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Anthroposophy is aspiritual[1]: i new religious movement[2][3][4] which was founded in the early 20th century by theesotericistRudolf Steiner[5] that postulates the existence of anobjective, intellectually comprehensiblespiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers of anthroposophy aim to engage in spiritual discovery through a mode of thought independent of sensory experience.[6]: 3–11, 392–5 [7] Though proponents claim to present their ideas in a manner that is verifiable by rational discourse and say that they seek precision and clarity comparable to that obtained byscientists investigating the physical world, many of these ideas have been termedpseudoscientific by experts inepistemology and debunkers of pseudoscience.[8]
Anthroposophy has its roots inGerman idealism, Western and Eastern esoteric ideas, various religious traditions, and modernTheosophy.[9] Steiner chose the termanthroposophy (from Greek ἄνθρωποςanthropos-, 'human', andσοφίαsophia, 'wisdom') to emphasize his philosophy'shumanistic orientation.[6][10] He defined it as "a scientific exploration of the spiritual world";[11] others have variously called it a "philosophy and cultural movement",[12] a "spiritual movement",[13] a "spiritual science",[14] "a system of thought",[15] "a speculative and oracular metaphysic",[16][17] "system [...] replete with esoteric and occult mystifications",[18][17] or "a spiritualist movement",[19] orfolie a culte,[20] or "positivistic religion",[21] or "a form of 'Christian occultism'",[22] or "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".[23]
Anthroposophical ideas have been applied in a range of fields including education (both inWaldorf schools[24][25] and in theCamphill movement[26]), environmental conservation[27][28] andbanking; with additional applications inagriculture,organizational development, thearts, and more.[29]
TheAnthroposophical Society is headquartered at theGoetheanum inDornach, Switzerland. Anthroposophy's supporters have included writersSaul Bellow,[30] andSelma Lagerlöf,[31] paintersPiet Mondrian,Wassily Kandinsky andHilma af Klint,[32][33] filmmakerAndrei Tarkovsky,[34] child psychiatristEva Frommer,[35][36] music therapistMaria Schüppel,[37]Romuva religious founderVydūnas,[38][39] and former president of GeorgiaZviad Gamsakhurdia.[40] While critics and proponents alike acknowledge Steiner's many anti-racist statements,[1][41][42] "Steiner's collected works...contain pervasive internal contradictions and inconsistencies on racial and national questions."[43][44]
The historian of religionOlav Hammer has termed anthroposophy "the most important esoteric society in European history".[45] Many scientists, physicians, and philosophers, includingMichael Shermer,Michael Ruse,Edzard Ernst,David Gorski, andSimon Singh have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education, considering it dangerous andpseudoscientific.[46] Ideas of Steiner's that are unsupported or disproven by modern science include: racial evolution,[47][48] clairvoyance (Steiner claimed he was clairvoyant),[49][50] and theAtlantis myth.[51]
The early work of the founder of anthroposophy,Rudolf Steiner, culminated in hisPhilosophy of Freedom (also translated asThe Philosophy of Spiritual Activity andIntuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path). Here, Steiner developed a concept offree will based on inner experiences, especially those that occur in the creative activity of independent thought.[6] "Steiner was a moral individualist".[i][52]
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Steiner's interests turned almost exclusively to spirituality. His work began to draw the attention of others interested in spiritual ideas; among these was theTheosophical Society. From 1900 on, thanks to the positive reception his ideas received from Theosophists, Steiner focused increasingly onhis work with the Theosophical Society, becoming thesecretary of its section in Germany in 1902. During his leadership, membership increased dramatically, from just a few individuals to sixty-nine lodges.[53]
By 1907, a split between Steiner and the Theosophical Society became apparent. While the Society was oriented toward anEastern and especiallyIndian approach, Steiner was trying to develop a path that embracedChristianity andnatural science.[54] The split became irrevocable whenAnnie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society, presented the childJiddu Krishnamurti as thereincarnated Christ. Steiner strongly objected and considered any comparison between Krishnamurti and Christ to be nonsense; many years later, Krishnamurti also repudiated the assertion. Steiner's continuing differences with Besant led him to separate from theTheosophical Society Adyar. He was subsequently followed by the great majority of the Theosophical Society's German members, as well as many members of other national sections.[53][54]
By this time, Steiner had reached considerable stature as a spiritual teacher andexpert in the occult.[55] He spoke about what he considered to be his direct experience of theAkashic Records (sometimes called the "Akasha Chronicle"), thought to be a spiritual chronicle of the history, pre-history, and future of the world and mankind. In a number of works,[56] Steiner described a path of inner development he felt would let anyone attain comparable spiritual experiences. In Steiner's view, sound vision could be developed, in part, by practicing rigorous forms of ethical and cognitive self-discipline, concentration, and meditation. In particular, Steiner believed a person's spiritual development could occur only after a period of moral development.[6]
In 1912, Steiner broke away from theTheosophical Society to found an independent group, which he named theAnthroposophical Society. AfterWorld War I, members of the young society began applying Steiner's ideas to create cultural movements in areas such astraditional andspecial education, farming, andmedicine.[57]
By 1923, a schism had formed between older members, focused on inner development, and younger members eager to become active in contemporary social transformations. In response, Steiner attempted to bridge the gap by establishing an overall School forSpiritual Science. As a spiritual basis for the reborn movement, Steiner wrote aFoundation Stone Meditation which remains a central touchstone of anthroposophical ideas.[58]
Steiner died just over a year later, in 1925. The Second World War temporarily hindered the anthroposophical movement in most of Continental Europe, as the Anthroposophical Society and most of its practical counter-cultural applications were banned by theNazi government.[59] Though at least one prominent member of the Nazi Party,Rudolf Hess, was a strong supporter of anthroposophy,[60] very few anthroposophists belonged to the National Socialist Party.[61] In reality, Steiner had both enemies and loyal supporters in the upper echelons of the Nazi regime.[62] Staudenmaier speaks of the "polycratic party-state apparatus", so Nazism's approach to Anthroposophy was not characterized by monolithic ideological unity.[63] When Hess flew to the UK and was imprisoned, their most powerful protector was gone,[64][65][66] but Anthroposophists were still not left without supporters among higher-placed Nazis.[67]
As Cristina Burack put it, "Steiner's contradictory views meant that anthroposophy was both attractive and a threat to the Nazi movement."[68] According to Staudenmaier, "He sometimes held antisemitic views and philosemitic views at the same time".[68]
The Third Reich had banned almost all esoteric organizations, claiming that these were controlled by Jews.[69] The truth was that while Anthroposophists complained of bad press, they were to a surprising extent tolerated by the Nazi regime, "including outspokenly supportive pieces in theVölkischer Beobachter".[70] Ideological purists fromSicherheitsdienst argued largely in vain against Anthroposophy.[70] According to Staudenmaier, "The prospect of unmitigated persecution was held at bay for years in a tenuous truce between pro-anthroposophical and anti-anthroposophical Nazi factions."[62]
The anti-esoteric faction ensconced in the SD and Gestapo recognized that they faced influential adversaries in other sectors of the Nazi hierarchy. They knew that Hess and his staff, Baeumler in theAmt Rosenberg, and Ohlendorf in the SD itself were willing to intervene on behalf of anthroposophical endeavors. Minister of Agriculture Darré and Lotar Eickhoff in the Interior Ministry were also seen as sympathizers of anthroposophy, and the SD considered the head of the party's "Examination Commission for Safeguarding National Socialist Writings," Karl Heinz Hederich, a supporter of occultists and astrologers.52
— Staudenmaier 2014, p. 228
While anthroposophists were in the center of the SD's sights, they were supposed to receive relatively mild treatment compared to other occultists.
— Staudenmaier 2014, p. 236
Despite these measures, anthroposophist authors were able to write long after June 1941. Franz Dreidax, Max Karl Schwarz, Elisabeth Klein, Johannes Bertram-Pingel, Georg Halbe, Otto Julius Hartmann, Rudolf Hauschka, Jürgen von Grone, Wolfgang Schuchhardt and others continued to publish throughout the war. But serious disruptions were common.
— Staudenmaier 2014, p. 238
Morals: Anthroposophy was not the stake of that dispute, but merely powerful Nazis wanting to get rid of other powerful Nazis.[71] E.g.Jehovah's Witnesses were treated much more aggressively than Anthroposophists.[72]
Yet, the relative moderation of Heydrich's action, which paled in comparison to measures taken against communists and socialists, Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as the mentally and physically disabled, continued to reflect the Third Reich's underlying ambivalence toward policing the occult.
— Kurlander 2015a, p. 514
Kurlander stated that "the Nazis were hardly ideologically opposed to the supernatural sciences themselves"—rather they objected to the free (i.e. non-totalitarian) pursuit of supernatural sciences.[73]
According to Hans Büchenbacher, an anthroposophist, the Secretary General of the General Anthroposophical Society, Guenther Wachsmuth, as well as Steiner's widow, Marie Steiner, were "completely pro-Nazi."[74] Marie Steiner-von Sivers, Guenther Wachsmuth, and Albert Steffen, had publicly expressed sympathy for the Nazi regime since its beginnings; led by such sympathies of their leadership, the Swiss and German Anthroposophical organizations chose for a path conflating accommodation with collaboration, which in the end ensured that while the Nazi regime hunted the esoteric organizations, Gentile Anthroposophists from Nazi Germany and countries occupied by it were let be to a surprising extent.[67] Of course they had some setbacks from the enemies of Anthroposophy among the upper echelons of the Nazi regime, but Anthroposophists also had loyal supporters among them, so overall Gentile Anthroposophists were not badly hit by the Nazi regime.[67]
Yet when Hitler threatened to suppress the Anthroposophical Society, its executive council—which had recently expelled much of its membership—chose to collaborate rather than resist. Marie Steiner, Günther Wachsmuth, and Albert Steffen knew of Hitler's violent intentions toward the Jewish people, since Hitler's attacks on anthroposophy included the accusation that anthroposophy was aligned with the Jews. Rather than standing in solidarity with Hitler's other targets, they disavowed any sympathy for Judaism and assured Nazi leaders that both they and Steiner were of pure Aryan heritage.44
— McKanan 2017, p. 196
Staudenmaier's overall argument is that "there were often no clear-cut lines between theosophy, anthroposophy,ariosophy, astrology and thevölkisch movement from which the Nazi Party arose."[75]
By 2007, national branches of the Anthroposophical Society had been established in fifty countries and about 10,000 institutions around the world were working on the basis of anthroposophical ideas.[76]
Anthroposophy is an amalgam of theGreek termsἄνθρωπος (anthropos 'human') andσοφία (sophia 'wisdom'). An early English usage is recorded byNathan Bailey (1742) as meaning "the knowledge of the nature of man".[77]
The first known use of the termanthroposophy occurs withinArbatel de magia veterum, summum sapientiae studium, a book published anonymously in 1575 and attributed toHeinrich Cornelius Agrippa. The work describes anthroposophy (as well as theosophy) variously as an understanding of goodness, nature, or human affairs. In 1648, the Welsh philosopherThomas Vaughan published hisAnthroposophia Theomagica, or a discourse of the nature of man and his state after death.[78]
The term began to appear with some frequency in philosophical works of the mid- and late-nineteenth century.[79] In the early part of that century,Ignaz Troxler used the termanthroposophy to refer to philosophy deepened to self-knowledge, which he suggested allows deeper knowledge of nature as well. He spoke of human nature as a mystical unity of God and world.Immanuel Hermann Fichte used the termanthroposophy to refer to "rigorous human self-knowledge", achievable through thorough comprehension of the human spirit and of the working of God in this spirit, in his 1856 workAnthropology: The Study of the Human Soul. In 1872, the philosopher of religionGideon Spicker used the termanthroposophy to refer to self-knowledge that would unite God and world: "the true study of the human being is the human being, and philosophy's highest aim is self-knowledge, or Anthroposophy."[80]
In 1882, the philosopherRobert Zimmermann published the treatise, "An Outline of Anthroposophy: Proposal for a System of Idealism on a Realistic Basis," proposing that idealistic philosophy should employ logical thinking to extend empirical experience.[81] Steiner attended lectures by Zimmermann at theUniversity of Vienna in the early 1880s, thus at the time of this book's publication.[82]
In the early 1900s, Steiner began using the termanthroposophy (i.e. human wisdom) as an alternative to the termtheosophy (i.e. divine wisdom).
Anthroposophical proponents aim to extend the clarity of thescientific method to phenomena of human soul-life and spiritual experiences. Steiner believed this required developing new faculties of objective spiritual perception, which he maintained was still possible for contemporary humans. The steps of this process of inner development he identified as consciously achievedimagination,inspiration, andintuition.[83] Steiner believed results of this form of spiritual research should be expressed in a way that can be understood and evaluated on the same basis as the results of natural science.[84][85]
Steiner hoped to form a spiritual movement that would free the individual from any external authority.[85] For Steiner, the human capacity forrational thought would allow individuals to comprehend spiritual research on their own and bypass the danger of dependency on an authority such as himself.[85]
Steiner contrasted the anthroposophical approach with both conventionalmysticism, which he considered lacking the clarity necessary for exact knowledge, andnatural science, which he considered arbitrarily limited to what can be seen, heard, or felt with the outward senses.
InTheosophy, Steiner suggested that human beings unite aphysical body of substances gathered from and returning to the inorganic world; alife body (also called theetheric body), in common with all living creatures (including plants); a bearer ofsentience orconsciousness (also called theastral body), in common with allanimals; and the ego, which anchors the faculty of self-awareness unique to human beings.[87]
Anthroposophy describes a broad evolution of human consciousness. Early stages of human evolution possess an intuitive perception of reality, including aclairvoyant perception of spiritual realities. Humanity has progressively evolved an increasing reliance onintellectual faculties and a corresponding loss of intuitive or clairvoyant experiences, which have becomeatavistic. The increasing intellectualization of consciousness, initially a progressive direction of evolution, has led to an excessive reliance onabstraction and a loss of contact with both natural and spiritual realities. However, to go further requires new capacities that combine the clarity of intellectual thought with the imagination and with consciously achieved inspiration andintuitive insights.[88]
Anthroposophy speaks of the reincarnation of the human spirit: that the human being passes between stages of existence, incarnating into an earthly body, living on earth, leaving the body behind, and entering into the spiritual worlds before returning to be born again into a new life on earth. After thedeath of the physical body, the human spirit recapitulates the past life, perceiving its events as they were experienced by the objects of its actions. A complex transformation takes place between the review of the past life and the preparation for the next life. The individual'skarmic condition eventually leads to a choice of parents, physical body, disposition, and capacities that provide the challenges and opportunities that further development requires, which includes karmically chosen tasks for the future life.[88]
Steiner described some conditions that determine the interdependence of a person's lives, orkarma.[89][90]
The anthroposophical view ofevolution considers allanimals to have evolved from an early, unspecialized form. As the least specialized animal, human beings have maintained the closest connection to the archetypal form;[91] contrary to the Darwinian conception of human evolution, all other animalsdevolve from this archetype.[92] The spiritual archetype originally created by spiritual beings was devoid of physical substance; only later did this descend into material existence on Earth.[93] In this view, human evolution has accompanied the Earth's evolution throughout the existence of the Earth.
The evolution of man, Steiner said, has consisted in the gradual incarnation of a spiritual being into a material body. It has been a true "descent" of man from a spiritual world into a world of matter. The evolution of the animal kingdom did not precede, but ratheraccompanied the process of human incarnation. Man is thus not the end result of the evolution of the animals, but is rather in a certain sense theircause. In the succession of types which appears in the fossil record-the fishes, reptiles, mammals, and finally fossil remains of man himself — the stages of this process of incarnation are reflected.[94]
— Waterman 1961, p. 45
Anthroposophy adaptedTheosophy's complex system of cycles of world development and human evolution. The evolution of the world is said to have occurred in cycles. The first phase of the world consisted only of heat. In the second phase, a more active condition, light, and a more condensed, gaseous state separate out from the heat. In the third phase, a fluid state arose, as well as a sounding, forming energy. In the fourth (current) phase, solid physical matter first exists. This process is said to have been accompanied by an evolution of consciousness which led up to present human culture.
The anthroposophical view is that good is found in the balance between two polar influences on world and human evolution. These are often described through their mythological embodiments as spiritual adversaries which endeavour to tempt and corrupt humanity,Lucifer and his counterpartAhriman. These have both positive and negative aspects. Lucifer is the light spirit, which "plays on human pride and offers the delusion of divinity", but also motivatescreativity andspirituality; Ahriman is the dark spirit that tempts human beings to "...deny [their] link with divinity and to liveentirely on the material plane", but that also stimulates intellectuality andtechnology. Both figures exert a negative effect on humanity when their influence becomes misplaced or one-sided, yet their influences are necessary for human freedom to unfold.[6][84]
Each human being has the task to find a balance between these opposing influences, and each is helped in this task by the mediation of theRepresentative of Humanity, also known as the Christ being, a spiritual entity who stands between and harmonizes the two extremes.[84]
As noted by Hammer, this means that anthroposophy harbors extensive empirical claims on "the most diverse subjects: matters normally defined as belonging to the domain of science, yet made immune to scientific critique because of Steiner's radical dichotomy—agronomy, chemistry, pharmacology, physiology, anatomy, developmental psychology, astronomy, physics etc." (Hammer 2004, 227).[95]
Libération described Steiner's claims as fantasist theories; it also notes that this did not prevent him from getting traction.[96][97]
There is a pedagogical movement with over 1000Steiner or Waldorf schools (the latter name stems from the first such school, founded in Stuttgart in 1919)[98] located in some 60 countries; the great majority of these are independent (private) schools.[99] Sixteen of the schools have been affiliated with the United Nations'UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network, which sponsors education projects that foster improved quality of education throughout the world.[100] Waldorf schools receive full or partial governmental funding in some European nations, Australia and in parts of the United States (as Waldorf method public or charter schools) and Canada.
The schools have been founded in a variety of communities: for example in thefavelas of São Paulo[101] to wealthy suburbs of major cities;[101] in India,Egypt, Australia, the Netherlands, Mexico and South Africa. Though most of the early Waldorf schools were teacher-founded, the schools today are usually initiated and later supported by a parent community.[102] Waldorf schools are among the most visible anthroposophical institutions.[102][103]
Benjamin Lazier calls Steiner a "maverick educator".[104]
Biodynamic agriculture, is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts.[105] It was also the first intentional form of organic farming,[103] begun in 1924, when Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures published in English asThe Agriculture Course.[106] Steiner is considered one of the founders of the modernorganic farming movement.[107][108]
"And Himmler, Hess, and Darré all promoted biodynamic (anthroposophic) approaches to farming as an alternative to industrial agriculture."[109][110] "'[...] with the active cooperation of the Reich League for Biodynamic Agriculture' [...] Pancke, Pohl, and Hans Merkel established additional biodynamic plantations across the eastern territories as well as Dachau, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz concentration camps. Many were staffed by anthroposophists."[111]
"Steiner's 'biodynamic agriculture' based on 'restoring the quasi-mystical relationship between earth and the cosmos' was widely accepted in the Third Reich (28)."[112]
Anthroposophical medicine is a form ofalternative medicine based onpseudoscientific andoccult notions rather than inscience-based medicine.[113]
Most anthroposophic medical preparations are highly diluted, like homeopathic remedies, while harmless in of themselves, using them in place of conventional medicine to treat illness is ineffective and risks adverse consequences.[114]
One of the most studied applications has been the use of mistletoe extracts in cancer therapy,[115] but research has found no evidence of benefit.[116][117]
Joseph A. Schwarcz regards Steiner as aquack.[118]
In 1922,Ita Wegman founded an anthroposophical center for special needs education, the Sonnenhof, in Switzerland. In 1940,Karl König founded theCamphill Movement in Scotland. The latter in particular has spread widely, and there are now over a hundred Camphill communities and other anthroposophical homes for children and adults in need of special care in about 22 countries around the world.[119] Both Karl König,Thomas Weihs and others have written extensively on these ideas underlying Special education.[120][121]
Steiner designed around thirteen buildings in anorganic—expressionist architectural style.[122][123] Foremost among these are his designs for the two Goetheanum buildings in Dornach, Switzerland.[124] Thousands of further buildings have been built by later generations of anthroposophic architects.[125][126]
Architects who have been strongly influenced by the anthroposophic style includeImre Makovecz in Hungary,[127]Hans Scharoun and Joachim Eble in Germany,Erik Asmussen in Sweden,Kenji Imai in Japan,Thomas Rau,Anton Alberts and Max van Huut in the Netherlands, Christopher Day and Camphill Architects in the UK, Thompson and Rose in America, Denis Bowman in Canada, andWalter Burley Griffin[128] andGregory Burgess in Australia.[129][130][131]ING House inAmsterdam is a contemporary building by an anthroposophical architect which has received awards for itsecological design and approach to a self-sustaining ecology as anautonomous building and example ofsustainable architecture.[132]
Together withMarie von Sivers, Steiner developedeurythmy, aperformance art combiningdance, speech, and music.[133][134]
Around the world today are a number of banks, companies, charities, and schools for developing co-operative forms of business using Steiner's ideas about economic associations, aiming at harmonious and socially responsible roles in the world economy.[6] The first anthroposophic bank was theGemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken inBochum, Germany, founded in 1974.[135]Socially responsible banks founded out of anthroposophy includeTriodos Bank, founded in theNetherlands in 1980 and also active in theUK, Germany,Belgium,Spain andFrance.[136] Other examples includeCultura Sparebank which dates from 1982 when a group of Norwegian anthroposophists began an initiative for ethical banking but only began to operate as a savings bank inNorway in the late 90s, La Nef inFrance and RSF Social FinanceinSan Francisco.[137]
Harvard Business School historianGeoffrey Jones traced the considerable impact both Steiner and later anthroposophical entrepreneurs had on the creation of many businesses in organic food, ecological architecture andsustainable finance.[138]
Bernard Lievegoed, a psychiatrist, founded a new method of individual and institutional development oriented towards humanizing organizations and linked with Steiner's ideas of the threefold social order. This work is represented by the NPI Institute for Organizational Development in the Netherlands and sister organizations in many other countries.[6]
There are also anthroposophical movements to renew speech and drama, the most important of which are based in the work ofMarie Steiner-von Sivers (speech formation, also known asCreative Speech) and theChekhov Method originated byMichael Chekhov (nephew ofAnton Chekhov).[139]
Anthroposophic painting, a style inspired byRudolf Steiner, featured prominently in the firstGoetheanum's cupola. The technique frequently begins by filling the surface to be painted with color, out of which forms are gradually developed, often images with symbolic-spiritual significance. Paints that allow for many transparent layers are preferred, and often these are derived from plant materials.[140]Rudolf Steiner appointed the English sculptorEdith Maryon as head of the School ofFine Art at theGoetheanum.[86] Together they carved the 9-metre tall sculpture titledThe Representative of Humanity, on display at theGoetheanum.[86]
For a period after World War I, Steiner was extremely active and well known in Germany, in part because he lectured widely proposing social reforms. Steiner was a sharp critic ofnationalism, which he saw as outdated, and a proponent of achieving social solidarity through individual freedom.[6] A petition proposing a radical change in the German constitution and expressing his basic social ideas (signed byHermann Hesse, among others) was widely circulated. His main book on social reform isToward Social Renewal.[6]
Anthroposophy continues to aim at reforming society through maintaining and strengthening the independence of the spheres ofcultural life,human rights and theeconomy. It emphasizes a particular ideal in each of these three realms of society:[6]
According to Cees Leijenhorst, "Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism."[143]
Steiner did influence Italian Fascism, which exploited "his racial and anti-democratic dogma."[144] The fascist ministersGiovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò[145] (nicknamed "the Anthroposophist duke"; he became antifascist after taking part inBenito Mussolini's government[146]) and Ettore Martinoli have openly expressed their sympathy for Rudolf Steiner.[144] Most from the occult pro-fascistUR Group were Anthroposophists.[147][148][149]
According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner's teachings had a clear authoritarian ring, and developed a rather crass polemic against 'materialism', 'liberalism', and cultural 'degeneration'. [...] For example, anthroposophical medicine was developed to contrast with the 'materialistic' (and hence 'degenerate') medicine of the establishment."[150]
The Social Threefolding has been called a "nebulous scheme".[151] Steiner pleaded for a hegemonic spiritual elite.[152]
Many authors see Anthroposophy as having been founded by aguru (meaning Steiner).[169]
According to Steiner, a realspiritual world exists, evolving along with the material one. Steiner held that the spiritual world can be researched in the right circumstances through direct experience, by persons practicing rigorous forms ofethical andcognitiveself-discipline. Steiner described many exercises he said were suited to strengthening such self-discipline; the most complete exposition of these is found in his bookHow To Know Higher Worlds. The aim of these exercises is to develop higher levels ofconsciousness throughmeditation andobservation. Details about the spiritual world, Steiner suggested, could on such a basis be discovered and reported, though no more infallibly than the results of natural science.[83]
Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.... Anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of life, certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst.[170]
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 emphasised that any inner, spiritual practice should be undertaken in such a way as not to interfere with one's responsibilities in outer life.[83] Steiner distinguished between what he considered were true and false paths of spiritual investigation.[171]
In anthroposophy, artistic expression is also treated as a potentially valuable bridge between spiritual and material reality.[172]: 97
A person seeking inner development must first of all make the attempt to give up certain formerly held inclinations. Then, new inclinations must be acquired by constantly holding the thought of such inclinations, virtues or characteristics in one's mind. They must be so incorporated into one's being that a person becomes enabled to alter his soul by his own will-power. This must be tried as objectively as a chemical might be tested in an experiment. A person who has never endeavored to change his soul, who has never made the initial decision to develop the qualities of endurance, steadfastness and calm logical thinking, or a person who has such decisions but has given up because he did not succeed in a week, a month, a year or a decade, will never conclude anything inwardly about these truths.
— Rudolf Steiner, "On the Inner Life",[173]
Steiner's stated prerequisites to beginning on a spiritual path include a willingness to take up serious cognitive studies, a respect for factual evidence, and a responsible attitude. Central to progress on the path itself is a harmonious cultivation of the following qualities:[84]
Steiner sees meditation as a concentration and enhancement of the power of thought. By focusing consciously on an idea, feeling or intention the meditant seeks to arrive at pure thinking, a state exemplified by but not confined to pure mathematics. In Steiner's view, conventional sensory-material knowledge is achieved through relating perception and concepts. The anthroposophic path of esoteric training articulates three further stages of supersensory knowledge, which do not necessarily follow strictly sequentially in any single individual's spiritual progress.[174][175]
Steiner described numerous exercises he believed would bring spiritual development; other anthroposophists have added many others. A central principle is that "for every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development." According to Steiner, moral development reveals the extent to which one has achieved control over one's inner life and can exercise it in harmony with the spiritual life of other people; it shows the real progress in spiritual development, the fruits of which are given in spiritual perception. It also guarantees the capacity to distinguish between false perceptions or illusions (which are possible in perceptions of both the outer world and the inner world) and true perceptions: i.e., the capacity to distinguish in any perception between the influence of subjective elements (i.e., viewpoint) and objective reality.[83]
Steiner built uponGoethe's conception of an imaginative power capable of synthesizing the sense-perceptible form of a thing (an image of its outer appearance) and the concept we have of that thing (an image of its inner structure or nature). Steiner added to this the conception that a further step in the development of thinking is possible when the thinker observes his or her own thought processes. "The organ of observation and the observed thought process are then identical, so that the condition thus arrived at is simultaneously one of perception through thinking and one of thought through perception."[83]
Thus, in Steiner's view, we can overcome the subject-object divide through inner activity, even though all human experience begins by being conditioned by it. In this connection, Steiner examines the step from thinking determined by outer impressions to what he calls sense-free thinking. He characterizes thoughts he considers without sensory content, such as mathematical or logical thoughts, as free deeds. Steiner believed he had thus located the origin of free will in our thinking, and in particular in sense-free thinking.[83]
Some of theepistemic basis for Steiner's later anthroposophical work is contained in the seminal work,Philosophy of Freedom.[176] In his early works, Steiner sought to overcome what he perceived as the dualism ofCartesian idealism andKantian subjectivism by developing Goethe's conception of the human being as a natural-supernatural entity, that is: natural in that humanity is a product of nature, supernatural in that through our conceptual powers we extend nature's realm, allowing it to achieve a reflective capacity in us as philosophy, art and science.[177] Steiner was one of the first European philosophers to overcome the subject-object split inWestern thought.[177] Though not well known among philosophers, his philosophical work was taken up byOwen Barfield (and through him influenced theInklings, anOxford group of Christian writers that includedJ. R. R. Tolkien andC. S. Lewis).[178]
Christian and Jewish mystical thought have also influenced the development of anthroposophy.[179][180]
Steiner believed in the possibility of applying the clarity of scientific thinking to spiritual experience, which he saw as deriving from an objectively existing spiritual world.[172]: 77ff Steiner identifiedmathematics, which attains certainty through thinking itself, thus through inner experience rather than empirical observation,[181] as the basis of his epistemology of spiritual experience.[182]
Anthroposophy regards mainstream science asAhrimanic.[183] Steiner lambasted especially sociology and economics.[184]
The Esoteric School of the Anthroposophical Society originated, directly and indirectly, from "the many pansophical and occult groups belonging to high-grade Masonry", going through theTheosophical Society andOrdo Templi Orientis.[185] Steiner had the Masonic degrees 33 and 95.[186]
Steiner's writing, though appreciative of all religions and cultural developments, emphasizes Western tradition as having evolved to meet contemporary needs.[54] He describes Christ and his mission on earth of bringing individuated consciousness as having a particularly important place in human evolution,[6] whereby:[84]
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.[187]
Thus, anthroposophy considers there to be a being who unifies all religions, and who is not represented by any particular religious faith. This being is, according to Steiner, not only the Redeemer ofthe Fall from Paradise, but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and of human history.[84] To describe this being, Steiner periodically used terms such as the "Representative of Humanity" or the "good spirit"[188][189] rather than any denominational term.
Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and includegnostic[ii] elements:
Monty Waldin notes that the two Jesus children sound heretical to mainstream Christians.[194] Anthony Mellors states that Steiner's interpretation of the Bible is heretical.[195] The Catholic Church considers Anthroposophy to be heretical.[196][197] According to Steiner, Christ will never again have a physical body.[198]
Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress...[199]
According to Jane Gilmer, "Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered."[200]
AsGilles Quispel put it, "After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis."[201]
Maria Carlson stated "Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter."[202] She also stated that Theosophy and Anthroposophy "are both modern gnostic doctrines."[203]
R. McL. Wilson inThe Oxford Companion to the Bible agrees that Steiner and Anthroposophy are under the influence of gnosticism.[204]
Robert A. McDermott says Anthroposophy belongs to ChristianRosicrucianism.[205][206] According toNicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Rudolf Steiner "blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie".[207]
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke described Anthroposophy as a [modern] offshoot of Ancient Gnosticism, especially of "the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma".[208]
Geoffrey Ahern states that Anthroposophy belongs to neo-gnosticism broadly conceived, which he identifies withWestern esotericism andoccultism.[209]
Stefanie von Schnurbein briefly agrees that Steiner propagated Gnostic Christianity.[210]
Was Steiner a Gnostic? Yes and no. Yes, from the point of view that he offered insights and methods for a personal experience of Christ. I have formulated this aspect of his work as his hermeneutical key: 'not I, but Christ in me'. No, from the point of view that he was not trying to reestablish Gnosticism's practices into a neo-gnostic tradition. Steiner was, in his times, well aware of concerns articulated more recently by Pope Francis about the two subtle enemies of holiness, contemporary Gnosticism and contemporary Pelagianism.[211]
— Samson 2023, p. 180
Granted that Steiner included Gnostic elements in his cosmological reinterpretation of Christianity, many of them from thePistis Sophia, Steiner was not a Gnostic in the sense of someone who held that the world was ruled by a demiurge, that matter was evil, or that it was possible to escape from this fallen universe by acquiring secret spiritual knowledge. To characterize the structure of his thought as derived from Syrio-Egyptian gnosis (Ahern 2010) may be too strong and plays down the fact that he was critical of early Gnostic Christianity as having no adequate idea of Jesus as a man of flesh and blood.[212]
— Hudson 2019, p. 510
According to Steiner, "Christ’s role is to ease the transition to the Age of Aquarius, while for Gnostics, his task was to save humanity from God".[213]
Elizabeth Dipple stated that Rudolf Steiner's system was a "neo-Platonic, semi-Gnostic, occult anthroposophical system [...] with its allegiance to mystical Christianity, Rosicrucianism and certain versions of spiritualism [...]".[214]
According to Heiner Ullrich, Steiner's point of view was that of a "neo-Platonic gnostic".[215]Gareth Knight agrees that Steiner was neo-Platonic.[216] Brandt and Hammer describe Steiner's anthropology (spirit, soul, and body) as neo-Platonic.[217]
Carl Abrahamsson stated that Steiner posited a gnostic Christ.[218]
Steiner's theology is "redemption through sin", he accuses good Christians of killing the spirit of Christianity.[219]
According to Catholic scholars Anthroposophy belongs to theNew Age.[220][221]George D. Chryssides also considers Steiner to be New Age, or at least a forerunner of the New Age.[222] John Paull considers him a New Age philosopher.[223]Nicholas Campion says Steiner was a New Age Christian.[224] Campion stated that "Anthroposophy is perhaps the most vibrant of New Age movements".[225]
Even allowing that Steiner himself was not New Age, an author wrote "anthroposophy—a spiritual movement that is the basis for much of the New Age thinking in Europe and North America today."[226]
Steiner's critics, on the other hand, past and present, see him at best as a pseudo-scientist who was delusional and possibly mentally unstable in believing that he had accessed Kant's realm of thenoumenon, or at worst as someone who laid the groundwork for Hitler and National Socialism.[227]
— Aaron French
Rudolf Steiner was an extreme pan-German nationalist, and never disavowed such stance.[228]
"Steiner was a member of avölkisch Wagner club, and anthroposophist authors endorsed Wagner's views on race."[229]
"Steiner, along with Hübbe-Schleiden and Hartmann, was affiliated with the racist and anti-Semitic Guido von List Society. For many anthroposophists in fact, 'Jewishness signified the very antithesis of spiritual progress and the epitome of modern debasement.'"[230] The theories of theosophy and anthroposophy were "later co-opted by National Socialism".[231]
Rudolf Steiner wrote and lectured on Judaism and Jewish issues over much of his adult life. He was a fierce opponent of popular antisemitism, but asserted that there was no justification for the existence of Judaism and Jewish culture in the modern world, a radical assimilationist perspective which saw the Jews completely integrating into the larger society.[43][232][233] He also supportedÉmile Zola's position in theDreyfus affair.[233] Steiner emphasized Judaism's central importance to the constitution of the modern era in the West but suggested that to appreciate the spirituality of the future it would need to overcome its tendency toward abstraction.
