The Haunting of the United States of America   What lies beneath the surface, to which the Trump Event attaches itself. 

 Considerations of the Trump Event.

This is my last contribution to the Life of the Anthroposophical Society: Breathing Lessons. It contains some remarks I wrote with respect to an explanatory request following my announcement at the end of the Section meeting below, when I explained that I was leaving the Section and the Society, during the morning meeting at the Section Conference: Finding Hope in Dark Times: an exploration of Human Connection.  This did not work for me, so I wrote Breathing Lessons, and also, as promised in my last remarks, this afternoon, July 6th, in the Spirit of '76, I burned my pink and blue cards in a ceremony on my deck.  The ashes will be added to some potting soil I am using for my Bonsai-like  efforts in making visible certain artistic work using plants, soil, and related found objects, all born in an labor intended to honor the Beings living behind/within sensible Nature, known elsewhere as the Kingdom of Faerie, or the Underworld. I find connecting to them far easier than connecting to the many anthroposophists held in tragic and addictive bondage to Steiner-said.  Nature Beings are far better listeners, and entirely less likely to argue, as long as there is mutual respect.  See also my work: the Grandmother Tree.  

Handout given to the Social Science Section meeting, in late June of 2015, in Shelburne Vt.  Includes a link to the material indicated here (in the handout): “By the way, if the Society genuinely wants money, I know how to get it.”

Sacramental Thinking: this  is a book which contains seven of my essays on thinking, and its various ways and means.  It appears here in the original form as elsewhere on my website, with the original art and active links.  The order of the essays is from latest to first.  The printed book (available here at the cost of printing) does not contain the art or the active links.  The same with the ebook form, which is available for free here.

I Am Not My Brain - the map is not the territory  a consideration of the logical problems in biology, regarding studies of the brain, and whether these studies justify the ideas: that consciousness is rooted in the brain; that the human being may not have a real self; and, that the human being may have no free will. 

Anarchy, Social Chaos, and Revolutionary Transformation, within and about the Anthroposophical Society  A look at some contemporary goings on in the Anthroposophical Society, from a critical and humorous point of view.

the Culmination: a participated rite of passage (or: The Mission of the Anthroposophical Society in the Third Millennium)

Letters to some Friends:   a collection of e-mail letters to a few members and friends of the Anthroposophical Society, from a confessing Platonist about the Aristotelian thinking-limits dominating the Society.

waltzing and weeping by the rivers of the holy grail - new research on the open secrets of the Holy Grail.

All In - (about a very personal journey to the 2013 AGM and Youth Section meetings of the Anthroposophical Society and School of Spiritual Science, in and near Keene NH)

The Spiritual Scientific Import of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

Learning to Perceive the American Soul -  a look at some differences between the Soul-Center and the Soul-West, including the archetypal Myth of the Americas: the Western.  (from an essasy written in 2010).

PDF document copy of the above essay and the William Bento Review of my book American Anthroposophy.

Ahriman: 2012 - a look at the social phenomena of this particular time in relationship to Ahriman's ongoing incarnation (an essay being submitted to the Social Science Section Newsletter in America, for their Fall 2011 - Michaelmas - edition)

Outrageous Genius: In my American Anthroposophy I wrote a long essay on Ahriman's in the present incarnation - naming him.  To make it easier for readers to view that, without going to the book, I've made this stand-alone copy of that work.

***Shapes in the Fire: an essay sent to the Life of Rights Conference sponsored by the Social Science Section, mid-summer 2011.

***The Conscious Death, and the Resurrection, of the General Anthroposophical Society.  material in support of a rebirth of the Anthroposophical Society should the members and friends have an interest.

***/**Bitter Medicine: saving Anthroposophy: from the anthroposophical society and movement.  An essay on the fundamental nature of Anthroposophy as a response to the problem of knowledge, which is the common-to-all spiritual/psychological fault line of our Age.

The Reverse Cultus: an imagination.

A commentary on Scott E. Hicks' remarkable essay: Spiritual Beings Dwell in the Ground of Propositions: Brentano, Husserl, and Steiner on the content of thought.

