Beyond Our Borders

A presentation by Jonathan Stedall at the anthroposophical conference in Ann Arbor, USA, August 10th 2012

The Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, was asked once where he would want to be at the end of the world. His reply was ‘England’. Why England? ‘Because England,’ he said, ‘is always fifty years behind the times!’

I’m going to tell you why I don’t think this is always the case. But firstly, for me, Shaw’s remark prompts the question: What is the true nature of the times we live in? What’s really going on?

On the surface it seems that economics—money— is what increasingly dominates the headlines. We are constantly encouraged to consume more, to be more productive. Yet on the other hand a different set of experts warn us that we are raping the planet in the process, and that this rush to get richer materially—as rich as America—is unsustainable. Like all of you, however, I am interested in what is really trying to happen behind the scenes—to evolve—as we plough on into the 21st century, driven at one level it seems by those two demons ‘fear’ and ‘greed’ that haunt not only the Stock Market but also the minds of ordinary men and women.

Wealth and power, underpinned by a technology that has its own hidden and sinister agenda. Is this the true signature of the times we live in, or is there another scenario at work that points to a saner future?

England—and Great Britain altogether—has long been delegated in the ‘tough guy’ stakes. We are no longer a world power, either economically or militarily—nor therefore politically.

And in all these areas even America is now being ‘threatened,’ as they say, by China and other emerging economies. But is this such a tragedy? Does it have to be a humiliation? Or could it be an opportunity and a challenge to discover new tasks for the future, rather than mourning past glories—tasks related to this other scenario that I mentioned?

You have chosen as a theme for this conference: ‘Meeting our spiritual destinies in America.’ As an Englishman I cannot speak for America, but what I am going to try and convey about England’s tasks and destiny in this respect—and why I think that England is in some respects ‘fifty years ahead of the times’—also applies to aspects of America that I have experienced and admired over the years.

There’s a collection of essays and talks by the German scholar, Walter Johannes Stein, collected together under the title The Psychology of the British. Stein was a teacher at the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, and made his home in Britain for the last twenty years of his life. Although well aware of our shortcomings, he was very appreciative of what lives in the English folk soul. And he concludes his final essay by suggesting that one of the main tasks of the English in the future —a task that has nothing to do with Empire, or power in the economic or military sense, is to help ‘to make things human.’ And for me, if I had to sum up the greatest danger facing us today, it is the subtle—and sometimes not so subtle—erosion of our humanity.

Already in the 19th century here in America, Emerson foresaw that danger and coined the phrase ‘self reliance’—not the self reliance that encourages and even justifies a culture of ‘every man for himself,’ but rather as a reminder of what is the potential in all of us to become what Steiner—some forty years later—described as ‘a selfless self.’ In this respect I have sometimes thought that we shouldn’t speak of ourselves as ‘human beings,’ but rather as ‘human becomings.’

It is in this spirit of trying to make things human that I have tried to create my film about Rudolf Steiner’s life and legacy. From the outset I have, of course, been very aware of the difficulty of doing justice to such an enormously important subject; aware, too, of the danger of superficiality, and of conveying misleading and even inaccurate statements, as well as inadequate examples of anthroposophy in action.

In fact I did make one small mistake in the original version of the film that I have since corrected. At the time I was comforted by a friend who told me about a tradition in Persian carpet-making whereby there is always a deliberate mistake woven into each new carpet—because only God can be perfect.

Despite the correction, my film is nevertheless still far from perfect; but it is full of examples of people trying—each in their own way—to make things human, whether in classrooms, on farms—indeed in every area of human activity and culture.

For me humour is an essential ingredient in this task of creating a world in which our true humanity can unfold. And of particular importance, I feel, is our ability and willingness to laugh at what we hold most dear. Here in America you’ve had many such geniuses to help us do just that—Mark Twain being perhaps the greatest. In England in recent years there’s been Monty Python, and now—though not to everyone’s taste—Sacha Baron Cohen, most recently as the Dictator. Mr. Bean, in the person of Rowan Atkinson, made a memorable and hilarious contribution to the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. The whole event may not have been as spectacular as the ceremony in Beijing four years ago, but it was full of humanity and eccentricity.

Humour, together with a certain irreverence towards icons, helps us, I believe, to keep a sense of proportion—a sense of our own inadequacies and shortcomings when confronting the great mysteries of life. Fantasy, as well as humour, is a gift that the British seem to have in profusion—enriched, I sense, by the Celtic stream in our make-up. And fantasy is, and will be, a powerful and important weapon in the battle against Ahriman’s dry, logical and clinical bias.

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows, A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, C.S. Lewis’ tales of Narnia, and more recently J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter—these are some examples of the genius that helps to make things human; and England, thank heavens, continues to enrich our world with stories that make no ‘sense,’ but in fact say a great deal. Someone once said: ‘Myth is a fiction that gives us the truth.’

I remember years ago hearing a talk in Dornach by the distinguished biologist, Hermann Poppelbaum, on the subject of elemental beings; and in particular I remember his mention of the gift that these beings can give to us in return for our recognition and appreciation of their existence. It was the gift of fantasy.

And certainly there are many people in Britain, as elsewhere, who—despite the materialistic culture that surrounds them—still recognise, albeit unconsciously, the miracle that lives in what we call nature; and who recognise, too, that the extent to which we honour that miracle, so will we be helped not only to understand once again the wisdom that is hidden in fairy tales and in the great legends of the past, but also helped to go on creating them. Fantasy and humour. We need them, I believe, more than ever.

‘A lightness of touch’ is another way of describing how to reach people with profound truths without always bombarding them with too many abstract thoughts and ideas that can easily leave them floundering and quickly out of their depths. One scene in my film—and I’m going to show you several during this talk—is a wonderfully light-hearted introduction to biodynamics by Chris Benziger at his family’s winery in California—cued in by a passionate statement from Dennis Klocek:

Dennis Klocek: "For me what is unique about the work of Rudolf Steiner, what’s inspired my life about it, is that it’s not just a tradition; he threw down the glove and said—‘You have to do something with this.’

Commentary: "The Benziger family have been doing something with this land for over 30 years. Biodynamic wine is becoming highly prized, not just here in California but across the world; and like all biodynamic farms this enterprise avoids the modern trend for mono-crops. Alongside the vines there are animals and a great variety of plants and herbs that help regulate the insect population and balance the farm as a totality, avoiding the need for chemicals and artificial fertilizers. They call it the insectary."

Chris Benziger: "Basically it propagates with bugs, then they sort it out. We have some good bugs and some bad bugs and they slug it out here, and hopefully what we do is we have a balance. The bugs are in here eating the plants and eating each other instead of going out there eating the grapevines; because if we were mono-cropping then we’d put a huge bull’s-eye on the back of that grapevine, cos the only thing that’s green is that grapevine, so every bug is going to fly and eat that. Here we have a wide expanse, so there’s a lot of things on the menu, not just the grapevines."

In my discussions with Torin Finser about this presentation, he asked me to bear in mind the theme of ‘collaboration,’ and also to speak about what I learned, in making the film, about the strengths and the weaknesses of the anthroposophical movement, and the challenges it faces. Connected to this is the question of the relationship of the Society to the movement.

Probably the most challenging contribution in the film to this whole debate—the health of anthroposophy in the world at large—came from an Englishman, Fraser Watts—an academic at Cambridge, a Reader in Science and Religion, and a priest in the Church of England. At one point in the interview I asked him why Steiner isn’t better known:

Revd Dr. Fraser Watts: "It’s an interesting question why Steiner isn’t better known. I think there are various reasons. There’s something off-putting about his writings, I think that that has to be said.

Jonathan: What, the style you mean?

Revd Dr. Fraser Watts:

"Yes, style and content I think; and also something off-putting about the Society, the kind of following that he has sometimes built up around him which can look rather too cult-like from the outside. Not at all what he wanted, I think, but it can look like that."

I spoke on this same theme to a young American, Joseph Papas—the baker at Camphill Copake. I asked him whether he thought that Camphill communities like Copake had tended to isolate themselves from the world at large, and whether Steiner’s legacy had altogether become too inward-looking, too cult-like:

Joseph Papas: "I guess it can be, though I don’t know that it’s specific to his legacy as such. I think that that isolation tends to happen with any sort of content that comes into the world, and I certainly wouldn’t ever say it was his intention. But yeah, you know I can say it seems in the biography of this community that there was a time in the growth of the community that it seemed really important that it more or less separated off a little bit in order to grow and to become strong—and then maybe that also can be reflected in the individual as an inner process as one comes to terms with oneself—but certainly I feel like in this community, but also in this region, there’s a lot of feeling that we’re now at the point where we need to grow a bit beyond our borders."

‘Beyond our borders.’ What is the nature, the purpose of a border? It’s a question imaginatively addressed by Robert Frost in his poem ‘Mending Wall’. A remark by Frost’s neighbor—‘Good fences make good neighbors’—is the poem’s refrain. But then Frost asks himself—‘What was I walling in or walling out?’ ….

‘Something there is that doesn’t like a wall,’ he writes—‘That wants it down.’

I’ve had a long connection, both as a film-maker and as a friend, with Camphill—particularly in Britain. I made my first films there in 1967—one at the original school in Aberdeen, and one at Botton Village in Yorkshire, the first Camphill community for adults.

Certainly in those early years the isolation—the wall—seemed justified for the reasons that Joseph Papas said in that clip. And Joseph very perceptively draws a parallel with the journey of the individual—often a period of introspection before going out into the world with gifts and skills to offer, and thereby to be of service to others.

In recent years there’s been quite an upheaval in many of the Camphill communities in Britain. In part this can be seen as caused by increasingly unhelpful pressures and directives from the authorities that finance such places—authorities with a mindset that is often very much at odds with what lives as ideals in anthroposophically-inspired initiatives like Camphill.

But I think that the problem cannot always be blamed on ‘the big bad world.’ If the ideals we live with are not constantly nurtured and renewed, giving us the strength, confidence and credibility to move beyond those borders and out into the world at large, a certain conformity can set in—the downside of what we call tradition—and alongside that conformity a vacuum is created. And if not enough effort for renewal is made, then other forces will rapidly move in to fill that vacuum—forces that have quite another agenda. I’ve seen this happening in several anthroposophical institutions—and indeed, in Britain, in the Society establishment itself.

And this renewal has to come, I believe, not just from simply studying Steiner’s writings more diligently and in greater detail, but having the courage to be more creative, more adventurous ourselves— however small and humble our initiatives may be. And this will often mean taking a far greater interest than is often the case in developments generally—developments that are often extremely positive. People may not always use our language, may not be particularly interested in whether we’ve lived on earth many times before, but they do care passionately about living on the earth now, and in a way that is healthier and wiser than in the recent past.

Nor is it helpful in all this if an orthodoxy is established, either in Dornach or elsewhere, that says what is kosher and what is not. Of course the integrity of Steiner’s legacy has to be protected; but let’s not forget his courage to swim against the tide.

In the Postscript to my film this challenge to move on is powerfully addressed by both Fraser Watts, the academic from Cambridge, and by Arthur Zajonc:

Prof. Arthur Zajonc: "One often tries to imagine what would Steiner’s life and hopes be like today, or in the near future. Imagine him returning, reincarnating, if you will. Would he acknowledge the Society he created or would he have something very different in mind? You know I think there are a couple of ways of coming at the question. One is to say: To whom was Steiner directing his hopes, his aspirations, his efforts? And it was to humanity, it was not to a small community of anthroposophists. You know when he started the Waldorf Schools he did not start them for a few tens of thousands of students, which is what we have now, he had an idea and a vision of the effects of his interventions in education as affecting every child. So there are 45 million school children in the United States; we’ve got a hundred Waldorf schools, say each of them has 300 students; so you’ve got 30,000 students—and you have 45 million other students. So it was never meant to be an enclosed community of practise or of belief, or anything of that sort; it was meant to be a way of envisioning and understanding the world oneself that was to have the broadest possible impact—an impact that would help human beings generally."

Revd Dr. Fraser Watts: "I suppose the challenge with Steiner is to find ways of bringing what I think is his remarkable contribution more into mainstream life. He’s very largely neglected in academic circles and I can understand the reasons for that, but I still think he’s a very interesting and important thinker and I’d like to find ways in which he could be brought more into academic study. I’d also like to see ways in which his practical initiatives can become integrated into the ordinary fabric of society more than they have been. I mean he has been rather too much a kind of specialist, almost cult figure for a small minority; but there’s nothing new about this. I think in many ways that was a problem that he faced in his own lifetime, and he was almost 40 before he found any significant audience for the things he wanted to say. And there were always problems, I think, in finding an appropriate audience; and the audience he did find, largely growing out of the Theosophical Society, were perhaps looking for slightly different things than he wanted to give. I think there was always something of a tension there."

Jonathan Stedall: What were they looking for?

Revd Dr. Fraser Watts: "I think those early members of the theosophical society were looking for a wisdom teacher who would tell them how things were; and Steiner could do that, but he was also someone who developed this philosophy of freedom, philosophy of spiritual activity, and as he so often emphasized didn’t want people to accept things simply because he told them they were so, but wanted them to explore things for themselves, to find their own path. So I think there was quite a disjunction between the kind of great leader that his followers were looking for and the kind of leader that he wanted to be—a very non-authoritarian leader, I think, is what he believed in being. That’s what he thought was appropriate for the modern times in which he was living. I think there may have been sometimes a slightly controlling aspect to his personality that was at variance with what he thought was appropriate and necessary, but on the whole it’s what he thought was necessary that won through rather than his sometimes controlling instincts."

