Report on the World Goetheanum Conference of Michaelmas 2023

John Bloom

Sold out! That’s what the website said about the World Goetheanum Conference held at the Goetheanum and surroundings September 27–October 1, 2023. About 1,000 people from fifty countries gathered to take up the question of “Reshaping a World Movement.” It was a well-orchestrated collaborative inquiry that included celebrating nearly one hundred years of the Christmas Conference, sharing how anthroposophical activity has found its expression around the world, and asking the question, “What is the future asking of anthroposophy?”

This broad scope of topics all centered on the imagination of a worldwide Society, especially given that the conference was held in the space and spaciousness of the Goetheanum, where the movement was birthed and the School of Spiritual Science has its center. It was a living question of how to move through the natural tension between center and periphery, and even of how to recognize the challenge of questioning that metaphor as a way of thinking about the work of the Society in the world.

The three-and-a-half days were framed on the architecture and imagination of the Foundation Stone Meditation. Day 1: Earth and incarnation; Day 2: Plurality and being together in diversity; Day 3: Knowledge and insight; Day 4: The good and how we work with heart and thought. Each of the keynote speakers addressed these topics directly in their relation to the theme of the conference and to the call to the human soul found in each of the panels of the Meditation itself. Each was rich; all were beautifully woven together. There would not be enough space to recount or do them justice here. Maybe one highlight from Michaelmas Day, spoken by Christine Gruwez, will suffice. She spoke of three kinds of courage: courage to live with the fragment; courage to be vulnerable; courage to be awake in and to the world and to remain awake. Without over-interpreting, she used “fragment” in the sense that at any given moment we have only a piece of the whole.

The structure of the conference, following the keynotes from the morning speakers, was an attempt to respond to current worldwide issues by scheduling thematic forums cohosted by cross-sections of the School of

Spiritual Science and co-facilitated in some cases by those working afar in the practical fields. Topics included: On earth we want to live; Health for humans and the planet; Living with technology; Meditation!; Equal and different: How to contribute to the search for the ‘I’; Follow the science!?; Anthroposophy and public debate; How do we build peace?; Biosphere-based economy; The presence of anthroposophy; Transformation through art; Transforming leadership. One goal of these thematic forums was to create active working groups that will take up some of the tasks identified during the sessions.

The afternoon was filled with topical and practical workshops including a full spectrum from the three domains of threefolding. Each of the workshops was conducted in a multilingual environment, so that participants could begin to feel a kind of world presence and to sense how to navigate in that kind of environment. Here are few examples of the workshops: Dyeing with plants;

Building the future through sculpture; New mindfulness in business; Learning from the bees; The courage to be vulnerable; Building a spiritual community; Global North and South in the anthroposophical community; Waldorf education in dialogue with Indigenous Cultures; Anthroposophy and the question of racism; Banking and finance of the future. Needless to say, there was no dearth of choices in following one’s own interests and learning path. What became remarkably visible is the diversity and richness of leaders working out of anthroposophy around the world.

Each afternoon concluded with multilingual conversation groups. The groupings stayed the same through the conference in order to build a sense of shared space and comradery. Each day started with a different question: How participants first connected with anthroposophy, then what reflections and new questions arose from the contents of the day and days.

It was very apparent through the time together how much anthroposophy has grown or “mushroomed” around the world, especially in Waldorf education and biodynamic agriculture. There was an expressed need for new translations: educational material in many languages, crafted in the vernacular of place and of the times. And there was a call to be seen as equal human strivers across cultures, identities, and languages around the globe. Suffice it to say that while there is much material throughout the history of anthroposophy, including the availability of Rudolf Steiner’s work in text form, it is not enough and not adequate to meet the souls seeking connection to spirit in this time—seeking in fields of indigenous and cultural wisdom that were not visible one hundred years ago. So there is a real and meaningful tension between the deepening of spiritual science in its traditional forms and the dispersion and development of anthroposophical activity truly around the globe. It is very clear that anthroposophy is a lively yeast. The younger generation is making that clear. The yeast catalyzes much inspiration, renewal, and innovation—all of which need to inform the science of the spirit for the next one hundred years. So, one could say that the reshaping of the world movement will rise out of this yeast. And maybe we also need to live into not knowing quite what that might look like. www.steinerbooks.org

The hope for humanity found in the words and in the deeds of Rudolf Steiner has barely begun. And rainbows are always new.