Life for the Spirit : Rudolf Steiner in the Crosscurrents of Our Time

Until his death in 1925, Steiner created the body of knowledge and practice known as anthroposophy, which challenged and ex-tended the underlying methods of modern knowledge, and inspired many practical cultural initiatives, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, the move-ment for a threefold social order, and anthroposophical medicine. Henry Barnes recounts the dynamic life of Rudolf Steiner, an active leader whose entire being was given in service to humanity and to the spirit, and places him in the crosscurrents of history.

Henry Barnes (1912-2008) was born in New York City, attended Lincoln School of Teachers’ College and obtained his B.S. degree from Harvard College in 1933. He went on to Waldorf teacher training in Stuttgart until 1934. From 1935 until 1939, be was a class teacher at New School, Michael Hall, England. Mr. Barnes and Christy MacKaye were married on September 5, 1939, in Dornach, Switzerland, after which he returned with her to New York City. There, he was a class teacher at Rudolf Steiner School from 1940 until 1943, when he entered the U.S. Army until after the war in 1946. Mr. Barnes returned to the Rudolf Steiner School as a class teacher and high school history teacher, which he continued until 1977. During that time, he was also a faculty chairperson. From 1974 until 1991, Mr. Barnes was the general secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. He was the author of A Life for the Spirit: Rudolf Steiner in the Crosscurrents of Our Time (1997); Percy Mackaye: Poet of Old Worlds and New (2000); and Into the Heart’s Land: A Century of Rudolf Steiner’s Work in North America (2005).

Robert McDermott, Ph.D., is president emeritus and chair of the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). His publications include Radhakrishnan (1970); The Essential Aurobindo (1974, 1987); The Essential Steiner (1984); (with Rudolf Steiner) The Bhagavad Gita and the West (2009); and The New Essential Steiner (2009). He has also published on William James, Josiah Royce, M. K. Gandhi, the evolution of consciousness, and American thought. His administrative service includes president of the New York Center for Anthroposophy; president of the Rudolf Steiner [summer] Institute; chair of the board of Sunbridge College (New York) and of Rudolf Steiner College (California). He was a member of the council of the Anthroposophical Society in America (1996–2004). He is the founding chair of the board of the Sophia Project, an anthroposophic home in Oakland, California, for mothers and children at risk of homelessness. He is a Lindisfarne fellow, a Fetzer mentor, and a member of the Esalen Corportion.