Exactly one hundred years ago, something spiritually remarkable was happening in Central Europe. A figure had emerged with the most profound insight into the deepest mysteries of the human experience: death, reincarnation, the existence of higher worlds and the destiny of human evolution.

He was highly educated in Western philosophy and science, widely read in cultural and artistic matters, and possessed a magnetic gift as a public speaker and writer. Over the course of the next twenty five years, he gave over six thousand lectures — none of them the same — wrote twenty five books, and founded major new impulses in education, agriculture, medicine and numerous other disciplines.

A century later, the schools that developed from his spiritual insight into the unfoldment of the child constitute the world’s most widespread, independent approach to education. His organic approach to farming and agriculture preceded the back-to-the-land movement of the Sixties by half a century and is now widely practiced. And villages inspired by his work for “those in need of special care,” physically challenged and disabled adults and children, are found on every continent.

Surely such a figure would be a household name among the millions in North America who consider themselves part of the consciousness community — people concerned with the very issues to which this individual had devoted his life. It would be hard to imagine that someone so dedicated to serving humanity and so successful in his efforts would be mostly unknown to the many who take pride in their commitment to spiritual and social renewal.

Yet that is exactly what has happened. Somehow, Rudolf Steiner — perhaps the most spiritually gifted and accomplished figure of the Twentieth Century — remains marginalized by most cultural creatives today. A man who felt his destiny was, above all, to give to the modern world a correct and scrupulous understanding of karma and reincarnation, has been largely forgotten as a spiritual teacher while the Tibetan Book of the Dead and all things Buddhist have become hip and fashionable. How can this be? Clearly, it didn’t help that Steiner died in 1925, that he never came to America, and that all his lectures were given in German. New readers can be easily overwhelmed by the sheer volume of his work, the difficulty of knowing where to start, and the frequent use of unfamiliar terms.

To be sure, Steiner’s books are never easy reading. Each demands the intense mental effort of grasping totally new thoughts that seriously expand the mind and the imagination. The result, however, is that the reader emerges with a magnificent conception of the journey of spiritual evolution that encompasses the mystery centers and civilizations of the ancient world, the medieval and renaissance mystics, the full spectrum of philosophy, and the attainment of knowledge of higher worlds.

An awakened reader also develops an overwhelming sense of the vastness of human existence. When we read Steiner on what he calls “the life between death and rebirth” we are not perplexed by arcane accounts of the various “bardo” states that often require a lama for explication. Instead, he paints a lucid picture of the moment of death when a vast tableau of our life rises before us. This is followed by the phase he calls kamaloca in which the soul relives its life backwards, this time infinitely more sensitive to the effects produced on others by its actions. This is the moral purification or ennoblement of the soul that has come down to us in twisted form as purgatory.

After this extended period when we truly grasp the consequences of our actions, the soul is said to journey out into devachan, the sphere of the planetary intelligences, imbibing cosmic wisdom until the “midnight hour of existence” is reached and it begins its journey towards rebirth. Then, aided by the magnificent super-angelic beings that have come down to us in meager and distorted form as the plump little cherubims and seraphims of church decoration, we shape the contours of our future incarnation to balance the actions of our previous life. As Saul Bellow, for years a serious student of Rudolf Steiner, has commented, this is a view of human life and death that is hair raising. And it must be said that even if only five per cent of what Steiner describes is true, then our lives and deaths are the wildest cosmic ride any of us could ever ask for.

Now, how did he know all of this? Most mortals have a hard enough time just making it through the day without finding time to contemplate these spiritual subtleties. Rudolf Steiner, however, was blessed by clairvoyant vision from the age of nine when he first became aware of spiritual beings beyond the material plane. But he was far from a woolly minded mystic.

Despite his humble beginnings as the son of a railway official in a small Croatian village, he went on to pursue a rigorous education in technical and scientific subjects in Vienna, and then to receive a doctorate in philosophy. At the age of 24, his intellectual gifts were recognized and he was invited to edit the scientific works of the great German poet and playwright, Goethe. He then spent years immersed in scholarship in the Goethe-Schiller Archives in Weimar before moving to Berlin and teaching at a workers’ educational institute, along with figures like Rosa Luxemburg.

It was only after the Twentieth Century had begun and he had turned forty that he began to speak openly of esoteric matters. Until that point, he had been known as a philosopher, scholar, writer, editor and cultural commentator. Suddenly, he completely shocked his contemporaries by giving detailed, sophisticated talks on the most profound spiritual subjects that clearly displayed a level of knowledge unrivaled by anyone at that time in the Western world.

It is difficult for most of us to imagine what the early years of the last century were like. Many people of cultural influence and social prominence were strongly drawn to the new spiritual wisdom then appearing through people like Steiner in Central Europe and Gurdjieff and Ouspensky in Russia. It was a time of immense optimism and Steiner rapidly drew to himself a significant following as he began a tireless series of lectures all over Europe. The new century seemed to promise unimpeded progress and work was begun in Switzerland on a striking new building, the Goetheanum, which was intended to become a center for the deepest spiritual mysteries.

Unfortunately, the outbreak of the First World War intervened, an event that Steiner observed at close hand through his contacts with a high-ranking member of the German General Staff. His views on how it came about, partially contained in the book The Karma of Untruthfulness, contain much that is of value to us as we contemplate how we have been manipulated into the war in Iraq. Steiner was never blind to the dark side of existence. In fact, he felt strongly that the development of a deeper understanding of evil was an essential spiritual requirement of the modern age, and he did all he could to awaken people to the increasingly powerful influence of regressive, materialistic impulses.

