RECORDINGS OF PAST EVENTS HOSTED BY ASNYC

Robert McKay: Meditation

from Rudolf Steiner’s Knowledge of the Higher Worlds

Anthroposophical meditation is a path that takes everyday experience as a starting point. Through it we can accelerate this natural developmental process. Rudolf Steiner identifies those aspects of everyday consciousness “hidden” in plain sight that have developmental potential when activated.

Robert McKay introduces us to key elements of this process described by Rudolf Steiner.

Listening to Plants — Lessons from Violets

presented by Joanna Gabler

Humanity today is standing on the threshold between the visible and invisible with newly acquired consciousness. With an adequate approach and willingness to persevere, there is a possibility to awaken in the soul this ability to communicate with plants in a new way.

Joanna Gabler, philosopher by education, artist and herbalist by vocation and biophiliac by nature, shares her own experiences of connecting with Nature and possible paths/exercises to develop that capacity. She also shares related lessons that she has received from the spirit plant/Deva of violets blossoming abundantly in her yarden (yard/garden).

Understanding the Slavic Soul — A Primer for Westerners

Despite the seemingly uniform, homogenous processes of global interdependence and standardization, there exist profound differences in Western Anglo-Saxon and Eastern Slavic perceptions of soul-spiritual and cultural values. The East-Slavic peoples carry a special quality, one characterized by Rudolf Steiner as “oneness of soul,” that is in actuality a seed for humanity’s development in the next epoch.

Serguei Krissiouk sheds light on the underlying currents at play here. He will draw on Rudolf Steiner’s insights presented in his lectures GA 158 “The balance in the world and man, Lucifer and Ahriman” and GA 113 “The East in the light of the West.”

Ahriman On Stage

Eurythmist Brigida Baldszun speaks about how we can learn to recognize Ahriman, and shares her experience representing Ahriman on stage.

Brigida’s inspirations on this theme come from her ten years of study and experience as a eurythmist portraying Ahriman on stage in Rudolf Steiner’s four Mystery Dramas. She draws also from Steiner’s other descriptions of this powerful spiritual being who embodies information, fragmentation, hardening, and materiality.

The Easter Verse from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul

Eugene Schwartz, Mary Stewart Adams, Fred Dennehy and Richard Steel share their meditations and pondering on the Easter Verse (Verse #1) from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul, followed by conversation and questions.

War in Ukraine – a Ukrainian Anthroposophist’s view
Serguei Krissiouk

War upended the normal, peaceful life in Ukraine on the morning of February 24th, 2022. Putin’s Russia attacked Ukraine. The inception of this war shook the world and deeply compromised global peace and security. No one can remain indifferent to the overwhelming human suffering and immense destruction caused by this ongoing war. 
 
While this conflict seems to be completely unprovoked and sudden, there were certain events and processes that had led to the ultimate disaster. This war is not a local conflict anymore, and it can spill into a more serious confrontation between countries and continents. 
 
What are the historical, geopolitical, cultural, social, and even deep spiritual causes of this conflict? If we do not attempt to examine them in depth and in detail, we risk missing important symptoms of the current global situation and perhaps opportunities to prevent it from happening in the future. Ignorance is no longer an option. During discussion of this important and painfully urgent subject, we will draw on insights from Rudolf Steiner’s lecture series “The Karma of Untruthfulness” and “Evil and the Future of Man.”
 
Bio/ Serguei Krissiouk is an anthroposophically trained physician currently involved in research and therapeutic work with chronically ill children, a clinical homeopathic practitioner, translator, and musician. 

Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and the Destiny of America
presented by Karl Fredrickson

Venus, Mars and Pluto come into conjunction in the Archer on March 3^rd. (Jonathan Hilton)

 “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” (Abraham Lincoln, December 10, 1862)

 “Again and again we need to be really clear in our minds that the present time is literally challenging us every hour, indeed every minute, to wake up. Anthroposophy as a science of the spirit can only be understood by those who are able to grasp that humanity is being asked to make a clear decision. Either the spirit is understood or the chaos continues.” (Rudolf Steiner, Michaelmas, 1917 in Dornach)

 Those Michaelmas words spoken by Rudolf Steiner have as much significance for today as they did for 1917–and for what transpired during the momentous years of 1861-1865 in America. (Karl Fredrickson)

What follows is Karl Frederickson’s re-recording of the presentation he gave at ASNYC on March 3, 2022.

Resonant Unfolding: The Life Cycle of the Plant and Human Inner Development

Presented by Tom Altgelt

Both the life cycle of a plant and our path of inner development can come alive for us as analogous reflections of each other. Pondering them together, we can experience practical spiritual truths about both the unfolding of our inner life and the outer rhythmical manifestations of etheric formative forces.  In this online meeting Tom Altgelt shares how Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul brings this alive for us in the fluidic symbol of the lemniscate, where the inner and outer alternate with each other. He describes how in the cycle of the year, Fall and Winter are related to the phase of soul preparation, Spring to the phase of Illumination and Summer to Initiation.

Tom Altgelt, award-winning landscape architect, is the co-founder and co-host of Front Range Anthroposophical Café (https://frontrangeanthrocafe.org/).

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Conversation on Conflict and Dissension

Introduced and moderated by Jesús Amadeo

If we rely on the news to create a world view, it may come across that conflict, dissension, and discord are more visible now than a decade or two ago. Where do conflict and dissension come from? Can we be sure our beliefs and ideas are really our own and not just the result of influences arising from how we grew up, our education, societal expectations, family and friends, or our own limited experiences? Are we able to reach a state of being where for a few moments we suspend these influences, and in so doing, be able to discern which ideas and thoughts are truly ours? How can a heightened awareness of the above change the nature of our conversations and discussions on sensitive topics?

In a Zoom only meeting, Jesús Amadeo explores how ideas, thoughts, thought forms, thinking, spiritual forces and influences affect us, and facilitates a conversation on this theme. 

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Michaelmas Celebration

Friday, October 1st 2021

A conversation and pondering on the Michaelmas Mood verse (verse #26) from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul with Mary Stewart Adams, Fred Dennehy, Herbert Hagens and Eugene Schwartz.

“One of the greatest mysteries of the passage of the seasons in the course of the year lies in its character as a living organism,” wrote Sergei Prokofieff in The Cycle of the Seasons and the Seven Liberal Arts. Prokofieff also noted Rudolf Steiner’s characterization of Michael as the guiding spirit of humanity whose “principal function from the earliest beginnings has been to govern the cosmic intelligence.”

David Anderson: Geology and Mineralogy as World Breathing of Substance

Thursday, February 15, 2024

The COVID shutdowns led to the curtailing of David Anderson’s lecture series in 2020 with about four lectures not delivered. Picking up from that point, David will summarize essentials from the earlier material and continue in February (see below please) and March with examination of the polarity between calcium and silica. He will describe how the layers of rock are deposited from lower primal silica to upper calcium layers, making apparent that the solid earth, once an expanded living being that included all of the planets of our solar system, has now shrunken. The archetypal mineral, plant, animal, and human died and are now observable as the more or less dessicated compressed rocks which we now see. David will discuss specific minerals and their places in the evolutionary ordering of nature, illuminating Rudolf Steiner’s ideas on Mineral-Plant, Plant-Animal, and Animal-Human Beings.

David Anderson: Geology and Mineralogy as World Breathing of Substance

Thursday, March 14, 2024

The COVID shutdowns led to the curtailing of David Anderson’s lecture series in 2020 with about four lectures not delivered. Picking up from that point, David will summarize essentials from the earlier material and continue in February (see below please) and March with examination of the polarity between calcium and silica. He will describe how the layers of rock are deposited from lower primal silica to upper calcium layers, making apparent that the solid earth, once an expanded living being that included all of the planets of our solar system, has now shrunken. The archetypal mineral, plant, animal, and human died and are now observable as the more or less dessicated compressed rocks which we now see. David will discuss specific minerals and their places in the evolutionary ordering of nature, illuminating Rudolf Steiner’s ideas on Mineral-Plant, Plant-Animal, and Animal-Human Beings.

David Anderson: Geology and Mineralogy as World Breathing of Substance

Thursday, April 18, 2024

The COVID shutdowns led to the curtailing of David Anderson’s lecture series in 2020 with about four lectures not delivered. Picking up from that point, David will summarize essentials from the earlier material and continue in February (see below please) and March with examination of the polarity between calcium and silica. He will describe how the layers of rock are deposited from lower primal silica to upper calcium layers, making apparent that the solid earth, once an expanded living being that included all of the planets of our solar system, has now shrunken. The archetypal mineral, plant, animal, and human died and are now observable as the more or less dessicated compressed rocks which we now see. David will discuss specific minerals and their places in the evolutionary ordering of nature, illuminating Rudolf Steiner’s ideas on Mineral-Plant, Plant-Animal, and Animal-Human Beings. This Recording (On April 18): The metals were deposited by the seven planets as seeds within the earth (when the planets of the older inclusive Earth left for outer space). Further discussions will encompass the seven Metals and their mother planets: silver, copper, quicksilver, gold, iron and its siblings (nickel and cobalt), tin, and lead. Cyanide, aluminum and clay, antimony and the homunculus in alchemy. Basilius Valentinus. Sulphur and volcanoes. Sulphur and the milky Lemurian protein atmosphere.  Next Recording (On May 16): Volcanism, granite, porphyry, trachyte, basalt, lavas and meteors. The mineral composition of rocks. Feldspars and micas. The contribution of Metals to the colors of rocks. From the viewpoints of Embryology and Geology, Earth as a seed for the future.

David Anderson: Geology and Mineralogy as World Breathing of Substance

Thursday, May 16, 2024

The COVID shutdowns led to the curtailing of David Anderson’s lecture series in 2020 with about four lectures not delivered. Picking up from that point, David will summarize essentials from the earlier material and continue in February (see below please) and March with examination of the polarity between calcium and silica. He will describe how the layers of rock are deposited from lower primal silica to upper calcium layers, making apparent that the solid earth, once an expanded living being that included all of the planets of our solar system, has now shrunken. The archetypal mineral, plant, animal, and human died and are now observable as the more or less dessicated compressed rocks which we now see. David will discuss specific minerals and their places in the evolutionary ordering of nature, illuminating Rudolf Steiner’s ideas on Mineral-Plant, Plant-Animal, and Animal-Human Beings. Previous Recording (On April 18): The metals were deposited by the seven planets as seeds within the earth (when the planets of the older inclusive Earth left for outer space). Further discussions will encompass the seven Metals and their mother planets: silver, copper, quicksilver, gold, iron and its siblings (nickel and cobalt), tin, and lead. Cyanide, aluminum and clay, antimony and the homunculus in alchemy. Basilius Valentinus. Sulphur and volcanoes. Sulphur and the milky Lemurian protein atmosphere.  This Recording (On May 16): Volcanism, granite, porphyry, trachyte, basalt, lavas and meteors. The mineral composition of rocks. Feldspars and micas. The contribution of Metals to the colors of rocks. From the viewpoints of Embryology and Geology, Earth as a seed for the future.

Robert McDermott: Dying and Returning

Sunday, June 2, 2024

Robert McDermott, a former president of Anthroposophy NYC, is professor emeritus, Baruch College, CUNY, president emeritus and professor emeritus, California Institute of Integral Studies, author of Steiner and Kindred Spirits (2021) and editor of The Essential Aurobindo and The New Essential Steiner. Speaking about his book in progress, Dying and Returning, Robert will discuss death and afterlife in world religions, in the writings of Sri Aurobindo and Rudolf Steiner, and in near death experience research. Conversation will follow..

Jesús Amadeo: FEAR

Sunday October 20 at 7:00 (EDT)

Many of us are aware of the verse, “For the Michaelic Age,” attributed to Rudolf Steiner and beginning as follows:
We must eradicate from the soul
All fear and terror of what comes towards humanity out of the future.

In this Michaelic age and in this Michaelmas season, the theme of fear, amidst an array of real terrors raging around us (warfare, climate-related disasters, political savagery, for starters), hardly needs to plead its relevance. Jesús Amadeo, co-class holder at Anthroposphy NYC, will introduce and lead a conversation on the theme of fear.

Who Was Rudolf Steiner?

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Rudolf Steiner: Narrator, Philosopher, Researcher
Aaron French, PhD, currently teaches in the religious studies masters’ program at the University of Erfurt in Germany and works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Freie Universität Berlin. He received his doctorate in the study of religion, with an emphasis on science and technology studies. His writing on Max Weber, Rudolf Steiner and Modern Western Esotericism will be published this fall.

Saul Bellow, M.C. Richards and Rudolf Steiner
Nathaniel Williams, PhD, grew up in the Southeastern United States, studied painting, puppetry and anthroposophy in Switzerland and political theory at the University at Albany. He is the leader of the “Section for the Spiritual Striving of the Youth” at the Goetheanum in Switzerland, an independent college dedicated to contemplative approaches to knowledge.

Who Was Rudolf Steiner?

Saturday, October 26, 2024

What is Biodynamic Agriculture
Ezra Sullivan moved to South America after high school in California to initiate an inquiry into the life of the human being and nature through meditation and agriculture. There he encountered the work of Rudolf Steiner,  and upon returning to the United States after three years, he orientated his spiritual life toward Anthroposophy. The following nine years were focused mainly in the Pacific Northwest on biodynamic agriculture, nonprofit leadership, the intentional communities’ movement, and non-violent activism.