Anthroposophy
From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)
Anthroposophy, also called spiritual science by its founder Rudolf Steiner, is an attempt to investigate and describe spiritual phenomena with the same precision and clarity with which natural science investigates and describes the physical world. Steiner described his approach as "soul-observations using scientific methodology". He often used clairvoyance and other methods that are considered outside of the scientific method to research the subject. His ideas have their roots in the flowering of Germanic culture that resulted in the transcendent philosophy of Hegel, Fichte and Schelling, on the one hand, and the poetic and scientific works of Goethe, upon whom Steiner draws heavily, on the other.
- "Anthroposophy is a path of understanding that seeks to lead the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the world at large" Rudolf Steiner(Steiner, Rudolf, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, Nr. 1. [ISBN 1855840960])
The word anthroposophy is derived from Greek roots. Anthrop- meaning human, and -sophy meaning wisdom. (Anthroposophy should not be confused with anthropology, the empirical study of human cultures)
History
In his early twenties, Steiner was asked to edit Goethe's scientific writings for a major publication of that writer's complete works. In the course of this work, Steiner began publishing various works that foreshadowed his later ideas, but were still set within the philosophical and scientific framework of his age: chiefly Goethe's Conception of the World and his commentaries on Goethe's scientific essays. His first work, Die Philosophie der Freiheit (translated variously as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, The Philosophy of Freedom, or Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path), was published when he was in his early thirties. Steiner created a concept of free will that was strongly founded upon inner experiences, especially those that occur in independent thought, without any explicit references to the nature of these experiences. His first reference to 'anthroposophy' dates from this early period.
Steiner's development and studies led him further and further into explicitly spiritual and philosophical research. These studies were chiefly interesting to others who were already oriented towards spiritual ideas; chief amongst these, at least in Steiner's earlier phase of development, was the Theosophical Society. He was asked to lead the German section of this primarily Anglo-American group. His work was distinct from that of most other members of the Society (exceptions included Bertram Kingsley in England) and both he and the then president of the Theosophical Society appear to have 'agreed to disagree' in an at first harmonious way. By 1907, however, there was a growing split between the group around Steiner, who was trying to develop a path that embraced such cornerstones of Western civilizations as Christianity and natural science, and the mainstream Theosophical Society, which was oriented toward an Eastern, and especially Indian, approach.
The Anthroposophical Society was formed in 1912 after Steiner left the Theosophical Society Adyar over differences with its leader, Annie Besant. She intended to present to the world the child Jiddu Krishnamurti as Christ reincarnated. Steiner strongly objected, and considered any equation between Krishnamurti and Christ to be nonsense (as did Krishnamurti himself once he had reached adulthood). This and the philosophical differences mentioned above led Steiner to leave the Theosophical Society. He was followed by a large number of members of the Theosophical Society's German Section, of which he had been secretary. Members of other national chapters of the Theosophical Society followed.
By this time, Steiner had reached considerable stature as a spiritual teacher(Ahern, G. (1984): Sun at Midnight : the Rudolf Steiner movement and the Western esoteric tradition). He claimed to have direct experiences of the Akashic Records (sometimes called the "Akasha Chronicle"), a spiritual chronicle of the history, pre-history and future of the world encoded in the etheric of the earth. In a number of works — especially How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Occult Science: An Outline —, Steiner described a path of inner development that would, he wrote, enable anyone to attain comparable spiritual experiences. Sound vision could be developed in part by practicing rigorous forms of ethical and cognitive self-discipline, concentration and meditation; in particular, a person's moral development must precede the development of spiritual faculties.
By 1912, a flowering of artistic work inspired by Steiner and the anthroposophical movement was well underway. New directions in drama, painting, sculpture, artistic movement and architecture all came together in a grand theatre center, the First Goetheanum, built in the years 1913-1920. To a significant extent this was built by volunteers from many countries and much of the work was accomplished during the First World War. The international community of workers, artists and scientists that came together around the project in neutral Switzerland existed in sharp contrast to the war-torn European nations around.
After World War I, the anthroposophical movement took on new directions. Practical projects such as schools, centers for the handicapped, organic farms and medical clinics were established, all inspired by anthroposophical research.
Steiner died in 1925, but anthroposophical work has continued in all of the areas established during his lifetime as well as in many new projects established since. Seminars, artistic trainings, and institutions such as schools, banks, farms and clinics exist throughout the world, all inspired by the idea that spiritual work can be systematically and methodically pursued in harmony with outer endeavors.
The union of science and spirit
- Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe. It arises in man as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling: and it can be justified inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner need.(Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, (1924) 1998)
Steiner believed in the possibility of uniting the clarity of modern scientific thinking with the awareness of a spiritual world that lives in all religious and mystical experience. Science focuses on theories which can be tested and verified. Steiner tried to create an approach to what he called the "inner life" that would use the careful, systematic methodology created by modern science, but turn its attention to the soul and spirit.
