Anthroposophy in Hawkes Bay
Calendar of Coming Events-- Diary Dates
In the Rudolf Steiner Centre, 401 Whitehead Road, Hastings
unless stated otherwise.
- THIS AFTERNOON:
Sunday 16 February, 3 to 4 pm. Downsizing Garage Sale at 55 Durham Drive, HN.
- Weekend 22-23 February. Workshop on "New Regulations for Charitable Entities" will be attended by delegates from ASNZ and the Branches in Auckland, Hawkes Bay, and Wellington which own properties.
- Thursday 27 February at 5:30 pm. Branch Committee meets.
- Friday 28 February 7pm The Michael Mystery Study Group. Read p132 "A Christmas study: The Mystery of the Logos". LT 137 to 139.
- Friday 28 February at Taruna College. Art of Curative Eurythmy course starts.
- Saturday 1 March. 9:30 to noon. School of Spiritual Science: 4th Recapitulation lesson
- Friday 7 March at 7:30 pm. Peter Selg will present a talk via Zoom for NZ audiences on ‘Rudolf Steiner's last months, the time in the atelier’
- Friday 7 to Sunday 9 March. Supportive Therapies workshop at Taruna College.
- Saturday 22 March (Equinox) Autumn and Michael Festival.
- Sunday 30 March 2025. 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner's death.
- Monday 31 March Margaret-Mary Farr's Kairos Artistic Therapy training starts
- Kolisko Conference "Great Expectations" in Taikura School 11-14 April 2025.
Taikura was founded as a Rudolf Steiner School 75 years ago in 1950.
- Saturday 26 April at 3 pm. HB Branch AGM.
The Committee ask that visitors to events in the Centre pay a contribution in to the Koha box in the Foyer, as we have regular bills for electric power, city rates, insurance, and maintenance for an ageing building.
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LIBRARY
Open on Wednesdays during term time from 11 am.
There are quite a few overdue books - please examine your reading pile and identify any culprits and return them a.s.a.p. please.
The Library has multiple copies of many of Rudolf Steiner's lecture cycles as well as magazines and books by numerous other anthroposophical authors.
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Steiner's Lectures in German
Dear German reading Anthroposophists,
I have somewhere between 2 and 3 metres of books containing Steiner lectures in German which I would be
very keen to give free to a good home. This is not a complete edition of Steiner's GA but it is quite a number
of books. My guess is that it is perhaps somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 the complete edition.
Interestingly they came from the daughter of the man who ran the publishing house at the Goetheanum.
If interested, please call or contact David Urieli 06 878 6028 or 022 623 4127
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Downsizing Sale Today
Come to 55 Durham Drive, Havelock North
Sunday, 16th February, from 3 pm
Treasures that have accumulated over many decades in Steiner education and Anthroposophy will be available. There will be artwork, crafts and other items, and books offered. Some will be individually priced items; also boxed lots of similar items, and items on which you can make an offer for us to consider.
Come and have a look and make an offer.
Diana and Robin Bacchus.
From Diana Bacchus:
Hi my dear friends,
This is brief. I’ve been in hospital since Wednesday. Staying here until Monday when I am flown to Wellington for neurosurgery (serious) to remove bleeding between skull and brain surrounds, subdural haematoma, probably resulting from slipping backwards on a sand dune at the beach, in mid January.
I have to rest all the time, not to aggravate things as my speech and brain gets muddled if I get excited by too much talking; so it is best to contact Robin 022-3982805
or robin@bacchus.co.nz who is in contact with me, or an email to me which I might not reply to. But no visitors for me, except for Robin.
It is not a stroke, as copious scans etc. show; otherwise I am very healthy.
Thank you to those who have already, or who are going to help Robin .
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THE ART OF CURATIVE EURYTHMY
Friday 28 February at Taruna College
2025-01-29_18-57_page_1.pdf
2025-01-29_18-57_page_2.pdf
2025-01-29_18-57_page_3.pdf
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Supportive Therapies workshop
Taruna College is excited to be once again offering the Supportive Therapies workshop from Friday 7th to Sunday 9th March. This workshop is designed for nurses, therapists, caregivers, and anyone looking to deepen their knowledge of supportive therapies.
This hands-on workshop will explore practical and effective care strategies to support individuals facing anxiety, stress, and ill health.
If you're looking to expand your skills in holistic and therapeutic care, we’d love to have you join us.
For more information or to register go to Taruna’s website https://www.taruna.ac.nz/courses-and-workshops/therapies-for-care-and-recovery/ or call the office on 06 8777174
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‘Rudolf Steiner's last months, the time in the atelier’
7 March at 7:30 pm for talk (zoom) by Peter Selg for NZ audiences.
Dear Members,
Warm greetings in this new year of 2025.
A significant part of this year is the 100-year commemoration of Rudolf Steiner's death on March 30th.
In New Zealand we are marking that event locally in our regions. Plans are underway around the country for various events. Please contact your Branch or local contact person for more information. As part of these commemorations, the ASNZ Council are very grateful that Peter Selg has kindly agreed to bring this talk to us during this busy time at the Goetheanum: ‘Rudolf Steiner's last months, the time in the atelier’
Friday 7th of March, 7.30 pm, via a Zoom presentation by Peter Selg.
We will be sending out a further reminder next month. You can register to get a zoom link at info@anthroposophy.org.nz
In addition please check our website: www.anthroposophy.org.nz for more information on the event ‘RUDOLF STEINER On the 100th anniversary of his death ‘ March 28-30th at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland.
We look forward to seeing on March 7th.
Michelle Vette, Nic Parkes and Emma Ratcliffe.
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Billet please??
Kairos Artistic Therapy training is starting soon.
Is there anyone close to Hasting central interested in billetting a student.
Dates are March31st till April 4th, arrive Sunday30th .
Don't hesitate to get in touch with Margaret-Mary Farr on 027 2484193 if you are able to.
Studio address is 100 Eastbourne Street East Hastings
so it would be great if it is within walking distance. Thank you.
Maggie
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ANNIVERSARY YEAR
This year is Taikura Rudolf Steiner School’ 75th birthday (being founded in 1950 through the purchase of Queenswood) and the 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death on 30 March 1925.
The Branch Committee meets on Thursday 27 February. We would love to know what members and readers would like to happen throughout the year to honour these anniversaries. Who can help or make suggestions or lead or support activities and events? Please let us know. Write/email to info@anthrohb.nz
or phone
Robyn Hewetson 021 2178688
Robin Bacchus 022 3982805
John Jackson 022 1228002
Angela Hair 027 4436737
Michael Caris 021 1538720
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Early Years
Continuing notes about the early years of Anthroposophy in New Zealand.
Some of these notes [in Italics] are derived from Garth Turbott’s 2013 thesis. "Anthroposophy in the Antipodes - A Lived Spirituality in New Zealand 1902-1960s" to Massey University for his MA. [Massey Research Online: www.mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/296 ]
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Alfred Meebold
"Alfred Karl Meebold (1863-1952) was born at Heidenheim an der Brenz in southern Germany. As a young man he worked in his father’s company manufacturing cotton goods. He published in German a number of short stories, novels and poems, and gained distinction as a botanical collector, but his life was largely that of a peripatetic seeker after spiritual truth. In the course of his wanderings, which often doubled as an opportunity for botanical work, he travelled widely in Europe, and visited America for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
He may have been present at meetings of the first World’s Parliament of Religions, which was held in association with the Fair. He was in India on several occasions in the early 1900s, when Theosophy was well established at Adyar and reaching the height of its international influence, visited the Himalayas, Burma and Malaya, and later came to New Zealand and Australia. Meebold discovered Anthroposophy, or as he put it “came to the doctor”, in 1905 at the age of forty-two. At that time Rudolf Steiner was still heading the German branch of the Theosophical Society, but already was starting to differentiate his own independent spiritual pathway.
