American Anthroposophy

- an introduction -

a celebration of the American Soul's unique

ability to contribute to the future of Anthroposophy,

and to the future of world culture

by Joel A. Wendt

social philosopher...and occasional fool

"...one can say that we in Europe develop Anthroposophy

in a spiritual way; the American develops it in a natural way..."

Rudolf Steiner, from a talk to the workmen

at the Goetheanum, Dornach, March 3, 1923

cover art bead-work by the author

Dedication

This book is dedicated to you, immortal spirit, who were at one time known as Rudolf Steiner, and without whose presence on this Earth for about 64 years, the essays in this book could not have been written.  I am grateful to you for wearing that name and bearing the burden of being thought of as a great initiate.  Thank you old friend and may you continue to sail on to ever greater wonders and delights, with as little suffering as necessary.  Hopefully, the content of this book may over the years of the future, serve to break the chains by which great aspects of your spirit are currently bound to the Earth, due to your having chosen to join your karma to ours.  In all our names, I beg your forgiveness for  our many errors and numerous follies connected to our having misunderstood much of the essence of your teachings.  With greatest affection and love, your pupil, Joel A. Wendt

the Contents of this Book

introductory materials

forward by the author - what is meant by American Anthroposophy?

preface for the neophyte - for the readers to whom Anthroposophy is quite new.

an apology (of sorts) - to the more experienced anthroposophical reader

introduction

the main themes of this book

The Challenge

American Anthroposophy begins to come to maturity in the situation of a given place and a given time.  The dominant characteristic of this time, outwardly, is the Incarnation of Ahriman.   As a consequence the first essay concerns Ahriman's Incarnation:

Outrageous Genius - Discovering the in-the-Present Incarnation of Ahriman in America through the Signs of the Times (Michaelmas* 2007)

Orientation

The dominant characteristic of this time, inwardly, is the Second Coming of Christ.

"From the kingdom served by Michael himself Christ descends to the sphere of the Earth, so as to be there when the intelligence is wholly with the human individuality. For man will then feel most strongly the impulse to devote himself to the power which has made itself fully and completely into the vehicle of intellectuality. But Christ will be there; through His great sacrifice He will live in the same sphere in which Ahriman also lives. Man will be able to choose between Christ and Ahriman. The world will be able to find the Christ-way in the evolution of humanity."  R.S.  Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts.

The Meaning of Earth Existence in the Age of the Consciousness Soul (winter - spring 2006)

In Joyous Celebration of the Soul Art and Music of Discipleship (late summer 2006)

The Methodology Necessary for a New Social Science - a brief introduction (written for this book during the Season of Michaelmas, 2007)

The Natural Transformation of the Anthroposophical Society in America (Michaelmas 2007)

The Mystery of Macro and Micro Evil: the relationship of the Shadow (the double-complex) to the American Soul (Michaelmas 2007)

Encountering the Mystery of America

What distinguishes the now emerging natural Anthroposophy of the American Soul, from the anthroposophical work of the Twentieth Century

Present Day American Culture - four archetypal personalities

Recollecting the True Roots of the American Soul - America's aboriginal Peoples and the Hopi Prophecy

Anthroposophy and the Russian Soul - a lesson from life: instruction for all three world-aspects of Anthroposophical activity, in the West, the Center and the East - (written over Christmas Eve and Day 2006)

The New, and profoundly human, Mysteries of the Earth (written in the remaining Holy Nights just after Christmas 2006)

Rudolf Steiner's Own Path - The Philosophy of Freedom or Spiritual Activity - a brief re-imagination (written for this book after the Holy Nights 2007-8)

a letter to a young anthroposophist (2003)

The Redemption of Eros: - Seeking Comfort and Companionship in a time of increasing Social Chaos - or, Sex and the Single Anthroposophist (Michaelmas 2007)

End Stories

America: The Central Motif (by Patrick Dixon)*

*reprinted without permission (haven't been able to contact him), but at the same time it must be shared,
so with a great deal of gratitude that this exists, I dare to offer it anyway...

Bicycles: a Children's Christmas Story for Adults

some final verse: the Gift of the Word

***************************************

Ultimately, all questions of truth and goodness come down to the application of individual art and imagination - that is the creation of beauty.  It isn't so much that the Universe has or is an answer that we seek and struggle to find, but rather that the Universe is an unfinished symphony in which we are one of the creative sources.  Each individual I-am is a song continually knowing itself only in the moment of its becoming...

forward by the author

- what is meant by American Anthroposophy -

To place the modifier "American" in front of the noun Anthroposophy, may seem to some a rather curious, perhaps even defective, construction.  What about Anthroposophy, apparently authored by Rudolf Steiner and mostly taught in Europe, could ever be called American?  Even so, the problem comes in large part from Steiner himself, who said a great deal about America, including suggesting this very idea - that there is to come an American Anthroposophy.  Having gathered together much of what he wrote and spoke about America, I'll just start with some of this material and basically leave it to Dr. Steiner to help us begin to understand why there could be something quite real about an American Anthroposophy.  I'll also weave among the comments of Steiner various other materials as seems appropriate [these will be in brackets so as to not confuse anything].

One last  introductory point...

