Definitions

Definitions of Topics

Please see below for definitions of the various topics that are discussed in Sun at Midnight.

Astrosophy

The movement’s spiritual absolutes are also maintained by a certain licence on small matters.  It has been possible to think that Steiner was incorrect in some minor areas of his spiritual research, as long as more is not threatened.  His imputation of European seasons world-wide is clearly a slip.  Here an Anthroposophist can identify with him as a fallible person like oneself.  But this cannot extend to examining whether the asymmetricality of his revelation — because the coming of Christ is slightly off centre — was the result of his acceptance of Blavatsky’s system;  this kind of cultural analysis is too disturbing to be likely to emerge from within the movement’s social rainbow.  Assimilation is also used.  Other knowledge can be syncretised in a non-threatening way, as in making depth-psychology apply to soul only, not spirit.  Rudolf Steiner’s thought can also be confirmed through being further developed by others, as with astrosophy and most of the applications.

Steiner insisted that his language was unimportant and that his intention was to convey the spiritual reality itself, not to give a linguistic illusion of the transcendent.  This raises an issue about the epistemological and ontological status of his revelation:  if all his language is completely unrelated to spiritual reality, his doctrines concerning karma, rebirth, Saturn, Sun, Moon and so on might just as well be replaced by the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England.  How is one to know where his language is a mere metaphor, a pointer towards the ineffable, and where, however necessarily imperfectly, it has some literalism in it?

It is almost impossible to pin the revelation down to specific facts (let alone refute it) because its words are justified by Anthroposophists in terms of leading one towards experience of spirit.  However, its statements may also be seen as related to material facts.  The result is an ambiguous position:  for example, it is difficult to know whether ‘Atlantis’ describes a geographical landscape as well as a metaphysical one.  Neither Steiner’s statements nor anything in the Anthroposophical belief system provide internal rules which enable one to know when the words connect literally with observable matter and ordinary concepts, and when and how they do not.

Anthroposophy

Not all Anthroposophists are visionaries but probably all acknowledge the legitimacy of vision. They generally aspire to become aware of ‘etheric’, ‘astral’ and other spiritual essences…The collective aspect of this striving tends to be concentrated in the School of Spiritual Science: it, more than any other social organ, is designed to be at the centre of the movement, the connecting corolla for its petals.

Steiner made provision for three Classes. Only one the ‘First Class’ is known to be in operation. There are no special conditions demanded for membership of the General Anthroposophical Society, which is exoteric and concerned with the external governance and arrangements of the movement. But the door of the First Class is not opened to everyone, and not all members wish to belong to it. … At least two years’ affiliation to the General Society is a pre-condition for joining. Also, ‘inner responsibility’ for Anthroposophy has to be accepted. Rudolf Steiner, who was distressed at the state of the movement, founded the First Class in 1923 as an organ of regeneration. Anthroposophists stress the individual taking responsibility, in contrast to the old mysteries where the neophyte was deemed ready by the hierophant and taken through a process controlled by others. In Anthroposophy you have to know for yourself when you are ready to start. The regenerating source is believed not to be accessed through a priest, temple, guru or Rudolf Steiner, but through yourself. The First Class adapts Steiner’s meditative path for individuals. The latter is generally available in publications such as Occult Science and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.3 However, only the place and times of meetings of local branches of the School of Spiritual Science are published, together with the number of the ‘Lesson’ concerned (there is a cycle of 19). Members of this elite are pledged to secrecy, a vow which is usually strictly observed. I had no success when I asked for information about the mantras of the First Class: I was told that they ‘belong to the School’. The nineteen Lessons of the First Class contain mantras from Steiner and his own commentaries on them. When as an outsider I asked questions about them (or the commentaries on them), this was one of the few acts that would, almost predictably, incur annoyance.

Eurythmy

The reduction of social reality to spirit is a hazard for the Anthroposophical cosmological structures defined in chapter five.  … It also suggests that the distinctively beneficial effects of Anthroposophy may not be achievable without this reductionism.

It is not easy, after induction into Anthroposophy, to see it from many different perspectives at the same time.  ‘Openness’ can consist of identifying with Steiner’s life and thought as faithfully as possible.  The argument pro hominem is deployed:  biography, implicitly if not explicitly, becomes hagiography.  The rainbow-like social being of the movement seems to confirm everything he revealed.  It tends to encourage a progressively developing Anthroposophical identity, in which the gaining of knowledge itself becomes an act of commitment.  One has to belong in order to know what happens in the elite School of Spiritual Science:  to belong, it is necessary to take responsibility for Anthroposophy.  However, there are signs that Anthroposophists are becoming increasingly open to outside perspectives now that those who heard Steiner are no longer around to speak of the experience.

