Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Interview with Ralph White, Director of the Esoteric Quests, with Roger Green
Make sure you join our newsletters for updates on the 2025 Esoteric Quest adventure
EsotericQuest.org
EsotericQuest.info
30th Anniversary of the Esoteric Quests is happening in Switzerland - September 2025 - starting at Monte Verita....
Our primary focus will be the world of Monte Verita, the Mountain of Truth, 1901 to 1920, where the counterculture was born. It became a healing and arts colony for the spiritual rebels of Europe who were escaping the ‘iron cage’, as Max Weber called it, of materialistic and nationalistic thinking pointing to the First World War. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century many inhabitants had emigrated from this Italian speaking part of Switzerland to Milan or to the United States. This left inexpensive properties in an exquisite location on the shores of the lake beneath the snow-capped Alps that we affordable for those seeking alternatives.
Many of the elements thought to have begun in California in the Sixties or possibly Greenwich Village in the Twenties, actually started at Monte Verita where figures such as Herman Hesse, Isadora Duncan, and Rudolf Laban visited and lived.
They gathered to explore eastern religions, western esoteric traditions, vegetarianism, free love, nude sunbathing, fresh developments in psychology, and much more.
It could be said that this place served as the fountainhead for an alternative cultural stream that has been massively influential from then until the present time.
Monte Verita was followed in the Thirties by Eranos, the story of which has been described as an alternative intellectual history of the Twentieth Century. Briefly a Theosophical center in which Alice Bailey taught, it became a meeting place where C.G. Jung was the most prominent figure, and the focus was on depth psychology. The Eranos Foundation continues to this day though somewhat differently from its early years.
After the conference portion of the Quest near Ascona, we hope to spend a night or two in the peace and beaty of the Alps before descending on the northern side of the mountain range to Zurich where our focus will, of course, be on Carl Jung. We intend to visit the places of special significance to him and create a vivid picture of his life and legacy. Last, but certainly not least, we will journey on to Basel, home of the Goetheanum, and the international center of Rudolf Steiner’s legacy and work. One could argue that Jung is the great healer of the soul of modern times, and Steiner is the great spiritual philosopher and reformer. The Quest takes the view, not widespread, that their work is largely complementary and of great value. This will be quite a 30th birthday, as you can imagine!
EsotericQuest.org
Interview with Ralph White, Director of the Esoteric Quests, with Roger Green
Make sure you join our newsletters for updates on the 2025 Esoteric Quest adventure
EsotericQuest.org
EsotericQuest.info
30th Anniversary of the Esoteric Quests is happening in Switzerland - September 2025 - starting at Monte Verita....
Our primary focus will be the world of Monte Verita, the Mountain of Truth, 1901 to 1920, where the counterculture was born. It became a healing and arts colony for the spiritual rebels of Europe who were escaping the ‘iron cage’, as Max Weber called it, of materialistic and nationalistic thinking pointing to the First World War. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century many inhabitants had emigrated from this Italian speaking part of Switzerland to Milan or to the United States. This left inexpensive properties in an exquisite location on the shores of the lake beneath the snow-capped Alps that we affordable for those seeking alternatives.
Many of the elements thought to have begun in California in the Sixties or possibly Greenwich Village in the Twenties, actually started at Monte Verita where figures such as Herman Hesse, Isadora Duncan, and Rudolf Laban visited and lived.
They gathered to explore eastern religions, western esoteric traditions, vegetarianism, free love, nude sunbathing, fresh developments in psychology, and much more.
It could be said that this place served as the fountainhead for an alternative cultural stream that has been massively influential from then until the present time.
Monte Verita was followed in the Thirties by Eranos, the story of which has been described as an alternative intellectual history of the Twentieth Century. Briefly a Theosophical center in which Alice Bailey taught, it became a meeting place where C.G. Jung was the most prominent figure, and the focus was on depth psychology. The Eranos Foundation continues to this day though somewhat differently from its early years.
After the conference portion of the Quest near Ascona, we hope to spend a night or two in the peace and beaty of the Alps before descending on the northern side of the mountain range to Zurich where our focus will, of course, be on Carl Jung. We intend to visit the places of special significance to him and create a vivid picture of his life and legacy. Last, but certainly not least, we will journey on to Basel, home of the Goetheanum, and the international center of Rudolf Steiner’s legacy and work. One could argue that Jung is the great healer of the soul of modern times, and Steiner is the great spiritual philosopher and reformer. The Quest takes the view, not widespread, that their work is largely complementary and of great value. This will be quite a 30th birthday, as you can imagine!
EsotericQuest.org
