Writing
Barfield published 30 books during his lifetime in addition to poems, plays, short stories and more than a hundred essays. His work has inspired many other writers – including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, Howard Nemerov, and Saul Bellow – and continues to have a profound influence today.
Community
Each year, readers around the world engage with Barfield’s work and ideas on their own or in courses, reading groups, and conferences. Whoever and wherever you are, if you are reading Barfield, you are part of a global community of thinkers who continue Barfield’s mission: to enable humans to become fully consciousness and free. Thank you.
The Inklings
Barfield was a core member of The Inklings: the group of writers who included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams. Barfield published the first fantasy text by an Inkling – The Silver Trumpet in 1925 – and his ideas are found throughout Inklings texts such as Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and his science-fiction trilogy.
Anthroposophy
Anthroposophy is a spiritual path to freedom, founded by Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th century. In 1924 Barfield was a founding-father of Anthroposophy in the English-speaking world: a life-long proponent and advocate for understanding the consciousness of one’s human nature. He first coined the term “Evolution of Consciousness” in 1926.
Life
Barfield was born in London in 1898, served in World War 1, attended Oxford University and then resided in the nearby countryside close to nature. Married in 1923, he remained a poet-philosopher his entire life which was lived in three parts as author, City-lawyer, and visiting Professor in North America. He died in 1997, aged 99, at home in the countryside south of London.
