others feel the same way I do? And would be interested in doing something about it? Whatever that if might be.

Paul Gierlach (paulgierlach@gmail.com) has worked in Waldorf schools since 1979. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees from St. Vincent’s College and York University, respectively, and completed Waldorf teacher training at the Waldorf Institute of Mercy College in Detroit. He was a class teacher and high school humanities teacher for most of his career. Having recently retired from full-time high school teaching, he teaches main lessons in different schools throughout the US, mentors teachers, and advises faculties and schools on the use of the Waldorf curriculum to teach students with a wide variety of learning styles. Paul teaches the block on Parzival at the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training (www.bacwtt.org).

Let’s remind ourselves that the Romans not only borrowed their gods from the Greeks but then proceeded to rename them and make contracts with them! ... [It] is often overlooked in our work: people thought differently in earlier times.

Parent–Teacher Conferences as Reverse Ritual

by Torin Finser

Chapter 23 of A Second Classroom: Parent-Teacher Relationships in a Waldorf School, SteinerBooks 2014

In cultures around the world people celebrate in the form of rituals, from tribal customs in Africa, to Native American ceremonies in what is now the United States. These rituals were used to draw a community together in shared practices, and remind the participants of their connection to their common spiritual traditions. Churches, synagogues, and mosques around the world also rely heavily on ritual. One could say that many of these rites and rituals serve as an invocation, inviting the descent of spirit into matter. They call down to Earth spiritual content that serves to energize and unite a community.

Rudolf Steiner describes the above as one way to build community, one that has deep historical roots. He then also describes another route, something he names as a reverse ritual, in which human beings become so active with one another that spiritual content is generated and sent in the reverse direction, from the earth to the heavens. How can this happen?

In lectures on community building given in February 1923, Steiner describes three stages of consciousness: dreams, which occur without much personal direction, waking consciousness that arises as we interact with nature and daily life, and then a third level which is particularly interesting: “We begin to develop the first understanding of the spiritual world when we awake to the spirit and soul of the other person.” ( Awakening to Community, lecture of 2/27/1923) When we work spiritually together, with reverence and dedication to the common idealism, we do not have a ritual descending so to speak into our midst but a community spirit that ascends. “The individual persons awake to one another, and they awake to each other in a changed condition each time that they gather together, as each of them in the meantime has gone through a different experience and advanced somewhat further.” (Ibid ) If one works time and again together to create spiritual

substance, and one awakens again and again to the others, one finds the spirit at work on the Earth and enacts a reversed ritual. One could say an offering of human striving results in an entirely new substance woven from human working out of anthroposophy. When a teacher in a Waldorf school meets in conference with the same parents again and again, sometimes three times a year over eight years, a substance is created that might be called a reversed ritual. A tapestry of connected conversations, dedicated to the best interests of the child in question, is gradually woven over time. Especially if the participants are spiritually active, it is possible to feel a change in the atmosphere of the conference over time. One does not have to begin at the beginning each time, but there is a continuity that supports and strengthens the work. One cannot say much more about this phenomenon, for it is ever so delicate. But I encourage those who participate in these conversations over time to observe what happens, and at least entertain the possibility that something is being offered up that is greater than the words spoken in any given conference.

Behold, I make everything new.

Torin Finser is Chair of the Education Department, Antioch University New England, and is General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. He lectures widely and has written nine books on education, leadership, and community.

The Gifts of Waldorf Education and the Ecological Crisis

by Maximilian DeArmon

History is governed by those overarching movements that give shape and meaning to life by relating the human venture to the larger destinies of the universe. Creating such a movement might be called the Great Work of a people… The Great Work now, as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner. — Thomas Berry 1

1 Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999), 1.

We are bearing witness to, and participating in, an axial turn in the story of humanity. For the first time in our journey, we are becoming conscious of the fact that we are a global species forming a planetary civilization.2 While there are many positive aspects of this turn, including the increasing tolerance of cultural, religious, and individual freedoms, the democratization of information through the Internet, and an emerging planetary awareness, there is also a great looming threat. Some scientists say we are at the brink of the sixth mass extinction event, which could bring an end to the Cenozoic Era, the primary cause of which is collective human activity. To put things into perspective, the last mass extinction event happened 65 million years ago, potentially caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth, killing the dinosaurs and other life forms.

Some geologists say we are entering the epoch of the “Anthropocene”3 in which humanity is a major driving force on the planet. On our current trajectory of endless industrial growth, extraction of natural resources, mass deforestation, ocean acidification, alterations in the atmosphere, and climate change, it seems that total ecological destruction is inevitable; this is being called “the Great Unraveling.”4 In the words of the evolutionary cosmologist Brian Swimme, humanity has emerged as a planetary power but has yet to become fully conscious of that power and the responsibility that comes with it.5

While many people are aware of the ecological crisis we currently face and its dire consequences, there is a complementary narrative of ecological resilience and hope that is gaining traction in our collective consciousness. Joanna Macy, an eco-philosopher and activist, refers to this phenomenon as “the Great Turning.”6 Emerging out of our current crisis, capturing the imagination of millions, and catapulting people to take action, the Great Turning is the greatest opportunity of our times. In his book Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken claims we are witnessing the largest social movement in human history, in which more than ever, grassroots organizations are working towards positive ecological and social change, and the number is growing exponentially.7

2 Sean Kelly, Coming Home: The Birth & Transformation of The Planetary Era (Great Barrington: Lindisfarne Books, 2010), VII.

3 Ibid., VIII.

4 Joanna Macy and Molly Brown, Coming Back to Life (Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2014), 5.

5 Brian Swimme, Cosmological Powers, DVD

6 Joanna Macy and Molly Brown, Ibid.

7 Paul Hawkin, Blessed Unrest: How the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice, and beauty to the world (New York: Penguin Books,

In the face of all this, what role do Waldorf education and Waldorf students play in the Great Turning? As both a former Waldorf student and someone who was home schooled with a Steiner education, I have identified four main skills that give Waldorf students the ability to grapple with the enormity of our situation and that strategically place them in a position of leadership.

First, an active imagination is required to ignite the creativity that will give rise to solutions for the global problems we face. The power of the imagination created ancient civilizations in China, Babylon, Greece, the Indus valley, Meso-America, and Egypt. It created the world’s great mythologies of the Olympian Gods, the Norse Gods, and the Hindu Pantheon, which influenced most of the world’s literary traditions. It created modernity; great economic systems; Paris, London, and New York City.

The power of the imagination will be the driving force behind creating a new world beneficial to all life on Earth. Children in Waldorf education spend years cultivating the imagination through mythological studies and personalized main lesson books created by the students. Most public schools and other educational institutions do not put strong emphasis on the imagination.

Second, biospheric consciousness seems to be naturally developing across the planet, 8 but Waldorf education places an especially strong emphasis on the individual’s role within the Earth community9 and within the cosmos itself. This expansive form of consciousness is required for our society to rebuild so that all life on Earth can thrive and human activity can be in harmony with the natural rhythms of the cosmos. Without this type of global consciousness, any rebuilding of civilization will fall short of fully integrating our social systems with the greater ecological and cosmological systems.

The power of the imagination will be the driving force behind creating a new world beneficial to all life on Earth. Children in Waldorf education spend years cultivating the imagination...

The third skill is the practical application of abstract ideas. Steiner believed that students should learn abstract ideas through tactile activities. I remember woodworking, crocheting, eurythmy, and the Olympic games as enjoyable activities that stay in my memory to this day. Science is taught with a hands-on, applicable approach, 2008), 2.

8 Jeremy Rifkin, Empathic Civilization: The race to global consciousness in a world in crisis (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 593.

9 Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988), 6.

and the history of math and science is taught during those subject periods, giving proper context to the lessons. Now as a doctoral student wading through an ocean of ideas, I can clearly see how these activities opened up certain neural networks in my brain, expanded my consciousness, and allowed me to process these abstractions with ease. This skill is essential in dealing with the ecological crisis because our brain’s neural plasticity has a limited or expanded bandwidth based on past experiences, and our perception of reality, and cognitive ability, is in part shaped by these neural networks.10 Having years of intentional cognitive and creative development working on these neural networks gives the brain the mental capacity to handle more complex abstract philosophical ideas such as re-imagining civilization and re-inventing the human in alignment with a living Earth.

The fourth skill I identified, cultivated in Waldorf education and necessary for dealing with ecological devastation, is that of developing an ecological sensibility. Steiner’s development of biodynamic farming could literally be what shapes the future of agriculture all over the world.11 As the dangers of mono-cropping become ever more present, biodynamic farming seems to be a major solution to healing our relationship with domesticated animals and with the growing of our food. Most Waldorf schools go on field trips to biodynamic farms, and some have a biodynamic farm or garden on the school property, or at least close by. This type of education and connection to the Earth is priceless and exactly what is needed to reconnect to the life-sustaining principles of our ancestors.

As a former Waldorf student, I feel a moral obligation to use these skills to help our world in this time of great crisis. Because of the care of our families and communities, we were given a gift of a liberated mind and the freedom to develop ourselves to our highest potential through transformative education. Steiner developed an education model that is not only beneficial to unlocking latent potentials for individual growth and development, but also is beneficial to the greater community, and the natural world. We are now being called upon to utilize these skills for the benefit of all beings and to join others who are already committed to the mission of the Great Turning. The Earth needs us to participate. Humanity needs us to participate. There is no more time to sit on the sidelines

10 Thomas Luckman and Peter Berger, The Social Foundations of Human Experience (New York: Oxford, 2007)

11 John Paull, “Biodynamic Agriculture: The journey from Koberwitz to the world, 1924-1938,” Journal of Organic Systems, 61), (2011): 27

and contemplate a better world while we criticize the fall of industrial society. A new world is gestating and a fully formed planetary civilization is on the horizon. Will we be part of its creation or merely bear witness to its birth?

Steiner was well versed in the battle between good and evil on subtle planes and his revelations about these polarities reverberates through his philosophical and educational writings. One could argue that the battle is now playing out on the world stage, and we are facing the greatest threat to our own survival, as well as the survival of countless other species. My Waldorf education has convinced me that we have been invited to join the battle and for what is good in our world.

The task at hand is making sure that the Anthropocene does not continue down the path of the Great Unraveling, where the collective power of humanity is the primary destructive force on the planet. By re-imagining humanity to be intricately interconnected with the entire Earth community, as part of a “communion of subjects” (Thomas Berry’s phrase), we have the opportunity to transform this destructive power into a positive regenerative force where the Anthropocene could turn into the epoch of the Great Turning. Steiner’s dream of a better world, a more creative and ecologically harmonious world, is also a dream of humanity—and a dream of the Earth.

Maximilian DeArmon, writer and producer of the film The Future of Energy (www.thefutureofenergy.org), is a planetary advocate whose mission is to facilitate global transformation through educational and creative projects. He’s currently doing his Graduate studies in San Francisco at The California Institute of Integral Studies where his main focus is transpersonal psychology, evolutionary cosmology and integral ecology.

