[Anthronews] The General Anthroposophical Society's Appeal Denied

[Sune Nordwall]

M. Monique Miller, you wrote:

> Thank you, of course, Jean, for passing this along.
> But I would be as interested in a straight-forward
> interpretation of the release in plain English (then
> an interpretation of the original German release
> in plain German) -- over this diplomatic party-Chinese.

Not to preclude an answer from Jean, but maybe as some additional info:

News Network Anthroposophy also has issued a report. It can be found at
http://www.nna-news.org/content/nna-news.html ->
http://www.anth.org/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0502&L=nna-news&D=1&H=1&O=D&F=l&S=&P=72

It says:

Anthroposophical Society loses appeal

SOLOTHURN/DORNACH (NNA) - In the legal challenge to the existence of the
“General Anthroposophical Society (Christmas Conference)” (CCS),
reactivated in December 2002, and its proposed merger with the General
Anthroposophical Society (GAS), the superior court of the Swiss canton
of Solothurn has found against the defendants. In its judgment, the
court ruled that the CCS could not be reactivated.

“The court found that the General Anthroposophical Society (Christmas
Conference), which was to have been reactivated, does not exist,“ a
court spokesman said in response to an enquiry from NNA. With the
finding that something cannot be reactivated which does not exist in the
first place, the judges confirmed the ruling a year ago of the lower
Dorneck-Thierstein court that the CCS did not exist and should be
removed from the commercial register because the two societies which had
originally existed had merged through conduct at the time. 

In a first reaction Paul Mackay, member of the executive council of the
Anthroposophical Society, told NNA the judgement, which was delivered to
the defendants this morning, would now have to be carefully examined.
The important thing was to bring clarity into the whole issue. The
question whether the Society would appeal to the highest Swiss court,
the federal court, depended on whether the ruling of the appeal court
was sufficiently convincing.

“The point is not whether we are right or wrong, yes or no, the point is
that the matter should be clarified once and for all. If the ruling
presents a clear and convincing case, then no further appeal is
necessary, but if too many things have been left open, then we would
have to consider a further appeal,” Mackay said.

In a separate statement, the Anthroposophical Society said that the
purpose of the members and the executive council  to give the society a
legal garment appropriate both for the internal and external tasks of
anthroposophy had not changed.

“The Anthroposophical Society currently faces many different cultural,
artistic and scientific tasks and thus wishes to bring the process of
renewing its legal garment to a conclusion,” the statement added. The
next steps would be announced in the course of the annual general
meeting of the “General Anthroposophical Society” on 19 March 2005 at
the Goetheanum in Dornach.

There were signs even before the appeal hearing that the court would
rule against the defendant when the court suggested to the Society that
it should withdraw its appeal because the ruling of the lower court was
convincing. But Paul Mackay, acting on behalf of the Society, rejected
this suggestion because a clear legal basis for the non-existence of the
CCS, which had been asserted by the plaintiffs, was required.

The Anthroposophical Society is a worldwide society with approximately
50 regional societies and 50,000 members on all continents.

END/nna/cva

+ + + + +

050224-01EN

24 February 2005

Since 2002, Frank Thomas Smith and Jo Ann Schwartz of
http://www.southerncrossreview.org run a mailing list at Topica on the
whole complex issue. It can be found at
http://lists.topica.com/lists/Anthroposophy_Constitution

If you subscribe, you can read the archives of the list.



Hopefully noone will be offended if I add some personal comments, trying
to contribute to a clarification of the complex issue from primarily a
conceptual perspective. If someone does take offense, I apologize. No
offense is intended. Nor is any criticism of any individual intended.

In the view of the undersigned, what is not understood in the whole
discussion is the way RS at Christmas 1923 and at Johanni 1924 in two
steps tried to build in outline, first a 'general anthroposophical
society' in the broad sense of the word, and then, at Johanni 1924,
ANOTHER special organisation for the cooperation between the legal
persons representing the anthroposophical movement.

The present 'GAS' was built in 1925 as a mix up of the two.

The CAO constitutes an effort to do justice to the second initiative,
separately from the the first. What exists as the ASiA and the CAO in
the U.S. much does justice to what RS tried to build at Christmas 1923
and Johanni 1924.

The present 'GAS' has not yet succeeded to solve this in the same way,
as it - in the view of the undersiged - would need to do to get out of
its present confusion.

The whole confusion comes from the difficulty of realizing that Steiner
at different times did not always mean the same things with the
apparently similar terms. This is clear not only from the 'Constitution
issue', but from numerous other instances in his works.

The whole 'Constitution issue' comes from not understanding the
difference between the two social forms, the 'gas' in the broad sense of
Christmas 1923, and the 'GAS' of Johanni 1924, and since 1925 having
mixed them up with each other.

While the boards of the GAS from 1925 up to the 1990s were of the view
that there was only one 'GAS' (built in February 1925 as an incomplete
mixture of the 'gas' of Christmas 1923 and the 'GAS' of Johanni 1924) it
then changed its mind.

At Christmas 2002, the board of the GAS tried to reactivate the 'AS' of
Christmas 1923, but only to then be able to absorb it into and
consciously fuse it with the present 'GAS' of February 1925, in the way
it thinks that the board of the 'GAS' at the time intended.

Some reacted against this, based on the view that the 'AS' of 1923
already had been fully fused with the 'GAS' of Johanni 1924 into the
'GAS' of February 1925, and that the AS of Christmas 1923 therefore
could not be reactivated.

The present ruling in Switzerland concerns this view, and supports it.

Others have reacted because they think, or at least thought, that the
'AS' of Christmas 1923 still exists, and should have been or be
reactivated, but that the mix-up that took place in February 1925 was an
error and should not be done once more.

Instead they think that the 'AS' of Christmas should be reactivated (in
some way), but in the broad sense of Christmas 1923, and not to simply
absorb it into the GAS, but purely as a social membership society, not
as mainly focussed on being an economical support organization for the
Goetheanum in Dornach.

In one of the drafts for the 'GAS', Steiner also distinguished between
the two purposes, and levels of membership fees. This was not integrated
in the 'GAS' of 1925 (being the present GAS). In Sweden, where the
undersigned lives, it however is possible to freely chose between a mini
and a 'standard' level of the membership fee, but without clarifying the
actual proper background for this.

What has happened in court now, is that it has ruled that the changed
view of the board of the GAS from the 1990s and up to the present is
wrong. There does not any more exist an Anthroposophical Society from
Christmas 1923 anymore, in the view of the court. The AS of Christmas
1923 could not be, and therefore was not reactivated at Christmas 2002.

The board of the GAS disputes this, and tries to argue, that the boards
of the GAS from 1925 up to the 1990s were wrong, but only to be able to
implement in a legally clear way, what the present board of the GAS
thinks that the board of the 'GAS' did right, but in the wrong way: to
fuse the 'gas' of Christmas 1923 with the GAS of Johanni 1924 into
something very similar that was implemented in 1925, and that exists as
the 'GAS' today.

In this situation, a number of members in different countries feel
dissatisfied, lacking the Christmas Anthroposophical Society that would
have needed to be reactivated as purely a social meeting place for
people interested in anthroposophy, not with a primary stress on
financing the Goetheanum (that of course also needs to be financed).

An increasing number of anthroposophists try to build anthroposophical
work purely as free social meetings places, independently of any
organized anthroposophical society. One such board network is now
developing in Germany since some years.

On the basis of an understanding of anthroposophy, as it is reflected in
the way RS at Christmas 1923 tried to build the outline of a _general_
anthroposophical society, reflecting the human being in our totality as
spiritual beings, http://www.waldorfanswers.org/Anthroposophy.htm tries
to give a hint of how also anthroposophy can be understood from this
perspective.

Again: I hope noone will take offense from the above. It just tries to
clarify the issue from a conceptual perspective as understood by the
undersigned, as the background of the present, confusing and sad
situation for anthroposophy, anthroposophical societies, and all
anthroposophical work world wide.

(If anyone has any personal comments, feel free to write to me off list)

Greetings,

Sune Nordwall
co-webmaster of http://www.waldorfanswers.org