Meebold’s interest was aroused by ‘a small booklet of Dr. Steiner which dealt with the Education of the Child’. Steiner’s description of the stages of human development immediately resonated with his own self-analysis and conclusions. However, it was not until his fiftieth year that Meebold found the truth of this teaching borne out completely within his own experience, and became convinced in his deepest being. Following this, Meebold felt able to argue with conviction for the method of spiritual science, and for the validity of its conclusions, drawn from intuition but based in disciplined thinking. By this time, he had become one of Rudolf Steiner’s close associates. He had been by no means uncritical of Steiner’s ideas, but once convinced, was a dedicated Anthroposophist. He spent the rest of his life teaching and spreading Anthroposophy throughout the world, for much of his last twenty years in New Zealand.
Alfred Meebold first had intimations that his destiny lay in New Zealand in a spiritual experience he received in 1926, when he saw two emerald islands at some unknown destination in the southern hemisphere and was reminded of two similar islands he had seen in a church mosaic in Provence. It is suggested by Maria von Nagy, in her partly allegorical ‘cultural biographical sketch’ of Meebold’s life Dialogue of the Hemispheres, that he had been associated with this church in a previous life during the Middle Ages. Meebold’s call to New Zealand was confirmed when he met with Rachel and Bernard Crompton-Smith in 1927 during their visit to Europe and the Goetheanum. They invited him to bring his anthroposophical teachings to New Zealand, which he did for the first time in 1928. As his ship crossed the equator on his sixty-fifth birthday he experienced a new birth and the forming of a new karma. He remained in New Zealand until 1929, basing himself in Havelock North and travelling about the country, visiting groups and individuals, and expanding his botanical collections. Alfred Meebold made further trips to New Zealand in 1932-3 and 1935-6, travelling widely elsewhere in the world between times. Between 1928 and 1938 he spent time in Budapest, where he attended the world’s first non-German language Waldorf school, founded by Maria von Nagy. Von Nagy came herself to New Zealand in 1954, and later was inspired to write "Dialogue of the Hemispheres".
Alfred Meebold’s sojourn in Havelock North during 1933 was described by Mary Bauchop as ‘an epoch-making time… [which] will stand for all time in the history of our Society’. He repeated his Introductory Course to Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy, a series of six lectures first given in Vienna in October 1931, helped to establish nation wide “initiative groups” along the lines of those working in Germany, and provided a wealth of personal advice and inspiration to members in Havelock North and throughout the country. He concluded that at this point Anthroposophy was firmly established in New Zealand.
Meebold’s fundamental position as the most important presenter and teacher of Anthroposophy in New Zealand to that date was now established. He outlined the basis of his beliefs in a talk given during one of his visits in the early 1930s. Here he emphasized the important influence of the Germanic Folk-Spirit (German folk soul), and of the intellectual and spiritual summit he saw as having been reached in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century in the works of Schelling, Hegel, Fichte, Schiller and Goethe. In Meebold’s view, ‘All five gave an impulse to German intellectual life which ought to have been the base for Anthroposophy today’. However, much of their influence had been undermined by the cautious scepticism of Kant, and the embracing by Haekel of Darwinism, leading to the emergence of materialism, ‘a one-sided accentuation of the world of sense perception’, as the dominant contemporary philosophy in Germany and the rest of the world. Meebold saw the new spiritual movements of Spiritism (he preferred this name to “Spiritualism”, on the grounds that this movement had ‘nothing to do with spirituality’), New Thought and Theosophy as having emerged in an understandable reaction to the dominance of materialism, but as an incomplete response. In his view, Rudolf Steiner’s insights and Spiritual Science, which drew from the historical sources of German mysticism and the German folk soul, embodied a central Christian element and represented the essential path of spiritual evolution for the West. Nonetheless, he cautioned against the blind acceptance of Steiner as an authority. Summarizing the historical emergence of Anthroposophy, Meebold said that:
Theosophy was a blend of the Wisdom of the East with Western materialism, but Anthroposophy definitely had the Mystery of Golgotha as its central point. Thinking power was not eliminated as in mediumistic clairvoyance, but Karma, Reincarnation, and the so-called Masters were considered by Anthroposophy only as accessories towards the understanding of Christianity. From whatever point one starts and studies, Anthroposophy will lead finally to the mystery of Golgotha, from which comes light. Steiner gave everything new… reunited in his individuality. On his authority one gets nowhere; one must work it out oneself, for Anthroposophy is not a teaching but a method.
Meebold was uncompromising in his belief that the German folk soul was a fundamental source of the anthroposophical impulse. He was acutely aware of the accusations of egotism and nationalism, and of the misunderstandings that his stance might bring, but defended himself against these charges, suggesting this exceptionalism had not been sought. It simply had been Germany’s historical fate to have evolved such a soul state. He now saw the historical task as bringing the fruits of the German folk soul to the rest of the world.
Meebold was intrigued by the geography and botany of New Zealand, the culture and spirituality of the Maori, and the effects of Europeans on the land. Of the pioneers, whom he described exclusively as “English”, he wrote:
These first colonisers had no feeling for the country and for the life on these islands. They brought with them their utilitarian principles and carried them into effect… They began to hew it [the forest] down, and in the space of sixty years, not a tree was left. They tore down the woods on the mountain slopes, in order to convert them into sheep runs, and afterwards they found that in many places the ground was not suitable for pasture. It remained as it was – bare. It has been devastated. When a New Zealander becomes an anthroposophist, he must see these things. For he must work against them. They cannot be amended, but it is possible to work against them by living in New Zealand as a resident who tries to gain a real connection with the ground on which he is standing, and from there, also with the [Maori] inhabitants. As this connection does not exist by nature it must be established through [anthroposophical] understanding. This is the New Zealand task.
Despite this stinging criticism of the behaviour of the early “English” colonizers, which he saw as arising from their excessively materialistic culture, Meebold was hopeful that a connection with the land might be re-established in New Zealand. He was less optimistic about Australia, which he visited as the next step on this world tour, observing in many places the lack of water and the salinization of the soil. He found little feeling for Anthroposophy in the eastern States, apart from Sydney, but thought Western Australia to be more compatible.
At the end of his next visit in 1935-6, which followed a pattern similar to the first two, Meebold had reached the decision to seek naturalization as a New Zealand resident, but was short of the required time and had to return to Europe. He was on his way back to New Zealand through Hawaii in 1938, but was still in Honolulu at the outbreak of World War II and as a German national was unable to travel on, spending the war years at a hotel occupied mainly by American servicemen. Over this time, he became closely associated with the anthroposophical group in Honolulu, and with one prominent member Judge Albert M. Christy, who was to work with him on the translation of his “soul biography” Der Weg Zum Geist (The Way to the Spirit). Meebold finally returned to New Zealand in 1946 at the age of 83. It is anthroposophical lore that, when asked by the entry officials if he was coming to New Zealand to live, he replied “No, I’m coming here to die”.
Alfred Meebold stayed from 1946 until his death in 1952 in the converted stables (later becoming the library) at “Taruna”, maintaining his correspondence, documenting his botanical collections, and working on translations of Steiner’s works, and his own, with Bernard Crompton-Smith. The high temperature at which he maintained his room, his heavy smoking and coffee drinking, and his love of detective novels and cats became well known. He was a stern taskmaster, at times apparently impatient with those who did not meet his exacting standards for knowledge and clarity of thought, but at others warm and encouraging. Until the end he remained the éminence grise of the Anthroposophical Society in New Zealand, deeply influencing the thinking of the Crompton-Smiths, Ruth Nelson and Edna Burbury, and thus of the core of the movement, and inspirational to younger members."
