My credentials and experience re. Steiner: At the age of 20 I spent a year at the Steiner College of F.E., Emerson College; after this I worked for a year in the Steiner bookshop and for two short but much-loved and memorable spells in communities working with handicapped adults. I thus have visibly a good grounding in Steiner. I love and respect the man profoundly, he rescued me at a point of deep crisis, and I still work deeply with everything I learned as the practice of Spiritual Science. For me, it helped me stand alone, free and upright. It never, never bound me to Steiner in any cult-like way. Steiner taught me about profound universal principles, not least principles of careful observation, in order to allow subtle evidence to speak clearly.

Yet I have worked very little of my life in anthroposophical ventures, Life seemed always to push me out and on, and over the years I have come to understand a higher purpose in this, and to be grateful. I have always been aware of others' criticisms of Steiner, sometimes justified, sometimes not. And I have gradually, through my own "spiritual-scientific research", come to disagree myself with many of Steiner's conclusions and details, though never with his basic key methods. In fact, it has been the extended practice of such methods that has given me differing conclusions. Steiner would be glad of this, I am sure; after all, he did ask his followers never to "believe" what he said but always to take it as hypothesis that could be mistaken and would certainly be open to improvement and further research. He asked people to essentially rewrite his key work, Philosophy of Freedom. And he also promised to reincarnate in a position where he could criticize Anthroposophy. So altogether, there is good ground to look at the evidence and need to develop a "Spiritual Science Beyond Steiner". Most of all, I would love to see a wiki format set up to enable such open research.

****************************

Life cannot be framed in dogmatic statements for all time. Life moves on, and evolves itself further out of hitherto unseen mysterious sources. Life always goes back to first principles, to what is hidden, pliable, mysterious, spiritual, supersensible, archetypal, in order to evolve further. After the passing of the original founder, the original enlightening inspiration, the original timely appropriateness, fundamentalist belief-isms naturally arise, hardening the originally pliable life forms. This is no different to the way every plant develops, it is not wrong, it is simply natural, and the stiffening of structures can be practical and necessary. It only causes problems when it arises from emotionally clinging and defensive attitudes. But the cycle needs to move on, Spring needs to follow Autumn.

There are many who feel that Anthroposophy has become stuck at its root, at "Class One" so as to speak. Anthroposophy at root has not moved beyond being dazzled by Steiner. Yet even Steiner would strongly assert its need to question his conclusions. For years I have done this, while still honouring the original tremendous spirit that moved through Steiner. In order to come of age, Spiritual Science needs to go deeper into the mysteries of Life, to go back to Source, to the Mystery, to our deepest levels of experience, again and again, to open up a truly free-standing Spiritual Science that can hold its own by dint of its openness and appeal to reason in mainstream Science and society, and not be seen as a cult.

Times have moved on since Steiner. Many other extraordinary developments have happened, showing what one might perhaps call "Great Spirit" at work in a multitude of ways, mostly what has come to be known as the "New Age" but also in mainstream society through the development of psychology, Christianity through the proliferation of healing and miracles, and fringe science through such as Crop Circles and UFO's. Yet within this wide range, each individual must stay narrowly with what Spirit gives them to work with, for how else can one keep integrity, which is of first importance?

Experiencing all this, I have been driven by Great Spirit to go Back To Basics again and again, back to the archetypal Grail Question. I am now sure that hidden behind the questions in the legends (which are thus no questions at all) is simply the awakening spirit which drives one to ask and live the questions of "What Is Needed?" "What Is Most Needed?" "What Is Needed NOW?". If one lives within the Quest, it opens up further questions from its own essence.

Going Back to Basics has included:
1) rewriting / reworking the essence of Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom for today, out of its core energy (as Steiner wanted people to do)

2) seeking ways to tackle the academic mainstream to recognize and help develop a holistic and spiritual understanding of SCIENTIFIC METHOD, and its application to inner reality; this has led to a deepening awareness of its current materialism and inadequacies, and a strengthened desire to cut through the tangle and redevelop the spiritual, holistic principles of Reality in ways we can grasp (just as Jesus did)

3) integrating Steiner's insights with the best of principles developed in modern psychology since modern psychology is seriously furthering humakind's capacity to handle Spirit in a scientific way, and has a great potential for healing. Ken Wilber has written the classic Spectrum of Consciousness which spans philosophies and psychologies from East to West, yet Steiner is omitted; this is a serious omission

4) developing the beautiful Goethean science further and using its insights to understand the holistic principles of evolution from Spirit into Matter and from within to without; I have more to write here; I want to liaise with Paul Carline (New View recent article) and others... especially considering the message of the Evolutionist/Creationist schism, and remembering our human need for a "story". Steiner people could do so much to help heal this schism, if they would just observe and work from what needs healing, rather than mention Steiner. Steiner may not have the details correct in his "Occult Science" but he is pointing the way forward, acknowledging both inner (religious experience) and outer (scientific evidence) with courtesy, and looking for a synthesis - as did Teilhard de Chardin.

5) placing Steiner better in history through looking afresh at what we actually experience; coming back to basics all the time, observing and trusting one's own reactions, however "foolish", one gains some amazing and unusual insights and promptings. Like I am now increasingly sure that Steiner carries the reincarnational energy of John the Baptist (yet I also realize that the whole phenomenon of reincarnation is not quite the simple one-on-one that many would like to believe)

6) exploring areas where Steiner's conclusions are questionable though his basic method and basic hypothesis are vitally important. This includes Reincarnation (all the evidence says that we reincarnate far more frequently than every 1000 years as Steiner said; that we do not necessarily alternate male - female - male); it also includes the dating of the post-Atlantean ages (I believe there is good reason that so many people believe that Jesus himself marked the transition from the age of Aries to the age of Pisces - see Millennium Stargate); Francis Bacon (he is anything but the questionable figure that Steiner portrays, he is, on the contrary, a man of the highest integrity, imagination, and committment to helping humankind

7) opening up the grasp of spiritual perception to inclued things of importance that have been happening in "New Age" circles outside anthroposophy, like the magical story of Findhorn, or like the increasing mysterious yet beautiful appearances of Crop Circles

8) opening up with respect to the astounding miracles, encounters with angels, and stories of healing happening within "fundamentalist" Christianity;

9) deepening and making accessible fundamental questions of Education, and why Steiner has such vital contributions in this area;

10) returning to the mystery of Life to ask "is Steiner's path the path forwards" or is there something Steiner has missed, and if so, why and what is it and is there a good natural reason that it should have been missed?

It is essential to go back to basics in order to "stand tall" in the fundamental uprightness that is our gift and our goal as humans who by our very nature have the possibility of inspired and fruitful co-creation with Great Spirit. It would be good to be seen to work with others who are not anthroposophically inclined but still are pointing in the right direction. Sir George Trevelyan, who was actually a Steiner man himself, was deeply aware of this. But he took sheer raw inspiration out from Anthroposophy, to fructify the opening-up of esoteric wisdom altogether, maintaining and facilitating respect and openness to whatever was positive. To him, Spiritual Science was a tool for facilitating "in the marketplace", but he referred to it little enough that most people don't realize how important it was. It is a shame that Anthroposophy has not formally recognized his contribution, and this seems a mark of the way that Anthroposophy has become hidebound.

Note that I am using the terms "anthroposophy" and "spiritual science" in different ways. I think that we can help this next evolutionary step that is needed, to take Spiritual Science beyond Steiner, by using the term "spiritual science" since science IS research and development. We can consciously focus on using this term appripriately, planting it out, and developing it further, to converse with scientists today in the language of science today, with fundies in the languages and limited understandings of fundamentalisms, with the "New Age" it its language of experience, and so on. I try to speak to people, as Saint Paul said, "according to their understanding" (are my words correct?), or as George Fox said, to speak to "that of God" in each person. Then "Anthroposophy" can be used to describe the "cache" of wisdom already gathered, the communities, the "cache" of practices already in practice, some of which may be out of date and questionable, yet all of which represents a very precious fruit.