There is an excellent question as to what is truly America and/or American, given that there is a North and South and Central America of which we routinely speak.  I would say that in general most of what is indicated by Steiner, and explored more deeply by me in this book, refers principally to the United States of America.  To look at the wider questions has not really been attempted here, although in the appendix in Patrick Dixon's essay: American: the Central Motif, an introductory perspective on some of these wider questions is given.  Hopefully - in the future - others, native to these wider regions of the Western Continents, will be inspired by what is here to add their insights and their voices, for no one should doubt that all the Peoples of the Western Continents have a great deal to offer to the world.

*

"...America is the place at which races or civilizations die."  R.S. The Mission of the Folk Souls, lecture  6.

[This phenomena is discussed more fully in an essay below.]

"The Indians then took over with them to the West all that was great in the Atlantean culture.  What was the greatest thing of all to the Indians?  It was that he was still able dimly to sense something of the ancient greatness and majesty of a period which existed in the old Atlantean epoch, in which the divisions of the races had hardly begun, in which men could look up to the Sun and perceive the Spirits of Form penetrating through a sea of mist.  Through an ocean of mist the Atlantean gazed up at that which to him was not divided into six or seven, but which acted together.  This co-operative activity of the seven Spirits of Form was called by the Atlanteans the Great Spirit...He clung firmly to the Great Spirit of the primeval past."  R.S. Lecture 6 above.

[While we might think that the Native Americans have a degenerate spirituality as a consequence of this, it would be a mistake to take this view.  A Mohawk healer (a woman friend of mine) is also a seeress, and it is clear to her vision that when she holds a healing circle it is Christ in the form of an Angel who does the actual healing.  Another Native acquaintance of mine described her first experience of a most sacred ceremonial enacted by her Chief and spoken in the Cherokee language.  In this ritual he had used the word Christ several times, and she asked him following this ceremony why he had mixed that particular word in with the Cherokee in this way.  His reply was that Indians had always known there was an Earth Spirit, but now they know His Name.

The Saturn (Native American) Mysteries still produce initiates (as it were), whose development takes a course similar in kind to the Symbol in Tarot of the Hanged Man.  Their visionary capacity comes from having given over their will (which is why the Hanged Man is pictured upside down) to the Celestial Influence.  It is a spiritual capacity based upon voluntary obedience to the Sky People (the ancestors and spirit guides of the Native Americans) before whose judgment the seers, Chiefs and healers tend to place all crucial questions of life.  It is not a blind obedience, but something more on the order of recognizing that the Sky People have a superior vision of matters, and that as a result their wisdom is to be given great weight in reference to all significant questions.

Many anthroposophists treat Steiner in the same way, and with the same dangers to our personal and individual development of inner freedom.

The potential marriage, within the free choices of the individual American Soul of this veneration of all that was great in the primeval past of Atlantis, with the New Sun Mysteries (in its initial form as Anthroposophy) is very important for the future (for details see the essay below: Recollecting the True Roots of the America Soul - America's aboriginal Peoples and the Hopi Prophecy).]

America was discovered in order to provide a counter-balance to the Asian Great Spirit (luciferic lightness).  America leads man to heaviness and materialism.  (R.S. paraphrased from Lecture 2, Inner Impulses Working in the Evolution of Mankind)

"...American civilization, on account of the special organization of its people, is particularly exposed to the temptation offered by what the eagle speaks (1)....Central Europe...is particularly exposed to what is uttered by the lion (2)...Oriental civilization is preeminently exposed to what is uttered by the cow (3)."

(1) "I give thee the power to create a universe in thine own head"

(2) "I give thee the power to embody the universe in the radiance of the encircling air."

(3) "I give thee the power to wrest from the universe measure, number and weight."   R.S. Lecture 8, Man as a Being of Sense and Perception

[Not surprising then the importance of the Eagle as a symbol both to Native Americans and the United States of America.]

If European and American civilization retain their present character, a materialistic cosmogony will cover over the Christ Event.  (R.S. paraphrased from lecture 9, Man as Hieroglyph of the Universe.)

[The antidote to this is the Christ centered cosmogony presented in my book: the Way of the Fool: the conscious development of our human character and the future* of Christianity - both to be born out of the natural union of Faith and Gnosis.]

The past brings fermentation that leads "Europe to the brink of the Abyss, which will array Asia and America against each other." R.S. Lecture 3, The Mission of Archangel Michael

Emigration to America is greater than all other movements of peoples. (paraphrase, R.S. Lecture 4, Mystery Centers)

[The People of Peoples (the Beacon of Hope) continues to draw the world to itself, even during times of great distress (witness Latino movements in the present, and Asia movements following the Vietnam War).]

The Anglo-American victory over Europe in WWI will lead to a domination of European spiritual-cultural life in an external fashion. (paraphrase R.S. lecture 3, The Mysteries of Light, Space and Earth.)

The threefold social order is needed in order to overcome the influence of Anglo-American secret societies (paraphrase lecture 4 above).

"...I believe that in the future my book [The Threefold Social Order] should be read in the West and in Russia, but that it has no chance of becoming effective in Germany.  The West, for instance, can learn much from this book, for in a non-utopian manner it simply states how the three spheres co-exist and should interact. For the West the moment in time does not matter, for much is still to be done for the right interaction of the three currents, the spiritual life, the economic life, the political-legal life." R.S. Threefolding as a Social Alternative. [emphasis added]

In 1924, for a time, some in America showed that stars were hollowed out spaces (paraphrase, R.S. lecture 3, The Evolution of Earth and Man and the Influence of the Stars)

Following the American way of thinking, an attempt was made to extend the mechanical over human life itself.  It will be an American Mystery to make use of the magnetism of the Earth, its double-ness. (paraphrase, R.S. lecture 12, The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric.)