Climate Change Brings Moral Change

by Mary Evelyn Tucker

Pope Francis is clearly one of the most popular people on the planet at present. With his love for the poor, his willingness to embrace the outcast, and his genuine humility, he has captured the hearts of millions, Christian and non-Christian alike. He has inspired minds as well by his willingness to take on difficult issues such as ecology, economy, and equity, which he sees as inextricably

linked. Indeed, these three interwoven issues are at the heart of his recent Papal encyclical. An encyclical is a letter to the Bishops and all Church members. It is the highest level of teaching in the Catholic Church and this is the first encyclical on the environment in the history of the Church.

First, he addresses ecology. Pope Francis, following in the tradition of Francis of Assisi, celebrates the natural world as a sacred gift. He does this with his reference to St. Francis’ “Canticle of Brother Sun, Sister Moon” in the title of the encyclical, “Praised Be” [Laudato Si]. The kinship with all creation that St. Francis intuited we now understand as complex ecological relationships that have evolved over billions of years. For Pope Francis these relationships have a natural order or “grammar” that needs to be understood, respected, and valued.

Second, he speaks about the economy. Within this valuing of nature, the Pope encourages us to see the human economy as a subsystem of nature’s economy, namely, the dynamic interaction of life in ecosystems. Without a healthy natural ecology there is not a sustainable economy and vice versa. They are inevitably interdependent. Moreover, we cannot ignore pollution or greenhouse gases as externalities that are not factored into full cost accounting. This is because, for Pope Francis, profit over people or at the expense of the planet is not genuine profit. This is what has happened with fossil fuels causing climate disruption.

Third, he highlights equity. From this perspective, working within the limits of nature’s economy can lead to thriving human societies. In contrast, exploiting the Earth and using oil and gas without limits has led to increased human inequities. Ecosystems are being undermined by climate change and the wealthy most often benefit. The Pope recognizes that such an impoverished economic system results in impoverished and unjust social systems. Thus, for him, the poor must be cared for as they are the most adversely affected by climate change.

In all of this the encyclical is not anti-modernity, but hopes to reconfigure the idea of progress. “Not blind opposition to progress but opposition to blind progress,” as John Muir said. The Pope refers to this perspective when he speaks of a throwaway economy where humans are saturated in materialism. He sees the need for genuine progress where the health of both people and the planet can be fostered. Thus, as the head of the Pontifical Academy of Justice and Peace Cardinal Peter Turkson has said,

“We need to learn to work together in a framework that links economic prosperity with both social inclusion and protection of the natural world.” This linkage of ecology, economy, and equity is what is being called an “integral ecology” and is central to the encyclical.

Such an integral ecology clearly requires interdisciplinary cooperation as we find our path forward on a planet of more than seven billion people. We need to understand more fully the challenges the world is facing in terms of economic development and environmental protection. These are not easy to reconcile. Indeed, the international community has been seeking answers since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 set forth a framework for sustainable development. The world is ever more in need of an integral ecology that brings together a fresh understanding that people and the planet are part of one interdependent life community. Such an integral ecology affirms the cooperation of science and ethics, knowing that our problems will not be solved without both. It is clear that climate change requires moral change.

The Papal encyclical, then, represents a new period of potential cooperation. In the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology we have been working for two decades with hundreds of scholars to identify the cultural and religious grounds in the world’s religions for a more diverse environmental ethics to complement environmental sciences. Between 1995-2004 we organized ten conferences at Harvard and published ten volumes to examine how the world’s religions can contribute their varied ethical perspectives for a sustainable future. At Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies we have been broadening this dialogue and building on the work of environmentalists, policy makers, and economists. The Papal encyclical will be a fresh inspiration for these and numerous other efforts that are bringing together ecology and ethics for the flourishing of the Earth community. To this end we look forward to working together with the Center for Process Studies which, in addition to numerous publications, has convened conferences in both the U.S. and China to advance the goals of ecological civilization.

Mary Evelyn Tucker co-directs the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale ( fore.yale.edu) and is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scholar at Yale University where she has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as well as the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies.

For Pope Francis, profit over people or at the expense of the planet is not genuine profit.

IN THIS SECTION:

There are a growing number of “signs” that the worldview of modernism is nearing its expiration date. When solid citizens of modernity speak up in the way Thomas Nagel has done, those who are comfortable with things as they are get worried. Frederick Amrine is our expert guide to this noteworthy defection.

Besides insights, Rudolf Steiner left a vast number of questions to work on further. Many agree on the importance of understanding and experiencing the difference between “thinking” that just moves around preformed concepts, and thinking that explores a non-physical “higher” world. Frederick Dennehy worked with consciousness researcher Georg Kuhlewind and introduces us to GK’s friend the Italian anthroposophist Massimo Scaligero.

Owen Barfield penetrated the English-speaking mainstream with his research into words and meanings and what they show about an evolving human consciousness. His grandson is keeping OB’s work available.

The Henry Barnes Fund seeks support for new research being done now!

& reviews

Provoking a Crisis by

Frederick Amrine

Review of Thomas Nagel, Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (New York: Oxford UP, 2012).

“Above all, I would like to extend the boundaries of what is not regarded as unthinkable, in light of how little we really understand about the world.” (p. 127)

This is an important book, trenchant and brave. Thomas Nagel is a preeminent analytic philosopher, but this admirably succinct treatise1 is nontechnical: it can be read and understood by any educated person with good will and a bit of perseverance. It deserves careful study.

Despite the book’s rather sensational subtitle, it is not specifically anti-Darwinian. And Nagel offers no direct comfort to creationists: an avowed atheist, he assures us that he doesn’t have a religious bone in his body. Biblical literalists might well be tempted to befriend Nagel in an enemy-of-myenemy sort of way, but Nagel isn’t sympathetic. (Nor am I.) Nagel is likewise a critic of creationism’s more progressive wing, “intelligent design,” dismissing it with the stinging (and accurate) critique that it offers only the empty form of an explanation, without any specific content.

Mind and Cosmos describes a paradigm that should be in crisis, but is not.2 Nagel means to provoke the crisis that ought to be unfolding on its own. The paradigm at issue is even larger than Neo-Darwinism: Nagel calls it “materialist reductionism.” Because it is the prevailing explanatory model in all of mainstream contemporary science, the stakes are vast.

It will help us understand Nagel’s contentions if we first digress a bit and recall how paradigms work via an extended simile. The analogy might seem too facile at first, but please just stay with me for a moment. A paradigm is like a job that is meant to pay the bills. Some excellent jobs (think medical intern or graduate teaching fellow) can’t cover the bills in the short run, but it is reasonable to accept that limitation because there is a good likelihood that they will turn into high-paying jobs down the road. What matters is paying the bills (and more) in the long run. Highly successful paradigms such as Copernican astronomy and Relativity left large bills unpaid in the short run, but soon enough these “anomalies” (as Kuhn calls them) were explained in light of the new paradigm. If major bills remain unpaid for an extended period of time, the typical and appropriate response is a Kuhnian “crisis”: clearly it’s time to hunt for a better job.

Born in the late Renaissance, “reductionist materialism” is hardly a new paradigm.3 It should be paying the bills and then some. Nagel has sat down at the end of the month, as it were, and inventoried the unpaid bills. The result isn’t pretty: we’re covering food and clothing, so we’re comfortable enough day-to-day; but we can’t cover rent, car payments, or utilities.

Mind and Cosmos describes a paradigm that should be in crisis, but is not. Nagel means to provoke the crisis... The paradigm at issue is ... the prevailing explanatory model in all of mainstream contemporary science, [so] the stakes are vast.

Specifically, Nagel argues that materialist reductionism can explain everything except life, consciousness, human reason, the lawfulness of the universe, and moral values. Because it

1 128 pages in a small format. Nagel’s own summary, published in The New York Review of Books (“The Core of ‘Mind and Cosmos’”; August 18, 2013), is even more succinct, but you will want to own and read the entire book.

2 I mean the terms “paradigm” and “crisis” in their specifically Kuhnian senses (Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [1962; Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012]).

3 Pace H. Allen Orr, who calls it “the new kid on the block” in his critical review of Nagel (The New York Review of Books; February 7, 2013).

has no adequate explanation of consciousness and reason, the prevailing paradigm cannot even begin to explain how science of any kind is possible. Moreover, the prospect of finding reductionist explanations of all these fundamental natural phenomena (for such they are) is effectively nil. That should be shocking enough. We should feel a sense of overwhelming crisis. We should be looking for a new job. But what is doubly and triply shocking is not that Nagel would dare to mount such a critique, but rather that most scientists remain untroubled, and that many are working overtime to deny such problems even exist.

Let’s consider each of these issues briefly.

L ife : Nagel devotes little space to this problem because there’s no real argument about it. The prevailing paradigm seldom even attempts to answer this question, and when it does, the process is purely—sometimes wildly4 speculative. The explanation most often invoked is blind chance— which is to say, the absence of any explanatory principle dressed up to look like an explanatory principle. When it comes to the origin (let alone the meaning) of life, materialist reductionism is clueless

ConsCioUsness : Reductionists themselves refer to this as “the hard problem.” One might call this lack a congenital defect, since it dates from the moment modern science was born. Cartesian dualism not only fails to solve the “mind-body problem”: it created the problem intentionally so that it could pursue materialistic determinism untroubled. Scientific progress was purchased at the price of exporting the mind and all its phenomena to a separate realm, and then declaring the physical substrate to be the sole and proper domain of science. After having issued IOUs for going on half a millennium without having paid down a dime of the principal, materialist reductionism has now begun simply to deny the existence of a debt: there is no mind; what feels like mind is just “sparks and drips at the synapses”; 5 nothing else is there. Or as the

4 E.g., Francis Crick’s hypothesis of “directed panspermia,” discussed on p. 124.

5 Berkeley neuroscientist John Kihlstrom, quoted by Louis B. Jones in his

noted geneticist Francis Crick notoriously put it: “ ‘You,’6 your joys and sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Who you are is nothing but a pack of neurons.” 7 At most, mind is a pleasant fiction, good enough for literary diversions but entirely unworthy of philosophical consideration.

As for the “mind,” which Nagel holds could not have been brought into being merely by Darwinian natural selection, it has played a magnificent part in English poetry: in Marvell, Keats, Wordsworth, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and so on. But it is not at home in philosophy. The “mind-body problem,” a sort of Indian rope-trick, is a toy which has been teasing and entertaining philosophers for too long.8

Or if the existence of consciousness can’t be denied, at least its importance can be minimized, as in Orr’s specious counter that consciousness is rare in nature, so why worry about an exceptional problem? Such arguments duck the real issue here: materialist reductionism

“cannot provide the basic form of intelligibility for this world” (p. 53).

r ationa Lity and L awfULness: Nagel argues these are attributes of Nature herself. It is not at all clear how consciousness, let alone rationality, should have survival value, since so many species have survived very well without either. The implied answer is that rational creatures (humans) have survived and prospered as a species; therefore rationality has survival value. But that would be a textbook logical fallacy, so sophomoric that it wouldn’t even rate a response. Hence proponents won’t say it aloud. Here Nagel elegantly deploys the aporia of a simple calculator. We tap in “5+3=” and we obtain the correct answer “8.” The mechanism of the calculator can be reduced to physics, but not the meaning of the answer review of Nagel (The Threepenny Review ; Fall 2012).

