This article is based on input from members of the worldwide Camphill Movement. It contains a gathering of reflections and results from the 2025 International Camphill Movement Group Meeting in Camphill Village Kimberton Hills, Pennsylvania/USA, May 17-21, 2025.
In the early 20th Century, Rudolf Steiner articulated three principles of social well-being and transformation that have played an orienting and guiding role in inclusive community-building in the Camphill Movement (see McKanan 2020). These principles are not intended as normative statements about how communities ‘should’ be organized, but as descriptions of lawful relationships governing different aspects of social organization and community and individual well-being within the life of a social organism.
The Fundamental Social Law describes how the well-being of a community of people working together is influenced by the way the proceeds of the work done together flow within the community:
«In a community of human beings working together, the well-being of the community will be the greater, the less individuals claim for themselves the proceeds of the work they have themselves done; i.e. the more of these proceeds they make over to their fellow workers, and the more their own requirements are satisfied not out of their own work done, but out of work done by the others.» (Steiner, GA 34, 213) (1)
While this descriptive formulation does not directly suggest any particular practices, it has often been understood – at least within the Camphill Movement – as a call for the separation of work and income, which can be achieved by offering one’s contribution to the shared work of the community without remuneration, and receiving support for one’s life needs from the community in a way that is not connected to one’s work.
The Sociological Law describes the shifting balance between individual and community as collective associations develop towards greater maturity:
«At the beginning of cultural states, humanity strives for the emergence of social associations; the interests of the individual are initially sacrificed to the interests of these associations; further development leads to the liberation of the individual from the interests of the associations and to the free development of the needs and powers of the individual.» (Steiner GA 31, 255f) (2)
Like the Fundamental Social Law, this is intended as a description of a principle at work in the development and maturation of social organisms (like a ‹natural law›), not as a prescription. It proposes that in the pioneering phase, social organisms (communities, organizations, etc.) demand the sacrifice of individual interests to the needs of the community, but that as they mature, the communities orient themselves towards supporting the development of their individual members as their true purpose.
The so-called Spiritual Law postulates that a spiritual movement or community in our time must be ‹universally human›; in other words, based on the principles of diversity and inclusion and is oriented towards the good of all human beings. Under today’s conditions, any spiritual community that limits itself toward supporting some particular group of human beings (i.e. those of a particular nationality, ethnicity, faith, political conviction, etc.) will become destructive.
«No spiritual movement in our time can flourish if its aims are specialized in any way. It is what you might call an occult law that every genuinely sound and fruitful spiritual movement must exist for humanity in a general way. It must be generally human or, as we say in ordinary life, international. In our time, if something is not generally human, if a number of individuals get together to form a kind of group ego to carry a spiritual movement, they damage the general progress of mankind; they do not serve humankind or help it to progress. There is no point in discussing this, any more than it is meaningful to discuss a law of nature. It is purely and simply a spiritual law: if a spiritual movement is to help humanity to progress it must be generally human.» (Steiner GA 259, 604) (3)
At the 2025 meeting of the international Camphill Movement Group, delegates from the different regions of the worldwide Camphill Movement and other participants explored these three social principles against the background of lived experience and community practices in the Camphill Movement today. The meeting included presentations on the theme by members of the Camphill Movement Group from Camphill communities on five different continents, as well as thematic presentations drawing on anthroposophical and non-anthroposophical contemporary literature (including a keynote engaging with Robin Wall Kimmerer’s (2015) Braiding Sweetgrass), reflective conversations, artistic and movement practices, and dialogue around Quaker perspectives on community, as a formative spiritual impulse in Pennsylvania, where the meeting took place. Thus, both local and global perspectives became present and flowed into the conversation and exploration of Camphill community-building in the 21st Century. (4)
Meeting participants were asked to respond to two questionnaires, one before the five-day meeting and working process, and another one after the meeting. The pre-meeting questionnaire asked, for each of the three principles: «How do you see [this principle] at work in your region or your community?». After the conference, participants were prompted, for each principle to «share any new insights, perspectives, reflections, and/or questions on [this principle], including how it might be relevant to the work in your community and/or region.»
