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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 10, No. 5

Publication Date: May 25, 2023

DOI:10.14738/assrj.105.14747.

Paull, J., & Harvey, J. (2023) Marna Pease (1866-1947): Founder of Biodynamics for the English-Speaking World. Advances in Social

Sciences Research Journal, 10(5).272-301.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Marna Pease (1866-1947): Founder of Biodynamics for the

English-Speaking World

John Paull

University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Joan Harvey

Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

Marna Pease (1866-1947) was the founder of Biodynamic farming in Britain. The

‘Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation’ (AAF) was inaugurated at the ‘World

Conference on Spiritual Science and its Practical Applications’ (WCSS), London, July

1928, with Marna as the Honorary Secretary. Under the auspices of the AAF, Marna

shepherded the fledgling Anglo Biodynamic (BD) movement through the turbulent

times of the Great Depression (1929-1939), the Great Anthroposophy Purge (1935),

and World War II (1939-1945). Marna stepped down in 1946. By that time there

were reportedly over 400 members of the AAF. With Dr Carl Alexander Mirbt, she

produced the first BD preparations in Britain at her home, Otterburn Tower,

Northumberland. She took up the role of Honorary Secretary of both the AAF and

the ‘Experimental Circle of Anthroposophical Farmers and Gardeners’. The AAF

initially operated out of Otterburn (315 miles north of London, 74 miles south of

Edinburgh). Marna was a member of the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical

Society in Great Britain. She relocated to the Old Mill House at Bray-on-Thames (30

miles west of London) in 1930. Marna typed, bound, and despatched copies around

the world, of the English translation of Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Agriculture Course’, to those

who joined the Experimental Circle. She edited the first Biodynamics journal in

English: ‘Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation Notes and Correspondence’.

Marna provided members with the BD preparations and she published BD

pamphlets. She established a showcase Biodynamic Garden and apiary at Bray-on- Thames. She recruited members, hosted visitors, and maintained an international

correspondence with enquirers and members. Marna hosted Carl Mirbt (aka Mier)

and his family, first at Otterburn and then at Bray. She hosted Dr Eugen Kolisko, Lilly

Kolisko, and their daughter at Bray. Lilly’s ‘Biologisches Institut am Goetheanum’

(Biological Institute at the Goetheanum) relocated from Stuttgart to Bray in 1935.

Marna was fluent in German and she translated Steiner’s ‘Nine Lectures on Bees’

(published 1933) and Lilly’s ‘The Moon and the Growth of Plants’ (published 1938).

Marna’s legacy continues with the Biodynamic Agricultural Association (BDAA) in

Britain, and with BD agriculture in the Anglo-sphere presently accounting for 30%

of global BD agriculture.

Keywords: Rudolf Steiner, Biodynamic agriculture, Biodynamic farming,

Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation (AAF), Experimental Circle of

Anthroposophical Farmers and Gardeners, Agriculture Course, Biodynamic Association

(BDA), Biodynamic Agricultural Association (BDAA), Anthroposophy, George Kaufmann

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Paull, J., & Harvey, J. (2023) Marna Pease (1866-1947): Founder of Biodynamics for the English-Speaking World. Advances in Social Sciences

Research Journal, 10(5).272-301.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.105.14747

(George Adams), Eleanor Merry, Lilly Kolisko, Eugen Kolisko, Carl Mirbt (Carl Mier),

Otterburn, Bray.

“There was ... no part of Anthroposophy, and no new venture, that she was not willing to and

eager to support, either with money or deeds of kindness” [1, p.2].

INTRODUCTION

Marna Pease (1866-1947) was the founder of Biodynamics in Britain. As the Anglo-guardian of

Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Agriculture Course’, she typed and bound and despatched copies of the

‘Agriculture Course’ throughout Britain and the Anglo-world. She maintained an extensive

correspondence with devotees and interested parties around the world. This is her story.

Biodynamic farming was the precursor of organic agriculture. Biodynamics is a niche variety of

organic agriculture. Organic agriculture produces food without synthetic inputs. There are six

exclusions: synthetic fertilisers, synthetic pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs),

ionising radiation, prophylactic antibiotics, and engineered nanotechnology [2]. Additionally,

Biodynamic producers apply specific ‘preparations’ of various herbs and minerals to their

compost heaps and fields [3].

The charismatic New Age philosopher, Dr Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) presented, in eight

lectures, his ideas for an agriculture differentiated from chemical agriculture, in June 1924, at

the Estate of Carl Keyserlingk, at Koberwitz, Germany (now Kobierzyce, Poland) [4-6]. At his

Agriculture Course, Rudolf Steiner founded the ‘Experimental Circle of Anthroposophical

Farmers and Gardeners’. The Experimental Circle was tasked by Steiner with testing his “hints”

[7] and subsequently publishing procedures that were proven effective. The Experimental

Circle was a distributed research entity comprising members around the world (although

initially only in Continental Europe). This included the Anglo-world once the Agriculture Course

was published in German and in English translation.

Two months after Koberwitz, Rudolf Steiner presented an Anthroposophy Summer School at

Torquay, a sea-side resort-town in southern England (August,1924) [8, 9]. At the time, Rudolf

Steiner was mortally ill, and the Torquay visit was his final trip to Britain, or anywhere. The

following month, back home in Dornach, Switzerland, he retired to his sick bed (on 28

September, 1924); it was the end of his public life, and, without rallying, he passed away on 30

March 1925 [10].

A young acolyte of Steiner’s, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (1899-1961), based at Dornach, Switzerland,

was the co-ordinator of the Experimental Circle. Pfeiffer published his book ‘Bio-Dynamic

Farming and Gardening’ in five languages in 1938 [11]. The following year, Pfeiffer presented a

Summer School of Biodynamics at Lord Northbourne’s farm in Kent, England, in July 1939,

explaining Rudolf Steiner’s vision of regarding the farm as an organism [12]. Northbourne took

these ideas and stripped out the mysticism of Anthroposophy and the prolixity of Steiner, he

coined the term ‘organic farming’, and he published ‘Look to the Land’ in 1940, a manifesto of

organic agriculture [13]. Biodynamics was thereby the predecessor and progenitor of organic

agriculture [14].