6 These telling internal quotes are Crick’s own.

7 Quoted by Andrew Ferguson in his review of Nagel (The Weekly Standard; March 25, 2013).

8 These appalling words conclude the late P. N. Furbank’s review of Nagel (The Threepenny Review ; Fall 2012).

Nagel rightly terms our awareness of meaning a “miracle,” because it is not susceptible to reductionist analysis. As Louis B. Jones puts it so very well in his review, “Only a sovereign consciousness sees that. Furthermore—and this is an additional leap of cognition that Nagel finds almost numinous—the little equation pertains to a logical, cognizable universe. How is it that this universe happens to fit, like a glove, our cogitations and surmises?” Reductionist materialism cannot begin to answer this question. mora L va LU es : Nagel is a “moral realist.” For him, values are (mentally) perceptible facts : “… pain is really bad, and not just something we hate, and … pleasure is something good, and not just something we like” (p. 110). We can be as confident about the wrongness of slavery, or cruelty to children, as we are about the chemical composition of the air or the boiling point of water. We needn’t agree with Nagel on this point specifically to feel the force of his argument. It is enough to admit that civilized people act as though moral values were real in their everyday experience; morality is in that sense a pervasive natural phenomenon in need of explanation. Materialist reductionism cannot begin to explain why “it is the case that the interests of others provide us with reasons for action,” or why reflection should lead us to feel “some degree of benevolence” (p. 101). Altruism and selflessness are not necessarily advantageous to specific individuals; indeed, the opposite is a much more plausible argument. The philosopher Sharon Street has argued rightly that a moral realism such as Nagel advocates “would make no contribution to reproductive fitness” (p. 107), and therefore it must be false, because we hold the Darwinian account to be true. Nagel boldly turns the point of this argument around and flings it right back: because we can be confident that moral realism is true, Darwinistic accounts of value judgments are implausible. Such accounts have not lacked extramural critics, but Nagel’s criticism is especially painful because it comes from within. Materialist reductionism isn’t just unacceptable to the devout: now an eminent philosopher contends that it fails key tests of scientific rigor. Materialist reductionism is bad science. Nagel’s assault on the paradigm’s innermost citadel has elicited three persistent refrains from his critics: 1) Nagel has betrayed science as such by siding with its detractors; 2) philosophers shouldn’t be poking their noses into scientists’ business; scientists know better;

and 3) Nagel’s proposed alternative paradigm, “natural teleology,” is a non-starter. The third complaint has merit. The first two have none, but because they are so symptomatic, let’s consider them before turning to the third.

Many scientists’ feathers are ruffled by Nagel’s having taken science to task. However by their own lights, this should neither surprise nor annoy them: they should welcome it. Rational self-criticism is integral to the way science works. Such complaints betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the proper role of philosophical reasoning within scientific method.9 To be sure, scientists have grown unaccustomed to philosophical critique because by and large Anglo-American philosophers have become apologists for the reigning paradigm, working overtime to defend reductionism by denying “the ghost in the machine.” But philosophy isn’t the handmaiden of science (or its “underlaborer,” as Locke asserted); it’s just that so many philosophers have abdicated their responsibility. No wonder they want to brand Nagel a heretic—literally! In his review of Nagel, the Cambridge philosopher Simon Blackburn asserted that “[i]f there were a philosophical Vatican, the book would be a good candidate for going on the Index [of Prohibited Books].”10 Nor is such discourse at all exceptional: molecular biologists themselves refer to the prevailing paradigm as “the central dogma,” and both scientists and philosophers are quick to refer to problems such as the conscious mind as an unknowable “mystery”—the same fideistic dodge that early modern philosophers and scientists had criticized so mercilessly. Leon Wieseltier’s riposte is rhetorically delicious: “What once vitiated godfulness now vindicates godlessness.” It is not Nagel who is the apostate here: the shoe is on the other foot.

The eminent evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin is aware of what he is doing, at least: “…we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter

9 Contrary to the disingenuous claims of countless popular scientific presentations, the scientific method is not simply empirical, and it never proves anything. As Karl Popper has demonstrated, experimental science is “hypothetico-deductive,” and it proceeds via falsification. The key moment in the process of “justification” is the application of rational analysis in the devising of experiments and the evaluation of their results. “Discovery” is an imaginative act that transcends both empiricism and rationality.

10 Quoted by Leon Wieseltier in The New Republic (March 8, 2013).

Nagel is a “moral realist.” For him ... we can be as confident about the wrongness of slavery, or cruelty to children, as we are about the chemical composition of the air or the boiling point of water.

how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot into the door.”11 Needless to say, science should not be dealing in such preconceived notions, and if it does, philosophy’s proper role is to protest. Nagel is far more reasonable and balanced than his opponents. Like Rudolf Steiner, he is not opposed to materialism as such, merely to its overstated claims. Ferguson argues well on this point, in defense of Nagel, that materialism is “a premise of science, not a finding … The success has gone to the materialists’ heads. From a fruitful method, materialism becomes an axiom: If science can’t quantify something, it doesn’t exist, and so the subjective, unquantifiable, immaterial ‘manifest image’ of our mental life is proved to be an illusion.” Ferguson agrees with Nagel that materialism has its place as a valid scientific methodology, but it can be sustained as a comprehensive metaphysics only through “a heroic feat of cognitive dissonance”—by simply ignoring the unpaid bills Nagel itemizes.12 Or begging the question dogmatically by simply asserting what is at issue. “The question, then,” Orr writes, “is not whether [Nagel’s proposed] teleology is formally compatible with the practice of science. The question is whether the practice of science leads to taking teleology seriously.” But the question we are asking is whether the current practice of science is correct. Orr’s assertion is tantamount to saying, “Given that the current practice of science is correct and does not include teleology, we may safely disqualify Nagel’s alternative explanation.” Hearing such arguments, one wants to shout, “Is there a philosopher in the house?”

Nagel proceeds from itemizing unpaid bills to job hunting as it were, and that is where he falls short. The critics’ third objection does have merit, but for a different reason: whereas they accuse him of having been led astray, I fault him for not having gone further in the right direction. Ironically, Nagel’s powerful analytic focus seems to have given him tunnel vision regarding possible alternatives, and makes him seem captive to the tradition in which he was trained. More than one critic has quoted a key sentence, couched in four negatives, as symptomatically vague and tentative: “I am not confident that the Aristotelian idea of teleology without intention makes

11 Quoted by Nagel in a footnote on p. 49.

12 Nagel calls materialist reductionism “a heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense” (p. 128).

sense, but I do not at the moment see why it doesn’t” (p. 93). Mind & Cosmos is a thoroughly admirable book, and there is no doubting the sincerity of Nagel’s convictions, but this is hardly persuasive rhetoric, and associating the idea of “natural teleology” principally with an ancient philosopher makes it feel like a throwback. That move strikes me as unfortunate and unnecessary.

I agree wholeheartedly that the crisis calls for “a major conceptual revolution at least as radical as relativity theory … or the original scientific revolution itself” (p. 42), but I wonder whether “teleology” is the best term for it, and (as Nagel himself recognizes) Aristotelian teleology as such is a non-starter because it is too theistic and intentional. Even if we restrict ourselves to teleology, there is a distinguished modern school of philosophical, non-theistic teleology reaching back to Kant via important biologists such as Karl Ernst von Baer and Jakob von Uexküll. Indeed, Stephen Jay Gould gives us one version of this lineage in his important first book, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, 13 which inspired the new field of evolutionary developmental biology or “evo-devo” that “elaborates important new lines of inquiry into selforganization of life forms.”14 This and many other similar developments suggest that materialist reductionism is indeed slowly giving way to a new paradigm of emergence.

I propose that what we need is not an alternative form of causality, but rather an even more radical paradigm that makes room for indeterminacy and the historical emergence of previously unknown levels of complexity, a paradigm in which phenomena are correlative to consciousness. Some of Nagel’s critics have inadvertently pointed us in the right general direction by accusing Nagel of having harkened back to German Idealism15 and its central concept of Spinozist natura naturans, or of trying to “re-enchant the world” (in the Weberian sense of that term) after the manner of the Romantics. Goethe’s nonreductive science is a kind of Spinozism recast in the light of German Idealism, and Spinoza was also the philosopher most admired by Einstein. Spinoza lies at the heart of the

13 Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1977.

14 John H. Zammito in The Hedgehog Review, vol. 15, No. 5 (Fall 2013).

15 Zammito. See also Malcolm Thorndike Nicholson, “Thomas Nagel is not crazy” (Prospect ; October 23, 2012): “Nagel concludes, in a vein similar to the German idealist philosophers of the late 18th and early 19th century, that the nature of reality is such that there is a natural progression towards consciousness.”

Nagel is far more reasonable and balanced than his opponents. Like Rudolf Steiner, he is not opposed to materialism as such, merely to its overstated claims.

profoundest philosophical writing of the last half-century, Gilles Deleuze’s metaphysical, scientifically advanced monism.16 Many other such figures could be listed. The index of Nagel’s book is filled with minor analytic philosophers, but these major alternative thinkers are conspicuous in their absence.17

When Nagel writes, “After all, whatever one’s philosophical views, so long as there is such a thing as truth there must be some truths that don’t have to be grounded in anything else” (p. 103), he is invoking what German Idealism means by the a priori. Kant or Fichte could have written the words: “As with cognition in general, the response to value seems only to make sense as a function of the unified subject of consciousness” (p. 115). Nagel does indeed seem to be reviving Idealism’s moral realism, as worked out by Schiller and further elaborated by Rudolf Steiner. And Hegel could have written Nagel’s radiant claim that “[e]ach of our lives is a part of the lengthy process of the universe gradually waking up and becoming aware of itself” (p. 85).

But Nagel need not have gone all the way back to German Romanticism and Idealism; there is a source closer to home. What he is seeking is a philosophy of freedom that is embedded within an overarching notion of the evolution of consciousness. Readers of being human will recognize these radical ideas as familiar ground. Ferguson rightly describes Nagel as looking for a “Third Way” between theism and materialism. That “Way” already exists—in the form of anthroposophy.18 It is one of the tragedies of our era that great minds and honest seekers such as Thomas Nagel seem unaware of the work of Rudolf Steiner.

