(Jody Gray) This Blog Post relates to “Cosmic Consciousness” -forces (non-physical planes of existence, e.g. etheric plane) beyond the physical world -a bridge between spiritual and material reality -a real spiritual world exists, evolving along with the material one. I, personally, like many of the projects connected to Anthroposophy: biodynamic agriculture (organic farming); special needs education and services (Camphill Movement); sustaining architecture; (ethical) social fiance, aiming at harmonious and socially responsible roles in the world economy; organizational development oriented towards humanizing organizations; Biography Work - fosters real meetings and genuine appreciation for the diversity of human endeavor and creativity. -moral development (control of thought, feelings and will combined with openness, tolerance and flexibility).
*Psychic forces, thought-centers and clouds of “emotion-forms”.
(Jody Gray) to me, the concepts of C. W. Leadbeater are similar to those of Carl Junger regarding a collective unconsciousness. I was taught Chakra Energy Work and Element-Balancing Energy Work; which I combined in my own practice; which provided me, empirical knowledge of forces beyond the physical world (other planes). I found myself being used as a “channel” and a “messenger” -a role I did not seek and at first rebuked...
*Psychic force, in psychoanalysis, the libidinous energy of the id. This is regarded as the primary motivating force in the human personality. Forces beyond the physical world.
*The Chakras by C. W. Leadbeater (see). Psychic forces. (pg 48) ...therefore, for many subjects there is a thought-center, a definite space in the atmosphere, and other thoughts about the same matter are attracted to such a center, and go to increase its size and influence. A thinker may in this way contribute to a center, but he in turn may be influenced by it; and this is one of the reasons why people think in droves, like sheep. It is much easier for a man of lazy mentality to accept a ready-made thought from someone else than to go through the mental labor of considering the various aspects of a subject and arriving at a decision for himself.
This is true on the mental plane with regard to thought; and, with appropriate modifications, it is true on the astral plane with regard to feeling. Thought flies like lightning through the subtle matter of the mental plane, so the thought of the whole world on a certain subject may easily gather together in one spot, and yet be accessible and attractive to every thinker on that subject. Astral matter, though so far finer than physical, is yet denser than that of the mental plane; the great clouds of “emotion-forms” which are generated in the astral world by strong feelings do not fly to one world-center, but they do coalesce with other forms for the same nature in their own neighborhood, so that enormous “blocks” of feeling are floating about almost everywhere, and a man may readily come into contact with them and be influenced by them.
The connection of this matter with our present subject lies in the fact that when such influence is exercised it is through the medium of one or other of the chakras. To illustrate what I mean, let me take the example of a man who is filled with fear… The vibrations radiated by an astral body in that state will at once attract any fear-clouds that happen to be in the vicinity; if the man can quickly recover himself and master his fear, the clouds will roll back sullenly, but if fear remains or increases they will discharge their accumulated energy through his umbilical chakra, and his fear may become mad panic in which he altogether loses control of himself, and may rush blindly into any kind of danger. In the same way one who loses his temper attracts clouds of anger, and renders himself liable to an inrush of feeling which will change his indignation into maniacal fury -a condition in which he might commit murder by an irresistible impulse, almost without knowing it. Similarly a man who yields to depression may be swept into a terrible state of permanent melancholia; or one who allows himself to be obsessed by animal desires may become for the time a monster of lust and sensuality, and may under that influence commit crimes the thought of which will horrify him when he recovers his reason.
All such undesirable currents reach the man through the navel chakra. Fortunately there are other and higher possibilities; for example there are clouds of affection and of devotion, and he who feels these noble emotions may receive through his heart chakra a wonderful enhancement of them...
C. W. Leadbeater [https://en.wikipedia.] (1854-1934), was an influential member of the Theosophical Society (see), author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J. I. Wedgwood of the Liberal Catholic Church (open to esoteric beliefs).
Originally a priest of the Church of England, his interest in spiritualism caused him to end his affiliation with Anglicanism in favour of the Theosophical Society, where he became an associate of Annie Besant. He became a high-ranking officer of the society, but resigned in 1906 amid a scandal involving accusations of pederasty. After Annie Besant became President of the Society, he was readmitted. Leadbeater went on to write over 69 books and pamphlets as well as maintain regular speaking engagements...
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*Akashic records.
*A belief that each person leaves an indelible record of themselves -what mystics might call the consciousness of the universe. These recorded emotions, thoughts, feelings and actions can be accessed if one has the ability. -Elizabeth Chadwick, author, A Place of Courage. (Jody Gray) Elizabeth Chadwick, my favorite writer of historical romance, uses this method to create the personalities of her historical characters -humanizing historical events and bringing my ancestors “to life”...
*Akashic records [https://en.wikipedia.] (In theosophy and anthroposophy) are a compendium of all human events, thoughts, words, emotions and intent ever to have occurred, believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the etheric plane. There are anecdotal accounts (personal testimony) but no scientific evidence for existence of the Akashic records.
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*Theosophy [https://en.wikipedia.] is a religion and a form of Western esotericism, established in the United States during the late 19th century by Helena Blavatsky. Theosophy holds that there is an ancient and secretive brotherhood of spiritual adepts known as the Masters, who -although found across the world -are centered in Tibet.
*Western esotericism [https://en.wikipedia.] ...The earliest traditions which later analysis would label as forms of Western esotericism emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity, where Hermetism, Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism developed as schools of thought distinct from what became mainstream Christianity. In Renaissance Europe (14th to 17th century), interest in many these older ideas increased, with various intellectuals seeking to combine "pagan" philosophies with the Kabbalah and with Christian philosophy, resulting in the emergence of the esoteric movements like Christian theosophy. The 17th century saw the development of initiatory societies professing esoteric knowledge such as Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, while the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century led to the development of new forms of esoteric thought. The 19th century saw the emergence of new trends of esoteric thought that have come to be known as occultism. Prominent groups in this century included the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which influenced the development of Thelema. Modern Paganism developed within occultism, and includes religious movements such as Wicca. Esoteric ideas permeated the counterculture of the 1960s and later cultural tendencies, from which emerged the New Age movement in the 1970s.
...The noun “estotericism”... first used in 1828, Histoire du gnosticisme. At this time it was being used in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment (18th century) (see) and its critique of institutionalised religion, during which alternative religious groups began to disassociate themselves from the dominant Christianity in Western Europe. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the term "esotericism" came to commonly be seen as something that was distinct from Christianity, and which had formed a subculture that was at odds with the Christian mainstream from at least the Renaissance (14th to 17th century). The term was popularized by the French occultist and ceremonial magician Eliphas Lévi in the 1850s, and introduced into the English language by the Theosophist A. P. Sinnet in 1883. Lévi also introduced the term l'occultisme, a notion that he developed against the background of contemporary socialist and Catholic discourses. "Esotericism" and "occultism" were often employed as synonyms until being distinguished by later scholars.
*Helena Blavatsky [https://en.wikipedia.] (8/12/1831-5/8/1891), was a Russian occultist, spirit medium, and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875.
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*Anthroposophy [https://en.wikipedia.] is a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world that is accessible by direct experience through inner development. More specifically, it aims to develop faculties of perceptive imagination, inspiration and intuition through the cultivation of a form of thinking independent of sensory experience, and to present results thus derived in a manner subject to rational verification. Anthroposophy aims to attain in its study of spiritual experience the precision and clarity attained by the natural sciences in their investigations of the physical world. The philosophy has double roots in German idealism and German mysticism and was initially expressed in language drawn from Theosophy.
Anthroposophical ideas have been applied practically in many areas including Steiner/Waldorf education, special education (most prominently through the Camphill Movement), biodynamic agriculture, medicine, ethical banking, organizational development, and the arts.
