Anthroposophy

Spiritual and pseudoscientific philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner in 1912 Germany

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Anthroposophy
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* Anthroposophy
* Rudolf Steiner
* Ita Wegman
* Anthroposophical Society
* Goetheanum

Anthroposophically inspired work

* Waldorf education
* Biodynamic agriculture
* Anthroposophic medicine
* Camphill Movement
* Eurythmy

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Anthroposophy is a spiritual[1]: i  new religious movement[2] which was founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner[3] that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers of anthroposophy aim to engage in spiritual discovery through a mode of thought independent of sensory experience.[4]: 3–11, 392–5 [5] 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 by scientists investigating the physical world, many of these ideas have been termed pseudoscientific by experts in epistemology and debunkers of pseudoscience.[6]

Anthroposophy has its roots in German idealism, Western and Eastern esoteric ideas, various religious traditions, and modern Theosophy.[7] Steiner chose the term anthroposophy (from Greek ἄνθρωπος anthropos-, 'human', and σοφία sophia, 'wisdom') to emphasize his philosophy's humanistic orientation.[4][8] He defined it as "a scientific exploration of the spiritual world";[9] others have variously called it a "philosophy and cultural movement",[10] a "spiritual movement",[11] a "spiritual science",[12] "a system of thought",[13] "a speculative and oracular metaphysic",[14][15] "system [...] replete with esoteric and occult mystifications",[16][15] or "a spiritualist movement",[17] or folie a culte,[18] or "positivistic religion",[19] or "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".[20]

Anthroposophical ideas have been applied in a range of fields including education (both in Waldorf schools[21][22] and in the Camphill movement[23]), environmental conservation[24][25] and banking; with additional applications in agriculture, organizational development, the arts, and more.[26]

The Anthroposophical Society is headquartered at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. Anthroposophy's supporters include writers Saul Bellow,[27] and Selma Lagerlöf,[28] painters Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint,[29][30] filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky,[31] child psychiatrist Eva Frommer,[32][33] music therapist Maria Schüppel,[34] Romuva religious founder Vydūnas,[35][36] and former president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia.[37] While critics and proponents alike acknowledge Steiner's many anti-racist statements,[1][38][39] "Steiner's collected works...contain pervasive internal contradictions and inconsistencies on racial and national questions."[40][41]

The historian of religion Olav Hammer has termed anthroposophy "the most important esoteric society in European history".[42] Many scientists, physicians, and philosophers, including Michael Shermer, Michael Ruse, Edzard Ernst, David Gorski, and Simon Singh have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education, considering it dangerous and pseudoscientific.[43] Ideas of Steiner's that are unsupported or disproven by modern science include: racial evolution,[44][45] clairvoyance (Steiner claimed he was clairvoyant),[46][47] and the Atlantis myth.[48]

## History

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Rudolf Steiner

The early work of the founder of anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner, culminated in his Philosophy of Freedom (also translated as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path). Here, Steiner developed a concept of free will based on inner experiences, especially those that occur in the creative activity of independent thought.[4] "Steiner was a moral individualist".[i][49]

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 the Theosophical Society. From 1900 on, thanks to the positive reception his ideas received from Theosophists, Steiner focused increasingly on his work with the Theosophical Society, becoming the secretary of its section in Germany in 1902. During his leadership, membership increased dramatically, from just a few individuals to sixty-nine lodges.[50]

By 1907, a split between Steiner and the Theosophical Society became apparent. While the Society was oriented toward an Eastern and especially Indian approach, Steiner was trying to develop a path that embraced Christianity and natural science.[51] The split became irrevocable when Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society, presented the child Jiddu Krishnamurti as the reincarnated 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 the Theosophical 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.[50][51]

By this time, Steiner had reached considerable stature as a spiritual teacher and expert in the occult.[52] He spoke about what he considered to be his direct experience of the Akashic 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,[53] 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.[4]

Second Goetheanum, seat of the Anthroposophical Society

In 1912, Steiner broke away from the Theosophical Society to found an independent group, which he named the Anthroposophical Society. After World War I, members of the young society began applying Steiner's ideas to create cultural movements in areas such as traditional and special education, farming, and medicine.[54]

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 for Spiritual Science. As a spiritual basis for the reborn movement, Steiner wrote a Foundation Stone Meditation which remains a central touchstone of anthroposophical ideas.[55]

