News Network Anthroposophy reports that the members of the 'Living the Christmas Conference' group, who were expelled from the General Anthroposophical Society last March on the grounds that their constant negative campaigning against the General Anthroposophical Society had begun to sap the society's
strength, have dropped their legal action to have their membership reinstated.

The plaintiffs also withdrew their challenge to the resolution adopted by
the Annual General Meeting last year which declared membership of Living the Christmas Conference to be incompatible with membership of the General Anthroposophical Society.

A third action, an appeal by the group against a ruling of the
Dorneck-Thierstein district court which had rejected the group's challenge
of the legitimacy of the resolutions adopted at the General Anthroposophical Society Extraordinary General Meeting in April 2006, was also abandoned.

In this third action the group had wanted to make the GAS executive council
personally liable for the 800,000 Swiss franc court costs associated with
the successful legal challenge mounted by 'Living the Christmas Conference'
with regard to the dispute over the existence of the Anthroposophical
Society re-founded by Rudolf Steiner at Christmas 1923 and its fusion with
the present General Anthroposophical Society.

This means that all the legal proceedings initiated by 'Living the Christmas
Conference' and its members against the GAS have been dropped.

"The withdrawal of the appeal and the three lawsuits means that these
proceedings have been discontinued. As a result there are no further issues
with regard to the legality of the AGM resolutions of 2006. The same applies
to the resolution of 31 March 2007 and the expulsion of the 44 Living the
Christmas Conference members from the Anthroposophical Society," the Genera' Anthroposophical Society stated in a press release.

Before finally abandoning its cases, 'Living the Christmas Conference' had
offered the General Anthroposophical Society a settlement in which both parties would pay their own legal costs and divide court costs equally between one another; an offer which was rejected by the General Anthroposophical Society. The court and the plaintiffs had been informed of the reasons in detail, the General Anthroposophical Society said.

The appeal and district courts will now have to decide on how costs are
divided, but the General Anthroposophical Society said in its press release that according to the procedural code a plaintiff who withdraws from a case has to bear most of the costs.

Commenting in a statement on the 'Living the Christmas Conference' website on
their decision to give up their action, the expelled members said that a key
factor had been that the financial risk of continuing had become too great.

"By abandoning the recourse to legal proceedings and with our current path
of self-questioning and searching we combine the hope that perhaps it might
become possible again in the future to work together with the members of the
General Anthroposophical Society," the statement added in conclusion.