East-West-Congress 2022
In 1922 the until then biggest public congress of the Anthroposophical Society was held in Vienna. Plans are underway for a new East-West-Congress a hundred years later.
At the East-West Congress in 1922 – after the First World War – it was Rudolf Steiner’s main concern to achieve an understanding between East and West on the «central question of the spirit». This, he said, was the precondition for building trust between the two world powers in the east and west that have been opposing each other to this day.
In the present climate it is even seen as suspicious to work against the mutual distrust. The crucial question is how we as individuals can integrate our autonomous, free individuality into the whole of humanity without having to relinquish the personality we have developed so far. At the same time, individuals in many societies first need to detach themselves from their family ties and the traditions that are built on them.
One of the foundations of an ordered coexistence in our modern society consists in the successful alternation of giving and receiving services among individuals. Another such foundation is education. What does an education have to be like that promotes humanity and human dignity? And how do we deal with the emergence of tendencies towards purely egoistical, anti-social and ultimately inhumane behaviour?
The Anthroposophical Society in Austria will address these questions at the International East-West Vienna 2022 congress. One of the goals will be to make the anthroposophical initiatives visible that have developed worldwide and to bring them together, as much as possible, with similar aspirations in order to present a perspective of human development that is founded on freedom and can lead to the healing of specific societal distortions. Congress members can help with the reservation of the Vienna Konzerthaus by paying a deposit of 100 Euros before June 2019. Should this not be possible, the Congress will go ahead on a smaller scale