Peter Selg and Constanza Kaliks lead the General Anthroposophical Section at the Goetheanum. Here, they talk about the image and mission of the School for Spiritual Science, about commitment, and the difference between being an enthusiast or a representative for anthroposophy. Questions by Gilda Bartel.
In your view, what is the significance of the School for Spiritual Science in these turbulent times?
Peter Selg: From the beginning, Rudolf Steiner considered an institute of higher education to be an impulse for research, teaching, training, and applied practice—the fundamental nature of every institute or university. Beginning in 1911, with the first circular letter about the future Johannes Building [Johannesbau] up until Steiner’s death, the founding of an institute of higher education was a response to a massive cultural and civilizational crisis. The aim was to humanize the social life of scholarship and the sciences. In the course of history, the School of Spiritual Science has become more of an internal enterprise. For a long time now, the “work of the School” has been understood in many places to consist of spiritual work in small groups on the texts and mantras of the so-called 19 Class Lessons. I don’t consider this to be in contradiction to the original impulse.
If, for example, I want to develop a new economic model and I want to reshape the economic landscape, then I think I would do this better if I were well-trained. Even in Rudolf Steiner’s first writings, there was a path of training for mastering tasks, not just for attaining “higher worlds” in the sense of an esoteric refuge. From the beginning, responsibility for outer civilization and inner training have belonged together. Now we have the twelve Sections. Through the productive application of anthroposophy, these Sections generate ideas for new approaches in a wide variety of fields. Working groups are formed all over the world. People come to the Goetheanum with the question: How can an encounter with the Goetheanum provide concrete help for our situation and our questions? There are excellent specialist contributions at the Goetheanum conferences, developed all around the world, and brought to the participants. In this way, they become known to those who are interested at an international level. The Sections are thus organs of perception for what is being achieved in the specialist fields at the Goetheanum and worldwide through anthroposophical initiative or with an anthroposophical perspective.
Constanza Kaliks: The spiritual foundation is a transformative element for the field in which one is professionally active. In some places and over many years, this spiritual foundation has developed to the point where it has come to be understood as the sole aim and sole content of the School, cultivated with great loyalty and dedication by many people. There is a growing awareness that transformative processes can be permeated by a spiritual search for knowledge in various fields of life. In education, for example, the existence of this School, which attempts to harmonize life and inner training, is greatly appreciated. I see enormous potential for development, but also the need to clarify the image of the School. It is an institute of higher education with specialist Sections that has spiritual knowledge as its basis for working. The raison d’être of an institute of higher education is its contact with the public—the social relevance of the questions it poses. Spiritual training does not belong directly in the public sphere, but it serves these transformative processes. The Goetheanum leadership and the Sections are working intensively to clarify this objective.
The current structure of the Sections is relatively new. What were the developmental stages of the School?
Peter Selg: The history of the individual Sections varies greatly. Take the Medical Section as an example. I have the impression that Ita Wegman understood this task incredibly well. She began her Class Lesson work with great enthusiasm, along with the collaboration at her clinic and the associated institutions that had joined the School. Ita Wegman also established a training center in Arlesheim. A complete training was developed there for curative education, medicine, nursing, therapeutic eurythmy, and art therapy. And then, as is well known, she was expelled from the Goetheanum leadership and the Anthroposophical Society. The clinic in Arlesheim continued to operate, as did the Sonnenhof and the institutions associated with them, but they no longer had anything to do with the Goetheanum. In the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, the Medical Section of Steiner’s original intentions no longer existed at the Goetheanum. If I understand correctly, a number of doctors who wanted to do esoteric work met there and had in-depth discussions about medicine. These were often meetings of 20 to 30 people. Michaela Glöckler then took up Wegman’s impulse again and, with enthusiasm and verve, tried to bring the School Section back into the world.
