15 Beiträge · Ausgabe 23/2026
Editorial
Issue 23/2026
Kein Editorial verfügbar.
Aufsätze
3 Beiträge
Im Fokus
And What If Life Came from the Stars?
A conversation with Ernst Zürcher, the researcher who demonstrated the moon’s influence on trees. Interview by Louis Defèche.
Ernst Zürcher · 17. Juni
Essay
Working with the Intelligence of Life
Every time we go online, AI is there. Whether we want it to or not, AI is becoming part of our everyday lives. In many cases, it is incredibly convenient—the machine knows! In other situations, it’s enormously unsettling—how can a machine know that? And then there’s the question: Are there other forms of intelligence besides AI? There is the intelligence of life. Ernst Zürcher knows this. Trees are living witnesses to annual rhythms, pulsations of cosmic forces. They are also …
Ueli Hurter · 17. Juni
Essay
Multiperspectivism: A Requirement for Seeking Peace
Discussions on war and geopolitics are the most polarizing. This polarization hinders dialogue and sometimes even thinking itself. Could it be that our cognitive processes shape our perceptions of war and peace? A plea for multiperspectivism, using the war in Ukraine as an example. In Western public discourse and the media, there’s a phrase that’s become widely accepted: the war in Ukraine is “an unprovoked war of aggression.” The war is said to be the result of the imperialist ambitions …
Louis Defèche · 03. Juni
Zeitsymptome
2 Beiträge
Essay
Well-being Instead of Well-off
UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, has released its 2026 report on child well-being. Germany is in 25th place out of the 37 countries evaluated. How is that possible?
Philipp Reubke · 17. Juni
Current Issues
When Will the Wound Heal?
Nakba Day—the Memory of the Catastrophe—is observed annually on May 15. It commemorates the Nakba, the violent uprooting and expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians, following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Hundreds of villages were destroyed, families torn apart; many people were forced to flee or prevented from returning. Gaza became one of the places where a large number of these displaced people and their descendants were crowded together. But May 15 is also International Conscientious …
David Auerbach · 03. Juni
Worte
2 Beiträge
Column
Learning From Trees
A tree’s life story is inscribed in its core. Each year, a new layer of cells forms around the existing wood. It’s thickness and color tell the story of weather and circumstances. Was it windy, wet, particularly hot that year? Was there a fire? A drought? It’s all written in the layers of wood, if you know how to read it, and enclosed in a layer of bark.
Laura Liska · 17. Juni
Column
Our Many Garments
I asked for a receipt for the far-too-expensive visit to the small Ethiopian farmstead. The men just stared blankly at me. Was I getting ripped off? I sounded like my mother and realized that her way of dealing with things had shaped me. I tried to smooth things over with wit and charm, and without drawing attention to my womanhood. After all, women certainly don’t have much say in matters here. Secretly, I thought the guide was arrogant before realizing that he came from the line of clan leaders. And eventually, I sat in a young wife’s hut and listened to her singing, as beautiful as the savanna wind at 5 p.m.
Gilda Bartel · 03. Juni
Forum
2 Beiträge
Letter
Responses to the Interview with Serhii Kopyl
Reflections and reader responses to the interview by Frode Barkved with Ukranian Serhii Kopyl, “Everything I Own, I Carry with Me.” Winston Churchill wrote that the first casualty of war is truth, speech. Indeed, violence silences and polarizes. We welcome here an open conversation about this most terrible war in Europe since 1945. Renatus Derbidge Questions We Can No Longer Avoid To me, this article is among the best I have read in Das Goetheanum in a long time. Not …
Redaktion · 03. Juni
History
“The Misbegotten”: Fritz Koegel and His Family
Marginalia on Rudolf Steiner’s Life and Work 39. As a talented editor, Fritz Koegel found his calling at the Nietzsche Archive. He became embroiled in a conflict with Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, a conflict Rudolf Steiner was also drawn into. Career setbacks, artistic endeavors, and a family life overshadowed by depression lead to early tragedies. When Rudolf Steiner visited the Nietzsche Archive in Naumburg for the first time on May 26, 1894, along with his colleagues from the archive and the poet …
Martina Maria Sam · 03. Juni