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Editorial

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Holy Nights issue of New View; winter in the northern hemisphere, summer to the south and no doubt a subtle experience at the equator! Whatever the season around the Earth at this time, Christmas is a world festival, for all people on earth. It is understood on many different levels. Simply told as a story – and many who follow different religious pathways, or have no belief at all in the spirit, still recognise its powerful message about Love – describing all that unfolded after that first Christmas through the teachings, healings, the death and resurrection of Christ-Jesus, it is a unique tale in its telling; but for Rudolf Steiner it was a fact. The Christ event underpins all that he brought in his manifold teachings as anthroposophy. It was clearly at the heart of his work on earth. Yet, as Steiner himself said, no one should simply believe what he ever said about the spirit and insights drawn from his own experiences and vision, it remained so important that each person should make such knowedge and experience their own. Steiner was clear that one can still make an understanding of what he brought even whilst yet to make first-hand experiences themselves. He also said that it was important to be well informed.

That is a challenge, as this begs the question as to what ‘well’ really means. I can imagine it is closely related to good will, to goodness. I sense that although it may be hard to truly define, everyone knows what good will and goodness means when it is experienced. Perhaps you will forgive me writing this, for how can I know what lives and is experienced in each, maybe any, person? Nonetheless, well and goodness belong to the human condition, it is universal. Which brings us to Peace, so needed between us all. Christmas is surely a time to remember all this. In part, this is why the painting by Raphael is on the cover of this issue of New View. For a remembering.

I inherited the name New View when I became this magazine’s editor. I was not sure at the time if it was the right name. Familiarity with it allowed it to grow on me. From time to time I think of Christ’s words that through Him all things will be made new. In a small way I find it well that this magazine, through its many authors and community of readers, can aspire to be part of that. ‘Well’, there it is.

We begin this issue with The Two Johns – Part 3, being the conclusion of Aaron Mirkin’s look to the individualities expressed in and through John the Baptist and Lazarus John, wherein Raphael plays his part.

Crispian Villeneuve has translated recollections of Marie Steiner in From Rudolf Steiner’s Life and Death and as we approach 100 years since Steiner’s death (March 30th 2025) it felt a good moment to hear his wife’s voice reflecting on him.

Terry Boardman offers Part I of a two-part article on “Christian Zionism” which underpins so much of what the world is confronted by now.

Richard House has made an insightful interview with Bernard Jarman about The Biodynamic Approach and its Contemporary Relevance, a movement which this year celebrated 100 years since the moment Steiner offered a renewal of agriculture with a course of lectures given to folk deeply concerned with the land and it use and abuse in 1924.

Organisers of a planned new teacher training course give an update on progress in Steiner-Waldorf Education in Edinburgh, Taster Sessions, wishing to keep the heart of Steiner’s educational impulse alive and renewed in our time.

Writing from Switzerland, Dr. Daphné von Boch shares the need for a new attitude to the human being in Does Medicine Need to Broaden its Scope?

Barry Cottrell then explores attitudes to death and dying with Consciousness – Undoing Death in the Here-and-Now.

Our Climate Watch regular contributor, the analytical scientist and ecologist Peter Taylor, looks at the dynamics of warming and cooling streams in oceans and in the atmosphere, particularly the Atlantic in relation to the Arctic, that if we understand it well enough would surely help to bring about a sorely needed proper discussion about climate.

Richard House conducts another interview, this time with Katherine Buchanan where she shares her life and work practising Science in a Different Key: The Case of Goethean Science.

From the USA, Charles Duquette writes an evaluation of machine intelligence in Competing Against the Machines. This is complemented by Shindig Rhymer describing his efforts to ‘outwit the machine’ in Shindig Stands Up for Humanity. Treading a similar path to the previous two authors Nigel Gilmer provides a rounding off of his already completed three-part series with Divergent Paths of the Future: An Epilogue.
New View carries a range of articles each issue on various themes and topics which are important for our current time on Earth. Some of then delve very deeply and need time to digest and reflect upon. In our modern culture many folk cannot easily find the time for this, so it may be well that New View is a quarterly magazine that the reader has some months to work.

At the turning of this year I reflect on the enormous help that the readers have shown to help keep New View going; my hearfelt thanks to all who have, in different ways, contributed to this, not least in being a subscriber! Page 84 sets things out for way ahead.

Finally, for Christmas, the Holy Nights and the New Year to come I warmly wish you, the reader well, wherever you may be,

Tom Raines – editor.

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