Steiner believed artistic expression was a potentially valuable bridge between spiritual and material reality. He believed one could reach higher levels of consciousness through meditation and observation. Steiner described and developed numerous systematic exercises for the realization of these goals, especially in his early book, Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment.
Conception of the human being
The anthroposophical concept of man includes the idea that man has inhabited earth since its creation, albeit in a spiritual form. This spiritual form then processed through a number of stages to reach its current form, stages which included emanation of lesser beings such as animals and plants. Thus every living thing has evolved from mankind (although "mankind" is not here seen in its usual sense, but includes its earlier spiritual forms).
Steiner believed that any phenomena could be described from a variety of perspectives. This is very clear in his descriptions of the nature of the human being: what he called a three-fold, four-fold, seven-fold view, and occasionally even a twelve-fold view appear in his works.{citation needed}
Steiner believed that a human being is composed of body, soul and spirit. The body containing the physical self, the life processes and forces, and the framework of consciousness. The soul passing into incarnation in a body, and out of this again into the spiritual existence. He believed the spirit connects the lives on earth together and with the spiritual world and that spirit was eternal and creative and the humans are only beginning to become conscious of its activity within us.
Steiner's description of the human being as consisting of seven intimately connected parts, starting on the material level and reaching up into the spiritual levels - and several of which are still in development - is similar to that found in Theosophy. Three bodily aspects (as mentioned above), the self or ego, and three spiritual components make up the seven levels. This view is especially clearly articulated in his Theosophy, and An Outline of Occult Science.
Steiner also described a fourfold view, which Steiner expands on very frequently and puts to practical uses in subjects such as medicine and child education:
- the physical body,
- the life or etheric body, the organization of forces of metamorphosis and growth for living beings
- the consciousness or astral body, and
- the ego or "I" of the human being.
Place in Western Philosophy
The Epistemic basis for Anthroposophy is contained in the seminal work, The Philosophy of Freedom, as well as in Steiner's doctoral thesis, Truth and Science. These and several other early books by Steiner anticipated 20th century continental philosophy's gradual overcoming of Cartesian idealism and of Kantian subjectivism. Like Edmund Husserl and Ortega y Gasset, Steiner was profoundly influenced by the works of Franz Brentano (whose lectures he had heard as a student at the Technical University of Vienna) and had read Wilhelm Dilthey in depth. Through Steiner's early epistemological and philosophical works, he became one of the first European philosophers to overcome the subject-object split that Descartes, classical physics, and various complex historical forces had impressed upon Western thought for several centuries. His philosophical work was taken up in the middle of the twentieth century by Owen Barfield, a philosopher of language from Oxford University and through him influenced the Inklings, a group that included such writers as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. It was also taken up by the philosopher (and prolific author) Herbert Witzenmann. Steiner's philosophy has not found widespread recognition by academic philosophers outside of the anthroposophical movement, however; one exception is Richard Tarnas, author of The Passion of the Western Mind.
Steiner's philosophy begins by asserting that there is a division between our sensory experiences of the outer world and our soul experiences of an inner world consisting of thoughts, feelings and intentions (will impulses). He focused on how he believed our thinking in particular complements what we experience through the senses; one facet of the world is its outer appearance, a second is its inner structure. He thought humans access the two separately but they are originally united in the objective world, and we have the capacity to reunite them through creating a relationship between our percepts and our concepts, between what we experience outwardly and inwardly. He claims we only understand an aspect of the outer world when we find this connection between our sensory impressions of it and our concepts about it.
Thus, he claimed, though all experience begins subject to the subject-object divide, through our own activity Steiner says we can progressively overcome this divide. This lies in our free will, however; we are given the divide but not its overcoming.
Steiner also examines the step from thinking as determined by outer impressions to what he calls sense-free thinking. Thoughts without sensory content, for example mathematical or logical thinking, is clearly a free deed, he claimed. He thus believes he locates the origin of the free will in our thinking, and in particular in sense-free thinking. Especially in his later work, Steiner asserts that the objective truths attainable through mathematics and logic are evidence of an objective non-sensory world - a world of spirit/mind that is not subject to the subjective nature of our inner experiences. (The German word Geist means both spirit and mind.)
Relationship to Natural Science
Anthroposophy explicitly seeks to extend natural science's mandate, which is to study the world as external observers to explore human experience from within. Steiner postulated that, as we have learned over centuries and even millennia to treat our experience of the outer world in a clear and systematic way, we can also learn to do this for our experience of out inner life.
Steiner and many other anthroposophists have tried to show how the genuine and even scientific study of man, need not restrict itself to externally observable phenomena. If an equally objective description of human soul and spiritual life can be achieved, he believed, these too can be elevated to a science. Natural science thus sets the example and provides a methodological goal for anthroposophy; the potential content of observation is however extended to experiences beyond the purely sensory.