For me another bold contribution to the film, related to this theme of challenge— The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner—came from Dennis Klocek, preceded by a very important, very honest statement by the farmer in Hawthorne Valley, Steffen Schneider.

Steffen Schneider: "I think the picture of agriculture that he gives is going to be valid for hundreds and hundreds of years still for us to really grasp it; and then certainly the real challenge for all of us is develop the insight and develop the c a p a c i t i e s to really see what he described. You know it’s not good enough to just be able to recount it, we’ll have to be able to see it.

Commentary: "To develop insights and capacities of their own is what these 2 modern-day alchemists are trying to do in this Californian garage. Their task—to make biodynamic preparations based on indications by Steiner that are not only an effective alternative to chemical and potentially harmful substances that are marketed worldwide, but are also more appropriate to the soil and climate of California and the tropics than those used in Western Europe."

I asked Dennis Klocek to what extent Steiner was tapping into something that we knew in the past and have forgotten.

Dennis Klocek: "Rudolf Steiner didn’t appear just out of the blue. There’s an old saying ‘genius never escapes its age’; so he was a genius, and he brought the best elements from the ancient traditions together and synthesized them in a scientific context; that’s why his work is called spiritual science. He felt it was really important that the scientific context be recognized by spiritually-minded people, because he grew up at a time in his development when spiritualism and Ouija boards and table tapping and séances, that was the way people got access to spirit, and he inherited the mantle of theosophy and that was part of their lore. And what he said was ‘no,’ it has to be made in the same way that we make science. However on the other side of science is this death rationale force that can’t imagine life forces and beings as spiritual beings— that’s a whole other dimension—and they’re separated now, and so it’s necessary to bring those two together in a way for science to be redeemed and in order for spiritual work to move into the future rather than just be stuck on what we inherited from the past. It has to move into the future; the scientific revolution is not random, it’s not an anomaly, it’s a reality, so it’s not going to go away; the scientific world view is not going to go away; so we can’t just go out and hug trees and talk about fairies and hope that that’s going to go somewhere—even if that’s the perception that we have, that has to be grounded in reason. So it’s both; it’s an inheritance from the past—and if you read Paracelsus and Basil Valentine and the alchemists you’ll see everywhere in their work that there are threads that Rudolf Steiner was picking on and pulling forward—and yet with his cosmology and his rational training in science he could move it further."

Commentary: Dennis Klocek teaches Consciousness Studies at this college near Sacramento. His colleague, Matias Baker, a fellow researcher, is a consultant to a number of biodynamic vineyards in California.

When Dennis referred earlier to his preparations as medicine for the earth, I asked him why the earth needed medicine. If we left it alone and stopped spraying it with chemicals, wouldn’t it be perfectly happy?

Dennis: "No, if we left it alone it would be very lonely because it’s our mother and she says to us all the time—‘you haven’t called home in a while, you’re only using my bank account to live. So you need to love me and nurture me and feed me with medicines, because I’m sick from your neglect.’

They say in esoteric circles if you don’t have the organ of perception, if you don’t actually work on yourself to perceive in the proper way, you just see the world as it is, not as it could be. Rudolf Steiner could see the world as it could be, not as it was or as it is even now; he saw the world as it could be, and that’s a lonely path—it’s a very lonely path."

Dennis Klocek

To help us on our own ‘lonely paths’ we have a Society. We call ourselves ‘anthroposophists.’ But are there not dangers in huddling together in cosy gatherings like this one? Of course it’s understandable and natural to seek out like-minded people— I’m enjoying all this as much as everyone else—but not if such camaraderie becomes an escape.

In this respect I’ve always been very aware of Steiner’s description, in his lectures on the Fifth Gospel, of Jesus’s experiences of spending time among the Essenes, and of his gradual realization that the demons, who are driven out of the community because of its purity, don’t simply disappear; they go out into the world and flourish wherever there is discord and disharmony. This vision, so Steiner suggests, prompts Jesus to recognise—to remember—that his mission is to help the whole of humanity and not just a chosen few.

As anthroposophists we cannot begin to compare ourselves to the Essenes, but there are in my mind certain parallels. In this sense I wonder sometimes if ‘Society’ is still the best word to use. Would ‘Network’ be a more helpful, less exclusivesounding description of what we mean to one another?

These are, I feel, important, if somewhat uncomfortable questions to ask ourselves. And those of you who know me are aware that I’ve been asking them for many years. Now, having made the film, they seem to me more relevant, more urgent than ever. I’m sure you are all familiar with the reaction, the resistance that this label ‘Anthroposophy’ can provoke in many people—in the young in particular. It often creates a barrier, a wall –them and us. There is a real danger, therefore, that anthroposophy could become marginalized instead of being the spearhead it was meant to be.

