Anthroposophy

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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". (Steiner, [1893] 1995). 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.

The word anthroposophy is derived from Greek roots meaning human wisdom. (Anthroposophy should not be confused with anthropology, the empirical study of human cultures.) Anthroposophy is not one of the natural sciences, though in particular areas anthroposophic research has achieved scientific recognition. (See below for further information about the relationship of anthroposophy to the natural sciences.) Anthroposophy has been fruitful for many areas of life, especially education, organic farming, medicine including care of the mentally handicapped, and spirituality; see practical work.

Contents 1 History 2 The union of science and spirit 3 Conception of the human being 4 Place in Western Philosophy 5 Relationship to Natural Science 6 Relationship to religion 7 Practical work arising out of anthroposophy 7.1 Holistic Waldorf Education 7.2 Biodynamic agriculture 7.3 Anthroposophical medicine 7.4 Centres for helping the mentally handicapped (including Camphill Villages) 7.5 Organizational development and biography work 7.6 Banking 7.7 Eurythmy 7.8 Flow forms 7.9 Speech and Drama 7.10 Other areas 8 Social Goals of Anthroposophy 8.1 Steiner's Outlook on Social History 8.2 Social Threefolding 9 Aspects of Anthroposophic Thinking 10 Critiques of Anthroposophy 11 See also 12 References 13 Bibliography 14 External links

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 masterwork, 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. Here, Steiner set forth a conception of free will that was strongly founded upon inner experiences, especially those that occur in independent thought, without any explicit references to the potentially spiritual 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. 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 all accounts, Steiner was an unusually upright and ethical human being who fostered an atmosphere of freedom, tolerance, creativity and humor in all his personal and work relationships.

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. Each of these used ideas that seemed radical at the time; many of these ideas - such as organic agriculture - are now, nearly a century later, appreciated as important directions for our society's future development.

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 flourish 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. <ref>Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, (1924) 1998.</ref>

Steiner saw 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 the world accessible to sense-perceptions; this world aids us to achieve the most clarity and focused awareness. Modern science is justifiably proud of its achievements in this realm. The path of knowledge need not end here, however. Clear understanding of the inner life is equally necessary for our times. Steiner tried to forge an approach to the inner life that would use the careful, systematic methodology forged by modern science, but turn its attention to the phenomena of soul and spirit that this science has renounced as being outside its purview.

Steiner thus encouraged clarity of thought in the development of human consciousness beyond the material senses. Steiner also described artistic expression as a potentially valuable bridge between spiritual and material reality. The anthroposophist's way could be said to go through becoming more conscious and deliberate about one's thoughts and deeds, but also by becoming more perceptive of and in tune with the spirit in himself and outside of himself . One may 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.

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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 emphasized 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: a three-fold, four-fold, seven-fold view, and occasionally even a twelve-fold view appear in his works.

The human being is composed of body, soul and spirit. The body includes the physical self, the life processes and forces, and the framework of consciousness. The soul passes into incarnation in a body, and out of this again into a spiritual existence; it connects the lives on earth together and with the spiritual world. The spirit is eternal and creative; we 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 recognizing 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 focuses on how 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. We 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, 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 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 (a mandate which some say has been shaken by quantum mechanics' rejection of the possibility of splitting the observer from the observed phenomena), 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, these too can be elevated to a science. Natural science thus sets the example and provides a methodological goal; the potential content of observation is however extended to experiences beyond the purely sensory.

Today's science already recognizes the scientific validity of our inner, soul states in the special case of our thinking. 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. Natural science thus allows inner, thought processes as part of the methodology of science, but excludes them from being the subject of scientific work. If thinking can be objective about sensory phenomena, however, can it not be objective about its own activity, and by extension, to the rest of our inner life?

Natural science even includes non-sensory phenomena as the content of its study in the special case of mathematics. Is the number two purely non-sensory? What about 'i', the square root of negative one? Mathematics provides a doorway through which we can see how a scientific treatment of nonsensory phenomena may be valid.

Key here is that the scientific standards of a rigorously logical approach, duplicability of results and intersubjectivity are not lost. Much of today's spirituality is thus not spiritual science. Anthroposophy respects religious and spiritual life that is not scientific as having its own proper place in culture, just as our free exploration of nature has its place next to natural science. Often such excursions give just the raw material out of which scientific understanding is born. It seeks, however, to make a step from free experience of soul and spiritual life to a scientifically motivated description of these, with the motive of bringing clarity and a higher understanding to the 'buzzing, blooming confusion' that reigns as strongly in inner experiences as in the natural world.

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 saw 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 the being that manifests in Christianity also manifests in all faiths and religions; 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.