The discipline of science assumes that scientific reasoning is possible, i.e.in anthroposophical terms, that our soul experience of thinking can be as objective and verifiable as the sensory phenomena themselves.
Relationship to religion
Steiner was early in seeing the challenges of a multicultural society. He articulated the need for a spirituality that could respect and unite all religions and cultures. His line of thought can be summarized as follows:
Many people, especially those of Eastern cultures, see the need for a spiritual basis for a culture. Others, especially in the West, live in a materialistic framework that has achieved astonishing results, especially through the achievements of modern science, but has abandoned its spiritual roots. Steiner suggested that, without a reconciliation of these two, a clash of cultures would be inevitable. He suggested that the East (for Steiner, characteristically spiritually centered people and peoples) would only respect the West (characteristically people and peoples who focus on external reality and achievements) when a new spirituality arose in the West, a spirituality that united the achievements of both cultures.
Steiner's writing, though appreciative of all religions and cultural developments, emphasizes recent Western (rather than older Hindu or Buddhist) esoteric thought as having evolved to meet contemporary needs. He describes Christ and his mission on earth as having a particularly important place in human evolution. Steiner emphasized, however, that:
- Christianity has evolved out of previous religions,
- The being that manifests in Christianity also manifests in all faiths and religions,
- Each religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born,
- The historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed considerably to meet the on-going evolution of humanity.(This was a common theme for Steiner; see especially:
- Rudolf Steiner, Christus zur Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgotha und Christus im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert, as well as
- Rudolf Steiner, GA130 and GA342, all Rudolf Steiner Verlag, various dates)
It is the being that unifies all religions, and not a particular religious faith, that Steiner saw as the central force in human evolution. Steiner's Christianity differs also from that of the Gnostics who viewed the Christ phenomenon through the knowledge gained through earlier gnosticism, whereas for Steiner Christ's incarnation was a historical reality and a pivotal and unique point in human history. In a lecture explaining the relationship between Anthroposophy and Christianity, Steiner explained: "Spiritual science does not want to usurp the place of Christianity; on the contrary it would like to be instrumental in making Christianity understood. Thus it becomes clear to us through spiritual science that the being whom we call Christ is to be recognized as the center of life on earth, that the Christian religion is the ultimate religion for the earth's whole future. Spiritual science shows us particularly that the pre-Christian religions outgrow their one-sidedness and come together in the Christian faith. It is not the desire of spiritual science to set something else in the place of Christianity; rather it wants to contribute to a deeper, more heartfelt understanding of Christianity."
Towards the end of Steiner's life, a notable Protestant pastor, Friedrich Rittelmeyer, approached Steiner for help in reviving Christianity. Out of their cooperative endeavor, the Movement for Religious Renewal, now generally known as The Christian Community, was born. Steiner emphasized that this help was given independently of his anthroposophical work, as he saw anthroposophy as independent of any particular religion or religious denomination.
Practical work arising out of anthroposophy
Practical results of Anthroposophy include work in many fields. These include:
- Steiner, Rudolf. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [1].
- Shepherd, A. P., A Scientist of the Invisible. and
- Barnes, Henry, A Life for the Spirit : Rudolf Steiner in the Crosscurrents of Our Time
Waldorf Education
Out of the anthroposophical movement have come nearly a thousand schools world-wide. These are often called Waldorf Schools, after the first such school, founded in 1919; they are also sometimes called Steiner Schools. Some have been supported by the United Nations and receive full or partial governmental funding in some European nations. They are successful in an unusual range of circumstances: in the impoverished barrios of San Paulo and the wealthy suburbs of New York City, in India, Egypt, Australia, Holland and Mexico. Usually supported by a vibrant parent community, they are one of the most visibly successful achievements of the anthroposophical movement. In addition, an increasing number of teachers are using 'Waldorf' principles in other school settings, often within the public (state) schools themselves.
Biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture began in the 1920s. Numerous bio-dynamic farms now exist in a great number of countries. Steiner must be counted as one of the two great founders of the modern organic farming movement.Publications on organic agriculture,History of Organic Agriculture Steiner's Agriculture Course was the first published work on the subject, appearing 16 years before Howard's An Agricultural Testament, and much of the present-day organic movement can be traced back to people wholly or partially inspired by the biodynamic approach. Bio-dynamic agriculture emphasizes activating the life of the soil and creating each farm as a living organism that includes human beings, animals, plants and the soil.
Anthroposophical medicine
Steiner gave several series of lectures to physicians, and out of this grew a medical movement that now includes hundreds of M.D.s, chiefly in Europe and North America, and that has its own clinics, hospitals and medical universities. He claimed Anthroposophical medicine is an extension of, not an alternative to, conventional medical approaches, and a conventional medical training is required to be an anthroposophical doctor. Anthroposophical medicine uses many kinds of remedies and therapies, including many developed on the basis of homeopathy. Several medium-sized pharmaceutical firms (especially Weleda and Wala) specialize in anthroposophical remedies.
