If we take seriously the principle that “the Anthroposophical Society will endure only if within ourselves we make of the Anthroposophical Movement the profoundest concern of our hearts,”15 then I believe it is important to consider that many present-day representatives of the Anthroposophical Movement are an essential part of what we are trying to achieve, regardless of their outer relationship with, or inner feeling of confidence in, the Society as it exists today. And some of these representatives may be individuals in whom essential traces or echoes of the Christmas Conference impulse still live in a significant way, whether or not they consider themselves in this light. Another aspect of this impulse is that “it is not a spirit of abstractions but of living reality, a spirit that wants to speak not to the head but to the hearts of human beings.”16 In her article, Lisa Romero deepens this theme of the Mysteries of the Heart. John Beck likewise explores Rudolf Steiner’s call to the heart through the Christmas Conference, and Frank Agrama brings an artistic expression of this theme in connection with questions of social healing. Related to this, Mark McGivern and Robert (Karp) Karbelnikoff write of their initiative for an anthroposophical approach to questions of social justice. Finally, one of the most important elements of the Christmas Conference impulse is Rudolf Steiner’s emphasis on the degree of inner and outer truthfulness needed for the task of representing anthroposophy in the world.17 To have a real devotion to truth in an inner and outer sense is to have an “esoteric” attitude—and the encouragement to imbue ourselves with such an attitude was the express purpose of the Christmas Conference. In his book, The Stages of Higher Knowledge, Rudolf Steiner explains that cultivating a love of truth, and an aversion to untruth, is an important part of the path of initiation: Most systematically must the esoteric student turn his attention to his soul-life, and he must bring it about that logical error is a source of pain to him, no less excruciating than physical pain, and conversely, that the ‘right’ gives him real joy and delight. Thus, where another only stirs his intellect, his power of judgment, into motion, the esoteric student must learn to live through the whole gamut of emotions, from grief to enthusi15 The Christmas Conference, December 24, 1923, 11:15am, p. 46. 16 Karmic Relationships, Vol. VI, February 6, 1924. 17 See, for example, The Christmas Conference, December 24, 1923, 11:15am, p. 55f.
16 • being human
asm, from afflictive tension to transports of delight in the possession of truth. In fact, he must learn to feel something like hatred against what the ‘normal’ person experiences only in a cold and sober way as ‘incorrect’; he must enkindle in himself a love of truth that bears a personal character; as personal, as warm, as the lover feels for the beloved.18
This deepened relation to and courage for truth is essential to the path of inner development; but, also, if we take the phrase “true and genuine esotericism” seriously, then it is essential to the Christmas Conference impulse as well—an impulse that was intended to be the life-blood of the Society. In his article, Nicanor Perlas gives expression to this archetypal task of our time: that of finding the courage to bear the truth, which also means enduring the pain of untruthfulness and the encounter with evil. This overarching principle of the courage to bear the truth leads us into the many dimensions of the challenge to humanity arising from the recent years of Covid—dimensions that are addressed in articles by John Bloom, Nathaniel Williams, Gopi Krishna Vijaya, Tim Nadelle, and Richard Cooper. Rudolf Steiner also spoke in particular about the need for truthfulness in the field of medicine—a realm that today is becoming increasingly compromised. Michael Givens elaborates on the meaning of this principle of truthfulness as it relates to anthroposophic medicine in the context of our cosmic-human evolutionary journey. Richard Ramsbotham provides an important insight about the cosmic-human story unfolding in our time when he reminds us of Rudolf Steiner’s descriptions of the Michael School and its counter-impulse, the Ahrimanic School, to which the authoritarian impulses of the “Great Reset” may be related. This larger theme, which could be termed the “Medicalization of Society,” was discussed by Peter Selg in his 2020 article by the same name.19 Other aspects of this “medicalizing” impulse, the attendant authoritarian suppression of free thought and inquiry, and the effects of these impulses upon the human soul, were explored in depth in recent years by Michael Givens, Allan Kaplan, and Ricardo Bartelme and Branko Furst,20 as well as by 18 The Stages of Higher Knowledge (SteinerBooks, 2009), GA 12, Ch. 3: Inspiration. 19 See Deepening Anthroposophy issue 9.1; also published in Perspectives and Initiatives in the Times of Coronavirus (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2020), p. 143ff. 20 See Deepening Anthroposophy issues 10.1 (Givens: “Deceptive Messengers”), 11.1 (Bartelme and Furst: “A Rebuttal to the ‘Open Letter . . . Regarding the Covid Pandemic’”), and 12.1 (Kaplan: “Fugitive”), as well as Allan Kaplan’s recently published book Fugitive: Three Covid Pieces: A Goethean Appreciation (SteinerBooks, 2023).