The pre-meeting questionnaire received 25 responses, including 17 from people who later participated in the Movement Group meeting and 8 from other members of the worldwide Camphill Movement. The post-meeting questionnaire was completed by 15 respondents who had participated in the Camphill Movement Group meeting. Responses to both questionnaires came from the African, North and South American, Asian, and European regions of the Camphill Movement and included respondents from pioneer initiatives as well as some of the Movement’s oldest communities.
The responses were synthesized by the author of this paper, following a thematic analysis. This paper presents the results of the thematic analysis and synthesis, followed by a brief discussion and reflection. It will form the basis for further conversation and exploration at the 2026 ‹Camphill Movement Group Meeting›, as well as other relevant forums.
Synthesis of Pre-Meeting Responses
Question 1: How do you see the Fundamental Social Law at work in your region or your community?
In line with a common interpretation of the Fundamental Social Law within Camphill (see McKanan 2020), many of the responses comment on the practices around remuneration and life-needs support in the person’s Camphill community or region. Most of these tell one of two stories: Some speak of communities that practice forms of income sharing among life-sharing coworkers in coworker associations, where personal budgets are made on the basis of needs and validated through some kind of community process, unrelated to the assignment of work responsibilities. Sometimes, this is described as «working without pay» and being carried by the «rhythms and life of the community.»
Others explain that practices in their communities have changed in the direction of salaries that are tied to work responsibilities, typically based on some sort of role-related salary scale that may either have been developed by the community itself, or have been adopted on the basis of external (union or government-imposed) standards. These changes are often attributed to external pressures and a changing regulatory environment. Some communities work with mixed models: long-term resident co-workers participate in a needs-based shared personal budget process, while non-resident staff receive job-based salaries or wages.
Short-term volunteers and co-workers with support needs are mentioned as categories outside of this, who have their own arrangements, connected with the framework of a time-limited volunteer service program or as being part of a non-monetary exchange of contributions within the community.
The responses are ambivalent about the move away from needs-based personal budget processes and towards salary scale models. Some point out positive effects: greater clarity, transparency, fairness, and equitability that can actually feel closer to «brotherhood in economic dealings» than previous subjective practices. More pragmatically, better ability to contract with and be reimbursed by government agencies is also mentioned. Others see it as a loss of a key community-building principle. Many see both sides at the same time and also share ways in which the spirit of separation of work and income continues to live in other ways. There is a sense that, even in the new arrangements, most people who stick around do not «work for money,» but to meet the needs of others. However, situations of high turnover are also described, where some staff are treating work as a job, and change jobs as soon as a ‹better› opportunity becomes available.
Economic solidarity practices continue to exist in some cases, for example in the form of ‹social funds›, which can be accessed when someone has an extraordinary need, in shared provisions for retirement, and in budget sharing and needs-based adjustments between household units. To achieve a sense of separation of work and income – to de-commodify work – one organization pays salaries at the beginning of the month. Another includes ‹time› in their concept of the Fundamental Social Law. Workshops, farms, and gardens serve the community’s needs and contribute to well-being without exchange of money.
The Fundamental Social Law is also seen as living in a non-economic way in the attitudes of community spirit, teamwork, inclusive decision-making, conflict resolution, and mutual support that can be felt in various aspects of the community’s life and in the minds and hearts of individuals, who get up each morning to serve the needs of others, of the community, and of the earth. In that sense, the Fundamental Social Law is seen as the essence of community, not only in an economic sense.
A few respondents described ways in which the community as a whole interacts with other organizations in a way that is reflective of the principles of the Fundamental Social Law. Establishing relationships with local and regional suppliers, choosing and supporting fairtrade, organic, and sustainable businesses to buy from, collaborating with companies that also offer supported and inclusive workplaces, internships, and training opportunities – these are some of the ways in which organizations are seen as acting in alignment with these principles. Camphill communities also work in this way through their regional associations, supporting related initiatives and communities in other regions on the basis of solidarity and brotherhood.
The Camphill Academy (5), as a regional training organization, is also described as funded associatively, in a way that is not based on ‹fee for service› but enables education on the basis of a combination of grant (gift) money, solidarity-based financing by the member communities of the region and community support for the individuals enrolled in its programs within a ‹fellowship› framework that also acknowledges the students’ responsibility to support the needs of the community. On the academic side, this is mirrored in the commitment to external recognition, which creates an accessible debt-free pathway of higher education, while students offer service to their communities in the form of practica and participation in community life.
Question 2: How do you see the Sociological Law at work in your region or your community?
Respondents described different ways in which they see the communities supporting the needs and the development of their individual members. In general, communities are seen as spaces for learning and development. This can be in the context of life and practical work, where there are opportunities to learn from each other, to learn to live together, tolerate and appreciate differences, to look out for each other. For communities to facilitate individual growth in this way, they need to be safe enough, so that people can express themselves, make their own choices, set their life direction, and follow their own calling. This comes about when there is a culture of mutual care and interest in the well-being of each individual.
Interestingly, the transition from more communal or collective structures and processes, such as communally shared finances and living arrangements to what has been described as «more conventional» remuneration and living arrangements is seen by at least some as a step towards emancipating the individual from the interests of the community. However, this emancipation of the individual, which the Sociological Law describes as a natural developmental process, is met with ambivalent feelings by some of those who responded. While some respondents acknowledge that even with greater individual autonomy, there is still the possibility to freely contribute to the com- munity, there is concern that when the individual becomes more important than the community, something essential might be lost.
In work and in the shared management of households, the experience of community needs around which individuals pull together seems to be the strongest. Work is organized around shared needs, and this creates a shared sense of purpose, team spirit, and solidarity. This also encourages individuals to set aside their own personal interests for the well-being of the organization.
An interesting dichotomy arises when these questions are discussed in relation to nondisabled community members who have co-worker roles, and when the needs of community members with disabilities are placed at the center. Many responses emphasize that when it comes to community members with disabilities, it is clearly the task of the community to meet the needs of the individual as best possible. In fact, in some cases, this task is seen as explicitly arising from the ‹service provider› function of the community and the fact that the community is being contracted and paid for the support that it provides to the individual person with support needs. It is in this relationship that the centering of individual needs is generally seen as legitimate.
The ambivalence in the responses is much stronger when it comes to the situation of non-disabled community members. In some cases, there is a sense that communities are in danger of losing their cohesion as there is a greater differentiation of roles and tasks. This creates «fragmentation,» in which each person experiences greater freedom to manage their own life, but also a loss of the sense of community. However, there is also a sense that in the past, perhaps «some people surrendered too much of their life to the community,» and that those who perhaps needed to lean on community in the past, later rightfully rejected the «paternalism of the community.» This can be the case for community members with and without disabilities. Allowing this emancipation to happen requires an open attitude, «so that individualization is not seen as a loss of community spirit but as a positive (further) development of the individual.»
To counterbalance the potential loss of communal cohesion, respondents look towards new engagement and initiative that is freely given by individuals. This needs more knowledge and understanding of how to integrate and balance outer laws and regulations with community social structures so that these don’t compete and ultimately destroy each other. In general, responsibility for the move away from communal cohesion towards more individualization is attributed to external political and regulatory forces, which communities have little control over. There is a recognition that older and more established communities are often better able to make space for individual destinies, and that the dynamic is different in younger, more pioneering initiatives, but generally, the tempo, intensity, and non-linear nature of change process does not feel like something that is actively being steered and shaped, but more like a phenomenon that is «happening to us,» and within which communities are just trying to manage.
Finding agency in shaping this process and maintaining balance and integration between community and individual needs is described as something that needs deep dedication, heightened consciousness, questioning, awareness, and reflection on what is happening, as well as clarity of intention. One participant characterized these processes as «deeply consuming» and called for a «new spaciousness» and «profound steps towards» greater inclusiveness, which have to start within the individual. This can happen when I recognize that creating community is part of my individual calling and purpose.
To the extent that what I am working for in the community, be it the well-being of others around me, the land, or culture, brings meaning and resonates with my individual striving, the needs of the community and the unfolding of individual destiny become aligned. In the moments when this is achieved, the community becomes a working group, a community of people working together in freedom and learning and growing in the process. In this way, the needs of the individual and the needs of the association can come into balance.
In one community, the shift towards greater individualization and the increasing complexity that arises from the developments described by the Sociological Law were seen as calling for a structural change and a new model of community governance. The principles that are described as key to creating a container for these shifts, allowing for differentiation and self-management while maintaining the integrity of the whole, include distributed forms of leadership with self-managing teams and assignments of responsibility and accountability based on skills and resources. Diversity of roles and people, who work together on the basis of clear decision-making authority regarding their own responsibilities, requires more developed communication skills, but allows for the unfolding of individual initiative, agency, and capacities. This goes for direct support roles, as well as for the self-management capacities of people receiving support, who have decision-making authority over their own lives.
The Camphill Academy, as a professional training and education organization, describes the way that it tries to enhance students’ freedom and autonomy through accreditation and the possibility of university credit. This creates an educational pathway that, while being grounded in the community experience, does not ‹tie› people to the community but provides them with greater opportunities to follow their own destiny and calling, also beyond Camphill. This is consciously understood as a gesture of investing in the individual and their freedom. There is an awareness that this needs to be done in balance with the needs of the communities that are offering the learning context, but the role of the Academy as an educational organization is seen as rightly focused on the individual’s pathway of growth.
Question 3: How do you see the Spiritual Law at work in your region or your community?
Many respondents reflected on the nature of spirituality as something that is intimately individual, and on the way that spirituality can live in a community – and become a source of strength or be distorted into something that separates people. It was noted that there is a lot of confusion about spirituality – both on the individual level, where it can become hypocrisy when it turns into a false sense of superiority, and on the level of community, when rituals and practices become empty shells and meaningless performative acts.
There is a tendency for a community that has a shared spiritual practice to become an island and isolate itself from the rest of the world. In the view of many respondents, Camphill is not immune from that, and two gestures counteract this tendency. The one is to recognize that all spiritual striving is deeply individual and everyone finds their own unique path. The other is to connect as a spiritual community with others, whose practices are different – to stay connected and deeply engaged with the wider local and global communities.
A ‹spiritual quality› can be perceived and experienced in many communities. Testimony to that quality comes from respondents themselves, as well as through the comments of visitors. Intentionality, service, and search for meaning and confidence in the meaningfulness of individual destinies are some of the elements that are mentioned as contributing to that. People who spend time in a community come out changed and transformed. They experience individual growth and leave with new inner strength and capacities.
This is always an individual process that cannot be forced from outside. But the community can be an incubator for it, through open celebrations of culture, festivals, creativity, and space for inner development. In the meeting from human being to human being, dialogue and encounter are essential aspects and can lead to experiences of meeting the sacred in the other. Recognizing these moments requires interest in the other. «Unexpected moments become spiritual, because we give them an opportunity to be.» Communities can nurture this possibility.
Many communities describe attempts to renew and re-invent the way they celebrate festivals and engage in ritual together. Increasingly, any form that is experienced as denominational, as implying particular beliefs or evoking references to a particular religious tradition, is becoming a challenge. This is intensified by the increasing diversity of the backgrounds from which people come to join or interact with Camphill communities. It is also due to an increasing general struggle with traditional religious forms, motifs, and imagery. While all respondents recognize the validity of this struggle, some find it more and more difficult to communicate with others about their spiritual striving and experiences, using the language and images that have become meaningful to them over long periods of time. This disconnect is described as painful for both sides. How to bridge this divide, and how to create community spaces and practices for shared spirituality that are inclusive, welcoming of diversity, and yet don’t become arbitrary or shallow, is a challenge that many are wrestling with.
Where communities have leadership or management that is not interested in spirituality, it becomes increasingly difficult to pursue this question intentionally at all. However, this is only the case in some situations, and most respondents speak out of an active search. Many bring concrete examples of transformations in spiritual practice that their communities are working with. This appears as a space of experimentation: new forms of celebrating festivals, development of new rituals, removing language and images with denominational connotations or integration a diversity of languages, forms, and images from a variety of traditions – there doesn’t appear to be a simple solution, but these are all elements that many are working with in their communities.
Freedom of choice and freedom of expression of the individual become strong guiding principles in this area. One community is described as being «constantly in movement and development towards greater openness and acknowledgement of every individual.» The process of developing new practices is deliberately participatory and includes consultation and dialogue with all involved. Another community similarly describes: «This is currently our greatest challenge – the old cannot be lived in this form anymore, and the new is not yet clearly visible. But together with the residents, we are trying to discover new forms of gatherings or spiritual paths based on their needs and questions.»
In the context of a training that is based in anthroposophy, the Camphill Academy also acknowledges the challenges that come in balancing a specific intentional orientation towards spirituality with the openness and inclusivity required to do justice to the intention of being «universally human»: «[In] a training that includes a significant amount of anthroposophical content, how are we ensuring that we are not perpetuating a closed circle around ‹anthroposophy› as a privileged path to insight and development?» At least part of the answer, again, seems to lie in being contemporary and staying in dialogue and deep engagement with what is happening in our time, and in the world around us.
Synthesis of Post-Meeting Responses
Question 1: Please share any new insights, perspectives, reflections, and/or questions on the Fundamental Social Law, including how it might be relevant to the work in your community and/or region.
Participants’ reflections on the Fundamental Social Law, following the explorations during the Movement Group Meeting, highlight several key insights. All participants affirm that a deepened understanding of the Fundamental Social Law as a description of a principle of community well-being that is at work inherently, rather than a normative prescription, provides a helpful, deeply insightful and even inspiring lens through which to look at relationships and practices in their own community. Alignment of community consciousness and practice with the Fundamental Social Law is seen as enabling the free flow of individual talent, capacity, commitment, and gifts towards the shared purpose and mission of the community, which is one of service to others and to a real and present need of society and the world. The question is one of finding outer practices and ways of shared consciousness-building that support the inner disentanglement of two things that are essentially different, but easily become conflated in modern consciousness and labor practices: (1) Who takes on what roles and tasks in the fulfillment of our shared purpose; and (2) How do we allocate the resources that flow back to us from our surroundings, in order to enable us to continue to work for our shared purpose?
While the specific community practices are context-dependent, mutual trust emerges as a fundamental precondition for the ability of a community to work out of shared purpose, to recognize individual talent, destiny, and calling, allow these to flow freely in service of the whole, and to support each member in a way that allows this free flow of gifts towards purpose. This trust, and the fabric of human-to-human relationships that enables it, require community practices of generative dialogue to shape and re-shape shared purpose in response to the real and evolving needs of society. This needs open communication, abilities for conflict resolution, and true interest and belief in each other. Without these, neither the shared allocation of tasks and responsibilities, nor the stewardship of resources to enable individual livelihood, well-being, agency, and growth, will be successful.
Question 2: Please share any new insights, perspectives, reflections, and/or questions on the Sociological Law, including how it might be relevant to the work in your community and/or region.
Throughout the reflections on the Sociological Law, participants express that this principle has been challenging for Camphill and needs further study and engagement. There is a sense that Camphill has tended to highly value sacrifice of the individual to the community, at times even at the cost of burnout and other negative consequences for individuals and families. The challenge is to recognize when an inner gesture and orientation that is rightly placed in the pioneer phase of an impulse needs to shift – and how this can be done in a way that honors the mutuality and interdependence of individual and community.
