Foreword by the translator and publisher

Power to the Virtues

Note: This post has been updated on October 8, 2019.

This interactive blog contains a completely revised translation of the introduction Rudolf Steiner on the Virtues to the first German edition in 1972, plus the twelve texts and meditations from the book The Virtues - Season of the Soul by the German philosopher/anthroposophist Herbert Witzenmann (1905-1988) as well as the illustrations painted by the Dutch artist Jan de Kok for The Virtues. The blog was started as a supplement for the exhibition in the De Roos (The Rose), Center for Spirituality and Consciousness-raising, in Amsterdam in 2012. 

What this blog now also contains is the Conclusion from the first complete English translation done by Sophia Walsh, and published by Spicker Books in Dornach, Switzerland towards the end of the previous century (no publication date given), and the Preface to the first (incomplete) English translation done by the American poetess Daisy Aldan (1923-2001) and published by her Folder Editions, New York in 1975.

After the end of the exhibition in The Rose the publisher and translator of the Dutch version of The Virtues Robert Jan Kelder from the Willehalm Institute Press Foundation in Amsterdam is planning to offer this artistic-literary exhibition as a sort enhanced concept artwork to a well-willing gallery, cultural center or some similar venue in The Netherlands or abroad in a concerted effort to bring, as it were, the Virtues into power (this is being written at the beginning of the Dutch national election campaign for seats in the House of Parliament with the actual elections to be held one day after the closing of the exhibition, September 12.) 

This is not as far-fetched or even absurd as it may seem at first. In the esoteric or anthroposophical tradition of the cosmic, Iro-Scottish or Grail Christianity of Saint John and Rudolf Steiner, the middle members of the second Heavenly hierarchy are after all not only called Virtues or Spirits of Movement, but also Powers with the task of keeping the whole cosmos in balance. In that sense, the work The Virtues may be seen as a valiant and noble attempt by the writer to bring down the mighty spirituality of these lofty beings into the minds, heart and soul of those on earth that are prepared to make a genuine effort to comprehend and implement these difficult texts. Thus, by giving one’s vote to these 12 Powers they can win a seat in the House of Virtues, and from there - as a necessary supplement to the work done in the House of Parliament with respect to rights and duties - spread their mighty wings of  benevolent change, thereby giving the movement for norms and values, reintroduced by former Dutch premier Jan Peter Balkenende  new momentum.

A financial condition for a successful campaign to bring the Virtues to power by means of an exhibition moving across town and country is that the 13 paintings, including that for the title page of the book (see the image above), do not pass over into private hands, but become the property of the Willehalm Institute Press Foundation or are given on loan for this purpose. We therefore end this “election campaign text”, by requesting those with ideas or means on how to to give the Powers a seat in the House of Virtues to contact the Willehalm Foundation. Those wishing to comment on the translation are cordially invited to  do so. 

Last updated: December 16, 2023.

Willehalm Institute Press Foundation, Kerkstraat 386A, 1017 JB Amsterdam, 

Tel. 0031 (0)20-6944572; info@willehalm.nl

www.willehalm.nl; http://willehalminstitute.blogspot.com 

April - Devotion becomes power of sacrifice

March 21 to April 21

The love that in the responsibility for every individuality feels itself to be a member of a free community is devotion.

In devotion, the nature of living thinking is experienced, of the spirit that lives in us as individuality. In living thinking we do not develop our subjective thoughts, rather the spirit thinks through us the thoughts that indwell within creatures. However, the spirit does not do this by overwhelming us, but such that we unite with it in a free deed, which is at the same time a beholding. In reverence for the spirit in us and in all beings, we raise ourselves to ethical individualism. The content of this reverence, however, differs according to whether it refers to creatures of nature or human beings. Natural creatures we comprehend through our own thoughts, human beings through theirs. By not thinking our subjective thoughts about other human beings, but by devoting our thoughts to theirs, our own individuality becomes the bearer of another individuality. Since externality is wholly overcome in thinking, we lose ourselves in this other individuality, only to find ourselves in it again. In this way, freedom becomes community for devotion.

Thus it becomes power of sacrifice.

A meditation of such devotion is the contemplation of the loss-and-found scenes in the lives of the leaders of humanity. (Buddha is found again under the tree with the singers, the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple with the teachers.) 

December - Control of the tongue becomes feeling for truth.

November 21 to December 21

This insightful patience controls the tongue.

For whoever speaks and judges hastily, harms or hinders the maturing process that harvests the truth of world phenomena in his judgment and lets his own actions emerge as ripened fruit from his interaction with world phenomena. Whoever speaks without waiting for this ripening merely voices subjective opinions concerning a world that, in essence, remains foreign to him. Such utterances may draw the applause of the like-minded and, by conforming with common usage, meet with outward success. They are not the truth patiently won and tried in practice with equanimity. Truth is rather the spirit of things opening its eyes in our pursuit of knowledge. Premature words uttered frightens it away. Control of the tongue enables the enchanted spirit, lying dumb and blind in things, to see and speak. Control of one’s tongue loosens the tongue of the creatures sighing for the spell to be broken. The spell is lifted from them when their being in our silence becomes an organ of perception, which interprets itself in the gaze upon its spell-bound state. In this way, the world and the self crossover and interchange, in contrast to the state of our normal consciousness in which they confront each other, disparate and fixed. The essence of things within the human being actively pursuing knowledge becomes an organ of perception; man experiences himself, in so far as he is engaged in creating knowledge, as a being spread out over de totality of the world phenomena. In control of the tongue, it is not the separation of world and self, but their crossing over and interchange that is sensed as the truth. The control of the tongue is the fruitfulness of human knowledge.

Thus this control becomes feeling for truth.

A meditation of such feeling for truth is:

When man gains knowledge of himself,

His self becomes for him the world;

When man gains knowledge of the world,

The world becomes for him his self.