L. S.-R. Kurt, in this research study, you explore the question of what our possibilities are and what conditions are necessary in order to build inclusive human relationships. Is this an inclusion study?
K.E. This term has become commonplace in everyday usage because of our wish and need to recognize people with support needs – and now also people from other cultures – as having equal rights. And our study also comes from a background of daily socially-inclusive work, where we have gained most of our experience and raised our awareness in work groups and meetings.
L. S.-R. How is this research carried out?
K. E. We are a group of people, mostly from Switzerland and Germany, but with several members from other countries within and outside of Europe, who meet in what we call ‹action research meetings› [AktionsforschungsTreffen] to work with the topic of relationship building. The term ‹action research› was coined in the 1920s by Kurt Lewin and it refers to a form of work and research in which every «part of the problem is also like a part of the solution.» This leads to an excellent meeting atmosphere where everyone is on equal footing.
L. S.-R. This research – and you emphasize that it is also a kind of self-study for the participants – is now in its sixth year in 2025 and will continue until the end of 2026. The five annual reports that are already available focus on various aspects of relationship-building, and today I would like to highlight the aspect you describe as a «social ur-phenomenon» [foundational or archetypal phenomenon].
K. E. Yes, this social ur-phenomenon was the topic of our fourth year of research, and it is a term that Rudolf Steiner used in 1918 to refer to a specific area of our interpersonal life, drawing an analogy to Goethe’s ‹ur-plant›. So we are working with the foundational phenomenon in the social sphere, out of which, as Goethe says, all other phenomena are derived.
L. S.-R. I am very interested – and I am sure our readership is as well – in whether we can understand something like this, philosophically.
K. E. It is actually not philosophical at all–rather it is a deeply human capacity for understanding which is inherent in every person, probably before birth, and is separate from our brain-based thinking. However, most people on earth are now so intellectually ‹sophisticated› that we only recognize and understand the world with our intellect, with our rational thinking, with what we have learned and can extrapolate; so that Goethe could say in his Faust, «You are like the spirit that you grasp.»
But a newborn child does not yet have this intellect, this rational thinking. So when we bend over the cradle and delight in it with the words, «Oh, you are so beautiful! Just like your mama…», we must ask ourselves how the newborn understands this beyond language. We all know the answer: As a child, we are completely at one with our surroundings – we live fully in what is around us. Psychology says that we don’t yet have subject-object separation. This comes later, and it is inevitable. It comes so that we can then experience ourselves as ‹I›, and from then on as separate from ‹YOU›. This process of becoming an ‹I› then gradually pushes back our earlier ability to completely understand the other. And this primal, ur-capacity, this ur-phenomenon, lies fully dormant in us adults today–indeed, it has even disappeared from our consciousness.
L. S.-R. Before we began this interview, you spoke about a woman with trisomy 21, and how, though lacking in intellectual capacity, she is fully immersed in the social life around her through this ur-phenomenon–how she takes in those around her more deeply and intensely than we normally do.
K. E. Yes, you could almost say that the less developed the intellect is, the stronger this ur-phenomenon is in the social realm, in the form of a comprehensive ability to perceive other people. Because then we pay attention to everything others say, to how they speak, to their gestures, their expressions, their character, etc., because we want to understand them!
In this fundamental ur-phenomenon, we find no separation from others, none of the superiority of‚ ‹knowing better› than others that comes from our intellect and so often hinders us from even wanting to take in the YOU.
L. S.-R. Do we have less social ability now than we used to have?
K. E. We no longer experience ourselves as part of the ‹collective I› (except in crowds at large events). Our current very personal I experience is probably a necessary human transition phase, until each of us has taught ourself, of our own volition, to turn away from our isolation and become lovingly conscious again of the YOU–of the whole of creation.
L. S.-R. We still have a long way to go. So – what insights have you come to so far in this study?
K. E. Wonderful insights. For example, that this attentive listening – letting ourselves be a vessel for the one who is speaking – is so simple and yet so rewarding and enlightening. Because (and this was always our practice in our meetings) we listened for three minutes without internal or external commentary: simply listened. And this creates the possibility for an intimate encounter with the YOU. And then when we switch roles and when I am the speaker, and YOU take in everything that I say, unfiltered and without commentary, something completely new arises. In both the listener and the speaker – on both sides – something arises like a way of thinking or a consciousness of things that do not originate in ME or in YOU but rather come into being in the space in between–an ‹art of interconnected thinking.› This is certainly still an art of the future, but it clearly greatly minimizes existing antipathies between YOU and ME, which is already a positive result.
L. S.-R. Could we say that this social ur-phenomenon, this momentary «falling asleep into the other person», as Steiner characterizes it, describes a certain law in the social sphere that–unlike the laws of nature we are familiar with–we have not yet become aware of or paid attention to?
K. E. We have long understood and consciously interacted with the laws of nature, but the social laws–the real laws that rule in the social sphere just as the laws of nature rule in the natural world–have not been studied in the same way and are generally not (yet) consciously practiced.
L. S.-R. You talk about how there are, as you call them, ‹insight-generating conditions› in the long human journey to becoming social beings. What are the legitimate assumptions that you explore in your Relationship Building research?
K. E. All human beings come from a place of more or less conscious assumptions or worldviews, and the world is so big that there is also enough room for the anthroposophic perspective. As you know, we believe that the human being consists of a body, soul and spirit. Human social life also extends across these three dimensions of human existence, so it follows that there must also be three different social laws–one for our spiritual dimension, one for our soul or psychological dimension, and one for the bodily, earthly dimension of human existence: Three social laws.
L. S.-R. And the social ur-phenomenon relates to the soul/psychological dimension of human existence?
K. E. Yes, when two people are across from each other, meet each other, and want and need to understand each other, that is the beginning, the starting point of our social life. From there, human existence unfolds into the other two dimensions between heaven and earth–into our spiritual and our earthly needs and abilities. The way we engage with this social starting point in the social realm is key. If I no longer listened to YOU, if I were to stop relating to the YOU, we would all starve, including on the spiritual and soul/psychological levels.
L. S.-R. This is quite a broad topic, and our societal development demands quick solutions. Can't the social realm be explained more succinctly?
K. E. In contrast to the digital world, which is now developing on its own (if we connect it to the power grid), the development of the social world can only progress through individual consciousness work. And this cannot be achieved through technology and machines, but rather is fed by our experiences with the YOU in joy and suffering. This is where we enter a wonderful, insight-generating dimension, which is an essential feature of our humanity and which constantly reminds us of the fact that we do not exist in isolation from one another, but that we, with our I, are part of the whole of creation.
L. S.-R. To conclude, can you say something about how this research came about?
K. E. The Swiss Musicon Foundation, founded in 2018, promotes social science research – as is laid out in the foundation’s statutes – based on: «… the impulses of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science, considering findings in the traditional natural sciences. The research is intended to show human beings as independent spiritual entities, also in relation to the possibilities of […] artificial intelligence.» This study is being carried out within the context of this Foundation, with people who participate voluntarily without any monetary incentive. The Foundation’s purpose is to study the activity of the I in a time of artificial intelligence, and we also want to encourage people to engage in collaborative exchange on artistic, social and therapeutic topics. Therefore, we are thrilled that the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum has now founded a twelfth faculty for the future «inclusive social development» of humanity.
Contact: Musicon-Stiftung, Juraweg 17, 4143 Dornach, Switzerland
