Unlike the natural sciences, spiritual science is still developing its research methodology. Threefold's Researcher in Residence program provides researchers the opportunity to dedicate substantial time to high-level collaborative investigations in the etheric realm.
Living Questions
Thank You!
A word of appreciation for all who helped make Living Questions, Threefold Educational Center's 2011 Research Symposium, a fruitful experience! We are grateful for the many positive reflections that we've harvested thus far. If you were present and have anything you'd like to share, it's not too late - please email your comments to Jordan Walker at jordan@threefold.org.
Please watch this page for news about developing plans for the future Spiritual Scientific research activities at Threefold Educational Center. To be among the first to know about developments at Threefold, please join our email list (use the button on the left), and Like us on Facebook.
Images of the Conference, Living Questions
Slide show images copyright Nat McPhee.
To see the program and presenters for the 2011 Symposium, click here.
To see an account of the 2010 Researcher in Residence program, click here.
A Research Manifesto
At the 1924 Christmas Foundation Conference, Rudolf Steiner placed spiritual scientific research at the center of the work and mission of anthroposophy. In 1926, Threefold Farm in Spring Valley, New York, was founded as a living laboratory for spiritual science in social threefolding, biodynamic farming, and the arts. Our mission was codified in 1965, when the Threefold Educational Foundation was chartered by the State of New York Education Department “to establish, conduct, operate and maintain conferences, programs of research and adult education in all fields of human endeavor emphasizing the principles and methods enunciated by Rudolf Steiner.”
We recognize that research is not a luxury, it is a necessity—life itself depends on it. However, research, like any living thing, requires a convergence of essential elements in appropriate amounts. These elements include: qualified researchers carrying worthy questions; time and space in which to do research, and means for researchers to live on; and a social and physical setting that is supportive of the researchers’ work. In short, what is urgently needed is for qualified researchers to be paired with appropriate institutional, social and financial support.
Over the past year, Threefold Educational Center has consciously acted on its task as an anthroposophical institution, which is to create and foster the conditions necessary for spiritual scientific research to take place. A series of conferences hosted by Threefold have brought together interested parties from all over North America and Europe, in part to investigate and discuss the nature and meaning of such research in the past and going forward. A community of researchers and a constellation of questions have been identified. We have developed our physical facilities to create appropriate spaces for working, meeting, exhibiting and performing, a process that continues as new needs and opportunities arise.
A major step in this process was the creation in 2010 of the Threefold Researcher in Residence program. Our first Researcher in Residence, artist and geometrician Frank Chester, worked with a team of eleven research fellows at Threefold from September 19 to October 30. Their work culminated in an exhibition at Threefold Auditorium, “Art as Research and Scientific Inquiry as a Creative Act.” The exhibit’s opening coincided with a weekend Symposium on Anthroposophical Research, co-sponsored by the Collegium of the North American School of Spiritual Science and Threefold.
As the Threefold Researcher in Residence program takes shape and evolves, a continuous dialogue with the Collegium of the School of Spiritual Science is intended to ensure that our work harmonizes with the Collegium’s efforts in the same direction.