THE ART OF GOETHEAN CONVERSATION

Marjorie Spock 1983

Archived Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120429193205/http://philosophyoffreedom.com/node/1987

Conversing, as Goethe conceived it, is the art of arts. The very place in his works where the subject finds mention lets us glimpse its singular rank in his esteem. This is in a key scene of his fairy tale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. There, the four kings enthroned in the subterranean mystery temple are roused to the dawning of a new Age of Man when the serpent, made luminous by the gold she had
swallowed, penetrates with her light into their dark sanctuary, and the following dialogue takes place:

“Whence came you hither?” asked the golden king.
“Out of the clefts where gold dwells,” replied the serpent.
“What is more glorious than gold?”
“Light!”
“What is more quickening than Light?”
“Conversation!”

Unless one understands what Goethe meant one can feel disappointed at the serpent’s answer, which scarcely seems the revelation one expected. For is conversation as we know it in the Twentieth Century really more glorious than gold, more quickening than light? Hardly! We attach the term to every casual exchange, to the most idle, inconsequential chit-chat. Surely, we feel, the term must have come down in
the world since Goethe’s day, suffering severest diminution in its slide. That this is indeed the case becomes apparent when we recall the salons of earlier centuries where great minds came together for significant talk. These occasions were of a wholly different order from our
social happenings. They were disciplined, where ours are chaotic, built around a common purpose, mutually enriching rather than depleting. It is impossible to picture the participants in a salon all talking at once, babbling away on as many subjects as there were pairs of conversationalists present. No! The star of a theme hung over the assemblage as over a pool studded with crystals, and the responsively
scintillating crystal intellects took turns voicing the reflections awakened in them.

Goethean conversations differ at least as much again from those of the salon as did the salon from today’s cocktail party. Their purpose is to call forth a fullness of spiritual life, not to stage displays of intellectual fireworks. They have nothing in common with the salon’s formal play of light-points sparkling in cold starlit glitter. Instead, they strive to enter the sun-warm realm of living thoughts where a thinker uses all himself as a tool of knowledge, where – in the manner of his thinking – he takes part as a creative spirit in the ongoing creative process of the cosmos.

This is to say that a true Goethean conversation takes place across the threshold, in the etheric world, where thoughts are intuitions (cf. Rudolf Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom), — that it breaks through into the realm of First Causes.

Lesser types of interchange never do this; they remain mere mentalizing, speculation, argument, a recounting of experience, an offering of opinion, a reporting. At their best they are nothing more than disciplined discussion, at their worst a mindless associative rambling.

While most of these lesser forms of exchange can be made to serve useful purposes, the fact that they remain on this side of the threshold condemns them to spiritual barrenness; they leave earth and those who take part in them unfulfilled. They cannot overcome the isolation with which every man born since Adam feels afflicted.

True conversations have that power. As the participants strive to enter the world of living thought together, each attunes his intuitive perception to the theme. And he does so in the special atmosphere engendered by approaching the threshold of the spiritual world: a mood of supernaturally attentive listening, of the most receptive openness to the life of thought into which he and his companions are now entering.

In such an attitude the consciousness of all who share it shapes itself into a single chalice to contain that life. And partaking of that divine nutriment they partake also of communion, of fellowship; they live the Grail experience of modern man.

We have found Goethe depicting conversation as the art of arts. If it is indeed such, and we aspire to it, what does its practice require of us? Surely no amount of inspired groping will suffice; techniques of a very special order must be cultivated.

Perhaps the first prerequisite is to be aware that the spiritual world beyond the threshold wishes every bit as keenly to be known to us as we wish to know it. It does not have to be taken by assault; it comes gladly to meet us, much as a wise and loving teacher responds to the warmth of a student’s interest. And no one genuinely eager to approach such a teacher with the proper reverence fails to elicit his responses. The spiritual world is no less eager to meet our interest. We recall Christ’s assurance of this: “Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

The seeker’s attitude thus proves a magically evoking wand that, like the rod of Moses, unlocks a flow of spiritual life. One must know this to be a fact, both in one’s own and others’ cases. Then the group’s consciousness becomes indeed a common vessel in which to receive such illumination as the world beyond the threshold may, on each given occasion, find it suitable to offer.