Frederick Amrine (amrine@umich.edu) has been a student of anthroposophy his entire adult life. He teaches literature, philosophy, and intellectual history at the University of Michigan, where he is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in German Studies. His research has been devoted primarily to Goethe, German Idealism, and Romanticism. He is also a past editor of this publication.

A Treatise on Living Thinking

Review of A Treatise on Living Thinking: A Path Beyond Western Philosophy, Beyond Yoga, Beyond Zen, by Massimo Scaligero, translated by Eric L.

Bisbocci; Lindisfarne Books, 2014; 103

by Fred Dennehy

pages

Massimo Scaligero (1906-1980) is a somewhat shadowy figure to anthroposophists in America. Some may have heard of him as one of a cadre of fascist anthroposophists in Italy who (according to anthroposophist critic Peter Staudenmaier), during the 1930s and 1940s, wrote numerous articles endorsing antisemitism and Nazi Germany’s “decisive racist campaign,” and purveyed visions of a “noble Roman heritage” and “the solar tradition” it supposedly embodied. According to Staudenmaier, Scaligero depicted World War II as a racial conflict, stated that only the victory of the “Aryan race” could reintegrate spirituality into human life, and said that Jews spread “Ahrimanic, sub-human, and materialistic” forces throughout the world.

Staudenmaier’s writings are heavily slanted against anthroposophy, and he writes like a high school debater, eager to present the evidence for one side and to conceal the rest. I have no reason to believe that Staudenmaier’s references to Scaligero’s early writings are wrong. It is not known to me, however, that Scaligero continued in later life to espouse his wartime points of view. There is some anecdotal evidence that he underwent a conversion experience after the war. I am also aware that Georg Kühlewind was a close colleague and friend of Scaligero from 1969 until Scaligero’s death in 1980. Kühlewind was Jewish.

16 See my essay “Gilles Deleuze’s Philosophy of Freedom,” being human, Spring 2012.

17 To his credit, Nagel does refer to Stuart Kauffman’s work on emergence. And he also identifies himself as “an objective idealist in the tradition of Plato, and perhaps of certain post-Kantians, such as Schelling and Hegel” (p. 17), but then, oddly, none of these three names appears in the index.

18 Cf. Frederick Amrine, “Discovering a Genius: Rudolf Steiner at 150,” being human, Spring 2011: “Steiner … occupies the seemingly excluded middle ground between science and religion …”

Others will be familiar with Scaligero as an anthroposophical thinker who had significant influence on Kühlewind. In a biographical statement that was included in “Stages of Consciousness” in 1984, Kühlewind wrote:

In 1969, I met Massimo Scaligero, the Italian anthroposophical thinker. As a matter of fact, our real and effective meeting did not occur personally, but only through his books after personal acquaintance. Out of this, a deep and helpful friendship emerged which still lasts after his death—he died in 1980—although there was more than one question on which we did not agree.

Our agreement was perfect, however, concerning questions of knowing and the inner path.

Relatively few American anthroposophists have read Scaligero, despite the fact that Steiner Books has published The Light (La Luce) in 2001, The Secrets of Space and Time in 2013 and, most recently, A Treatise on Living Thinking. Still fewer, I suspect, have read a Scaligero book to completion. All three of these books, as translated by Eric Bisbocci, employ an intricate syntax and a sliding vocabulary that forces the reader to reread again and again. The text of A Treatise on Living Thinking will appear on first reading to be extraordinarily repetitious. Unlike Kühlewind, Scaligero does not provide the reader with familiar examples of the modes of thinking he speaks of, or any basic “how to” advice. Although one is urged most enthusiastically to engage in “living thinking,” there is no specific prescription for how to do so.

But A Treatise on Living Thinking is a powerful book. It speaks out of the present, and has the clear ring of authenticity. Just as meditation upon a phrase or a sentence consists not in coming to “understand” that phrase or sentence, but in realizing it, the “concatenation of thoughts” in this book is “assembled in such a way that the retracing of it begins to be the experience proposed.” Scaligero urges us, by abandoning the pervasively dialectical movement of our ordinary thinking, and by employing forces of the “I” schooled through concentration, to experience pensiero vivente, or “living thinking.” A Treatise on Living Thinking is woven out of Scaligero’s own non-linear, meditative experience, and it is his hope that the readers’ “retracing of the thoughts assembled in this book” will begin to yield the very experience the book proposes to the reader.

The “argument” of the book is similar to that of Rudolf Steiner’s The Philosophy of Freedom. Scaligero, however, is not interpreting Steiner, but recounting his own independent and parallel experiments in thinking.

Scaligero begins A Treatise on Living Thinking with a daunting “Premise”:

The present treatise, even if logically formulated and accessible, proposes a task that, most likely, can be ac-

tualized by very few individuals.

For Scaligero, a theme or an object is always something already thought, and as such, abstract, dialectical, and reflected from a living thinking now lost. It is “the substance of a dead culture” inhabited by those who no longer think in thoughts, but in words or in numerical correlations. It is—in Scaligero’s word—“non-existent.”

What is “already thought” can again become “thinking.” This resurrection of the “already thought” is “thinking in the act of reflecting itself” ( pensiero pensante), but pensiero pensante alone does not permit us to exit the redundant circle of reflectivity. Only if we can cognize this activity, if we can perceive (through concentration) the dynamic moment of its life, which is “continually disappearing,” may we ascend to “pure” or “living” thinking. Living thinking is the experience of thinking in its dynamis, or primal force, before it dies into “reflectivity.” We may “attain” it through concentration or meditation, both of which require our release from sensory bondage.

To realize living thinking, we cannot be mere “passive receptors” of earthly experience. We have to become. We have to be “cooperators in the fulfillment of earthly experience.” And this task demands of us a radical metanoia We have to pass from being merely created, nature-dependent beings to free beings who create according to our own principle. That principle is the Logos. All creatures, including the rest of humankind, who are bound to earthly conditions, wait in suffering for us to liberate them by changing ourselves in this way.

Scaligero cites the “greatest modern teacher of thinking,” Rudolf Steiner, to confirm his own experience that the inner realization of the transformative discipline of spiritual practice requires concentration1. Concentration restores, even if only momentarily, the dominion of the “I.” We realize that dominion by willing a theme as a means to “unify and intensify the normal current of thinking.” When we turn our attention totally to a theme or an image

1 For Scaligero, at the moment when concentration “grasps the very process of thinking that lies at the heart” of any inner technique, it has become a path “beyond” that technique, whether the technique be philosophy, yoga, zen, or something else.

Just as meditation upon a phrase or a sentence consists not in coming to “understand” that phrase or sentence, but in realizing it, the “concatenation of thoughts” in this book is “assembled in such a way that the retracing of it begins to be the experience proposed.”

or a concept, thought “discovers its own original unity,” which is the force of the “I.”

Ordinarily, thought is under the control of the astral body. Only when the “I” is active do we experience direct knowledge of the suprasensory. The “I” must be fully present and realized if “chaos” is not to rule. But experiencing chaos—which manifests as neurosis, mental illness, and unhealthy experiences of all kinds—may provoke the counter intuition that consciousness can actually arrive at the origin of the thinking activity. It may arouse the transcendent forces of the “I,” so that they can incarnate in us. A discipline that avoids the breakdown of higher forces into “reflected thought” can give thinking a way to unfold according to the direction of the “I.” This discipline, in fact, is anthroposophy, what Scaligero refers to as “the path of thinking of the new times.”

Concentration restores, even if only momentarily, the dominion of the “I.” We realize that dominion by willing a theme as a means to “unify and intensify the normal current of thinking.”

Living thinking is limitless, and not subject to logic, dialectic, or “spiritualist” intellectualism. Its transcendence becomes immanent at the point where thought “actualizes the power of the resurrection and genuinely overcomes death.” This transcendence is the Logos, “whose light alone can restore the original divine nature to the soul.”

The light of thinking becomes life and finally becomes the love of the world . “The warmth of instincts becomes the power of love.” Thus, the ultimate “purpose” of living thinking, of “thought’s transcendence gathered in its everyday immanence,” is to “transform evil into good,” to “dissolve the darkness of the human psyche” into light. It is the power of love, “which incarnates in thought’s transcendence,” as the Logos itself has incarnated.

It is fatuous to judge a spiritual path by a kind of moral litmus test of its proponent. But one hopes that Scaligero’s experience of the living thinking that leads to the power to transform evil into love (in terms of the John Gospel, the transformation of aletheia into charis) came after he had abandoned the antisemitism and the enthusiasm for Nazi doctrine that he exhibited during the war years. Otherwise, the experience Scaligero recounts can be at best only a seeing in part, “through a glass darkly.”

Fred Dennehy is an attorney in practice in New Jersey, serving as General Counsel to a large law firm and specializing in professional responsibility. He earned a PhD in English and in recent years has performed in more than a dozen Shakespeare plays. He is a classholder in the School for Spiritual Science and editor for reviews in being human.

Barfield’s Symposium, and Other Tales by

John Beck

The Owen Barfield Literary Estate continues to republish, and publish for the first time, works of the most influential English-speaking anthroposophist to date. The Estate is energetically directed by grandson Owen Barfield, and there is a steady increase of free offerings at www.owenbarfield.org alongside handsome new editions. Dr. Jane Hipolito is the expert series editor for the books.

Owen Barfield’s accomplishments are many and profound. In What Coleridge Thought he did much to restore awareness of the stature of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, among the greatest English-speaking thinkers (not just a great poet and aesthetician) whose complex life and subtlety of mind hid him from view for a century and a half.

Barfield also brought to life etymology—the history and genealogy of words—in several widely appreciated books, beginning with History in English Words. His word work also provides an ideal foundation for understanding “evolution of consciousness”—a subject which might be much more widely investigated if we began to call it simply “human evolution.”

Barfield also gave a very clear way of thinking about the relation of human consciousness to nature: as a participation in it, originally, then a separation into our modern “onlooker” consciousness, and now in prospect—if we will—a new participation in which we retain our hardearned sense of individual responsibility and “agency,” the ability to act. I can think of no intelligible insight other than this “original and future participation” which has the power to explain not only where our present ecological crisis has come from (the radical detachment of the “onlooker”), but also the participatory role we can and must play if it is to be overcome.

Finally, in Saving the Appearances O.B. carefully leads us to the still almost unthinkable realization that humanity’s shared representations of reality have shaped and reshaped reality. The effort to think such a thought encounters a real block, a cultural taboo, as he says. And you perhaps thought that there were no taboos in modern culture! Then again, this taboo may be serving a func-

tion. Do we perhaps wish to postpone any confident recognition that consciousness can reshape reality—that “nothing there is but thinking makes it so”—until we have found a new and secure relationship to our individual conscience?

I am writing not only to praise Barfield, however, nor really to review the four books I will mention. All that is needed is to give the hint that in meeting and engaging Owen Barfield one has started on a great and important adventure. And yes, adventure was another of his talents. His early children’s book The Silver Trumpet was also known to the Tolkien family (yes, those Tolkiens), and it seems that there was a whole stream of significant tales, which are now readily available. There is Eager Spring, an ecologically colored tale from the mid-1980s; Night Operation, a late, dystopian science fiction; and from the late 1920s The Rose on the Ash-Heap.

