This article was first published in New View magazine Issue 82, Jan. – Mar. 2017 The study of biography is an important and growing area of research in anthroposophy, related as it is to Rudolf Steiner’s work on the study of karma and reincarnation. As such, biographical work has a socially hygienic function, as it helps to promote the understanding of time (and timing) in one’s life and thus to restore meaning. And it is meaning that human beings crave above all, for we are beings who create meaning through the act of cognition,...
read moreThis article was first published in New View magazine Issue 81 Autumn 2016 “Matthew was an angel as a young child – sensitive, well-behaved, affectionate, often joyful, and often dreaming away on another plane. After turning nine, however, he soon changed into quite a different person. He was sometimes rude and critical, and often moody if not downright wretched…. Prior to age seven or eight, most children are sunny, smiling, exuberant, joyful beings – little angels, for the most part. Around the ninth birthday, however, a tinge of...
read moreThis article was first published in New View magazine ‘No. 79 Apr – June 2016 2016 looks to be a momentous year in British history, when the nation makes its choice in the referendum on 23rd June on whether to remain in the European Union or leave it. This could affect Britain’s direction for decades, if not centuries. In the world of science Professor Stephen Hawking (74), who seems to be regarded by the media as something of a British scientific ‘cardinal’ in the contemporary western world’s modern ‘religion’ of...
read moreThis article was first published in New View Magazine Issue 77 Autumn 2015 The light from the widths of the world Lives on within me powerfully, Becoming light of soul And shining into spirit depths, To bring forth all the fruits Which in course of time shall ripen The Self of Man from the Self of the World - Rudolf Steiner, The Calendar of the Soul (Week 22) translated by Terry Boardman In October...
read moreThis article was first published in New View magazine 3rd Quarter Summer 2015 I am myself. I “identify” with myself and am responsible to and for myself and my actions and for the care of my body. I am also a member of the human race, the extended human family or community, and identify as such. I am aware of the body of the world, which supports my earthly existence, and I also feel a responsibility to that. I know that I have responsibilities to the rest of the human race and to the planet’s environment through my...
read moreThoughts on 1914 in relation to Scottish Independence and the Future of Britain This article first appeared in New View magazine Issue 72 July-Sept 2014 2014, a year rich in historical resonance: D-Day in Normandy 1944, seventy years ago; a hundred years on from the birth of Dylan Thomas in 1914; the deaths of Franz Ferdinand and his dear wife Sophie in Sarajevo that same year; the defeat of King Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn by Robert the Bruce in 1314, which saved Scottish independence for nearly 400 years. Yet Scotland...
read moreThis article was first published in New View magazine, Winter 2012. This is a slightly expanded version of that published article Time has been much on my mind this year, as I turned the round and weighty number of 60 in the Chinese Year of the Dragon, and my first grandchild arrived on Earth. Time has clearly been on the minds of millions of others this year too. The reason of course is the various expectations surrounding the completion of a supposedly particularly significant cycle in the ancient Mayan Calendar at the winter solstice, 21st...
read more© Terry Boardman May 1997 After 18 long years it seems difficult to believe that the Conservative Party no longer rules Britain. It has been swept into the ‘wilderness’ by the Labour Party’s ‘historic’ general election victory on May 1st. There has been no government collapse on this scale since the (Iron) Duke of Wellington’s defeat in 1830. In the 20th century only the Tory defeat in 1906, again to a reforming Liberal Party, and Winston Churchill’s defeat in 1945, to a Labour Party that...
read more© Terry Boardman This article first appeared in the German magazine “Info3″ in May 1996 Rudolf Steiner bade us look through the outer symptoms of historical developments to the spiritual causes beneath. Sometimes those symptoms have to appear in a grotesque, almost ludicrous fashion. Steiner frequently drew attention to the significance of Joan of Arc’s...
read moreWhat do we see ? Three figures in the countryside, either in or just outside a wood. They are between a single very mottled, slender and not very old oak tree (foreground, slightly off centre to the right and also leaning slightly to the right) and a lone low stone wall that runs right across the background of the picture. The wall is broken to the right of the tree. Behind the break in the wall is what looks like a spruce tree, which in the 19th century was being used as a Christmas tree. There are many ferns and brambles in the...
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