**A book review of Prokofieff's Anthroposphy and The Philosophy of Freedom - he doesn't know the book The Philosophy of Freedom, although he does have a mostly incorrect theory of it.   That and related problems are discussed in this book review.

**A well intended* very flawed Book: From Gondhishapur to Silicon Valley - Spiritual Forces in the development of computers and the future of technology - written by Paul Emberson (*you know, the intentions the way to hell is paved with).   Borderlands - the Journal of Borderland Science, or as it styles itself today: The Crossroads of Science & Spirit, recently decided to publish in full an essay I sent to them anonymously almost twenty years ago: There is No Free Energy: http://borderlandresearch.com/there-is-no-free-energy  This essay is a fundamental examination of certain questions regarding the nature of electrical phenomena in a manner outside of Emberson's experience.  

**What is American Anthroposophy? (Michaelmas 2005) - an essay that was originally written specifically for the European magazine Info3.  [the correspondent who was to introduce this work to Info3 was unable to complete his mission]  Since this never happened, it has been expanded and adapted for a wider audience.  The impulse for this was that Rudolf Steiner had said that Americans had an original form of Anthroposophy, and that we should look to Emerson to appreciate it.  This essay considers not only what social phenomena reveal the nature of this "natural" Anthroposphy, but also many of its heretofore unsuspected dimensions.  [It is currently under  construction.]

**American Culture - a first look.  A examination of the relationship between Western Civilization (which is dying), the emerging new civilization (which is American), and the understanding of human evolution within Spiritual Science.

**Waldorf Charter Schools in America: some social observations - an essay about some characteristics of the American Soul that explain why Waldorf Charter Schools are a sound anthroposophical impulse.

**The Social -Spiritual Organism of a Waldorf School Community: - (spring 1999) an essay asked for by a Waldorf Parent after I mentioned some ideas of mine in conversation. This essay explores the role of a vital parent body in the Waldorf social organism.

**The Law and the Spirit - (fall 2004) some remarks in support of our considerations of the issues of the amicus brief, the problem of opposing defamation, and the constitutional question - an essay concerning the Summer 2004 Newsletter of the Anthroposophical Society in America about legal matters before the Society.

**Listening to the World Song: (the original, summer-fall 1999) a report on the Experience of an Idea: the general social realities of modern humanity.

**Waking the Sleeping Giant: the Mission of Anthroposophy in America : The above essay considers the general social conditions of modern times, and the relationship of the Mystery of America to these conditions.

The Future of Anthroposophy in the 21st Century (the week before Christmas 2006) - Concerns missing, but significantly needed, elements of the spiritual background of America, that anthroposophists very much need to practice and to understand - matters embedded deeply in the reality of the spiritual/social present.

**The least read, most important book, Steiner ever wrote" (spring 2005) An essay about the significance of the book A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception.

**Concerning the Renewal of Anthroposophy - rediscovering the true meaning of the New Mysterys: an essay on the significance of the Philosophy of Freedom and the Reverse Cultus, as a means for bring alive the New Mysteries in the Group and Branch work.  This essay, and the one next below on the Law, were given away free at the Annual General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society, in Detroit in 2004.

**pragmatic moral psychology: an early look at my own practice, from 1997

**The Three Wishes: written out of and somewhat about the Ann Arbor Conference of 2005.(winter-spring 1998) an essay on moral inner development submitted to the Journal for Anthroposophy in May of 1997 (along with a bit of verse - Speech ); no reply was been received.

**Listening to the World Song (part one) A brief Application of the Principles of Goetheanistic Thinking to the Problems of Human Social and Political Existence; and, Listening to the World Song (part two) Macro and micro aspects of the Mystery of Evil in Modern Times, as these play themselves out in the social-political organism of humanity (spring 2005)

The True Foundations for the New (living) Thinking and the New Mysteries (mid-summer, 2007) A discussion of such matters as the intellectualization of Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence in the Anthroposophical Society during the 20th Century.