It is fair to say that one might not read any of these today if they were not by Barfield. He is disinclined to wind up the tensions to the extremes of the last several decades, so addicts of the sensational will be disappointed. These are simply good stories with deep, culturalmoral undertones. The Rose on the Ash-Heap is of the serious fairy-tale genre: one gains most from its symbols (beginning in the Rosicrucian title) if one can open up again like a wondering child. In Eager Spring the spiritual striving of women and the forces of commercial indifference do battle for the health and life of the Earth. When the malefactors are finally brought to such justice as there is, we hear very contemporary words from the court: “It is fortunate for the defendants that the penalties exacted by the law bear so little relation to the offense.” And Night Operation tells us a tale of fear and social manipulation overcome only by a few young people—who then find themselves taking the Manichean or Bodhisattva path, returning into the evil and working to change it from inside.

The fourth volume here is much better known, at least to Barfieldians. It brings to my mind the Symposium of Plato, that great enduring conversation about love. Ru-

dolf Steiner mentioned the Symposium in connection with the social role of alcohol; his research indicated that it was a force for liberating the individual from the old group souls. Now that we are well liberated to begin with, its effects are not so helpful. Ancient cultures had ways of managing this Dionysian power, and one such was the gathering where the guests were reclining together (“symposium”) and drinking, and working against the effects of the alcohol by making speeches on the most serious topics. In Plato’s Symposium the comedian Aristophanes has the hiccups throughout, and subsequent generations blushed much (or rewrote Plato) due to the different affections of the ancient Greeks.

Reading Barfield’s non-alcoholic conversation should make us blush all the more over the state of modern culture, for Worlds Apart: A Dialog of the Sixties is concerned with the truly obscene compartmentalization of knowledge. A “friend of Barfield” arranges a weekend with a nice selection of academics, plus a young rocket scientist, plus an older Waldorf school teacher. All of them think and work in very different worlds, and for the most part they are all accustomed to dismiss or ignore what the others see and work with. Faced with the same situation of relentless specialization and compartmentalization Buckminster Fuller asked us around the same time (in Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth) to think comprehensively, to collaborate like the crew of a great spaceship, and to wake up to the idea of synergy : that a whole is more than the sum of its parts. This holistic thinking is what Rudolf Steiner called for when he said that realities of mind and spirit must be viewed from many sides, even contradictory ones.

Barfield here takes hold of the core of contemporary culture and puts it through such a many-sided looking. It is hard work to engage each of the speakers and his direction of thought. (Yes, it’s the sixties, and all the participants are men. Another blush.) Each field of science and inquiry has evolved a lot in fifty years, so one should not run out with any of the particular arguments of this book and try to make conversation with the nearest materialist.

research & reviews

And there are real efforts today at holistic thinking, along with many “inter-disciplinary” projects at universities.

What we have not overcome, however, is a kind of eutrophication or over-nourishment of thought life. A Swedish friend has long been working on that problem with the Baltic Sea. The run-off of nutrients from such enterprises as pig farms has “fed to death” a large part of this great sea. I would say that decades of increase in higher education, post-World War II, have brought much new energy into global culture, but the specialization of it all has made for endless fine extensions of particular thoughts, and little rethinking of the whole. So the Tree of Knowledge, to bring the metaphor on shore, is very root-bound and in need of a bigger pot.

Barfield’s Waldorf teacher comes off the best in Worlds Apart, reminding us that insights large, healthy, and whole may come more easily to a thoughtful high school or grade school teacher, still free to think her own thoughts. Meanwhile, out on the academic battlefield today most instructors are poorly paid part-timers with no

hope of a liberating tenure appointment.

This was my second steep read through Barfield’s great conversation. It went much better than twenty years ago, when I met it in the Barfield Group at the New York Branch of the Anthroposophical Society. The ideas and the well-drawn persons came to life strongly. A lawyer with a spiritual bent, like Abraham Lincoln, Barfield thinks and writes powerfully well. His “big” books may never be easy, but they are sound.

In ten years or so I will read Worlds Apart again. It is an exercise in “meta-thinking”—in pushing off from the safe and familiar shore in order to consider all the various harbors of thought. There, under the stars on the open mental sea, one may wonder when a great new civilization may be born, united in enjoyment of rich differences, reaching out to “participate” nature again, and prepared to evolve consciousness as a matter of sober intention.

John Beck (editor@anthroposophy.org) is editor of being human .

Henry Barnes Fund for Anthroposophical Research

As a leader of the Anthroposophical Society in America, Henry Barnes recognized the need to work further with anthroposophy for the benefit of contemporary civilization. He compared this to the research and development aspect of other organizations and in 1991 founded the Future Value Fund to help individuals pursue anthroposophical research in various fields. In June of 2010 an anonymous donor gave the the North American Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science nearly $60,000 for support of anthroposophical research. The Collegium named this gift the Henry Barnes Fund for Anthroposophical Research. Twelve grants have been awarded, and there are currently two worthy requests that cannot be fulfilled until the Fund is replenished. Please consider making a gift to support the fund today.

The Nature Institute is embarking on a research project to be cvonducted over the coming year by Craig Holdrege and Stephen Talbott to demonstrate and articulate a spiritual view of evolution that is wholly grounded in the facts discovered by modern evolutionary science. They will provide resources (publications and educational programs) for educators, farmers, and the broader public on this important topic.

Also, an intergenerational group of twelve people has formed itself into a research community. They plan a peerled training in Moral Imagination with a focus on small group research into social issues. Their relationship includes colleagueship in forming the four Research Symposia at the Threefold Educational Foundation from 2010 to 2013. Members come from the InPower Youth Conference (a collaborative effort of the Christian Community, the Anthroposophical Society, and the Threefold Foundation) and the Mystery Drama Conference which took place in August 2014.

Gifts to the Henry Barnes Fund support anthroposophical research across a variety of fields and activities. To continue to recognize and support anthroposophic research activity, an ongoing gift stream to sustain the Fund needs to be cultivated. For further information or to make a one-time or monthly contribution, please visit www.anthroposophy.org/henrybarnesfund, or contact Sherry Wildfeuer (sherrywlf@verizon.net) or Helen Lubin (helenlubin@gmail.com).

of the Anthroposophical Society in America

Some Reflections

by Torin Finser

Some time ago I was sorting out old files in a box of long-forgotten materials when I came across a Christmas card received from Lisa Monges perhaps 35 years ago. On the right side was her Christmas greeting signed simply L.D. Monges, and on the left was a portrait of Rudolf Steiner standing behind a sofa. In addition to the well known black outfit and white collar, one cannot but help notice his strong hands and expressive fingers, the serious, well formed facial contours that are filled with light, and of course the eyes that look both outward and inward at the same time. On the top left hand corner one finds a four-line verse followed by Rudolf Steiner’s signature and date: 17, February, 1924 and the two words “am Goetheanum.”

Of course one always has to wonder why such a card finds its way into the reader’s hands just at this time when the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum has introduced a very particular theme for the year ahead (see anthroposophy.org/theme or Anthroposophy Worldwide for more on the theme of the year). So I decided that since very few things in life are really an accident, it was the right time to take up this gift from Lisa Monges and work with the verse in a renewed way. (Lisa was a pioneer eurythmist in the U.S., helped start the Spring Valley School of Eurythmy, and taught eurythmy to a group of community children in her living room once a week. I was one of them. Later, after years of mowing her lawn as a teenager, I turned to Lisa Monges when, at age 18, I heard about an exciting conference for members and I asked her to sponsor me.)

So here in my hands was the Christmas card with her signature, and a verse in Rudolf Steiner’s own hand. It begins with the line: “Suche in der Welt nach allen Seiten…”

To seek in the world on all sides, in all dimensions… What a challenge these days. I have met more people

recently than ever before who have deliberately decided to tune out, to turn off the radio, CNN, internet news feeds, newspapers, etc., because the current events are so “depressing”—and they are. How many stories of ISIL can one read? When will the random acts of violence in schools and places of work stop? How many natural catastrophes can one ingest? I understand this point of view, and yet I continue to read parts of the Wall Street Journal most days, occasionally catch the evening news, and have given some thought-time to world events. I respect those who need to create islands of sanity, but I feel an inner obligation as yet to stay engaged in world events. Why?

In another context—the founding of the first Goetheanum—Rudolf Steiner used the word “Weltbejahung,” one of his terms that is almost impossible to translate. The closest I have come to it is “affirmation of the world,” a willingness to say “yes” and not reject what the world has to offer. This is a high order. How can one do that? It may be only part of the story, but my approach is to see it not as agreement with all that is happening, but rather a “living in presence” or awareness of what the world offers us today. It is possible to witness, to be aware, and not immediately to rush to judgment, acceptance (or rejection) as so many are apt to do these days. There are times, yes even months when it is terribly cold in New Hampshire, and there are the warm summer days, and of course we all have preferences. But can I learn to practice Weltbejahung to all kinds of weather, as well as the news stories that enter our consciousness?

How can one do that?

Some might ask: what is the point of doing this? After all, along with being overwhelmed, many feel totally helpless in the face of world events. What can I do as one solitary person?

The second line of the verse has a clue that helps us with this riddle:

“Und du findest dich” — You will find yourself. What, I can find myself in another atrocious story on CNN? Is that not the last place I would want to find myself? Well, on one level, of course. But if one actually takes a few minutes to think (something that we cannot take for granted these days), the percepts from the world phenom-

Rudolf Steiner used the word “Weltbejahung,” one of his terms that is almost impossible to translate... “affirmation of the world,” a willingness to say “yes” and not reject what the world has to offer. This is a high order.

ena start to work on the soul, concepts start to arise. For instance, after a series of stories from the Middle East recently, I spent some time thinking about the root causes of fundamentalism. What makes people fanatics? Why do those who outwardly seem to be on a religious path (with all the teachings of peace) turn a corner and become fundamentalists? There are many in our circles who could help with this question (Christopher Bamford comes to mind) but I am not attempting to answer it here. I just want to point out a series of steps:

◊ We seek to know the world in all dimensions.

◊ That gives rise to new experiences which can take shape in new thoughts.

◊ And if we have done some thinking, we have to own our own concepts.

◊ And in owning our thoughts, and the soul depths from which they arise, we can experience ourselves in a new way.

◊ Thus the world leads to self. Then we move to the third and fourth lines of the verse:

“Suche in dir nach allen Tiefen

Und du findest die Welt.”

Here we have the reverse process! If we are willing to seek in the depth of the soul, delve into our innermost being, we can find the world in a new way. There are many ways in which this can happen, but one has to do with meditation and reflective practices in general. When we do the inner work, we find our center, our essential Self. One can emerge from strenuous inner work with a heightened sense of integrity, authenticity, groundedness. Like the violinist who practices for hours before giving a concert, when one has done the inner work then one meets the world/audience on a different level. What a difference it makes if one has prepared a presentation or simply tries to “wing it”! When one is rooted in the depth of soul experience, one can then stand in a different relation to the theme or task at hand. And when one does so, one meets others and the world in a new way. So again we have a sequence:

◊ Seek within in all possible depths of inner experience.

◊ Let the research and soul exploration give rise to new experiences.

◊ These experiences become the ground of authenticity.

◊ When we are authentic in relation to others and the world, we will re-discover the “world” on a new basis.

So this little verse actually contains all of anthroposophy! We have the meditative path, self-knowledge, etc., as well as all the initiatives, schools, farms, etc., that have grown out of authentic deeds of sacrifice. And if there is

need of any final proof, one has only to talk with a longtime biodynamic farmer, a seasoned Camphill co-worker, a veteran Waldorf teacher, or learned anthroposophical doctor. Nowhere could one find such depth, insight, and wisdom as one does from these people. They know the world not only from having worked in the world, but by virtue of having worked on themselves. And their inner work has led to new achievements in their respective fields and professional life.

In my travels I have had the honor of meeting many such people who have spent a lifetime working out of anthroposophy in this way. There is in reality no better evidence of the fruitfulness of anthroposophy than to experience such remarkable people. They are successful in an outer sense, but one finds after only a few minutes that at the same time they are also remarkable human beings. And their humanity and work success seem to go hand in hand.

Finally, one footnote: the inscription on the card ends with the two words “am Goetheanum” —at the Goetheanum. These words should not be overlooked. It is not just about Rudolf Steiner the historical person, but also about the Goetheanum impulse that continues to work around the world in so many ways. We need to be willing, as he was, to identify ourselves and our work as coming out of this impulse. Our future success will depend on the authenticity of the inner work and the integrity that arises from compassionate engagement with the world. We do not reject, we embrace. We do not criticize, we suggest. We are here not to judge but to help, servants of all that is good, kind and just.

Our Anthroposophical Society is dedicated to these goals. May we find the strength and the friends to help us realize our aims.

Torin Finser is General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America.

General Secretary Meetings & Travel

Living in the east, I have felt it was particularly important to experience the work of members out west. I had been to Portland, Seattle, Sacramento, Phoenix and other places over the years, but early this year I had a first branch meeting in three more cities. In San Diego we enjoyed a relaxed brunch in the home of a member before starting the two hour meeting, exchanging news of their study groups and local initiatives with my reports on the national and worldwide themes. One theme that came up was how much we

could learn from other groups and organizations. Richard Rettig spoke of his involvement in Toastmasters and how he has presented on themes close to our work.

I next took the Amtrak train for a beautiful two hour ride to Los Angeles for an evening meeting at the branch house. We had a light supper and then heard news from their area. One couple who went on the SteinerBooks trip to Auschwitz shared the effect it had on their lives. Margaret Shipman reported on her work (GEMS, Traveling Speakers Program); others spoke of the challenge to get a good turnout to events.

My third visit was for a talk and branch meeting in Denver. The parents of the school had asked me to speak on my new book, and so we arranged a branch meeting for the night before. Members came from all over Colorado, some drove over two hours. The branch meeting included a vibrant group of youth section members, teachers, and some long standing members—thirty-six in all. They had many questions, and again some focused on how we can best connect with like minded organizations. They were very interested in the Society’s reorganization, and some had attended the mystery drama conference last August.

I spent two nights at the home of Adam Blanning, MD, who took an entire day off from his busy practice to ferry me all over Denver to meetings etc. In the process, I learned a lot more about PAAM and the medical work. There are now seventy members of the Physicians Association for Anthroposophic Medicine.

Welcoming Katherine Thivierge

Katherine Thivierge (katherine@anthroposophy.org ) has joined the Anthroposophical Society in America as Director of Operations. She brings extensive administrative experience to her position, most recently with the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America and the Oakland (MI) Steiner School. An attorney who practiced law in Michigan for over ten years, she has trained as a Waldorf teacher and a speech artist and has often spoken for eurythmy. Katherine joined the Society in 1976 and is a member of the First Class for the School of Spiritual Science. Her appointment completes the planned Leadership Team for the Society.

Carla Beebe Comey, member at large of the ASA General Council and Secretary, writes:

“As we look towards the future, the Council is cognizant that we need professional individuals with the capacities and skills to serve our mission to support the development, communication, and practice of anthroposophy in the United States. It is in this light that we have restructured the two positions of Administrative Director and Director of Finance, into Director of Operations and Director of Programs and Services. We would like to thank John Price for his years of service to the Society in his role as Director of Finance and welcome Katherine Thivierge as the Director of Operations. She will take on the administrative and financial duties of the Society. Marian Leon, in her new role as Director of Programs and Services, will now focus fully on programming and services for members. Marian and Katherine join Deb Abrahams-Dematte Director of Development. The Council is confident that this capable Leadership Team will support the growth of the Society in serving the current and future membership by providing the earthly forms and events in which we may find each other in the Spirit of Michael. But we are truly passing through the eye of the needle and it is time for all who hold in their hearts the importance of this earthly organization, founded by Rudolf Steiner, to come together as an association of people whose will it is to nurture the life of the soul, both in the individual and in human society, on the basis of a true knowledge of the spiritual world.”

Inner and Outer Journeys by

Deb Abrahams-Dematte

A favorite part of being development director for the Anthroposophical Society is getting to know people and learning about the work and study they are doing. On several recent trips I’ve met with and heard from members and talked about the work of the Society. At dinner with Cordelia Lane, a long time member and part of the Michael Support Circle, I asked her why she gives. She replied, “I give because I love anthroposophy, and I believe that it’s important for the Anthroposophical Society to have a strong and clear presence in the world.”

Cordelia’s gesture of love and generosity echoes among our members around the country.

I recently traveled to Vermont and Maine with my dear friend and colleague Helen-Ann Ireland of the New Hampshire group, to hear thoughts and ideas related to the transition of the Eastern Regional Council. Unsurprisingly, I learned so much more! On a Friday evening at the new Lake Champlain Waldorf School High School building in Vermont, we gathered with members of the local branch, the Social Science Section, and a local foundation studies group. People shared accounts of growing insight and transformational development, as well as stories of practical and essential action in the wider world.

And for me, that’s the essence of what anthroposophy has to bring, and why it’s so important that we work together to bring the insights of Rudolf Steiner’s work to broader awareness and impact in this country. How can we weave together the rich perceptions and thoughtful actions of our members and friends in an effective and sustainable way? How can we become part of larger societal discussions and choices that affect us all? This is the purpose of our “Campaign for Anthroposophy in America”: to support the work of the Society and the movement in a broad-based and compelling way, in service to a healthy future.

Soon after the Vermont trip, we ventured out again to northern Maine. We were welcomed by Jennifer Greene, who brought us into her water lab and demonstrated some of the research she conducts. Her experiments were both fascinating and beautiful. We were also grateful to be able to study and converse with the well-established Prokofiev study group in Camden. As we headed home, we stopped and wandered the gardens at Avena Botanicals, a biodynamic farm and apothecary, and met herbalist/ teacher Deb Soule. All in all, a rich experience of the presence and promise of anthroposophy in so many different ways.

That night at dinner with Cordelia, she told me of the inspiring projects she’s involved in, including her long-time connection to biodynamic agriculture. I thanked her for her support of the work of the Society, and shared the challenges of high aspirations and limited resources. We talked about the importance of membership and giving, and when I asked her advice, she said, “I am sure there are many others who also love anthroposophy or who would love it if they learned about it.”

It is our task, and our pleasure, to reach out with a warm welcome to those who love anthroposophy, and also to those who would love it if they knew more. Our development efforts are focused on creating sustainability for the Society so that we may effectively do our tasks and fulfill our mission.

In order to do this, we need your help in several ways! Please be sure to keep your membership up to date, and give generously at the level that makes sense for you. Let us know your ideas, your thoughts, your priorities. And invite your friends to join us! Together we do something that Rudolf Steiner tells us we can only do together: building the earthly sheath of human community which allows anthroposophy to become a powerful social impulse.

Spring Appeal! Many thanks to all who made gifts to our 2015 Spring Appeal. We received over 220 gifts, totaling nearly $30,000. We are truly grateful! Your support is essential in making it possible to increase the impact of our efforts on behalf of and humanity’s future. Thank you for joining us in this important work.

Celebrating a Great Contribution

I had the privilege of being in Chattanooga, Tennessee recently to attend an Anthroposophical Society-sponsored celebration for Maria St. Goar and her enormous contribution to anthroposophical study and understanding. Maria has translated into English more than fifty works by anthroposophical writers, including Rudolf Steiner’s The Inner Nature of Music and the Experience of Tone and The Origins of Natural Science. Her thoughtful and knowledgeable translations of Sergei Prokofieff’s books over the past ten years include Anthroposophy and the Philosophy of Freedom and The Foundation Stone Meditation

The event was well-supported by local group leader Katherine Jenkins and Class Holder Edward St. Goar, Maria’s son. More than fifty people from all over gathered in a festive mood to honor Maria. A Bach Partita performed by violinist Isabel Bartles introduced a warm

Maria St. Goar

Water researcher Jennifer Greene

welcome from Marian León, Director of Programs for the Society. Messages included a lovely greeting from Virginia Sease on behalf of the Executive Council at the Goetheanum and congratulations from Torin Finser, US General Secretary. Fred Amrine, who presented two lectures as part of this day of celebration, started off by speaking about the art and artistry of translation and how important and challenging it is to do this successfully. He characterized Maria’s work as a service to the anthroposophical movement, a creative endeavor, and an act of selflessness. Gratitude and appreciation were the major themes of the day. I feel honored to have met Maria and want to relate the sense of the radiance, warmth, wisdom, and insight that she so freely shares with those around her.

The next day, Marian and Director of Research and Library Services Maurice York and I sat with Maria and her son Edward to hear wonderful stories of her adventurous life and connection to anthroposophy. This recorded interview will be included in the Rudolf Steiner Library’s Oral History Project, with the long term goal of collecting insights and stories of elders in our movement to share with future generations. Events like this celebration for Maria St. Goar do much to bring the inspiration and knowledge of anthroposophy into the present and future.

Deb Abrahams-Dematte (deb@anthroposophy.org) is Director of Development for the An-

Society in America

Social Event of the Central Region Season

by Margaret Runyon, (Maid

of Honor)

As a long-time member of the Society’s Central Regional Council, Marianne Fieber was honored along with her husband, Joseph Dhara, by CRC colleagues past, present, and future. Pretty fabulous! The Fieber-Dhara nuptials were celebrated in Viroqua, Wisconsin, on June 13th. An unseasonably chilly mist did not dampen the spirits of more than

200 guests in the Wooded Acre, half a block from the happy couple’s home. Exuberant flowers framed the clearing, while cello and guitars accompanying a choir of more than a dozen voices filled nature’s own “cathedral” with deeply moving and joyous music.

