Research & Reviews Step into a modern esoteric stream and the importance of

Country Societies

Portland, OR | October 11–14, 2024

By Kim Chotzen

The recent Annual Conference of the Anthroposophical Society in America was conceived as a meeting of two country societies, in this case those of America1 and Switzerland, the latter represented by its General Secretary (and Treasurer), Marc Desaules. Although many other topics were addressed in this rich gathering, I have chosen to focus on Marc’s contributions.

The anthroposophical society and today’s riddle of the threshold Marc introduced his first talk by saying this meeting of the country societies is something recent, but also important because, since the Christmas Conference, the General Anthroposophical Society has been grounded in the country societies from which it was derived.

He understood the theme, Stepping into a Modern Esoteric Stream, to refer to the riddle of the threshold, where one can experience two distinct spheres or aspects of modern life. The challenge is to first be aware of their existence and then to retain that awareness.

Rudolf Steiner spoke of humanity as a whole crossing the threshold in 1841-1879. What does this mean? We are at risk of becoming disoriented and unable to discern which side we are on. For example, when asleep, we cannot observe our sleep. What conditions would help us be more conscious of observing and doing so that we can remain oriented?

Rudolf Steiner already pointed to this in the Philosophy of Freedom, where he describes two steps: the science of freedom (describing from the inside) and the realities of freedom (what it is like to live it, once you’ve understood it.) Then, in the first Goetheanum, whose two domes depicted these two distinct experiences that live behind everything on earth. It was burned, but he immediately started again.

Only this time a social structure was built: the refounded Anthroposophical Society with its two distinct aspects: first, an experience of learning (joining the Anthroposophical Society) and, second, an experience of representing or defending the anthroposophical ‘matter’ 2 (becoming a member of the School of Spiritual Science). Steiner brought the macrocosm and the microcosm together, showing that everyone who also does this becomes a building stone of this new social edifice, what Marc called the Resurrection Body in social life. A body (in this case, the Society) only makes sense with a soul – the School – which, with its three classes and sections is meant to be like the great schools in history – Plato’s Academy, the School of Chartres, the University of Paris – a source of spreading out knowledge that has world-changing impact. The motif of this knowledge is the image of the human being, with its polarity between head and limbs, and its middle, the beat of heart and lungs (not the heart or lungs as such), which appears where the poles meet.

Understanding threefolding

In his workshop on threefolding, Marc spoke of how he understands the threefold social order to be the way the spiritual world is responding to the fact that humanity is on the other side of the threshold and needs a new way of organizing itself. In former times, gods, priests, kings, guilds, families, and nature gave us orientation and life rhythms. We were guided by society and nature. But since the beginning of the 20th century, human beings became I-beings, alone and no longer willing to accept direction and guidance. We tell society and nature how to behave, even what kind of bodies we want. The I-being directs everything but has lost its connection to wisdom.

Rudolf Steiner saw the consequences of this new will to organize the world and that it must be organized in a threefold way. Individualities would need to meet in three different ways: – by our needs for clothing, food, shelter being met by others – by discovering our abilities through being ‘pushed’ towards the other – through the dignity that comes from being respected, the absence of which leads to civil strife

We are at the very beginning of this epochal task and have until 3570 to fulfill it. But we must make a step in our time, although how to do this needs to be discussed.

Money as key to the threefold social order

We have to imagine a rights life that is not the state. Money is where we can make a change, freely act to create a free cultural life, shaping the future in a different way with money. The old thinking about money is: I have. The state issues money like Lego bricks! Enough so that there is plenty for everyone to play with, but not so much that It becomes uninteresting and loses value. Money is ‘given’ to us. How, then, do we create money ourselves? Without the state? How do we pass from I have money to I am money?

