About the Leadership of this Newsletter and the Members' Share in It

This newsletter is titled “What's Going On in the Anthroposophical Society”. This title was given to it to suggest that in the future individual members should take a lively spiritual interest in everything that happens in the Society. This will only be possible if these members write to the editor of the journal, Albert Steffen, with everything they believe should be known not only to the individual member but to the whole Society. And this should know where anthroposophy is being worked on, how it is happening, how the work is being received, etc. The life that takes place in the individual groups should be able to come to life before the consciousness of the whole society. Letters in which members filled with interest for the life of the groups turn to the editorial team with their messages will then be processed by them. This will help to create a common consciousness in society. Only when members in New Zealand can find out what is happening in a group in Vienna will such a common consciousness be possible.

But this should not be the only thing. What is happening in the spiritual life of the present day outside of the Society should also be included in the common consciousness. There is spiritual life around every group in society. This or that view of the world and life is expressed, this or that great or small artistic, scientific, social, educational, etc. achievement comes to light. Much else will happen that must interest spiritually striving people. All this can be better judged from close quarters than from afar, according to its conditions, its nature, its implications. In their letters, the members of the groups should speak of what they can perceive from this point of view in the vicinity of their groups. Members whose profession takes them around the world should look with open eyes at “what is going on in the world”. They should then communicate this to the editorial team of the newsletter. In this way, “what is going on in the world” can become “what is going on in the Anthroposophical Society”. And we need a broad outlook. We need a keen interest in all the phenomena of life in the world. We need a healthy judgment in the Society about these phenomena.

In this respect, we in society must learn to think differently than has been done so far. By its very nature, anthroposophy does not tolerate any kind of sectarianism that narrow-mindedly shuts itself off from everything that others think and want. Anthroposophy only tolerates a broad heart for all human striving and life. And it can only be given the right form through an open eye for everything that is thought, willed, and done in the world.

The newsletter should become a reflection of this way of thinking in society. Through its existence, it should be a call to each individual member to keep asking themselves how they can contribute to the common thinking in the society. If the members see the newsletter in this way, the executive council of the Anthroposophical Society can make it what it should be according to the intentions of the Christmas Conference.