One cannot step with a single stride from ordinary thought and chatter into Goethean conversation. The latter requires the most loving preparation. Thoughts must first be conceived like children, and then brooded out in the spirits of the thinkers. To this end the theme of a meeting is set in advance. Each member of the group lives with it as a developing concern in his meditation. As the day of foregathering draws near he begins to anticipate coming together as a festival of light which, if he and his fellows have done their work well, will lead to their illumination by the spiritual world. What, specifically, is meant by work here?

Certainly not the production of any finished concepts, the amassing of quotes from authoritative sources, the getting up of a resume of reading done. Thinking and study engaged in prior to a meeting rather serve the purpose of rousing the soul to maximum activity so that it may come into the presence of the spirit all perception. Work of this sort is a warming up, a brightening of consciousness to render the soul a dwelling place hospitable to insight. One must be willing to sacrifice previous thinking, as one does in the second stage of meditation, in order to clear the scene for fresh illumination.

The principle here is the same as that advanced by Rudolf Steiner when he advised teachers to prepare their lessons painstakingly and then be ready to sacrifice the prepared plan at the dictate of circumstances which may point to an entirely fresh approach to their material If one is well prepared, he said, one will find the inspiration needed. Indeed, the principle is common to all esoteric striving. Invite the spirit by becoming spiritually active, and then hold yourself open to its visitation. Those who come to the meeting place thus prepared will not bring the street in with them in the form of all sorts of distracting chatter. One does not, after all, approach the threshold in an ordinary mood; and
where an approach is prepared, the scene in which the encounter takes place becomes a mystery temple setting. What is spoken there should harmonize with a temple atmosphere. Conventional courtesies to the person in the next chair, comments on the weather, the transacting of a bit of business, are all completely out of tune and keeping.

To abstain from chatter means learning to live without any sense of discomfort in poised quiet. But then, a very special regard for and tolerance of silence is a sine qua non of esoteric life, under which heading conversations too belong. This means an about-face from accustomed ways. In ordinary social intercourse words must flow, or there is no proof of relating; silences signal breakdowns in communication. But as one grows in awareness of the threshold, words for words’ sake come to seem disturbers of the peace. Unnecessary utterance intrudes upon and destroys the concentrated inner quiet that serves as a matrix for the unfolding life of intuition.

Conversations, then, rest as much on being able to preserve silence as on speaking. And when it comes to the latter, one can find no better guide to the ideal than is offered in another piece of Goethean insight. The poet saw necessity as art’s criterion (“Here is necessity; here is art.”). And one can sharpen one’s sense of the necessary to the point where a conversation develops like a living organism, every part essential and in balance, each contributor taking pains to lift and hold himself above the level of unshaped outpourings. To achieve true conversations one must, in short, build with the material of intuition. And to reach this height everything of a personal, sentient nature must be sacrificed. Only then can a conversation find its way to necessity.

When it does so, it becomes a conversation with the spiritual world as well as with one’s fellow earthlings. Though groups vary greatly, a good deal of practice is usually needed to grow into a capacity for Goethean converse. Most individuals today are so habituated to discussion that they can hardly conceive higher levels of exchange. We are conditioned to earth; the etheric realm has become a stranger to us.

Several means exist to school oneself in etheric thinking. A prime one is, of course, meditation as Anthroposophy teaches it. Another is an ever repeated study of Rudolf Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom, carried on with special attention to the way this book, which starts out on the customary ground of philosophic-intellectual argument, suddenly deserts it to lift, winged, into realms where every thought quickens and is free creative deed. Simply to follow that metamorphosis is to receive an infusion of etheric forces whereby one’s own thinking is enlivened and one’s mind tuned to intuitive perception.

A like transformation is brought about by steeping oneself in fairy tales and great poetry. For rhythms and images teem with spiritual life, and as one absorbs them one can feel one’s own life being magically quickened.

It is wholly contrary to a truly modern community building concept to lean on leaders in a conversation. Rather does the creation of a Grail Cup consciousness require an intact circle of fully active, responsible individuals whose only leader is the spiritual world. If, before coming together, every such individual brings the theme of the meeting alive in himself and then, having arrived there, suppresses the thoughts he has had, while offering the life they have engendered to the spirit, the spirit will not fail to bestow fresh insight on a gathering prepared to receive it. This can be experienced again and again. One has only to be active and keep the way clear, knowing that “where two or more are
gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of you.”

The hope of that Presence can be strengthened by learning to listen to one’s fellowmen in exactly the way one would listen to the spiritual world: evocatively, with reverence, refraining from any trace of reaction, making one’s own soul a seedbed for others’ germinal ideas. This is not to imply that the listener surrenders the least measure of discrimination. He weighs what he hears. But he does so in a novel manner by cleansing himself of sympathy and antipathy in order to serve as an objective sounding board against which the words of the speaker ring true or false.

Thus the speaker is brought to hear himself and weigh his own utterances. Correction – in the sense of an awakening – is there without others sitting in judgment on him. Nor is this all. Listening evocatively is a sun like deed. It rays the warmth and light of interest into the thought-life quickening in the circle and encourages it to a veritable burgeoning.

A question often asked by those who become interested in exploring conversations is: How does one go about choosing themes? Certainly not in the usual arbitrary manner. One cannot, as perhaps happened in the salon, seek out the intellectually most appealing theme, nor, like today’s discussion group, run one’s finger down a list of Timely Topics trying to light on the timeliest. Instead, burning questions that
have been harbored in the souls of the participants will seek the light, — questions that have sprung from a heart’s concern with matters of the spirit and are therefore already full of life, and fire and rooted in something deeper than the intellect. Of their own vitality these will burst out to claim the attention of the meeting.

Often a theme teems with such fullness of life that it goes through a long series of metamorphoses requiring many meetings for its exploration. Themes of this kind are especially valuable, for they tend to become lifelong spiritual concerns of all the members, and it is easy to see how indissolubly conversations about such matters link the participants in the conversation.

For a conversation to become a work of art, its life must be given form within a framework. Otherwise it would straggle on amorphously. The framework that keeps conversations shaped is built in part of temporal elements, in part of a very simple ritual. Thus it will be found desirable to fix the exact time of both beginning and ending meetings, and to keep punctually to it, while everyone who intends to be
present understands that he should arrive well beforehand to prepare himself to help launch the evening’s activity in a gathered mood. These are invariable rules of esoteric practice.

The ritual consists of rising and speaking together a line or more chosen for its spiritually-orienting content, — for example “Ex deo nascimur (Of God we are born);” “In Christo morimur (In Christ we die);” “Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus (Through the Holy Spirit we shall live again).” The same or another meditation may be spoken to end the meeting, again exactly at a pre-determined hour. It may be feared that rigid time-limits inhibit the free unfolding of a conversation. This fear proves ungrounded. A painter’s inspiration is not limited by the size of his canvas. Rather do limits serve in every art form as awakeners, sharpening awareness of what can be accomplished, and composition
always adapts itself intuitively to the given space.

To make a composition all of one piece as it must be if it is to rank as art, the conversing circle needs to take unusual measures to preserve unity. Here again, there is a vast difference between a discussion and a conversation. In the former, few feel the least compunction about engaging in asides. Disruptive and rude though these are, and betraying conceit in their implication that what one is muttering to one’s
neighbor is of course of far more interest than what the man who has the floor is saying, they are not as final a disaster as when they take place in a conversation. For discussions base themselves on intellect, and intellectual thinking tends naturally to separateness.

Conversations are of an order of thought in which illumined hearts serve as the organs of intelligence, and the tendency of hearts is to union. The conversation group must make itself a magic circle; the least break in its Grail-Cup wholeness would let precious light-substance generated by the meeting drain away. Sensitive participants will feel asides and interruptions to be nothing less than a cutting off of
the meeting from the spiritual world.

Many individuals feel that no conversation could ever match the inspiration of a top-flight lecture. Hence, they tend to think conversing is a waste of time much better spent reading lectures or listening to them. No doubt lectures do serve important functions. Painstakingly prepared, they convey concentrations of spiritual substance to listeners, who sit down as it were to a meal someone else has placed before them. But to continue the analogy, dyed-in-the-wool lecture-goers do all their eating at restaurants, never learning the lovely art of homemaking.

There is something woefully one-sided in such a way of life. Not only does it avoid responsibility and neglect opportunities for creative growth: it means remaining childishly dependent in the most important phase of human evolution, when one should be progressing from having truth revealed to discovering truth by one’s own activity.