Per Steiner, there are three types of money: purchase, loan, and gift. By making this conscious through the way we use money, we can step into a world3 in which we experience how, when two I-beings are linked through money, consciousness becomes precise. If I only speak of what I have, I will give as little as possible in order to hold onto it, thinking only of myself. And yet, there are different rules and processes with each type of money. Discovering and adhering to them is a way of fasttracking the change one can affect today as a lone I-being:

– by paying true prices so that we all have enough income – by not collateralizing lending but lending directly to an initiative taker and not to his house! – by creating spend-down foundations as vehicles for donating for the things that are not commodities (land, labor, capital)

America’s contribution as a healing response to the world crises of our time.

Our 5th epoch, from 1413 – 3570, started in Europe, when, beginning with the Renaissance,4 human beings were born into the world of the senses. This as a consequence of how, after the Mystery of Golgotha, the spiritual world became disoriented. Spiritual beings lost their reference, the Christ, Who went to earth. It became the responsibility of human beings, through their commitment to ‘will the good’. Because there were spiritual beings that did not ‘accept’ this new destiny moment, they do not leave us free. Therefore, it is no longer possible to trust to the truth of our perception. We can easily be deceived and need a path of development to know and to perceive truthfully. This is the path developed by Christian Rosenkreutz for the sake of protecting human freedom and knowledge of truth.

But today the mystery centers are closed, while truth and freedom are attacked on all fronts, making it difficult for us to master our humanness and leaving us alone to find our way.

The mission of Europe, which it should have had until 3570 was all changed, smashed after the Treaty of Versailles. Rudolf Steiner said, once the mission of a being is smashed down, it cannot revive. It then becomes the mission of those who trampled it. So, the Anglo Americans took over the mission of Europe until the Russian epoch.

There are those in Europe who, eschewing the materialism of the US, choose to cut off relations with the West and go more toward Russia and prepare for the 6th epoch. But this is not a solution! We need not run from materialism, but find the spirit in it. The spiritual world is looking to us to shine a light on the shadow cast by materialism, revealing its true nature.

How do we do this? It is not written, but by going to England in 1923/245 Rudolf Steiner connects with the Western world and especially with the magnetism of the north/south mountains that makes our thinking so it is easily influenced by materialism. How do we get free of this in order also to be able to perceive the Folk Spirit of our country? Rudolf Steiner gave us a new possibility in this regard with his lectures on the mission of Folk Souls 6 and his image of the threefold social order, such that the spirits of otherwise warring nations could bring peace through the light of their leaders, but now with a very different consciousness to that of Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson.

And after this, he rebuilt the Anthroposophical Society on the ground of country societies, each an expression of the ‘worldwide’ Society within a specific rights life. For this, Marc provided a majestic image of the General Society in connection with the Archai (and Michael in that capacity), the country societies linked to the Archangels, and the groups and institutions within a country related to the Angels.

What a different picture of the world this conjures up, compared to today’s geopolitical constructs. And so, as an amen,

Of the sense of one dedicated to

1 At which some members wondered if the time might have come to change our name to the Anthroposophical Society in the United States.

2 The German word is ‘Sache’, which is variously understood as ‘thing’, ‘matter’ and ‘cause’, but one might also think in terms of ‘for the sake of Anthroposophia’, which in German translates as for her willing. In this sense, to be a ‘representant’ (the French word used by Steiner) can be understood as doing one’s best to do her bidding, to aligning one’s will with hers.

3 Step into Another World. Marc Desaules, Anita Grandjean, Christopher Houghton Budd and Christian Thal-Jantzen. Associative Economics Worldwide, 2019. Search www.aebookstore.com.

4 The clue’s in the name!

5 Indeed, earlier, see, for example, Rudolf Steiner speaks to the British, Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1998. Also The Origins of the Anthroposophical Society in the Light of the Ancient Mysteries, Frank Teichmann. Temple Lodge, Forest Row, England (2020).

6. The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls in Relation to Teutonic Mythology, 7-17 June of 1910, Oslo. Rudolf Steiner Press, London 1970. CW 121.