Rudolf Steiner initiates the School’s first communities

With the founding of the School of Spiritual Science, Rudolf Steiner combined subject-specific research and Anthroposophy as a path of knowledge in a new form. The starting point for the Sections was research collaboration with a specialist. Spiritual research and specialist research form an innovative unity. This is because the collaboration often took place by the patient’s bedside, in the school, in the stable, or at the pharmaceutical laboratory, and it was necessary to find innovative solutions for existential emergency situations. In some areas, circles of several people were also formed. These had the task of keeping the spiritual foundation of the Section‘s field of activity alive as a source for collaborators and future generations.

In the Class Lessons, their spiritual reality can be awakened anew each time. Besides the membership, through which a worldwide community forms, a school community arises in carrying out the Class Lessons. This shared experience can enable individuals to live with Anthroposophy in such a way that it grows. It grows into the reality of current events, into the professional discourse of the Sections’ field of work and into the life situations of one’s biography.

During the conference, we would like to explore how communities of knowledge – ranging from the constellation of two people to Section circles up to the worldwide membership of the First Class – were formed with Rudolf Steiner. We also want to discuss how we can form and devel- op these communities today so that the School of Spiritual Science can contribute to progress – ‘… in the spiritual realm and in the practical realm’ (§ 4, Statutes of the General Anthroposophical Society).

On behalf of the Goetheanum Leadership

Constanza Kaliks and Ueli Hurter