Phyllis Eleanor Phillips

Published in The Tennessean on Apr. 10, 2014.

Phyllis Eleanor Phillips, age 80, a longtime Nashville resident, died April 1, 2014 in Portland, Oregon. Phyllis was born in Oxford, Mississippi on August 6, 1933 to Faye and Phil “Moon” Mullen. Her grandfather owned and her father edited the local newspaper, the Oxford Eagle. She graduated from the University of Mississippi at the age of 19 and married musician, John F. “Del” Sawyer, with whom she had four children, later divorcing.

After years as a stay-at-home mother, Phyllis became a real estate agent in Nashville, eventually building her own successful brokerage company, Phyllis Phillips Realtors. Phyllis founded the Nashville Steiner Group in the late 1980’s, working to bring anthroposophic philosophy to the city. She initiated the Nashville Waldorf Association, which provided the foundation for growth of the Linden Waldorf School. Through over thirty years of weekly study groups, workshops and retreats, Phyllis inspired many toward deepening their own spiritual work.

At age sixty-five, Phyllis obtained her Masters in Counseling from Tennessee State University. She went on to work for Centerstone, a nonprofit communitybased behavioral health provider, helping families and children in crisis.

Phyllis is survived by her husband of 36 years, Dr. Leslie Phillips, 98, her four children, Cameron Sawyer of Moscow, Russia, John Phillip Sawyer of Easton, MD, Katy Wieland of Jacksonville, FL and Scholle McFarland of Portland, OR, her two stepsons, David Phillips of Chicago, IL and Ken

throposophical

Phyllis Phillips

Pictured from left: Alberto Loya, Lori Barian, Margaret Runyon, Dennis Dietzel, Joseph Dhara the groom, Marianne Fieber the bride, Hazel Archer Ginsburg, Mary Louise Hershberger, Robert Karp, and Raven Garland, who will be coming onto the CRC as Mary Louise Hershberger is leaving. Raven is a poet who has lived in Iowa for several years and has led eurythmy at several CRC events.

Members Who Have Died

Nydia Delgado Abney, Solana Beach, CA; died 06/05/2015

Joan W. Allen, Kimberton, PA; died 08/03/2015

Christine Bender, Glenmoore, PA; died 05/16/2015

William Bento, Rancho Cordova, CA; died 06/05/2015

Aurelia Buzatu, Austin, TX; died 06/06/2015

Terese Gostomski, Detroit, MI; died 12/25/2014

Bonnie Green, San Diego, CA; died 05/05/2015

Julian Howard, Pinole, CA; died 05/22/2015

G. Frank Kohler, Granada hills, CA; died 04/03/2015

Ursula H. Lehnhardt, Ghent, NY; died 12/30/2014

Tamara Lewis, Sacramento, CA; died 06/26/2015

Santina V. Margucci, Agoura hills, CA; died 04/12/2015

Daniel Marshall, New York, NY; died 04/03/2014

Bess Neild, Severna park, MD; died 07/08/2014

Ralph Neuman, Ashland, OR; died 04/13/2015

Yuko Okada, Carmichael, CA; died 02/04/2014

Betty Ann Patsenka, Shelton, CT; died 05/24/2015

Phyllis Sawyer Phillips, Gallatin, TN; died 04/01/2014

Ursel Pietzner, Glenmoore, PA; died 07/28/2015

Emil Ravetto, Yorktown heights, NY; died 01/20/2015

Mary Schiller, Santa Barbara, CA; died 06/14/2015

Albert F. Siegfried, Wilmington, DE; died 01/06/2014

Gabriele Van Geloven, South Lyon, MI; died 07/25/2014

Gerda Von Jeetze, Chatham, NY; died 07/17/2015

Philip Wharton, Novato, CA; died 02/14/2015

Peggy Winchell, Fair oaks, CA; died 07/26/2015

Ruth Zinniker, Elkhorn, WI; died 07/16/2014

New Members of the Anthroposophical Society in America, recorded 3/2/2015 to

8/17/2015

Christiana Acree, Phoenixville, PA

Heike Adamsberger-Kosta, Santa Monica, CA

Leila Alemi, Ann Arbor, MI

Peter Allen, Viola, WI

Jazmin Aminian, Meadow Vista, CA

Brandy Arena, Austin, TX

Summer Dawn Arnett, Portland, OR

Katelynn Benvenuti, Oakland, CA

Kathy Bull, Atlantic Beach, FL

John Richard Chamberlain, Los Angeles, CA

Michael L Chernick, Los Angeles, CA

Kelly Childs, Saint Louis, MO

Michelle Davies-Smith, Maplewood, MO

Catalina De Luna Garza, Decatur, GA

Regine Detremmerie-Carr, Chelmsford, MA

Carrie Zarka Dooley, Atlantic Beach, FL

Suzanne Drinen, Anchorage, AK

Jose J Esparza, Sacramento, CA

Daniel I Evaeus, Los Angeles, CA

Marguerite Evans, Cleveland, TN

Sabrina Ford, Louisville, KY

Aaron French, Tucson, AZ

Veronica French, Tucson, AZ

Dan Gannon, West Sacramento, CA

Melanie A Gisler-Scharff, Los Angeles, CA

Fiona S Handschin, Atlanta, GA

Mary Kate Hannan, Madison, WI

Oana Antonela Havris, Portland, OR

Karen Hite, Royersford, PA

Mark Hite, Royersford, PA

Elisabeth Clark Holwech, East Pepperell, MA

Amy Inglis, Wilton, NH

Ian Johnson, New Orleans, LA

Elena Karoulina, Vallejo, CA

Kevin Kless, Gainesville, FL

Chelaine Kokos, Louisville, CO

Lori Kulik, Lincolnwood, IL

Ana Marcela Lopez Lara, Madison, WI

Stewart K Lundy, Accomac, VA

Elizabeth A Lunt, Camden, ME

Mehdi Madani, Vancouver, WA

Aveah Malesza Brock, Richmond, CA

Dena Malon, New York, NY

Catherine Massey, Gold River, CA

Alexandre Mbassi, Santa Fe, NM

Laurie McCloskey, Corvallis, OR

Chloe McKenna, Seattle, WA

William Murphy, Tyngsboro, MA

Nancy Myers, Santa Barbara, CA

Brett York Neumeister, Cambridge, MA

Jill Ogard, Encinitas, CA

Sandra Owen, Snohomish, WA

Sara Parrilli, West Stockbridge, MA

Lee E Pearson, Milwaukie, OR

Sigrid Penrod, Soap Lake, WA

Miguel Perez-Gibson, Olympia, WA

Stan Posey, Tucson, AZ

Sandra Rayne, Terrace Park, OH

Matthew Richter, West Kingston, RI

Joe Robertson, New York, NY

Liliana Sophia Rollinson, Hadley, MA

Susanna Sahakian, Glendale, CA

Karl Schlottig, Hermosa Beach, CA

Dana Larson Sher, Boulder, CO

Stephanie Skinner, Meadow Vista, CA

Virginia Smith, Calgary, AB

Richard M Snodgrass, Lucerne, CA

Margaret Squire, Beverly, MA

Valerie St. John, Cambridge, MA

Jennifer A Stickley, Beaverton, OR

Ayn Cates Sullivan, Santa Barbara, CA

Nancy M Swan, East Missoula, MT

Roy Chirinda Tau, Copake, NY

Edward Tazer-Myers, Santa Barbara, CA

Jan Upton, Redwood Valley, CA

Lon Van Geloven, South Lyon, MI

Robin Van Riper, Bethel, CT

Shahada S Vianzon, Sylmar, CA

Susan T Viets, Marblehead, MA

Cherie Wendelken, Portland, ME

Miguel Yi Sandino, Santa Fe, NM

Phillips, of Mt. Juliet, as well as by her grandchildren, Joshua and Nicholas Wieland of Jacksonville, FL, Graham and Kate McFarland of Portland, OR, Daniel Sawyer of Moscow, Russia, Jessica Rodocker of Knoxville, Erin Hughes of Nashville, and Michael and Kieran Welsh Phillips of Chicago.

Theodore van Vliet

February 9, 1918 – October 3, 2014

by Virginia Sease Goetheanum Executive Council

For seventeen years it was possible (especially for members from English-speaking lands) to encounter Theodore van Vliet when they came to the Goetheanum. Until the end of the 1990s there was an “English week” parallel to the large conferences around productions of Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery dramas or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust. Since Theodore van Vliet had been well educated musically, linguistically, and anthroposophically, he was frequently involved in preparing the “English week” and often held lectures in English at them.

Chicago, London, New York.

Theodore van Vliet was born in a suburb of Chicago. His father was an engineer and inventor; his mother came from a farm family. He grew up with two brothers and a sister. His ancestors were early Dutch and English immigrants. His older brother brought him into contact with anthroposophy, and Theodore van Vliet made the effort to work through Rudolf Steiner’s Goethe’s Theory of Knowledge with his elementary knowledge of German.

When the United States entered World War II, Theodore van Vliet was trained as a meteorologist and sent to England. In 1943, before his depar-

ture, he joined the Anthroposophical Society in America. In London he sought a connection with the local Anthroposophical Society and met his first wife (eurythmist Elizabeth Raab) at the Raab family home. After the war she founded a studio for eurythmy and speech formation in New York. Thanks to his studies of art, music, and speech, Theodore van Vliet also taught there. Newsletter. With George and Gisela O’Neil he led the anthroposophical branch in New York. Under General Secretary Dietrich von Asten he became a member of the Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America. During this time Theodore van Vliet was involved in a newsletter that reported on the work and activities of the branch. For several years it was circulated among the members in America.

Elizabeth’s illness brought the couple back to Switzerland (where she died in 1970).

Theodore trained as a Waldorf teacher and that was how he met Erika Schwarz and her young daughter. After several years of activity in Spring Valley, New York, the small family returned to Europe and settled near the border with Switzerland.

One of the things that can be a great help for anthroposophy is someone who is a member of the General Anthroposophical Society and is willing to take up an initiative—even if the founder of the initiative is no longer able to carry on with it. This point has a close relationship to the esoteric principle of continuity in the realm of intentionality.

A request by Friedrich Hiebel (Goetheanum Executive Council member) to become editor of News from the Goetheanum (an editorship that fell vacant in 1976) was a happy coincidence

because this completely matched Theodore van Vliet’s capacities and interests. Dora Baker had been editor since 1933. Theodore van Vliet was free to give the publication a new form and content. Henceforth it was called What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society? and contained translated Section reports, conference reports, reports on issues, exchanges with the periphery, etc. The layout (still without computer), dealings with the printer, and occasional trips to meetings in Europe made it a one-man business.

