Into the Heart's Land

Into the Heart’s Land: A Century of Rudolf Steiner’s Work in North America

“The actual victor is the being of the Anglo-American peoples, and, as a result of forces that I have often described here, this being of the Anglo-American peoples is destined to dominate the world in the future…. Already inscribed in the book of human destiny is the question: Will there be a sufficient number among those impelled to assume external dominion who feel a responsibility for inserting into this entirely external, materialistic dominion an impetus for spiritual life?” —Rudolf Steiner (Dec. 14, 1919)

Henry Barnes presents a comprehensive view of the development of the anthroposophic movement in North America. During its initial phase in the early 1900s, Americans began to return from Europe with word of an individual who spoke about the spiritual world from direct experience. The first spiritual-scientific initiatives began in New York in the 1930s and spread across the prairies to the West Coast and beyond—to Canada, Mexico, and Hawaii—taking root in the hearts and minds of the “new world.”

This is the story of those adventurous spirits who took responsibility for bringing the work of Rudolf Steiner to North America—in the form of study groups, lecture tours, a library, publishing ventures, artistic renewal, anthroposophically extended medicine, biodynamic agriculture, threefold social initiatives, Waldorf schools, The Christian Community, Camphill villages, and more.

In broad sweeps and intimate details, Into the Heart’s Land covers—in three thirty-three-year phases—the movement’s first impulse and building the foundations (1900–1933); making roots (1933–1967); and new growth and bearing fruit (1967–2000). The last part takes up enduring themes at the heart of the movement and looks toward the future of Anthroposophy in North America.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction

Part One: An Impulse Is Born, 1900–1933

1. The First American Anthroposophists: The Messengers
2. Rudolf Steiner at the Turn of the Century
3. North America at the Turn of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
4. Rudolf Steiner: The Later Years
5. Henry Monges and the Foundation of the Anthroposophical Society in America
6. Irene Brown
7. Arvia MacKaye Ege
8. Olin D. Wannamaker
9. Ralph Courtney and the Threefold Social Impulse
10. Marjorie Spock
11. Eurythmy in America
12. Anthroposophically Extended Medicine
13. Weleda in America
14. A New Art of Education

Part Two: Taking Root, 1933–1967

15. The First Summer School and a Personal Interlude
16. From Coast to Coast: The First Transcontinental Tour
17. Paul Marshall Allen: The First American-Born Anthroposophical Lecturer
18. Serving the Earth: Biodynamic Agriculture in North America
19. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer
20. Anthroposophy in California
21. Chicago, the Midwest, and Texas
22. Denver
23. Life Begets Life: Initiatives in North Carolina
24. Anthroposophy in Hawaii
25. The Anthroposophical Movement in Canada
26. Anthroposophy in Mexico
27. Sylvester Morey, Alfred Barten, and the Myrin Institute
28. Stewart C. Easton
29. Crises and Seeds of Renewal in the Anthroposophical Society
30. Twentieth-Century Destinies
31. From Goethe’s Bicentennial to Rudolf Steiner’s Centennial
32. Religious Renewal: The Christian Community
33. Camphill: Healing Education for Those in Need of Special Care
34. Anthroposophical Nurses Association
35. The Rudolf Steiner Foundation: A Social Initiative
36. Publications
37. Publishers

Part Three: New Growth, 1967–2000

38. A New Generation
39. Regionalization
40. The Conference of 1981 and the Sale of 211 Madison Avenue
41. A Riddle of Destiny
42. Dietrich Asten: His Death and the 1984 Members’ Conference
43. The Rudolf Steiner Library
44. The Fellowship Community
45. Hawthorne Valley: Agriculture, Education & the Arts
46. Sunbridge College
47. Carl Stegmann and The Other America
48. Rudolf Steiner College
49. Anthroposophy in Academia
50. Natural Science from a New Perspective
51. Spiritual Psychology: Meeting a Fundamental Need of Our Time
52. Mathematics, Astronomy, Astrosophy
53. Spacial Dynamics
54. New Century Bank
55. Anthroposophical Prison Outreach

Part Four: Enduring Themes

56. Anthroposophical Group Life
57. The School of Spiritual Science
58. Anthroposophy and Art in America

Part Five: Looking to the Future

59. Current Initiatives
60. Closing Thoughts and a Look Ahead

Notes · Bibliography, References & Suggested Reading · Appendices · Index

About the Author

Henry Barnes (1912–2008) was born in New York City, attended the Lincoln School of Teachers’ College, and took his B.S. from Harvard College in 1933, going on to Waldorf teacher training in Stuttgart. He taught at Michael Hall in England and, from 1940, at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York, where he was a class teacher, high school history teacher, and faculty chairperson until 1977. From 1974 to 1991 he served as general secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. He was the author of A Life for the Spirit: Rudolf Steiner in the Crosscurrents of Our Time (1997), Percy MacKaye: Poet of Old Worlds and New (2000), and Into the Heart’s Land (2005).