Steiner financed the publication of the bookDie Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg (1919) byKarl Heise [de]; Steiner also wrote the foreword for the book, partly based upon his own ideas.[234][235][236] The publication comprised aconspiracy theory according to whom World War I was a consequence of a collusion ofFreemasons andJews – still favorite scapegoats of the conspiracy theorists – their purpose being the destruction of Germany. Fact is that Steiner spent a large sum of money for publishing[236] "a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism".[234] The writing was later enthusiastically received by the Nazi Party.[237][238]
In his later life, Steiner was accused by the Nazis of being Jewish, andAdolf Hitler called anthroposophy "Jewish methods". The anthroposophical institutions in Germany were banned during Nazi rule and several anthroposophists sent toconcentration camps.[1][239] Later, the non-Aryan, the non-German, and the antifascist members of the direction board of the Anthroposophical Society were purged from it; it is unclear if that happened due to Nazi ideology or for other reasons, but the purge clearly brought the Anthroposophic Society closer to Nazism.[240]
Important early anthroposophists who were Jewish included two central members on the executive boards of the precursors to the modern Anthroposophical Society,[241] and Karl König, the founder of theCamphill movement, who had converted to Christianity.[242]Martin Buber andHugo Bergmann, who viewed Steiner's social ideas as a solution to theArab–Jewish conflict, were also influenced by anthroposophy.[180]
There are numerous anthroposophical organisations inIsrael, including the anthroposophicalkibbutzHarduf, founded by Jesaiah Ben-Aharon, forty Waldorf kindergartens and seventeenWaldorf schools (as of 2018).[243] A number of these organizations are striving to foster positive relationships between the Arab and Jewish populations: The Harduf Waldorf school includes both Jewish and Arab faculty and students, and has extensive contact with the surrounding Arab communities, while the first joint Arab-Jewish kindergarten was a Waldorf program in Hilf nearHaifa.
Towards the end of Steiner's life, a group of theology students (primarily Lutheran, with some Roman Catholic members) approached Steiner for help in reviving Christianity, in particular "to bridge the widening gulf between modern science and the world of spirit".[6] They approached a notableLutheran pastor,Friedrich Rittelmeyer, who was already working with Steiner's ideas, to join their efforts. Out of their co-operative endeavor, theMovement for Religious Renewal, now generally known asThe Christian Community, was born. Steiner emphasized that he considered this movement, and his role in creating it, to be independent of his anthroposophical work,[6] as he wished anthroposophy to be independent of any particularreligion or religious denomination.[84]
Anthroposophy's supporters includeSaul Bellow,[30]Selma Lagerlöf,[31]Andrei Bely,[244][245]Joseph Beuys,[246]Owen Barfield, architectWalter Burley Griffin,[128]Wassily Kandinsky,[32][33]Andrei Tarkovsky,[34]Bruno Walter,[247]Right Livelihood Award winnersSir George Trevelyan,[248] andIbrahim Abouleish,[249] and child psychiatristEva Frommer.[35][36]
The historian of religionOlav Hammer has termed anthroposophy "the most important esoteric society in European history."[45] However authors, scientists, and physicians includingMichael Shermer, Michael Ruse,Edzard Ernst,David Gorski, andSimon Singh have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education to be dangerous andpseudoscientific.[46] Others including former Waldorf pupil Dan Dugan and historian Geoffrey Ahern have criticized anthroposophy itself as a dangerous quasi-religious movement that is fundamentally anti-rational and anti-scientific.[250]
Though Rudolf Steiner studiednatural science at the Vienna Technical University at the undergraduate level, hisdoctorate was in epistemology and very little of his work is directly concerned with the empirical sciences. In his mature work, when he did refer to science it was often to present phenomenological orGoethean science as an alternative to what he considered the materialistic science of his contemporaries.[45]
Steiner's primary interest was in applying the methodology of science to realms of inner experience and the spiritual worlds (his appreciation that the essence of science is its method of inquiry is unusual amongesotericists[45]), and Steiner called anthroposophyGeisteswissenschaft (science of the mind, cultural/spiritual science), a term generally used in German to refer to thehumanities andsocial sciences.[251]
Whether this is a sufficient basis for anthroposophy to be considered a spiritual science has been a matter of controversy.[45][84] As Freda Easton explained in her study of Waldorf schools, "Whether one accepts anthroposophy as a science depends upon whether one accepts Steiner's interpretation of a science that extends the consciousness and capacity of human beings to experience their inner spiritual world."[252]
Sven Ove Hansson has disputed anthroposophy's claim to a scientific basis, stating that its ideas are not empirically derived and neither reproducible nor testable.[253] Carlo Willmann points out that as, on its own terms, anthroposophical methodology offers no possibility of being falsified except through its own procedures of spiritual investigation, nointersubjective validation is possible by conventional scientific methods; it thus cannot stand up to empiricist critics.[84] Peter Schneider describes such objections as untenable, asserting that if a non-sensory, non-physical realm exists, then according to Steiner the experiences of pure thinking possible within the normal realm of consciousness would already be experiences of that, and it would be impossible to exclude the possibility of empirically grounded experiences of other supersensory content.[83]
Olav Hammer suggests that anthroposophy carriesscientism "to lengths unparalleled in any other Esoteric position" due to its dependence upon claims of clairvoyant experience, its subsuming natural science under "spiritual science". Hammer also asserts that the development of what he calls "fringe" sciences such asanthroposophic medicine andbiodynamic agriculture are justified partly on the basis of the ethical and ecological values they promote, rather than purely on a scientific basis.[45]
Though Steiner saw that spiritual vision itself is difficult for others to achieve, he recommended open-mindedly exploring and rationally testing the results of such research; he also urged others to follow a spiritual training that would allow them directly to apply his methods to achieve comparable results.[83]
Anthony Storr stated about Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy: "His belief system is so eccentric, so unsupported by evidence, so manifestly bizarre, that rational skeptics are bound to consider it delusional... But, whereas Einstein's way of perceiving the world by thought became confirmed by experiment and mathematical proof, Steiner's remained intensely subjective and insusceptible of objective confirmation."[254]
According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims, also championed by Waldorf schools:
The epistemology offered by anthroposophy represents a regression to pre-scientific modes of thought.[258] Ullrich stated that its epistemology is "rationalized mysticism".[259] Others stated that anthroposophy is "an arcane pseudoscience based on medieval mysticism".[260] Another author stated that it is "Rudolf Steiner's innovative doctrine that combined fashionable mysticism with no less fashionable pseudoscience."[261] A French author wrote that Anthroposophy "is a clever mix of pseudoscience, esotericism and mysticism".[262]
Two German scholars have called Anthroposophy "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century."[263][264] Other scholars stated that Anthroposophy is "aspiring to the status of religious dogma".[265] According to Maria Carlson, anthroposophy is a "positivistic religion" "offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience."[21]
According to Swartz, Brandt, Hammer, Hansson, and others Anthroposophyis a religion.[3] They also call it "settled new religious movement",[266] whileMartin Gardner and others called it acult.[267] Another scholar also calls it a new religious movement or a new spiritual movement.[268] Already in 1924 Anthroposophy got labeled "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".[23] Other scholars agree it is a new religious movement.[2] According toHelmut Zander [de], both the theory and practice of Anthroposophy display characteristics of religion, and, according to Zander, Rudolf Steiner would plead no contest.[269] According to Zander, Steiner's bookGeheimwissenschaft [Occult Science] contains Steiner'smythology aboutcosmogenesis.[270] Hammer notices that Anthroposophy is a synthesis which does include occultism.[271] Hammer also notices that Steiner's occult doctrines bear a strong resemblance topost-Blavatskyan Theosophy (e.g.Annie Besant andCharles Webster Leadbeater).[272] According to Helmut Zander, Steiner's clairvoyant insights always developed according to the same pattern. He took revised texts from theosophical literature and then passed them off as his own higher insights. Because he did not want to be an occult storyteller, but a (spiritual) scientist, he adapted his reading, which he had seen supernaturally in the world's memory, to the current state of technology. When, for example, theWright brothers began flying with gliders and eventually with motorized aircraft in 1903, Steiner transformed the ponderous gondola airships of his Atlantis story into airplanes with elevators and rudders in 1904.[273]
Another author states that the question whether Anthroposophy is a religion cannot be answered by "Yes" or "No".[274]
As an explicitly spiritual movement, anthroposophy has sometimes been called a religious philosophy.[275] In 1998People for Legal and Non-Sectarian Schools (PLANS) started a lawsuit alleging that anthroposophy is a religion forEstablishment Clause purposes and therefore several California school districts should not be chartering Waldorf schools; the lawsuit was dismissed in 2012 for failure to show anthroposophy was a religion.[276][non-primary source needed] A 2012 paper in legal science reports this verdict as being provisional, and disagrees with its result, i.e. anthroposophy was declared "not a religion" due to an outdated legal framework.[277] Another author disagrees with the point of that paper.[278] Yet another author agrees with the point of that paper.[279] In 2000, a French court ruled that a government minister's description of anthroposophy as a cult was defamatory.[280] The French governmental anti-cults agencyMIVILUDES reported that it remains vigilant about Anthroposophy, especially because of its deviant medical applications and its work with underage persons, and that the works ofGrégoire Perra [fr] which lambast anthroposophical medicine do not constitute defamation.[281] Anthroposophical MDs think diseases are caused primarily by karma and demons, rather than materialistic causes.[281] TheGospel of Luke is their main handbook of medical science; this makes them believe they have magical powers, and that medicine is essentially a form of magic.[281] The professional French organization of Anthroposophic MDs have sued Mr. Perra for such claims; they have been condemned to pay 25,000 Euros damages for abusively suing him.[281][282]
Julian Rivers stated that is by no means easy to tell whether the Steiner schools are religious schools.[283] The Anthroposophist N.C. Thomas denies that Anthroposophy is a religion.[284] Joel Beversluis recognizes that is what Anthroposophists claim.[285] Two Socialist German scholars say Anthroposophy is semi-religious.[286] James A. Santucci says Anthroposophy is based upon esoteric Christianity.[287]
Scholars state that Anthroposophy is influenced byChristianGnosticism.[288] The Catholic Church did in 1919 issue an edict classifying Anthroposophy as "a neognostic heresy" despite the fact that Steiner "very well respected the distinctions on which Catholic dogma insists".[196][197][289] The secular scholar Joan Braune agrees that Anthroposophy is Gnosticism.[290]
Some Baptist and mainstream academical heresiologists still appear inclined to agree with the more narrow prior edict of 1919[291] on dogma and the Lutheran (Missouri Sinod) apologist and heresiologist Eldon K. Winker quoted Ron Rhodes that Steiner's Christology is very similar toCerinthus.[292] Steiner did perceive "a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos",[293] which could be construed as Gnostic but notDocetic,[293] since "they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion".[292] "Steiner's Christology is discussed as a central element of his thought in Johannes Hemleben,Rudolf Steiner: A Documentary Biography, trans. Leo Twyman (East Grinstead, Sussex: Henry Goulden, 1975), pp. 96-100. From the perspective of orthodox Christianity, it may be said that Steiner combined a docetic understanding of Christ's nature with the Adoptionist heresy."[294] Older scholarship says Steiner's Christology isNestorian.[295] According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner's Christology was, however, quite heterodox, and hardly compatible with official church doctrine."[191]
George Bălan wrote "Even before Nazism and communism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism had declared war on anthroposophy for daring to step into territory considered the privileged domain of the Church."[296]
Steiner's Anthroposophy influenced the Russian theologiansPavel Florensky andSergei Bulgakov.[297]
Some anthroposophical ideas challenged the National Socialist racialist and nationalistic agenda. In contrast, some American educators have criticized Waldorf schools for failing to equally include the fables and myths of all cultures, instead favoring European stories over African ones.
In response to such critiques, theAnthroposophical Society in America published in 1998 a statement clarifying its stance:
We explicitly reject any racial theory that may be construed to be part of Rudolf Steiner's writings. The Anthroposophical Society in America is an open, public society and it rejects any purported spiritual or scientific theory on the basis of which the alleged superiority of one race is justified at the expense of another race.[301]
Tommy Wieringa, a Dutch writer who grew among Anthroposophists, commenting upon an essay by the AnthroposophistDésanne van Brederode [nl], he wrote "It was a meeting of old acquaintances: Nazi leaders such as Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler already recognized a kindred spirit in Rudolf Steiner, with his theories about racial purity, esoteric medicine and biodynamic agriculture."[302][303]
The racism of Anthroposophy is spiritual and paternalistic (i.e. benevolent), while the racism of fascism is materialistic and often malign.[304]Olav Hammer, university professor expert innew religious movements andWestern esotericism, confirms that now the racist and anti-Semitic character of Steiner's teachings can no longer be denied, even if that is "spiritual racism".[305]
According to Munoz, in the materialist perspective (i.e. no reincarnations), Anthroposophy is racist, but in the spiritual perspective (i.e. reincarnations mandatory) it is not racist.[306]
One crucial stumbling block for English language readers is the anthroposophical tendency to delete racist and antisemitic passages from translated editions of Steiner's publications.[307][308]
— Peter Staudenmaier
Two Socialist German scholars say Steiner was racist and reactionary.[286]
Though several prominent members of theNazi Party were supporters of anthroposophy and its movements, including agriculturalistErhard Bartsch [de], SS colonelHermann Schneider, andGestapo chiefHeinrich Müller,[309] anti-Nazis such asTraute Lafrenz, a member of theWhite Rose resistance movement, were also followers.[310]Rudolf Hess, the adjunct Führer, was a patron of Waldorf schools[65][64] and a staunch defender of biodynamic agriculture.[66] "Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darré (the future Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Höss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, [...]"[109]
"One of the most insightful contributions to this area is Peter Staudenmaier's case study of Anthroposophy, which has demonstrated the ambiguous role of Anthroposophists in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany."[311] According to Staudenmaier, the fascist and Nazi authorities saw occultism not as deviant, but as deeply familiar.[311]
[...] continue to have influence beyond the institutional reach of Anthropospophy, the new religious movement he founded.
Thus my conclusion is that it is quite uncontroversial to see Anthroposophy as a whole as a religious movement, in the conventional use of the term, although it is not an emic term used by Anthroposophists themselves.
Steiner, of all esoteric and new religious teachers of the early twentieth century, was acutely aware of the peculiar value of cultural production, an activity with which he engaged with tireless energy, and considerable (amateur and professional) skill and achievement.
the most successful New Religious Movement in Norway in the twentieth century
Based on my analysis of the source material, I regard the pair of terms 'founder of a religion-teacher' as the concept expressing the most essential elements of Steiner's religious authority.
In Germany, historians of religion have described Anthroposophy as "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century."
2. It can be noted that insiders routinely deny that Anthroposophy is a religion and prefer to characterise it as, for example, a philosophical perspective or a form of science. From a scholarly perspective, however, Anthroposophy has all the elements that one typically associates with a religion, for example, a charismatic founder whose status is based on claims of having direct insight into a normally invisible spiritual dimension of existence, a plethora of culturally postulated suprahuman beings that are said to influence our lives, concepts of an afterlife, canonical texts and rituals. Religions whose members deny that the movement they belong to has anything to do with religion are not uncommon in the modern age, but the reason for this is a matter that goes beyond the confines of this article.
Being scientific is so important in the eyes of the adherents of some NRMs they vehemently reject the label religion. Anthroposophy, for instance, was founded by a charismatic leader whose status is based on claims of having direct insight into a normally invisible, spiritual dimension of existence, a plethora of culturally postulated suprahuman beings that are said to influence our lives, concepts of an afterlife, canonical texts, and a gamut of rituals. Many Anthroposophists nevertheless describe their movement as a science or a path toward knowledge and, when asked, deny that Anthroposophy is a religious movement.
From a scholar's point of view, Anthroposophy presents characteristics typically associated with religion, and in particular concepts of suprahuman agents (such as angels), a charismatic founder with postulated insight into the suprahuman realm (Steiner himself), rituals (for instance, eurythmy), and canonical texts (Steiner's writings). From an insider's perspective, however, "anthroposophy is not a religion, nor is it meant to be a substitute for religion. While its insights may support, illuminate or complement religious practice, it provides no belief system" (from the Waldorf school website www.waldorfanswers.com/NotReligion1.htm, accessed 9 October 2011). The contrast between a scholarly and an insiders' perspective on what constitutes religion is highlighted by the clinching warrant for this assertion. Although the website argues that Anthroposophy is not a religion by stating that there are no spiritual teachers and no beliefs, it does so by adding a reference to a text by Steiner, who thus functions as an unquestioned authority figure.
Anthroposophy is thus from an emic point of view emphatically not a religion.
Anthroposophy has characteristics usually associated with religions, not least a belief in a large number of spiritual beings (Toncheva 2015, 73–81, 134–135). However, its adherents emphatically reject that it is a religion, claiming instead that it is a spiritual science, Geisteswissenschaft (Zander 2007, 1:867).
Application of the teachings of anthroposophy—a religion based upon the philosophical and scientific knowledge of man—to education.
Steiner developed a religious system
Some "secularists" are further drawn to New Age types of Western spirituality and their cultural and practical aspects - including holistic and communal education.21 Like anthroposophy, the New Age movement is an "alternative religion" or "religion after religion." Steiner's views on education and other matters can readily be incorporated into New Age cultural and spiritual pluralism.
only to found his own peculiar religion, which he called anthroposophy.
Anthroposophy overlaps with religion and mysticism in that it is focused on the human experience of the divine, but its emphasis is on a spiritual knowledge that is in principle difficult to attain.
Steiner may be best remembered today as the thinker who inspired Waldorf schools, but his speculative religious thought influenced a wide range of artists, thinkers, and religious leaders. Embracing theosophy in 1900, he developed his own system of thought, anthroposophy, and founded a society around it in 1912, advancing bold ideas involving education, medicine, health, and religion until his death in 1925. Steiner gave Goethe a central place in his work, and he named his headquarters in Switzerland, a masterpiece of modern architecture he designed, the Goetheanum.88 Like Mazdaznan, Steiner's thought combined elements of nineteenth-century spiritualism, race theory, spirituality, and speculative cosmology. Steiner also consulted with Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a popular Berlin pastor who had denounced the war in 1917 and established a new Christian church that echoed some of Steiner's ideas of personal belief and freedom, the Christian Community (Christengemeinschaft).89
Anthroposophy, philosophy based on the premise that the human intellect has the ability to contact spiritual worlds. It was formulated by Rudolf Steiner (q.v.), an Austrian philosopher, scientist, and artist, who postulated the existence of a spiritual world comprehensible to pure thought but fully accessible only to the faculties of knowledge latent in all humans.
The Austrian philosopher and occultist Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) claimed that, by astral projection, he could read the Akashic Record. ... Other than anecdotal eyewitness accounts, there is no evidence of the ability to astral project, the existence of other planes, or of the Akashic Record.
To get an idea of what mystical nonsense anthroposophic medicine is, I like to quote straight from the horse's mouth, namely Physician's Association for Anthroposophic Medicine, in its pamphlet for patients:
In Dugan's view, Steiner's theories are simply "cult pseudoscience".
It is not so much that they have a persecution or martyr complex, but that they do revel in having esoteric knowledge unknown to or rejected by others, and they have the sorts of personalities that rather enjoy being on the fringe or outside. Followers of Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic agriculture are particularly prone to this syndrome. They just know they are right and get a big kick out of their opposition to genetically modified foods and so forth.
Examples of such fields are various forms of "alternative healing" such as shamanism, or esoteric world views like anthroposophy ... For this reason, we must suspect that the "alternative knowledge" produced in such fields is just as illusory as that of the standard pseudosciences.
Both turned out to be "positivistic religions," offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience.
Worse, he couldn't be a realphilosopher either; his theosophy and anthroposophy and the Waldorf humanism in particular were considered pseudoscience or at best pedagogy, not a philosophical system. Steiner's credentials were not university-level professional work. [...] German mainstream scholarship called him an 'autodidact, with a poor teacher' and 'gypsy-intellectual.'144 Not uncommon for practitioners at the fringes of society, he was accused of class treason.
merely represent, from a scientific point of view, examples of fuzzy reasoning
a speculative and oracular metaphysic
Although Steiner's anthroposophical system is replete with esoteric and occult mystifications, impartial observers have found much of value in his ideas for schooling (including an emphasis on the development of children's aesthetic and creative potential), practised in the so-called Waldorf or Steiner schools.
The philosopher Vilhelmas (Vilius) Storosta, or Vydunas (1868-1953), joined the Theosophical Society and was particularly interested in anthroposophy and its attempts to combine religion, science, and philosophy.
Gamsakhurdia, although his self-proclaimed Orthodoxy was overlaid with the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, promoted a distinct program of Orthodox Church-Georgian State cooperation in such spheres as education. It is interesting that "Steinerism" has come under attack in Madli [Grace], the monthly newspaper of the Georgian Patriarchate.
The late Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Anthroposophical Society, the fastest growing cult in post-war Germany... Closely related to the organic farming movement is the German anthroposophical cult founded by Rudolf Steiner, whom we met earlier in connection with his writings on Atlantis and Lemuria. ... In essence, the anthroposophists' approach to the soil is like their approach to the human body—a variation of homeopathy. (See Steiner'sAn Outline of Anthroposophical Medical Research, English translation, 1939, for an explanation of how mistletoe, when properly prepared, will cure cancer by absorbing "etheric forces" and strengthening the "astral body.") They believe the soil can be made more "dynamic" by adding to it certain mysterious preparations which, like the medicines of homeopathic "purists," are so diluted that nothing material of the compound remains.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)For the Theosophists and other occultists Atlantis has a greater importance since it forms an integral part of their religious worldview.
I formulated the cognitive challenge I was presenting myself with in this way: How can I account for the fact that, on one page, Steiner can make a powerful and original critique of Kantian epistemology—basically, the idea that there are limits to knowledge—yet on another make, with all due respect, absolutely outlandish and, more to the point, seemingly unverifiable statements about life in ancient Atlantis?
For Steiner, it wasn't enough to just overshare his spiritual nerdery. He was also keen to undermine the basics of evidentiary research and the scientific method. His 1911 pseudohistory ofThe Submerged Continents of Atlantis and Lemuria, Their History and Civilization, opens with a self-serving attack on the legit discipline of history. He derides the idea that scholarly opinions can change when confronted with new evidence, and argues that the eternal truth of what happened can only be accessed through meditation.
Without endorsing Steiner's doctrines as a whole, Nazi leaders like Hess, Ohlendorf, and Baeumler considered specific aspects of anthroposophy, both ideological and practical, to be compatible with and complementary to National Socialist principles.
Although in his reply, Himmler pretended to share Astel's assessment of anthroposophy as a dangerous movement, he admitted to be unable to do anything about the school of Rudolf Steiner because Rudolf Hess supported and protected it.
Organisations which Hess had supported, such as the Rudolf Steiner schools, were closed down.
according to Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), those sceptics who criticised biodynamic methods on scientific grounds were just 'carrying out a kind of witch-trial' against Steiner's followers
for the Third Reich had outlawed virtually all esoteric groups (alleged to be under covert Jewish control) in Germany
the Nazis were hardly ideologically opposed to the supernatural sciences themselves.
there were often no clear-cut lines between theosophy, anthroposophy, ariosophy, astrology and thevölkisch movement from which the Nazi Party arose.
By the 1920s gnosticism (the term) had hardly a vestige of an agreed-upon meaning. That gnosticism had returned in some form was a sentiment shared by many, but what that meant was up for debate. Some, notably those on the occult scene inspired by the maverick educator Rudolf Steiner, greeted the new age with enthusiasm.
Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darré (the future Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Höss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, [...]
his defence of the biodynamic agriculture of the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner
'[...] with the active cooperation of the Reich League for Biodynamic Agriculture' [...] Pancke, Pohl, and Hans Merkel established additional biodynamic plantations across the eastern territories as well as Dachau, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz concentration camps. Many were staffed by anthroposophists.
teils ergänzend und teils ersetzend zur konventionellen MedizinCited inErnst, Edzard (2008). "Anthroposophic medicine: A critical analysis".MMW Fortschritte der Medizin.150 (Suppl 1):1–6.PMID 18540325.
The review found that there was not enough evidence to reach clear conclusions about the effects on any of these outcomes and it is therefore not clear to what extent the application of mistletoe extracts translates into improved symptom control, enhanced tumour response or prolonged survival.
Available evidence from well-designed clinical trials does not support claims that mistletoe can improve length or quality of life.
Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism.
strengthening in that way the mythologisation of the guru's views
'anthroposophical guru' Rudolf Steiner
Now, with Steiner, Bellow appears to have found his mystical guru.
At eighty, he had already outlived other gurus such as Rudolf Steiner and Gurdjieff
dependence on him as a kind of guru
The whole content of natural science is ahrimanic and will only lose its ahrimanic nature when it becomes imbued with life.
and all external science, to the extent that it is not spiritual science, is Ahrimanic.
Medical science is Ahrimanic in that it treats the body solely as a mechanism, having no knowledge of or concern with the etheric structure, that invisible field of force and energy which all too often is found to be the seat of disease.
Steiner emphasized that, when this deadened wisdom of Gondishapur began to spread in Europe, an ahrimanic, or ahrimanically inspired, natural science began to emerge.
Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective.
the many pansophical and occult groups belonging to high-grade Masonry.
In the broadest sense of the term this is any spiritual teaching that says that spiritual knowledge (Greek:gnosis) or wisdom (sophia) rather than doctrinal faith (pistis) or some ritual practice is the main route to supreme spiritual attainment.
a view heretical to mainstream Christians
According to a strict interpretation of Catholic dogma, anthroposophy is a "neugnostische Irrlehre" ("a neognostic heresy") [cf. eg. Simmel vol. i, 631].
It was condemned by the Catholic Church in 1919.
Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress...
Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered.
After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis.
Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter.
During their lifetime Soloviev's contemporaries not only saw the publication of many studies of gnosticism and the enthusiastic activity of archaeologists and historians of comparative religions, but also witnessed the creation of entire systems of modern gnosis, both pagan and Christian. Here one might mention that the neo-Buddhist Theosophy of Mme. Blavatsky, mentioned above, and the "Christian Theosophy" (upper-case T) of Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), are both modern gnostic doctrines; Dr. Steiner would later speak in his lectures of Soloviev as a mediator between East and West and a true clairvoyant who anticipated Steiner's own vision of the coming of the Christ in the etheric world, while Western Anthroposophists would write books about Soloviev (Allen 341–43).3
Gnosticism has often been regarded as bizarre and outlandish, and certainly it is not easily understood until it is examined in its contemporary setting. It was, however, no mere playing with words and ideas, but a serious attempt to resolve real problems: the nature and destiny of the human race, the problem of *evil, the human predicament. To a gnostic it brought a release and joy and hope, as if awakening from a nightmare. One later offshoot, Manicheism, became for a time a world religion, reaching as far as China, and there are at least elements of gnosticism in such medieval movements as those of the Bogomiles and the Cathari. Gnostic influence has been seen in various works of modern literature, such as those of William Blake and W. B. Yeats, and is also to be found in the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and the Anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner. Gnosticism was of lifelong interest to the psychologist C. G. *Jung, and one of the Nag Hammadi codices (the Jung Codex) was for a time in the Jung Institute in Zurich.
Rudolf Steiner was an esoteric teacher in the Rosicrucian-Christian tradition who delineated a comprehensive and detailed account of the evolution of consciousness as a background to his plea for the transformation of thinking, feeling, and willing in the present century.
blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie
Steiner's teaching continued to reflect a form of Gnostic Christianity, where the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma reappeared both in ninefold Dionysian hierarchies and the septenary scheme of Oriental Theosophy (Ahern 2009: 168–180; Reaugh Smith 2001, vol. I: 550-677).
Anthroposophy shifted the emphasis from Eastern to Gnostic-Christian spirituality and was to bring forth a number of alternative reform efforts
This gnostic Christ principle balances the ungrounded [...]
One needs to recognise several things in New Age in order not to over-react: it is not monolithic; it is not a den of demons; nor is it a den of fools. Three main currents need to be taken very seriously, even if they reject being included in the broad term New Age. They are René Guénon's tariqa or school of intellectual Sufism, Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy and 'the Work', devised by Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff.
The Age of Aquarius has such a high profile in theNew Age movement largely because of the influence of theosophy, spiritualism and anthroposophy, and their esoteric antecedents.
anthroposophy—a spiritual movement that is the basis for much of the New Age thinking in Europe and North America today.
One man inspired by Steiner's lectures during World War I was the enigmatic Karl Heise, who, in 1918, published a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism entitledDie Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg, which was partially backed by Steiner, who wrote a cagey introduction to the first edition, very cautiously choosing his words and not signing his name (Zander, 2007, p. 991).
In physics, Steiner championed Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's color theory over Isaac Newton, and he called relativity "brilliant nonsense." In astronomy, he taught that the motions of the planets were caused by the relationships of the spiritual beings that inhabited them. In biology, he preached vitalism and doubted germ theory.
Anthroposophical pseudoscience is easy to find in Waldorf schools. "Goethean science" is supposed to be based only on observation, without "dogmatic" theory. Because observations make no sense without a relationship to some hypothesis, students are subtly nudged in the direction of Steiner's explanations of the world. Typical departures from accepted science include the claim that Goethe refuted Newton's theory of color, Steiner's unique "threefold" systems in physiology, and the oft-repeated doctrine that "the heart is not a pump" (blood is said to move itself).
Rudolf Steiner's innovative doctrine that combined fashionable mysticism with no less fashionable pseudoscience.
est un savant mélange de pseudoscience, d'ésotérisme et de mysticisme
premised on anthroposophy, a religious sect founded by Steiner;
However, knowing that the academic establishment would shun him, he nevertheless decided in 1902 to begin speaking openly about his spiritual observations.
Although generally "Gnosticism" refers to an early Christian heresy combated by neo-Platonists like Plotinus and Church fathers like Irenaeus and Tertullian, in 1920s Germany it described a cultural phenomenon ranging in influence from Theosophist educator Rudolf Steiner (Steiner's "Lucifer-Gnosis") and Stefan George to Walter Benjamin and (to a more limited extent) Ernst Bloch (Lazier 28, 29, 32).
On the one hand, there are what might be called the Western groups, which reject the alleged extravagance and orientalism of evolved Theosophy, in favor of a serious emphasis on its metaphysics and especially its recovery of the Gnostic and Hermetic heritage. These groups feel that the love of India and its mysteries which grew up after Isis Unveiled was unfortunate for a Western group. In this category there are several Neo-Gnostic and Neo-Rosicrucian groups. The Anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner is also in this category. On the other hand, there are what may be termed "new revelation" Theosophical schisms, generally based on new revelations from the Masters not accepted by the main traditions. In this set would be Alice Bailey's groups, "I Am," and in a sense Max Heindel's Rosicrucianism.
The Christology of Cerinthus is notably similar to that of Rudolf Steiner (who founded the Anthroposophical Society in 1912) and contemporary New Age writers such as David Spangler and George Trevelyan. These individuals all say the Christ descended on the human Jesus at his baptism. But they differ with Cerinthus in that they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion.12
Nevertheless, he made a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos.
To Steiner, Christ is not one of many Saviours, nor the product of many reincarnations, but he reproduces the Nestorian error of differentiating between the Christ and Jesus. At the baptism, the Son of God descended on the Son of Man.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)Het was een ontmoeting van oude bekenden: nazi-kopstukken als Rudolf Hess en Heinrich Himmler herkenden in Rudolf Steiner al een geestverwant, met zijn theorieën over raszuiverheid, esoterische geneeskunst en biologisch-dynamische landbouw.
Und genau diese komfortable Situation macht es möglich, dass Anthroposophie bis heute eine ganz erstaunliche Auswahl von rassischen und Völker-Stereotypen tradiert, die in ihrer Gründerzeit anscheinend kaum als skandalös auffielen, aber heute den politischen Status des Ganzen verändern. Steiners nationalistische, antijüdische und rassistische Vorstellungen notierten um 1920 nicht einmal linke Kritiker wie Ernst Bloch Oder Siegfried Kracauer, aber sie sickern zum Beispiel auch noch in die jüngere Waldorf-Literatur ein und führen seit den 1990er Jahren periodisch zu erbitterten wissenschaftlichen, journalistischen und juristischen Auseinandersetzungen. Die Argumente Sind seit Jahrzehnten ausgetauscht, das Andauern der Debatte gleicht einem Sich wahnsinnig weiterdrehenden Hamsterrad. Anthroposophen reagieren dabei stets reaktiv auf externe Kritik. Dass Steiner Sich von den wilden Rassisten des 19. Jahrhunderts distanzierte, wird manchen seiner heutigen Anhänger zur Ausrede, um seinen eigenen, spirituell-paternalistischen Rassismus in der Gegenwart schönzureden.4 Einer überschaubaren Anzahl kritischer Aufsätze5 stehen monographische Hetzschriften gegenüber, die Kritiker des "gezielten, vorsätzlich unternommenen Rufmords"6 bezichtigen. Derweil sprechen Sich die anthroposophischen Dachverbände, wenn die Kritik allzu laut wird, in formelhaften Allgemeinplätzen gegen Rassismus aus und gestehen vage, zeitbedingte' Formulierungen Steiners zu.7 Überhaupt dreht Sich die Diskussion zu oft um Steiner. Es Sind jüngere Beiträge, die seine Stereotype in die Gegenwart transportieren.
their founder or their movement has been tainted with racism or anti-Semitism. [...] Denial, it would seem, is no longer an option.
One of the most insightful contributions to this area is Peter Staudenmaier's case study of Anthroposophy, which has demonstrated the ambiguous role of Anthroposophists in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
