"I grew up entirely among peasant folk, and in my spirit I have always remained there--I indicated this in my autobiography. Though it was not on a large farming estate as you have here, in a smaller domain I myself planted potatoes, and though I did not breed horses, at any rate I helped to breed pigs. And in the farmyard of our immediate neighborhood I lent a hand with the cattle. These things were very close to me for a long time. I took part in them actively. Thus I do at any rate have a love of farming..." -- Rudolf Steiner Biodynamic agriculture, which has increased consistently in popularity over the years, was born in June 1924 from a single course of eight lectures by Rudolf Steiner in Koberwitz (now in Poland). In The Agriculture Course, Peter Selg presents a remarkable study of the context of those lectures, conveying a tangible sense of the celebratory mood and atmosphere of those events at Pentecost. He highlights Steiner's intentions for the course--and parallel lectures in Breslau--by drawing widely on the available literature and numerous archival sources. Recognizing that chemical manipulation of agriculture was neither desirable nor sustainable, Steiner helped launch an agricultural movement whose outlook is truly pioneering in spirit. As Selg describes, Steiner saw that "what was needed instead was new, conscious insight into life forces and laws, into the nature of organisms, into the diverse realms of nature, and the determining factors of both Earth and cosmos that influence them." The vivid picture painted here reveals the importance that Steiner placed on launching this work, as well as the extent to which his initiative offered an answer to the emerging forces of cultural and political destruction that would lead to World War II. The Agriculture Course, Koberwitz, Whitsun 1924 is a translation from German of Koberwitz 1924: Rudolf Steiner und der Landwirtschaftliche Kurs (Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 2009).

8 lectures, Koberwitz, June 7-20, 1924 (CW 327) The audio book, complete and unabridged (10 CD set), is read by respected actor and speech teacher Peter Bridgmont, author of Liberation of the Actor. When Rudolf Steiner gave these lectures eighty years ago, industrial farming was on the rise and organic methods were being replaced in the name of science, efficiency, and technology. With the widespread alarm over food quality in recent years, and with the growth of the organic movement and its mainstream acceptance, perceptions are changing. The qualitative aspect of food is on the agenda again, and in this context Steiner's only course of lectures on agriculture is critical to the current debate. With these talks, Steiner created and launched "biodynamic" farming--a form of agriculture that has come to be regarded as the best organically produced food. However, the agriculture Steiner speaks of here is much more than organic--it involves working with the cosmos, with the earth, and with spiritual beings. To facilitate this, Steiner prescribes specific "preparations" for the soil, as well as other distinct methods born from his profound understanding of the material and spiritual worlds. He presents a comprehensive picture of the complex dynamic relationships at work in nature and gives basic indications of the practical measures needed to bring them into full play. These lectures are reprinted here in the "classic" translation made by Rudolf Steiner's English interpreter, George Adams. This edition also features a preface by Steiner's colleague the medical doctor Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, as well as eight color plates. This is the course that began the biodynamic movement. Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course is the essential work for anyone wanting to understand and use Steiner's methods of food production. This book is a translation from German of Geisteswissenschaftliche Grundlagen zum Gedeihen der Landwirtschaft. Landwirtschaftlicher Kursus (GA 327).

For nearly a century, the worldwide anthroposophical movement has been a catalyst for environmental activism, helping to bring to life many modern ecological practices such as organic farming, community-supported agriculture, and green banking. Yet the spiritual practice of anthroposophy remains unknown to most environmentalists. A historical and ethnographic study of the environmental movement, Eco-Alchemy uncovers for the first time the profound influences of anthroposophy and its founder, Rudolf Steiner, whose holistic worldview, rooted in esoteric spirituality, inspired the movement. Dan McKanan shows that environmentalism is itself a complex ecosystem and that it would not be as diverse or transformative without the contributions of anthroposophy.

Dowsing and radionics are two practices and procedures for interpreting and interacting with the natural world. They nurture the processes of gardening, farming, and landscaping through communication with subtle levels of reality. Nature spirits and other forms of intelligence in nature play major roles. They can be readily contacted and nourished when we combine psychotronic methods with the traditional practices of a biodynamic approach. George Kuepper describes and discusses numerous procedures that have evolved from decades of working with agricultural radionics and recent research in his biodynamic garden. This guidebook to growing better food is well referenced, with numerous illustrations, photos, tables, and examples. Gardeners and farmers who want to improve their plants and harvests using sustainable methods will find practical help and much food for thought here. "Psychotronics covers a range of modalities (including dowsing and radionics) that can be used to access and study the hidden reality behind our physical world. It provides us with practical means for investigating, navigating, and even changing this reality. Without a doubt, psychotronics is controversial and the amount of misinformation and disinformation surrounding it is dizzying. So, understand that what I'm presenting here is a working paradigm. It will explain how I have come to understand psychotronics and how I am using it." --George Kuepper (from the book) Includes 55 illustrations, diagrams, and charts.

Todays science has a huge knowledge about the compounds in our foods - minerals, proteins, vitamins, antioxidants etc. - but we must include also their vitality properties to fully understand food quality. Vitality here means the ability of living organisms to keep up their life processes and life cycle while being under heavy pressure from the surroundings. So living organisms are not understood based on componds alone, and we must look at their more or less vulnerable organs and life processes. In the same way we need to re-define our concept of health, from absence of single diseases towards the ability of the organism to maintain a complex balance in the organs and the life processes during the major changes taking place recurringly during our life cycle. The book presents in a popular way a spectrum of vitality examples, taken from research and everyday life.

In 1924 at Koberwitz, the estate of Count and Countess Keyserlingk, Rudolf Steiner gave a key course of lectures on agriculture. At a time when industrial methods were being introduced into farming, Steiner had a radically different, evolutionary vision. Based on a revitalized relationship with nature, his approach encompassed knowledge of the cosmos, the elemental world and the Earth, and utilized special planting methods and preparations. Today biodynamic agriculture is widely valued and used around the world. In addition to the lively and entertaining accounts of the agriculture course held at Koberwitz, this extraordinary book features Countess Keyserlingk's memories of her meetings with Rudolf Steiner, who told the Countess her form of consciousness would be usual "in the third millennium." Her reminiscences reflect this uncommon quality. Also included are essays by the editor that incorporate rare material, including communications received by Countess Keyserlingk after Steiner's death. This book will be of interest to students of biodynamics as well as those interested in how Rudolf Steiner worked to develop Anthroposophy. It is compiled and edited by Adalbert Graf von Keyserlingk, the son of the Count and Countess who hosted the Koberwitz conference.

An account of the shift in focus to access and fairness among San Francisco Bay Area alternative food activists and advocates. Can a celebrity chef find common ground with an urban community organizer? Can a maker of organic cheese and a farm worker share an agenda for improving America's food? In the San Francisco Bay area, unexpected alliances signal the widening concerns of diverse alternative food proponents. What began as niche preoccupations with parks, the environment, food aesthetics, and taste has become a broader and more integrated effort to achieve food democracy: agricultural sustainability, access for all to good food, fairness for workers and producers, and public health. This book maps that evolution in northern California. The authors show that progress toward food democracy in the Bay area has been significant: innovators have built on familiar yet quite radical understandings of regional cuisine to generate new, broadly shared expectations about food quality, and activists have targeted the problems that the conventional food system creates. But, they caution despite the Bay Area's favorable climate, progressive politics, and food culture many challenges remain.