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Editorial

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Spring issue of New View. This New Year has brought many natural disasters to the world’s attention. There have been mud slides in Brazil, floods in Australia, earthquakes in many countries, including New Zealand and Japan to name but a few. One could be forgiven for thinking that humanity’s relationship with nature, in general, is in so many ways broken, dislocated. If one takes seriously Steiner’s comments about the elemental world and how a reverence for life – surely that includes nature – underpins all that can become moral in the human being, then, if we can gain a little emotional distance for a moment from these horrific events, is there not an opportunity for human beings to re-discover a deeper connection to nature? How many of us in all seriousness consciously make a connection to the forces at work in the living world? One could be reminded of St. Paul when he said: “know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (King James version). This is not intended as a sermon to you, the reader, I am also speaking to myself with this editorial. Nature waits for us to make these connections, of that Steiner was also very clear. So, I suppose in modern parlance we could say that our human family is constantly receiving ‘wake-up calls’ to recognise these beings in nature. Can we do that, can we connect?

Terry Boardman has lived some ten years of his life in Japan, his wife is Japanese and their son is living at present close to Tokyo. So it is with a very connected concern that Terry writes Japan’s Crisis and Opportunity: Fukushima (Island of Good Fortune), where he looks at the meaning of the present crisis in Japan and suggests that its people may have an important task to show the world other ways of working with nature, not least to begin helping and healing our energy crisis.

This is followed by a very personal contribution about the unseen forces working on human beings from sub-nature: electromagnetic frequencies and their effects on the human organism. What on Earth is going on? by Hannah Townsend speaks about things that affect us all and the battle that is happening for our ability to be able to recognise Christ.

Matthew Barton then mixes a little humour with a serious undercurrent: On not being an Anthroposophist.

An ‘over-current’ of this issue, coming out as it does around Easter, is the Second Coming of Christ and this is explored a little in The Young Man who fled naked from the Garden of Gethsemane, an interview made with Dr. Michael Frensch from Germany, based on a unique passage of the Mark Gospel.

The Lion and the Unicorn by David Newbatt is an illustrated article about these two creatures that draws its inspiration from The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. A new illustrated volume of this most important, yet challenging, book has been completed by David Newbatt, with the help of others, and a short review of it appears on page 73.

From the USA, Theresa Roach Melia writes about the nature and value of imagination that can bridge the gap between matter and spirit in Imagination: A Bridge across the Gap.

Then we learn about a kindergarten initiative in New Zealand in an interview with Vibhusha Delamore: Fossil Bay Kindergarten, Waiheke Island, New Zealand. This is followed by NNA – News for New View, compiled by Christian von Arnim, which also carries an item of personal recollection concerning the Christchurch, New Zealand, earthquake.

Terry Boardman then reappears with _What’s going on in the Muslim World in 2011? The Impulses of Sun – Moon – Mercur_y, where he explores the intentions that underpin world events which are often unseen and not understood.

Readers are then invited to take time with three articles. The first is written by Roger Smook, an American Philosophy professor and offering insights with What does Rudolf Steiner mean by Freedom?

Dr. Ulrich Weger, a psychology Phd., then explores the human will in The Initiation of Action and the Weakness of the Will. And then Richard Bunzl completes his four-fold journey through the subtle bodies of the human being with Seeking the I: From the Invisible to the Eternal.

I must also apologise to you the reader. In the Winter 2010/11 issue we announced that this Spring issue would carry a number of articles on health and social care issues, showing how approaches based on anthroposophy has much to offer in these fields. Unfortunately this has not been possible to complete and we will have to hold this over for a future issue.

Meanwhile, New View continues to find its way forward from issue to issue, not least because of the continued generosity of readers and subscribers with their donations. I hope the wider readership can be patient and continue this much needed support.

Wishing you well, wherever you are,

Tom Raines – Editor

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