Rudolf Steiner was no friend of dependency in any form. He seldom told people the solution to a problem, and the only when exceptional pressures of time required it. Rather did he show the way to solving problems for oneself. And that is what the times demand of us: that we become spiritually self-active, learning to draw sustenance from the spiritual world for earth’s renewal. Goethean conversations will be found an ideal schooling for this task of foremost importance.


Here is an excellent supplement article summarizing Marjorie Sparks Work


Marjorie Spock (1904-2008) wrote a short essay on The Art of Goethean Conversation which has been of interest to me since I first heard of the concept almost 20 years ago.  Subsequently, I have been noticing on the Internet various commentary on her essay, most of which, quite frankly, seems quite far off the mark from her original essay.  As I have been wanting to develop an understanding of this concept further in myself, it seemed appropriate to revisit the subject, and starting with her text, define and identify the characteristics of this “art.”

The Value of Conversation

The essay begins with a quote from Goethe’s The Green Snake and The Beautiful Lily, in which the serpent declares that light is more glorious than gold and conversation more quickening than light.

Commentary

Here the stage is set for the value of conversation – it is more life giving than light, taking the word “quickening” to mean “enlivening,” as in the expression “the quick and the dead.”  Light is indisputably life giving, yet conversation is more quickening, leading to the idea that while light is life giving to the body, conversation goes deeper, giving life to the soul.  Thus we arrive at the very premise of the concept of Goethean conversation: conversation enlivens the soul.

The State of Conversation Today

Unfortunately, we do not often speak in soul enlivening ways – our “conversation” has devolved into, as Spock writes “casual exchange, to the most idle, inconsequential chit-chat.”  Spock contends that in the “salons of earlier centuries” conversation was much different.  It was:

  • disciplined
  • built around a common purpose
  • mutually enriching

whereas today our conversations are chaotic, irrelevant, and depleting.

Commentary

What images come up when we imagine “salons of earlier centuries?”  A salon “is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation.”1  Invented in Italy in the 16th century and so called for the large reception hall of Italian mansions, salons flourished in France in the 17th and 18th centuries and was a place for exchanging ideas and integral to the process of Enlightenment.  Women played an important (though debated) role in salons, seen either as the creating salons or facilitating the ideas and debates generally associated with the Enlightenment.1

Regardless of the debate historians have, it is clearly connected to the Enlightenment, which was a “cultural movement of intellectuals…[whose] purpose was to reform society using reason, challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and advance knowledge through the scientific method.  It promoted science, skepticism and intellectual interchange and opposed superstition, intolerance and some abuses by church and state.”4

We can imagine a disciplined discourse around specific themes, bringing new understanding to the participants.  However, being associated with the Enlightenment and its emphasis on scientific method and opposition to “superstition,” it would appear that the conversations occurring in salons were moving away from a spiritual world concept and towards a scientific world concept.

Intellectual vs. Spiritual Conversation

Still, Goethean conversations are not the same as the conversations in the salons of  previous times, which were “displays of intellectual fireworks.”  Rather, Goethean conversations “call forth a fullness of spiritual life.”  An important premise to the concept of Goethean conversation is:

  • one must have a belief in “the spiritual.”

If we have this belief, we can proceed with the basic tenets of Goethean conversation:

  • “A thinker uses all himself as a tool of knowledge, where … he takes part as a creative spirit in the ongoing creative process of the cosmos.”
  • “A true Goethean conversation takes place across the threshold, in the etheric world, where thoughts are intuitions.”

Spock contrasts this spiritually enlivened conversation with that of “lesser forms of exchange”, having the characteristics of:

  • mentalizing (intellectualizing)
  • speculation or opinions
  • arguing
  • recounting experiences or reporting

and while these conversations can be disciplined, they are also often simply “mindless associative rambling.”  While these are often necessary forms of conversation, they are none-the-less devoid of spiritual content.

Commentary

This leads to the following observations:

  • Rather than knowledge being a tool for my thinking, I am instead a thinking tool for knowledge.
  • My thinking is part of an ongoing creative process.