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:

Holistic 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 (Steiner's Agriculture Course was the first published work on the subject), and much of the present-day organic movement can be traced back to people partially motivated by this impulse. 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. 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 Camphill communities (as well as other anthroposophical homes) for both children and adults in many countries.

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 insitutions 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.

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:

• Architecture (including the Goetheanum),
• 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

see full description in Social Threefolding article.

There are three kinds of social separations Steiner wanted strengthened. This is known as Social Threefolding ,

1. Increased separation between the State and cultural life
2. Increased separation between the economy and cultural life
3. Increased separation between the State and the economy (stakeholder economics)

Aspects of Anthroposophic Thinking

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.

Some of Steiner's students support his claim that remaining actively within his process, can have the effect of awakening one gradually into forms of superconscious spiritual awareness. Steiner claims to offer a gradual experiential path from ordinary conceptual thinking into forms of thinking perceptive of living spiritual beings and mobile realities in the spiritual world.

They claim that gaining access to the unusual forms of consciousness embodied in some of Steiner's works is not a matter of believing in or having faith in whatever Steiner chose to say about spiritual beings. Rather, they claim that Steiner's thinking, if adequately penetrated with one's own active questioning, thinking and feeling, eventually reveals itself as a sort of spiritual music full of aesthetic tensions and relaxations and various kinds of spiritual dynamism. This spiritual dynamism, they see as full of complex metamorphoses of form and color, and can itself eventually be perceived as the speaking and singing of living spiritual beings and of a real spiritual world.

His students say that an obstacle to 'getting' Steiner, in this sense, is that reading for people today is rarely a process where the dynamic birth of a concept out of a pre-conceptual background is felt and recreated as we read each word. They see one way of remaining within the process of Steiner's thinking, is to gradually learn through his works how to live consciously at the threshold where a concept comes into being. In this way they say, one is no longer confined to observing things that already are, instead one begins to see realities emerging into being, and that means seeing to some extent into 'non-being', and discovering there more than nothingness but a hidden life of creative non-material beings and processes in a non-material world.

Critiques of Anthroposophy

Anthroposophy has had many prominent supporters. Among the supporters have been many writers, artists and musicians; these include Andrej Bely, Bruno Walter, Josef Beuys, and Wassily Kandinsky. There have also been critical voices, however. The criticisms can be grouped thematically as follows:

• Anthroposophists tend to elevate Steiner's personal opinions to the level of absolute truths. Supporters claim that if there is a degree of truth to this criticism, most of the blame belongs not to Steiner, but to a few of his students. They point out that Steiner frequently asked that everything he said be tested by sound reason, and not to be taken on faith or authority.

• Criticisms of its claim to reproducibility and intersubjectivity, thus to a scientific foundation. This is a fundamental question underlying the modern response to 'spiritual science': Is it possible for one's thinking to be both scientific and spiritually cognitive at once? Anthroposophy claims that this is possible. This is problematic for those who hold that all spiritual experience is innately religious rather than cognitive.

• 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.)

• Criticisms of some of Steiner's published comments for their apparently racist content; see the final report of the Commission on "Anthroposophy and the Question of Race", which concludes that though by far the general trend of Steiner's thought, writings and lectures was strongly opposed to racism, a few of his stenographed comments certainly sound racist to modern ears.

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.

References

Rudolf Steiner, Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner Books, 1995.

Bibliography

• Primary Sources:

• 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. An Outline of Esoteric Science; trans. by Catherine E. Creeger. Hudson, NY : Anthroposophic Press, c1997.

• Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. Christianity as Mystical Fact"; trans. by Andrew Welburn. Hudson, N.Y. : Anthroposophic Press, c1997.

• Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. Esoteric Development : selected lectures and writings. (Rev. ed.) Great Barrington, MA : SteinerBooks, 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. How to Know Higher Worlds : a modern path of initiation ; trans. by Christopher Bamford. Hudson, N.Y. : Anthroposophic Press, c1994.

• Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925. Towards Social Renewal : rethinking the basis of society [4th ed]; trans. by Matthew Barton. London : Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999.

• Secondary Sources:

• Ahern, G. (1984): Sun at Midnight : the Rudolf Steiner movement and the Western esoteric tradition. Wellingborough : Aquarian Press

• 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. (Owen Barfield's ideas and writings were a significant influence on C.S. Lewis (Anglican) and J. R. R. Tolkien (Catholic), though neither of whom were anthroposophists. At the end of the article, Barfield uses the Latin phrase, "homo imaginans et amans" which means "man imagining and loving".)
• Study by the National Cancer Institute on mistletoe's use for treating cancer
• The Skeptic's Dictionary is more sympathetic than usual to a new religious esoteric movement.da:Antroposofi

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