The Foundation Stone as a Seed

Joel Park

During the Holy Nights 2022–23, I had the good fortune to attend a conference at the Camphill School in Beaver Run commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the burning of the First Goetheanum. It was an incredible experience, the culmination of years of work and intentions set by the Camphill Community. Coming on the heels of the lockdowns and lack of any gatherings of this sort without stringent measures around masking and vaccination status, it felt like a rejuvenation, a return to reality.

One of the treasures I took with me from that event was an insight shared by Christoph Andreas Lindenburg during our Bible Evening on New Year’s Eve. He pointed out that there was one portion of the original Goetheanum that was untouched by the fire; one portion that remains totally intact from the original building—the Foundation Stone that was laid on September 20, 1913. This was the foundation of the original Goetheanum, and is also that of the current one. Somehow I had never considered this before—that the First Goetheanum was not totally removed from us; that there is still a connecting link between the material world and this now totally etherized temple of humanity.

We can perhaps consider the Foundation Stone of this original building as the seed of the plant, which can exist for virtually limitless time periods, awaiting the conditions and environment in which it can bring about the plant once again. It is not only the indestructible portion, it is that which protects and maintains the original arche-

It is in this sense that I consider the laying of the Foundation Stone of the General Anthroposophical Society over the course of the Holy Nights in 1923–24. A seed was planted that has the same qualities as the physical “seed” of the material Foundation Stone of the Goetheanum, inasmuch as it protects and maintains the original archetype of the General Anthroposophical Society even if it is outwardly destroyed. We could perhaps consider the split in the Society in April 1935 as equivalent to the destruction of the First Goetheanum. We might think of this as a “failure” of the Society, or the “death” of the Society, but “this sickness is not unto death, but for the Glory of God,” just as it was in the case with the burning of the First Goetheanum.

But the Foundation Stone Meditation carries a power within it that goes beyond that of the material Foundation Stone, and that is its ability to propagate. The Foundation Stone Meditation can move from heart to heart, from one human being to another. It does not only live on a page in a book or in the memories of those who were there when Rudolf Steiner first spoke it. As long as only one person has the Foundation Stone Meditation living within them, anthroposophy is alive in the world—and has the potential to be spread to many other human souls.

So—do I feel that the essential impulse of the Christmas Conference is still living on earth as an effective force for the future of anthroposophy? Yes, of course. Howev- er, if we are looking about for an anthroposophy that is the same as or largely similar to that which existed between 1923–1935, we might be mistaken about what we are looking for. Let’s consider how different the second Goetheanum was from the first. Now consider how different a third would be. A fourth. A fifth. This is the situation increasingly since 1935 in regards to anthroposophy—each time it springs forth anew in human hearts, in individuals or communities, it will be a “building” with a totally new architecture, yet springing from the same archetype.

These “buildings” often enough do not even operate under the name or guise of anthroposophy. At times they have only indirect access to that which the Foundation Stone Meditation gives us direct contact to. It is sometimes difficult to know from the outside which of these “buildings” is a fellow Goetheanum, as the architecture can be so drastically different. What are the hallmarks of these buildings, the commonalities despite their differences that give us the inner confirmation that we are at home?

For me personally, over the past three or four years, one quality in particular has taken on key significance. This quality has to do with a relationship to individual sovereignty. Do I have the sovereignty to make choices in regards to health, education, religion, worldview? Or is my spiritual life to be decided on my behalf by those who “know better”?

Mind carefully which building you enter.

Joel Matthew Park is a husband, father, Christian Hermeticist, and anthroposophist. He has been working and living in Camphill communities since 2011, and has been living in Camphill Village Copake since 2019.