...Steiner had reached considerable stature as a spiritual teacher. He spoke about what he considered to be his direct experience of the Akashic Records (sometimes called the "Akasha Chronicle"), thought to be a spiritual chronicle of the history, pre-history, and future of the world and mankind...
In 1912, the Anthroposophical Society was founded. After World War I, the Anthroposophical movement took on new directions. Projects such as schools, centers for those with special needs, organic farms and medical clinics were established, all inspired by anthroposophy.
Etymology. Anthroposophy is an amalgam of the Greek terms ἄνθρωπος (anthropos = "human") and σοφία (sophia = "wisdom"). An early English usage is recorded by Nathan Bailey (1742) as meaning "the knowledge of the nature of man."
Nature of the human being. In Theosophy, Steiner suggested that human beings unite a physical body of substances gathered from (and that ultimately return to) the inorganic world; a life body (also called the etheric body), in common with all living creatures (including plants); a bearer of sentience or consciousness (also called the astral body), in common with all animals; and the ego, which anchors the faculty of self-awareness unique to human beings.
Anthroposophy describes a broad evolution of human consciousness. Early stages of human evolution possess an intuitive perception of reality, including a clairvoyant perception of spiritual realities. Humanity has progressively evolved an increasing reliance on intellectual faculties and a corresponding loss of intuitive or clairvoyant experiences, which have become atavistic. The increasing intellectualization of consciousness, initially a progressive direction of evolution, has led to an excessive reliance on abstraction and a loss of contact with both natural and spiritual realities. However, to go further requires new capacities that combine the clarity of intellectual thought with the imagination, and beyond this with consciously achieved inspiration and intuitive insights.
Anthroposophy speaks of the reincarnation of the human spirit: that the human being passes between stages of existence, incarnating into an earthly body, living on earth, leaving the body behind and entering into the spiritual worlds before returning to be born again into a new life on earth. After the death of the physical body, the human spirit recapitulates the past life, perceiving its events as they were experienced by the objects of its actions. A complex transformation takes place between the review of the past life and the preparation for the next life. The individual's karmic condition eventually leads to a choice of parents, physical body, disposition, and capacities that provide the challenges and opportunities that further development requires, which includes karmically chosen tasks for the future life.
Evolution. The anthroposophical view of evolution considers all animals to have evolved from an early, unspecialized form. As the least specialized animal, human beings have maintained the closest connection to the archetypal form; contrary to the Darwinian conception of human evolution, all other animals devolve from this archetype. The spiritual archetype originally created by spiritual beings was devoid of physical substance; only later did this descend into material existence on Earth. In this view, human evolution has accompanied the Earth's evolution throughout the existence of the Earth. -The evolution of man, Steiner said, has consisted in the gradual incarnation of a spiritual being into a material body. It has been a true "descent" of man from a spiritual world into a world of matter. The evolution of the animal kingdom did not precede, but rather accompanied the process of human incarnation. Man is thus not the end result of the evolution of the animals, but is rather in a certain sense their cause. In the succession of types which appears in the fossil record-the fishes, reptiles, mammals, and finally fossil remains of man himself — the stages of this process of incarnation are reflected.
Anthroposophy took over from Theosophy a complex system of cycles of world development and human evolution. The evolution of the world is said to have occurred in cycles. The first phase of the world consisted only of heat. In the second phase, a more active condition, light, and a more condensed, gaseous state separate out from the heat. In the third phase, a fluid state arose, as well as a sounding, forming energy. In the fourth (current) phase, solid physical matter first exists. This process is said to have been accompanied by an evolution of consciousness which led up to present human culture.
Ethics. The anthroposophical view is that good is found in the balance between two polar influences on world and human evolution. These are often described through their mythological embodiments as spiritual adversaries which endeavour to tempt and corrupt humanity, Lucifer and his counterpart Ahriman. These have both positive and negative aspects. Lucifer is the light spirit, which "plays on human pride and offers the delusion of divinity", but also motivates creativity and spirituality; Ahriman is the dark spirit that tempts human beings to "...deny [their] link with divinity and to live entirely on the material plane", but that also stimulates intellectuality and technology. Both figures exert a negative effect on humanity when their influence becomes misplaced or one-sided, yet their influences are necessary for human freedom to unfold.
