Commemoration of 100 Years, but of What?

Richard Cooper

I believe that to write about the commemoration of one hundred years since the 1923/24 Christmas Conference requires a shift in consciousness, because I see this centenary as a cause rather for dismay and concern, and would be far more predisposed to commemorate the opening of the Goetheanum in 1920 or, with a little more courage, the fire of New Year’s Eve 1922/23.

Steiner was persuaded to continue with the Anthroposophical Society after the fire of 1922, and we should pause and consider Steiner’s reluctance, for the social principle lies at the heart of Steiner’s legacy and it also lies at the heart of the conflicts that were to follow his death up to the split of 1935. The First Class, the Christmas Conference, and the Karma Lectures of the last years of Steiner’s life were responses to failures of the Society. This has to be seen in light of the wider failure of social threefolding in the world. The end of the First World War saw the enacting of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, coinciding with the opening of the First Goetheanum on September 26, 1920. So, in all this we sense and see events outside the anthroposophical world mirroring events within it.

Perhaps key to these appeals for perspective is to not be shy toward this sense of tragedy, to not commemorate the Christmas Conference in a bubble, and to take the approach of seeing it strictly through a lens composed of historical events. This can be done especially with regard to current historical events since the hundred-year anniversary of the opening of the First Goetheanum. Coincidentally, regarding the year 2020 and Covid, we have to be reflexive, to pay attention to the changes to our inner lives in historical context.

And yet, here we face a number of difficulties. We might feel we have a sense for humanity as a whole, but we have grown accustomed to not seeing the devastation; Steiner’s words are prophetic that more crises, wars, and chaos would follow should humanity not heed the call of the spirit. We might then recognize that we as a humanity and as individuals have a kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Part of our dilemma is that we have been raised, educated, and entertained to pass over events into thoughts of a “bright, shiny future.” To dwell on trauma is simply not good business.

Yet Steiner identified—and I hope some of us can see this—that the core problem and the gravest concern that a human being can face in modern times—one that we struggle to face—is hypnosis. And when we combine the two, tragedy and hypnosis, we have quite a potent mix.

Alternative anthroposophical authors rail against the mainstream and expose the conspiracies of those in the elite occult movements that we know are active in directing events, calling out the Jesuits and Freemasons. Others publish their own independent clairvoyant findings.

And yet, a simple fact remains: Little goes beyond Steiner. Unwittingly, this has disastrous effects for the mind, for in failing to move forward, sectarian, cult-like phenomena develop, which is why Steiner himself advocated that one take an interest in contemporaries—the thinkers and artists of one’s time who address sociological, philosophical, and psychological concerns; his advice is that we seek to pioneer and to change the times in which we live historically.

On the other hand, more pedestrian mainstream authors nurture their conferences and events under the watchwords of the umbrella Society, replete with letters, old photos, records, and reminiscing biographies, valuable for a museum-like endeavor. This feels noble but forlorn. Meanwhile, our academics dismiss and condemn the other two groups, seeing adherents of both camps slipping back into tribalism and group dynamics.

Hypnosis is an overlooked and tragic challenge. First and foremost, it is a challenge of the culture of mass societal control as it has developed and infected politics out of the war dynamics of World War II and on into our times.

Waking up spiritually is no small task. For where can we find those who know how this kind of hypnosis works? (Again, this should lead us out into the world, to other thinkers and fields of research.1) Unwittingly, people have come to see things in reverse—they seek knowledge where it can only be found in name—or have come to not see things at all. The nature of the beast of occult control is that we no longer know what is true and what is not. That was the dismay that led Steiner to say after the fire, Where should the modern human being now go? 2

1 For example, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Milton H. Erickson, Ken Wilber, Slavoj Zizek.

This hundred-year commemoration—if it is not to pass us by as any other public relations opportunity amid calls for renewal, etc. ad infinitum—has to be a call to discernment. The burning of the First Goetheanum led the anthroposophical endeavor out over the Christmas Conference and into the world.

Anthroposophy at present lingers largely in a rather passive and sentimental form. If the hundred-year mark means anything, its meaning would be to see where ghosts can be laid to rest (anthroposophy, as if stuck in a graveyard, needs to be awoken like a sleeping beauty from enchantment)—and to be brave, to seek out those with whom we can work to further develop living spiritual work, and to leave the archival and proselytizing work for those who perhaps need it more in this life.

2 Words stated by Rudolf Steiner in devastation after the fire.

Perhaps we might think of the butterfly meditation 3 that Steiner gave shortly after the fire, and transform it dynamically so as to imagine the new. After the chrysalis, over the tragic ruins, out from the fire arises a phoenix.

Richard Cooper was born in the United Kingdom, and later studied history, social work, and psychology. He moved to Switzerland in 2002, and continued anthroposophical study in fine art, philosophy, poetry, eurythmy, and geopolitics. In 2023, together with The First Class Esoteric Youth Circle of 12 (with an initiative named Anthroposophicum), he started an online social initiative for meditation and anthroposophical research (with participants from Ukraine, Europe, and the United States).

3 The “Falter” Meditation in German. See Freemasonry and Ritual Work (SteinerBooks, 2007), GA 265.