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Editorial

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Winter (Northern hemisphere season) issue of New View. This is the issue which accompanies you, the reader, into the New Year. The majority of subscribers will receive this at Christmas and so New View will also be with you during the Holy Nights. This is a time of year when people naturally look back and look forwards, sensing the stream of time personally and what it means in terms of events past and events to come. But more than a mere reflection, it presents another opportunity to make decisions about the future, what directions to take, what commitments to take on, what to relinquish and so on. You can do this at any time of course, but the period between Christmas Eve and the 6th January also supports this in a remarkable and subtle way. Because over the centuries people, particularly Christians, have used this time for spiritual contemplation, it has inscribed into the World memory a consistent and conscious endeavour, this in itself creates a pathway for humanity in general to have a gateway to the stars, as it were. It is somewhat akin to a footpath, formed across a field only because people use it, their combined footsteps creating it; but it is there for anyone to use and each person’s footsteps help to keep it as a path. Yet if people cease to use it, the footpath gradually disappears from view as the vegetation grows over it and it becomes lost. It may be rediscovered, but most likely a new path has to be formed if need arises to cross the field again. The Holy Nights is a path to the Spirit that surely remains there as long as some human beings use it. In an imaginal way, I can envisage that there are also spiritual ‘foot steps’ that travel towards us along this particular path, that keep the way open even when the pilgrims (for that is what it is, a pilgrimage towards our source and who we really are) are few. In that way the path will not be allowed to grow over and close, somehow I sense it is vouchsafed.

Temporal events have gathered pace in 2008 and we are all in some way concerned with the economic future. New View attempts to gain and offer some understanding for what is happening. G. Benjamin Bingham opens the journey through this issue of New View in Greed, Fear, Leverage and the Downturn writing from the USA with a look at attitudes and mechanisms in the financial world. This is followed by The Real Crunch where Terry Goodfellow investigates the influence of the Chicago School of Economics on economic models and ‘Disaster Capitalism’ throwing much light on how poverty is perpetuated and who is behind this. This, in a certain way, finds a resonance with the plight of Brazilian farmers to get a fair price for their effort in What Cost a Cup of Coffee? by Armando Canales, who brings us news of an inspiring project to help resolve this. And still on the theme of economics, Terence Davies brings a deep exposition of Steiner’s thoughts in this field in Beyond the Boundaries of Economics.

The nature of children and childhood is very much threatened today and Joyce Gallardo, writing from the USA in Tending and Cherishing the Living Spiritual forces in Childhood raises a deep awareness for the needs of the newly born. Why Movement is an Essential Ingredient of Every Child’s Development follows from Sally Goddard Blythe, a freelance consultant in neuro-developmental education who looks at research on the significance of developmental milestones and their assessment, which compliments Joyce Gallardo’s article in many ways.

And so to a final visit to China, where Terry Boardman rounds up his series of articles on that country with a look back and forward in 1908 and 2008: Earth Monkey, Earth Rat.

New View then hosts a more directly esoteric section beginning with The Christian Kabbala by Sean Byrne writing from Ireland on how Rudolf Steiner made some of his own adjustments to this ancient system of wisdom; and then to the literary phenomenon that is Harry Potter. Harry Potter and the Seven Gates of Theosophy is a deep exposition of an inspiration that Michael Frensch has discerned in the seven books by J. K. Rowling. Writing from Germany, Michael ends his insight into Harry’s journey and the seven-fold nature of the human being with a legend; the whole is offered to the New View readers as a story for our times.

Finally, as editor I thought I might allow myself to nominate my own Film of the Year for 2008 with the wonderful and uplifting true story of Philippe Petit’s walk on the high wire between the World Trade center towers in 1974. Man on Wire is truly inspiring.

I probably allowed this moment of indulgence due to a gentle mood of celebration, because with this issue New View reaches its 50th. It is a modest milestone along the way, but offers some encouragement in these troubled times that in spite of severe funding difficulties, we made it this far and are still here. If I can have an anniversary wish it would be that some serious funding might make its way to New View to help us forward.

There is one practical thought; the key to the future is the subscribers base. If each reader who finds value in what New View does in bringing authors’ works imbued with a desire to better understand the human being and this life we live to a wider readership could consider sharing the magazine with someone else, with the possibility of them trying a subscription for a time, that would be an enormous help. Some readers do this already and for all their efforts I am most grateful.

I would like to end this editorial by wishing you well for the New Year and to thank you for supporting New View Magazine, wherever you may be.

Tom Raines – Editor

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