Other fields of work include an original cancer therapy based on mistletoe extracts developed by anthroposophical researchers. Though an accepted and widely used medical treatment in Germany and the European Union, this remains controversial in the United States.
Centres for helping the mentally handicapped (including Camphill Villages)
Early in the twentieth century, when proper care for the handicapped was sadly ignored in many countries, anthroposophical homes and communities arose to give a worthy life-style to the needy. The first was the Sonnenhof in Switzerland, founded by Ita Wegman; slightly later, the Camphill Movement was founded by Karl König in Scotland. The latter in particular has spread widely, and there are now over a hundred Camphill communities (as well as other anthroposophical homes) for both children and adults in many countries(Clay, Bob, Shaping the Flame, Association of Camphill Communities, 2000).
Organizational development and biography work
Bernard Lievegoed founded a new study of individual and institutional development; this is represented by the NPI Institute for Organisational Development in Holland and sister organizations in many other countries. Clients of these institutions range from some of the world's largest industrial firms to ordinary people trying to understand their own lives. One of the more interesting areas of application has been in transforming impoverished people's lives by bringing them to recognize and begin to realize their own biographical goals. Social work with prisoners shares these goals and has had the effect of bringing new purpose into many lives.
Banking
Anthroposophical banks were among the first to emphasize socially-responsible and community-based banking. Today around the world there are a number of innovative banks, companies, charitable institutions, and schools for developing new cooperative forms of business, all working partly out of Steiner’s social ideas. One example is The Rudolf Steiner Foundation, incorporated in 1984, and as of 2004 with estimated assets of $70 million. RSF provides "charitable innovative financial services". According to the independent organizations Co-op America and the Social Investment Forum Foundation, RSF is "one of the top 10 best organizations exemplifying the building of economic opportunity and hope for individuals through community investing." The first bank founded out of Steiner's ideas was the Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken in Bochum, Germany; it was started in 1974.
Architecture
Steiner himself designed around thirteen buildings, many of them significant works in a unique, organic-expressionistic style(Sharp, Dennis, Rudolf Steiner and the Way to a New Style in Architecture, Architectural Association Journal, June 1963). Foremost among these are his two designs for the Goetheanum. Thousands of further buildings have been built by a later generation of anthroposophic architects(Raab and Klingborg, Waldorfschule baut, Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 2002). Well-known architects who have been strongly influenced by the anthroposophic style include Imre Makovecz (HU), Hans Scharoun and Joachim Eble (DE), Erik Asmussen (SW), Kenji Imai (Japan), Thomas Rau, Anton Alberts and Max van Huut (NL), Christopher Day and Camphill Architects (UK), Thompson and Rose (USA), Denis Bowman (CA), and Gregory Burgess (Australia)(Raab, Klingborg and Fant, Eloquent Concrete, London: 1979)(Pearson, David, New Organic Architecture. University of California Press, 2001).
One of the most famous contemporary buildings by an anthroposophical architect is the ING Bank in Amsterdam, which has been given many awards for its ecological design and approach to a self-sustaining ecology as an autonomous building.
Eurythmy
In the arts, Steiner's new art of eurythmy gained early renown, gaining a prize at a pre-World War II World Exposition in Paris. Eurythmy is a renewal of the spiritual foundations of dance, transforming speech and music into visible movement. There are now active stage groups and training centers, mostly of modest proportions, in many countries.
Flow forms
John Wilkes' fountain-like Flow Forms can be found in many locations. These sculptural forms guide water into rhythmic movement, and are used both decoratively and for water purification in small to medium-scale applications.
Speech and Drama
There are also movements to renew speech and drama. The former go back to the work of Marie Steiner-von Sivers; among the better known of the latter is the approach founded by Michael Chekhov, the nephew of the playwright Anton Chekhov.
Other areas
Other areas of note are:
- Astrosophy as opposed to Astrology,
- Goethean Science,
- New artistic directions
Social Goals of Anthroposophy
For a period after World War I, Steiner was extremely active and well-known in Germany in part because in many places he gave lectures on social questions. A petition expressing his basic social ideas (signed by Herman Hesse, among others) was very widely circulated. His main book on social questions, Die Kernpunkte der Sozialen Frage (available in English today as Toward Social Renewal) sold tens of thousands of copies.
Steiner's Outlook on Social History
In Steiner's various writings and lectures he held that there were three main spheres of power comprising human society: the cultural, the economic and the political. In ancient times, those who had political power were also generally those with the greatest cultural/religious power and the greatest economic power. Culture, State and Economy were fused (for example in ancient Egypt). With the emergence of classical Greece and Rome, the three spheres began to become more autonomous. This autonomy went on increasing over the centuries, and with the slow rise of egalitarianism and individualism, the failure adequately to separate economics, politics and culture was felt increasingly as a source of injustice.
