Home

Editorial

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the St John’s Tide issue of New View. By the time this magazine reaches you we will have just passed through the midsummer moment here in the Northern hemisphere and the midwinter moment in the Southern hemisphere. These are turning points in the cycle of the year where the relationship of the length of the day to the night tips into its opposite as we head to winter or towards summer depending on where we are on the Earth. Like a dance, moving together, like the tides of the sea, a rising and a falling; as Rudolf Steiner said: Rhythm is Life.

What was John the Baptist’s call… metanoia; change your ways, change your thinking. Why? To let the spirit come in. Surely this is where we all are now as we contend with an enormous challenge to our freedoms, our connections with one another, even our continuance as human beings. A time to find courage for what lies ahead.

This issue of New View is the one hundredth since it first appeared at Michaelmas 1996. I became its editor in November 1998, producing the ninth issue. Therefore, this is my personal 91st as editor. I think it quite an achievement that New View has been able, for a quarter of a century, to bring so many contributions out of a sense and understanding for anthroposophy. In this time we have published the work of over four hundred different, contemporary, writers, poets and artists – the community of contributors. And we are still here because of the community of readers who support us.

Since the Spring of 2019, New View has carried many contributions concerning the covid situation. I wanted to move to a different place with this 100th issue, to look more at the huge breadth and depth of what Steiner’s insights have inspired in the many different initiatives that have sprung up around the world in the last hundred years or so – to let people know what we have in the world, growing as seeds, or blossoming, in our midst, to support the conscious incarnating of the spiritual life. But what came towards me showed that there is yet more to be understood. As Steiner made very clear, people need to be well informed. And I think many now know that this finding of the truth about events has become very difficult indeed. And so the focus with this issue is to bring a document towards the wider readership that can provide an even deeper basis than before for understanding what we are all dealing with and the forces now at work in the world and how we can meet this challenge of the time and go forward.

This one hundredth offering of New View begins with that very theme, The Challenge of the Times (Part One) Interlocking Histories: 9/11, Anthrax Attacks and Covid-19 by Richard Ramsbotham. It is a deep look at the origins of what now underpins the forces working on the world population through the covid situation. This article is divided into two parts in this issue, in part to enable some digestion of the difficult material presented.

Writing from Taiwan, Benjamin Cherry looks into the discernment needed to find the truth with Knowledge, Truth, Freedom and Goodness. Clement Jewitt complements this with his consideration of Conflict: the Outer and the Inner Worlds.

Writing from France, Matthew Thurber offers Stand! An argument against the Current Coronavirus Reaction. This is followed by Terry Boardman writing about a particular day in his life that connects with so much of what is happening for us all in Feeling Challenges, Falling Souls, Facing Facts…

There is then a change of focus to the more inward looking Through a Magnifying Glass, Darkly: The Unanswered Mysteries of the English Detective Story by Stephen Douglas, writing from Prague in the Czech Republic. This article inspired the cover picture of this issue by David Newbatt.

Matthew Thurber offers a second contribution about an approach to singing developed by the Swedish opera singer Valborg Werbeck-Swärdström, who worked with Steiner, in Freeing the Voice: An Interview with Christiaan Boele.

From the USA comes a contribution by David Axelrod: The Denial in Social Justice: The Need for Anthroposophy and The Spiritual Fact of Our Time.

Crisis and Renewal finds Michael Warden writing from Spain looking for ways forward through the covid ‘crisis’. Richard Brinton points out the misleading notions surrounding the covid experimental vaccine in Ten Million Reasons…

Wolf Forsthofer then looks at glimmerings of positive things in Seeds of Hope with particular reference to events in Germany. Which brings us to the second part of Richard Ramsbotham’s article: The Challenge of the Times (Part Two) Avoiding Brave New World and Creating the Future. Two Book Review Essays: On the Complexity of Rudolf Steiner’s Views on Vaccination and Medical Injection and A State of Fear by Richard House and Richard Brinton respectively, lead into the book review section that completes this one hundredth issue of New View, which, I hope, as a whole, will prove helpful, enlightening and encouraging.

A special mention for all those readers who continue to support the existence of New View with their donations, it is both humbling and heartwarming and enables us to keep going. Thank you. Also thanks to those who continue to advertise with us.

And finally to you the reader all good wishes, wherever you may be,

Tom Raines – Editor.

Contents

Back to Top