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 the Nazi government.[56] Though at least one prominent member of the Nazi Party, Rudolf Hess, was a strong supporter of anthroposophy,[57] very few anthroposophists belonged to the National Socialist Party.[58] In reality, Steiner had both enemies and loyal supporters in the upper echelons of the Nazi regime.[59] Staudenmaier speaks of the "polycratic party-state apparatus", so Nazism's approach to Anthroposophy was not characterized by monolithic ideological unity.[60] When Hess flew to the UK and was imprisoned, their most powerful protector was gone,[61][62][63] but Anthroposophists were still not left without supporters among higher-placed Nazis.[64]

The Third Reich had banned almost all esoteric organizations, claiming that these were controlled by Jews.[65] 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 the Völkischer Beobachter".[66] Ideological purists from Sicherheitsdienst argued largely in vain against Anthroposophy.[66] 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."[59]

> 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 the Amt 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.[67] E.g. Jehovah's Witnesses were treated much more aggressively than Anthroposophists.[68]

> 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.[69]

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."[70] 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.[64] 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.[64]

> 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 the völkisch movement from which the Nazi Party arose."[71]

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.[72]

### Etymology and earlier uses of the word

[edit]

Anthroposophy is an amalgam of the Greek terms ἄνθρωπος (anthropos 'human') and σοφία (sophia 'wisdom'). An early English usage is recorded by Nathan Bailey (1742) as meaning "the knowledge of the nature of man".[73]

Ignaz Paul Vitalis Troxler

The first known use of the term anthroposophy occurs within Arbatel de magia veterum, summum sapientiae studium, a book published anonymously in 1575 and attributed to Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. The work describes anthroposophy (as well as theosophy) variously as an understanding of goodness, nature, or human affairs. In 1648, the Welsh philosopher Thomas Vaughan published his Anthroposophia Theomagica, or a discourse of the nature of man and his state after death.[74]

The term began to appear with some frequency in philosophical works of the mid- and late-nineteenth century.[75] In the early part of that century, Ignaz Troxler used the term anthroposophy 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 term anthroposophy 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 work Anthropology: The Study of the Human Soul. In 1872, the philosopher of religion Gideon Spicker used the term anthroposophy 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."[76]

In 1882, the philosopher Robert 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.[77] Steiner attended lectures by Zimmermann at the University of Vienna in the early 1880s, thus at the time of this book's publication.[78]

In the early 1900s, Steiner began using the term anthroposophy (i.e. human wisdom) as an alternative to the term theosophy (i.e. divine wisdom).

## Central ideas

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### Spiritual knowledge and freedom

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Anthroposophical proponents aim to extend the clarity of the scientific 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 achieved imagination, inspiration, and intuition.[79] 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.[80][81]

Steiner hoped to form a spiritual movement that would free the individual from any external authority.[81] For Steiner, the human capacity for rational thought would allow individuals to comprehend spiritual research on their own and bypass the danger of dependency on an authority such as himself.[81]

Steiner contrasted the anthroposophical approach with both conventional mysticism, which he considered lacking the clarity necessary for exact knowledge, and natural science, which he considered arbitrarily limited to what can be seen, heard, or felt with the outward senses.

### Nature of the human being

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The Representative of Humanity, detail of a sculpture in wood by Rudolf Steiner and Edith Maryon[82]

In Theosophy, Steiner suggested that human beings unite a physical body of substances gathered from and returning to the inorganic world; a life body (also called the etheric body), in common with all living creatures (including plants); a bearer of sentience or consciousness (also called the astral body), in common with all animals; and the ego, which anchors the faculty of self-awareness unique to human beings.[83]

Anthroposophy describes a broad evolution of human consciousness. Early stages of human evolution possess an intuitive perception of reality, including a clairvoyant perception of spiritual realities. Humanity has progressively evolved an increasing reliance on intellectual faculties and a corresponding loss of intuitive or clairvoyant experiences, which have become atavistic. The increasing intellectualization of consciousness, initially a progressive direction of evolution, has led to an excessive reliance on abstraction 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 and intuitive insights.[84]

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 the death 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's karmic 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.[84]

Steiner described some conditions that determine the interdependence of a person's lives, or karma.[85][86]

#### Evolution

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The anthroposophical view of evolution considers all animals to have evolved from an early, unspecialized form. As the least specialized animal, human beings have maintained the closest connection to the archetypal form;[87] contrary to the Darwinian conception of human evolution, all other animals devolve from this archetype.[88] The spiritual archetype originally created by spiritual beings was devoid of physical substance; only later did this descend into material existence on Earth.[89] 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 rather accompanied 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 their cause. 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.[90]

Anthroposophy adapted Theosophy'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.