Anthroposophy has its own concept of history: according to Steiner our present time falls into the post-Atlantean period, since in his view the disaster that he says hit Atlantis in 7227 BC was a significant turning point in the history of man. This post-Atlantean period is divided by him into seven epochs, the current one being the European-American Epoch, which Steiner said would last until about the year 3573.
Social Threefolding
There are three kinds of social separations Steiner wanted strengthened. This is known as Social Threefolding,
- Increased separation between the State and cultural life
- Increased separation between the economy and cultural life
- Increased separation between the State and the economy (stakeholder economics)
Anthroposophy in Brief
Spiritual training
According to Steiner, a real spiritual world exists out of which the material one gradually condensed, and evolved. The spiritual world, Steiner held, can in the right circumstances be researched through direct experience, by persons practicing rigorous forms of ethical and cognitive self-discipline. Steiner described many exercises he said were suited to strengthening such self-discipline. Details about the spiritual world, he said, could on such a basis be discovered and reported, not infallibly, but with approximate accuracy.
Steiner regarded his research reports as being important aids to others seeking to enter into spiritual experience. He suggested that a combination of spiritual exercises (for example, concentrating on an object such as a seed), moral development (control of thought, feelings and will combined with openness, tolerance and flexibility) and familiarity with other spiritual researchers' results would best further an individual's spiritual development. He consistently emphasized that any inner, spiritual practice should be undertaken in such a way as not to interfere with one's responsibilities in outer life.
Steiner often advised people avoid turning his work into a doctrine. He emphasized that any researcher, in any field, was able to make mistakes, and that both science and the world continued to evolve, making all results outdated after a certain time.
One of the central exercises of anthroposophy is to focus on a given content (this can be an outer object or a spiritual imagination) for a given time, and then to consciously eliminate the content from one's consciousness, allowing the process of attention to continue. We can become aware, thereby, of the activity of attention itself. A further step is then to dismiss this activity from one's consciousness. Behind the activity, Steiner suggested, would be found another level of spiritual reality. Steiner thus described a gradual experiential path from ordinary conceptual thinking into forms of thinking perceptive of living spiritual beings and mobile realities in the spiritual world.
Body, Soul and Spirit
In his works Steiner described the human being as consisting of an eternal spirit, an evolving soul and a temporal body. Steiner also offered a detailed analysis of each of these three realms, however:
Spirit: though the spirit is eternal in anthroposophy teachings, it is becoming progressively more individualized and consciously experienced. In earthly life, the individuality or ego awakens to self-consciousness through its experience of its reflection in the deeds and suffering of a physical body. This is necessary for a human individuality to retain its self-awareness when not incarnated in the body. Thus, humanity is developing through experiences on earth, in bodily incarnation, to attain a spiritual life independent of bodily existence. This happens for all humanity as part of its natural evolution; spiritual exercises are necessary for those who seek to be pioneers in this respect to go beyond the natural spiritual development of a given age.
Soul: Stiener believed that the human soul passes between stages of existence, incarnating into an earthly body, living a life, leaving the body behind and entering into the spiritual worlds before returning to be born again into a new life on earth. As each human soul evolves through its experience, the earth itself and civilization as a whole also evolves; thus, new types of experience are available at each successive incarnation. The soul's passes through stages of development; these larger stages are also recapitulated within in every lifetime. Initially, the soul lives through sense experience; the outer world forms and determines the inner life. Gradually, the human being seeks to order, understand and express his or her experience; inner life thus becomes independent of immediate sense-experience. Finally, the soul can become self-reflective, exploring the nature and laws of its own existence.
Body: Steiner uses the term body to describe the aspects of human existence that endure for a single lifetime. The physical body is the most obvious of these. Permeating our physical existence are forces of life, growth and metamorphosis that maintain and develop the physical body; as it is an aspect of a lifetime that falls away after death, Steiner called this the life or etheric body. We also have a framework of consciousness that includes our set feelings, concepts and intentions; Steiner called this the body of consciousness or sentient body. All of these elements are particular to an individual lifetime; they contribute to soul and spiritual development but themselves fall away at the death that terminates a particular life on earth.
Reincarnation and Karma
In his books Steiner described human existence as a cycle of birth, life, death, spiritual existence and a return to earth. This cycle includes evolution and development, however; it is not an eternal sameness. The individuality born into any earthly life bears with her both abilities and wisdom attained through previous incarnations, and obligations that arise through previous deeds. Much of human life is determined by these factors, but there are also new abilities attained, wisdom achieved and deeds accomplished that are not determined, but free achievements. We may suffer due to something in a past life; we may also suffer to gain the strength for something in a future life; — our sufferings and achievements are not necessarily predetermined.
Steiner described human existence between death and a new birth in detail as, first, a series of stages of laying aside the physical form, life experiences, thoughts, relationships, and cultural context of the last life; then the entry into spiritual experience proper; the decision to return to earth; the passage back, during which the cultural context, relationships, ideas, life experiences and physical form are chosen; and finally the re-entry into physical existence through conception and birth. (Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos, Steiner Press, 1904/1994. ISBN 0880103736)
Critiques of Anthroposophy
Scientific basis
Criticisms of its claim to reproducibility and intersubjectivity, thus to a scientific foundation.
Religious nature
- Criticisms that a spiritual movement must necessarily be, or that anthroposophy particularly is, religious in nature. In a 2005 court case brought in California, however, the judge ruled that there is no legally admissible evidence that anthroposophy is a religion; see transcipt of the trial; this case is under appeal.
- Related to this are criticisms that anthroposophy is a sect or cult. In 2000, a court case was brought in France against a government minister for making this claim publicly; the court decided that the minister's comments were defamatory.[2] In 1999 and 2006, Belgian courts decided for the Anthroposophical Society in a case where anthroposophy had been included in a list of dangerous sects; the group that had made the list was fined.(Das Goetheanum, 2006/18, p. 20)
Accusations of racism in Anthroposophy
There have been accusations of racism made against Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy. Steiner’s ideas about race are complex. They can be briefly summarized as follows:
The individual and the race
- Humanity is made up of individuals, each of which exists ‘sui generis’.
- Each individual passes through incarnations in various races. Race is a transient characteristic, not an essential aspect of an individual.
- Each individual seeks to transform the body inherited in a given lifetime – all that is inherited by being part of a family, ethnic group or race – into a more individuated form. Individualities who effect this transformation and individuation more completely and successfully are little determined by their genetic makeup. Those who are less able to effect it are more strongly determined by their genetic characteristics (including racial background).
- Races arise, develop and decline. “A race or nation stands so much the higher, the more perfectly its members express the pure, ideal human type, the further they have worked their way from the physical and perishable to the supersensible and imperishable. The evolution of humanity through incarnations in ever higher national and religious forms is thus a process of liberation. The human being must finally appear in harmonious perfection.”(Steiner, Knowledge of Higher Worlds, 1910)
- Individuals who attach themselves too strongly to any particular race are inevitably caught in that race’s decline; those who free themselves from racial attachments pass from race to race as these develop. ‘Races would never become decadent, never decline, if there weren't souls that are unable to move up and unwilling to move up to a higher racial form.’(Steiner, Das Hereinwirken geistiger Wesenheiten in den Menschen, p. 174)
- All races are currently in decline. The “black race” once led humanity; the “red race” followed; the “yellow race” followed this; though the “white race” has led the progress of humanity most recently, it too is in decline and has the potential to descend to a lower level than any race hitherto.
- Humanity now has the task of progressively eliminating the significance of race altogether. The future evolution of humanity depends upon this.
- In particular, humanity has the task of freeing itself from an instinctive spirituality connected to one's racial and ethnic inheritance. This can only be achieved when people of several races or ethnic groups intermarry. Children who have a mixed ethnic or racial background can thus more easily find their way to a new, universally human spirituality.
- Remnants of race are still significant in our day; we have not yet overcome this completely. As races partly determine the genetic inheritance, they provide more ‘advanced’ or ‘backward’ bodies for souls’ incarnations. But: “No soul is bound to a backward body if it does not bind itself to it.”(Steiner, The Apocalypse of St. John, pp. 79-81)
Particular racial or ethnic groups
Many people find some of Steiner’s descriptions of particular races troubling or problematic, and in some cases difficult to reconcile with his more general statements about the role race plays in present-day humanity. Such descriptions include:
- He suggests that the white race provides a genetic makeup most helpful in the present age. The other races he sees as being in decline, sometimes using the term ‘decadent’. (Note that Steiner emphasizes that the white race is also presently in decline, however; only not so long so.)
- He suggests that eventual war between the 'white' and ‘colored’ races is inevitable. (Note that he does not suggest that this is a good thing.)
- He states that there is a kind of cleverness that comes from being blond. He goes on to state that this will disappear and that we must achieve an intelligence that is independent of our racial or genetic background, which can only be done by finding our way to a spiritualized thinking – i.e. thinking that is independent of brain processes.
- He makes a number of isolated critical comments about non-white races:
- He refers to the tragedy of black Africans being ‘brutally’ brought to Europe against their will. He states that this tragedy will work to the disadvantage of both peoples, weakening the European stock through the racial admixture. (Note that this seems to contradict his general comments about racial admixture being a necessary part of the transition to a universally human culture.)
- He speaks of the tragic inevitability that the Native Americans, to whom he attributes an unusually highly developed spirituality, but one preserved through a hardening of the organism, would be extinguished or uprooted.
- He speaks of the greatest mission of the Jewish people having been to provide a body into which the Christ being (the Messiah) could incarnate, and that this people's next contribution to world evolution would be to mingle itself with the rest of humanity.
- He states that those who incarnate in the non-white races at present have tended to connect themselves with their racial background too closely, and are thus caught in that race’s decline. (Note that he emphasizes that every individual must be treated as a special case, however, and not treated according to their genetic heritage.)
- He states that the white race currently has the mission of bringing the individual spirit deeply into the body, so that the body becomes a receptacle for the spirit, and that ‘People have white skin color because the spirit works within the skin when it wants to descend to the physical plane.’(Rudolf Steiner, Die geistigen Hintergründe des Ersten Weltkrieges, p. 37)
The significance of racial heterogeny
Finally, Steiner connects the very possibility of Christ's appearance on Earth with an inter-racial culture:
- 'Christ could be born in Galilee just because members of many peoples from various parts of the world were assembled in one spot; there was far less blood relationship, and, above all, far less faith in this [i.e. these relationships] than in Judea, in the narrow circle of the Hebrew people. Galilee was a heterogenous racial mixture....Christ's task was intimately connected with this mixing of blood.'(Steiner, Gospel of St. John and its Relation to the Other Gospels, lecture 9)
Charges of Racism
In 2005, Dr. Sven Ove Hansson, who is a prolific author of numerous books and articles and is head of the Department of Philosophy at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, wrote an article, The Racial Teachings of Rudolf Steiner, which contained the following excerpts:
- If you are a serious student of Steiner's writings, it quickly becomes obvious that the question of human races was not immaterial. Steiner returned again and again, and often quite detailed, to the origins and characteristics of human races. This is an important part of his writings on the progress and development of humanity.
- The "race" which Steiner described in positive terms was - not surprisingly - the white one. When listing the different "races," he described how they were inflicted by "hardening" of different organs. The list ended with those people who "did not become hardened at all." They were found in "those areas that comprise of today's Europe and Asia."
- Elsewhere, he stated that "the most mature characteristica are found in the European area. It is simply (a natural) law."
- According to Steiner's teachings on soul travel, the same soul could assume different "races" in different lives. What race it would be depended on how you behaved in the previous life. "A soul can be incarnated in any race, but if this soul doesn't become evil, it doesn't need to be reincarnated in a descending race, it will reincarnate later in an ascending race." In other words, it is important to be a good person, so you won't be black, Japanese or even American Indian in your next life.
- Steiner's quotes were made during the first decade of the 1900's, before the Nazi era. His wordings on non-European peoples were for their time unusually degrading and offensive, even within the German language area. Steiner belonged to those many who paved the way for Nazism through expressing the idea about the superiority of the "white" race.
Report by the Anthroposophical Society's Commission on Racism
In 1998, the Dutch Anthroposophical Society created a commission to investigate whether Steiner made racist comments and whether racism existed in anthroposophy or Waldorf schools. The chair of the commission was Ted A. van Baarda, director of the Humanitarian Law Consultancy in The Hague. He studied international public law at Leyden State University and completed his thesis at the University of Twente in 1992 on the subject of colliding human rights. In 1993 to 1994 he served as General Secretary of the Conference on the Rights of Children in Armed Conflict and subsequently organized a conference on civil-military cooperation. He teaches at the Military Staff College (Instituut Defensie Leergangen Ypenburg) near The Hague and, on an occasional basis, at the Netherlands Institute on International Relations "Clingendael." He has written widely in journals and the popular media on issues of international law and morality.
The commission investigated every Steiner comment they believed to be relevant, which covered over 350 published volumes of his writings, lectures and letters. Their conclusions follow:
- The Commission emphasizes that Rudolf Steiner's concept of man is based on the equality of all individuals, and not on some supposed superiority of one race over another.
- The conclusion of the Commission is that sixteen statements, if they were in public by a person on his or her own authority, could be a violation of the prohibition of racial discrimination under the Criminal Code of the Netherlands.
- The Commission finds again that any suggestion that racism is an inherent part of Anthroposophy, or that conceptually Steiner helped prepare the way for the holocaust, has proven to be categorically wrong. As a matter of fact, the investigation of the Commission shows that, beginning in the year 1900, he clearly spoke and wrote against the dangers of anti-Semitism, including in the periodical of a then existing German association against anti-Semitism existing at that time.
In a widely-published event, the Commission announced on February 4, 1998, that there was no ground for accusations that the work of Steiner contains a racial doctrine or any statements made with the purpose of insulting persons or groups of people on the basis of their race.
As to Waldorf education, the Commission concluded, in agreement with the prior judgment of Dutch Government Education Inspectors (Onderwijsinspectie), that racism does not exist there. The Commission did, however, acknowledge the existence until quite recently of a custom of stereotyping in the subject of ethnology [in the Dutch schools], which could lead to discrimination and which must be prevented. As has been previously reported, the [Dutch] Waldorf schools took measures against this in 1995 and supplemented these in 1998 with their own anti-discrimination code and an independent commission that monitors compliance.
However, because the commission was created by the Dutch Anthroposophical Society and every member of the commission was also a member of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society, many critics accused the commission of a conflict of interest and found its conclusions biased.
Supporters of Anthroposophy
Anthroposophy has had many prominent supporters outside of the movement. Among these have been many writers, artists and musicians; these include Andrej Bely, Wassily Kandinsky, Bruno Walter, and Josef Beuys.
See also
Further descriptions of concrete activities emerging from Anthroposophy can be found under the Wikipedia's Rudolf Steiner article, and a list of particularly active anthroposophists can be found under the Wikipedia's Spiritual Science article.
Bibliography
- Primary Sources:
- Written works
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path : A Philosophy of Freedom; Steiner Books, 1893/1995.
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. Christianity as Mystical Fact"; trans. by Andrew Welburn. Hudson, N.Y. : Anthroposophic Press, 1902/c1997.
- Steiner, Rudolf, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1904/2005. [ISBN 1855841312]
- Rudolf Steiner, Cosmic Memory, Steiner Books, 1990.
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. How to Know Higher Worlds : a modern path of initiation ; trans. by Christopher Bamford. Hudson, N.Y. : Anthroposophic Press, 1904/c1994.
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. An Outline of Esoteric Science; trans. by Catherine E. Creeger. Hudson, NY : Anthroposophic Press, 1910/c1997.
- Steiner, Rudolf. Verses and Meditations. Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005. [ISBN 1855841975]
- Lectures
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. A Western Approach to Reincarnation and Karma : selected lectures and writings ; ed. and intr. by René Querido. Hudson, NY : Anthroposophic Press, c1997.
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. According to Matthew : the gospel of Christ's humanity : lectures by Rudolf Steiner; trans. by C. E. Creeger ; intr. by R. Smoley. Great Barrington, MA : Anthroposophic Press, c2003.
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925 Evil: selected lectures by Rudolf Steiner ; all lectures trans. or rev. by Matthew Barton ; [comp. and ed. by Michael Kalisch]. London : R. Steiner, 1997.
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. Founding a Science of The Spirit : fourteen lectures given in Stuttgart between 22 August and 4 September 1906 [New ed.]; trans. revised by Matthew Barton. London : Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999.
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. Towards Social Renewal : rethinking the basis of society [4th ed]; trans. by Matthew Barton. London : Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999.
- Rudolf Steiner, Menschheitsentwickelung und Christus-Erkenntnis (GA100), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, date?
- Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of St. John and its Relation to the other Gospels (GA112), available online.
- Rudolf Steiner, The Apocalypse of St. John, Kessinger Publishing, 2005.
- Rudolf Steiner, Die geistigen Hintergründe des Ersten Weltkrieges (GA 174b), Dornach, 1974.
- Rudolf Steiner, Das Hereinwirken geistiger Wesenheiten in den Menschen (GA102), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, date?
- Selected lectures and writings
- Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. Esoteric Development : selected lectures and writings. (Rev. ed.) Great Barrington, MA : SteinerBooks, c2003.
- McDermott, Robert A., The Essential Steiner: Basic Writings of Rudolf Steiner, Harper, 1984.
- Secondary Sources:
- Ahern, G. (1984): Sun at Midnight : the Rudolf Steiner movement and the Western esoteric tradition. Wellingborough : Aquarian Press
- Barnes, Henry, A Life for the Spirit : Rudolf Steiner in the Crosscurrents of Our Time, Steiner Books, 1997.
- Hindes, James H. (1995) Renewing Christianity. Edinburgh : Floris Books
- Nesfield-Cookson, B.(1994): Rudolf Steiner's Vision of Love : spiritual science and the logic of the heart. Bristol : Rudolf Steiner Press
- Paddock, F. and M. Spiegler, Ed.(2003) Judaism and Anthroposophy. Great Barrington, MA : SteinerBooks
- Shepherd, A. P. 1885-1968 :The Battle for The Spirit : The Church and Rudolf Steiner; an anthology compiled by and with an introduction by David Clement. Stourbridge : Anastasi
- Shepherd, A. P., 1885-1968 : A Scientist of the Invisible : An introduction to the life and work of Rudolf Steiner. Edinburgh : Floris, 1983.
- Soesman, Albert (1990). The Twelve Senses : An Introduction to Anthroposophy Based on Rudolf Steiners Studies of The Senses. Translation by Jakob M. Cornelis. Stroud : Hawthorn
- Welburn, Andrew J. (2004) Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy and the Crisis of Contemporary Thought. Edinburgh: Floris.
External links
- Anthroposophic Society (Goetheanum)
- Rudolf Steiner Archive (online works, see especially the Books section)
- The Anthroposophy Network
- Anthroposophy in Words and Images (English and Swedish)
- Sociedade Antroposófica no Brasil
- Anthroposophical Initiatives in India
- Anthroposophical Society in America
- Article: Rudolf Steiner introduced by Owen Barfield.
- Study by the National Cancer Institute on mistletoe's use for treating cancer
- The Skeptic's Dictionary on Rudolf Steiner.
--Angel 17:29, 23 May 2006 (CDT)
