English Issue 13/2025

My father told me that he could tell if someone was an anthroposophist on the train. Sometimes, he did a little test and asked the person he was talking to if they were going to the conference in Stuttgart. I asked him how he knew from that. His answer: “By how interested they look!” The Stuttgart designer Dieter Soldan, whom we’ve worked with at the Goetheanum, had the same response when asked how he experienced the people at the Goetheanum: “Interested!” he replied. Yes, perhaps that is an expectation of those who follow Rudolf Steiner: that they are “interested” in everything, like he was. Perhaps “to be in between” (Latin inter-esse) is most enriching when we carry something of the whole within us. Anthroposophy offers a grasp of the whole. So, it is particularly gratifying to find interest in everything and everyone within this broad perspective.