Christmas E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Rudolf Steiner, the often undervalued, multifaceted genius of modern times, contributed much to the regeneration of culture. In addition to his philosophical teachings, he provided ideas for the development of many practical activities, including education - both general and special - agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, religion and the arts. Steiner's original contribution to human knowledge was based on his ability to conduct 'spiritual research', the investigation of metaphysical dimensions of existence. With his scientific and philosophical training, he brought a new systematic discipline to the field, allowing for conscious methods and comprehensive results. A natural seer from childhood, he cultivated his spiritual vision to a high degree, enabling him to speak with authority on previously veiled mysteries of life. Samples of Steiner's work are to be found in this introductory reader in which Matthew Barton brings together excerpts from Steiner's many talks and writings on Christmas. The volume also features an editorial introduction, afterword, commentary and notes. Chapters: Christmas in a Grevious Age; Christmas and the Earth; Delving to the Core; The Child and the Tree; Towards a New Christmas.

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

In the deep ground of our soul

lives, sure to triumph, spirit sun;

true powers of the feeling mind

can sense this in the inward life

of winter; and heart’s springing hope

sees sun spirit’s victory shine

in the blessed light of Christmas: as

an image of the highest life

in deep winter’s darkest night.

CHRISTMAS

Also available:

(Festivals)

Easter

Michaelmas

St John’s

Whitsun

(Practical Applications)

Agriculture

Architecture

Art

Education

Eurythmy

Medicine

Religion

Science

Social and Political Science

(Esoteric)

Alchemy

Atlantis

Christian Rozenkreutz

The Druids

The Goddess

The Holy Grail

RUDOLF STEINER

CHRISTMAS

An Introductory Reader

Compiled with an introduction, commentary and notes by Matthew Barton

Sophia Books

Sophia Books An imprint of Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

For earlier English publications of individual selections please see Sources

The material by Rudolf Steiner was originally published in German in various volumes of the ‘GA’ (Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized volume is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach (for further information see Note Regarding Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures)

All translations revised by Matthew Barton

Matthew Barton would like to thank Margaret Jonas, librarian at Rudolf Steiner House, for her invaluable help in locating volumes used in compiling this book

This selection and translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 332 5

Cover by Andrew Morgan Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

CONTENTS

Introduction by Matthew Barton

CHRISTMAS IN A GRIEVOUS AGE

1. Can We Celebrate Christmas?

2. Christ Beyond Strife

3. Empty Phrase or Inner Peace?

CHRISTMAS AND THE EARTH

4. Christmas Play Traditions

5. Earth Holds Its Breath

6. Music and Form: Midsummer to Midwinter

7. Connected to All the Universe

DELVING TO THE CORE

8. Christmas Initiation: Seeing the Sun at Midnight

9. Love, the Greatest Power

10. From Paradise to Golgotha: the Thirteen Holy Nights

11. The Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson

THE CHILD AND THE TREE

12. The Jesus Child

13. The Golden Legend

14. Innocence and Experience

TOWARDS A NEW CHRISTMAS

15. Past, Present and Future

16. Reverence as a Healing Force

17. Shepherds and Magi: Two Ways of Knowing

18. From Birth to Rebirth

19. Christ Born Within Us

20. The Calyx of Mary, the Blossom of Jesus, the Seed of Christ

Afterword

Notes

Sources

Further Reading

Note Regarding Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures

Introduction

Nearly 21 years ago my daughter was born on a cold January night. I witnessed the birth, and held my child—like holding a miracle, a new flame; then, in the small hours I left her and my wife in the hospital and phoned for a taxi. Everything seemed transformed, renewed, incandescent, even at that drab time long before dawn. The taxi arrived and I got in—and found myself face to face with, possibly, the ugliest, oddest man I’ve ever seen. It was not just his physical features that were alarming, but his whole demeanour. On another occasion I might have chosen to walk instead, but the sense of grace wrapping and flooding me allowed me to see this stranger in a different guise. I thought: ‘You too were once newborn ...’ I remember no particular words passing between us, only that I was lifted beyond fear or suspicion to a quite unsullied place in myself that could recognize the innocence, however deeply hidden, in another.

It is, perhaps, something of this sense that Steiner conjures in many of these lectures: the love, and the nature of the love, that can transport us in the presence of a newborn, innocent soul, and that connects us with our own primal innocence—inevitably lost in the forests of earthly experience.

Jungle might be a better word. Or wasteland. It is very difficult to know how to celebrate Christmas today—to reach back to that original innocence we descend from on the one hand, and on the other to reach forward to, and be informed by, a future Christmas of heartfelt accord amongst humanity that we are still so far from attaining. Between past and future stands the present, a continual gift, if we fully understand it, both of our long-gone origin and far-off destination. Christmas, the most celebrated of Christian festivals, has for that very reason succumbed most to the nature of modern consciousness. Celebration of a purely physical birth, of a very elevated but nevertheless merely human and physical being, finds its counterpart in a season of merely material gifts, and either sentimental or ironic expressions of good will.

Steiner has no objection at all to the warm conviviality among human beings which still survives at this season despite the best efforts of commerce to exploit it for profitable ends. But he says we need something more, since the old sense of community has lost its sustaining power and cannot effectively be resuscitated by narrowing the world—as we all do—to close(d) concerns of immediate family and friends. Christmas so easily becomes a festival of enhanced and divisive egotism, not of true remembrance and anticipation of our once and future united humanity, beyond all ties of blood. A parent’s deep love for a child is absolutely authentic, but nevertheless it needs to broaden into an embrace of the whole world.

It is Steiner’s concern in these extracts to forge a new Christmas—which means a new consciousness—seeking, on the one hand, for the deeper significance of the traditional symbols of child, tree, angel, shepherds and kings that nowadays are more or less drowned out by the jingle bells of cash tills, and on the other delving further and futurewards in our evolving understanding of the nature of Christ. There is no mention of Advent in these extracts, yet the whole evolution of humanity can be seen as a gradual approach to what approaches us in the figure of Christ. This may be something like the process described by Michelangelo of carving down into the form already present, concealed in the stone, which emerges towards us as we reach towards it with ever subtler, finer craft until the artist—in this case all humanity—meets its destined union with its deepest intention.

One of Steiner’s essential insights, which may be very difficult for modern folk to countenance, is that Jesus and Christ are not one and the same, but that the former provided a vessel for a wholly non-material force and love to infuse, penetrate and renew the material earth. Materialists will long since have parted company with me, but this for Steiner is the core of the matter and in making it so he asks us to change our mind, heart and actions, opening ourselves to the future which can only approach us as we work transformatively on ourselves—and so on everybody else.

The double meaning of that little word ‘present’ can sum it all up. Perhaps the greatest gift an adult can offer a child is to be fully present with him. This sounds simple but is, of course, extremely difficult. We absent ourselves so easily, escaping into predetermined modes of behaviour, or taking flight into self-absorption of one kind or another. Presence of mind, if only for brief moments, enables us to be fully, lovingly available. Children know when we’re wholly there for them—even if subtly and undemonstratively—and are past masters at urging this from us, often almost against our will. This meaning of present leads seamlessly into the other. When we really take care in choosing or making a gift for someone, something of the non-material quality of love we invest in the gift will communicate itself to the person receiving it. There is matter, certainly, in the gift’s physical existence, but it is pervaded by our presence of mind—a spiritual gift. This image of spirit and matter joining hands, as it were, to create the present in both senses, is a tiny reflection of the great deed by the being called Christ who embraces, renews and transfigures the darkness and dead weight of earth, and seeds it with inner light. Throughout these lectures Steiner refers to this deed as the ‘Mystery of Golgotha’, but makes clear that he includes Christmas in this (see section 18, paragraph 3).

The passages and extracts collected here are just that—longer or shorter extracts from the larger context of whole lectures. Steiner developed his lectures into an art form in the best sense, and the reader is referred to the original, complete lectures for the ‘total experience’ and context from which these passages are drawn.

Matthew Barton