By Per Eisenman and David Adams
March 2004
What follows is a partial history of Youth Section activity from the early 1990's to the present.* The Youth Section has been active in North America since the early 1960's when the Michael Youth Group became active in Spring Valley New York. Young people have been coming and going, studying anthroposophy and growing up, in somewhat disconnected phases ever since.
...A somewhat new group of youth grew more active, leading to a public conference on the effects of anthroposophy in the world held March 6-7, 1993, held a Camphill Soltane in Pennsylvania. This event featured Michaela Glöckler as lecturer and was planned by Aurea Barnes, Fiona Fergusson, Annegret Götze, Hilary Hafner, and Manuel Mattke. This group had met for several years together and held small conferences twice a year on different themes. They were considering planning a larger conference and inviting Heinz Zimmerman from Dornach, then head of the Youth Section. They disbanded but the idea was carried on by others.
Two conferences were held in East Troy, Wisconsin: “Approaching the Third Millennium: What Is Our Role?’ from June 15-22, 1995; and “The Path toward Freedom” from June 23-30, 1996 (planned by Tim Aldiger, Oliver Conrad, Noemi Glenn, Nathaniel Holder, Colin Poer, and Kristin Seeley). These conferences were hosted by Martina Mann at the Michael Fields Institute, a biodynamic research institute. Martina played a major role as a mentor, and elder, for the anthroposopical youth work over the next several years. Out of these conferences and the inspiration from the earlier group the idea arose to create a large, international youth conference. A large group gathered including the East Troy planners, Per Eisenman, who had had some contact with the earlier group, and others. Planning continued to grow toward the conference in 1997.
A significant watershed in this more recent youth work was the large conference, “Conversation, Consciousness, and Community – where the inner and outer worlds touch,” held August 1-7, 1997, in Ann Arbor just before the national Anthroposophical Society conference. Prepared over two years by a group of college-age youth, this concentrated and very harmonious gathering attracted well over 200 participants, including 30-some from outside North America. The opening “social art ceremony” featuring a bannered procession to a large meadow where drumming and poetic, rhythmic activities with a Native American flavor took place within a large circle. Under the idea that “actively seeking is more important than finding,” a variety of unplanned, spontaneous, and experimental activities and expressions occurred, as everyone was encouraged to discover their own strengths within a supportive group process. Along with singing and spatial dynamics exercises, presentations by Dennis Klocek on meditative exercises to strengthen individual autonomy and by Heinz Zimmerman on the practice of conversation as an artistic tool for creating community led into the daily work of various conversation groups. Many contemporary issues were tackled conversationally, including political activitsm, social service, suicide, feminism, technology, fear, and globalism – as well as questions about how to work effectively within already established modes of anthroposophical activity . In the evenings and other times many free initiatives, meetings, and artistic presentations took place, culminating in a concluding artistic festival which also concentrated several gently ritual-like aspects of the conference in a closing ceremony that invited many anthroposophical “elders” to participate as well.
Many things grew out of this conference. The planners continued to meet for two more years before disbanding. They tackled issues concerning the Anthropsopophical Society, the nature of Anthroposophy and its relationship to the world while grappling with the question, “What do we have to do together?” They also met with a group of elders, led by Martina Mann, who wanted to create a sort of vessel to support anthroposophical youth work in America.
A ’97 conference newssheet later developed into a quarterly youth newsletter called “Conversations on the Spiritual Striving of Youth.” A group of ’97 conference planners and participants organized another large conference in 1999. Three of the conference planners, Per Eisenman, Leila Basmajian, and Jesse Osmer, founded the organization Art Everywhere, which organized annual June “Soul Ecology” conferences in the following few years in California. Art Everywhere is currently developing an internship program and a camp for at-risk high-school students. In addition, Jesse Osmer, Timothy Owen-Kennedy, Kristin Seeley, and Johannes Stimming, four planners/participants of the ’97 conference founded a natural building company called Vital Systems.
The 1999 conference, held in Santa Cruz, CA, was titled, “At the Turning Point: Bringing Spirit into Action.” It was a bit larger than the ’97 conference, with many returning participants. It was planned by a large group of people in their twenties and was loosely headed by Merijn van Dreisden, Jeff Barnum, and Faith Baldwin. Dennis Klocek presented meditative exercises. Orland Bishop led a multilevel discussion in which groups met at small tables to discuss themes and make art together. The small groups then gathered as a whole and shared their insights and their artwork. Friedeman Shwartzkopf gave a pre-dawn workshop on concentration exercises. There were many excellent workshops. One group created a “Sense Walk” – a sort of ritual that heightened the experience of the surrounding nature by creating artistic moments at different points along the walk. In summary, it was a powerful conference at which many issues were brought up including the question of how anthroposophy can be used to help social and global problems.
Elizabeth Wershing, the new Youth Section Leader, has facilitated a strong link to Dornach. Jesse Osmer, a ’97 and ’99 conference planner from the United States, is working for the Youth Section in Dornach and is working to keep the transatlantic connection alive.
There are active youth groups in the Toronto area and around Montreal in Canada. In the US there is currently a group of young people meeting in the Northeast. They have held small conferences every six months with around 30 participants for the last two years. Many of these young people have a long-term relationship to Anthroposophy and they are making a dedicated study of it’s questions together. The group is headed by two sisters, Rachel and Hanna Schwartz, and several others.
Per Eisenman and Leila Basmajian are currently working to stimulate Youth Section activity in Northern California. A varied group of young and old people interested in furthering the Youth Section will meet this summer in Ann Arbor, at the Being Awake conference to discuss next steps in the further development of the Youth Section in America.
*This text is a version of a text by Per Eisenman and David Adams submitted to Henry Barnes book on the history of the Anthroposophical Movement in the United States.
