Welcome to “The search of the Ego”, Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary culture.

100 years after Rudolf Steiner participation in the 4th World Congress of Philosophy, in Bologna 1911

One could wonder why Rudolf Steiner, who elaborated such a wonderfully wide conception of the world that the 360 volumes of his collected works cannot possibly give a representative or definitive picture of his cultural and universal dimension, has been mostly left out of the Academic Culture and more in general of the “Official” Culture of the past century. They have almost completely excluded him from their views, their research, their knowledge.

In the reality of everyday life, stemming from his conceptions and his founding works, hundreds of schools were born everywhere in the world, from America to China, from Norway to South Africa. His impulses for the knowledge and health of the Earth and Man raised and increased the world of Biodynamic food and agricolture. Also anthroposophic medicine and medicines, and the knowledge, love and the practice of Arts were developed as paramount elements for the formation of men and the comprehension of the history of the peoples. This development happened also in all other fields of Cultural and Spiritual Life.
Still, Rudolf Steiner has been almost totally ignored.
It is now time to take him away from a mere identification with the Anthroposophical Society, to have him become heritage of the whole of Humanity.

"Between one and another of the cicles of conferences that I held ... Marie von Sivers lived in Italy, in Bologna, where she worked for the Theosophical Society, in the theosophical group of that city.": Rudolf Steiner himself in his biography wrote that Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, was brought to Bologna from the beginning of 1900 by Marie von Sivers, leading figure of the anthroposophical Movement and his cooperator. In the preface to the Italian edition (Cremona 1960) of the Lecture Eurithmy as visible speech” we find this statement: "At the University of Bologna, Marie von Sievers was one of the few students who refused to be intimidated by the stern gaze of Carducci ... who accepted her as auditor to his lectures, where women were rarely admitted.”
In 1906, a few years later, Carducci was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
So it was Marie von Sivers, then Marie Steiner, who brought for the first time in Bologna, and probably in Italy, the Culture of the Spiritual Science. Therefore the beginning of the relationship with the University of Bologna and the Italian Culture goes back to those years. Then in 1911 Rudolf Steiner was invited by Professor Enriquez to the IV World Congress of Philosophy, came to the University, and here held his lectures on the Self.
On the centenary of his participation in that Congress, the International Conference "The Search of the Self”, Rudolf Steiner and Contemporary Culture”, will be held on 31 March 1-2-3 April 2011.
The location of the plenary meetings in the morning is the Great Hall of Saint Lucia, with simultaneous translation in Italian, English, French and German. The study groups in the afternoon, eight in total, on issues of intense actuality, will meet in other halls as well. The conference has the patronage of the University of Bologna, of various Faculties, of the Municipality of Bologna, of the region Emilia-Romagna, of the Anthroposophical Society in Italy (whose annual members meeting will coincide with the congress) and other prestigious institutions.
The International Conference will be a great cultural event with participants from all across Europe and around the World, with the involvement of the entire City, its Citizens and the Students of the University, as well as in the Congress, also in many other artistic and cultural events.

For information:
TEL. e FAX 0039-051-227089
Email: capisole@tin.it
The organizing committee, at Capitello del Sole s.r.l.
Publishing company and bookshop, Via Cartoleria 20/B, 40124 Bologna.