Rudolf Steiner is known as the originator of Waldorf Education, biodynamic agriculture and Anthroposophic Medicine. In his dissertation and other written works he also developed a philosophy based on the reality and spiritual activity of the human ‘I’.
Anthroposophical visions are being put into practice and developed around the world in business, education, agriculture and medicine. Brands such as ‘Alnatura’ or ‘Sonett’, ‘Waldorf Schools’ and ‘Demeter’ are examples of this and they all contribute to sustainable development, as is illustrated in the compendium ‘On the Earth We Want to Live’, published by Springer Nature.
Fertile soils with a diverse microbiome are an essential prerequisite for providing people with healthy and nurturing food. In promoting and enabling sustainable food systems, biodynamic farming supports the cause of World Food Day on 16 October 2025 which has the theme ‘Hand in Hand for Better Food and a Better Future.’
The spreading of deserts worldwide constitutes a challenge for the earth’s climate and therefore also for plants, animals and humans. Biodynamic initiatives in the Sahara region prove that even deserts can be transformed into living spaces.
The use of specific preparations is a central part of biodynamics, but until recently there had been no scientific explanation for the way they work. Jürgen Fritz, agronomist at Kassel University, Germany, presents a model for the effectiveness of biodynamic preparations in ‘Living Farms’, a journal published by the Section for Agriculture at the Goetheanum in Switzerland.
Agriculture is under pressure due to climate change, monocultures and soil erosion. Fields are devastated by wars and the earth is poisoned by weapons. Fertile soil is being lost and deserts are spreading. Many farms are struggling to survive. With its action plan for 2025 to 2027, the Goetheanum‘s Section for Agriculture wishes to encourage a sustainable approach to farming.
On 8 May, the publishing company Philosophisch-Anthroposophische Verlage was entered in the Swiss commercial register. The publishers Rudolf Steiner Verlag and Verlag am Goetheanum have merged under this name.
Rudolf Steiner was the originator of pioneering achievements such as Waldorf Education, biodynamic farming and Anthroposophic Medicine. His scientific approach is not as well known. In his book ‘Rudolf Steiner und die Anthroposophie’, Peter Selg describes a man with a social impulse that includes the effectiveness of spiritual forces.
After six years of development and testing, the Section for Agriculture at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, has handed over study modules on biodynamic farming to Heliopolis University in Cairo, Egypt, as part of a degree programme in organic agricultural science.
Waldorf schools and kindergartens, biodynamic farming and Anthroposophical Medicine are rooted in the anthroposophical approach developed by Rudolf Steiner. But the effectiveness of his work was not to be taken for granted, as events organized at and around the Goetheanum for the 100th anniversary of his death on 30 March will illustrate.
The staging of Richard Wagner’s opera ‘Parsifal’ at the Goetheanum under director Jasmin Solfaghari has made history by including eurythmy. It also brought together art and science. The book on ‘Parsifal’ at the Goetheanum offers multiple glimpses, personal and professional, into this complex undertaking, a cooperation of Schott Music and Pamy Media Productions.
The smallholder farmers of indigenous cultures seek to live in harmony with the earth. Biodynamic farming is for them a way of bringing together tradition and innovation to achieve a unity of earth, humans and cosmos.