"Europeans prove, Americans affirm" R.S. lecture to workmen 3 March 1923.

When the sun is in Aquarius: "only then will the true American Civilization come." (same lecture).

"We in Europe develop Anthroposophy out of the Spirit.  Over there they develop something that is a kind of wooden doll of Anthroposophy.  Everything becomes materialistic." (same lecture)

"But for one who is not a fanatic, there is something similar in American culture to what is anthroposophical spiritual science in Europe.  Only everything there is wooden, it is not yet alive.  We can make it alive in Europe out of the spirit, those over there take it out of instinct..." (same lecture)

"The time will one day come when this American woodenman, which actually everyone is still - when he begins to speak.  Then he will have something to say very similar to European Anthroposophy*.  One can say that we in Europe develop Anthroposophy in a spiritual way; the American develops it in a natural way." (same lecture, emphasis added)

*[here is where I told you that Steiner clearly suggested there would come to be an American Anthroposophy.]

"The American is a young materialist...So too will the American's blatant materialism sprout a spiritual element." (when the Sun rises in the sign of Aquarius). (same lecture)

[As to the Sun rising in Aquarius, its actual date is mostly anyone's guess.  I asked an astrosopher, and he suggested any where from 2376 to 3575, with lots of if ands and buts and complicated details - I tried to get an exact answer, but sorry, none could be had.  Wikipedia says 2600, and if you get on Google you can find just about anything.  As we know, popular American culture thought that this was happening in the 1960's (This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius... from the rock musical Hair).  If we accept the role of spiritual inspiration in the arts, then perhaps we can see that while Steiner referred to the Sun rising in Aquarius, a dawning is something that signals the coming rising of the Sun.  I would place this book in that category - the previously dark sky is gone, the stars recede from sight, and bands of light illuminate the horizon, even though the Sun has yet to fully appear.  A transition of this kind, as is also clear from Steiner's indications regarding the various epochs of the post-Atlantean Age, is a gradual development that takes place over many decades if not a few centuries.  No fixed date has any real meaning.  The present then in America is a dawning, but the Sun has not yet risen.]

"But genuine Americanism will one day unite with Europeanism, which will have taken a more spiritual path." (same lecture) [emphasis added].

[I have spent some time contemplating Steiner's use of the adjective wooden in describing the American's instinct for Anthroposophy.  Clearly he could have used an even more material metaphor, such as crystalline.  That he did not, but chose instead to us a term from the world of plants, particularly of the higher plant which is the tree, can give us something to help our understanding.  The tree, while rooted in the earth, in making its wooden pillar makes the earth itself into a living form which then raises the tree's leaves and blossoms much further in the direction of the cosmos than those plants that remain nearer the earth on the forest floor.

Our physical nature, as Americans, is of the earth, and to the extent that we remain instinctive, so is our soul life captured by this earth bound existence.   Thus our thinking is also earthly and material, unless we spiritualize it, unless we bring moral forces into it consciously.  The more our native goodness penetrates our thought life consciously (instead of instinctively), the more we do what the tree does when it spreads its leaves and blossoms (on its way to bestowing its fruit for our benefit) into the air far above the earth.  Here is what I wrote in the essay below on conscious thinking out of the American Soul (In Joyous Celebration of the Soul Art and Music of Discipleship): The purified will (an appropriately moral intention and attention) creates heart warmth in the soul-soil of feeling, out of which the light and life filled flower of thought is born. ]

Subterranean forces possess the American body - a geographical force, not a spiritual force.  They chain man to the earth.  Something from the human head streams toward magnetic and electric currents, neutralizing them - this is the human will.  What overcomes these dependencies, which are part of karma, so that our inner life (if not our outward form) can come to freedom?  The answer: the Mystery of Golgatha.  (paraphrase of R.S. long discussion lecture 1, Anthroposophical Life Gifts.

*

[Not everything Steiner taught about human inner life applies to Americans, and here again is what Steiner said indicating the existence of something that has to be called American Anthroposophy: "The time will one day come when this American woodenman, which actually everyone is still - when he begins to speak.  Then he will have something to say very similar to European Anthroposophy.  One can say that we in Europe develop Anthroposophy in a spiritual way; the American develops it in a natural way." [emphasis added].

Steiner was a very precise and exact thinker, and as a consequence we can look carefully at his words, expecting such characteristics.  Here he has predicted a time when the American would speak, and say something very similar to European Anthroposophy - not the same, but similar.  He also points out that we develop anthroposophy in a natural way, while the European develops it in a spiritual way.  What precisely and exactly does that mean?

We should not expect to answer such a question by looking to Steiner, however.  The answer to this question is not his to give.  The American has to speak the truth and beauty and goodness of this question out of his own soul, and this book is one American's answer to that riddle.

This in general can be added here.  The American is more of the Earth than any other people.  His culture is also of the future, whereas European culture is mostly of the past.

Their individual limitations may be overcome in the present by their mutual respect and cooperation.  At present, unfortunately, the spiritual potential of the American Soul is not even decently respected in the circles of the Anthroposophical Society and Movement here in America.  How then can the two work together without first raising into the light of consciousness the true soul and spiritual nature of the American?

This condition of self-ignorance, tragically fostered in anthroposophical circles, is strongly encouraged by Ahriman through our unredeemed shadow nature, for no people is more dangerous to his future plans than is the American.  Whatever my personal flaws that have influenced this work, I offer it in full knowledge that Christ wishes for the American to find his way to his own true nature, and from out of that discovery to become, as is our task: the most formidable, spiritually endowed, leader of the social healing gesture needed to counter the terrible coming consequences of Ahriman's earthly reign.

Jessiah Ben-Aharon did not write his book on America (America's Global Responsibility: individuation, initiation and the threefolding) on a lark.  Nor did Rudolf Steiner point to this place, this people and this time, in any kind of superficial way.

In the end, we come upon a second riddle to add to the one of just what it means to come to Anthroposophy in a natural way.  At its core, Anthroposophy is an act of service to others.  Who then is American Anthroposophy to serve?  Our instinct, which even Emerson would find correct had he known formally of Anthroposophy, has so far been to be devoted to Rudolf Steiner and to the cultural forces streaming from Europe.

We understand through Rudolf Steiner that in this moment in Time the cultural Center of the world is weakened, the two poles of East and West are too polarized, and as a consequence the whole is unable to find their right inter-relationships precisely because the attack on the Center in the 20th Century has been so successful.  Out of our freedom as Americans then we can continue to follow our instinct in support of the spiritual insight pouring over humanity from the Center.  At the same time, however, we need to not do this while living in a state of confusion as to our own yet unrealized soul forces and potentials.  If Americans want to truly foster Anthroposophy as a working partner in a threefold world, they have to come to far greater self knowledge than is presently the case.  This book seeks to serve that effort.]

a preface for the neophyte

- for the readers for whom Anthroposophy is quite new -

If you are new to Anthroposophy, or if this is one of the first books related to Rudolf Steiner you have picked up, then you need to realize that in certain degrees the book you hold in your hand was written mostly for serious students of Rudolf Steiner, and further that it represents a view of Anthroposophy not common among most anthroposophists.  At the same time this book might be quite useful, for ithopes to restore the essential foundational impulse to anthroposophical spiritual science from the confusion into which it fell in the 20th Century, after its founding spirit had died - had crossed over into the world of pure spirit.

As a consequence, each essay below will have its own brief introduction for the neophyte, by which words I hope to make it more accessible to those to whom most of anthroposophical thought is new.  For example, the term Anthroposophy is a kind of unnecessary affectation - given that what it refers to it could possibly be expressed using many different words.  Generally speaking if we look at the root meanings we have anthropos (man) and sophy (wisdom), thus: the wisdom of man.

Among Steiner students this itself has been poorly understood, and as many new to this discipline may have already discovered there is a certain kind of unnatural worship, among the members of the Anthroposophical Society and Movement, of all the Rudolf Steiner said and wrote.  The fact is that Steiner was not (ultimately) grounding Anthroposophy in the results of his research into spiritual reality, but instead referring to a latent capacity potential in all human beings.  We could, therefore, also speak of Anthroposophy as the new cognition, for it refers to what happens when any individual, with a more or less intact mind, seeks to transform, through their own will, their given cognitive ability.  With our will we take hold of our cognitive faculty and cause it to undergo a profound  metamorphosis, not unlike the transition from caterpillar to butterfly.  Our ordinary or given capacity for thinking, seemingly bound to the brain and to physical causes, can out of our own inner-will-activity become transformed into a capacity for direct spiritual knowledge - what at one time was called: gnosis.

This is why Rudolf Steiner, near the end of his life, wrote a summary of his work which was called: Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts.  In this work the very first Leading Thought begins: "Anthroposophy is a path of cognition from the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe."  Anthroposophy then is a spiritual Way, rooted in the will of the individual, yet when well understood it (the path or Way) is entirely empirical and objective (scientific).  The main text for this science of the new cognition is the book called: The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (or Freedom), and the neophyte will find the significance of this book discussed extensively below.

Now among the various translations of Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts you will find that German word Erkenntnis often translated as knowledge, not as cognition.  This has led to great confusion, for many today in the movement mistake this indication as one connected to the requirement in Knowledge of Higher Worlds for study.  Thus the unceasing study of Steiner's writings, rather than the objective and scientific introspection of one's own mind, soul and spirit - that is the thinking about thinking or the cognition about cognition.

This also means that in that Anthroposophy is also the wisdom of man, it is not a content given forever by Steiner to which everyone must owe allegiance (thus the mistaken impulse to over emphasize the study of this content), but rather a method of active and awake thinking-cognition that shows each individual how to be wise.  Would that the leaders of the Anthroposophical Society and Movement better understood this in practice, which lead us next to....

an apology (of sorts)

- to the more experienced anthroposophical reader -

It is possible that certain portions of what is in this book might be seen as potentially critical of individual efforts within the Anthroposophical Society and Movement.  Such is not really the mood in which this book's essays were written.  My principle studies and research have concerned the social world, and in support of this it became necessary to learn, from Steiner's writings on the science of objective philosophical introspection (A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, and The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom), how to properly discipline my soul and spirit in order to achieve the best results for this research goal.  At the same time, the Anthroposophical Society and Movement are systems of complicated and multiple social forms, and so it was natural for me to look at them out of the impulses connected to my social research.  In addition, it became obvious over the years of these studies that very few in the Society and Movement had penetrated deeply into true introspective life.  The absence of success in that endeavor has enormous consequences for the ability of the Society and Movement to incarnate the New Mysteries via the New Thinking.