Some participants expressed a remaining hesitancy about the consequences of accepting the premise of this law, concerned that it might ultimately lead to the complete loss of community. Others pointed to the need to better understand the context in which Steiner formulated the Sociological Law in response to the emergence of Social Darwinism, which Steiner characterized as a wrong conclusion, based on flawed thinking about a correct observation. In that reading, the Sociological Law affirms the ascendancy of the «needs and powers of the individual» but highlights that these can only emerge and be supported within the context of mutuality that co-evolves in the form of communities that become capable of supporting and facilitating individual destiny and biographical development.
How can we imagine a community that is strong and cohesive, while taking its directions from a perception of the destinies and goals of each individual within its sphere, and orienting itself towards enabling these individual life paths, rather than subsuming them under the community’s needs? There is a sense that this requires embracing the reality and justification of ‹anti-social› forces as a necessary phenomenon of our time, so that they can be given their due space within community life. For this, Camphill communities need to step out of their ‹comfort zone› and embrace individual diversity in a much deeper way than has often been the case. This requires social practices, forms, and methods that allow each individual to become visible to the community, to shine and be recognized with their gifts, intentions, and goals. Even within shared community processes, the I in the We should never get lost. Consciously working towards this inside-out reversal of the relationship between individual and community could be a new step in the evolution of Camphill as a movement, not just of individual communities.
Participants highlighted that it is helpful to see this process as one of developmental phases and asked whether the presence of communities at different stages of development within the Camphill Movement could be used much more as a resource, with younger communities learning from those further along in this process (and possibly, vice versa). Community practices around enabling continuing education and training for community members, based on their individual interests and calling, rather than community need, were highlighted as examples of the gesture of the community supporting «the free development of the needs and powers of the individual» in practice. These require true and open interest in the individual, practices of strong listening and withholding of community interests, to enable the community to perceive what lives in the individual and then adjust itself and make its resources available accordingly.
Question 3: Please share any new insights, perspectives, reflections, and/or questions on the Spiritual Law, including how it might be relevant to the work in your community and/or region.
This law received the least explicit attention in the discussions at the Movement Group meeting. However, several participants remarked that they had experienced that meeting itself, with its cosmopolitan diversity of backgrounds and perspectives and its open mood of shared inquiry and reflection, of mutual listening, learning from each other and, at the same time, lived experience of shared intentionality and purpose, as an embodiment of the inner gesture indicated by the Spiritual Law. Some contrasted this with the observation that Camphill (and other anthroposophical organizations) have sometimes shown a tendency to develop in the direction of the «kind of group ego» referenced in the Spiritual Law, which becomes an obstacle to development.
Reflections centered on the question: What are we called to develop today, as Camphill communities, in our relationship to spirituality, our sense of shared mission, vision, and purpose, and the community practices that give space to the cultivation of these elements? Some participants highlighted the need to make sure that the purpose of the community stays aligned with and responsive to the needs of the surrounding community. The increasing cultural diversity within the communities is unequivocally experienced as enriching and a source of strength and inspiration. It challenges the communities to become ever more open to diversity, to adapt, without losing the possibility of a shared focus and intentionality. The previous two laws were seen by some as describing the preconditions for this.
When spirituality is ultimately a matter of individual and personal inner orientation and practice, what does a community look like, where this can flow in as a gift and the spiritual orientation of each single member can become a pillar of the community’s orientation to shared purpose, mission, and vision? This requires a community culture of shared seeking, finding, sharing, in which the insights and discoveries of one are not imposed on the other, but allowed to be visible, so that they can inspire. What are the community forms and practices that enable this? And what role can anthroposophy play in creating these? Leadership practices, case study (in relation to the professional dimensions of direct support, education, and care work), and the practices of community celebration and ritual were highlighted as critical elements that can – when practiced in alignment with this law – facilitate the development of a shared deep spiritual orientation towards the universally human, a kind of spiritual humanism, that is grounded in individual spiritual practice without an assumption of uniformity or a ‹group ego› experience.
One participant explicitly raised the question whether the principle described in the Spiritual Law holds a key to understanding what is happening in Camphill today. Another participant complemented this by drawing attention to the context in which Steiner formulated the Spiritual Law, at the founding of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain in 1923. At that time, Steiner was addressing the question: How does a group of people with a shared spiritual mission integrate and live this mission in the context of the world, in which that mission must be compromised to be able to survive? In other words: How do we hold the tension between the clarity of higher purpose needed in order to accomplish a shared task of service to the world, and the realities of life, which demand that this shared purpose integrate itself into the whole of life, putting itself at the service of universal humanity, without making a shared spiritual group commitment into a precondition for its possibility to become effective? This raises the question of the inner constitution of the community taking up a task, and its relation to the wider community context, within which this community stands (ultimately, that is, all of humanity). Many participants expressed a wish to pursue these questions further in future meetings.
Conclusion
When reviewing the participants’ reflections on the three social principles articulated by Steiner in relation to their lived experience of Camphill community life, a few observations stand out. Overall, a clarification took place between the pre-meeting perspective and the insights that emerge after the meeting. Participants who were part of the meeting express that they now understand the ‹social laws› to be intended as descriptions of general principles at work in social and community processes, rather than normative prescriptions. In the same way as formulations of ‹natural laws› are meant to describe organizing principles that are at work in physical and material process, with observable consequences, these ‹social laws› were offered by Steiner as ways of pointing out the underlying dynamics behind
different sets of observable social development and community phenomena, and to provide an explanation of these in terms general principles.
Like natural laws, these formulations are open to being tested for accuracy against actual observation. At the same time, they do not in themselves state what ‹should› be done or prescribe any specific forms of practice. They merely point to the natural consequences that can be expected to arise, if community practices are aligned or misaligned with one or another organizing social principle. If accurate, they are important to take into account when pursuing a particular community-building intention or goal (such as the well-being of individual and community, or a community effectively acting in service to humanity as a whole), but they neither state what the intention or goal of a particular group of people should be, nor what specific community forms and practices might bring the work of a particular group of people into alignment with these principles under a specific set of circumstances. These questions necessarily remain to be worked out creatively, by the group of people working together in a particular place and time.
Among the three principles discussed, the relationship to the Fundamental Social Law, when understood in this sense, appeared to be non-controversial. The idea proposed seemed to make intuitive sense, namely that appropriate differentiation between the question of how – in the context of a community of people working together in a common task of service to the world – responsibilities and work are assigned and shared, and how the proceeds flowing back to the group from the surrounding world are shared among them to enable good livelihood, is helpful to community and individual well-being. Many framed this issue in terms of ‹decommodification of labor,› recognizing this as a desirable goal.
At the same time, it became clear that how to achieve this within the constraints of diverse social and economic realities, systems contexts, cultures, and regulatory environments, requires creative solutions, which cannot be uniform and must evolve over time. Once this was understood, there was a clear sense of license to seek unique and context-appropriate community practices, especially where income and livelihood are concerned, without a feeling of short-changing ‹Camphill values.› This is a question of consciousness, as much as form and practice. Based on this recognition, participants expressed the wish to continue sharing prototypes and practices, and to learn from each other through exchange of experience across different Camphill settings and contexts.
The Sociological Law evoked a much greater degree of ambivalence. This ambivalence also did not fully resolve in the responses after the meeting. On the one hand, there is a sense that Camphill culture may have tended to hold on to values and narratives appropriate to the pioneer phase, such as emphasizing ‹individual sacrifice for the common task›, giving primacy to the needs of the community, at the expense of individual well-being. The observable shift away from that framing and towards greater recognition of the validity and appropriateness of the ‹antisocial› needs for space and autonomy of the individual are recognized as positive signs of maturation from this perspective. On the other hand, some participants questioned whether the principle described by the Sociological Law was compatible with the ideals of Camphill, and whether – if it was allowed to run its course – it wouldn’t ultimately lead to the end of community and to complete individual isolation.
