AWAKENING TO COMMUNITY

"We are firmly in our understanding of things of the spirit only when we do not rest content with abstract spiritual concepts and a capacity to express them theoretically, but instead grow into a sure belief that higher beings are present with us in a community of spirit when we engage in spiritual study. No external measures can bring about anthroposophical community-building. You have to call it forth from the profoundest depths of human consciousness." —Rudolf Steiner

THE CHALLENGE OF THE TIMES

In these lectures, given just days after the end of World War I, Steiner describes the new developments in mechanics, politics, and economy, as well as new capacities and methods in the West and the East. He reveals their fruitful potentials, but also the dangers of their abuse. He discusses social and antisocial instincts, specters of the Old Testament in the nationalism of the present, and the innate capacities of various nations.

CONSCIOUS SOCIETY

Anthroposophy and the Social Question

Delivered in the context of post-war cultural and social chaos, these lectures form part of Rudolf Steiner’s energetic efforts to cultivate social understanding and renew culture through his innovative ideas based on ‘threefolding’. Steiner develops a subtle and discerning perception of how social dynamics could change and heal if they were founded on real insight into our threefold nature as individuals, social beings and economic participants in the world. He doesn’t offer a programmatic agenda for change, but a real foundation from which change can organically grow.

THE ESOTERIC ASPECT OF THE SOCIAL QUESTION

The Individual and Society

Although recent years have seen major advances in science and technology, the social aspect of life still presents major problems for western societies. The general increase in destructive, antisocial behaviour over past decades has raised the profile of social issues, yet effective ideas to tackle the difficulties are often nowhere to be found.

FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND SOCIETAL FORCES

Implementing the Demands of Modern Society

Freedom of Thought and Societal Forces provides a broad overview of Steiner’s fresh thinking on "social threefolding". He acknowledged that the demand for social change, derived above all from the working class, whom industrialization had forced into a kind of indentured life dominated by economics. From Steiner's perspective, the underlying issue was not only economic, however, but also spiritual or cultural. Culture and the cultured classes had become estranged from "real life". Society needed a "free" culture that would include all classes. It also needed to shift labour into the legal sphere of rights, the only place where workers could find real freedom in society. Capital, too, needed to be liberated from egotism and allowed, like goods, simply to circulate. Above all, Steiner understood that social realities could not be separated from the spiritual realities of human existence.

HEALING THE SOCIAL ORGANISM

Speaking just months after the end of the First World War, Rudolf Steiner urges his audience to awaken to the practical relevance of spiritual knowledge. Serious engagement with contemporary spiritual-scientific concepts can awaken healthy forces of the will, which in turn facilitate constructive action in the outer world. Conversely, ideas that are remnants of a previous age – echoed in empty phrases and dogmas – only hinder our ability to think with the consciousness demanded by the times, destroying the potential for true social initiative.

ON THE WINGS OF WORDS

Conversations and Human Relations:

Inner Aspects of the Fundamental Social Law and The Threefold Social Organism

Selected and Annotated by Gary Lamb

“We live in [a time when] human beings must become independent. But on what does this depend? It depends on people’s ability...to become self-assertive, to not allow themselves to be put to sleep [in their thinking]. It is the antisocial forces that require development in this time, for consciousness to be present. It would not be possible for humanity in the present to accomplish its task if...these antisocial forces did not become ever more powerful; they are indeed the pillars on which personal independence rests. At present humanity has no idea how much more powerful antisocial impulses must become.” — Rudolf Steiner (Dec. 12, 1918)

PAST AND FUTURE IMPULSES

in Societal Events

Barely four months after the end of the First World War, with Europe in chaos and exhausted from years of conflict, Rudolf Steiner offered these lectures of hope and renewal. Despite continuing social troubles around the world, he knew that human beings had an opportunity to organize society in a new way. Steiner responded to this prospect by giving suggestions for creating innovative social structures that are in harmony with people’s inner needs.

PROBLEMS OF SOCIETY

An Esoteric View, From Luciferic Past to Ahrimanic Future

‘Whatever turbulent outward events occur in the world, whatever form is taken by things seeking to work their way out of the depths of human evolution, we only really hearken to the true, underlying nature of these events ... if we observe the world from a spiritual perspective.’ – Rudolf Steiner

RETHINKING ECONOMICS

Lectures and Seminars on World Economics

Rudolf Steiner gave this complex sequence of dense, subtle, multileveled lectures and seminars to students of economics in Dornach, Switzerland, during the summer of 1922. The course reflects a lifetime of thinking on the subject and marks the conclusion of his intense five-year period of activism in the service of social, political, and economic issues.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

An Introductory Reader

Psychological cognition; The social question; The social question and theosophy; Memoranda of 1917; The metamorphosis of intelligence; Culture, law and economy; Central Europe between East and West.

THE SOCIAL FUTURE

Culture, Equality, and the Economy

In 1919, shortly after World War I, the structure of society and the economy, both in Germany and globally, became a primary concern of Rudolf Steiner. In addition to writing The Threefold Social Order, in which he presented his ideas for social renewal, Steiner also gave lecture courses that year, including The Social Question as a Question of Consciousness (CW 189); Impulses of the Past and Future in Social Events (CW 190); Spiritual-Scientific Treatment of Social and Pedagogical Questions (CW 192); The Esoteric Aspect of the Social Question (CW 193); The Social Question (CW 328); as well as others and the lectures in this book, The Social Future.

SOCIAL ISSUES

Meditative Thinking and the Threefold Social Order

Paperback

In these exciting lectures, Rudolf Steiner shows that today's political, economic, and social problems are symptoms of our faulty thinking. His convincing analysis of economic crises, unemployment, and political uprisings unmasks such problems as signs of our desperate need for new thinking. In a very accessible way, Steiner describes how spiritual science and the kind of thinking it fosters can lead to a renewal of society and to true freedom for individuals.

SOCIAL THREEFOLDING

Rebalancing Culture, Politics & Economics

An Introductory Reader

In the aftermath of the devastating First World War, Rudolf Steiner gained a reputation as a leading social thinker. One mainstream reviewer of his book Towards Social Renewal referred to it as ‘… perhaps the most widely read of all books on politics appearing since the war’. Steiner’s proposals for the reconstruction of Europe and the rebuilding of society’s crumbling social structure were thus publicly discussed as a serious alternative to both Communism and Capitalism.

SPIRITUAL SCIENCE AS A FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL FORMS

Hardback

THE TENSION BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

TOWARDS SOCIAL RENEWAL

Rethinking the Basis of Society

Although this book was first published in 1919, it remains highly relevant to social problems encountered today. Uniquely, Steiner's social thinking is not based on intellectual theory, but on a profound perception of the archetypal spiritual nature of social life. As he suggests in this classic work, society has three distinct realms - the economic, the political (individual human rights), and the cultural (spiritual). While social life as a whole is a unity, the autonomy of these three sectors should be respected if our increasing social problems are to be resolved.

UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY

Through Spiritual-Scientific Knowledge

Social Threefolding, Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman

In the uncertainty following the end of the First World War, Rudolf Steiner perceived a unique opportunity to establish a healthy social and political constitution. He began lecturing throughout post-war Germany, often to large audiences, about his social ideas. Here, speaking to a more intimate grouping at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, Steiner seeks to deepen the themes of social threefolding, showing specifically how new social thinking is integral to anthroposophy.

WHAT IS NECESSARY IN THESE URGENT TIMES

In early 1920, political, economic, social, and spiritual chaos was everywhere. The old world had fallen apart and would need to be rebuilt. Anthroposophy, too, had to be remade. Recognizing this, Rudolf Steiner worked tirelessly for the 'threefold social order', establishing the first Waldorf school, helping to create businesses, and addressing the talented, educated, and idealistic young people who were beginning to turn toward anthroposophy for answers.