"We live in [a time when] human beings must become independent. But on what does this depend? It depends on people's ability...to become self-assertive, to not allow themselves to be put to sleep [in their thinking]. It is the antisocial forces that require development in this time, for consciousness to be present. It would not be possible for humanity in the present to accomplish its task if...these antisocial forces did not become ever more powerful; they are indeed the pillars on which personal independence rests. At present humanity has no idea how much more powerful antisocial impulses must become." -- Rudolf Steiner (Dec. 12, 1918)

Gary Lamb researched and gathered into this volume the many ways and perspectives that Rudolf Steiner has spoken or written about the profound importance of human relationships, human encounters, and right speaking and listening for engendering and maintaining spiritualized relationships and interpersonal communication, often referred to as "Goethean conversation" as described by Marjorie Spock.

Equally important, Lamb describes how these types of conversations and social dynamics attained through rigorous self-development practices provide the necessary soul-spiritual substance and forces for overcoming evil in modern life and for the implementing the Fundamental Social Law and a threefold social organism.

The author approaches all of this from the perspective of the mission of Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha.