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Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner #CW 327
Agriculture
When Rudolf Steiner gave these lectures eighty years ago, industrial farming was on the rise and organic methods were being replaced in the name of science, efficiency, and technology. With the widespread alarm over food quality in recent years, and with the growth of the organic movement and its mainstream acceptance, perceptions are changing. The qualitative aspect of food is on the agenda again, and in this context Steiner's only course of lectures on agriculture is critical to the current debate. With these talks, Steiner created and launched "biodynamic" farming—a form of agriculture that has come to be regarded as the best organically produced food. However, the agriculture Steiner speaks of here is much more than organic—it involves working with the cosmos, with the earth, and with spiritual beings. To facilitate this, Steiner prescribes specific "preparations" for the soil, as well as other distinct methods born from his profound understanding of the material and spiritual worlds. He presents a comprehensive picture of the complex dynamic relationships at work in nature and gives basic indications of the practical measures needed to bring them into full play.
These lectures are reprinted here in the "classic" translation made by Rudolf Steiner's English interpreter, George Adams. This edition also features a preface by Steiner's colleague the medical doctor Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, as well as eight color plates.
This is the course that began the biodynamic movement. This is the essential work for anyone wanting to understand and use Steiner's methods of food production.
These lectures are reprinted here in the "classic" translation made by Rudolf Steiner's English interpreter, George Adams. This edition also features a preface by Steiner's colleague the medical doctor Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, as well as eight color plates.
This is the course that began the biodynamic movement. This is the essential work for anyone wanting to understand and use Steiner's methods of food production.
Unknown Binding
First published December 1, 1977
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About the author
Rudolf Steiner
4,255 books1,100 followersAuthor also wrote under the name Rudolph Steiner.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions, differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions, differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
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December 13, 2009I'm reading this as part of a BD group with a bunch of other winemakers/growers/gardeners here in Napa/Sonoma.
Currently reading
March 12, 2011I will never get done reading this book.
October 25, 2023
This lecture series is both incredibly dated and somewhat relevant in terms of modern agriculture, but the authors basis in anthroposophical practice is what distinguishes the work most profoundly. While some elements (such as the consideration of nature and existing environmental factors having an influence on growing conditions) remain accurate, the vast majority of the advice within these lectures is, to put it mildly, ridiculous.
Standout WTF advice includes the treating of compost with “spiritually energized” manure packed into cow horns, the skinning of mice in order to produce what is referred to as mouse skin pepper to be used as pesticide, and the deliberate growing and gathering of weed seeds in order to burn them to produce a spiritual herbicide. The recommendations to consider astrological positioning in application to planting calendars is hardly remarkable in the face of so much tomfoolery.
Additionally, there us a lot of advice given based on outdated agricultural methods. Tilling requirements, misunderstandings and lack of knowledge concerning mycology, etc. This work would be best utilized not as a practical manual but more as a historical curiosity or a look into Steiner’s work as a topic of interest.
Standout WTF advice includes the treating of compost with “spiritually energized” manure packed into cow horns, the skinning of mice in order to produce what is referred to as mouse skin pepper to be used as pesticide, and the deliberate growing and gathering of weed seeds in order to burn them to produce a spiritual herbicide. The recommendations to consider astrological positioning in application to planting calendars is hardly remarkable in the face of so much tomfoolery.
Additionally, there us a lot of advice given based on outdated agricultural methods. Tilling requirements, misunderstandings and lack of knowledge concerning mycology, etc. This work would be best utilized not as a practical manual but more as a historical curiosity or a look into Steiner’s work as a topic of interest.
January 18, 2013
This review is not directed at the teachings of Rudolf Steiner or the biodynamic method itself, but rather at the presentation of those concepts in this book. I suppose it is a straightforward translation of several Steiner lectures, so maybe I should not have expected more. But I did. And this book did not deliver.
When writing about something as complex and unfamiliar -- to most people, even farmers -- as biodynamic farming, an author (or translator) should expect the reader to be at some kind of comparable disadvantage. I am not a experimental farmer in 1920s Germany, so how can I be expected to assimilate Steiner's lectures to that audience into a coherent understanding or practical use in modern-day America? Maybe I'm not expected to. But, in that case, this was a pretty useless read.
I would suggest reading this book if, and only if, you're curious about Steiner himself or the historical/culture surroundings of the beginnings of the biodynamic farming movement. It will not help you if you're a novice who actually wants to learn about biodynamic farming methods. There must be many other good reads on that topic, which I'll be sure to review once I find and read them!
When writing about something as complex and unfamiliar -- to most people, even farmers -- as biodynamic farming, an author (or translator) should expect the reader to be at some kind of comparable disadvantage. I am not a experimental farmer in 1920s Germany, so how can I be expected to assimilate Steiner's lectures to that audience into a coherent understanding or practical use in modern-day America? Maybe I'm not expected to. But, in that case, this was a pretty useless read.
I would suggest reading this book if, and only if, you're curious about Steiner himself or the historical/culture surroundings of the beginnings of the biodynamic farming movement. It will not help you if you're a novice who actually wants to learn about biodynamic farming methods. There must be many other good reads on that topic, which I'll be sure to review once I find and read them!
August 25, 2015
So there is style and there is content. The style is lecture, and I found that trying to interpret and retain every detail was impossible so I just read it straight through, as if I were sitting there listening to him speak. That was good, turned out to be a fun and easy read taken like that. Then I later joined a study group to nit-pick each line/paragraph/chapter.
On the content side, it's pretty fantastic. In both senses of the word. The other Steiner books I have read were much simpler. Also, being a certified organic grower, it's hard to change and embrace a new system. Not impossible, I'm just not there yet, although I've got lots of biodynamic farming friends.
On the content side, it's pretty fantastic. In both senses of the word. The other Steiner books I have read were much simpler. Also, being a certified organic grower, it's hard to change and embrace a new system. Not impossible, I'm just not there yet, although I've got lots of biodynamic farming friends.
February 12, 2014
Лично за мен беше изключително полезна информацията в книгата.
September 28, 2018
If you want to practice witchcraft in your garden, this is the book you looking for.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 24, 2012
Steiner's ambiguously titled 'agriculture course' was a fresh breath of strange theosophy. a mixture of 'scientific' agricultural methods with anthroposophy - essential practical magical methods of fertilization and empowering one's fields. while it may sound bizarre, these methods are not completely foreign to agriculture, and essentially have folk methodology live on in modern times. a dense read but essential to grasping basic methods of providing the land an amount of energy that is greater than what a farmer might take away,
July 30, 2008
I have a warning for everyone trying to read this book: You may realize the tragedy of nowdays agriculture full of chemicals, genetic changes and other travesties and it may tear your world apart.
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September 15, 2010uh, the heart is not pump!!
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September 3, 2020Pseŭdoscienca sistemo de agrikulturo bazita sur pseŭdoscienca biokemio kun konektoj al astrologiaj kaj metafizikaj eldiroj.
November 30, 2020
Dit is een klassiek werk. Ben al heel lang bezig met het te lezen. Fascinerend en heel lastig.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews