I recommend this animated video of a talk by Matthew Taylor at the RSA.

This was sent to me as a New Year's gift.  "A seed is a very small thing." I have no idea who wrote it but it rings true.

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A seed is a very small thing.

You plant it, and in that secret place under the earth, if feeds from the soil, it breaks, and then a shoot comes up from the ground.

This small shoot seeks the light as it grows, and in time, it turns into a large tree. If you had not been told, you would not believe this tree came from such a small thing that once was hidden in the depths.

We cannot see what happens under the soil, because it is hidden from our eyes. Only the seed is present when the change happens. But eventually we see a tree, which cannot be ignored.

We do not consider the strength that resides within the seed because it is such a small thing. But we cannot ignore the tree.

This is an illustration of a certain belief that we fall into very easily, because it makes sense when we first think about it. It is the idea that our private lives should not matter to anyone but ourselves.

We look at our private lives as hidden from view, and we think they add no meaning whatsoever to the lives we live in public.

We say things like "whatever a man does in his private life is nobody's business."

Even more so, whatever a man thinks in his own head, in the deepest recesses of his mind, has little or no influence on the way that he behaves in public.

The truth is that those things which we do in private, even our thought life, matter more than anything else we do in life.

Because our private thoughts are like seeds.

They are planted in our heads. During that time, no one but we are able to

German readers may not realize that there is an indexed handbook by Christian Karl in PDF format (65MB) covering all Rudolf Steiner’s lectures and books. 

How many anthroposophical tenets can you identify, that the speaker Jeremy Rifkin seems to accept as fact, in this animated video from the Royal Society of Arts?

 In its tenth anniversary issue The Southern Cross Review has some beautiful poems by Hermann Hesse among other contributions that are worth a look.

Picture from Aberdeen PoF Study Group - see the report here.

Anthroposophical Leading Thought (4)

I would like to share these inspiring words from the author and poet, Ben Okri.
 
Mental Fight (selected extracts)
By Ben Okri

Some of you will have noticed that the Rudolf Steiner Archive is offline at the moment.  I have received the following explanation and request for support.

Please consider making a donation to the http://www.rsarchive.org/. The site is down, the server has been damaged by a power surge. James Stewart is struggling financially to replace it. If you live in the US donations are tax deductable. They can be sent to The e.Lib, Inc. P.O. Box 293 Fremont, MI 49412-0293 US or made through Paypal to The e.Lib. Thank you.

As a contribution to this festival day, I offer a reminder of the mighty task before us: to hold the wellbeing of the world (and its environment) within our self-aware activity. 
 
Mother Nature, your sustaining presence
I bear deep within my will               
And my will’s fiery vigour
Can temper my impulsive mind,                 
Evoking self-awareness  
To hold me wholly in me.
 
-- Rudolf Steiner, Calendar of the Soul: 26 (trans. JR)--end

I'm reading a recent book called "The Lucifer Effect" by Philip Zimbardo, who carried out a well-known experiment called the "Stanford Prison Experiment" in the early 1970s.  See  http://www.zimbardo.com/current.html for more details.  To quote from that site:

The Lucifer Effect raises a fundamental question about the nature of human nature: How is it possible for ordinary, average, even good people to become perpetrators of evil? In trying to understand unusual, weird or aberrant behavior, we often err in focusing exclusively on the inner determinants of genes, personality and character, as we also tend to ignore what may be the critical catalyst for behavior change in the external Situation or in the System that creates and maintains such situations.

After narrating his experiences during the running of the Stanford Prison Experiment, he spends a lot of time discussing its connection to other situations including the recent well-publicised Abu Ghraib prison abuses.

I find it interesting that this book reflects the perspective of an academic of long experience in experimental psychology with no interest in or familarity with Anthroposophy - he seems familiar with mainstream Christian and English literature, twentieth century existentialism etc. but if you look at the index you will find no reference to Jung or Freud, let alone Steiner or Goethe.  Literary quotes are usually taken from John Milton (of all people), Dante or twentieth century authors.  Yet I think he comes to a very similar standpoint to Steiner in the Philosophy of Freedom - that both external and internal determinants make us unfree, make us "evil" or potentially "evil".  And it may be that someone who appears "good" could just as well become "evil" if the right external conditions were brought to bear.

Again, Friedrich Nietzsche, who had so much to say on the topic of so-called Good and Evil, and whose spiritual striving Steiner felt so close to in one sense (see for example "Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom" http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA005/English/GC1985/GA005_index.html for more details), is not even mentioned.  But I believe I can almost hear things in line with something of the spirit of Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil", for example, in some of what is said in the Zimbardo book.

I haven't finished the book properly yet (it's quite long) but Zimbardo does finish on a positive note that again seems to be to be in fundamental agreement with the tone of all of Steiner's work and especially the Philosophy of Freedom - the last chapter is entitled "Resisting Situational Influences and Celebrating Heroism".  And I think Nietzsche's Zarathustra might breath a sigh of relief also that others are striving towards his mountaintop.

Again, all this leads me to think along with others here on this website that it is the Philosophy of Freedom that is still the most contemporary of Steiner's works.  While personally I find all of Steiner's works wonderful, I can understand that someone like Prof. Zimbardo, with all of his own gathered wisdom and life experience and with his prominent position in the mainstream psychological community, would be unlikely to find much of interest in "Occult Science", for example, let alone be able to make reference to it in a work like "The Lucifer Effect" (despite the remarkable synchronicity of the title!).  --end

Tim recently posted this extract from Occult Science – an Outline: Chapter 1.

In the spirit and true sense of the word, no real scientist will be able to find a contradiction between his science built upon the facts of the sense world and the method by which the supersensible world is investigated. The scientist makes use of certain instruments and methods. He produces his instruments by transforming what “nature” offers him. The supersensible method of knowledge also makes use of an instrument. This instrument is man himself. This instrument, too, must first be made ready for higher research. The capacities and forces given to man by nature, without his assistance, must be transformed into higher capacities and powers. Man is thereby able to make himself the instrument for research in the supersensible world.

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA013/English/AP1972/GA013_c01.html

I have come to ‘know’ Rudolf Steiner from reading his writings and lectures that have been translated into English. I have never met him face to face although I have seen photographs. He died before I was born. Do I really have any knowledge of the good doctor?

How can we best communicate spiritual truths? 

Another new conversation group has been inaugurated on the PoF website: Anthroposophia.

Subscribers to this group may be interested in the new new conversation group on this site on the Foundation Stone Meditation.

When we see artistic expressions of the Archangel Michael, we are reminded in so many ways that here be dragons.

There are many ways in which we participate in world events, both actively and passively.

I found two articles that I am sure will interest students of living thinking.

On being a teacher...

John and Carl have started an interesting discussion on the nature of movement, is it only an illusion, or are objects really in motion as they appear to be.  Here are some thoughts on movemen

The latest online issue of Southern Cross Review includes 2 lectures by Rudolf Steiner on The Meaning of Life.

A contribution of thoughts about conversation and society.  This was prompted by a comparison of conversation with the economic life and specifically thinking of conversation as a kind of flow of currency.

Working with a broad definition of an anthroposophist I have found the Traditional anthroposophist who is more concerned with the traditions of the Anthroposophical Society as an institution and Progressive anthroposophists who are more concerned with anthroposophy today and how it relates to the present world.

Steiner is often quoted as saying that eurythmy is a child of anthroposophy. What are the implications of this idea today?

I have been reading on the site lately some attempts at providing a definition of the term 'anthroposophist'.