Dear Members of the Anthroposophical Society  

With this further letter at the beginning of the new working year, we would like to address you directly as the Executive Council, and extend a warm greeting from the Goetheanum to all the Members worldwide.

‘What are we building on?' is our motive for this year within the context of our work with the Foundation Stone of the Anthroposophical Society, laid by Rudolf Steiner in the heart’s of human beings. We are currently intensively pursuing the question of an inner ethos and its expression in the current conditions of life within the society.

In July 2018, after clarifying and reorganising the situation at the Goetheanum, we consciously decided that the four members of the Executive Council would accept the challenge posed by the vote of the Members at the AGM in March. We will only deal with questions of a possible addition after the next General Assembly and an evaluation of the experiences made. Many questions concerning the leadership of the Goetheanum and World Society are regularly discussed and supported by the larger committee of the Goetheanum Leadership. Speakers (chair persons) of the Goetheanum Leadership for the coming working year are Constanza Kaliks (for the Executive Council) and Stefan Hasler (for the Section Leaders).

You recently received a summer letter from us, detailing the financial situation of the Goetheanum ('Anthroposophy Worldwide' Nr. 9/2018). It made the current situation clear. In this regard we are truly dependent on your participation and active support for the work of the Arts and the School of Spiritual Science in the spirit intended by Rudolf Steiner. We are grateful for the first positive support and donations which have reached the Goetheanum from members and friends. We very much hope that this common stream can sustain the continued activities at the Goetheanum in the coming year without demanding major cuts.

During the many travels of the Council members in the last months, in each case by invitation, the great diversity with which an awareness of the spirituality living in the world as a burning question, was tangible. It was particularly evident in the encounters with members, branches and institutions. The overall impression remains, that this multiplicity of difference, has a unifying effect.

On the basis of these experiences we, as the Executive Council, strive to develop an attitude in the Anthroposophical Society that not only tolerates these different forms of work and approaches to Anthroposophy, but also affirms in them the living reality of spiritual life. Only then can we be "an enquiring society of what is generally human" and contribute to the essential questions of current civilization. What is needed is the will to take an interest in these individual forms of being and life, to recognize them in their diversity and thus to develop an ethos of care for a humane life of soul.

Nurturing a personal contact to Members, Branches, Groups in the professional fields, Country Representatives, General Secretaries and Functionaries is a central task of the Executive Council, in order to meet the concerns described. In some places this has already been intensively developed, in others we look forward to taking it up anew.

At the recent retreat of the Executive Council and at the meeting of European General Secretaries and Country Representatives in Warsaw (PL), we discussed, among other things, the question of how members could be more involved in the decision-making processes of the worldwide Society. The desire and necessity to take a step in this direction is timely and significant. Justus Wittich and Gerald Häfner report on the various possibilities which also touch on constitutional issues and which need to be discussed and considered together in 'Anthroposophy Worldwide'.

Dear Members, we greatly appreciate your support, your interest and your participation in what is happening at the Goetheanum: a School of Spiritual Science, the home of Anthroposophy and the Arts, as well as a place for international encounters. 

With kind regards,
Executive Board at the Goetheanum 
Justus Wittich, Joan Sleigh, Constanza Kaliks and Matthias Girke