One can, of course, dismiss these hostilities to all things ‘Steinerized’ as prejudice, coming from people not yet mature or wise enough to relate to what Steiner was trying to bring into the world. But here we are in danger of slipping into some sort of spiritual elitism—a Luciferic trap that awaits anyone who is consciously on a spiritual path.

In making the film I constantly came across this reluctance among thoughtful young people to join something, to be labelled. Could it, I ask myself, be one manifestation of this urge ‘to make things human’—to bring down barriers of every sort, and to transcend not just nationality and race, but also the various ‘isms’ that have so divided people in the past, causing such havoc and suffering—and in many parts of the world still doing so.

‘Something there is that doesn’t like a wall / That wants it down …’

Last year, while filming at an anthroposophical conference in Hyderabad, in South India, I met an Englishman—Ben Cherry—who summed up very clearly how anthroposophy’s task is deeply connected to ‘making things human.’ He certainly seemed comfortable using the word ‘anthroposophy,’ so perhaps I am mistaken in my misgivings about this particular label. But what Ben did say was also a clear invitation to ‘move beyond our borders’—and that means having the flexibility to cast aside jargon and to experience more deeply what lies behind the words we use. It’s exactly what the farmer, Steffen Schneider said in that clip. Here is part of my interview with Ben Cherry:

Ben Cherry: "I’m originally from the UK. I met anthroposophy 34 years ago in a school for handicapped children near Reading. It’s now a Waldorf School; at that time it was a special school—some severely disadvantaged children there, and I worked as the gardener and my wife worked as the cook. And for me, meeting the work of Rudolf Steiner, was like finding water in the desert."

"Most of my teaching in Waldorf education has been in Australia. In the last few years of still teaching in Australia, in the 90s I already started to come to Asia during my holidays and made contact with grassroots initiatives beginning the Waldorf Schools; and little by little this grew, and now I work full-time, and particularly now in China and Taiwan."

Jonathan: "What is the response to Steiner in that part of the world?"

Ben Cherry: "It’s exploding! It’s phenomenal what is happening in China at the moment. I would say the people who come to the training courses and seminars and the initiatives that have started in China, those people are hungry, they’re really hungry, to find meaning in their lives; and that they are hungry to connect with the outside world. They’re deeply grateful, that is my experience, and this is what gives me energy."

Ben Cherry: "Ancient China was also very much part of my pathway towards anthroposophy; and I think what they find in the work of Rudolf Steiner is the holistic context within which everything has meaning and everything has an importance; and so it was in their own culture. To be an artist was at the same time an expression of being a human being. Whatever it was that one was doing, one was part of something greater than one’s self, and the ethic was to really put yourself fully into what you were doing. So I think they recognise something of a culture that has been broken in China through many events; there are some people who want to bring back that culture into Waldorf education—make it an entirely Chinese education. But there are others who take in my view a more balanced point of view and recognise the ancient world has gone. We live in the modern world, but we can go forward in this modern world and re-find the ancient world in a modern context. That’s for me what anthroposophy does; and it’s fascinating for me that all the different cultures I’ve been to, and I’ve had the privilege of travelling—cheaply I have to say—but travelling to many parts of the world, and again and again I’ve found that people there can say—like here in India—they can say ‘but anthroposophy is just a repetition of what we already know.’ And so many people have the wrong understanding that Steiner just gathered this and this and this and put it altogether; but the reason that they can find their own culture in anthroposophy is because within anthroposophy there is something intrinsically human; it is universal. And this universality expressed itself in the past in all the different healthy cultures; and today I feel that what we are in the process of doing all around the world, not just people involved in anthroposophy, that we are creating a new culture."

One characteristic of this ‘new culture’ to which Ben Cherry points is, I believe, an attitude of open-mindedness. As an Englishman and a European, this is one of the qualities that I have always admired here in America—‘Let’s give it a go!’ For alongside your energy and enthusiasm, and coupled with the genuine idealism that was present at the founding of America, your country does still encourage one to believe in the possibility of a New World.

But no longer just America. As Ben Cherry says in the film, and as I experienced myself at that Hyderabad conference, in many parts of Asia there is also a growing open-mindedness, as well as a yearning for a more conscious understanding of their own spiritual traditions; and from this will come, I feel sure, fresh initiatives that will help anthroposophy to keep at bay those tendencies to get stuck and to become, in Fraser Watts’ words, ‘cult-like.’

But as with every virtue, this open-mindedness can slip into its extreme and thus become naivety. As Dennis Klocek said, in order to move forward it is essential that we employ the intellectual rigour associated with science in exploring the spiritual dimensions of reality. And as the English philosopher, Jeremy Naydler, says in my film, the human being is uniquely destined to hold these two polarities—reason and imagination— in balance. It was, of course, Goethe’s great gift to Steiner—this insight into the very nature of knowledge in its full potential. Jeremy Naydler For Goethe the human being is the most exact instrument. If you can develop that instrument into an organ of deep perception then of course you’ll see more and more in nature; and that’s what Steiner was able to do. He developed himself as a spiritual instrument, I suppose. So he was perceiving much more than most people are able to perceive in the natural world, and he extended that to invisible worlds, of course.Jonathan Stedall And was pointing to the fact that we all have this potential.

Jeremy Naydler: "Absolutely. It’s not so easy to develop it though! But one just has to keep working at it really, on a daily basis."

Jonathan Stedall: "What is your understanding of the key to working with it?"

Jeremy Naydler: "Well, when I go into the gardens I am very aware that the first thing I want to do when I see weeds, and I see all sorts of things that need doing, I want to get engaged with practical stuff. But I try to stop myself and just spend at least a few minutes with a plant and just observe it, just be with it; and there’s something immensely centering and healing in doing that; and I feel it actually helps the rest of my day in the garden. You realize that there’s a miracle there, and it’s so easy not to see it."

Jonathan Stedall: "Yes. But that would perhaps be true of life altogether; we just simply don’t notice things, do we? We take things for granted, not just plants."

Jeremy Naydler: "No, it’s absolutely true of life altogether."

Enno Friedrich: "One thing that is very much how people do things today is that people don’t really want to spend time with something unless they already know that it’s right. I think there’s something in the Lord of the Rings where he describes Hobbits, and he says Hobbits only have books that tell you about things they already know. That’s very much true about the way people today relate to truth. Left Punky people, they read the books written by Left Punky people because they know there’s only things in them that they anyway agree on. And I think when you try to read Rudolf Steiner usually what I find: you need to open yourself to something that you do not yet know; or you need to make an effort without knowing for sure; it takes trust. I think that’s the challenge."

Philippa Belcredi: "His main message, specially to me, was or is that he wants us to stand up for our own ideas; and that’s specially in our time not that easy. So for people it’s much easier to put him into a box than to focus on his message and follow that message. And I think he didn’t want us to follow him; he wanted us to follow ourselves."

Laura Nunes: "It’s very difficult to actually read a book that’s written by Steiner. Everybody I’ve met struggles with it; and even when you can manage to read the book, to accept his ideas is another challenge; and some of the ideas come across as quite loopy! And I don’t think he wanted anybody to blindly accept what he was saying. I think you’ve got to try things out and just see if it fits, sits well with you, and also adapt it. I think we need to be flexible as well and feel our way through the work, you know. Do it, work with the preparations, spray the fields, but also personalize it, put your own love into it. I don’t think there’s any point in just reading the book and just using it like a manual. He had some inspiring ideas, and it’s quite difficult to understand why we spray the fields with these bizarre combinations of ingredients; but you give it a try, trust it, have some faith that maybe it’s going to help, and then see if it works. I think we’ve got to be open and flexible.

Dr. Peter Selg: "Yes, he felt sorry because he wanted to help people, but he wanted more than this; he wanted to leave them free. So that’s the essential point, it’s the freedom; and you can help people and give them your own treasure, but finally they live out from your treasure and they are dependent; and that’s the last thing Steiner wanted to have, dependent people."

To be aware of our tendency to become dependent; to have faith, flexibility, trust— trust in our own inner voice; and to be open to what is unfamiliar. These were some of the thoughts that I felt were important to include in the film.

So many challenges, not only individually but also collectively. And here I return to the Anthroposophical Society itself. My own sense of the challenge facing the Society, and in particular the Society’s relationship to the so-called movement, centers not on the question: ‘How can the movement connect more closely with the Society?’ but rather: ‘How can the Society connect more closely with the movement?’—and by movement I would include not just people working within anthroposophical institutions, whether members or not, but also people like Fraser Watts at Cambridge University who clearly recognizes the significance of Steiner’s work, but would never call himself an anthroposophist. In other words we come back to this word ‘borders,’ and to Arthur Zajonc’s point about Steiner speaking not just to a small group of anthroposophists.

One potential stumbling block for people who are seriously searching for deeper insights into the nature of existence—and for me it is a very understandable stumbling block—is the impression that Steiner, in using expressions like ‘the spiritual world,’ is essentially a dualist. The language, as well as the words themselves—words that we continue to use—can easily smack of outdated religious teachings about Heaven and Earth that are increasingly alien to the modern mindset.

Yet as Craig Holdrege explains so clearly in my film, as does Dr Michael Evans in relation to the make-up of the human being, Steiner was actually talking about one world—a world in which spirit and matter, the visible and the seemingly invisible, are intimately interwoven. The spiritual world is not somewhere else.

Craig Holdrege: "When Steiner came across Goethe’s work when he was still a student at the University in Vienna, what he found in Goethe, what stimulated him in Goethe, was that here was a man who really immersed himself in the phenomenal world, didn’t have lots of abstract concepts, and thereby opened himself to seeing relationships that spoke of more than the mere physical. It is just unfortunate today that we are so much in a dualistic culture—matter and mind, body and spirit, if we even think about the one half right; but if we do think about the spiritual or the soul or whatever, then it’s always in contrast to the body; but to see a unified world—and that was really Steiner in his epistemology based on Goethe was all about—the one world that we live in. It is one world and we are part of one world, and there aren’t 2 or 3 or 50; there might be nuances and different levels, or whatever you want to call them—different aspects that one can gain access to—but it is one manifoldly differentiated world."

Dr. Michael Evans: "I think what’s unique about Steiner’s contribution is that on the one hand he fully recognized what conventional medicine was offering, as a detailed k n o w l e d g e of the physical body, but made it very clear and almost challenged doctors to think beyond the box and to be aware that the human being has life forces, has a soul, has a spiritual identity and that all that is part of being human, and really all that is involved in the process of becoming ill and potentially can be mobilized in the healing process."

Christopher Bamford: "The essence of his message —and this is why it’s somewhat difficult to communicate—is essentially that we already, here and now, as we are, live in a spiritual world."

Jonathan Stedall (to Judy Bailey): "What do you understand by the word spirituality?"

Judy Bailey: "The part of you that wants everything to be good and beautiful and true, is what I understand. And that all of us have that call, and desperately try to see it in others, and desperately want others to recognise in us. Very simple, it’s very down to earth. It’s not up in the air. And I know that I meet an awful lot of people who are active in that way in the world."

One world—albeit many-layered—and a spirituality that is not, in Judy Bailey’s words, ‘up in the air.’ For one of the dangers of imagining the ‘spiritual’ as elsewhere—a place we go to when we die, and the only place that really matters—and dwelling excessively on that imagination, is that we neglect our day to day tasks and challenges here on earth; and this includes that most important challenge of all: to ask the question that took Parsifal so long to ask; a question that comes not out of curiosity, but out of compassion, as we—like Parsifal—move about the world and witness so much suffering and misery among our fellow human beings. So arises the question: ‘What ails thee?’

In this respect I have been hugely influenced by Gandhi, about whom I made a film many years ago. For Gandhi it became simply impossible to indulge in any sort of luxury while another person was in need. He was, in other words, a forerunner of what Steiner described as the potential future for us all—a world in which we will experience another person’s suffering as our own.

And this is what I understand the archangel Michael is helping us to do. And just because Steiner spoke of this being with such insight, we must be careful not to think of him purely as some mascot for the Anthroposophical Society. Michael is, I am sure, hard at work wherever people are attempting to understand and to work with another in a spirit of tolerance and collaboration; wherever empathy exists.

Thinking is all very well, but not if it eclipses our capacity to feel and to care deeply. In fact, in disillusioned moments—either with myself or with my fellow searchers—I’ve sometimes wondered whether the best people at ‘life’ are the ones who simply get on with it, and don’t spend a lot of time wondering what it’s all about.

These are thoughts—and feelings— that came to me during the making of the film. Yet despite the reservations I have expressed, I was deeply impressed and inspired—as well as helped—by the people I met and by the work they were doing; people often struggling against enormous odds, yet clearly grateful to Steiner for what in the film Martin Ping called ‘his signposts.’

I have therefore to report to you, Torin, and to our friends from the Executive Council in Dornach, a wonderful spirit of collaboration and support surrounding the making of the film, for which I am deeply grateful. And a warmth and friendliness, too, as exemplified in the way that Marian Leon and others have organized this conference. In one email exchange, Marian apologized to me for being such a pest. I replied that it was no problem, as she was such a friendly pest!

My film was financed almost entirely by gifts from individuals and institutions here in America, in the UK, and in Holland and Switzerland. One substantial loan from the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain I’m hoping to repay from sales of DVDs (over 2000 sold so far) and to television. With the broadcasters in mind I have just completed a shorter version of the film, in two 60 minute parts: ‘The Life of Rudolf Steiner’ and ‘The Legacy of Rudolf Steiner.’ A British distributor will be offering these to networks worldwide, including PBS.

I am also fund-raising in order to create foreign language versions—China and South America are high on the list—as well as to make available separate DVDs of the interviews at close to their original lengths. I am keen that nothing of value is wasted from the 70 hours of material I shot. Already available as DVDs—as well as the film itself—are conversations with Arthur Zajonc, Jack Petrash from the Washington Waldorf School, and with Peter Blom of the Dutch-based Triodos Bank. Details are at www.rudolfsteinerfilm.com.

And in all this I need your help, not just in buying the DVDs or in supporting us financially, but also in letting people know the film exists, and in showing the DVDs publicly yourselves—to Waldorf School parents, at Colleges, to interested or maybe wavering friends and relatives, and wherever there are groups of people searching to live saner and more meaningful lives.

Collective Eye in Portland, makers of the film Queen of the Sun about bees—will be handling the worldwide educational distribution, and will hopefully reach people not directly connected to the anthroposophical network; for, as I’m sure you are aware, I didn’t make this film to simply ‘preach to the converted.’ Nevertheless I hope it has, and will be of interest, and even of help, to people like you who have already been touched by Steiner’s extraordinary work.

I’d like to end by expressing my appreciation and thanks for the support I’ve received here in America. Right from the beginning of the project—over two years ago now—I met with the same enthusiastic response: ‘At last!’ … ‘Now is just the right time for such a film.’ First stop was John Beck—and later Ralph White and George Russell—in New York. From there I went to see Martin Ping in Hawthorne Valley, and on to Copake; then to Torin Finser, Douglas Sloan and Arthur Zajonc, before travelling west to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento. On my way back east to visit the Washington Waldorf School and meet with Joan Almon, I stopped by in Wisconsin to see my old friend Christopher Mann and in Kentucky to meet Janey Newton. These helpful and inspiring conversations, and many other such encounters, enriched my quest enormously and contributed to the film in many different ways.

People also understood from the start that with such a vast canvas it would be impossible to say everything, interview everyone, go everywhere. And those whom I did interview have been very understanding about the cuts I’ve had to make.

In the past few months I’ve also had many letters—over two hundred—some from people quite new to anthroposophy, expressing their interest and gratitude, and wanting to know more. Our website has now been set up to provide this sort of information. However, I am only too aware of the inadequacies, the shortcomings in what I have created. Too long? Too short? What about Germany? Why no mention of the School and of the work in Dornach? My hope, however, has always been that there is sufficient there to prompt people to look further. The film is therefore a bridge— maybe at times a wobbly one—but built with great love by many people, not just me, so that ‘good may become.’

In conclusion I want to return to this thought, as expressed by Walter Johannes Stein, of the urgent need ‘to make things human’—or perhaps, in this increasingly technological age, it is more appropriate to say ‘to keep things human.’

On this note one of the most touching moments in the film is, for me, the response of Ursula Flatters—a doctor from Germany who has worked in Sweden for thirty years—to my question about Rudolf Steiner himself. Her words bring the whole film to a conclusion.

Jonathan: "Do you see an element of tragedy in Steiner’s life, the fact that he did die quite early?"

Dr. Ursula Flatters: "Yes, certainly I think the whole life, from one point of view, is a tragedy. I think he was suffering a very lot."

Jonathan: "Because?"

Dr. Ursula Flatters" "Because I think his insights were so farreaching that he didn’t meet enough people to understand quick enough; but from another point of view you can say love is always a tragedy. You come with something really new; it was really an impulse of love, I think, so it must fail in a way—to begin with it looks like that. Because he was not the big star, he connected to people, he wanted to work with people, he took them as they were, he was positive; and all this very big social impulse is great; maybe it’s a little bit more slow for him, but we all are invited to this and that is not a tragedy. I think that’s beautiful. It takes some time, but it’s beautiful that he chose that; he could have gone to the mountains and written a lot of wonderful books, but he chose to work together with people. And it’s very great; I don’t know anything else that is so practical, that really tries to create a culture from spiritual insights—not only having them, but doing something. But things are going much slower than one would wish; even in me. I am too slow. I am too lazy!"

Commentary: "‘Slowly but surely’ might be one way to describe the progress of Rudolf Steiner’s legacy, not only in medicine, but in all areas of daily life. He died nearly 100 years ago, on March 30th 1925. During his lifetime he frequently spoke about death and in particular about the bond that continues between those of us on earth and those who are no longer physically present. And to the extent that we are open and aware of those we have known and loved, so can they continue to help and inspire us; and we in our turn can communicate to them insights and experiences that can only be learned in the here and now."

"The essence of his message, as I understand it—a message that tries to communicate ancient wisdom in a form appropriate for modern consciousness—is that there is only one world, part seemingly hidden, part revealed; and that we human beings are not alone, not just in our daily lives, but in the universe at large."