The Stuttgart state attorney Dr. Bruno Kruger has testified that as early as June 1924 Rudolf Steiner said to him personally with firm insistence: “This impulse has failed. Come back to Dornach in October. Then everything will be arranged differently – including the situation in Stuttgart”.
A member who wishes to remain anonymous received from Rudolf Steiner, in response to a question about the Christmas Conference and its effects within the Society, the answer: the spiritual world allows nine months to see whether an echo comes from the members. If no echo comes, the impulses of the Christmas Conference have come to an end. When the nine months had passed, this member asked Rudolf Steiner about it again. He replied: “No echo has come. The Society has not taken up the Christmas Conference”.
The eurythmist Ina Schuurman testifies to having received personally from Rudolf Steiner the following statement, which she reports thus: “It was during a eurythmy dress rehearsal in the course of the Christmas Conference…. That Rudolf Steiner was walking past on his way from the auditorium, stopped in front of me and said: ‘Now let us hope that things can continue in this way for ten years’. In September 1924 there was again a dress rehearsal in Dornach…. When Rudolf Steiner came by and stopped in front of me. He said with great emphasis: ‘the Christmas Conference has failed’, and walked on into the auditorium.
There is also a communication said to have been received by Countess Keyserlingk after Rudolf Steiner’s death. Countess Keyserlingk had attained certain degrees in occult training. She writes as follows: “It was on the morning of Rudolf Steiner’s cremation, which I did not attend. The earthly body of the great Teacher was still laid out near to where I stood in the room of the carpentry shop, when close to me the aura of the beloved Teacher appeared.
-Excerpts from General Renewal– or Illusion – of the Anthroposophical Society by Harald Giersch
A lecture held in Villingen–Schwenningen, Germany, on 19.01.2005
Giersch lecture
6 comments:
Te article "The Christmas Conference - Entombment or Resurrectionïnclues my comment
https://willehalminstitute.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-christmas-conference-1923-2023.html
Not sure this is a helpful post. Better perhaps for any anthroposophist - even anyone at all who encounters Steiner's work - to internalize, manifest, apply and share it as best they can. when that happens, I think, anthroposophy will move forward in the world, regardless of any past failures.
Thank you. The nest is empty. Please, write how to attain endurance to keep a daily inner work. I am struggling for years: start and stop, start and stop, an so on... Thank you.
I suppose no one will see this comment, late to the "party" as I am. However, to any who read this post and the accompanying link to the Giersch lecture, it is, I believe, important to understand something that "might" seem, or be, confusing.
The failure of the Society has no bearing on the success of Anthroposophy, Spiritual Science, as a whole. Anthroposophy will only succeed or fail within the individual "I", within the thoughts, feelings and will of the individual Human. Anthroposophy will only truly fail if there are no longer any Anthroposophists, of which I am one - and I personally know several well-grounded Anthroposophists.
Where weak Humans - and by nature most of us are, weak that is - come together to attempt to lead other Human beings, there will, unfortunately, always be presented a challenge that is beyond most people's ability to overcome, so see through - our own egoism. This, one might say, however, as RS might have said, is of an iron necessity - unfortunate but true. The overcoming of such personal - and corporate - egoism is, or should be, the first item on the agenda of any such groups.
It is our egoism that is the very thing we each need to contend with in this Human life. It does not dissipate when we come together in groups, especially when that group has the responsibility to lead others along Life's Path.
I had heard about this many years ago - early 70s - from my anthroposophical mentor, Edith Magil. I didn't pay much attention to it back then.
She had translated an article by Herbert Hillringhaus on the subject. Herbert was a prominent anthroposophist, a publisher of "Die Kommenden". Maybe some of our German subscribers could find there way to access his original article. He was closer to the Rudolf Steiner Estate Administration than the Goetheanum.
http://biographien.kulturimpuls.org/detail.php?&id=312
If any German members want to read further about the failure of the Christmas Conference I would suggest checking the archives for the bigger article by Herbert Hilllringhaus in Die Kommenden. I know it must be there because my friend translated it to English back in the late 60s or 70s.
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