http://www.stateofnature.org/?p=7116
Magical thinking has a long history of involvement among leading intellectuals within the global organic agricultural movement and with bourgeois intellectuals more generally; with one of the most influential proponents of such organic connections being the Christian spiritualist Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). As the founder of a bizarre movement known as Anthroposophy, Steiner was a true believer in miracles, and the year before he died he presented a series of lectures to farmers in Europe that expounded the principles of what would come to be known as the biodynamic cultivation: a mystical form of farming that averred that astral and zodiacal forces could be harnessed by farmers to maximize agricultural productivity. Eager to spread Steiner’s ideas in Britain, in 1928 his green disciples set up the Anthroposophical Agricultural Association (which is now known as the Biodynamic Agricultural Association). This Associations explicitly New Age approach to farming, however, did not sit well with all budding organic agriculturalists. But while influential individuals in the secular farming movement, like Sir Albert Howard, were uncompromisingly skeptical about biodynamic cultivation, Steiner’s magical ideas were readily accepted by many leading members of the organic movement...