Sexuality, Inner Development, and Community Life: Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions of the Crisis in the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, 1915

Occasioned by a "scandal" that was precipitated by Rudolf Steiner's marriage to Marie von Sivers in 1915, the lectures, which constitute Part One, contain Steiner's strongest statements on the issue of human relationships in a spiritual community. Using emphatic language Steiner makes clear that becoming part of a spiritual community entails responsibilities, and indeed a new way of being, and that members must become actively interested and engaged in the concerns of the group rather than simply wanting or expecting personal. Above all, he asserts that it is essential for members to realize that a spiritual community is a living entity that needs the care and respect of its creators. Because the crisis had been provoked by individuals who were under the influence of Freudian psychoanalysis, Steiner assesses Freud's work, and psychoanalysis as a whole, illumined by an anthroposophical understanding of the human being; Steiner also speaks on sexuality and modern clairvoyance, relating them to Freudian psychoanalysis and to the seer Emanuel Swedenborg as an example of the difficulties of entering the spiritual world; and starting from a historical perspective with the question "How old is love?" Steiner examine our modern idea of love as it relates to mysticism. Part two includes documentation of the Dornach crisis, along with two addresses by Rudolf Steiner to the members in Dornach, as well as Marie Steiner's address to the Women's Meeting on the particular tasks and challenges of women both in the women's movement of the time and in a spiritual community.