The words above, unfortunately, ring true today, even though they date from 1939 when the world was on the brink of war. Yet, remarkably, it is within this tumultuous political era that a shining star of multidisciplinary intellectual scholarship began. International thought leaders from the worlds of religious studies, physics, biology, psychology, and the humanities came together to share ideas and gain new inspiration each year in Ascona, Switzerland. These gatherings were called the Eranos Conferences. They still continue today.

These conferences serve as inspiration for the Anima Mundi Project. What seeds can progressive academics and practitioners plant when our energies combine within an alchemical vessel of physical space? What will the legacy of our intellectual community be? What contributions can we make to what is already a special city with unique energy of its own?  These are exciting questions amidst a particularly disturbed time, as Ms. Fröbe-Kapteyn so eloquently described above.