Atelier for the Social Quest

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It’s now over a century since Rudolf Steiner brought forth his magnificent indications for social renewal – usually referred to as social threefolding. So it might reasonably be asked: if these ideas are so groundbreaking, why is there not more evidence of them in the world today? For example, are they taught at universities?

They are not taught, as far as I know. And if they do come up, they are most likely treated in purely theoretical fashion, compared and contrasted perhaps with the socialist theories of Marx and others.

I would like to suggest why these ideas have not been influential. It’s because we have not done as Steiner indicated, which is to carefully cultivate the kind of imaginative thinking necessary to understand and work creatively with these ideas. Around just this one statement by Steiner a great deal can turn:

". . . a spiritual contemplation of nature will provide means for the kind of training in thought which, among other things, makes it possible to comprehend the social organism".[1]

A few years ago I created a course which intends to do just that – to cultivate a living social imagination through studying the phenomena of nature through the methods of Goethean science – plants, animals, colours, the human organism. I called it Atelier for the Social Quest.[2] Normally it’s a self-managed distance course (not online) but now that I’m retired from school-teaching I can guide groups by Zoom through the course. It’s $150 (Australian) total for a group, whether the group is 5 minimum or 8 maximum. 

A few of us in Australia have been planning for the creation of a new kind of university – we are calling it a “phenomenological university” because the teaching and research won’t be based on concepts and theories but on developed perceptions. The Atelier for the Social Quest course will become the Orientation Course for this university – for all students in all faculties. You can download the feasibility document for this potential university here.[3]

Please get in touch with me if you are part of a group of people interested in doing this course.[4]

Nigel Hoffmann PhD was a Steiner high-school teacher for 18 years, in Australia and Switzerland, teaching mainly art. He is the author of Goethe’s Science of Living Form: The Artistic Stages, Adonis Press, 2007; The University at the Threshold: Orientation through Goethean Science, Rudolf Steiner Press, 2020, and The Social Archetype: Realising Society’s Threefold Wholeness; A New Goetheanism, Clairview Books, 2024. He is the coordinator of Atelier for the Social Quest.

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