Constanza Kaliks: For many years, global work with Steiner’s educational approach was very much concentrated in Stuttgart, the place where the first Waldorf school was founded. Now, more than 100 years later, there is a large, worldwide movement that works on the basis of Steiner’s educational approach. Today, there are associations of schools in many countries, a European Council for Steiner and Waldorf Education, and the worldwide International Conference for Steiner Waldorf Education [Internationale Konferenz für Steiner Waldorf Pädagogik] (the Hague Circle) has been formed, which is responsible for Waldorf and Steiner schools worldwide. The Pedagogical Section of the School for Spiritual Science has accompanied this school movement for decades. Today, the Section can devote itself to what a pedagogical department in an institute of higher education is responsible for: research, teaching, and staying aware and in touch with this worldwide applied practice. This is not purely theoretical research. Educational research is connected with the practice of this profession, that is, with being in front of children and being with children. Together with working professionals and institutions, the Section can deal with questions of training and continuing education courses.
Certain issues are currently challenging the whole world of education. In the Pedagogical Section, we have defined four priorities for the coming years for our own work in this area. These are being taken up by people who work in the schools. Research projects and results are being made visible by the Section so that the educational movement can be aware of them.
Peter Selg: Specialization carries the risk that one may be familiar with Rudolf Steiner’s educational work but fail to perceive it as part of something larger and more comprehensive. However, one understands it better if one also knows the spiritual path of training and the whole of anthroposophy from within. And here I see that a task for the General Anthroposophical Section is to show, through events and publications—without imposing it as an obligation—how the spiritual path of training and the whole of anthroposophy can be experienced as a supportive foundation for professional work.
The spiritual foundation concerns what I, on my own, must commit to, regardless of my external role. Deep inner work connects me with myself. But how can this be communicated? There is a spiritual path, the so-called First Class with its 19 Class Lessons. Steiner also stated that we need three Classes. Nevertheless, we are not in a position to evaluate the inner spiritual work of others. Is the training at the School of Spiritual Science more about outer or inner competencies? How do you see it?
Constanza Kaliks: Even before Steiner founded the School, he presented a spiritual path of knowledge as a possibility for inner self-training. The spiritual foundation of the School of Spiritual Science does not contradict this. But there, the study and meditative approach to a spiritual anthropology serve the practice of the professions, the effective working in a human and professional context. When an inner path of training is followed, it has the potential for a transformative effect, but this can’t be imposed on anyone as a requirement. If we want to treat children and young people with dignity, we must embark on a quest for knowledge of the human being. This then becomes a common foundation for the work in all Sections. As far as the question of a second and third Class is concerned, my impression is that we still have many decades of work ahead of us to work through and comprehend this First Class. A spiritual anthropology in such a compact form as the 19 Lessons is a major task.
Rudolf Steiner associated this path with a personal responsibility, as well as an explicit and pronounced responsibility towards others who bear this responsibility for this path and for this type of School. The texts and mantras from the Class Lessons have been published and have been available in a book since 1992. Membership in the School is therefore not a presupposition for studying the mantras. But the question is: Where are the people who explicitly and publicly bear responsibility for the School? They are the members of the School. Who are they? Where can I meet them? The Blue Card1—the membership card of the School for Spiritual Science—is the form in which this becomes visible. For the School to be a responsible institution in the public eye, it is relevant whether this commitment is expressed and communicated. The consciously intended and publicly stated carrying of this responsibility does not exist if one is not a member of the School. This does not mean that the spiritual path cannot be taken seriously and very consistently by people who are not members. I cannot judge that, nor should it be judged. But the difference is that I know that there are people who want to share this responsibility.