After the war, he continued to teach widely and write. He discouraged any tendency of others to view him as a guru, believing that such a role was no longer appropriate in the modern age when the spirit of individual freedom is paramount. His constant emphasis was on the possibility of awakening through meditation higher faculties that slumber in the souls of all humans, and the crucial necessity of doing this if people were to respond to the urgent spiritual requirements of the day. He saw his teaching as a contemporary successor to the holy wisdom understood in the ancient cultures of India, Persia, Egypt and Greece. Then it had been confined to mystery centers like Delphi and Ephesus where only the carefully selected could be initiated into the deepest mysteries of existence.

Now, however, it was available to all and the opportunity was presented to humanity to lift itself beyond the materialism of the Nineteenth Century to a renewed sense of membership in a spiritually alive cosmos. Now we could bring to the inner world the same rigorous, objective, scientific spirit that we had applied to the outer world, and we could do so with autonomy and without superstition. However, if the world failed to awaken, he foresaw dire consequences that might abort our evolution and deny the very purpose for which human beings had come into existence.

His work attracted the hostile attention of the early Nazis and they violently disrupted a number of his lectures. He, however, refused to be cowed or deterred in any way. In the last five years of his life many people began to approach him to ask how Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, the titles he gave to his work, could be applied to practical realms. Farmers, teachers, doctors and priests all longed for renewal in their fields and Steiner’s response was gracious. He had only to be asked. Then he felt spiritually bound to give all he could.

His lecture series on education, offered originally to workers and management of the Waldorf tobacco factory in Stuttgart who wanted to start a school, became the seed of the worldwide Waldorf School movement. His talks to farmers in Silesia became the source of the whole movement for Biodynamic agriculture that he viewed as essential if both human and environmental health were to be maintained. He even gave a wonderful lecture series to professional beekeepers as he could see that the decline of the honey bee presaged the demise of healthy food and the rural environment.

He was simply decades ahead of his time — a true forerunner and messenger of love and freedom. But what was he like as a person? Did any whiff of scandal ever emerge from his life, as it has so often with so many leading spiritual figures? From the many accounts written by those who knew him, he was a warm and extremely helpful person of immense integrity whose weakness may simply have been a great willingness to give private time and counsel to the many who asked for it. Despite the photographs that always portray Steiner as a stern faced, serious individual, he was apparently extremely funny. He was also a man of artistic talent as a sculptor and architect who saw the arts as a vital bridge between the material and spiritual worlds.

Why do we know so little about this extraordinary individual almost eighty years after his death? It’s true that the Anthroposophical Society has branches worldwide, Waldorf Schools proliferate, Biodynamic farming is widely practiced and respected, and there are literally thousands of initiatives all over the planet inspired by his work in fields as varied as socially responsible banking, treatment for drug addiction, herbal and homeopathic medicines, even puppet making. But the anthroposophical community has, until recently, tended to hold itself somewhat apart from the rest of the holistic movement, perhaps because Steiner’s legacy is so all encompassing that it can appear complete in itself, requiring little outreach to others.

Steiner was certainly possessed of a comprehensive spiritual genius, but we know him today mostly through the practical dimensions of his work. His stunning spiritual research into higher worlds, his encyclopedic knowledge of esoteric wisdom, and his profound insights into the working of the human soul all remain strangely ignored by a public yearning for deeper truths. We desperately want to know the truth about reincarnation, we hear frequent references to angels, we remain fascinated by the remnants of ancient mysteries still visible in stone circles and Egyptian monuments. Yet the man who, more than any other figure of the last century, has the capacity to enlighten us on all these matters remains mostly unread in holistic circles.

The more than two hundred books by and about Rudolf Steiner available in English constitute an amazing treasure trove of sacred wisdom. Casual reading they are not, but the rewards far outweigh the effort involved. While academic philosophy remains hopelessly detached from real world issues, we have in Steiner a truly modern spiritual philosopher who felt that he incarnated with a crucial mission to return to the world the kind of knowledge for which human hearts increasingly cry out.

At a time of immense international danger, when war and terrorism dominate the headlines and a sense of foreboding hangs heavy in the air, we may find ourselves increasingly thankful that this seemingly distant figure, with words of acute relevance to the present time, showed us how to grasp and lead the struggle for the soul of humanity in which we now find ourselves engaged.

Copyright @ 2003, Dragonfly Media (http://www.dragonflymedia.com)

Ralph White is co-founder of the New York Open Center and editor of LapisMagazine.Org.

Learn More About Rudolf Steiner

The main question in beginning to read Steiner is where to start. Many of the lecture series were given to groups of anthroposophists and assume a familiarity with basic terms and concepts, although all of them can give rich nuggets of wisdom to the beginner. The following books are a good introduction to the man and his work:

A Life for the Spirit: Rudolf Steiner in the Crosscurrents of Our Time (Vista Series) by Henry Barnes (Editor) 308 Pages, Anthroposophic Press; August 1, 1997

What is Anthroposophy? Three Spiritual Perspectives on Self-Knowledge by Rudolf Steiner, Christopher Bamford – 96 pages; Anthroposophic Press (October 1, 2002)

Autobiography: Chapters in the Course of My Life, 1861 – 1907 (Classics in Anthroposophy) by Rudolf Steiner, Rita Stebbing – 512 pages; Anthroposophic Press; February 1, 2000

How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (Classics in Anthoposophy) by Rudolf Steiner, Christopher Bamford; 288 pages, Anthroposphic Press; January 1, 1994

For general reference:
http://www.anthroposophy.org

For on-line lectures:
http://www.elib.com/Steiner/

For books:
http://www.anthropress.org

For Waldorf Education:
http://www.rudolfsteinercollege.com

http://www.sunbridge.edu

For Financial Services:
http://www.rsfoundation.org

For Biodynamic Farming:
http://www.biodynamics.com

For Camphill Villages:
http://www.camphillassociation.org

by Ralph White

Today, few people outside the legal profession have any notion that a serious movement is afoot to end the widespread materialism, vindictiveness and cold self-interest of legal practice. The assumption among the general public is that lawyers are ruthless sharks and they love it that way. But a recent study shows that sixty five per cent of practicing lawyers are deeply unhappy with the state of their profession. A sneaking suspicion is starting to emerge that lawyers may be human after all and they have had enough of the seedy and reptilian ethics so widespread in current American jurisprudence.

It’s not clear when the turning point was reached. Perhaps a nadir occurred when O.J.Simpson’s trial revealed to the world that big money and fancy lawyers can buy almost anyone freedom today. Or perhaps it was the grotesque and hypocritical politicization of the law around the presidential impeachment farce. Or maybe it was simply one final distasteful display of Judge Judy’s distinctly non-judicial rudeness and intemperance. We may never know, as we could all offer our own examples of when the dismal state of law today was revealed in all its pathos and shame. But what we do know is that lawyers in increasing numbers are demanding changes in the way the law is both taught and practiced. And they are serious.

At a recent California retreat of the Project on Integrating Spirituality, Law and Politics, thirty lawyers and law professors met to discuss the new, holistic impulses now emerging in the legal field. To an observing non-lawyer, wondering when it all started to go wrong, the first big surprise was the unanimity with which virtually everyone present felt little short of horror and rage when they recalled the damage inflicted on their psyches and values by law school. Contrary to televised fantasies like The Paper Chase, which celebrated the elegant, unerring socratic logic of the law professor, legal education was almost universally recalled as a horrible institution and an alienating experience. In the words of one participant, “We were told in law school that they would spend three years taking our souls away from us, and that we would spend the rest of our lives trying to get them back.” Others spoke of having their compassion buried, of the loss of imagination, and of the corrupting influence of a legal doctrine that completely separates heart from head. Law teachers commented ruefully on how within six months of arrival, countless young people devoted to the highest ideals of justice become hardened, emotionally brutalized and convinced that only the mean spirited adversarial practice of law will ever work in modern America.

Peter Gabel, director of the Project, a member of New College of California’s law faculty and a leading advocate of legal renewal, describes law schools as filled with the “disconnected analytics” of a previous revolution. Students are required to endure endless case analysis according to Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century doctrines, conceived when individualism and materialism were groundbreaking concepts. Today, he argues, this dated perspective needs to be balanced by the awakening of moral empathy. Students need to be asked the simple question: “How is your work going to create a more loving and caring society?” Our spiritually deadened law schools desperately need a validation of the students’ heart and wisdom if we are to move beyond a legal culture characterized by brutality and rudeness in “a democracy of strangers who are protecting themselves from each other.”

Clearly, the transformation of legal education is a crucial agenda item for the near future. But what signs could retreat participants offer of a functioning alternative to the “Nail ‘em, jail ‘em; Try ‘em, fry ‘em” ethos that has led the United States to lock up over two million of its citizens and produced an orgy of prison building during the last twenty years? David Lerman, a prosecutor in Milwaukee, happily described his refreshing experience with Restorative Justice, a new approach to crime and punishment that is gaining ground from Iowa to Texas. In contrast to the heartless practice of mandatory sentencing that eradicates any role for the humanity of judges, Restorative Justice brings victims and offenders together with the local community in sentencing circles or councils. In this context, the focus becomes the need to repair the damage to both victim and community caused by a crime. Offenders, if they choose to participate, must plead guilty and admit wrongdoing. The sentence then aims to leave the offender with greater competencies to face life’s challenges in the future. In this way, the emphasis shifts from the usual focus on retribution to the healing value of truth, responsibility, apology and forgiveness.

Forgiveness? When did we last hear a word like that from a prosecutor’s mouth? Perhaps it is the start of what Howard Vogel, professor of constitutional law at Hamline University, called the “re-enchantment of the law” in which spiritual qualities come to balance the materialistic thinking so widespread today. It may sound too idealistic for a society filled with conflict and disagreement, but recall the remarkable success of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that has drawn on the Zulu idea of Ubuntu – the notion that my humanity is inherently connected to your humanity – to restore wholeness to a divided society filled with the potential for explosive violence.

Contrary to popular belief, it is increasingly clear that many lawyers have within them the impulse to be helpful, to listen, and to understand – to develop skills in conflict resolution, not just to play the role of attack dogs eyeing their opponent’s jugular in vicious, adversarial encounters. Hence the continuing shift in legal practice toward mediation. At the retreat we learned that simply stepping into an unintimidating mediation room rather than a court room can change the whole atmosphere of a case. Mediators develop skills of attunement to psychological and emotional subtleties and can even choose to begin a session with a short prayer if the parties wish. However, Gary Friedman, co-director of the Center for Mediation and Law, offered a word of caution for the holistically inclined. He told the story of attempting to mediate between two Zen roshis. At the outset, he innocently inquired if they would like to begin with a few moments of meditation only to be greeted with perplexed looks and a simultaneous cry, “Why would we want to do that?”

