By: Caryl Johnston, November, 1996
A report in the "News from the Goetheanum" issue of May/June, 1994 (vol. 15, no.3) is an extraordinary document. In the essay that follows, I will comment on this report and link my findings to what I consider to be disturbing recent trends in the Anthroposophical Society.
I am writing this paper not to attack the Anthroposophical Society, nor any individuals in it personally. I consider Rudolf Steiner’s legacy to be a genuine gift to the Modern Age. When the deepened understanding of life made possible through a study of Anthroposophy is integrated into historical consciousness and a commitment to furthering what is valuable in our civilization, here indeed is a step forward, here indeed is progress. My concerns in this paper have to do almost solely with this historical consciousness and the nature of anthroposophical commitments to society at large. I believe that a failure to address these issues has made the Anthroposophical Society vulnerable and confused in its leadership -- unwilling or unable to recognize that the "End-of-the-Century" attack it has for so long anticipated may be reaching into Anthroposophy itself.
I have been a member of the Anthroposophical Society for twenty-two years. Throughout this period, the membership figures in the Society have not changed significantly. In the most recent issue of the Goetheanum News (Sept/Oct 1996) Manfred Schmidt-Brabant reports that world membership in this Society currently stands at 52,203. This figure was much the same 22 years ago -- then about fifty thousand world-wide members. Manfred Schmidt-Brabant then says: "We may ask, as so often, why is the Society growing so slowly?"
The following essay may be taken as one member’s effort to provide an answer to this question -- to ask whether there is anything that anthroposophists could do to improve this situation. At the Michaelmas Meeting of 1993, the former General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America remarked that "everywhere in the periphery we find ourselves in existential crises, largely in matters of financial support." Here is an honest statement of the problem. Whether it can be as honestly addressed remains to be seen.
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In 1993 there was a Michaelmas Meeting conducted at the Goetheanum in Dornach for members of the Anthroposophical Society. Summaries of this meeting and the discussion groups were published in the May/June, 1994, issue of the "News from the Goetheanum," the English-language newsheet published six times a year by the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland.
The summarizing article (10 pages) was signed by Theodore Van Vliet. People participating in the conference are rarely quoted in their actual words. Perhaps this indirect means of reporting conversations accounts for some of the stiltedness of expression, the frequent use of the passive tense and of the impersonal "one" -- ("It was felt that now one should be more reticent or careful in voicing critical remarks about Dornach," etc.)
Few anthroposophists seem willing to risk robust self-expression. There was one incident reported, when "One member left the room, slamming the door behind him." This moment of individual passion does not disturb the quiet drone of the authorial voice: "Reflections on this phenomenon followed." A phenomenon? One -- and I say -- "one would have liked to know" whether any of the other members of the session followed this apparently disgusted individual out of the room to give him comfort or to commiserate with him. If anyone did, it was certainly not mentioned, evidently out of a desire not to get too personal. For, as one member later remarked -- "Have we entered into the differentness of others? Our involvement in events hides this from us. We must remain silent to know where and with whom we are." (Anders Kumlander, General Secretary from Sweden)
According to this view, non-involvement is the key to relationship. This is certainly an unusual approach to take to human fellowship!
But, let us return to the door-slammer. It all began with "a hard statement of fact." The participants were discussing the abyss: facing the beasts in oneself. It began as follows: "A hard statement of fact reflecting the abyss opened the discussion: that we have clearly failed in our task of bringing Anthroposophy to a culmination in time for the end of the century." Here is the central problem, directly and admirably stated. "Will we have the strength to face the coming catastophes?" the writer asks. "Unbearable prospects for some; are we with such thoughts simply ‘shovelling humanity into its grave’?"
This was the moment in which the door-slammer chose to act. Of all the remarks -- in the simpering tediousness of this document -- this was the most honest. This was the response I would have most wanted to hear. I would like to know who he was and what happened after the door was slammed. In this document, only this person, and possibly Heinz Zimmermann, do not simper.
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The crippling weakness of anthroposophy as it has manifested in this century is that no forum or framework has been developed for the expression of legitimate doubt. But where legitimate doubt is suppressed, a kind of soul-mood of doubt and self-distrust infects everything.