Weekly Study Group Begins New Lecture Series - Join Us
Our Weekly Study Group begins its new Rudolf Steiner lecture series on August 2, 2023 with Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms. We meet via Zoom each Wednesday from 7:00-8:30pm. If you wish to join us, please use our Contact Form to request Zoom link.
Newcomers are always welcome to join us at any time during the course of our study.
Dear Friends,
Now that we’ve finished the Human and Cosmic Thought lectures, through that inspiration, we propose to make some changes to our basic weekly meeting format, given the scope and subject matter.
As we dive into Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms -- let us apply living thinking and re-envision our weekly Zoom meeting in the guise of a Social Form, using the art of Goethean Conversation as its model. This brief summary below describes the attributes of the members of such a Group when coming together for conversation (see Documents link below for my full reference):
1. There is no leader – the leadership comes from the spiritual world
2. Members are active and responsible (I would imagine this refers to the practices described above.)
3. Bring the theme, yet suppress the thoughts one has had regarding the theme, and prepare to receive fresh insight.
4. Listen to other members in the group as one listens to the spiritual world – “evocatively, with reverence, refraining from any trace of reaction, making one’s own soul a seedbed for others’ germinal ideas.”
5. Be discriminating and objective rather than succumbing to sympathies and antipathies with regard to what is being said.
6. Listen, as this generates interest and quickens (brings life) to the thoughts of the group.
7. Ask questions – “burning questions that have been harbored in the souls of the participants”
These are the suggestions for how to begin this new (and lengthy) lecture series, applying these principles in the foreground:
Candle-lit opening and closing with a verse from The Calendar of the Soul.
We spend less time reading aloud from the Lecture and focus our conversation on a few key themes contained therein.
o A summary of “leading thoughts” from each lecture will be sent with the meeting reminder on Sunday for the upcoming meeting. This is what is read to the group by one of the attendees.
We will ask for a volunteer to determine the leading thoughts for the next week. All are encouraged to pick a lecture and focus on a topic within to get started.
o Let's start with one lecture per week.
If we find this inadequate, we can increase it as needed.
For personal conversation and sharing, we start to use the “breakout rooms” feature with your partner (randomly determined).
o We take one “leading thought” as the seed focus for the conversation.
o We converse with each other (2 or 3 per 'room') for, say, 15 minutes – then re-assemble as a group for more sharing.
o Extend the meeting length if the spirit moves to continue the conversation – for a total of 90 minutes…
In the link below is a Summary of each of the lecture topics, which is not included in the English translation. You will find other helpful links there as well. And the entire subject of "Goethean Conversation" is worth a study unto itself - there is a thoughtful commentary along with the original article by Marjorie Spock.
Link to Documents on Google Drive:
Bobby Matherne review and commentary
CW 199 Lecture Topics & Links
Goethean Conversation with commentary
Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms (CW199) (entire lecture series as pdf)
If you wish to join us, please use our Contact Form to request Zoom link.