But few lawyers at the retreat worked with such exalted personages. Most had regular folks as clients and some, like Doug Ammar, work with the poverty stricken down South at the Georgia Justice Project. “This is work that enables me to embrace my full humanity,” he remarked as he spoke of a law firm in which lawyers feel a spiritual responsibility for their clients. In Georgia, if you eliminate drunk driving charges, 93% of those arrested are poor, and the state has long been locked in an unbroken cycle of poverty and crime. When convicted clients get out of jail, the GJP offers them a job in its landscaping business and invites them to community dinners to give them the means to change their lives. “A lot of clients say that GJP is their first family” Ammar commented, as the joy and satisfaction in this work radiated through his cheerful, humorous face.

Initiatives like this seem to point the way to a warmer, more humane view of legal practice and offer hope for those of us listening attentively for the bell that tolls the death knell of a heartless and disturbing era. At the Project on Integrating Spirituality, Law and Politics, the question that recurred frequently was nothing less than, “How can we make the practice of law sacred?” In recent times, it has seemed barely possible to put the words “law” and “sacred” into the same sentence. Yet former U.S. attorney Cheryl Connor now teaches a course at Suffolk University on the integration of contemplative practice with law. As a student at Harvard Law School, she felt forced to bury her heart beneath the smog of materialistic legal doctrine. Now a Tibetan Buddhist, her work is guided by the principle of causing no unnecessary harm to others, and she leads a growing number of retreats for students, judges, and lawyers on how to uncover their inherent compassion and wisdom.

Our current legal system permits neither lawyers nor clients their true dignity, and no modern society can expect to function well in the long run without a healthy legal climate. Fortunately, the signs of new and vigorous life are unmistakable among the clear sighted individuals pioneering the nascent elements of a new legal culture. In Peter Gabel’s words, we require “Lawyers who are whole, loving human beings,” as much for their own well-being as for that of the system as a whole. Certainly, this non-lawyer left the California retreat convinced that a viable legal future lies with the holistic innovators of today (see below) and their dedication to training healers, not hired guns. We’ve had enough of the OK Corral. It’s time again for hope in the revitalized courts of America.

Web resource

www.spiritlawpolitics.org

www.cuttingedgelaw.com

Together, to their great surprise, they were guided to found a ‘center of light’, a non-sectarian spiritual community that would demonstrate to the world attunement to the divinity within all creation, co-operation with the spirits of nature, and service to the planet. It sounds hopelessly optimistic if not delusional but, amazingly, that is exactly what they proceeded to do. By the early Seventies people of every age group were coming to Findhorn from all over the world and among the tiny collection of caravans and bungalows there began to emerge a community center and then a pentagonal Universal Hall for meditation, performance and conferences. Then, as Findhorn’s fame grew, Cluny Hill College was added, a large Nineteenth Century hotel in the ancient town of Forres, which became the community’s center for its educational programs. Before the decade was over there was also a retreat house on the sacred island of Iona on the West Coast of Scotland and a sister community on the nearby isle of Erraid.

The following years were not always easy as the community faced the familiar litany of financial and political issues that confront any idealistic impulse. The pattern of visitors changed with the decades from Americans to Europeans to, more recently, Latins and Asians. Yet today Findhorn remains a thriving and dynamic international center with around five hundred people living within, or locally connected, to the community, and members from every continent. The tinny and freezing old caravans that accommodated the first members have now mostly been replaced by eco-friendly homes complete with a large windmill and Europe’s first living machine for water purification. True to the Scottish spirit, a handful of beautiful houses have been created from recycled whiskey barrels, and Findhorn aims to meet 100% of its energy needs from renewable sources within the next five years. It seems that everywhere straw bale homes, turf roofs, and solar panels are popping up to create one of Europe’s leading eco-villages. And dozens of local businesses have emerged from the Findhorn Foundation in fields such as healing, the arts, ecology, publishing and management consultancy. The place is, in fact, popping with creativity despite the wind, rain and northern darkness, and the frequent, deafening roar of jet engines from a nearby RAF base.

By any standards, this is a remarkable achievement. Although Findhorn’s profile is not as high in North America as it was twenty years ago, within Britain the community has become a widely recognized part of the cultural landscape. Its recent fortieth birthday was accompanied by full page articles in most national newspapers and a ten minute segment on the BBC’s most prestigious news program. Surprisingly, the coverage was almost all positive given the mainstream media’s well know skepticism about hippy follies, alternative spirituality and the existence of any kind of higher reality. Clearly the community has gradually earned the respect of a suspicious outside world. It has even become a United Nations NGO actively involved in events like the recent Johannesburg Summit on Sustainability and the attempt to propagate the idea of the 21st Century as an era when Restoring the Earth must become a leading international priority.

Even the founders can’t quite believe what’s happened. According to Dorothy Maclean, “All we knew was that we were trying to follow the wishes of the divine. That a community of hundreds of people, visited by thousands more would result is an incredible, awesome miracle. After forty years the loving magic we helped ground at Findhorn is still doing its work. One can only be thankful, grateful and amazed.” Certainly there was a mood of immense gratitude, conviviality, and good humor when two hundred former members returned in mid-November to celebrate the community’s fortieth birthday. For a week, a non-stop round of parties, performances, dances, and fireworks lit up the long northern darkness. Everywhere there were old friends now living in different parts of the planet renewing their connections after years or decades with little contact. One thing was abundantly clear: Findhorn has created an immense well of love that refreshes and bathes its former and current members and that seems to generate tremendous creativity.

In the corner of Cluny Hill lounge one morning, three former members sat comparing notes on their lives since leaving the community twenty years ago. They learned that between them they had written sixteen books on topics like leadership, sports psychology and organizational development, some of which were best sellers while others had been translated into eighteen languages. A sampling of other ex-members spoke of their current activities at a gathering in the Universal Hall one evening and revealed a remarkable array of talents and commitments. Now they develop organic farms in Brazil, work with aboriginal children in Australia, run holistic consulting firms in Holland, serve as officers of the Norwegian army in Bosnia and Kosovo, produce television shows on peace building in Northern Ireland, or conduct research at Edinburgh University on animal consciousness and the effects of factory farming.

The famous magic of Findhorn is clearly real. Despite the least promising of beginnings and in the face of a harsh climate in stark contrast to the balmy breezes of California’s Esalen, Findhorn has become an improbable powerhouse of consciousness and love. It has quietly spread its seeds across the globe to produce countless transformational initiatives. Why has it worked so well? Perhaps the essential humility its founders, the absence of any cult-like guru worship, the placement of attunement to nature at the center of community life, and the ongoing effort to listen to the inner voice have all contributed to its fundamental sanity and longevity. For Cultural Creatives today seeking to implement positive social change, the Findhorn story may ultimately be one of faith fulfilled. It reminds us that even in our prosaic material world filled with hindrances, when something is truly needed for the benefit of humanity, the patience, persistence and perseverance long advocated by Peter Caddy can actually make miracles happen. As Findhorn turns forty it does so with a spring in its step and a song in its heart, confident that the world is now more open than ever to the way of life it pioneered. Thankfully, we now have holistic centers in virtually every North American city, but for those who have a special love for the winter coats, the wooly hats, the chilly mornings and the soothing patter of Scottish rain on the sanctuary roof, there will only be one Findhorn.

Sidebars

Alan Watson Featherstone

Community member Alan Watson Featherstone is founder and director of Trees for Life, an award winning environmental initiative that is working to reforest the Scottish Highlands. Who are we to criticize the Brazilians and Indonesians for destroying indigenous forests, he argues, when the notorious Highland Clearances back in the Eighteenth Century set the pattern for ecological degradation. Born in Scotland, Alan first experienced an overwhelming sense of awe in the far northern wilderness of Canada. After developing his sensitivity to nature by working for four years in the Findhorn gardens, he took a trip to Glen Affric in the Highlands where he experienced a “huge sense of pain in the land.” 99% of the original Caledonian forest has been destroyed and he felt that the last trees were calling for help. Starting in 1989 with 125 acres, Trees for Life has worked steadily in the Glen with mostly young volunteers to plant half a million scots pine, birch, rowan, hazel, holly and willow trees. In 1991 it was awarded the UK Conservation Project of the Year Award.

Ulf Ellingsen

Ulf Ellingsen lived at Findhorn from 1988 to 1995 and is now a captain in the Norwegian Army. Before coming to Findhorn he had been part of the peace keeping forces in Lebanon engaged in mine clearance and detonation. He currently serves in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia/Kosovo developing health education programs for the local people and first aid for soldiers in combat. His experiences there have convinced him that “The power of self-justification is the only power stronger than sex.” How does he feel about the military life after years in a spiritual community? “We very much need officers who understand meditation and counseling, and that life, in its essence, is about love … If one person has less suffering in life as a result of my actions, then I have not lived in vain.”

Internet Resources

Findhorn – www.findhorn.org

Trees For Life – www.restore-earth.org

What an impact George had! Lead guitarist of the greatest rock and roll band of all time, he was a ‘musical innovator’ in the words of Eric Clapton, someone who could always find the perfect note and tone. One of the sweetest scenes in the film shows the mature George watching a clip of The Beatles performing This Boy and singing along as you and I might. His glee and his shining eyes show the sheer happiness their music gave him. Certainly, as a teenager in northern England in the mid Sixties, not far from Liverpool, I knew every note of his guitar solos, and that music really helped me get through a dark and dreary adolescence.

Then George played a prominent role in turning the world’s attention to the mystical traditions of India. Long after The Beatles’ legendary trip to Rishikesh to visit the Maharishi’s ashram and practice transcendental meditation, George retained his love of Eastern spirituality. Ravi Shankar remained his close friend and spiritual advisor, and the Indian notion that music more than any other mode of expression has the capacity to take the listener closer to the Divine, inspired George for the remainder of his life.

For the millions for whom traditional religion had become largely meaningless, he made mysticism cool and hip. He opened the door to a deeper path, one that was authentic and devoid of churchly cant. Not bad for a rock and roll star!

When he produced and starred in The Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Gardens he created the first ever rock benefit. In embracing the sitar and the musical traditions of India, he was a pioneer in world music. He also financed Monty Python’s irreverent Life of Brian. Without him, that comic masterpiece would never have been made – the film establishment was far too terrified of its edgy humor.