Here is Steiner himself, from Awakening to Community (lecture three), on the consequences of failing (which has happened) to take up The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (or Freedom):  "The way it should be read is with attention to the fact that it brings one to a wholly different way of thinking and willing and looking at things....The trouble is that The Philosophy of Freedom has not been read in the different way I have been describing.  That is the point, and a point that must be sharply stressed if the development of the Anthroposophical Society is not to fall far behind that of anthroposophy itself.  If it does fall behind, anthroposophy's conveyance through the Society will result in its being completely misunderstood, and its only fruit will be endless conflict!"

Let me make this last a bit more explicit with a little symbolism (only partially presented), based on my 35 years of introspective self observation:

sense world < soul < A/d (i-AM) L/d > soul > spiritual world

human double (or karma of wounds)

I have kept in the threefold Shadow elements (the double-complex):

< A/d        L/d >

human double (or karma of wounds)   

as it is very much an aspect of American Anthroposophy to need to face the Shadow in a fully objective fashion.  A/d above refers to the ahrimanic double and L/d to the luciferic double.  Steiner describes the reason for this in Lucifer and Ahriman, at page 21: "...the very purpose of our Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is that man should become increasingly conscious of what takes effect through him in earthly existence. [emphasis added]

What this means is that the opposing forces enter into the social world of humanity only through the human soul, which then makes it such that the real struggles involved in the Mystery of Evil take place within our souls, and only indirectly in the outer world.  Our souls are also the doorway through which the Good enters the social world, and understanding this reality and our related freedom on the Earth, in practice, is a core necessity for the future development of Anthroposophy in the 21st Century (as to the manner of the entrance of the Good, see the essay in this book: The Meaning of Earth Existence in the Age of the Consciousness Soul).

Rudolf Steiner has made it clear that there is a considerable difference between his personal path (The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, or Freedom), and the path outlined in Knowledge of Higher Worlds.  In the latter we make our passage toward the spirit through the sense world [sense world < soul < A/d (i-AM)] , and in the former we enter directly into the spiritual world [(i-AM) L/d > soul > spiritual world], through a highly disciplined introspection.  In the practice of a scientific objective philosophical introspection, we begin already in the soul/spiritual world as an active spirit.    

Both the New Thinking and the New Mysteries are extraordinary treasures much needed by humanity.  Because of this reality, it becomes necessary to ask how well the Society and Movement are doing in bringing to incarnation the New Mysteries and the New Thinking, given that only a very few are actually seriously and successfully following the path of cognition (The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom) that Rudolf Steiner himself discovered and followed: [(i-AM) L/d > soul > spiritual world].  Does this mean something is being missed?

Here is Steiner on some of the differences between the two paths (indirectly through the sense world and directly through the soul/spiritual world), from near the end of the 5th Chapter of his book Occult Science: an outline:

The path that leads to sense-free thinking by way of the communications of spiritual science is thoroughly reliable and sure.  There is however another that is even more sure, and above all more exact [emphasis added]; at the same time, it is for many people more difficult.  The path in question is set forth in my books The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception and The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.  These books tell what man's thinking can achieve when directed not to impressions that come from the outer world of the physical sense but solely upon itself.  When this is so, we have within us no longer the kind of thinking that concerns itself merely with memories of the things of the sense; we have instead pure thinking which is like a being that has life within itself.  In the above mentioned books you will find nothing at all that is derived from the communications of spiritual  science.  They testify to the fact that pure thinking, working within itself alone, can throw light on the great questions of life - questions concerning the universe and man. The books thus occupy a significant intermediate position between knowledge of the sense-world and knowledge of the spiritual world.  What they offer is what thinking can attain when it rises above sense-observation, yet still holds back from entering upon the spiritual, supersensible research.  One who wholeheartedly pursues the train of thought indicated in these books is already in the spiritual world; only it makes itself known to him as a thought-world.  Whoever feels ready to enter upon this intermediate path of development will be taking a safe and sure road, and it will leave with him a feeling in regard to the higher world that will bear rich fruit in all time to come.

It is because of the practical understanding from experience, of this quality of surety and exactness in the thinking developed along the following of Steiner's own path, that I urge the reader (if they have not already) to renew their interest in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom.  Also, as a result of the practice of this discipline on the nature and quality of thinking, when I turn my attention as a spiritually oriented social scientist to the status, nature and structure of the Anthroposophical Society and Movement, certain difficulties become apparent.  Some of these observations enter into the work below.

All that said, this should be made clear.  While some of what is here can be interpreted (and will be by some) to be negative and against this or that, the fact is that what is in this book is not against anything.  It is for the truth about the history of the Society in the 20th Century.  It is for the truth about our real tasks as regards inner development.  It is for understanding the Love which surrounds us in earthly social existence.  It is for preserving Rudolf Steiner's true legacy.  It is for helping American anthroposophists find freedom of spirit in the soul.  It is for illuminating the Mystery of America.  And, mostly it is for moving the Anthroposophical Movement forward toward its real potential role as the serving-the-Thou source of the New Thinking and the New Mysteries so desperately needed by humanity.

Then, in being for and in serving, we are on our way to becoming one with the Good.