These two observations change my relationship to the process of conversation – rather than conversation being an egoistic process of talking about myself or trying to convince someone else of my way of thinking, conversation instead becomes the process of receiving knowledge as part of a creative process.  This shifts my self-view from that of being the center and everyone else being the periphery to instead viewing myself and everyone else as the periphery and the “cosmos”, if you will, as being the center, from which conversation emanates.  This change in perception helps take me from (at best) an intellectual discourse to a spiritual discourse.

As Rudolf Steiner writes regarding intuition in the Philosophy of Freedom: “In contrast to the content of percept which is given to us from without, the content of thinking appears inwardly. The form in which this first makes its appearance we will call intuition. Intuition is for thinking what observation is for percept. Intuition and observation are the sources of our knowledge. An observed object of the world remains unintelligible to us until we have within ourselves the corresponding intuition which adds that part of reality which is lacking in the percept.” (Chapter 5)

Goethean conversation is intimately connected with thinking – and as such is related to the process of associating percepts with concepts (intuition.)  “The moment a percept appears in my field of observation, thinking also becomes active through me. An element of my thought system, a definite intuition, a concept, connects itself with the percept.” (Chapter 6)  But this is a process that takes place, not in the “physical world” of things, but in the etheric world, the world of forces animating the things in the “physical world” with life.  Here we see again how Goethean conversation is
intimately connected with life itself–“more quickening than light.”

Conversation Requires Listening and Openness

Conversely, “living thought” is the concept of focusing on a theme and developing one’s “mood of supernaturally attentive listening” in order to develop the skills of intuitive perception – taking our percepts and developing concepts from them in such a way that our thoughts are a part of a universal process and we ourselves are “a tool of knowledge.”

Commentary

This requires an inner poise of listening, not just to others but also to ourselves, our thinking process, and most importantly our impressions from the spiritual world.  It also requires a receptivity, an openness “to the life of thought.”  Thought,
being the precursor of Goethean conversation, is a process that has life (dinstinct from the physical processes of life), and as such is entwined with the spiritual.  It is at
this point that conversation is transformed into a communion or fellowship.

Techniques of Goethean Conversation

How do we go about having this spiritually enlivened form of conversation?  Here Spock provides some guidelines:

  1. We must be aware that the spiritual world wishes to be known and will respond to our reverent interest.
  2. Preparation is necessary – our initial thoughts, like children, must be nurtured and raised into maturity by further thinking.  The theme of a meeting is set in advance and the participants meditate on that theme.
  3. A willingness to sacrifice previous thinking to allow new thoughts to enter.  “Invite the spirit by becoming spiritually active, and then hold yourself open to its visitation.”
  4. Learn to live comfortably with outer quiet.
  5. Develop “inner quiet” to cultivate intuition.
  6. Treat silence equal with speaking:  learn to distinguish the formed thought from the unformed thought so that the necessity of speaking becomes evident and only then breaks the silence.
  7. Sacrifice the personal in order to allow the conversation to “find its way to necessity.”

Commentary

The recurring themes in these techniques are:

  • equanimity
  • non-attachment
  • open
  • ego-less
  • inner quietness

all of which point to the necessity of meditation in one’s life.

Preparation however is also key – this is an opportunity to individually delve deeply into the theme of the meeting by exploring our individual thoughts on the matter.  Personally, I do not exclude research to develop a deeper understanding of a topic – especially when the issues are complex,  I find it helpful to understand the concepts, terminology, history, and thoughts of others.  However, one cannot become attached to a particular way of thinking – in fact, Spock recommends that we sacrifice our previous thinking in order to let new ideas come to life.

Practice

Spock describes several practices that we can work with to deepen the techniques of conversation:

  1. Meditation as described in Anthroposphy.
  2. The repeated study of the Philosophy of Freedom.
  3. Reading fairy tales and great poetry.

Commentary

These all aim at developing our spiritual life, enliven our thinking and develop our skills of intuitive thinking.  These practices help to develop and refine the techniques described earlier.

The Group

Spock describes attributes of the members of the group when coming together for conversation:

  1. There is no leader – the leadership comes from the spiritual world
  2. Members are active and responsible (I would imagine this refers to the practices described above.)
  3. Bring the theme, yet suppress the thoughts one has had regarding the theme, and prepare to receive fresh insight.
  4. Listen to other members in the group as one listens to the spiritual world – “evocatively, with reverence, refraining from any trace of reaction, making one’s own soul a seedbed for others’ germinal ideas.”
  5. Be discriminating and objective rather than succumbing to sympathies and antipathies with regards to what is being said.
  6. Listen, as this generates interest and quickens (brings life) to the thoughts of the group.
  7. Ask questions – “burning questions that have been harbored in the souls of the participants”

Commentary

When the group meets, the techniques described above (equanimity, non-attachment, etc.) are actively engaged.  The image of the group being the periphery (easily imagined when the group forms itself on the circumference of a circle) and the spiritual world being the center from which knowledge emanates is perhaps a good mental picture to hold.  Questions, which enliven the discussion, are not necessarily asked to other members of the group but are asked rather to “the center”, and members respond when thinking, formed out of listening, creates the necessity of speech.  In this way the spiritual world is both an active participant and, through the members of the group, provides the leadership for the conversation – “Where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of you.”  Here we see the concept of the salon enlivened by integrating and including the spiritual world into the conversation.

The Framework of Meetings

Spock describes the framework in which to have meetings:

  1. Set an exact beginning and ending time for each meeting.
  2. Arrive ahead of time to prepare the proper mood.
  3. Begin the meeting by rising and speaking in unison a line (or several) with a spiritually oriented content.  Close the meeting the same way.
  4. There is a difference between discussion and conversation.  In conversation, side discussions do not occur.  Conversation occurs without side discussions or other interruptions and creates a sense of unity in the group.

Commentary

Adhering to a strict form and respecting the meeting’s timeframe provides a physical structure that all members of the group can rely on and avoids the confusion and emotions that occur when people arrive late or talk amongst themselves.  Beginning and ending the meeting with a spiritually oriented reading is creates an in-breath at the beginning of the meeting, bringing focus, and an out-breath at the end of the meeting, a concluding release.

Concluding Thoughts

In The Speech of the Grail, Linda Sussman writes:

“…the initiate-speaker has to leap in two directions, and both leaps are a kind of listening.  The speaker, like language, stands at the intersection of the manifest and unmanifest worlds, whether ‘unmanifest’ refers to the unconscious, the spiritual domain or just to the unknown.  If preconceptions, assumptions and the tendency to be judgmental have been sufficiently released, the initiate-speaker stands mostly in ‘not-knowing.’   One can then listen into what wants to be said, for which one must leap toward the unmanifest, and into what can or must be said, for which one must leap
toward the manifest, the social context.  Both are difficult leaps, but if accomplished, the speaker allows those two worlds to touch in and through the words.”

This eloquently summarizes the gesture of Goethean conversation: there is a “leap toward the unmanifest” through the act of listening to the spiritual world for what “wants to be said,” followed by a “leap toward the manifest” in which one determines what “must be said” and bringing those words to the social context of the group.  This is the “art” of Goethian conversation, and Marjorie Spock has built a concise guide for the practice, technique, and framework in which to develop this art.

About Marjorie Spock

Marjorie Spock was born Sept. 8, 1904, in New Haven, Connecticut, the second child and first daughter of six children. The Spock family was prominent in New Haven; her father was a corporate lawyer, and her older brother, Dr. Benjamin Spock, became a renowned pediatrician. Marjorie became a student of Anthroposophy as a teenager in Dornach during the 1920s, and became a eurythmist, teacher, biodynamic gardener, and the author and translator of numerous books.  In the 100th year of her life, she produced, directed, and choreographed a video about eurythmy, followed by two short training films when she was 101 and 102 years of age. Marjorie Spock died at her home in Maine, Jan. 23, 2008, at the age of 103. 2

Marjorie Spock was also an environmentalist, author and poet.  In the 1950’s, she was a biodynamic gardener on Long Island, New York, and sued the U.S. government for spraying DDT to control the gypsy moth epidemic.  Her case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1960, which came to the attention of Rachel Carson and was the impetus for Carson’s book, Silent Spring.  While Spock lost the case, the government was required to perform an environmental review and Spock’s action helped lead to the rise of the
environmental movement. 3

1 – Salon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(gathering)

2 – Marjorie Spock:
http://www.steinerbooks.org/author.html?au=1300

3 – Marjorie Spock:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Spock

4 – The Enlightenment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment