The boundless experience

Anders Hallengren

Chapter 1 in Leadership, Art, and Responsibility, 2026, pp 1-4 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter offers a reflective account of the Shibboleth experience from the perspective of Anders Hallengren, who served as discussion leader in the Shibboleth study. Moving through the dim underworld of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, he enters a performance designed to strip away masks and confront participants with the tragic depths of human existence. What appears at first as an ordinary artistic event becomes an existential rite of passage – an encounter that unsettles, provokes, and awakens ethical awareness. Hallengren describes how the Shibboleth performance, with its stark literary fragments, piercing musical elements, and sustained reflective practice, evokes a rare and grave reverence for the human being. The programme's documented psychological and physiological effects are complemented by a subjective, inward transformation: an expanded compassion, intensified self-reflection, and a deeper respect for the vulnerability of others. Drawing on philosophical insights, Hallengren reflects on identity, inner dialogue, and the difficulty of understanding both oneself and another. In the Shibboleth context, emotions are stirred that subdue even profound estrangement, revealing compassion as a force of healing and moral reorientation. The ordeal becomes a passage: through discomfort, through darkness, towards a widened perspective and renewed empathy. The chapter concludes that the Shibboleth experience – demanding, unsettling, and artistically exacting – acts as a catalyst for ethical maturation. It demonstrates how art, when allowed to confront the unbearable, can open inner thresholds that reshape understanding, deepen responsibility, and rekindle hope for our shared human future.

Keywords: Shibboleth Experience; Art-based Reflection; Ethical Awakening; Compassion and Responsibility; Existential Transformation; Identity and Inner Dialogue; Leadership and Vulnerability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781049403991
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