Owen Barfield

Biographical Information
"Arthur Owen Barfield, writer and solicitor: born London 9 November 1898; FRSL 1950; married 1923 Matilda Dewey (died 1980; two sons, one daughter); died Forest Row, East Sussex 14 December 1997. Owen Barfield was described by C.S. Lewis as "the wisest and best of my unofficial teachers". He met Lewis, his exact contemporary, when he went up to Oxford in 1919. "Barfield towers above us all!" wrote Lewis in his diary. They were both 20, and out of their friendship one of the most remarkable literary and theological movements of the 20th century - "the Inklings" - was born. By the mid-1920s they had been joined by J.R.R. Tolkien. In time Hugo Dyson, W.H. Lewis, Charles Williams and others followed...

"One of the issues Barfield was (to Lewis) so infuriating about was Anthroposophy. In 1913 Rudolf Steiner became the leader of a German section of the Theosophical Society, and over the years sought to elaborate a scientific method of studying the world of spirit. Barfield heard Steiner lecture in London in 1923 and from that time on was an enthusiastic follower. Lewis was horrified, and out of this emerged what they called their "Great War" over Anthroposophy and related issues. But the friendship remained and grew inward to the bone. Barfield's views, like Steiner's, were rooted in Christian and Trinitarian thought, but they also embraced mysticism...Owen Barfield was a small, lithe man, fond of cats and an enthusiastic walker. (He and C.S. Lewis called themselves the "Cretaceous Perambulators".) " wiki

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