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

An interesting essay on Anthroposophical and Transpersonal Worldviews by Robert McDermott is available in the latest Southern Cross Review. 

Robert writes:

“I am often accused by my East Coast friends of having “gone Californian,” and by my San Francisco Bay Area friends of being still “very East Coast.” Neither characterization is intended as a compliment. Reference points for New York academic life tend to be the canonical tradition from Socrates to Godimer whereas comparable reference points for the Bay Area transpersonal community tend to be Asian spiritual teachers; meditation techniques; goddess, shamanic and Jungian symbols; astrological archetypes and Enneagram points. When I appear to my East Coast friends as too Californian, it is because of my delight in the varieties of spirit manifest in transpersonal psychologists and artists, in the eighty dharma centers in the Bay Area, sacred medicine researchers, teachers of biography, eco-feminists, multi-traditional mystics, organizational experts, and astrologers. Anthroposophy is not ordinarily listed in such a catalogue, and there are excellent reasons why it should not be, as well as reasons why it should be hence this essay." more...

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'.