Dear Friends in Anthroposophy,

It is with some reluctance that I take up this next task, and were it not for the love I feel for Rudolf Steiner and his legacy, I’d not bother.  His work was meant for modern humanity, and the clear fact is that the activities of the General Anthroposophical Society in the 20th Century failed to deliver on that promise.  Steiner’s The Philosophy of Freedom is still unknown in the modern University (and among the members and friends as a followed practice).   Goethean Science is not recognized even by the Goethe Institute, nor widely studied in the Anthroposophical Society.   And, the membership, in terms of numbers, remains tragically small and stagnant.

The problem - such as there can be described a problem - is that the impulse to Anthroposophy is still incarnating.   It is “in process”, and we mis-conceive this impulse if we think that with Steiner the whole “process” was brought to a state of finish.  Others must participate in this work which from the beginning was to require centuries to unfold (Steiner said something on the order of 400 years).

During the Season of Michaelmas, I spent a lot of time workinig through several intersting inner pathways related to PoF, about which I wrote essays.

recently I thought I read here some quotation or reference to Steiner himself commenting upon the difficulty he had being able to speak out of the consciousness soul.  He was "forced" (?) to mostly speak to the intellectual soul (or some such idea).  Can anyone reading this provide a quote and a reference to where he said  this?

thanks,
joel

The last sentence of the original Preface to Steiner's The Philosophy of Freedom (or Spiritual Activity), reads: One must be able to confront an idea and experience it; otherwise one will fall into its bondage.

There are, in general, two different kinds of biographical circumstances where one is presented with moral choices: 1) situational - that is karmic and destiny related - the question seeks us, we do not seek the question - it (the question) is part of the necessary given of our lives; and, 2) proactive - we seek to act upon the world in a situationally free way - that is we are not reacting to something that has come toward us through the unfolding of the biography, but choose an ideal as a direction or purpose to the unfolding of the biography.

Examples of the first kind are easy: someone makes change and gives us too much; a co-worker lies to our boss and puts the mutual work at risk; we are attracted to someone outside of the already committed personal relationships etc. etc. etc.

The second was best exemplified in the film Pay it Forward.  There one was to seek out people with certain clear needs for help, and seek to help them regardless of our own personal risk.   There were important details in the film and it is quite instructional to rewatch or watch it for the first time if you've never seen it.

In either case, there arises the opportunity for the engendering, through our own thinking activity, a moral idea or ideal.  What then is our relationship to this idea or ideal in either or both of the above cases (situational or proactive)? 

We should keep in mind that

dear whomever (not about PoF, directly),

it is my good fortune to know someone who actually understands the deepest aspects of the current economic crisis ... his "news" is not particularly good, given that we live so strongly in an economic illusion, but the word is slowly going out and at some point ordinary citizens may be able to act so as to cause a reform of public life, such that the government actually does the right thing ...

I've just recently published, at lulu.com an on-demand Internet publisher, the book: "American Anthroposophy: a celebration of the American Soul's unique ability to contribute to the future of Anthroposophy and to the future of world culture"

Below you will find a copy of the contents page so that you can have a hint of what is sought to be accomplished with this book.

You can buy the book by going to: http://www.lulu.com/content/1951922

You can view all my on-line books by going to: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=775446

You can read American Anthroposophy for free by going to:http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/AmericanAnthroposophy.html

My website, Shapes in the Fire, is here: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit .  Most of the books on lulu.com can be read for free on my website.

Joel A. Wendt

Here is the contents page of American Anthroposophy:....