…

Anthroposophical reality is maintained by the movement’s social organisation because this is based on Steiner’s revelation.  From within one aspect, such as eurythmy, or bio-dynamics, or a study group on Occult Science, there radiates reverence for its wide-ranging whole.  To see it entire from a spiritual point of view would be for one to become reality itself, to realize one’s spiritual individuality through Intuition.  No ordinarily modest Anthroposophist could envisage such a situation in this incarnation.  To approach this visionary state it is seen as necessary to take responsibility first, perhaps by participating in the research of a section of the School of Spiritual Science, and so sharing in its knowledge of one specific aspect of Anthroposophy as a whole.  With growing commitment, thoughts are increasingly unlikely to occur if they are outside Anthroposophical boundaries.

The First Class

Not all Anthroposophists are visionaries but probably all acknowledge the legitimacy of vision. They generally aspire to become aware of ‘etheric’, ‘astral’ and other spiritual essences…The collective aspect of this striving tends to be concentrated in the School of Spiritual Science: it, more than any other social organ, is designed to be at the centre of the movement, the connecting corolla for its petals.

Steiner made provision for three Classes. Only one the ‘First Class’ is known to be in operation. There are no special conditions demanded for membership of the General Anthroposophical Society, which is exoteric and concerned with the external governance and arrangements of the movement. But the door of the First Class is not opened to everyone, and not all members wish to belong to it. … At least two years’ affiliation to the General Society is a pre-condition for joining. Also, ‘inner responsibility’ for Anthroposophy has to be accepted. Rudolf Steiner, who was distressed at the state of the movement, founded the First Class in 1923 as an organ of regeneration. Anthroposophists stress the individual taking responsibility, in contrast to the old mysteries where the neophyte was deemed ready by the hierophant and taken through a process controlled by others. In Anthroposophy you have to know for yourself when you are ready to start. The regenerating source is believed not to be accessed through a priest, temple, guru or Rudolf Steiner, but through yourself. The First Class adapts Steiner’s meditative path for individuals. The latter is generally available in publications such as Occult Science and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.3 However, only the place and times of meetings of local branches of the School of Spiritual Science are published, together with the number of the ‘Lesson’ concerned (there is a cycle of 19). Members of this elite are pledged to secrecy, a vow which is usually strictly observed. I had no success when I asked for information about the mantras of the First Class: I was told that they ‘belong to the School’. The nineteen Lessons of the First Class contain mantras from Steiner and his own commentaries on them. When as an outsider I asked questions about them (or the commentaries on them), this was one of the few acts that would, almost predictably, incur annoyance.

Further Definitions

Please see below for definitions of the various topics that are discussed in Sun at Midnight.

  •  Steiner Schools/Walforf Schools
  • Christain Community
  • School of Spiritual Science
  • Freemasonry

Steiner Schools/Waldorf Schools

Many outsiders erroneously suppose that Steiner was an ‘educationalist’, rather like Froebel, without realising that the core of the movement is his spiritual science. ‘Waldorf’ education is the most visible application of Anthroposophy, especially in West Germany, where by the early 1980s there were about 110 kindergartens and over 70 schools. (The Netherlands, the next most numerous country, then had over 40 schools.) In 1975 Waldorf education accounted for as much as 6.4 per cent of the total population of West German independent schools. The demand was said to exceed supply by a factor of three to five times.

…

In 1956 there were 12,432 West German pupils; in 1965, 13,147; in 1975, 20,797 (including 600 handicapped pupils); and there were as many as 32,250 in 1981. In 1978 Baden- Württemberg had well over 8,000 pupils, Northrhine-Westphalia just over 5,000 and Lower Saxony, Hesse and Bavaria about 2,000 each. Hamburg had 1,340 pupils. Thus the outreach of Anthroposophy is far larger than its membership figures suggest. In West Germany, and probably elsewhere, the children are apparently secluded as far as possible from the disrupting influences of modern society.

Christain Community Church

The Christian Community was founded in 1922 by a Lutheran pastor, Dr Rittelmeyer, as a congregational community. Steiner was always in the background. It is based on the Anthroposophical revelation but has particularly stressed its Christian elements, including ‘the transforming power of love – the Christ Impulse’. Its relationship with the remainder of Anthroposophy is recently perceived as having changed worldwide, with more give and take and fewer factions. Many people now, it may be, do not perceive much difference between the two. The Christian Community synod recently hosted by the Goetheanum is said to have been more integrated than the previous ones in the early 1980s and the early 1970s. Traditionally, however, the Christian Community has always been seen as being completely separate from the other Anthroposophical organizations. Indeed, in the early 1980s a message even reached me from its headquarters in Germany requesting me not to write on it in the same book in which I was describing Anthroposophy.

Organisationally, it is certainly separate. But as already stated, it is based on the spiritual realities revealed by Steiner and so, at a more fundamental level, is Anthroposophical, though it has the distinctive function of a church. Its extensive rituals have an esoteric rather than conventionally Christian feel. For example, the powers of the spiritual heights and material depths are acknowledged through holding the right hand up and putting the left hand out. The priests’ chasubles have figures of eight to represent the infinite. The colours, such as the prevalent violet, relate to Steiner’s spiritual science, especially perhaps his revelations about the ‘human aura’…

School of Spiritual Science

The reduction of social reality to spirit is a hazard for the Anthroposophical cosmological structures defined in chapter five.  … It also suggests that the distinctively beneficial effects of Anthroposophy may not be achievable without this reductionism.

It is not easy, after induction into Anthroposophy, to see it from many different perspectives at the same time.  ‘Openness’ can consist of identifying with Steiner’s life and thought as faithfully as possible.  The argument pro hominem is deployed:  biography, implicitly if not explicitly, becomes hagiography.  The rainbow-like social being of the movement seems to confirm everything he revealed.  It tends to encourage a progressively developing Anthroposophical identity, in which the gaining of knowledge itself becomes an act of commitment.  One has to belong in order to know what happens in the elite School of Spiritual Science:  to belong, it is necessary to take responsibility for Anthroposophy.  However, there are signs that Anthroposophists are becoming increasingly open to outside perspectives now that those who heard Steiner are no longer around to speak of the experience.

Anthroposophical reality is maintained by the movement’s social organisation because this is based on Steiner’s revelation.  From within one aspect, such as eurythmy, or bio-dynamics, or a study group on Occult Science, there radiates reverence for its wide-ranging whole.  To see it entire from a spiritual point of view would be for one to become reality itself, to realize one’s spiritual individuality through Intuition.  No ordinarily modest Anthroposophist could envisage such a situation in this incarnation.  To approach this visionary state it is seen as necessary to take responsibility first, perhaps by participating in the research of a section of the School of Spiritual Science, and so sharing in its knowledge of one specific aspect of Anthroposophy as a whole.  With growing commitment, thoughts are increasingly unlikely to occur if they are outside Anthroposophical boundaries.

Freemasonry

The late nineteenth century gnostic revival owed much to Eliphas Lévi, the nom de plume of a Frenchman who was a major source for the generation of occultists who lived after him. He experimented with alchemy and may have been the first to connect the Tarot with the Kabbalah. He was familiar with Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata (c. 1680), a vast compendium of ancient and Lurianic Kabbalism.

Lévi was influenced at one stage by English Rosicrucianism. The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (or ‘Soc. Ros.’) was founded in 1866 and still exists. John Yarker was a member of the Soc. Ros.’s Manchester college. He later founded Masonic lodges, including the lodge which Steiner led within the Ordo Templi Orientis from 1906 to the outbreak of war. Bulwer Lytton was the Soc. Ros.’ Grand Patron in 1871; his Rosicrucian novel Zanoni had, in about 1840, anticipated the coming revival.

The Kabbala Denudata was translated by MacGregor Mathers (as Kabbala Unveiled). It seems to have been a strong influence on The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was founded in 1888.

Alchemy, astrology and Tarot were also important in this magicking movement. The Golden Dawn member was initiated through a series of grades corresponding to Gold-und-Rosenkreuz Freemasonry. Part of the ritual consisted of the reading out of an account, based on the Rosicrucian Fama, of the life of Christian Rosenkreuz. The first eight English Anthroposophists became so when they seceded from the Golden Dawn in 1912, after having listened to Steiner lecture in London. The rise of the eastwards-looking Theosophical Society (described at the beginning of chapter two) occurred as part of a wider ‘esoteric’ revival. In contrast to the Golden Dawn, Theosophy renounced magic.

Further Definitions

Please see below for definitions of the various topics that are discussed in Sun at Midnight.

