Goetheanum | On the Daughter's Laughter

About the job

On the Daughter's Laughter

Vesna Forštnerič Lesjak has been co-leading the Natural Science Section of the Free University of Spiritual Science with Matthias Rang since 2023. We ask where she comes from, where she is heading, and what it is about. The conversation was conducted by Philipp Tok.

An introductory question: What is your favourite sound?

Vesna The laughter of my daughter. When the two of us are together in the evening, in bed before prayer, we usually laugh a lot and in our particularly humorous way.

My first impression of you was the presentation of a remedy discovery using artistic methods. Drawing, modelling, composing poetry and music, you approached the lungwort. This concrete possibility of penetrating effects and essence through art touched me deeply.

As a pharmacist, my concern is to develop new remedy ideas from the precise observation of natural processes in the plant world. The Goethean training path enables the exercise of imaginative abilities necessary to encounter nature in a lively and comprehensible way. The pharmaceutical processes that ultimately connect natural and disease processes are truly artistic processes. They are not arbitrary; they are part of the "exact fantasy".

How did your path to the Goetheanum unfold?

I did not plan it. Encountering anthroposophy in Slovenia is not easy. As a pharmacy student, I attended a lecture by an anthroposophical doctor. He spoke about disease tendencies in the threefold human organism – a completely new idea for me. His presentation captivated me, and I inquired about research projects for my thesis. From him, I received contact with a pharmacist and a biologist who invited me to their "part-time training in Goethean-anthroposophical natural science". The biologist and Goetheanist Jan Albert Rispens became a door opener for me. I had to meet Goetheanism before anthroposophy. As a scientist, I was not looking for a new philosophy but an extension of conventional science, which had already drained and exhausted me mentally and spiritually during my studies.

My research project was cyclamens, or alpine violets. I quickly mastered the "new" method as if I had long had it within me. My first remedy for manic-depressive moods emerged. In parallel, I began training in anthroposophical pharmacy in Germany and directly became a mentor in the Goethean training – it was an explosive development in my life. I received my first students from Croatia and Slovenia. At the same time, I began working with medicinal plants on our farm and founded the association for scientific further education, anthroposophical pharmacy and biodynamic agriculture "Sapientia" at the farm. I made radio broadcasts and television lectures about medicinal plants and invited doctors for lectures. We studied anthroposophy, founded reading groups and produced biodynamic preparations. My family participated in everything.

This text is an excerpt from an article published in the weekly "Das Goetheanum". You can read the full article on the weekly's website. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can get to know the weekly for 1 CHF/€.

Cover image Vesna Forštnerič Lesjak, photo: Xue Li