*         *         *

[readers of the previous edition of this work, which bore the title "Dangerous Anthroposophy", will by now have noted that there have been substantial changes.  These changes are due in no small part to the many thoughtful comments I received during the early stages of the publication of this book, such that I reconsidered a great deal of that material and made significant changes.  Because I am self-publishing this book (which is only printed when ordered on-demand), it was then possible to update the file and make many corrections.  I here want to thank those who were so generous with their observations of various weaknesses and excesses in the original text (and I am grateful for the many kind things that were said, as well).]

introduction

I must begin by confessing that I don't like the way that Dornach and the Councils in America model Anthroposophy (for the most part, the Central Regional Council in America is an exception, but seems not properly supported by the rest).   Don't like is of course a sign of antipathy, but not all antipathy is unredeemed, some comes from discernment.  Recently, in conversation with a friend (Tom Last) concerning observations of Rudolf Steiner in the lectures collected under the title: Awakening to Community, I came to understand that Steiner had seen that significant differences existed at that time and would continue among the members and friends, which led him to providing us with a metaphor to aid our understanding.  I have interpreted it to mean today that we should think of each other as sister souls, finding it necessary to travel different but parallel paths, hopefully toward the same end: the bringing alive for the future the New Mysteries and the New Thinking.

At the same time, I am confronted by a peculiar moral dilemma, one that was faced by Irina Gordienko, when she wrote her book: Sergei O. Prokofieff: Myth and Reality.  First, after carefully presenting her version of the same argument as above, concerning the significance of Steiner's science of knowledge (objective philosophical introspection), she said next in her Author's Forward:

"When a false or non-proven assertion appears in the scientific press, this is taken as a signal for the opening of a scientific debate, which continues until the matter is resolved, even if further research has to be carried out.  It is quite a different situation in the Anthroposophical media.  There one can write whatever one likes, provided no interests are put at risk and the familiar terminology is used.  Any attempt to criticize such printed assertions is condemned out of a false ethical principle: tolerance towards a person is confused with tolerance of his mistakes.  The ideal of brotherly love comes to mean little more than the maintaining of 'diplomatic relations' with ones neighbor, while remaining indifferent to his spiritual destiny.

"This is, in our opinion, by no means a sign of irresponsibility - this is only secondary - but is rather the expression of a materialism that is deeply rooted in the unconscious [the Shadow, see above and below, ed], inclining one to experience inter-personal relations in the present as absolutely real, while the working of the counter-forces which stand behind every lie is ignored or is at best passed off as an abstract theory, about which one can hold clever discussions, but which, as soon as one returns to the reality of life, will be forgotten. ' "An incorrect result of research in the spiritual world is a living being.  It is there; it must be resisted, it must first be eradicated" ' (22.10.1915, GA 254)" [emphasis added]

The consequence for me then is this: If I discern flaws (errors of thought) in the work of the Society and Movement, what is my obligation toward that work and toward those personalities who make such errors of thought?  This has been made all the more acute by the fact that during the period in which several people had opportunities to review the earlier version of this work, it was common to hear expressed some form of: Don't you think you need to treat in a more kind way, those who. in your opinion, have made errors of thought.

The consequence of such a "materialistic" (as suggested by Gordienko) approach is twofold: First, we collectively deny that Anthroposophy has anything to do with science - that is, there is no real meaning for us to exactness and rigor in the processes of cognition, and certainly not in holding each other to such standards.  And second, that we actually do each other a kindness by treating so politely each others statements that clash with our own understanding, particularly when such statements are publicized throughout our communities as the expression of those presumed authorities, who hold positions of trust in our institutional social forms (Dornach, the Councils in America and so forth).

When I first read this in Gordienko, I realized that she was emphasizing the Truth as the sole ideal, which is understandable given that she was a practicing mathematician.  I even wrote in that moment in the margin of my copy of her book this question: What about Beauty and Goodness?

It is my view that the latter ideals, in practice, do justify temperance with regard to how we treat each other when we find ourselves convinced of an error of thought living in the other.  In terms of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom, we enter here the realm of moral technique - that problem which follows after we have practiced moral imagination and moral intuition.  This comes down to: What do we actually say (or write or do - what is the moral art or our technique), when we are convinced our brother or sister in Anthroposophy is in error?

There is an aphorism from the Middle-East, as follows: There are three gates to speech: Is it true?  Is it necessary? And, is it kind?  Where below I have felt it necessary to concern myself with the errors of thought in others, I have tried to follow this advice.

Now suppose, for example, that I correctly discern that what is encouraged among the membership, by those in leadership positions, is a misleading (erroneous) path.  Suppose that the general direction of the Society, in how it understands and practices Anthroposophy, is weak, lame and mostly inadequate.  Suppose the practices that are encouraged cause us to miss our real tasks.  Suppose that the Society got so far off the track during the 20th Century that we are not even close to truly bringing alive the New Mysteries.

Let us pause for a moment and consider what I mean by the above term: lame.  In a nutshell it comes down to this: Those who do not know, cannot teach what they do not know.  If the vast majority of those in leading anthroposophical positions do not know what lives within the experience that comes from truly penetrating the meaning and significance for our inner life of a proper study of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom - of Rudolf Steiner's own Path (see essay far below), and, if in this sense they don't know, again as an experience, true and exact living thinking (the New Thinking), then they cannot teach that which can be learned in no other way.  Further, if they do not know that, then they logically also do not appreciate what the absence of that understanding will mean for their comprehension of the rest of what Steiner gave to us.

