reflections on the two themes
The Anthroposophical Movement Seeks an Earthly Home Thomas O’Keefe One of the main principles of knowledge seems to be that if one wants to know the true nature of a phenomenon, then one must become familiar with, and immersed in, as many of its aspects and details as possible. The more aspects we are able to experience and sense into, the more opportunity we give ourselves to form a full and living inner picture out of our own individual soul-sensing. This also leads to a perception of the depth or dimensions of the phenomenon. Perceiving the nature and quality of something’s dimensions is essential, because they determine the way we understand the implications of the various facts we learn about the phenomenon in question—they comprise the lens through which these elements are brought together into a story that corresponds to the reality of the phenomenon. It is clear through the way Rudolf Steiner spoke of the Christmas Conference impulse—during the conference itself as well as in various lectures and other contexts up until the end of his life—that he experienced it as a deep and profound mystery1 whose meaning he hoped members of the Society would increasingly awaken to. There is even much that suggests he felt his very life-forces were dependent upon this awakening comprehension by the members and the inner and outer tasks implied in such an awakening.2 The essential thought of the Christmas Conference impulse is often summarized in Rudolf Steiner’s words: “How can we combine full openness with the profoundest, most serious and inward esotericism?”3 It is the challenge not merely of balancing two polar qualities (openness and inward esotericism), but of willing the inner world of spiritual ideals and our devotion to these ideals to be lived in a more deeply incarnated way into the details of everything we do. As Dorothea Mier suggests in 1 For example: “[T]his Christmas Conference . . . is to be for us a festival of consecration not merely for the beginning of a new year but for the beginning of a new Turning Point of Time to which we want to devote ourselves in enthusiastic cultivation of the life of spirit.” The Christmas Conference (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), GA 260, lecture of January 1, 1924, 8:30pm. 2 See, for example, Sergei O. Prokofieff, May Human Beings Hear It! The Mystery of the Christmas Conference (Temple Lodge, 2004), Ch. 1, p. 72ff. 3 The Christmas Conference, December 26, 1923, 10am.
12 • being human
her article, it can also be seen as the challenge of bringing together within ourselves the two worlds, physical and spiritual, so that these two spheres overlap more completely. In his book A Path to Self-Knowledge, Rudolf Steiner describes the meaning of “beauty” in the suprasensory world: There, a being can only be said to be ‘beautiful’ . . . that is able to reveal all of what it experiences within itself to the other beings of its world so that these other beings may partake in the entirety of its experience. The capacity to completely reveal oneself and everything that lives within one without having to conceal anything within oneself could be called ‘beautiful’ in the higher worlds. There, this concept of beauty coincides perfectly with what might be called wholehearted sincerity, the honest acting out of what one carries within oneself.4
In this sense, the ideal of the Christmas Conference impulse can be seen as that of manifesting greater beauty, as individuals and as a community, in our work in the world—that is, the ideal of incarnating the spiritual even more deeply than before, so that anthroposophy is not merely something added to our work, but something that imbues our thoughts, feelings, and actions. The Foundation Stone Meditation is a key that characterizes the qualities of this threefold inner task of human becoming: the striving to develop true willing, true feeling, and true thinking. Virginia Sease describes how the Foundation Stone verse can be raised to the level of a mantram. And Joel Park elaborates on the Foundation Stone Meditation as a seed, with its ability to spread from heart to heart. On an earthly level, the Christmas Conference itself (as distinct from the cosmic impulse given there) was an attempt to incarnate this ideal in a practical way within the Society, thereby uniting the (cosmic) Movement with the (earthly) Society. This union was to be achieved by means of the members’ deepening of this cosmic impulse within themselves. Leading up to the conference, Rudolf Steiner saw the Society, not the Movement—which he had 4 A Path to Self-Knowledge (Chadwick Library Edition, 2019), GA 16, Seventh Meditation.
