PREFACE TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION
SINCE RUDOLF STEINER had given so many new impulses brought
forth by his Spiritual Science (Anthroposophy) and bearing upon
every field of knowledge and practical activity of life, he was
also approached by farmers who asked him for, help with
spiritual insight and practical advice concerning the
difficulties, unsolved questions and problems of
agriculture.
So,
for instance, it was many years ago when Herr Ernst Stegemann
and Count Lerchenfeld as practical farmers had received new
points of view for an agriculture founded on spiritual
knowledge; and afterwards in Dornach at the Goetheanum I had
the privilege, together with Herr E. Pfeiffer, to carry out
several experiments under the personal guidance of Dr. Steiner.
We were the first to produce some of the preparations
later on mentioned in this, lecture course, we exposed them to
the influence of the rhythms of the seasons; and R. Steiner in
spite of his tremendous overburdening did, not refuse to come
to the piece of land lying far off and to test the first
preparations which had become ready; he then gave help
and advice for the further development of the preparing
methods and their application and took things in hand
himself.
An
increasing number of agriculturists longed for a systematic
laying down of the new principles and eventually in
Spring 1924 Count Alexander Keyserlingk who had been sent by
his father Count Karl Keyserlingk to Dornach succeeded in
securing Dr. Steiner's promise to give a lecture course on
agriculture at Koberwitz Castle (Silesia, Germany).
Dr.
Steiner wrote in the Members News Sheet of 22nd June, 1927,
“It has been a long cherished wish of a number of
Anthroposophists working in the agricultural field to have from
me a lecture course which should contain all that can be said
about agriculture from the point of view of Anthroposophy.
Between the 7th and 16th of June I was able to find the time to
fulfil this wish. Koberwitz near Dresden, where Count
Keyserlingk is running a big farming estate in an exemplary
manner, was a good place for such a course. It was natural to
speak of agriculture in surroundings where the audience
could have around them the things and processes to which the
lectures referred. It is thus that meetings of this sort
receive their mood and colouring. As my subject I took the
nature of the produce of agriculture and the conditions under
which this can arise. The considerations aimed at practical
points of view for agriculture, which should add to the results
of modern practical and scientific experience the results of a
study along spiritual scientific lines. Our friend, Herr
Hegemann, began right from the start of the meeting to speak of
the things which he connected with conversations on
agriculture which I had had with him some time ago. He had as a
matter of fact carried out on his farm practical experiments on
that basis. He put before the audience his results and wishes.
His speech was followed by a proposal of Count Keyserlingk to
begin with immediate experiment according to what was to be
given in the course. This aim he proposed to be to a group of
professional agriculturists. Such a group was actually
formed at a subsequent meeting of the farmers present. It
was agreed to fake the contents of the course for the time
being as hints which will not be discussed outside the circle
of those attending the course; but to use these hints as the
basis of experiments which are to bring the material into a
form in which it can be published. This circle (community) ...
was declared to be a group of members which form part of the
Natural Science Section at the Goetheanum. This Section will
continually indicate the direction and aims of the
experimental work.”
With the impulses of this course which open unbounded prospects
for the future the attending members returned to their work,
strengthened with new insight, with new hopes and forces. And
many a practical farmer who — through the
de-spiritualising materialistic tendencies in industry had felt
his profession to be a burden, could see again the deep
spiritual background of just this profession and with wholly
transformed view and with new love resumed his work upon
animal, plant and soil.
The
problems of agriculture through the influence of nourishment
upon the life of each individual and that of the community have
become the most central problems of our time, much more so
since numerous farmers in the civilized countries have come to
the conviction that the methods hitherto applied
materialistically and only based upon observation of mere
matter have led into a blind alley and have brought all
civilized material into decay. A new foundation for agriculture
is certainly a turning point important for all human
history. This is what Rudolf Steiner himself felt. I shall
never forget how he in his modest manner said to me on the
journey back from this course; “Now we have gone another
great step forward.”
Whoever expects this course to give a list of easily
manufactured preparations whose application will pay in very
short time, will not have any understanding of what this course
means and will better put it aside without reading it. But
whoever grasps that to begin with, our whole attitude to the
natural kingdom needs a new orientation, since science
hitherto with its materialistic-mechanistic methods had
to stop short before the life phen and whoever is prepared to
adopt this new attitude, will feel compelled to make a change
in many important points of his farming, but he will find also
that the new orientation is indispensable and — if
properly carried out — yields practical success. No doubt
that the changeover of the estates to the new methods must be
done slowly, systematically and in organic connection,
and many primary indications given in this course need
practical elaborations and modifications according to the
individual farm and its geographical and cultural
peculiarities — but this is the case with every method.
Rudolf Steiner emphasised this point often very seriously.
Whoever enters into the living experience of the whole
teaching will find soon what those who began as the first have
already seen in all details that in reasonable and careful
carrying out the most valuable practical result will be
achieved.
Rudolf Steiner's wish to see Experimental Circles arise could
already be fulfilled in several European countries? and in many
non-European countries and continents centres have been formed
where the principles of this renewed agriculture are
practically applied.
In
order to transmit to beginners in these methods the experiences
of those who have worked for years with them and in order to
secure a final success through exchange of views and ideas, to
avoid unnecessary mistake and to broadcast supplementary
discoveries and improvements of the “Bio-Dynamic methods
of Agriculture,” the Natural Science Section at the
Goetheanum and the Experimental Circles in the different
countries holds meetings and informative courses*).
I
have to thank those who have helped to produce this second
(German) editions Herr E. Pfeiffer for his essential help in
revision and correction, Frau L. Kolisko for lending her
shorthand report which gave important corrections of the text
and supplements of the first edition, Herr E. Vojeh for working
out the index, and Fräulein E. Riese for copying
the diagrams. This new edition has been supplemented by
an Appendix with the summary of some agricultural conversations
which Dr. Steiner had with several personalities.
Goetheanum, Dornach near Basle, Switzerland. November,
1929.
|
On behalf of the Natural
Science Section at the Goetheanum.
Dr. Guenther Wachsmuth.
|
|