Holistic Special Education
Camphill Principles and Practice

Edited by Robin Jackson

Softbound

$30.00

Parents and professionals working with special needs children are often faced with difficult decisions about the best ways to educate such children. This book presents a case for holistic special education as practiced by Camphill villages and schools.

Camphill’s holistic approach embraces education and therapy in a number of different forms, including all aspects of care—from nutrition and daily skills to bedtime routines—as well as craft work and medical treatment. It emphasizes the importance of the creative arts alongside core aspects of curriculum such as literacy and math. Camphill philosophy holds that the relationship between the child and the adult coworker should be one of mutual teaching and learning. It recognizes parents, not as recipients of a service, but as equal and active partners, while striving to develop the physical, mental, and spiritual aspects of a child.

Written by people who are actively involved in holistic special education on a daily basis, this is an honest and informative manual that will be valued by parents and professionals alike.

The Camphill Movement

Karl König

$12.95

Dr. König and friend

This is a lovely introduction to what has become the Camphill Movement. In Scotland in 1939, Dr. Karl König founded the first Camphill community for children with special needs. This is his account of the spiritual and social roots of the worldwide Camphill movement, the ethical and moral attitudes that give these communities their life, and the practical expression of their ideals. We find this account both inspiring and thought provoking and recommend it to you without hesitation.

The Lives of Camphill
An Anthology of the Pioneers

Compiled and edited by
Johannes M Surkamp

Softbound

$50.00

The Camphill Movement began in 1939 with a small group of young Austrian refugees led by Karl König. The Lives of Camphill is a definitive reference to more than a hundred of those who joined the movement from the 1940s until the early 1970s—individuals who worked in a unique way with children and adults with special needs and helped make Camphill the large and influential network it is today.

The Lives of Camphill gathers 129 short biographies and more than 70 photographs that span those thirty formative years during which the movement spread across the globe. Each story tells of a fascinating individual and together they form a remarkable whole that documents the history of Camphill Villages in the most appropriate way—through the people.

Shaping the Flame
A Celebration of the Camphill Movement

Bob Clay et al.

Foreword by Sir John Tavener

Elegantly Softbound

$29.95

Click here for a tiny sample of images from the book

Breathtakingly beautiful, Shaping the Flame captures the heart and soul of the Camphill Movement. There aren't words, at least not in my command, that really convey the immediacy of Life or the depth of Beauty recorded here in image, verse and prose -- you'll really need to see it for yourself. I can say that it brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart; and, rekindled a sense of hope that I didn't even know had been lying dormant for a while.

In our opinion, the work of Karl König (founder of the Camphill Movement) and the Camphill Villages throughout the world are the warm heartbeat of the goals of Anthroposophy: Shaping the Flame is like still, crystaline water, reflecting it back into the world.

Most of the text is accompanied by lavish artwork and illustration. The book takes the reader on a 'creative journey through the year', covering seasonal activities, festivals and a wide variety of superb craft work.

...The pictures, like music in song, are equal or even dominant partners with the text. Imagination and skill go hand in hand in the layout of the pages, the pictures, the lettering. It’s a beautiful production.

From the Friend, 28 July 2000

Shining Lights
Celebrating Forty Years of Community in Camphill Village

September 17, 1961 -
September 17, 2001
Copake, New York

Softbound, full color, large format

$25.00

Recorded on these pages is a monumental journey, one that required the heart, vision, courage and hard work of hundreds of people. This is a journey that arrives triumphant every single day and begins again with vigor each new morning. I marvel at how well it is recorded in this single volume.

The great souls whose lives and work on behalf of Camphill Village in Copake, New York grace these pages are many, too many to name them all. Gladys Hahn, Janet McGavin, Carlo Pietzner, Dorothea von Jeetz and many whose names you won't recognize are here. More than any one person, though, is the wonder that from a beginning of some land, a vision and dedication Camphill Village has become truly a village where what is most noble and best in the human heart is allowed to live, where hundreds of developmentall disabled people have found love and dignity and been allowed to contribute work of real value, where, as Alton Marshall says, "no basic principle governing human relationships has been compromised."

Amazing! A book to love and cherish - as the Camphill Movement is a deed to love and cherish.

Camphill Villages

Edited by Anke Weihs & Joan Talló

Revised Edition edited by Wain Farrants

Softbound

$3.95

This book gives a brief description of the founding of Camphill and the start of the Village Communities for individuals with special needs. There are descriptions of all of the adult communities, as well as training centres for young adults all over the world as of 1988. There are some described, which are no longer Camphill, and there are many additions, especially in Eastern Europe . Otherwise, it is still a good foundation for an understanding of the purposes and scope of Camphill.

Camphill Communities
A Guide to Centres in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland

The Association of Camphill Comunities

Full Color, hundreds of photos

Softbound, large format

$16.95

This is one of the best ways to get a feel for what a Camphill Community has to offer a developmentally disabled person and the whole world. While not everyone lives in Great Britain, the warmth and variety of life of Camphill Villages worldwide is well represented in these lively portraits of Camphill Villages in the United Kingdom. You'll get a wonderful sense of how unique each Camphill is while at the same time you come to see clearly the heart which they all share.

The photos are especially wonderful because they all feature the people who live and work in these very special places. Looking through it just made my heart sing.

Education for Special Needs
Principles and Practice
in Camphill Schools

Henning Hansmann

$29.95

Hansmann's account of the life within a Camphill community paints a picture that is richly detailed and inspiring. The author describes in clear and concise terms the daily life and educational approach of a Camphill village, pointing always to the underlying principles that sustain it.
If you've ever wondered what is really done at a Camphill community - and more importantly, why - I think you'll find Education for Special Needs: Principles and Practice in Camphill Schools to offer the clearest and most thorough presentation to date. If you have a child with special needs, you may even find helpful inspiration for your own situation.

Children with Special Needs

Michael Luxford

$9.95

This is the best "first book" on curative education we have seen, and we are genuinely glad to be able to offer it to you. This is a concise and fully illustrated introduction to Rudolf Steiner's ideas on the education of children with special needs. Though not intended as more than a general overview, the details of working with children manifesting a variety of learning barriers and emotional/physical challenges are incredibly instructive, in part because of the many well-chosen photographs (some of which are simply terrific!).

About Curative Education

Carlo Pietzner

Softbound

$5.00

A remarkably concise and comprehensive introduction to the anthroposophical approach to special education. Pietzner originally delivered the contents of this booklet as a lecture and managed to pack into that format more clear, useful and illuminating information than anyone could reasonably expect.

If you are would like to learn about what Camphill Villages are all about, or are hoping to find an approach to help a family member or friend with special needs, this is one of the best places you could start.

Questions of Destiny
Mental Retardation and Curative Education

Carlo Pietzner

$12.95

Carlo Pietzner took up the painfully difficult question of "Why does mental retardation occur?" Questions of Destiny is the answer he found. Clearly, simply, and from the depths of his heart and knowledge he answers: "Destiny." What unfolds from that simple yet profound answer is a truly loving and meaningful healing education. A gem of a book for anyone concerned with this issue.

Festival Images for Today

Fourteen Lectures by
Carlo Pietzner

Softbound

$15.95

This anthology of 14 lectures points to the correspondence of microcosmic or human rhythms with the macrocosmic cycles of the year - acknowledged in what we call festival celebrations. Pietzner describes the inhalation and exhalation of our sense experiences during the course of the year, the connection of deep esoteric traditions and Christian striving with the gentle progression of nature, and the attempt to focuse our consciousness toward specific and important moments during the year.

I especially like that he makes an effort at every turn to link the phenomena and images of daily life with the grand events of the festivals that create each year anew. His insights are warm, human, caring and loving - his intent to help others by bringing us ways to enliven our world is so apparent. I think that if you are looking for a way to both understand and celebrate the festivals of the year, you will love this book

Living Buildings
An Expression of Fifty Years of Camphill

A showcase of more than 50 unique Halls and Chapels.

Joan de Ris Allen

Elegantly softbound

$39.95

This is perhaps the most beautiful book of anthroposophically-inspired architecture ever published! A feast for the eyes and heart all the through its 180+ pages -- color photos, watercolor paintings, floor plans, sketches, and all of them of actually buildings that are in daily use throughout the world. To gaze at pictures of these buildings is a healing experience -- imagine what being in them and near them must be. Everyone who as looked through these books with me agrees that these buildings fulfill some deep yearning of their soul -- how wonderful to know they exist somewhere.

Joan de Ris Allen has been designing buildings for Camphill Villages since 1961 - Living Buildings reflects her enthusiastic commitment and practical involvement in furthering Rudolf Steiner's architectural impulse in Camphill Communities throughout the world.