Each human being has the task to find a balance between these opposing influences, and each is helped in this task by the mediation of the Representative of Humanity, also known as the Christ being, a spiritual entity who stands between and harmonizes the two extremes.
Steiner/Waldorf education. This is a pedagogical (teaching) movement with over 1000 Steiner or Waldorf schools (the latter name stems from the first such school, founded in Stuttgart in 1919) located in some 60 countries; the great majority of these are independent (private) schools. Sixteen of the schools have been affiliated with the United Nations' UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network, which sponsors education projects that foster improved quality of education throughout the world...
Biodynamic agriculture. Biodynamic agriculture, the first intentional form of organic farming, began in 1924, when Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures published in English as The Agriculture Course. Steiner is considered one of the founders of the modern organic farming movement.
Anthroposophical medicine. Steiner gave several series of lectures to physicians and medical students. Out of those grew a complementary medical movement intending to "extend the knowledge gained through the methods of the natural sciences of the present age with insights from spiritual science." This movement now includes hundreds of M.D.s, chiefly in Europe and North America, and has its own clinics, hospitals, and medical schools.
Special needs education and services. In 1922, Ita Wegman founded an anthroposophical center for special needs education, the Sonnenhof, in Switzerland. In 1940, Karl König founded the Camphill Movement (see) in Scotland. The latter in particular has spread widely, and there are now over a hundred Camphill communities and other anthroposophical homes for children and adults in need of special care in about 22 countries around the world...
Architecture. Steiner designed around thirteen buildings in an organic—expressionist architectural style...
...ING House in Amsterdam is a contemporary building by an anthroposophical architect which has received awards for its ecological design and approach to a self-sustaining ecology as an autonomous building and example of sustainable architecture.
Social finance. Around the world today are a number of banks, companies, charities, and schools for developing co-operative forms of business using Steiner's ideas about economic associations, aiming at harmonious and socially responsible roles in the world economy. The first anthroposophic bank was the Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken in Bochum, Germany, founded in 1974. Socially responsible banks founded out of anthroposophy in the English-speaking world include Triodos Bank, founded in 1980 and active in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Spain and France. Cultura Sparebank dates from 1982 when a group of Norwegian anthroposophists start to grow the idea of having ethical banking but only in the late 90s the bank starts to operate as a savings bank in Norway. La Nef in France and RSF Social Finance in San Francisco are other examples.
Organizational development, counselling and biography work. Bernard Lievegoed, a psychiatrist, founded a new method of individual and institutional development oriented towards humanizing organizations and linked with Steiner's ideas of the threefold social order. This work is represented by the NPI Institute for Organizational Development in the Netherlands and sister organizations in many other countries. Various forms of biographic and counselling work have been developed on the basis of anthroposophy.
Social goals. For a period after World War I, Steiner was extremely active and well known in Germany, in part because he lectured widely proposing social reforms. Steiner was a sharp critic of nationalism, which he saw as outdated, and a proponent of achieving social solidarity through individual freedom. A petition proposing a radical change in the German constitution and expressing his basic social ideas (signed by Herman Hesse, among others) was widely circulated. His main book on social reform is Toward Social Renewal.
Anthroposophy continues to aim at reforming society through maintaining and strengthening the independence of the spheres of cultural life, human rights and the economy. It emphasizes a particular ideal in each of these three realms of society:
Esoteric path. According to Steiner, a real spiritual world exists, evolving along with the material one. Steiner held that the spiritual world can be researched in the right circumstances through direct experience, by persons practicing rigorous forms of ethical and cognitive self-discipline. Steiner described many exercises he said were suited to strengthening such self-discipline; the most complete exposition of these is found in his book How To Know Higher Worlds. The aim of these exercises is to develop higher levels of consciousness through meditation and observation. Details about the spiritual world, Steiner suggested, could on such a basis be discovered and reported, though no more infallibly than the results of natural science. -Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe…. Anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of life, certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst.
