Becoming a responsible community
A new edition of the School of Spiritual Science’s Class Lessons has come out as ga 270 and will soon also be published for the first time in German and English. These texts will then be available to Class members to work with and to anyone who is interested in them.
Readers of the Class Lessons will come across an ‘occult law’ described by Rudolf Steiner, which states that, once published, the meditations conveyed in these lessons lose their effectiveness. What has the work of the First Class of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum been guided by since these conditions changed in 1992?
One essential point made by Rudolf Steiner on 28 December 1923 was already quoted in the preface to the publication of the Class texts in 1992: “This spirit of the time cannot tolerate outer secrets, while it can cope quite well with the inner secret” (GA 260, 1994). The inner secret needs fostering because it is of particular importance, especially now that the texts are public. It lives in the will of Class members to be representatives of anthroposophy and encompasses the inner development and self-knowledge “that seeks to guide the spirit in us to the spirit in the universe” (GA 26, first Leading Thought). A community of responsible individuals emerges that has the will to do this work as its substance.
Aspects of effectiveness
While the effectiveness of individual meditative work remains untouched by the meditations’ publication (Rudolf Steiner published the Rosicrucian meditation, for instance, presumably without its effectiveness being diminished), the effectiveness of meditative work is endangered when pursued by a larger group of people. The individual work is accompanied by the person’s spirit being; with the communal work not only the angel of each individual, but a spirit being from the hierarchy of archangels can connect itself. This is why Michael, a spirit of time and archangel, is addressed as the School’s leader.
Very soon after Rudolf Steiner’s death the School’s original coherence was disrupted considerably and the restrictions to its effectiveness continued through the following decades. Now we are no longer required to hold on to traditions that have lost their former validity – because “the world cannot tolerate outer secrets”. What is consequently needed more than ever – as Jörgen Smit pointed out – is the will of those who are, or wish to become, members of the School of Spiritual Science to form, in every moment anew, this worldwide association of ‘sisters and brothers’, this chalice; to promote it and thus make it effective. This chalice comes into being as we as individuals seek for truth in knowledge, through the meditative mood of our inner work and the earnest endeavour not to forget that we are active members of this School. All these are essential preconditions of effectiveness.
From mouth to ear
The Class Lessons, which are conveyed ‘from mouth to ear’, allow us to sense the connection with the spiritual world and the Michael being – and therefore with the source of effectiveness. This source is tangible: we may therefor ask whether the life force of anthroposophy that has been so impressively apparent in the past hundred years, transforming the cultural and social life, is not connected with this work of the School of Spiritual Science and its Sections. Not only ‘earthly helping hands’ are at work here but those of the dead as well, of those who went before us. Against this background it becomes apparent that the work of the School of Spiritual Science has an effect not only on individuals but above all on humanity as a whole. The School is consequently a global working community that, in this sense, can develop a ‘non-publishable’ quality and effectiveness and that has clear terms of admission.
It will only unfold its potential, however, if it is carried by the Anthroposophical Society and if it sees itself as the ‘soul’ of this Society. Other active groups may well achieve much that is good; but for the effectiveness described it needs the connection of a social body (the Anthroposophical Society) with its soul (School of Spiritual Science) and its spiritual being, which is implied in the name ‘Michael School’. A healthy union of body, soul and spirit is essential for the strong and fruitful effectiveness that is so very important for the next hundred years of the anthroposophical cultural impulse.
Matthias Girke, Goetheanum
Paradigm shift
“The Anthroposophical Society sees the School of Spiritual Science as the centre of its activities” – this is what it says in the founding statutes of 1923/1924 and it still applies today. In the course of the year 1924 Rudolf Steiner described the conditions for this new kind of School and established the first of three intended classes along with several specialist sections. While the publications of this School are public, the mantras of the First Class were for many decades only accessible (‘from mouth to ear’) to members of the School of Spiritual Science; the transcripts of Rudolf Steiner’s words only to the responsible Class holders.
After Rudolf Steiner’s death the School’s impulse was kept alive beyond World War II (see the presentations on this by Johannes Kiersch and Peter Selg); it was further developed by Jörgen Smit, among others, and increasingly built up in other countries and cultures.
In 1992, the then Leadership of the School of Spiritual Science decided together with the administration of Rudolf Steiner’s estate (Nachlassverwaltung) to publish all the texts and mantras before copyright expired in a large-format format first edition that was difficult to access. The Rudolf Steiner Verlag in Basel (CH) has now published a revised and annotated edition of the Class Lessons in one volume. It includes all notebook entries and blackboard drawings and constitutes volume 270 in Rudolf Steiner’s complete works (Gesamtausgabe).
Justus Wittich, Goetheanum