When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022 [1], Russia was in breach of its assurances under the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Boris Yeltsin, on 5 December 1994 in Budapest. Consider some consequences and provisional lessons of the Ukraine-Russia War:
(i) Do not relinquish nuclear weapons. No nuclear-armed state has ever been invaded;…[Read more]

Stanisław Karłowski (1879-1939) was one of the great champions of Biodynamic farming during its formative years. After an illustrious career as an international banker, in 1920 he purchased the Szelejewo Estate in Poland comprising 1,724 hectares. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) presented his Agriculture Course at Koberwitz (now Kobierzyce, Poland) i…[Read more]

The US National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has paid out US$4,431,468,456 for 7,575 vaccine injuries from (financial years) 1989 through 2020. The average settled claim was US$585,012 per claimant. Of the total claims filed (n=22,372), 94% were claims for non-fatal injury (n=21,035) and 6% were claims for death (n=1,337). Of the…[Read more]

The Agriculture Course of Dr Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) is the seminal text of biodynamic farming and the organic agriculture movement. It has appeared in 16 languages. The Austrian New Age philosopher, Dr Rudolf Steiner, presented his Agriculture Course in the village of Koberwitz, Germany (now Kobierzyce, Poland) in the summer of 1924. The…[Read more]

The allegorical artwork ‘Guerra alla Guerrra’ (War against War) was created by the Italian-Australian artist Ernesto Genoni (1885-1975). It features a young woman wrapped in red and rising out of a battlefield. Her wrap billows over the war-scape to form a massive red flag. The work was published in 1916 as a postcard by the Milan-based Pro Uma…[Read more]

Ernesto Genoni (1885-1975) trained for five years in classical art at the prestigious Brera Academy of Fine Art in Milan, Italy (Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera). Ernesto spent the year 1924 at Dornach, Switzerland, the headquarters of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy movement, where he experimented with painting “in the anthroposophic way” under…[Read more]

Rudolf Steiner presented his Agriculture Course to a group of 111, farmers and others, at Koberwitz (Kobierzyce, Poland) in 1924. Steiner spoke of an agriculture to ‘heal the earth’ and he laid the philosophical and practical underpinnings for such a differentiated agriculture. Biodynamic agriculture is now practiced internationally as a spe…[Read more]

Ernesto Genoni (1885-1975) pioneered biodynamic agriculture in Australia. In 1928 he was the first of (ultimately) twelve Australians to join Rudolf Steiner’s Experimental Circle of Anthroposophical Farmers and Gardeners (ECAFG), based at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. Ernesto trained as an artist for five years at Milan’s prestigious Bre…[Read more]

The formation of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) at Versailles, France, in 1972 set organic food and farming on a strong future trajectory. It was an initiative of France’s Nature et Progrès, and driven by its then President, Roland Chevriot. IFOAM was founded with the support of a small cluster of kindred or…[Read more]

This account begins in the 1920s, which is six decades before other accounts which have been styled as the ‘History’ of ‘Organic Farming in Australia’ and which begin their accounts in the 1980s. The organic agriculture movement in Australia has been a ‘fast follower’ of ideas that originated elsewhere. Australia’s involvement in the organic movem…[Read more]

It was Lord Northbourne (Walter James; 1896-1982) who gifted to the world the term ‘organic farming’. His 1940 book Look to the Land is a manifesto of organic agriculture. In it he mooted a contest of “organic versus chemical farming” which he foresaw as a clash of world views that may last for generations. Northbourne’s ideas were foundatio…[Read more]

Biodynamic agriculture and organic farming have been regarded as having different provenances and having arisen independently. The present account introduces the ‘missing link’ between the two. In 1938 Ehrenfried Pfeiffer published the milestone book on biodynamics: Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening. In 1940 Lord Northbourne published Look to the…[Read more]

Few agriculture books achieve the status of ‘classic’. F. H. King’s book Farmers of Forty Centuries or Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan was privately published in Wisconsin, USA, in 1911. The book had an in-auspicious start, and the longevity and acclaim that this book has since achieved must have been, then, barely conceivable. The…[Read more]

Environment, conservation, green, and kindred movements look back to Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring as a milestone. The impact of the book, including on government, industry, and civil society, was immediate and substantial, and has been extensively described; however, the provenance of the book has been less thoroughly examined. Using C…[Read more]

Edith Ileen Macpherson (1898-1984) was a co-founder of Australia’s original Demeter Farm (c.1934-1954) along with her partner Ernesto Genoni (1885-1974). Ileen was a member of Rudolf Steiner’s Experimental Circle of Anthroposophic Farmers and Gardeners (from 1936). Ernesto was the first Australian member (from 1928). At their Demeter Farm in Dan…[Read more]

The New Age philosopher, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), was the most prolific and arguably the
most influential philosopher of his era. He assembled a substantial library, of approximately 9,000 items, which has been preserved intact since his death. Most of Rudolf Steiner’s books are in German, his native language however there are books in other l…[Read more]

The lost and last portrait of Edith Maryon (1872-1924), presented in the present paper, was painted by the Italian/Australian artist Ernesto Genoni (1885-1975) at Dornach in 1924. Maryon was appointed by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) at the Christmas Conference of the Anthroposophy Society, December 1923, as the leader of the Section for Sculptural…[Read more]

A century has elapsed since the inauguration (on 26 September, 1920) of a remarkable piece of architecture, Rudolf Steiner‟s Goetheanum, headquarters of the Anthroposophy movement, on a verdant hilltop on the outskirts of the Swiss village of Dornach, near Basel. The Goetheanum was an all timber structure, sitting on concrete footings and roofed w…[Read more]

With WW1 waging around them, he Congress of Women at the Hague in 2015 developed a roadmap for enduring peace. The women passed 20 resolutions including five resolutions which were “Principles of a Permanent Peace.” Theirs was a gendered response to a gendered war. The Congress was a bold and brave initiative. The war was not halted. But nei…[Read more]

Alfred Meebold (29 September 1863 – 6 January 1952) was born in Heidenheim, Germany, and died in Havelock North, New Zealand, (aged 89 years). He was a keen traveller, a fervent Germanic chauvinist, an ardent botanist, and a forthright proponent of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy. Alfred Meebold can take some responsibility for the introduction o…[Read more]