A Path to Promote Life
Vesna Forštnerič Lesjak has co-led the Natural Science Section of the School of Spiritual Science with Matthias Rang since 2023. We ask where she comes from, where she’s heading, and what she’s all about. The interview was conducted by Philipp Tok.
A warm-up question: What is your favorite sound?
Vesna My daughter’s laughter. When the two of us are together in the evening, in bed before prayers, we laugh a lot in our own unique, funny way.
My first impression of you was from the presentation you did about a remedy developed using artistic methods. You approached the Lungwort plant [Pulmonaria officinalis] through drawing, sculpting, writing poetry, and making music. I was very touched by the concrete possibility of penetrating something’s effects and essence through art.
As a pharmacist, it is my intention to develop new ideas for remedies from precise observation of natural processes in the plant world. The Goethean path of training enables me to practice the imaginative skills that are necessary to encounter nature in a lively and comprehensible way. The pharmaceutical practices that ultimately connect the processes of nature and disease are then genuinely artistic processes. They are not arbitrary; they are part of “exact imagination.”
What was your path to the Goetheanum like?
Unplanned! Encountering anthroposophy in Slovenia is not easy. When I was a pharmacy student at university, I attended a lecture by an anthroposophical doctor. He spoke about the tendencies of disease in the threefold human organism—a completely new idea for me. His presentation captivated me, and I asked him about research projects for my thesis. He put me in touch with one pharmacist and one biologist who invited me to join their in-service training in Goetheanistic-anthroposophical natural science. The biologist and Goetheanist Jan Albert Rispens opened the door for me. I met Goetheanism before meeting anthroposophy. As a scientist, I was not looking for a new philosophy but an extension of the conventional science that had drained and exhausted me mentally and spiritually during my studies.
The cyclamen plant [Cyclamen purpurascens] became the focus of my research project. I quickly mastered the “new” method as if I’d had it inside me for a long time. My first remedy for manic-depressive moods (bipolar disorder), developed from cyclamen, was created. I also began a training in anthroposophic pharmacy and pharmacology in Germany and became a mentor in Goetheanist training myself. My first students came from Croatia and Slovenia. At the same time, I started working with medicinal plants on our family farm and founded an association for further education in natural sciences, anthroposophic pharmacy, and biodynamic agriculture, Sapientia, on the farm. I gave radio and TV talks about medicinal plants and invited doctors to give lectures. We studied anthroposophy, set up reading groups, and made biodynamic preparations. My family joined me in everything. It was an explosive time of development in my life.
Everything I learned abroad and through my own studies was a gift, and I felt a responsibility to pass it on straight away. I took over the family farm and got it Demeter-certified, set up production facilities, and developed my own recipes for food supplements, cosmetics, and preparations. And I continued to work with the students. We completed great research projects together and met annually in Dornach with other mentors and students. I was valued as a mentor here, but I never dreamed that I would one day work in the Glashaus myself.
This text is an excerpt from an article published in the (online exclusive) Goetheanum Weekly. You can read the full article on the website. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can get to know the Goetheanum Weekly for 1 CHF./€.
read moreImage Vesna Forštnerič Lesjak, Foto: Xue Li