First installment on the foundation of Biodynamic Agriculture as (most probably) the leading source for spiritual food and high vibrational nutrition.

Date:   9/13/2009 4:07:46 AM ( 15 y ago)

May 26, 2023 -

"After a year of listening, retreats, over 150 interviews, and more, we are pleased to announce – The Biodynamic Demeter Alliance has a logo! A mission statement! A vision statement!"[2]

(Drum roll - Ta ta ta dahhhhh!) - "Our Vision:

The biodynamic movement works toward a world where agriculture serves as the foundation of our communities, where growing food and fiber is spiritually grounded, and the work, food, and products grown cultivate the health, well-being, and development of our Earth and all her inhabitants."

Our Mission:

We believe that biodynamic agriculture can heal people and the planet. ..."[2]
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September 13, 2009 -

Organic foods is now defined by government regulations that allow big ag to have it their way (maybe not all the way) however, we need to ask ourselves: is that sustainable agriculture? If you were to investigate the history of organic agriculture you would come to J.I. Rodale who in the early 1940s "coined the term 'Organic,' but some 20 years earlier, an Austrian anthroposophist, Rudolf Steiner, had already developed the philosophical, theoretical, and practical underpinnings of yet another holistic approach to sustainable agriculture: Biodynamics."[1]

Biodynamic Agriculture can reasonably be considered as the mother paradigm of Sustainable Agriculture! It appears that the paradigm of Organic Agriculture was formed after rejecting the Spirit or "metaphysics" that is inherent in a whole farm organism as presented by Biodynamics.

This blog-writer suspects that he'll add to this in the future. In the meanwhile here is an account of the beginning of Biodymamics:

"Perhaps the most surprising of all the activities that have their roots in Anthroposophy is the Biodynamic Movement. From 1920 onwards Rudolf Steiner had given indications to several of his pupils on how to work with the etheric formative forces. ... In the course of 1922 and 1923 several farmers who were also anthroposophists approached Rudolf Steiner with questions regarding the increasing sickness of the land as they themselves were experiencing it, and in particular regarding the apparent degeneracy of modern seeds. Others asked him for medical advice on animal diseases, while Count Karl von Keyserlingk, who had a large estate at Koberwitz, near Breslau, in Eastern Germany, asked him about plant diseases. The answers he gave whetted their appetite, as it seemed clear that he had as much knowledge of the invisible world in this sphere as he had in others, and his advice invariably was practical and proved to be efficacious. In 1923 he told Dr. Wachsmuth and Ehrenfried Pfeiffer how to produce a preparation that would help to ”dynamize” the soil. They followed his instructions to the letter, and the precious material was ready just in time to be exhibited during the Koberwitz course. Time for this course was finally found in June, 1924, and it was given to about sixty persons gathered together on Count Keyserlingk’s estate. ...

The course consisted of only eight lectures, plus the answers given by Steiner to a number of key questions from his audience, most of whom were practical farmers or landowners. But in these eight lectures are to be found the seeds of everything that has since come to be known as ”biodynamic” agriculture (the name was not given by Rudolf Steiner). They contain at the same time a wealth of esoteric information about the relation between man and the cosmos and how this relationship must be taken into consideration by the farmer. However, most of the information in these lectures was eminently practical, dealing with such subjects as how to make a truly dynamic compost, how to ”dynamize” farmyard manure, how to control noxious weeds and insect pests, although Steiner also had much to say on the utility of many other plants regarded today as weeds. Human nutrition was incidentally touched upon, since in his view much human malnutrition is due to the consumption of plants that lack the proper cosmic forces. In drawing special attention to the relationship between man and the plant world, Steiner explained how the plant, as he put it, is like a man standing upside down, with its ”head” system in the earth (the roots), its ”rhythmic system” in the stalk and leaves, and its ”metabolic system” in the flower and seed. This remarkable observation, according to Steiner, is the key to correct nutrition, since each of our ”systems” is nourished by the corresponding part of the plant.

Every word in these lectures has been worked over, and there have been countless experiments carried out, not least by Lily Kolisko, who was entrusted by Steiner with the task of proving in a scientifically acceptable manner the correctness of the practical indications given by him in this course. A circle of experimental farmers and gardeners was formed in Germany immediately after the course, and in the years since 1924 similar circles have been formed in almost all Western countries. E. Pfeiffer, after working with biodynamic farming in Europe for many years, and undertaking numerous experiments, eventually moved to the United States, where he became the pioneer teacher of most of the American biodynamic farmers, and where in the later years of his life he also established a research laboratory. His advice was very much sought after, and even industrialists in the United States listened to him respectfully, men who would never have anything to do with Anthroposophy and who knew no other anthroposophists. Pfeiffer, who had been a personal pupil of Rudolf Steiner in his youth—Steiner even directed his choice of studies while he was at the university—received official recognition from the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia when it granted him an honorary doctorate, a degree that he had never found the time to earn."[3]
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Notes:
[1] http://stevenkolpanonwine.blogspot.com/2008/11/

[2] https://www.biodynamics.com/blog/getting-word-out-%E2%80%93-building-biodynamic-brand

[3] https://jpibiodynamics.org/products/rudolf-steiner-herald-of-a-new-epoch-by-stewart-easton

and: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Rudolf_Steiner/62otgFGw0cwC?hl=en
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