RUDOLF STEINER’S 3-FOLD COMMONWEALTH

What has an exposition on Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Commonwealth to do with a book on maths teaching? Well, important lanes on the numbers highway are economics in general, and finance in particular (two different things actually). Steiner education works so well due to the teacher being informed on the spiritual reality behind any subject taught. This is especially so in the teaching of potentially abstract subjects like mathematics. It is in this spirt that this vital information is included in this book.

From Foundation Stone to Keystone

Extracts from a lecture given at Rudolf Steiner House, Sydney, May 1, 2001.

Workers around the glove become increasingly excited as May 1 draws near, Labor Day. In an ideal world, they would gather at twilight on this day on hilltops to welcome the first appearance in the celestial year of the star Maia, the brightest gem in that glittering diadem known as the Seven Sisters. Or the Pleiades Ladies as my wife Susan characterized them in a story of her Kindergarten children!

Maia of course bequeathed her name to the merry month of May; though merry she was not. The fair-tressed virgin lived in solitude in a cave in Arcadia. It was here that Zeus deflowered the reclusive nymph. The outcome was the birth of Hermes (aka ‘Logios’ – Roman Mercury). In the knowledge that every detail in these ancient myths contain profound esoteric meaning, we cave-cam in on this quicksilver god’s very first day.

He rose early and left the cave to explore the wonderful world, but was distracted by Apollo’s herd of heavenly cattle, which he promptly stole! Thus he became the god of thieves!

He earned his other odious reputation as god of tricksters by forcing the bellowing bovines to walk backwards in an attempt to confound his enraged pursuer. On discovery, he fled back to the sanctuary of his mother’s cave, entering through a keyhole by becoming a vapor – god of gases? In an attempt to redeem himself, the precocious infant presented Apollo with the world’s first musical instrument, a lyre made from a tortoise shell.

So, what’s the link between Labor Day and Mercury? Apart from Maia being his mother of course. Due to his industry and facility, Mercury is also the god of trade, finance, economics, and all things commercial. In fact this word – and others like mercenary, mercantile, merchant, etc. – derive from Mercury (L. mercari). This tripartite tale is the ancient Foundation Stone of Rudolf Steiner’s 3-Fold Commonwealth culture-right-economic Keystone. Zeus is the Spirit-Culture aspect, Maia the Soul-Rights, and Hermes the Body-Economic. These three are the father, mother, son of the eternal body social.

In fact even the last, the economic, is 3-fold; being divided into Capital (the tortoise), Labor (Hermes’ creative toil), and Commodity (the lyre). Our own economic endeavors still accord with the matrix of the story; we extract or harvest the base substance from the earth; then with our labor we redeem or elevate it into a commodity.

The Foundation Stone upon which this 3-fold Mystery is really based in Atlas himself. The great Titan was Maia’s father, he who supports the world on his long-suffering shoulders. She was the eldest of his seven delightful daughters; seven is the number of the soul. Atlas is really Atlantis, the epoch of mineralization in earth evolution, of corporatization of man. As such, sweat-of-the-brow labor, garnering a living from the earth, can truly be said to have begun n this 4^th Epoch. Four is the number of the earth.

We leap forward in time to observe three more remarkable events, each with far-reaching implications for the torturous incarnation of the Steiner 3-fold wisdom in human governance. They collectively form the keystone of 3-Fold Commonwealth consciousness. In 1788, the British established a colony in Terra Australis del Espiritu Santo – Southern Land of the Holy Spirit. It is here that one of the most spirit-soul-body liberated communities would subsequently evolve.

A decade earlier, the American Revolution, based on that most remarkable spirit-freeing document, the Declaration of Independence, sowed the seeds of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity in the New World. A mere year after the founding of European (in time, multicultural) Australia in 1788, the Old World was rocked by the spirit-soul-body conflagration that was the French Revolution. Like most social great-leaps-forward, the lofty promises of liberty, equality and fraternity were corrupted; the impassioned if mis-directed revolutionaries merely replacing their hated monarch with a megalomaniac emperor!

Nevertheless, they did exile the Old Order of a privileged aristocracy and theocracy with at least the idea of the modern New Order we enjoy today. That being relative cultural, social and economic justice – in the developed world at least. These contradictions might be reconciled by Thomas Carlyle’s wry observation: “History is an ever-living, ever-working Chaos of Being.” A symbol of Liberty-Spirit was the storming of the Bastille; that of Equality-Soul the replacing of a monarchy with a republic; and the Fraternity-Body was the new-age of fair taxes. This began in America with the patriot’s demands for “No taxation without representation.”

In Steiner circles, we phrase this social trinity somewhat differently, The Three Ps – Principles, People, Pecunia. Principles are pure Spirit, and therefore the highest in ranking of the three; though all are indispensable to the body social. If a person’s or organization’s principles are morally sound, then these protect the people, and even, over time, lead to economic prosperity. In terms of a formalized grouping of human beings, from a school to a society to a political party, the principles should be written down, or codified in some way. This assures as little ambiguity as possible in their interpretation and application.

The principles are the spiritual core of the 3-Fold Commonwealth Keystone. Though it must be sadly conceded that Steiner’s cultural-political-economic keystone is the one most 20^th Century “builders” – with goliardic stupidity – have repeatedly rejected!

In Steiner’s social order understanding, principles express through liberty Culture. This includes the arts, education and even science. In a school, the College of Teachers has dominion over all cultural issues This is the true realm of freedom for the individual.

“Equality” is the politico-legal sphere, or the Rights in Steiner terminology. “All men are created equal.” Wrote the slave-owning authors of America’s noble keystone. The prime minister or president has just one vote in a modern democracy, the same as your humble author. And democracy is the true home of the rights-people-equality realm.

Steiner’s enlightening canon for the three areas says it all: “Individualism for spiritual life; democracy for the life of rights; socialism for economic life.”. So there isn’t just one correct social structure; community harmony and fulfillment is rather achieved through a weaving of all three points of view; individual liberty, democratic equality, and socialistic fraternity.

He called this individualistic social democracy. This was not merely hedging his bets, but a recognition of the validity of a harmonic conversion of all three societal systems.

In a school, the Equality bailiwick is ideally governed by a Rights Council, with representation of all areas of the school community. In contrast, the Fraternity responsibilities are attended to, not by a democratic body, but by a select group, those with experience and expertise in money matters. True socialism is based on recognition of merit, not equality. This Economic Body is under the aegis of Pecunia, Roman goddess of money.

While on education, Rudolf Steiner provided a magnesium revelation on the influence these timeless verities have on the well-being of children; especially as these flow on into adulthood. He said that a person can only attain true – spiritual – liberty if s/he has been educated in the spirit of Imitation in the years 0 to 7. Prior to birth, the children’s whole being was imitative, living in a community of higher spiritual entities as they did. When they arrive on earth, their expectations are that nothing has changed; the higher begins in their new environment are obviously their family and others – most of whom are older, and by definition higher, than they are. Individualistic imitation is therefore the first principle in Steiner childcare for the under – 7s.

From 7 to 14, the children are on a path of Equality, to democracy. Steiner asserts that unless primary children enjoy the benefits of Authority in their home and school life, they will be unable to experience true equality in adulthood. This failing could well be the reason for such a high level of inequity in the world; especially in the life of Rights. A democratic, kindly authority by the teacher is the hallmark of Steiner primary education.

Finally to high school, the economic-Fraternity sphere. Here Herr Doktor speaks of the need for Universal Love in our relationship with adolescents. We certainly observe that they both love and hate more passionately than younger children. An education which neglects this brotherhood, that based on the most profound impulses of socialism, have denied them.

So much high school education is based on critical analysis and other fragmenting practices. Examples of these are elective subject, competition, period teaching, exams, selectivity – such as gender, academic, sporting, et al.

Steiner secondary education is the opposite of these, being inclusive, universal, venerative, synthetic, comprehensive – socialistic! How arrogance triumphs over fraternity when green 16-year-olds are enjoined to critically analyze a literary giant like, for instance, Leo Tolstoy! Rather they should be led to admire, respect, yes, even love.

1861 was another turning point in the evolution of community consciousness – and the year Rudolf Steiner was born. It was also the time tens of thousands of American spilled their blood in a 4-year war primarily justified on ending slavery. In one of the great historical contradictions, these same Union soldier later disposed and massacred entire nations of Indians. A young Steiner would have been familiar with both this abolitionist struggle and Indian oppression. Did these events influence his later ground-breaking teaching on human rights, and his practical support for the various ‘freedoms’ – speech, association, religion, gender and so on? Much of the world is a better place in respect of spiritual, social and economic equity in this 140^thanniversary of Steiner’s birth.

A good deal of this progress Steiner can actually take credit for; though his influence has been largely invisible. Take just one field, the modern libertarian spirit in education. In Australia at least, every major positive reform in the schooling of children can be originally credited to Steiner education. This seemingly extreme statement is valid whether one speaks of education as an art, or of more mundane, like the abolition of corporal punishment (I don’t include things like the computerization of education as a ‘positive’ reform.) Incidentally, Mercury (Christian Archangel Raphael) is the god of learning!

Perhaps it was on International Workers Day, May 1, that Mercury’s mum Maia and her six sisters were being chased by an amorous Orion (akin ‘urine’!). In her desperation, she beseeched her former suitor (and Mercury’s dad), Zeus, to aid the fleeing sorority. In his usual creative way, the sky god transformed them into seven white doves; symbol of peace and love. These ascended into heaven on grateful wings to become the seven eternally twinkling Pleiades Lades. Orion stands nearby – as sentinel, or in eternal frustration!

So too May Day can be thought of in the spirit of the epigram, Work is love made visible. With Maia’s blessing, may our morally-informed labors be an ascending path of true, spirit-enhanced fellowship.