Peter Selg: It would be disastrous to tell Waldorf teachers that they must attend the First Class Lessons at the School for Spiritual Science and that only after completing this training would they become proper Waldorf teachers. An institution that said this would be the opposite of what is possible, sensible, helpful, and progressive today. But we have set ourselves the task of presenting this First Class and its training path. We will not quote the mantras extensively, even though they are no longer private. It is a lifelong learning process with ever-increasing commitment. If you search the Rudolf Steiner Archive in Dornach for traces of the so-called Second or even Third Class of the School for Spiritual Science, you will find more than one statement about increasing responsibilities. The First Class is for all people who have decided to follow this path. And the Second Class, mentioned in at least three letters, was for people who had taken on specific responsibilities in the Anthroposophical Society and its Sections. The Third Class, which Rudolf Steiner himself wanted to lead, was to be for the leadership of the School and the Goetheanum. People often ask how the First Class will continue, how it can become more imaginative or intuitive. All of this is justified, but in my opinion, it should be in the service of a task. I have often considered, especially with the many crises in the Anthroposophical Society, how training is necessary in regards to these specific crises as well as for the enormous task of leading a Section.
In connection with all this, questions arise: Why still have Blue Cards? Do the forms still make sense? We are astonished at how many people apply for membership to the School of Spiritual Science every year. The spiritual goods are out in the world; the texts are published and freely available in bookstores. And yet every year, hundreds of people apply to the Goetheanum for membership to the School in written letters about their background with anthroposophy and the School. We are touched when we, in the General Anthroposophical Section, read in the motions and recommendations of the Class Holders how serious these people are and how they respect and affirm the structure of the existing working relationships connected with the Goetheanum. The completely free and independent approach to the Lessons has its own justification and significance. But the work connected with the Goetheanum, the overall form of the School of Spiritual Science and its Sections, including the membership card, which stands for a kind of “spiritual enrollment” in a new form of university—and universality!—obviously continues to have an appeal.
Is it even possible to communicate what this commitment means? Does the School invite me to commit to myself? Or is this something that the School cannot achieve, because it is something that each person must first find within themselves?
Constanza Kaliks: Membership is the expression of a step to participate in something. Participation in the Anthroposophical Society is an explicit affirmation2 that something like this School of Spiritual Science should exist. It is a clear outer expression of support. Another form of participation is when one wants to represent this impulse themselves. In people’s letters applying for membership to the School (which the Goetheanum leadership assigned the General Anthroposophical Section to read), people describe how they became acquainted with anthroposophy and how the wish arose in them to take responsibility along with others who have taken on this responsibility. I believe that is the motif: an explicit, communicated, and shared assumption of responsibility. I do not deny this assumption of responsibility to someone who is not a member—I simply do not know who they are. By their admission to the School, we affirm their decision to participate. It is an affirmation based on trust in their decision to take public responsibility for the existence of anthroposophy in the world.
Peter Selg: I believe we need to come up with new ideas about membership in the Society, the necessity of the Society, the meaning of the Society, the task of the School, and School membership, and communicate these viewpoints in a non-moralistic, accessible, but serious manner, in the spirit of commitment. I am not in favor of publishing mantras without protection. Commitment cannot be taught, only lived. If the cause itself appears beautiful and good, commitment arises nearly on its own accord. This builds meaningful communities. And when the Goetheanum is experienced as such a newly shaped cosmopolitan university community, it radiates interest, even for young people.
Marc Desaules once described it as follows: When 900 people are sitting in the Great Hall of the Goetheanum, it’s good that there is a Society that finances this house, affirms it, and invites people into it. And if you want to become a member of the Anthroposophical Society, you affirm that it makes sense to have this place of research and teaching as a source of inspiration for science, art, and religion. Not much more is required to become a member of the Society—it’s about an interest in anthroposophy and its future. When you suddenly find yourself standing at the front of the podium, the situation is reversed. You are no longer a listener but stand there representing something, standing up for it. From being a lover of anthroposophy, you become someone who stands for it, who represents it—not only at the Goetheanum. In my opinion, as a Demeter farmer or a Waldorf school teacher, you also stand not only for a method but for the cause itself, for the cause of anthroposophy. Basically, you stand for the School for Spiritual Science, which has proven itself in life.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Photo Xue Li; Image collage: Fabian Roschka.
