last update: March 11, 2008
GELEBTE WEIHNACHTSTAGUNG
Living the Christmas Conference
Society for the Preservation of the General Anthroposophical Society of 1923 and 1925
is the only authorized website of
LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE
2. Living the Christmas Conference
3. General Anthroposophical Society
Constitution Issues and Lawsuit USA
888GOYA
This website containing current events and historical developments within the General Anthroposophical Society has been created by a new anthroposophical society founded on December 28, 2003:
LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE
Society for the Preservation of the
General Anthroposophical Society of 1923 and 1925
Developments taking place in the Society as early as December of 2002 and especially on November 15, 2003 require everyone close to the anthroposophical impulse to take a clear stand. We are convinced that, given the current situation within the Society, the anthroposophical impulse will only survive if as many anthroposophists as possible have a clear understanding of the issues involved.
Since at present the official anthroposophical media do not provide the basic information on which independent, responsible opinions must be based, LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE (GELEBTE WEIHNACHTSTAGUNG) feels called upon to take over this essential task by passing on the fruits of our own search to those who are on the anthroposophical path.
We will be setting up 888GOYA during the next few months, and are pleased to be able to do so in English as well as in German. One of the foremost goals of 888GOYA will be to bring you the latest information on events within the Society.
For years and, in some cases, decades, members of the LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CON-FERENCE (GELEBTE WEIHNACHTSTAGUNG) have been trying to identify the conditions the anthroposophical impulse needs in order to survive and flourish, always mindful, above all, of Rudolf Steiner’s Christmas Conference intentions.
This issue has led us to study the nature and entire history of the Anthroposophical Society and to begin participating in Society life, especially after the constitution controversy began to boil up again in the 1990’s.
In doing this work, we have accumulated a wealth of material, which we have been publishing in the LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE (GELEBTE WEIHNACHTSTAGUNG) >NEWSLETTER founded on the 70th anniversary of the Christmas Conference, in 1993. The website 888GOYA.org we are now inaugurating is designed to complement this newsletter and to make our information available to a wider circle of anthroposophically striving individuals. Together with our newsletter, the website seeks to help overcome a severe information deficit and to correct the misinformation, sometimes even deliberate misinformation, being dealt out to members of late.
Over the course of many years, individually and jointly, we have sought to clarify our thinking, advance our inner path, and practice community building, and we feel that this justifies our deeply considered decision to set up this website.
Werner Jordan
Michaela Jordan
Bernhard Ruchti
The Board of Directors of the
LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE
Advent Tide 2004
888GOYA
An Explanation of the Name
888: We intend this triple 8 or triple lemniscate, a symbol of life, to counteract the triple w, which, translated from the Hebrew, is actually a triple 6, and thus the “sign of the beast”, and burdened with highly negative forces.
GOYA: The painter Francesco de GOYA (1746-1828) is closely connected with the upheaval of the French Revolution, which culminated in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. He was especially concerned with its repercussions on his native Spain. One of the most famous paintings of this Spanish court painter is “The Execution of the Revolutionaries on May 3, 1808”. After participating in the liberal uprising of 1824, GOYA went into exile, and died in Bordeaux on April 16, 1828.
GOYA evolved into a tireless critic of society, continually exposing the weaknesses of his age. His paintings were powerful, uncompromising exposés of these weaknesses.
He was far ahead of his time in developing a painting style that grew continually bolder and freer, and finally achieved expressionistic effects far ahead of the age of expressionism. Expressionism, surrealism, and all later art critical of society have their roots in his work.
|
“The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters”
One of Goya's etchings in his 1797 series “Caprichios” |
“GOYA discovered his genius on the day
he was bold enough to stop trying to please.”
André Malraux, 1928
About the American Correspondent of
LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE,
Christiane Marks
I was born in 1938 in Germany into an Anthroposophical home. My Mother, my aunts, and our family friend Franz Rulni (known for his astrological calendars), were members of the original generation of bio-dynamic farmers and gardeners. His wife, Maria Rulni, was an outstanding anthroposophical painter. Franz Rulni took part in Rudolf Steiner’s wake, sitting by his bedside. After coming to America in 1947, I graduated from High Mowing School, Wilton, New Hampshire (a Waldorf school), earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature, and a Master's in German. In the seventies I taught at Waldorf schools in Ottersberg and Ulm, Germany, and joined the Society. In the 1980's, I started and led the first Anthroposophical study group in Fargo, North Dakota, members of which later helped start the Anthroposophical work in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. After raising six children, I joined the American Translators' Association; I was also a member of the Anthroposophical Translators’ and Editors’ Association, as long as that body was active. I translate mainly Anthroposophical material and the poetry of Rilke. My latest translation is Threefold Mary, lectures on the Virgin Mary by Emil Bock (SteinerBooks). Now, in Copake Falls, I continue to write and translate, volunteering at the Christian Community and Camphill Copake. In November I gave a reading and talk on Rilke to benefit the Rudolf Steiner Library in Harlemville.
Like many Anthroposophists, for many years I did not pay much attention to what went on in Dornach. But in February of 2003, on visiting my sister in Germany who is a longtime Anthroposophist and anthroposophical medical doctor, I first realized that all was not well at the Goetheanum. My sister had gone to the extraordinary members’ meeting on December 28 and 29 of 2002 and received a rude shock at the door. Membership cards were not honored. Before she and her friends were allowed in, they had to commit themselves on a separate card to the "Christmas Conference Society" as defined by the Vorstand, or, if they could not make that snap decision, totally unprepared, with a long line of members standing behind them waiting, they had to sign a different card not requiring them to make that commitment, but denying them their normal membership right to participate and vote in the meeting. About 100 members were illegally denied their membership rights on that day. The meeting was not called as required by Article 10, either: The invitations to extraordinary meetings to be sent out to all members three weeks in advance were not sent. Invitations were only given in the "Goetheanum", which not nearly all members get, so that many did not know of the meeting. These and other irregularities at the meeting generated several lawsuits, most of which are still to be settled.
I knew that, according to Rudolf Steiner’s words in the 4th Letter to Members, as an active member I had to inform myself about every phase of Society life. I found the reports of that December 2002 meeting so alarming that I decided to start with the constitution issue, and it did, indeed, turn out to be a troubling one.
The material in the English portion of this website was written to acquaint Englishspeaking Anthroposophists with how the Board is going about making a decision that is vital to all Anthroposophists and future of Anthroposophy. You will find general information about the newly founded society LIVING THE CHRISTMAS CONFERENCE (GELEBTE WEIHNACHTSTAGUNG), the addresses of all national societies and branches in Europe, and news about events within the General Anthroposophical Society. I will be translating the most important sections of the newsletter as time allows, in order to make it as helpful as possible to English speakers. Our consciousness soul era demands that we be aware of what is happening in our society and its legal foundation is just as important as the esoteric study that is carried on within it. At the Christmas Conference, Rudolf Steiner joined esoteric and exoteric life, so the constitution of the Society is really an esoteric as well as a legal matter.
Here in the USA, I have been publishing articles on the constitution issue for one and a half years now and forwarding these articles and other information to numerous individuals both in the USA and in other Englishspeaking countries, and emailing and phoning interested Anthroposophists from California to the UK. There is a sizeable local group interested in these issues, and there have been many informal conversations and occasional meetings. I hope to arrange a regular study group.