Stephen Usher

STEPHEN USHER Stephen Usher crossed the threshold on Saturday, October 4, 2025, at the age of 76. The son of an American diplomat and Louise L. Gross Usher of Boonville, Steve was born in Washington, D.C. in 1949 and saw much of the world as a youth. He studied mathematics as an undergraduate, held a doctorate in economics, and worked as a young man at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City, for Paul Volcker, President of the bank at that time and later the Chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Carter and Reagan. He first left the world of central banking to serve as the Director of the Anthroposophic Press from 1981 to 1988. Steve was, above all, a thoroughly devoted lifelong student of Dr. Rudolf Steiner. He was one of a very few I've known with both a formidable grasp of the Complete Works as a whole and an uncanny recall not only for what Dr. Steiner said, but where and when he said it. This was experienced as a helpful gift, offered sincerely, always apropos of the moment and topic of discussion, never at all pedantic. It was as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan that he first met the work of Rudolf Steiner, through the late Dr. Ernst Katz, the Dutch-American physicist and anthroposophist. Steve had recognized that behind Katz's lectures lay something different, as though they were informed by an as-yet-unknown insight that suggested something far deeper than mere theoretical physics. So he asked him what it was, what made his lectures different. Katz's answer, which involved a reading list of basic spiritual-scientific texts, helped to instigate his lifelong relationship, or reunion, with Rudolf Steiner. Another lifelong relationship was established at the University, as it was there he met his wife Beth, whose devotion to the work of Rudolf Steiner proved to be as great as Steve's. This has been experienced by many over the years, most especially through their ceaseless dedication to the group study of anthroposophy, hosting or otherwise participating in weekly study groups for decades, wherever they were living. Steve wrote numerous articles over the years, and edited and introduced a valuable collection on Rudolf Steiner's social thought, now published as Social Threefolding. He also wrote a small personal memoir concerning his involvement with the Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow's earnest, if somewhat brief, engagement with the work of Rudolf Steiner in the early 1980s, to which Steve was a witness and correspondent. It was Steve who asked Bellow for a Foreword to Steiner's then newly translated lectures, The Boundaries of Natural Science, to which the novelist agreed. Steve was also for many years an advocate for the study and performance of Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas. I am grateful to have worked with him once in this capacity when a group of us, directed by Steve, staged three scenes from the second Mystery Drama in Austin in 2007. It is thus a poignant mark of destiny that he crossed the threshold in Austin, Texas, while at the same time the first full performance of a Mystery Drama in North America since 2014 was taking place miles away in Spring Valley, New York. As Steve may have himself noted, he rose and departed as the archetype of the first Mystery Drama was descending to spend a day on earth, embodied in performance. He is close still, and we hold him close, and dearly, wishing him wakefulness and Light on the journey he has begun and is well prepared for. John Scott Legg Executive Director, SteinerBooks/Anthroposophic