It’s also clear from Scorsese’s exquisite documentary that George had the gift of friendship. Anyone who has seen Concert for George, the film of the show performed in his memory at the Royal Albert Hall one year to the day after his death, knows that he lived in the hearts of numerous gifted musicians. Their warmth and affection for him stream from the music and shine out from their radiant faces as they play his songs.

Less well known may that he had a serious temper and he loved women in a way that strained both his marriages. But then he was a fiery and strong being beneath the veneer of the so-called Quiet Beatle. There’s a moving moment in the early footage from Hamburg, where The Beatles played the Reeperbahn, the notorious red light district, that even at seventeen George had an inner composure and calm that was so helpful to a distraught John Lennon when the band’s first bassist Stu Sutcliff died unexpectedly.

For me, George was always a soul companion. I remember being in high school and seeing a picture of him with a moustache. A rock star with facial hair? It was unprecedented. As soon as I saw him, I knew I’d found a look that would work for me. When all around me in industrial Northern England all I saw were mills, factories, smoke and grim lives, his music injected vitality, hope and sexiness. On my first trip down Route 66 at Christmas 1970, My Sweet Lord was the soundtrack from the car radio as my consciousness expanded with the vast landscapes of the South West. When I left graduate school to follow a very lonely mystical path on the West Coast, the picture of a gnome-like George in his garden from the great album All Things Must Pass hung on the back of my bedroom door, giving me strength, reminding me why I had chosen this journey, validating the reality of spiritual experience.

His songs have cropped up, often totally out of the blue, as aids at crucial moments throughout my life. Even today the serene and transcendent track Mahwah Blues from his posthumous album opens and closes the radio show I host in New York City.

Go and see Living in the Material World if you possibly can. I emerged last night from its three and a half hours with my heart glowing. It’s a film filled with unending moments of joy and delight. There is also sadness and shocking detail of the gruesome personal attack at his home Friar Park. But above all there is so much upbeat, foot tapping, soulful, deep, ecstatic music that you come away yearning for more, and more.

George was a culture hero of the first order, a working class guy from damp and difficult origins who helped turn those who could hear toward the spiritual light. His music had that infectious beat, great beauty and irresistible charm, but it also had truth and soul. Even in the midst of the riotous realm of rock, he reminded us that All Things Must Pass, even George himself.

When he did pass from this material world a decade ago now, he left a gorgeous legacy. Martin Scorsese’s outstanding film is a worthy tribute to a powerfully gifted artist who cared little for the trappings of fame. George’s humor and wisdom  continue to touch our hearts and give our spirits a lift each time one of his songs wafts from an open window or a car radio. Beneath the scruffy Liverpool Teddy Boy in leather jacket and drainpipe jeans with the cheeky grin and the Elvis hair, beat the heart of a great soul. Thank you George, for everything you gave. Your life and your music were magnificent.

For the film’s official web site see:

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/george-harrison-living-in-the-material-world/index.html

“Bill Gates‘d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.” SJ

Among the countless words written about the passing of Steve Jobs, it sometimes escapes our notice how completely different his values seem to have been from the materialistic norms enshrined in most business schools.

As he made clear from the outset, the key to his worldview lay in the West Coast Seventies counter culture that has been so deeply influential, despite mainstream efforts to dismiss it as a time of stoned hippy excess. During his brief academic experience at Reed College in Oregon, it was a calligraphy class that first awakened his feeling for design and developed his sense of beauty. He made no secret of the fact that taking LSD was one of the two or three most significant experiences of his life. As a young man, he journeyed to India to find Ram Dass’s guru, Neem Karoli Baba, only to find that the spiritual teacher had died before he could get there. Nevertheless, he returned wearing beads and embracing Buddhism.

Steve was throughout his life a huge fan of The Beatles and Bob Dylan. One of his major sources of inspiration was the San Francisco Bay Area’s Whole Earth Catalogue, an endlessly inventive holistic and ecological compendium edited by Stewart Brand. Jobs described it as a kind of paper pre-Google. When it ran its final edition, the back cover left this parting message, ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish,’ words he found inspirational.

Jobs chose to be married in Yosemite by a Zen Buddhist priest. His wife founded a natural foods company and, by all accounts, his family ate simply and organically. His home was modest and his clothes unpretentious. In his famous commencement address at Stanford Business School, he encouraged the graduates to live their own lives, not someone else’s; to trust their heart and intuition; to listen to their inner voice, not follow dogma.

And it seems clear from remarks by his Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, that his goal was to empower people through technology, to make computers available to everyone, to do good in the world, to make our lives more creative and enjoyable. Yes, he was a hard driving business person, his demeanor was sometimes irascible, he was a compulsive perfectionist who didn’t hesitate to criticize colleagues if they didn’t match his standards. He was clearly not a saint.

But he does represent a new paradigm in the world of business and technology. In an era when the ubiquitous presence of computers carries the threat of dehumanizing us, making us slaves to the machine, he devoted himself to finding a way for human beings to use technology for enhanced creativity. In the Apple ethos, computers are designed as vehicles for self-expression and enjoyment. In essence, Jobs gave technology soul when it could have easily have made us increasingly soulless. What a huge contribution!

