Why is it so difficult actually to understand and implement the "intentions of the Christmas Conference (in Rudolf Steiner's words), which represent a very concrete answer to the Anthroposophical Society's identity crisis"? - Peter Selg

More than 100 years after its founding, the Anthroposophical Society faces serious questions - some of an existential nature - regarding its purpose and tasks in the present day. On 30 March 2012, in the course of the Society's Annual General Meeting in Dornach, both Sergei Prokofieff and Peter Selg gave lectures in which they addressed difficult issues relating to the General Anthroposophical Society and its global headquarters, the Goetheanum in Switzerland. These lectures were met with a mixture of enthusiastic support and stern disapproval. They are reproduced here in full - together with supplementary material that helps broaden and deepen their themes - in order for each and every interested individual to have access to them.

"The intention of my lecture was to draw attention to the fact that the recent development of the Goetheanum is no longer heading in the right direction; rather, it is heading in a direction that can be considered neither in the spirit intended by Rudolf Steiner, nor of service to anthroposophy. Before it is too late, this direction must be altered... Otherwise, the Goetheanum is in danger of being degraded to spiritual 'insignificance', and of becoming a mere combination of museum and conference centre." - Sergei O. Prokofieff

SERGEI O. PROKOFIEFF, born in Moscow in 1954, studied painting and art history at the Moscow School of Art. He encountered anthroposophy in his youth, and soon made the decision to devote his life to it. He has been active as an author and lecturer since 1982, and in 1991 he co-founded the Anthroposophical Society in Russia. In Easter 2001 he became a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach. He is the author of dozens of books, including May Human Beings Hear It!, The Occult Significance of Forgiveness and The Appearance of Christ in the Etheric.

PETER SELG, born in Stuttgart in 1963, studied medicine in Witten-Herdecke, Zurich, and Berlin. Until 2000, he worked as head physician of the juvenile psychiatry department of Herdecke hospital in Germany. Dr Selg is now director of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Research into Anthroposophy (Arlesheim, Switzerland) and professor of medicine at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Germany). He lectures extensively and is the author of numerous books, including The Figure of Christ, The Agriculture Course and Rudolf Steiner's Foundation Stone Meditation. He is married with five children.