  •  Theosophy
  • Order of The Golden Dawn
  • Biodynamic Produce and Agrilculture
  • Ordo Templi Orientis

Theosophy

he great changes associated with industrialisation and urbanisation have been generally linked in Europe with the decline of traditional institutional religion. …

…Experimental contact with ‘spirits of the dead’ through a medium, filled a void felt by many in the changing conditions of the second half of the nineteenth century. Spiritualism became extremely popular after Kate and Margaret Fox, of Hydesville, NY, claimed fraudulently that they had heard ‘spirit rappings’. Throughout the USA and northern Europe it added mystery to the formalized Christian observances. In the UK, socially segregated séances were attended by bishops, detached scientists and ‘irreligious’ workers. The widowed Queen Victoria herself was interested in the possibility of communicating with a survival of the human personality after death. Mary Baker Eddy was a devotee before renouncing spiritualism and founding Christian Science; so was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Known to her adherents as ‘H.P.B.’, Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875. This extraordinary Russian emigrée claimed to be inspired by spiritual ‘Masters’ in Tibet, though her highly synthesised esoteric revelation was also influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism, maybe Syrian-Egyptian gnosticism, and other non-Tibetan sources. She claimed that her esoteric synthesis is universally valid, a ‘spiritual science’ that expresses the ‘true religion’ from which the forms of world religions have been created. This appealed to many relatively educated people who were spiritually minded but perplexed by the growing trend towards cultural relativism.

… After Blavatsky’s death in 1891, the organisational and moral flair of Annie Besant was the leading force behind Theosophy’s second stage. The revelation was made more conceptual and the movement acquired a radical social conscience. It was particularly important for the part it played in the revival of Hinduism in India and Buddhism in Sri Lanka, and the spread of liberal democratic ideas in both nations.3 By 1899 the society had 356 ‘Lodges’, 187 in India, sixty-eight in America and fifty-eight in Europe. But Theosophy had made little headway in newly united Germany.

Order of Golden Dawn

The late nineteenth century gnostic revival owed much to Eliphas Lévi, the nom de plume of a Frenchman who was a major source for the generation of occultists who lived after him. He experimented with alchemy and may have been the first to connect the Tarot with the Kabbalah. He was familiar with Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata (c. 1680), a vast compendium of ancient and Lurianic Kabbalism.

Lévi was influenced at one stage by English Rosicrucianism. The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (or ‘Soc. Ros.’) was founded in 1866 and still exists. John Yarker was a member of the Soc. Ros.’s Manchester college. He later founded Masonic lodges, including the lodge which Steiner led within the Ordo Templi Orientis from 1906 to the outbreak of war. Bulwer Lytton was the Soc. Ros.’ Grand Patron in 1871; his Rosicrucian novel Zanoni had, in about 1840, anticipated the coming revival.

The Kabbala Denudata was translated by MacGregor Mathers (as Kabbala Unveiled). It seems to have been a strong influence on The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was founded in 1888.

Alchemy, astrology and Tarot were also important in this magicking movement. The Golden Dawn member was initiated through a series of grades corresponding to Gold-und-Rosenkreuz Freemasonry. Part of the ritual consisted of the reading out of an account, based on the Rosicrucian Fama, of the life of Christian Rosenkreuz. The first eight English Anthroposophists became so when they seceded from the Golden Dawn in 1912, after having listened to Steiner lecture in London. The rise of the eastwards-looking Theosophical Society (described at the beginning of chapter two) occurred as part of a wider ‘esoteric’ revival. In contrast to the Golden Dawn, Theosophy renounced magic.

Biodynamic Produce and Agriculture

he great changes associated with industrialisation and urbanisation have been generally linked in Europe with the decline of traditional institutional religion. …

Though Anthroposophical agriculture and horticulture have much in common with the ecological awareness of organic farming, their bio-dynamic rituals and preparations give them a further identity of their own. Bio-dynamic farming involves much more than being conventionally organic. Nature is theurgically ‘dynamised’ in the making of manures, compost harmonisers and so forth. Similar magical practices govern the mode and timing of application. Rhythm and direction are both prescribed in the ritual preparation. For example, a mixture mysteriously known as ‘formula 500’ – to conventional chemical analysis it is cow manure – is left in a cowhorn in the ground in winter (when the earth is said to be most ‘alive’), then stirred in water according to a prescribed rhythm and direction for an hour. The final stage is the carrying out of the spraying procedures. ‘501’, which to conventional chemical analysis is powdered quartz, is on the other hand left in a cowhorn in the earth during summer. It becomes a crop nutrient. Yarrow, dandelion, chamomile, nettle, valerian and oak-bark are used as bases for six preparations which ‘harmonise’ fermentation in manure and compost. They are enveloped in specific animal organs and exposed to seasonal soil or atmospheric influences. Quantitatively, yields are said to be comparable to chemical methods, but their quality is claimed to be much better.

Anthroposophical ritual and natural magic, which are intended to produce a different order of quality, involve heartfelt participation from those involved in the rites. Nor is technical knowledge a mere question of book-learning, for Imagination is a necessary aspect of farming. Without it, for example, the farmer will not know whether to use a given preparation. The biodynamic approach is thus perceived as a qualitative step beyond more usual organic agriculture. … In Anthroposophy plants reflect immediately what is taking place in the planets. Furthermore, the elemental beings termed gnomes, below the earth’s surface, help plant roots to grow, and the astral aura of cows nourishes the gnomes. Again, cud- chewing animals have the important spiritual function of bringing cosmic forces down to earth, and the task of birds is to carry earthly substance out into the cosmos. Thus the Anthroposophical farmer is aware of much more than pressing financial realities. Through bio-dynamic knowledge and procedures Anthroposophical cosmology is re-created in social practice.

… After Blavatsky’s death in 1891, the organisational and moral flair of Annie Besant was the leading force behind Theosophy’s second stage. The revelation was made more conceptual and the movement acquired a radical social conscience. It was particularly important for the part it played in the revival of Hinduism in India and Buddhism in Sri Lanka, and the spread of liberal democratic ideas in both nations.3 By 1899 the society had 356 ‘Lodges’, 187 in India, sixty-eight in America and fifty-eight in Europe. But Theosophy had made little headway in newly united Germany.

Ordo Templi Orientis

The late nineteenth century gnostic revival owed much to Eliphas Lévi, the nom de plume of a Frenchman who was a major source for the generation of occultists who lived after him. He experimented with alchemy and may have been the first to connect the Tarot with the Kabbalah. He was familiar with Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata (c. 1680), a vast compendium of ancient and Lurianic Kabbalism.

Lévi was influenced at one stage by English Rosicrucianism. The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (or ‘Soc. Ros.’) was founded in 1866 and still exists. John Yarker was a member of the Soc. Ros.’s Manchester college. He later founded Masonic lodges, including the lodge which Steiner led within the Ordo Templi Orientis from 1906 to the outbreak of war. Bulwer Lytton was the Soc. Ros.’ Grand Patron in 1871; his Rosicrucian novel Zanoni had, in about 1840, anticipated the coming revival.

The Kabbala Denudata was translated by MacGregor Mathers (as Kabbala Unveiled). It seems to have been a strong influence on The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which was founded in 1888.

Alchemy, astrology and Tarot were also important in this magicking movement. The Golden Dawn member was initiated through a series of grades corresponding to Gold-und-Rosenkreuz Freemasonry. Part of the ritual consisted of the reading out of an account, based on the Rosicrucian Fama, of the life of Christian Rosenkreuz. The first eight English Anthroposophists became so when they seceded from the Golden Dawn in 1912, after having listened to Steiner lecture in London. The rise of the eastwards-looking Theosophical Society (described at the beginning of chapter two) occurred as part of a wider ‘esoteric’ revival. In contrast to the Golden Dawn, Theosophy renounced magic.

Further definitions

Please see below for definitions of the various topics that are discussed in Sun at Midnight.

  •  Camphill Communities

Camphill Communities

One of the main contacts of the movement with the outside world is through Anthroposophical education. Indeed many people mistakenly seem to think of Steiner as a modern educationalist similar to Montessori. As a young man Steiner spent many years helping a hydrocephalic boy, the experience forming the basis of his later commitment to curative education. He understood pathology to be the result of imperfections in the hereditarily derived body. The individuality, he thought, is intact. There may be karmic reasons why an imperfect body is chosen before birth. A genius often goes through such an incarnation, apparently, or the defect may be the straightforward result of actions in a previous life. Those suffering from Down’s syndrome are considered to have ‘a particular mission, bringing the gift of their own heart forces unhindered by intellect and ambition to compete. Their very posture when in repose is like that of the Buddha.’ Steiner saw it as a special grace to be granted the gift of such a child. Because of their gaiety and warm love, Down’s Syndrome people are seen as the archetypal Gestalt of man before the Fall and consciousness of good and evil. They have a special meaning for Camphill members. Camphill children in need of special care often begin the day with music from flute or lyre and then, after breakfast, form a circle for morning song. Rhythmic intervals of silence arising from inner stillness are said to be essential therapeutically. These children ‘go to school’: there are classrooms, which are distinct from the substitute families with whom they live. A powerful therapeutic factor is said to be the interaction of those with diverse ailments, for example, the hyperactive and aggressive with the frail and physically handicapped, or withdrawn autistics with outgoing Down’s Syndrome children.