Overall, there was a sense that this principle had not been fully understood yet and needed further exploration. Processes in which a community tries to deeply listen to an individual, to understand their biographical motifs and intentions – for example, in order to support a request for further education – and then organizes itself accordingly and makes the appropriate resources available, seemed to offer practical instances, illustrating how a community, rather than dissolving, can begin to see itself as a facilitator of individual growth and development, while maintaining cohesion around the shared purpose of supporting each individual in the pursuit of their life path. A clear and commonly held orientation towards a shared task in service of the wider world outside of the needs of the community itself offers another potential source of cohesion that can resolve this dilemma. Ultimately, the Sociological Law emerges as a topic in need of further deepening in future meetings and other settings.
The Spiritual Law, on the other hand, seemed to sit comfortably with participants. There was a unanimous sense that cultural diversity and openness to diverse spiritual orientations are enriching to community life and constitute an appropriate goal and gesture for our time. However, this did prompt some reflection on the underlying tension: How can a community maintain the needed cohesion and unity of purpose necessary to accomplish shared goals in the world, in the service of all of humanity, while at the same time cultivating the openness needed for such a truly universalist orientation? This emerges as a fundamental paradox of any type of spiritual humanism: it needs to be coherent and focused, in order to be effective, and at the same time, its focus and coherence need to embody a universally human, cosmopolitan, and inclusive orientation, in order to serve the evolution of humanity and not become socially destructive in their impact and results. Participants acknowledged that the Spiritual Law had received the least direct attention during this meeting, but highlighted that the spirit of the meeting itself, its cosmopolitanism, its openness for diversity, paired with a strong sense of shared purpose and intentionality, served as a successful example for the quality of community called for by the this law.
Footnotes:
(1) Translation adapted from Steiner, R. (GA 34). Anthroposophy and the Social Question. Accessed on 2026-2-1 at https://rsarchive.org/Articles/GA034/English/Singles/AnSoQu.html.
(2) Translation adapted from Steiner, R. (GA 31). Collected Essays on Cultural and Contemporary History 1887-1901. Essay 60: Freedom and Society. Accessed on 2026-2-1 at https://rsarchive.org/Articles/GA034/English/Singles/AnSoQu.html.
(3) Translation from Steiner, R. (1998). Rudolf Steiner Speaks to the British. London: Rudolf Steiner Press. (264f).
(4) Jaeyong Choi’s (Perspectives 4-2025) contribution on Camphill in Korea is based on one of the presentations given at the event. Recordings of this and other presentations can be accessed at https://camphill.sutra.co.
Literature:
Choi, J. (2025). Remembering and renewing community [Gemeinschaft bewahren und erneuern]. Anthroposophic Perspectives in Inclusive Social Development, 4-2025, 16-23.
Kimmerer, R.W. (2015). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants . Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions.
McKanan, D. (2020). Camphill and the Future. Spirituality and Disability in an Evolving Communal Movement. Oakland: University of California Press.
Steiner, R. (GA 31, 1989). Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kultur- und Zeitgeschichte 1887-1901. Dritte Auflage. Aufsatz 60: Freiheit und Gesellschaft (251-262). Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag.
Steiner, R. (GA 34, 1987). Lucifer-Gnosis. 2. Auflage. Geisteswissenschaft und soziale Frage (191-221). Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag.
Steiner, R. (GA 259, 1991). Das Schicksalsjahr 1923 in der Geschichte der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. 1. Auflage. Versammlung zur Konstituierung der englischen Landesgesellschaft. Ansprache vom 2. September 1923 (603-613). Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag.