The Times We Live In

Making sense of the present times is a challenge for all of us. For these series we asked leaders in their fields to share their insights and interpretation of the deeper aspects of life in the 21st Century.

7.30pm - 9pm
£3.50 (£1 concessions, students and under 25's)
No bookings required - just turn up.

4 May - Sylvia Francke - Spirituality in the 21st Century

A hundred years ago Rudolf Steiner foretold that the transition from the Twentieth to the Twenty First Century would be a time of great challenges for mankind. As the gates of the spiritual world begin to open for the first time in five thousand years new faculties of spiritual perception would begin to develop in individual human beings, but at the same time the deepening of materialism would be a symptomatic reflection of more serious attacks from opposing beings than the world has ever previously experienced. To add extra edge to the situation, Steiner emphatically stated that this polarity would continue for many centuries to come. Transformation is our task as individuals; there will be no miraculous rescue-operation to whisk humanity up and away collectively. We are all responsible for our own spiritual path, each of us is in an estuary with the open sea ahead and its rough out there!

Sylvia Francke is author of 'The Tree of Life and the Holy Grail', Temple Lodge Publishing, a book which attempts to meet questions posed by the recent resurgence of interest in this subject from the point of view of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy.

11 May - Dr. Philip Kilner - The Human Heart and Circulation

The mobile forms and flows of the heart and circulation are largely inaccessible to direct observation, which makes study of them challenging. However, with awareness of their nature and limitations, anatomical preparations, medical images and studies of fluid flow can each contribute to informed imagination of the living system, as can study of the nature and outcomes of heart diseases and heart surgery.

Dr. Philip Kilner studied medicine and is a Consultant in Cardiovascular Imaging at Royal Brompton Hospital and the National Heart and Lung Institute of Imperial College, London. He has been interested in the heart and circulation for over thirty years, since studying sculpture and flow with John Wilkes at Emerson College.

18 May - Dr. Sue Peat - What is happening in the World of Bees?

We owe a lot to the bees - they give us much more than just honey and candles. As we see reports of the declining bee population we ask ourselves whether this matters, what it might mean and what we can do about it. Bees and humans have a unique relationship, and those of us lucky enough to have bees call ourselves their 'keepers'. Are we living up to our responsibilities? During the lecture we will explore some of the insights Rudolf Steiner had into the lives of these sacred creatures and what we can learn from them.

Dr. Sue Peat is a London beekeeper.

25 May - Ian Houston - Where Does Music Take Us?

Ian Houston considers some of the changes which have come about in classical music since Chopin and how they foreshadow and also express developments in our relationship to worlds both seen and unseen. Illustrations at the piano include works by Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Bartok, Rachmaninoff, Schoenberg and Messiaen.

Ian Houston trained as a pianist at the Royal College of Music and met Anthroposophy whilst still a student. He has performed on radio and television and given recitals as far away as the Falkland Islands and Tasmania. He combines music with an international career as a landscape painter.

1 June - Susan Raven - Climate Change and the Elemental Kingdom

As an ensouled and spiritual organism, the earth is influenced by a great ballet of trines, squares and conjunctions, enacted by the planets in our solar system before a backdrop of the twelve constellations. The effect of this complex planetary dance penetrates the astral and etheric bodies of the earth and radiates below the surface into the rocks and metals, thus influencing the elementals responsible for weather and seismic activity. In this talk, Susan will be exploring the links between astrometeorology, the power of human thought forms, the activity of the elementals and the influence of the hierarchies on our climate.

Susan Raven has been a long-time student of Anthroposophy and has represented Rudolf Steiner Press and the Anthroposophical Society at the Mind, Body and Spirit Festival for 14 years.

8 June - Nick Thomas - Prophecies about 2012

Much has been written about 2012 as a critical year. The Mayans made remarkably precise calculations and predicted a major event at this time. Prophecies have proved unreliable in the past as often they were made in a different state of consciousness from our modern one. The nature and interpretation of prophecies and those for the near future will be explored in this lecture.

Nick Thomas was trained as an electrical engineer in the RAF. He has been interested in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy since his teens and lectures widely on many themes. Currently he is engaged in research to develop a new spiritually-based scientific paradigm.

15 June - Morten Schmidt - Architecture Now

Architecture has never had such an intense period of transformation. New techniques of construction, new materials and advanced digitalized design processes have made the impossible possible. Realizing the importance of the physical environment to our wellbeing, we can ask ourselves what lies behind such transformations? Does architecture on a more subtle level play a role in the evolution of mankind and does it have an effect on us as individuals?

Morten Schmidt, architect and partner in Schmidt, Hammer Lassen Architects, has been in touch with Anthroposophy since his childhood as a pupil at a Steiner Waldorf school in Denmark.

22 June - Terry Goodfellow - Terror, Crises and Foreign Adventures: Symptoms of our Times

In this talk we will discuss some of the enduring themes of past decades and attempt to reveal aspects of their deeper meaning through the insights of Anthroposophy.

Terry Goodfellow was House Manager at Rudolf Steiner House for many years and has contributed a number of articles for New View magazine.

29 June - Dr. John Lees - Madness and Materialism

During World War I Rudolf Steiner predicted that it would only take two generations for the development of materialism to 'corrupt our morality' and 'our mental and physical health'. Sadly that time has now come. During the latter part of the twentieth century there was an increase of trauma induced problems and the development of such new illnesses such as personality disorders. This lecture will look at the phenomenon from the point of view of anthroposophy.

Dr. John Lees is an anthroposophic psychotherapist in private practice and a researcher in mental health at the University of Leeds.

6 July - Russell Evans - Hope for the Future

Facing the times in which we live 'when wrong comes up to meet us everywhere, never to leave us till we take the longest stride of soul man ever took', we need above all to hold on to our little sister Hope. She knows there is an ahead worth striving for. (Christopher Fry)

Russell Evans is by profession a chartered electrical engineer, aiming to become a professional Human Being.