Why ‹General› Anthroposophical Society?
Uwe Werner explains why the designation‹general› is essential in the name of the Society that was established at the Christmas Conference of 1923/1924. He also refers to motion 7, which was submitted on 15 February 2019 by Eva Lohmann Heck and Thomas Heck (cf. Anthroposophy Worldwide 3/2019 and here).
A closer look at the roots of the Society reveals why the name «General Anthroposophical Society» is significant. It is true that Rudolf Steiner’s initial references to the Society appear to be ambivalent: in the title of the Newsletter, which was decided upon at the Christmas Conference of 1923/1924, it says ‹What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society›, while the title of Rudolf Steiner’s account of 13 January 1924 was «The Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society at the Christmas Meeting, 1923». That account starts with the sentence «The purpose of the Christmas gathering that has come to an end now was to give the Anthroposophical Society the form most suitable for the development of the anthroposophical movement.»
Inner space and form
Rudolf Steiner clearly wrote ‹General Anthroposophical Society›. Why, then, did he refer to it as the ‹Anthroposophical Society› in the very next sentence as well as in the title of the Newsletter, throughout the Statutes and on the membership cards? The name does, of course, also belong to the form of the Society, but when the ‹anthroposophical› nature of the Society is meant – its inner space – the statutes determine the form, and the fact that it is a ‹general› society becomes less important. At the founding meeting of the English Society on 2 September 1923, Rudolf Steiner characterized such an inner space, when he said that the Society had to be constituted in such a way that «a kind of vacuum is created, an empty, free space, in which it truly unfolds.» (GA 259)
When Rudolf Steiner attended the foundations of societies in other countries in 1923, he pointed out that, at Christmas 1923, the national societies would become the International Anthroposophical Society (GA 259). The programme of the invitation for the Christmas Conference still reflected this intention (GA 260). On 24 December 1923, at the very beginning of the conference, Rudolf Steiner then said explicitly in his opening lecture that the designation ‹international› had to be replaced by ‹general› (GA 260). This transition was already tangible on 2 September 1923, when Rudolf Steiner said at the founding of the English Society, «We could simply call it an occult law that any truly viable and fruitful spiritual movement is universally human, that it is what one would trivially call ‹international›.» He then continued, «This does, of course, not mean that it cannot do justice to individual groups or associations. One can do justice to one’s own nation as much as to all others. Each nation has, without doubt, its important impulses to bring to humanity as a whole. The belief that being international implies any disregard for the individual nation is entirely unjustified. It is especially within the international context that the own national characteristics can be valued and presented in the right light.» (GA 259)
A federative gesture
In Steiner’s view, the ‹international› – that is, the ‹general› – aspect will not eliminate the national or specific aspects when it comes to what is generally [or universally] human, but accommodate it within the overall Society. The founding of Societies always started at the national – or specific – level and the national societies together then formed the joint ‹general› Society – from the periphery, and not the other way round. It is a federative gesture. The Goetheanum Leadership’s proposal to form an advisory organ of national representatives within the Society therefore seems to me to be a sensible further development of the Christmas Conference Statute.
In my view the significance of the fact that, at the Christmas Conference, the designation ‹general› was added to the name of the Society must not be underestimated.