Hermann Beckh (1875-1937) was one of the co-founders of The Christian Community. A remarkable linguist and universal scholar, he mastered six European and six Oriental languages and published more than twenty works on the humanities, dealing with Christology, Cosmology and Musicology. Having first studied Law, he later channeled his extensive research of Hinduism and Buddhism into a renewal of sacramental Christianity. ‘Without the Professor’, wrote his colleague Rudolf Meyer, the beginnings of the new religious movement were ‘unthinkable’.

Gundhild Kačer-Bock – daughter of Beckh’s priest-colleague and fellow author Emil Bock – creates a lively picture of a unique personality. Beginning with his birth in Nuremberg and education in Munich, she reviews Beckh’s manifold studies and writings, his meeting with Rudolf Steiner in 1911, the founding of the Movement for Religious Renewal in Stuttgart in 1922, and the seminal Christmas Conference in Dornach in 1923. Having known Beckh personally, she builds on her own memories as well as Beckh’s recorded memoirs, and utilizes newly-discovered letters and documents.

This new edition contains Beckh’s fairy-tale ‘The Story of the Little Squirrel, the Moonlight Princess and the Little Rose’ (with colour illustrations by Tatjana Schellhase), with additional appreciations of the author and an illustrative plate section.

‘A University Professor, who had been a Judge and Orientalist, now became a priest with us. He actively took part in carrying the birth of the new ritual words; he was an expert in the mysteries of language… An abundance of books came into existence whose significance perhaps will only be properly appreciated in the future.’ – Emil Bock (1959)

DR GUNDHILD KAČER-BOCK (1924–2008) was the editor of her father Emil Bock’s extensive writings as well as his biographer. Her other works include studies on Steiner’s Mystery Dramas, the early history of the Anthroposophical Society and a chronicle of the early days of The Christian Community. She was educated at the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, and later at state schools. In 1941, when she was just seventeen years old, The Christian Community was closed by the Nazis and her father imprisoned. In 1952 she married Hans Kačer and enjoyed many travels with him to Brittany, Ireland, Scotland and Greece to visit megalithic sites, Christian cathedrals and chapels, and simply to enjoy nature.