Steiner regarded his research reports as being important aids to others seeking to enter into spiritual experience. He suggested that a combination of spiritual exercises (for example, concentrating on an object such as a seed), moral development (control of thought, feelings and will combined with openness, tolerance and flexibility) and familiarity with other spiritual researchers' results would best further an individual's spiritual development. He consistently emphasised that any inner, spiritual practice should be undertaken in such a way as not to interfere with one's responsibilities in outer life. Steiner distinguished between what he considered were true and false paths of spiritual investigation.
In anthroposophy, artistic expression is also treated as a potentially valuable bridge between spiritual and material reality.
Prerequisites to and stages of inner development. A person seeking inner development must first of all make the attempt to give up certain formerly held inclinations. Then, new inclinations must be acquired by constantly holding the thought of such inclinations, virtues or characteristics in one's mind. They must be so incorporated into one's being that a person becomes enabled to alter his soul by his own will-power. This must be tried as objectively as a chemical might be tested in an experiment. A person who has never endeavored to change his soul, who has never made the initial decision to develop the qualities of endurance, steadfastness and calm logical thinking, or a person who has such decisions but has given up because he did not succeed in a week, a month, a year or a decade, will never conclude anything inwardly about these truths.-Rudolf Steiner, “On the Inner Life”.
Steiner's stated prerequisites to beginning on a spiritual path include a willingness to take up serious cognitive studies, a respect for factual evidence, and a responsible attitude. Central to progress on the path itself is a harmonious cultivation of the following qualities: Control over one’s own thinking. Control over one’s will. Composure. Positivity. Impartiality.
Steiner sees meditation as a concentration and enhancement of the power of thought. By focusing consciously on an idea, feeling or intention the meditant seeks to arrive at pure thinking, a state exemplified by but not confined to pure mathematics. In Steiner's view, conventional sensory-material knowledge is achieved through relating perception and concepts. The anthroposophic path of esoteric training articulates three further stages of supersensory knowledge, which do not necessarily follow strictly sequentially in any single individual's spiritual progress.
Spiritual exercises. Steiner described numerous exercises he believed would bring spiritual development; other anthroposophists have added many others. A central principle is that "for every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development." According to Steiner, moral development reveals the extent to which one has achieved control over one's inner life and can exercise it in harmony with the spiritual life of other people; it shows the real progress in spiritual development, the fruits of which are given in spiritual perception. It also guarantees the capacity to distinguish between false perceptions or illusions (which are possible in perceptions of both the outer world and the inner world) and true perceptions: i.e., the capacity to distinguish in any perception between the influence of subjective elements (i.e., viewpoint) and objective reality.
Place in Western philosophy.
Relationship to religion. Christ as the center of earthly evolution. Steiner's writing, though appreciative of all religions and cultural developments, emphasizes Western tradition as having evolved to meet contemporary needs. He describes Christ and his mission on earth of bringing individuated consciousness as having a particularly important place in human evolution, whereby:
Spiritual science does not want to usurp the place of Christianity; on the contrary it would like to be instrumental in making Christianity understood. Thus it becomes clear to us through spiritual science that the being whom we call Christ is to be recognized as the center of life on earth, that the Christian religion is the ultimate religion for the earth's whole future. Spiritual science shows us particularly that the pre-Christian religions outgrow their one-sidedness and come together in the Christian faith. It is not the desire of spiritual science to set something else in the place of Christianity; rather it wants to contribute to a deeper, more heartfelt understanding of Christianity.
Thus, anthroposophy considers there to be a being who unifies all religions, and who is not represented by any particular religious faith. This being is, according to Steiner, not only the Redeemer of the Fall from Paradise, but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and of human history. To describe this being, Steiner periodically used terms such as the "Representative of Humanity" or the "good spirit” rather than any denominational term.
Divergence from conventional Christian thought. Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic elements:
Judaism. Rudolf Steiner wrote and lectured on Judaism and Jewish issues for much of his life. In the 1880s and 1890s, he took part in debates on anti-semitism and on assimilation. He was a fierce opponent of anti-semitism and supported the unconditional acceptance and integration of the Jews in Europe. He also supported Émile Zola's position in the Dreyfus affair. In his later life, Steiner was accused by the Nazis of being a Jew, and Adolf Hitler called anthroposophy "Jewish methods". The anthroposophical institutions in Germany were banned during Nazi rule and several anthroposophists sent to concentration camps.
Steiner emphasized Judaism's central importance to the constitution of the modern era in the West but suggested that to appreciate the spirituality of the future it would need to overcome its tendency toward abstraction. Important early anthroposophists who were Jewish included two central members on the executive boards of the precursors to the modern Anthroposophical Society, and Karl König, the founder of the Camphill movement. Martin Buber and Hugo Bergmann, who viewed Steiner's social ideas as a solution to the Arab–Jewish conflict, were also influenced by anthroposophy.
There are several anthroposophical organisations in Israel, including the anthroposophical kibbutz Harduf, founded by Jesaiah Ben-Aharon. A number of these organizations are striving to foster positive relationships between the Arab and Jewish populations: The Harduf Waldorf school includes both Jewish and Arab faculty and students, and has extensive contact with the surrounding Arab communities. In Hilf near Haifa, there is a joint Arab-Jewish Waldorf kindergarten, the first joint Arab-Jewish kindergarten in Israel.
Christian Community. Towards the end of Steiner's life, a group of theology students (primarily Lutheran, with some Roman Catholic members) approached Steiner for help in reviving Christianity, in particular "to bridge the widening gulf between modern science and the world of spirit." They approached a notable Lutheran pastor, Friedrich Rittelmeyer, who was already working with Steiner's ideas, to join their efforts. Out of their co-operative endeavor, the Movement for Religious Renewal, now generally known as The Christian Community, was born. Steiner emphasized that he considered this movement, and his role in creating it, to be independent of his anthroposophical work, as he wished anthroposophy to be independent of any particular religion or religious denomination.
Reception -Supporters.
Scientific basis. Though Rudolf Steiner studied natural science at the Vienna Technical University at the undergraduate level, his doctorate was in epistemology and very little of his work is directly concerned with the empirical sciences. In his mature work, when he did refer to science it was often to present phenomenological or Goethean science as an alternative to what he considered the materialistic science of his contemporaries...
Some results of Steiner's research have been investigated and supported by scientists working to further and extend scientific observation in directions suggested by an anthroposophical approach...
Religious nature. As an explicitly spiritual movement, anthroposophy has sometimes been called a religious philosophy. In 2005, a California federal court ruled that a group alleging that anthroposophy is a religion for Establishment Clause purposes did not provide any legally admissible evidence in support of this view; the case is under appeal. In 2000, a French court ruled that a government minister's description of anthroposophy as a cult was defamatory.
Statements on race. Anthroposophical ideas have been criticized from both sides in the race debate:
The Anthroposophical Society in America has stated: We explicitly reject any racial theory that may be construed to be part of Rudolf Steiner's writings. The Anthroposophical Society in America is an open, public society and it rejects any purported spiritual or scientific theory on the basis of which the alleged superiority of one race is justified at the expense of another race.
See also.
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*Campbell Movement [https://en.wikipedia.] is an initiative for social change based on the principles of anthroposophy. Camphill communities are residential communities and schools that provide support for the education, employment, and daily lives of adults and children with developmental disabilities, mental health problems, or other special needs.
Founding. The movement was founded in 1939 at Kirkton House near Aberdeen (Scotland)… It was König's view that every human being possessed a healthy inner personality that was independent of their physical characteristics, including characteristics marking developmental or mental disability, and the role of the school was to recognize, nurture and educate this essential self. The communities’ philosophy, anthroposophy, states that “a perfectly formed spirit and destiny belong to each human being.”
...The Botton village received the Deputy Prime Minister's Award for Sustainable Communities in 2005; the award cited the community's dedication to the ethos of sustainability and mutual respect, as well as their concrete achievements in these areas
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*Biography Work [https://en.wikipedia.] is essentially about interest -interest in the human being and the great mystery of existence we call human life. It is an active practice for developing self-knowledge. It is a search for meaning out of which may arise greater social understanding -deeper, genuine interest in one’s fellow man. Biography work is founded upon the vast work of Rudolf Steiner, collectively called spiritual science or anthroposophy -”wisdom or knowledge of the human being.” Anthroposophy is often described as a path from the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the world or cosmos. A profound relationship exists between the cosmos or macrocosm and the human being as microcosm. Indeed, anthroposophy suggests the human being is a microcosm of the macrocosm. Yet, biography work works directly with physical existence, life on earth, which itself speaks volumes, if we will but “learn to read the text” of the individual experience, as well as that of the archetype. The human being is a bridge then: on the one hand, embedded in the earth, directed by the rhythms of nature, the seasons, night and day, etc.; and, on the other hand, belonging to the spiritual world. “The only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of certainty that we are rooted in the earth, and at the same time in the cosmos,” as so beautifully described by Vaclav Havel (The Measure of Man).
Individuality and Connection to Others. The human life, one’s biography, is shaped by the inherently creative and uniquely individual power of the “I” or Higher Ego or Higher Self. It is an exploration of the role of the “I” in unfolding a life of gifts, opportunities, illnesses, accidents, struggles, tasks, responsibilities, and perhaps above all questions. Biography work invites new self-understanding and, in turn, awakens interest in the experiences of others. In an evermore virtual world, biography work fosters real meetings and genuine appreciation for the diversity of human endeavor and creativity.
History. Biography Work was first developed in the 1970s, arising out of a picture of human development given by Rudolf Steiner early in the 20th century. Steiner described physical, soul, and spiritual development from birth to death in great detail, and included, as a significant aspect of the whole human being, the soul’s further spiritual growth after death and through successive lifetimes, i.e. reincarnation. Steiner knew that in our time there would be tremendous need for increased social understanding, and that study of human development would be an essential foundation of such understanding.
One of the earliest descriptions of biography work given by Rudolf Steiner appears in the lecture titled “How Can the Destitution of Soul in Modern Times Be Overcome?” and is as follows: “As many descriptions as possible of how human beings really develop -what I would call the positive natural history of individual human development -must be disseminated in an understanding way. Wherever we can we should describe how this or that person developed -we should be able to give a loving account of human development, as we have observed it. The study of life is needed, the will to the understanding of life.”
Method or Ways of Working. Biography work is about listening. At the heart of biography work is the understanding that each life story is a unique revelation of intention and deep wisdom. For the biography practitioner, each “journey” is sacred, and there is an understanding that the “traveler” is continually informed by both individual and universal truths. Biography practitioners bring a broad perspective, artistic exercises, and true listening to life explorations. Biography work is phenomenological; its methods based in phenomenology, particularly as developed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Biography practitioners work via the following: workshops, adult education courses, one-on-one or small group conversation, counseling, consultation and continuing education for professionals.
Workshops and Courses. These are offered on a variety of themes and the learning process is typically infused with social art. Sessions might include short talks, biography exercises, work with storytelling, nature observation, artwork, meditation or inner practice, and conversation. One of the gifts of working in groups is a heightened appreciation for each unique life as it resonates within the context of universal patterns.
Conversation. Being one of the most human of activities, conversation is central to biography work.
Counseling. Some certified biography practitioners are also licensed in counseling, psychotherapy, social work and the like. They typically work in a formal or clinical setting and are able to address crises, life-changing events, inner difficulties, and illness.
Consultation and Continuing Education. Biography practitioners can bring new perspectives to existing professions such as art therapy, medicine, care for the elderly, hospice, work with the homeless, and more.
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