**Wendt on Usher on Prokofieff on Tomberg on Steiner: a little piece written for the News for Members in 2005.  Didn't expect them to print it.  [egads! they did - without telling me of course, and then they followed it up with an intensely polemical response by Usher - about which they also did not tell me - ohmygod, sandbagged by the News for Members!?!  Are we surprised?]

**Open Letter to the Anthroposophical Society, in America, as well as the World: about the need to change from a third epoch hierarchical social form, to a fifth epoch (modern) social form.

Guest Writer: Stephen Clarke - up close and personal.  The deepest essays on the Mysteries of the Americas that I know.

**Die and Become: the future of Anthroposophy in America: an essay offering some insight to the American Anthroposophical Society concerning its current concerns over leadership change processes.

**Initiation, Goetheanism and the New Bogeyman: an essay on the importance of developing a goetheanistic social understanding in order for the anthroposophical impulse to be fully incarnated in the social world.

**The World in the Light of the Human "I am":   an essay, originally written for the Journal Trans-Intelligence Internationalle, but which was rightly rejected owing to this Journal's wish to remain outside arguments internal to the anthroposophical movement.  The theme of the essay concerns an expansion of an idea in Listening to the World Song, concerning the problem of "how" anthroposophically inspired  material should be presented to the wider world.

**Anthroposophy in the Light of America: - what the American Soul needs from the Anthroposophical Movement. Some notes and recollections of a talk I gave on the shadow side of the Anthroposophical Movement and the Mystery of America.

**scenes from the eye of the heart: a meditation on: - Dan Dugan, PLANS, Waldorf Education, and the battle for the future of the soul.

**Threshold Problems in Thinking the Threefold Social Order : an essay on my initial investigations on how to "think" the threefold social order - which ultimately lead to an attempt to approach social investigation in a "goethean" manner. Some results of that work - after a few years practice, are part of the next essay. The above was submitted to both the Journal for Anthroposophy and the Threefold Review, in 1992, with no reply (other than an acknowledgment of receipt from the latter).

**On the Practice of Communicating the Ideal to the American Soul : an essay on the dis-harmonious relationship between the Central European Soul and the American Soul in anthroposophical work in America, and what might be done about it. Submitted to the Newsletter of the Anthroposophical Society in America, just recently. Rejected 8/5/97, for being too long, which I suppose means the Newsletter will no longer publish multi part articles.

Guest Essay: Work on what has been spoiled: It is the fall of 1915, and some members of the anthroposophical society are expelled. The problem of "sex" is raised. In this deep and warm essay Catherine MacCoun examines these events and discovers remarkable meaning, for our time, in this unusual event. (This essay became the object of much controversy, because of its views of Rudolf Steiner.  The most aggressive critic was offered an opportunity to place his criticism along side the essay on my website, but did not take up this offer.  Even so, the reader should realize that some individuals find this essay to contain a very incorrect assessment of Dr. Steiner's character.)

Response to Guest Essay, received in June 2005 - this response, received 7 years after the fact, nonetheless is cogent enough to be added here.  Although, nothing written in this response, by John Stirling Walker, is by my placing it here to be seen to have my approval or disapproval.

**Outlaw Anthroposophy - the journal: This is the original journal passed out at the Ann Arbor conference in the summer of 1997. Two essays: The Study of Rudolf Steiners Lecture Cycles and the Problem of Cognition: musings on the epistemological swampland of the Anthroposophical Movement; and The Anthroposophical Society: is it a living social form?; as well as, a Readers Poll asking the 25 questions you have always wanted to be asked about the anthroposophical movement.  These two essays were later translated into German by Lorenzo Ravagli, at his request, and published in the journal: Jahrbuck fur anthroposophische Kritick 1998.  The Lecture Cycle essay concerns a specific problem, namely whether the reading of a text is knowledge, in the senses of the epistemology (science of knowing) upon which Anthroposophy is founded.  My conclusion is that, in general, reading is not "knowledge", from which certain conclusions, about whether Anthroposophy in any way "lives" in Study Groups, follow. The social form essay concerns the obvious, and in concluding that the Society is not "living", explores how that has come to be.