Deepenings

Essays

Bart Vanmechelen is a member of the leadership team of the newly founded Section for Inclusive Social Development at the Goetheanum. Characterized by a sense of social responsibility and inspired by his enthusiasm for spiritual depth, he now sees inclusive social development as a humane work of art. Franka Henn:...
Recounting the turbulent beginning of the Wochenschrift [the Goetheanum Weekly]—the work of an anthroposophical community—and the personalities that brought it into being. Setting Off Under Adverse Circumstances In the early 1920s, with the construction of the Goetheanum and the advent of Social Threefolding, Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy were in the...

Advertisement

As the longing and call for independent schools grew in many places, Rudolf Steiner responded to the question of a friend and the question of an entire era by founding...

Advertisement

Signs of the Times

Spotlights

Signs of the Times

In the high school counseling office of our Waldorf school, there are two small white boxes with red lettering, labeled NARCAN. Along with coffee shop baristas, parents, educators, and people across the US, I’ve been trained to administer this medicine to members of our community to counteract an opioid overdose....
Since May 22, 2025, people around the world have been fasting in solidarity with the starving people of Gaza. It is a nonviolent way to raise one’s voice when no one is willing to listen. It’s well after Easter, and I’m hungry. For several days now, my diet has consisted...
The new pope is a cosmopolitan. He has French, Spanish, Italian, and Cuban roots. His ancestors came from New Orleans. The term “Creole” is used for people of mixed European, African, and indigenous descent. Like many Creole families, Leo XIV’s grandparents may have moved to Chicago to escape the racial...

Advertisement

Dialogues · Reviews · Notes

Quotes · Poetry · Thoughts

Franka Henn begins the conversation with Bart Vanmechelen by asking him about his capacity to be humorously self-deprecating. Bart says that he grew up with the ethos of not taking himself too seriously. Self-deprecation is no doubt part of his expertise in social therapy, the field in which he works. How can you support people in their limitations if you are not familiar with your own shortcomings? To be more precise, anyone who talks to Bart Vanmechelen soon experiences the magic of self-irony: not taking yourself so seriously opens the door to being able to accept and even love your own weaknesses. Self-love for the imperfections in one’s own soul is, in turn, what enables us to love the rough edges and imperfections in others. So whenever we make a bad impression, we can hope that someone like Bart Vanmechelen is nearby to smile with us about it. There is heavenly support for this forgiveness—as the Talmud says: God does not laugh at his creatures, he laughs with his creatures.


Translation Laura Liska
Image Bart Vanmechelen with Wolfgang Held, Photo: Xue Li

Musings

Dialogues · Reviews · Notes

On the WHO Pandemic Agreement negotiations, Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine (TCIM), and anthroposophical commitment to public health. A commentary by the Medical Section. With both interest and skepticism, many...
240 years ago, the Arlesheim Hermitage was designed in the style of an English landscape garden. Not far from the Goetheanum in Dornach, it’s one of the most beautiful and...

Seeds

Quotes · Poetry · Thoughts

Research - Initiatives - Life

Hamburg, Germany. 2025 is the 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death. How does he live on in specific individuals? Henry Holland, a translator from Scotland, gives his answers. Where has anthroposophy provoked you? Anthroposophy does much more than merely “provoke” me. But it’s striking how you just need to drop Steiner’s name in conversation, at least in the German-speaking world,...
Dornach, Switzerland. A Choreocosmos seminar in Dornach. From August 4 to 8, 2025, the week-long seminar entitled “Rudolf Steiner’s Birth...
Stuttgart, Germany. An open conference on formative forces research. Over several decades, research into formative forces has developed methodical ways...
Weimar, Germany. A conference on the Weimar years. Rudolf Steiner lived in Weimar from 1890 to 1897. At that time...

Advertisement

Letzte Kommentare