The Gospel of Knowledge and basic research

The work of the General Anthroposophical Section is affected by travel restrictions for our co-workers and by the cancellation or changing of live events. And yet, jobs are getting done from event preparations to publications to new study courses.

Class Lessons: While physical meetings are not possible under the current conditions, initiatives for staying connected in thought and spirit are springing to life. In many places, members of the School of Spiritual Science have arranged to continue the individual inner work in order to keep the stream of the Class Lessons alive. One can feel the difference between working for oneself and knowing that one is spiritually connected.

Preparations for the Michaelmas Conference: The questions surging up at this time as to what is essentially human need to be addressed in future events. The General Anthroposophical Section at the Goetheanum and the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland therefore extend a warm invitation to you for the Michaelmas Conference on 25 and 26 September 2020 in Dornach, which will focus on the sculpture of the Representative of Humanity and the Gospel of Knowledge.

Claus-Peter Röh, Goetheanum

Publications: At the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Anthroposophical Research I finished writing two comprehensive monographs in the relative Corona stillness of the past weeks. They are dealing with socio-political aspects of medicine and the Institute’s research into totalitarianism – and indirectly also with the challenges we currently experience. Both monographs will come out in June (in German).(1)

In addition I have published articles on aspects of the current Corona crisis, most comprehensively in the journal Kernpunkte of 7 May 2020, in an article entitled ‘A medicalized society’? Three of the research assistants at the Institute are presently not able to travel into Switzerland. We are nonetheless working on preparing the future in these difficult times, be it in conversations within the Goetheanum Leadership and the General Anthroposophical Section, in our extensive correspondences or via Zoom conferences.

Peter Selg, Goetheanum

A special study programme: The international Anthroposophical Studies at the Goetheanum will offer a special programme in the autumn term, from October to December: ‘Metamorphosis – Paths of Participation’. A variety of approaches will enable students to experience and practise the Goethean approach, in which knowledge is informed by what one seeks to know. The course will be devoted to the study of Rudolf Steiner’s book Goethe’s Theory of Knowledge (GA 2), nature observations and biographies, artistic processes as well as questions of Christology and the impulses that shape the social life. Invited are alumni and anyone with a deeper interest in a knowledge inspired by life and metamorphosis. The course language will be English.

Constanza Kaliks, Goetheanum