"Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of biodynamics, was a highly trained scientist and respected philosopher. Long before many of his contemporaries, Steiner came to the conclusion that western civilization would increasingly bring destruction to itself and the earth if it did not begin to incorporate an objective understanding of the spiritual world and its interrelationship with the physical world. Steiner's spiritual scientific methods and insights have given birth to practical holistic innovations in many fields including education, banking, medicine, psychology, the arts and, not least, agriculture."
In his attempts to find a synthesis between science and mysticism, his philosophical work over the years, which he termed spiritual science, sought to provide a connection between the cognitive path of Western philosophy and the inner and spiritual needs of the human being.
Certain conditions in life may very well make it necessary for a district to be made fruitful in a particular way. Such conditions may be of a moral nature — they may be founded on spiritual and cultural peculiarities. But it is very possible that the fulfillment of these conditions would result in a smaller interest on capital than the investment of the capital in some other undertaking.
As a consequence of the purely capitalistic tendency, the land will then be exploited, not in accordance with these spiritual or cultural points of view (which are not purely capitalistic in character) but in such a way that the resulting interest on capital may equal the interest in other undertakings. And in this way values that may be very necessary to a real civilization are left undeveloped. Under the influence of this purely capitalistic orientation, the estimation of economic values becomes one-sided; it is no longer rooted in the living connection which men must have with nature and with spiritual life, if nature and spiritual life are to give them satisfaction in body and in soul.
Faber-Maeck borrows its ideas and concepts of biodynamics farming from the founding principles defined by Steiner's philosophy. The same ideas which sowed the seeds of early socially-cognizant agriculture are now applied to a growing movement of farming based on biodynamic techniques.
The latter promote spirituality vis-à-vis a sustainable, socially-aware approach that supports successful agriculture despite the agricultural giants who continue to thwart the farmer struggling to eke a sustainable living while respecting and promoting the health of the land for generations to come.
These excerpts are derived from the writings of Steiner himself and other sources on the inter-webs. Here are some links for those who care to delve deeper into the roots of his thinking and association of land, spirituality, and the human social condition as they interrelate:
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