Literary Activity. In his last years (and after 17 years with News from the Goetheanum) he worked in literature: an English translation of Christian Morgenstern’s Einkehr, his own poetry and reflections on the meaning of poetry in human history. Increasing blindness was a serious hindrance—as was a serious cardiac condition he bore without mechanical help so as not to lose the cosmic rhythm in his heart. Nonetheless Theodore van Vliet remained inwardly creative, awake, and interested. In the past twelve years he lived in seclusion with his wife in a small town in the southern Black Forest.

Ted van Vliet

Aurelia Buzato

September 22, 1932—June 6, 2015

Aurelia Moldovan was born in Miraslau, a tiny village in Transylvania, Romania. While her mother was working in Bucharest to raise money for the family, she grew up in the care of her grandmother, Baca, whom she loved enormously and who was a most important and formative influence. They lived in a one room home with no power or running water, with dirt floors and a wood-burning stove, yet despite the poverty, there was never a shortage of love from Baca during her childhood. She later moved to Bucharest with her mother where she graduated from high school in 1950.

She obtained her master’s degree in Romanian language and literature in 1958 from the University of CJ Parhon in Bucharest. After graduation she taught for one year in a small village near Timisoara, moving in 1960 to Techirghiol, another small town on the opposite side of the country, near the Black Sea, where she taught literature and French to middle-school and highschool children and was for a few years the school’s principal. Aurelia loved her job. The poems, novels and short stories she chose to focus on, and the ways she guided her classes through their interpretation, awakened students to her compassionate perspective on life and the idea that the human experience is a lesson whose challenges, be they positive or seemingly negative, coach us toward our better selves. Her views on life were deeply influenced by the classics she knew well and by anthroposophy, of which she was a life-long student.

Aurelia met Serban, a teacher in the same school, and they married in 1965. Together they had two boys: Christian, born in early 1966, and Daniel, born in

late 1967. Aurelia and Serban were married for fifty years. In 1981, the family immigrated to the United States. Aurelia was torn between seeking a better life for her family and abandoning a job she loved and the students she cared about so much. The family moved to Houston, Texas at the end of 1981, through the generous help of Bill and Edna Evans, who both sponsored the Buzatus and adopted them into their extended family.

The next thirty-four years would be a significantly different experience from what had come before. Amelia held a number of menial and difficult positions, but discovered a new world with an open and generous spirit with which she powerfully resonated. Although no longer a teacher formally, she continued to inspire, not imposing or demanding, yet setting a powerful example.

Aurelia had a childlike spirit and could find joy and beauty in the smallest things. She loved nature and all animals and would talk to a bird or a dog, a flower or a tree and wish them a nice day. Always joking, smiling and laughing at life, Aurelia was outgoing and genuine and had a gift of connecting with everyone: a cashier at Wheatsville Coop, one of her students, a next door neighbor, a fellow dog-walker. It was impossible not to be touched in a positive way by her presence.

“If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher.” — Rudolf Steiner

Every evening Eya meditated using the weekly verses from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul. For June 2–8: Forgetful of my will’s intent, The full warmth of the world at

summer’s door

Pervades my spirit and my soul Spirit vision beckons me

To lose myself in light; An inner prompting speaks to me, ‘Now lose yourself to find yourself.’

Words by Stephen Usher at the Funeral

of Aurelia, June 12, 2015

We know from Rudolf Steiner’s clairvoyant research that the moment of death and the three-and-a-half days following, the period of the traditional wake, is a period of heightened consciousness. The soul sees a picture of her whole life spread before her, a great life tableau. The near death literature confirms this. During this time the life picture expands as if it were on the surface of a huge balloon. It grows larger and fainter until it vanishes out of sight. In Steiner’s terms the soul sheds its etheric body, which gives us life. After putting aside the etheric body, the soul and spirit continue their journey in the “astral body” and ego.

The funeral comes shortly after the three-and-a-half days in most traditions. It is a kind of sad party where those left behind bid farewell to the earthly life that is past, but on the other side a happy party of welcoming takes place. At this party all her friends who have pre-deceased her greet the soul. Not only earthly souls of the dead but also higher spiritual beings—angels, archangels, archai— also greet her. Having her return to her spiritual home is a cause of great joy on yonder side of the threshold of death. The sad party and the happy party reinforce each other. Our sad celebration helps intensify the happy one on the other side. The two realities are mysteriously linked. So as we feel our sorrow we can also glimpse the great joy on yonder side. When each of us makes

our crossing we will see Aurelia there to welcome us.

In the course of the funeral the soul is led a) from the visible into the invisible world; b) into the world of spiritual existence; c) and into the heights of spiritual realms. It would be too much to attempt a description of the great journey of the soul between death and rebirth traced by Rudolf Steiner in his many works, but a little can be given. For this we need to imagine not the Copernican worldview but the Ptolemaic one with the earth in the center and the planets circling. Steiner says that this picture is the true one for the astral space in which the soul journeys. The soul first expands into the sphere circumscribed by the moon, and this part of the journey is known as purgatory in Christian tradition and Kamaloka in the Oriental one. It lasts about the time a person slept during earthly life. Here the soul is weaned of all desires that can only be satisfied with a physical body, e.g., the gourmet no longer has a palate so his desire for tasty dishes cannot be satisfied.

The soul journey continues, expanding into spheres circumscribed by Mercury, Venus, and the Sun. It is none other than the great Christ Being who guides the soul to the Spiritual Sun. Steiner describes remarkable spiritual experiences to be had in each of these regions. There follows the expansion of the spirit of the soul into the spheres of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the fixed stars. The outward journey from death takes on average about 500 years. It is followed by a return journey—to a new incarnation—of about 500 years. Thus the soul reincarnates on average about twice as the sun progresses through a sign of the zodiac over 2160 years, leaving time for two eighty-year earth lives.

Let me now describe, for the benefit of Aurelia, an important aspect of

the afterlife. During earthly life the center of our existence is our physical body. Rudolf Steiner explains that it allows us to have our individual consciousness. When we sleep we leave our physical and etheric body and live in our astral body and ego. During this time we tend to merge or weave into one another. Steiner even uses the expression “primordial jelly” to designate how our identities are at risk of merging into all others so that we cannot even tell which feelings or thoughts are our own and which belong to other beings. Because during sleep we retain a longing for our physical body we do not entirely lose our identity during sleep. But when we die we separate from our physical body and after three-and-ahalf days from our etheric body.

What then allows us to retain our identity? Steiner answers this way. Each soul is uniquely linked to her star or rather starry structure. This structure is a unique set of angels and archangels numbering perhaps a thousand or more such beings. If you took one of those angels out of the starry structure and replaced it with a different angel then you would have a starry structure of another person close to the one in question. So Aurelia will now work at recognizing her star, the unique set of higher beings that allows her to have her special individuality in the afterlife.

It is important for us who remain behind to understand that Aurelia is not really gone. Rather she is among us but in a different form. The key to communicating with her is to understand this: she can see thoughts of a spiritual nature and pictures of her own biography that are reflected in the minds of her loved ones on earth when they recollect her. Steiner states that for the loved one these recollections are experienced as art in yonder world!

Thoughts of a material nature, on

the other hand, are not visible to those on the other side, so anthroposophists like to spend time reading to the dead, particularly Steiner’s lectures about the life after death. In doing this one pictures the friend on the other side vividly and then begins to read, either out loud or clearly sub-vocalizing the words.

The deceased can also send ideas to us. These ideas pop into our consciousness and for the most part we never ask from whence they came. Rudolf Steiner even tells that we can ask questions of our dead. We do this by imagining before we go to sleep that our deceased friend is asking us the question we wish to put to her; i.e., we create a vivid picture of her standing before us and asking us the question we wish to ask. We should try to fall asleep with the question. Then as we awaken we should pay attention to our thoughts. If we have completed the link we will notice thoughts entering our mind, the answer of our deceased friend. If we are particularly successful, we may even see an image of ourselves answering the question; i.e., the answer appears to come from our own lips, but it really comes from her. This inversion contains an important secret about the nature of life after death.

Let this presentation conclude with a verse by Rudolf Steiner that is recited at the funerals and memorials of many students of Rudolf Steiner:

Angels, Archangels and Archai

In

ENGAGE!

Meeting the Events of Our Time

2015 Fall Conference and members’ meeting

October 9 – 11

Masonic Temple, Webster Groves

12 E. Lockwood St. Webster Groves, MO

We invite you to join us over Columbus Day weekend as we gather in St. Louis, MO – in the heartland of America, the Gateway to the West, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Drawing on the theme of the year, “The I Knows Itself” - in the light of Michaelic World Affirmation and World Connection, this year’s program will offer vignettes on how anthroposophy in the United States is meeting homelessness, addiction, isolation, urban violence, genetic engineering and many other challenges confronting our society today. Through our inner work and personal initiative, anthroposophy is making an impact in the world. As a group of striving individuals, how might we “see” one another — “hear” the longings in each or our hearts and bring healing to these troubled times? Throughout the conference, we’ll be building a picture of engagement through hearing about the unique initiatives of individual anthroposophists, and by meeting directly with one another through eurythmy, speech and biography work. We will warm our soul life and practice new ways of meeting in community. Can we help one another find our way in anthroposophy, and together create the space within the Society to welcome everyone working within the anthroposophical movement?

Friday • October 9

10:00 am - 12:00 pm Gathering for group and branch representatives Working on the Theme of the Year

2:30 pm – 7:00 pm Registration

3:00 pm – 5:00 pm What is the full picture of the School for Spiritual Science and Its Impulse?

For members of the School for Spiritual Science, blue cards required

3:30 pm – 5:00 pm Anthroposophy in your Life

A conversation about membership in the Anthroposophical Society, the School for Spiritual Science, and the cultivation of anthroposophy in our communities

5:30 – 6:45 pm Reception

7:00 pm Welcome and Opening Remarks

Vignettes and Panel Discussion

Meeting the Events of Our Time 1

9:20 pm Poetry and Storytelling

Saturday • October 10

8:30 am Welcome, announcements Speech to start the day

9:00 am Vignettes and Panel Discussion

Meeting the Events of Our Time 2

10:30 am Break

11:00 am Biography in Dyads

12:30 pm Lunch

2:00 pm Practicing the Social Arts: “Standing in the Fire” and “Listening Bowls”

3:30 pm Break 4:00 pm Vignettes and Panel Discussion Meeting the Events of Our Time 3 6:00 pm Dinner

8:00 pm Performance: Eurythmy and Speech

9:20 pm Poetry and Storytelling

Sunday • October 11

8:30 am Announcements; Speech to start the day 9:00 am Conversation

As individuals associated with the Anthroposophical Society, how does our striving to transform the events of our time help us build a vessel for the Being of Anthroposophy?

10:15 am Break

10:45 am Introduction of the General Council and Society reports

12:45 pm Foundation Stone Meditation 1:00 pm Conclusion

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Artwork by Sophie Bourguignon-Takada;