Introduction by the Translator - 100 Years Christmas Conference 1923

With this working translation another aid, next to the Social-aesthetic Study Charter of Humanity - The Principles of the General Anthroposophical Society by Herbert Witzenmann, is provided to help understand the spiritual background and potential significance of initiatives taken by the translator since 2018 mainly based on these two studies and his own observations. The first one consists of the announcement "The Christmas Conference as a Contemporary Metamorphosis of the Mystery of Golgotha and Its Realization as An Eternal Task" for the proposed working group "100 Years Christmas Conference 1923" to be held at the Herbert Witzenmann Center in Dornach on December 28, 29 and 30 during the Christmas Conference 2018 at the Goetheanum. This initiative is an extension of the first one consisting of the two motions that were submitted, or rather were attempted to submit to the General Assembly of the General Anthroposophical Society in March of this year (2018) at the Goetheanum in Dornach. What they propose and how they were either mistreated or disregarded can be read online in "Trust Over Ruins - On Regaining the Lost Ground on Which to Build in the Future"). This motion was followed by one in 2019 under the title "Towards the Liberation from the Mixed King at the Goetheanum and the Reestablishment of the Anthroposophical Society", which was promptly removed from the proceedings of the meeting by a vote not to enter into any discussion.  Not much better fared my motion in 2020 entitled To Willingly Connect the New Christianity With the World in Love for the Healing of Humanity and Earth" and my video request to the General Assembly in 2021"On the Restoration and Realization of the Statutes of the Christmas Conference". Both were either disregarded or brushed aside with false promises. This led to my motion entitled "The Cross of the Christmas Conference" to the General Assembly of the General Anthroposophical Society on Easter Sunday 2022 to not discharge the Council (see the Willehalm Institute blog of the previous motions).

In this sense, these members' meetings did not differ much from the one in 1972 dealt with in this social-aesthetic study by the former (ousted) leader of the Youth and Social Science Section of the Goetheanum, which offers not only an in-depth analysis of that meeting with all its pitfalls and shortcomings but also the therapy in the form of social organics, the new constitutional principle of civilization that Rudolf Steiner inaugurated with and during the Christmas Conference in 1923/24 and that is therefore not only relevant as may become evident from this text, for the necessary renewal, indeed reestablishment of the Anthroposophical Society but for that of society at large.  

The possible criticism leveled at this study that it does not take into account the fact that the statutes of the Christmas Conference were replaced in 1925 by the statutes of the Goetheanum Building Association, and that consequently no distinction is made between the nature of the Anthroposophical Society (of the Christmas Conference) and that of the General Anthroposophical Society (as the renamed Goetheanum Building Association) will be dealt with later. 

Also to be dealt with later is the fact that 9 of the 15 Foundation statutes, or "Principles" as they were formerly called and also in this study, have been dismembered and that the constitutional question has therefore not by a long shot been resolved, as has been claimed by the present Council. Indicating that this is so, and restoring them, while also creating the corresponding relation of the Society to organically active anthroposophical institutions, associations, firms, schools, etc. around the world is the daunting task of the proposed working group "100 Years Christmas Conference 1923" in order to celebrate instead of merely commemorate in 2023 the centennial of the Christmas Conference. 

An attempt in this direction seems to be the project by the Council and the Social Science Section entitled "Goetheanum World Association", however it is  in my considered opinion not in line with the intentions of Rudolf Steiner, because it does not address the problem of the "lost ground on which we stand" dealt with in the above-mentioned motions. Also, the Swiss Society has made a seven-year plan in this direction, but I have yet to discover in their already held conferences or in their publications of those proceedings, by among others Peter Selg, anything that offers a perspective on a real solution of the ongoing constitutional question, which is a question of "to be or not to be"for the Anthroposophical Society. The same is true of the Dutch Society, of which I am a class member in the local Social Science Section, in which all my various oral and written proposals, based on this and other translations of Herbert Witzenmann have until now all come to naught. 

Finally, I want to reiterate what Herbert Witzenmann emphasizes over and again, namely that his study is not directed to anthroposophists only, but to all those seeking new ways of society- and community-forming in the spirit of our age and by delving into its content costly errors and wrong turns could be avoided. I hope that my two recently submitted motions may be a contribution to that insight.

Robert J. Kelder

Willehalm Institute, Amsterdam, 
Last Updated April 5, 2022