Preface to the Second Edition

The re-edited and enlarged form of this publication is based on a special case, namely a members’ meeting of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland. However, in order to stay within the context of this particular case, it would like to draw the reader's attention to ideational contents and introspective observations, which, according to the writer's conviction, are of universal significance. For in each single case, the difficulties but also possibilities of truly modern and libertarian community-building involved in the creation of social life drawn from a new principle of civilization has become clearly evident. Therewith, this writing wants to take a position regarding the most actual issue of our time. No attentive and unbiased observer of the current crisis situation of our public life and existential needs,  which are certainly not unknown to any modern human being, can after all fail to notice that the power of traditional social impulses has been exhausted, and that we require new forms of living and working together. The social demands and chaotic conditions of the present time present an image that gives rise to serious concern.  This publication wants to direct this urgent need for social renewal to formative impulses of social life that have so far hardly been taken note of.

The events dealt with in this publication  could originally be considered to be internal events within the Anthroposophical Society, which ought to be protected because of their intimate character. However, they have since become part of the history of the Anthroposophical Society,  i.e. events of which the public character must be demanded and observed, because they are essentially meant to be contributions to the general cultural and social development of humanity, they may therefore no longer remain hidden from public attention. All the more so, since they provide future social designers with indispensable and incomparable experiences. For the newcomer aiming to join the Anthroposophical Society they may furthermore provide a well-nigh indispensable means of orientation that is elsewhere difficult to acquire. The present treatise forms together  with the author’s writings Charter of Humanity - The Principles of the General Anthroposophical Society and The Impartiality of Anthroposophy a kind of introduction to anthroposophy.[1]

Herbert Witzenmann

Garmisch Partenkirchen, September 1985

[1] At this point the author acknowledges the efforts of those who made his publication in one way or another possible. These are: Torodd Lien, Reto Savoldelli, Richard Weinberg and Klaus Hartmann. Then there follows a reference to further literature: The Threefold Social Order and World Economy by Rudolf Steiner and his own essays Vom vierfachen Quell lebedigen Rechts published in Dornach in 1980 (About the Fourfold Source of Living Law, not translated) and Pupilship in the Sign of the Rose Cross, Spicker Books, Ca., (Out of Print).