At the end of his life, the doctor at his bedside was Dean Ornish, a well known integrative health advocate. The fact apparently is that Steve lived as long or longer than anyone ever diagnosed with his form of cancer. Those who saw him during the final days described him as suffering pain, but with his humor vibrantly intact.

Many commentators have remarked that few people affect society as powerfully as he did. When his biography is published, I suspect we will learn that his vision of changing the planet for the better first came to him in his youthful counter-culture days of spiritual searching and experimentation with consciousness. Perhaps we can say that he took some of the psychedelic experience and made a taste of it real for millions through tools that seemed to come out of the future. He followed his own heart and vision, he never compromised, and now for future generations he will represent the strong, free spirit who shapes the world from his inner essence instead of being shaped by it.

Steve Jobs was a holistic pioneer, authentic, honest and direct, a questing person with the rare capacity to unite art and technology, poetry and science. On a personal level, he inspired great loyalty in those who worked with him and knew him as a friend. And let’s not forget that he emerged from a vibrant Californian counter culture that carried the seeds of a new, more life-enhancing worldview. He aimed to stay true to its ideas until the end, and in doing so he changed the world.

But for me the highlight was the session with the novelists Amitav Ghosh and Nuruddin Farah. I sat blinking with joy at these two deeply gifted men as they spoke humorously, unpretentiously and very entertainingly about their art. I felt privileged to be in the presence of two of the finest writers on the planet.  A friend of mine whose wife is Indian had turned me on to Ghosh’s novel, Sea of Poppies, this summer. It’s a multi-leveled tale of the 19^th Century opium trade developed by the British East India Company, They grew poppies along the banks of the Ganges, cooked it into opium in vast factories, and shipped it at great profit to the Chinese, all the while motivated by an absurd conviction that they were bringing the glories of Free Trade and Evangelical Christianity to the heathens. It’s an absorbing tale of imperial hypocrisy, but also of the lives of the Bengali villagers in the poppy fields, the Lascar seamen, Indian aristocrats, and a young, black American sailor who stumbles into this riveting world.

Apart from the inventiveness and relevance of the story, what impresses is Ghosh’s multicultural sophistication – the way he is able to enter the psyches of characters from so many different cultures. Writers like Ghosh and Farah are truly artists of the 21^st Century with a deep knowledge of so many languages, countries and cultures in a way far beyond any writer I know exclusively based in the English speaking world. Farah first read Dostoyevsky in Arabic, and speaks nine languages. Ghosh reads in multiple Indian languages, studied in Egypt, picked up a Ph.D. at Oxford, and now divides his time between Brooklyn and Goa. Their capacity for imaginative empathy is inspiring and necessary.

Both of them also possess warmth, openness and humor, and worldviews enriched by deep familiarity with phenomena like African shamanism and Indian spirituality. It’s a long way from the thin, dark worldviews of so many contemporary British writers, and the anxiety filled musings of American counterparts. It was a tribute to the multicultural ambience of Brooklyn itself that writers like this, plus helpful and expansive panels on topics like The New India and The Arab Spring, were featured along side sessions with American writers like the redoubtable and prolific Larry McMurtry (who I was surprised and happy to see in the new film Magic Bus about Ken Kesey and the psychedelic Merry Pranksters. He said in response to a question of mine that he was a lifelong friend of Kesey whom he had known since they were classmates at Stanford).

So I strongly encourage anyone in New York next September to go this festival – www.brooklynbookfestival.org. It was founded by Johnny Temple, a former punk rocker and publisher of Akashic Books, and has been going now for six years. Only one of my Manhattan friends had even heard of it, even though it has become one of the largest book festivals in America and is gunning to be the coolest, hippest and most exciting of them all. Brooklyn has, surprisingly, turned into the literary capital of America without many people noticing. Its literary roots extend as far back as Walt Whitman and now, with the unrivalled cultural and ethnic diversity that characterize Brooklyn and Queens, it’s poised to change the shape, intensity and relevance of book fairs of the future. Highly recommended.

Perhaps in the return of the Happiness to a central place in our consideration of the purpose of life and society we have finally found a word or concept big and relevant enough to speak to everyone. It just doesn’t work with enough people to talk about personal or spiritual growth replacing economic growth as the true focus for human development. This language is too narrow. But Happiness is a theme big enough for us all to feel engaged.

We have the philosophers of The Enlightenment to thank for their interest in the greatest happiness of the greatest number and, of course, who can forget Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of the Rights of Americans to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? But we have to go all the way back to Aristotle for the first clear statement in the West that the goal of human life is happiness or eudaimonia, something he felt could be achieved by the balanced practice of the virtues such as courage, wisdom, justice and reverence.

It’s increasingly clear that Aristotle was on to something really important here and the rise of the new science of happiness, the social psychology and neuroscience of joy, seems to be confirming his wisdom. And it’s a good thing too. Philosophers are supposed to offer us wisdom and it’s increasingly obvious that the wise men of antiquity thought long and clearly about these most important questions.

I’ll be returning to this theme of the Rise of Happiness over the coming months but for now I want to recommend a few books that have brought the topic into clear focus for me.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Wiener is an amusing and enlightening account of one grump’s search for happiness all round the planet. He starts off at the World Database of Happiness in Rotterdam containing 40 years of research on everything known about Happiness, including which countries are the most and least happy. His quest is in danger of concluding prematurely half a block away in a haze of smoke at the Alpha Blondie CoffeeShop, but he gamely soldiers on to Bhutan and Iceland (some of the most cheerful places) and even manages a research trip to Moldova, sadly bringing up the rear on the happiness charts. This book evokes distant places, introduces the reader to the whole recent literature on happiness, and it’s also laugh out loud funny. Strongly recommended.

Reverence: Rediscovering a Forgotten Virtue by Paul Woodruff is a book that Eric Weiner turned me on to, and is a delight. Scholars of Happiness have learned a truth long known to esoteric thinkers like Rudolf Steiner that the practice of reverence or veneration, whether toward worthy people and scenes of natural beauty, or simply toward truth and knowledge, opens the doors of perception to higher things and better feelings. It was the foundation of culture and the heart of wisdom in Ancient Greece. The leader who forgot it fell victim to hubris and its attendant calamities. The modern world has forgotten this truth, with serious costs all around us.

Six years ago I organized a conference entitled Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right in New York City. It was just after George W. Bush’s ‘re-election’ and a lot of people were deeply concerned about his intention to use his ‘political capital’ to further the aims of fundamentalist Christians. The event sold out at CUNY Graduate School with over 500 attendees, and was made into a television show.

This was the first major conference to take a serious look at Dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism and, to my knowledge, it remains the only one. (I plan to post the conference brochure soon and a DVD is also available). What it told us is that a certain element of the religious right truly believes that godly Christians are mandated by the Lord to take control of the political direction of the United States. Their objective is to purify and reform the country along conservative religious lines, and many of them believe that The Book of Revelation constitutes a geopolitical road map of the world today, especially the Middle East.

I bring this up because we must all wonder where the extraordinary level of conviction comes from that enabled the Tea Party Republicans to hold the American and world economy hostage in the recent Debt Ceiling debate. I’m not saying that all Tea Partiers subscribe to the writing of R.J. Rushdoony, the founding father of Christian Reconstructionism. But we do see strong echoes of his reach in the economic thinking of Gary North, his former son in law, who has apparently long held the influential view that there is little to worry about if the US were to default and lose its credit standing and trust. What’s more important to his admirers is that government is cut back, and that a Christian agenda comes to dominate political discourse.

In my article on Sarah Palin’s beliefs that appeared in Huffington Post (see the Writings section) I addressed the failure of the media to take seriously the rise of ‘prayer warriors,’ the belief that conservative Christians are engaged in ‘spiritual warfare,’ and that those who stand in their way, including of course Obama, are in the service of regressive spiritual powers and must be stopped at all costs. Here the interests of big corporations and the religious right come together very conveniently, an alliance first fully developed by W. Bush and highly active again in the recent debt ceiling debacle, at great cost to the unemployed and hopes for a desperately needed green infrastructure.

For a fuller discussion of Dominionism and Reconstructionism I refer you to www.talk2action.org , a site run by Fred Clarkson who spoke at our conference and is one of the few people to keep track of these political/religious influences. If we want to understand what we’re dealing with on the American Right these days, we need to know about this material. Thank God for the work of Jeff Sharlet, another conference speaker, whose books I heartily recommend – The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy.

This stuff is serious and most progressives are walking around in a state of more or less total ignorance about it. The secular left is simply too dismissive of anything spiritual to grasp its power. The debt ceiling crisis and the Tea Party’s disturbing influence should be all we need to wake up and take a deeper look at the extreme theology underlying so much determined opposition to a more ecological and prosperous future.

I’ve met some of the people who hold these disturbing metaphysical views and they can be sociable and nice. Let’s not demonize them. They’re entitled to their opinions. But if Americans realized the shocking religious worldview that underlies the current domestic threat to our economy, a phenomenon far beyond the crazed egotism of Ayn Rand, they’d take a much more active interest in bringing to public awareness an impulse that seeks to blur the separation of church and state.

Postscript

For further insight into the Dominionist mindset, check out the website for Texas Governor Rick Perry’s The Response, his recent call for Prayer in America.

Read the FAQs here.

I’m delighted to see Ryan Lizza’s profile of Michele Bachmann in the New Yorker. At last the mainstream media is beginning to grasp that people like Bachman and Palin subscribe to ideas about political Christianity way beyond most people’s imagining. It’s way past time for an awakening about the influence of Dominionism and Reconcructionism on American politics and economics.

Read More.

Here is the brochure for the ground-breaking conference on the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right that I organized some years ago when the influence of Dominionism was on the rise in the aftermath of George W. Bush’s second ‘election.’ It begins with this quote:

“Until progressives come to understand what fundamentalists read, hear, are told and deeply believe, we cannot understand American politics, much less be effective.” Joe Bageant

Most Americans outside the Bible Belt have little idea of the beliefs held by millions of fundamentalist churchgoers. We have an almost total lack of awareness of the rise of Dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism, forms of theology that advocate a biblical vision of God’s kingdom on earth. Some fundamentalists also foresee events such as The Rapture, the Times of Tribulation, Armageddon, and the Second Coming of Christ as we enter The End Days.

This conference will give rigorous attention to the worldview of Dominionism, its influence in contemporary political culture, and its agenda for America.”

There’s a DVD from this conference too that was shown on almost 20 TV stations throughout the US. If anyone would like a copy, just get in touch with me.

Thankfully the media are beginning to wake up to what this is all about, and candidates are starting to be questioned about their politico-religious views. But much more  attention needs to be given to a deeply disturbing influence almost invisible to the vast majority of voters.