Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)

Anthroposophy

Steiner shows us man as a being of spirit, soul and body, whose origin is in the world of supersensible reality. Man returns to live on earth again and again for the purpose of developing those qualities of soul that can only be acquired through experience in the physical world. Thus, in rhythmic passage through earthly incarnations and intervening periods of life in supersensible existence, he undergoes moral self-development in accordance with the laws of individual and world karma.

Steiner's great contribution was to show how the methods of scientific investigation can be extended to the field of supersensible knowledge and to show that the first step in this process is to intensify thinking through disciplined inner activity to become a living organ of experience for sense-free reality. He realized that this new active thinking is the long-sought bridge between natural and spiritual science and it is on this thinking that anthro-posophy is based.

The search for a bridge that would enable man with his modern, intellectual intelligence to enter into the conscious experience of a reality beyond the senses led Steiner to the writing of his earliest works, Goethe's Conception of the World and The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception. His Ph.D. thesis, dealing in particular with Fichte's theory of science, appeared later in an enlarged edition under the title Truth and Science. In 1894 he published The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (newly translated under the title Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path), which is subtitled Fundamentals of a Modern World Conception. These books form the basis for Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical work.

Having established the philosophical foundation, Steiner went on to develop his spiritual scientific worldview. His written works and nearly 6000 lectures probably constitute the largest treasure of spiritual knowledge available to us today. In Theosophy (1904) the ground work was laid for a new knowledge of the human being as a citizen of the three worlds of body, soul and spirit. The path of self-development is described in Knowledge of Higher Worlds and Its Attainment (1909), and the sweep of world cosmology in Occult Science--An Outline (1909). These and other basic volumes led over to his later work for the renewal of the arts, of science and of practical life.

In order to reverse the decline of civilization, Steiner emphasized that it is necessary to make known many of the truths that were once well-kept secrets in ancient mystery schools. Anthroposophy, he said, is knowledge we already have unconsciously in our higher selves. It is “knowledge produced by the higher self in man.”  “Anthroposophy leads the spiritual in man to the spiritual in the cosmos and, in so doing, leads to the un-derstanding and to the experience of Christianity in our time.”

Steiner saw the task of anthroposophy not as one to provide revelation as an article of faith, but as a schooling in observation and training for higher perception. He asked to be understood, not to be believed. One need not be clairvoyant, he emphasized, to benefit from anthroposophy, for life itself, if one is attentive to it, confirms what spiritual science has to say. There is significant evidence in anthroposophical research that this kind of knowledge can break the shackles materialistic natural philosophy is forcing upon modern science for it not only satisfies man's thinking and his thirst for knowledge, but, if experienced deeply, is itself a potent force for life.