Let us repeat this last point, in a slightly different way.  Steiner's books on the science of objective philosophical introspection lead to an understanding of the inner life of the human being that cannot be obtained in any other way.  Certainly one can travel such paths without these books, but to acquire the near mathematical precision and exactness of introspective knowledge that Steiner himself developed through "...introspective observation following the methods of natural science", means something those who have not succeeded at this cannot imagine or understand.  There are considerable consequences to the thinking of any individual not self-trained in this fashion, which consequences will often lead to errors of thought.

Steiner gave us what he gave out of his having himself first achieved the goal he sets before us in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom and A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception.  These are not books about some matter that has nothing to do with Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science.  On the contrary, these books are the foundational heart and soul of everything Steiner later did in his life.  They are the Key to the Kingdom of the New Thinking.  In the absence of knowing the experiences to which these books point, we simply cannot truly and fully understand, or appreciate, all the rest.

That failure then lames (in different degrees) all our work since Steiner crossed over.  We stumble around in an inner darkness of soul, that only the science of objective introspective philosophy can illuminate.  We do not know ourselves as knowing doers, the first and essential goal of spiritual development which enables it to be scientific. [In the essays in this book, the details of these problems will be laid out from a number of directions and within a number of different contexts.]

Where this leads is to the necessity of our recognizing that the Shadow forces have been having their way with us (from inside our own souls, via the three-fold double-complex), while we've been trying to pretend that all the opposition only comes from the outside.  And, we also need to realize that this state of being is exactly where karma was meant to lead us - to a fallen condition.  Rudolf Steiner crossed over, the Vorstand fell into conflict, and the various National Societies took sides and split away from the General Anthroposophical Society.  Even though this split was healed in a kind of political way on the plane of social existence following the second Great War, it was not healed in a spiritual way.

Here is Ben-Aharon, from the forward to his book on the Second Coming, The Spiritual Event of the Twentieth Century: "...those forces of hindrance that brought about Rudolf Steiner's premature death in the first third came to an outward victory in the events of the twelve years 1933-45, both in the Anthroposophical Society and the world at large." [emphasis added]

Since this seemingly negative view is not being said by those who organize events, and run around the world giving lectures or writing big long books (none of which activities are socially permitted to be publicly and critically examined), it would appear that what I discern seems completely off the mark.  Everyone acts as if what we are doing is just fine, while over here in the corner, mostly ignored, Wendt (and others - such as Gordienko, and Ben-Aharon) are saying things like: Wait a minute guys, this is all wrong.  Isn't it really possible that we are failing our Teacher, we are failing humanity and we are failing Christ?

Couldn't be true, right?

Clearly people are trying to do the right thing.  Or so it seems, if we put the best face on it.  Most of our publications are self congratulatory, and my experience is that when you suggest they should be otherwise (critically honest and scientific), people get very defensive.   And, of course, Christ does forgive us; and our Teacher, well he joined his karma to ours, so that must mean something, must it not?  Then there is that famous near magical (and fantastic and probably false) semi-consciously shared mental picture of the Meaning of the Christmas Conference we all speak of as if in a dream, so we can't be all bad, can we?  As for humanity...well all kinds of folks are bringing their kids to Waldorf Schools - that must count for something, yes?

Lets try this. Imagine Rudolf Steiner in front of you and ask him if he thinks that its all peaches and cream in the Society and Movement, nothing is wrong, everything is perfect and there is no room for improvement.  If you really believe he will answer yes to this question, then don't buy or read this book.

If you know in your heart that he'll have to say no, its not all right, its not fine and somebody needs to wake up, then ask yourself: How do we know what next right thing to do is?  Maybe this book can provide some of the answers to that question, or if not that, then at least some better questions.

*       *       *

Let me end this part of the introduction by returning for a moment to an appreciation of what has been and is being done.  It is entirely possible and reasonable to look at almost everyone working in the Society and Movement and find a struggling and striving human being, often one full of a great heart, who gives and bears much (something one can find all over the world in many people, not just anthroposophists). 

For example, all we have to do is to think of the many Waldorf teachers, who work for so little for such long hours.  Everywhere in the Society and Movement we see much that justifies our confidence and trust.

Yet, we are also required to cultivate the ability to look at ourselves as a stranger (Knowledge of Higher Worlds).  Do we in the Society and Movement practice such objectivity about our own activities?  Part of the purpose of this book is to do just that.  I may completely fail in such an effort, but not for want of trying.

Let me conclude by adding two considerations to what I am certain are major matters of spiritual import that are not yet clearly seen by our leadership and therefore not brought as strongly as is necessary to our attention.  These are in addition to the errors that arise because so few have penetrated to the kind of self knowledge only possible through a proper study of the science of knowing (A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, and The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom).

The second matter (besides the above books), left in the dust heap of our confusions following the split in the Society, and what followed, in the 20th Century, was the Reverse Cultus.  It was not that this was presented to us by Steiner as an off hand remark, by the way.  It came about this way.  Almost immediately following the Burning of the Goetheanum, Steiner began giving a series of lectures (starting January 23rd, 1923) in Dornach and Stuttgart, which has been collected under the title Awakening to Community.

In Lecture VI, he takes up a significant subject, which he begins to approach by discussing the need for religious renewal that was to be met through the creation of the Christian Community.  He then paraphrases Dr. Rittelmeyer, who had recently said that the development of community in the Christian Community is potentially one of the greatest threats to the Anthroposophical Society possible.

Steiner then describes how a rite (and certainly this includes the Rite of Consecration of Man that is to be celebrated in the Christian Community) brings down into those present in the Rite (cultus) a spiritual presence: "a shared comprehensive memory of spiritual experiences". This, he goes on to say, is a powerful community building force.

Steiner then adds: "The Anthroposophical Society also needs just such a force to foster community within it".  He then elaborates the underlying spiritual principles that lead to the necessity for the Society to learn to enact a reverse cultus, in which spiritual presence does not descend via the Rite into the community, but the community learns instead to rise up to spiritual presence through a rite of its own, in the nature of its groups and their cultivated feeling life and qualities of conversation.

Now an honest (as of a stranger) appraisal of the Life of our Society reveals that in comparison with the community feelings one can sometimes experience in the Christian Community, the Society has not achieved the same level of fellow-feeling.  In fact, most of the goals Steiner set for us in his collection of letters written to the Society members in 1924, and published as The Life, Nature and Cultivation of Anthroposophy, have not been achieved.

As a place where one can find warm fellow-feeling, the Christian Community succeeds where the Society does not, and the danger to the Society predicted by Dr. Rittelmeyer almost a century ago has come to pass.  What is worse, in my view, is that the priests of the Christian Community, at least among their leadership, ought to have known this and apparently have done nothing about it.  In fact, it began to greatly disturb me about 10 years ago, when I found more and more people in the Society who had never heard of the reverse cultus or of this most crucial problem for the community life of the Society.

Now this error of thought (not recognizing the need for the reverse cultus) is in a very few places now being overcome (the Central Regional Council in American is trying, for example), but at the same time its significance has to be brought into the foreground over and over again, until we understand our loss, and our potential.

In addition to the loss of the reverse cultus, there is a further difficulty, one of which Steiner had warned of in so many places that I'll not bother to quote him.  This danger is the intellectualization of the Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence.

When Steiner wrote and lectured, Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence lived into the room.  Where he was, It was.  But once this Intelligence entered the minds of his readers and listeners, a difficulty was encountered over which Steiner had little control.  This Living Wisdom dies into words, and this death can only be overcome by the inner activity of the reader and listener.  We have to meet what he offered in the right way, and he spoke of this directly and indirectly over and over again.

If we look honestly back upon the work of the 20th Century in the Society and Movement and see how it is developed into its present form, we will not find this living Intelligence, but mostly its lifeless intellectualized corpse.  Anthroposophy (the Wisdom of Man, which discovers how to encounter and work with the Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence) has become in far too many souls mere Steinerism, a philosophy (world view) attributed to the authority of the Great Initiate and Genius, Rudolf Steiner.  Over and over again, in conversations with others (deep sincere people) and on Waldorf websites etc. one finds something similar to this form of expression (here taken from an actual Waldorf website): Anthroposophy is a spiritual philosophy that reflects and speaks to the basic deep spiritual questions of humanity, to our basic creative needs, to the need to relate to the world out of a scientific attitude of mind, and to the need to develop a relation to the world in complete freedom and based on completely individual judgments and decisions.

What could be wrong with this?  Well, its not true in a living way, although it is more or less intellectually (materialized) accurate.  The flesh has been stripped away, and all we have is the bones.  Recall now what Steiner wrote in the First Leading Thought:

"1. Anthroposophy is a path of cognition*, to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe.  It arises in man as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling; and it can be justified only inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner need. He alone can acknowledge Anthroposophy, who finds in it what he himself in his own inner life feels impelled to seek.  Hence only they can be anthroposophists who feel certain questions on the nature of man and the universe as an elemental need of life, just as one feels hunger and thirst."

*[generally this is translated as knowledge, but it appears that the better English word for the German is cognition.]

The two almost seem the same don't they?  But the fact is instead of quoting what Steiner himself wrote, the mind of the writer on the Waldorf website intellectualized the meanings, and lacking a connection to his own feelings on this matter, then subtly and thoughtlessly took away the heart of it, probably completely unconsciously and in connection with how the  corpse of this once Living Wisdom is taught among us today.

Like any error of thought, the whole misstep starts right at the beginning, where "Anthroposophy is a path of cognition..." becomes "Anthroposophy is a spiritual philosophy...".  Something that I do out of my will and feelings and needs (a path I walk), has become, as a consequence of the intellectualization, a mere point of view - something that I study in books and learn as a content (a spiritual philosophy).

The core difficulty is rooted in the absence of an appreciation in practice of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom.  For example, a scientific introspective life comes to recognize that there is a considerable difference among those activities of spirit that lead in the soul to such states as: belief, understanding and knowledge.   In the essay below: Anthroposophy and the Russian Soul: a view from the true West, I go into a number of details as regards this problem.

The consequence of this intellectualization of the once Living Michaelic Cosmic Wisdom has led to the displacement of the Living element of this stream of Wisdom, away from the Society and Movement (what Ben-Aharon, in his remarkable Imagination of the Second Coming: The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century, calls the conscious Michael Community to what Ben-Aharon calls there the unconscious Michael Community).   When I write in the essays below on such themes as Civil Society, the Hopi Prophecy and the Bioneers, it is this displacement to which I am referring.

The Anthroposophical Society and Movement, having lost a connection to The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom and the reverse cultus, failed to find their own way to the Living Spirit and thus to true Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence.  Since the movement among humanity of forces of the Living Spirit is not defeated by our failures, this wind or breath of [holy] spirit (see the Gospel of John) moved elsewhere.  Mainly