### Ethics

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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 counterpart Ahriman. 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 motivates creativity and spirituality; Ahriman is the dark spirit that tempts human beings to "...deny [their] link with divinity and to live entirely on the material plane", but that also stimulates intellectuality and technology. 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.[4][80]

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 the Representative of Humanity, also known as the Christ being, a spiritual entity who stands between and harmonizes the two extremes.[80]

## Claimed applications

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Further information: Rudolf Steiner § Breadth of activity

### Rationale

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> 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).

> — Hansson 2022

Libération described Steiner's claims as fantasist theories; it also notes that this did not prevent him from getting traction.[91][92]

### Steiner/Waldorf education

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Main article: Waldorf education

There is a pedagogical movement with over 1000 Steiner or Waldorf schools (the latter name stems from the first such school, founded in Stuttgart in 1919)[93] located in some 60 countries; the great majority of these are independent (private) schools.[94] 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.[95] 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 the favelas of São Paulo[96] to wealthy suburbs of major cities;[96] 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.[97] Waldorf schools are among the most visible anthroposophical institutions.[97][98]

Benjamin Lazier calls Steiner a "maverick educator".[99]

### Biodynamic agriculture

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Main article: Biodynamic agriculture

Biodynamic agriculture, is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts.[100] It was also the first intentional form of organic farming,[98] begun in 1924, when Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures published in English as The Agriculture Course.[101] Steiner is considered one of the founders of the modern organic farming movement.[102][103]

"And Himmler, Hess, and Darré all promoted biodynamic (anthroposophic) approaches to farming as an alternative to industrial agriculture."[104][105] "'[...] 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."[106]

"Steiner's 'biodynamic agriculture' based on 'restoring the quasi-mystical relationship between earth and the cosmos' was widely accepted in the Third Reich (28)."[107]

### Anthroposophical medicine

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Main article: Anthroposophical medicine

Anthroposophical medicine is a form of alternative medicine based on pseudoscientific and occult notions rather than in science-based medicine.[108]

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.[109]

One of the most studied applications has been the use of mistletoe extracts in cancer therapy,[110] but research has found no evidence of benefit.[111][112]

### Special needs education and services

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Main article: Camphill Movement

See also: Garvald Centres

In 1922, Ita Wegman founded an anthroposophical center for special needs education, the Sonnenhof, in Switzerland. In 1940, Karl König founded the Camphill 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.[113] Both Karl König, Thomas Weihs and others have written extensively on these ideas underlying Special education.[114][115]

### Architecture

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The first Goetheanum, designed by Steiner in 1920, Dornach, Switzerland

Steiner designed around thirteen buildings in an organic—expressionist architectural style.[116][117] Foremost among these are his designs for the two Goetheanum buildings in Dornach, Switzerland.[118] Thousands of further buildings have been built by later generations of anthroposophic architects.[119][120]

Architects who have been strongly influenced by the anthroposophic style include Imre Makovecz in Hungary,[121] 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, and Walter Burley Griffin[122] and Gregory Burgess in Australia.[123][124][125] ING House in Amsterdam is a contemporary building by an anthroposophical architect which has received awards for its ecological design and approach to a self-sustaining ecology as an autonomous building and example of sustainable architecture.[126]

### Eurythmy

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Main article: Eurythmy

Together with Marie von Sivers, Steiner developed eurythmy, a performance art combining dance, speech, and music.[127][128]

### Social finance and entrepreneurship

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See also: Social finance

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.[4] The first anthroposophic bank was the Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken in Bochum, Germany, founded in 1974.[129] Socially responsible banks founded out of anthroposophy include Triodos Bank, founded in the Netherlands in 1980 and also active in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain and France.[130] Other examples include Cultura 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 in Norway in the late 90s, La Nef in France and RSF Social Financein San Francisco.[131]

Harvard Business School historian Geoffrey Jones traced the considerable impact both Steiner and later anthroposophical entrepreneurs had on the creation of many businesses in organic food, ecological architecture and sustainable finance.[132]

### Organizational development, counselling and biography work

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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.[4]

### Speech and drama

[edit]

There are also anthroposophical movements to renew speech and drama, the most important of which are based in the work of Marie Steiner-von Sivers (speech formation, also known as Creative Speech) and the Chekhov Method originated by Michael Chekhov (nephew of Anton Chekhov).[133]

### Art

[edit]

The Representative of Humanity, by Rudolf Steiner and Edith Maryon

Anthroposophic painting, a style inspired by Rudolf Steiner, featured prominently in the first Goetheanum'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.[134] Rudolf Steiner appointed the English sculptor Edith Maryon as head of the School of Fine Art at the Goetheanum.[82] Together they carved the 9-metre tall sculpture titled The Representative of Humanity, on display at the Goetheanum.[82]

### Other

[edit]

Flowforms in Darmstadt, Germany

* Phenomenological approaches to science, pseudo-scientific[6] ideas based on Goethe's philosophy of nature.[4]
* John Wilkes' fountain-like flowforms, sculptural forms that guide water into rhythmic movement for the purposes of decoration.
* Antisemitic legislation in Italy (1938–1945).[135]
* The Fellowship Community in Chestnut Ridge, New York, United States, which includes a retirement community and other anthroposophic projects.[136]
* The Harduf kibbutz in Israel.

## Social goals

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Main article: Social Threefolding

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 of nationalism, which he saw as outdated, and a proponent of achieving social solidarity through individual freedom.[4] A petition proposing a radical change in the German constitution and expressing his basic social ideas (signed by Hermann Hesse, among others) was widely circulated. His main book on social reform is Toward Social Renewal.[4]

Anthroposophy continues to aim at reforming society through maintaining and strengthening the independence of the spheres of cultural life, human rights and the economy. It emphasizes a particular ideal in each of these three realms of society:[4]

* Liberty in cultural life
* Equality of rights, the sphere of legislation
* Fraternity in the economic sphere

According to Cees Leijenhorst, "Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism."[137]

Steiner did influence Italian Fascism, which exploited "his racial and anti-democratic dogma."[138] The fascist ministers Giovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò[139] (nicknamed "the Anthroposophist duke"; he became antifascist after taking part in Benito Mussolini's government[140]) and Ettore Martinoli have openly expressed their sympathy for Rudolf Steiner.[138] Most from the occult pro-fascist UR Group were Anthroposophists.[141][142][143]

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."[144]

## Esoteric path

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### Paths of spiritual development

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According to Steiner, a real spiritual 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 of ethical and cognitive self-discipline. Steiner described many exercises he said were suited to strengthening such self-discipline; the most complete exposition of these is found in his book How To Know Higher Worlds. The aim of these exercises is to develop higher levels of consciousness through meditation and observation. 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.[79]

> 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.[145]

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.[79] Steiner distinguished between what he considered were true and false paths of spiritual investigation.[146]

In anthroposophy, artistic expression is also treated as a potentially valuable bridge between spiritual and material reality.[147]: 97

### Prerequisites to and stages of inner development

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> 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",[148]

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:[80]

* Control over one's own thinking
* Control over one's will
* Composure
* Positivity
* Impartiality

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.[149][150]

* By focusing on symbolic patterns, images, and poetic mantras, the meditant can achieve consciously directed Imaginations that allow sensory phenomena to appear as the expression of underlying beings of a soul-spiritual nature.
* By transcending such imaginative pictures, the meditant can become conscious of the meditative activity itself, which leads to experiences of expressions of soul-spiritual beings unmediated by sensory phenomena or qualities. Steiner calls this stage Inspiration.
* By intensifying the will-forces through exercises such as a chronologically reversed review of the day's events, the meditant can achieve a further stage of inner independence from sensory experience, leading to direct contact, and even union, with spiritual beings ("Intuition") without loss of individual awareness.[149]

### Spiritual exercises

[edit]

Main article: Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development

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.[79]

## Place in Western philosophy

[edit]

Steiner built upon Goethe'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."[79]

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.[79]

Some of the epistemic basis for Steiner's later anthroposophical work is contained in the seminal work, Philosophy of Freedom.[151] In his early works, Steiner sought to overcome what he perceived as the dualism of Cartesian idealism and Kantian 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.[152] Steiner was one of the first European philosophers to overcome the subject-object split in Western thought.[152] Though not well known among philosophers, his philosophical work was taken up by Owen Barfield (and through him influenced the Inklings, an Oxford group of Christian writers that included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis).[153]

Christian and Jewish mystical thought have also influenced the development of anthroposophy.[154][155]

### Union of science and spirit

[edit]

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.[147]: 77ff  Steiner identified mathematics, which attains certainty through thinking itself, thus through inner experience rather than empirical observation,[156] as the basis of his epistemology of spiritual experience.[157]

Anthroposophy regards mainstream science as Ahrimanic.[158]

## Relationship to religion

[edit]

### Esoteric School

[edit]

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 the Theosophical Society and Ordo Templi Orientis.[159] Steiner had the Masonic degrees 33 and 95.[160]

### Christ as the center of earthly evolution

[edit]

Steiner's writing, though appreciative of all religions and cultural developments, emphasizes Western tradition as having evolved to meet contemporary needs.[51] He describes Christ and his mission on earth of bringing individuated consciousness as having a particularly important place in human evolution,[4] whereby:[80]

* Christianity has evolved out of previous religions;
* The being which manifests in Christianity also manifests in all faiths and religions, and each religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born;
* All historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed considerably to meet the continuing evolution of humanity.

> 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.[161]

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 of the Fall from Paradise, but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and of human history.[80] To describe this being, Steiner periodically used terms such as the "Representative of Humanity" or the "good spirit"[162][163] rather than any denominational term.

### Divergence from conventional Christian thought

[edit]

Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic[ii] elements:

* One central point of divergence is Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma.
* Steiner differentiated three contemporary paths by which he believed it possible to arrive at Christ:
* Through heart-felt experiences of the Gospels; Steiner described this as the historically dominant path, but becoming less important in the future.
* Through inner experiences of a spiritual reality; this Steiner regarded as increasingly the path of spiritual or religious seekers today.
* Through initiatory experiences whereby the reality of Christ's death and resurrection are experienced; Steiner believed this is the path people will increasingly take.[80]
* Steiner also believed that there were two different Jesus children involved in the Incarnation of the Christ: one child descended from Solomon, as described in the Gospel of Matthew, the other child from Nathan, as described in the Gospel of Luke.[4][165][166] (The genealogies given in the two gospels diverge some thirty generations before Jesus' birth, and 'Jesus' was a common name in biblical times.)
* His view of the second coming of Christ is also unusual; he suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but that the Christ being would become manifest in non-physical form, visible to spiritual vision and apparent in community life for increasing numbers of people beginning around the year 1933.[167]
* He emphasized his belief that in the future humanity would need to be able to recognize the Spirit of Love in all its genuine forms, regardless of what name would be used to describe this being. He also warned that the traditional name of the Christ might be misused, and the true essence of this being of love ignored.

Monty Waldin notes that the two Jesus children sound heretical to mainstream Christians.[168]

Anthony Mellors states that Steiner's interpretation of the Bible is heretical.[169]

> Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress...[170]

> — C.G. Jung

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."[171]

As Gilles Quispel put it, "After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis."[172]

Maria Carlson stated "Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter."[173] She also stated that Theosophy and Anthroposophy "are both modern gnostic doctrines."[174]

R. McL. Wilson in The Oxford Companion to the Bible agrees that Steiner and Anthroposophy are under the influence of gnosticism.[175]

Robert A. McDermott says Anthroposophy belongs to Christian Rosicrucianism.[176][177] According to Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Rudolf Steiner "blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie".[178]

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke described Anthroposophy as a [modern] offshoot of Ancient Gnosticism, especially of "the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma".[179]

Geoffrey Ahern states that Anthroposophy belongs to neo-gnosticism broadly conceived, which he identifies with Western esotericism and occultism.[180]

Stefanie von Schnurbein briefly agrees that Steiner propagated Gnostic Christianity.[181]

> 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.[182]

> — Samson 2023, p. 180

> Granted that Steiner included Gnostic elements in his cosmological reinterpretation of Christianity, many of them from the Pistis 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.[183]

> — Hudson 2019, p. 510

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 [...]".[184]

According to Heiner Ullrich, Steiner's point of view was that of a "neo-Platonic gnostic".[185] Gareth Knight agrees that Steiner was neo-Platonic.[186] Brandt and Hammer describe Steiner's anthropology (spirit, soul, and body) as neo-Platonic.[187]

Carl Abrahamsson stated that Steiner posited a gnostic Christ.[188]

Steiner's theology is "redemption through sin", he accuses good Christians of killing the spirit of Christianity.[189]

According to Catholic scholars Anthroposophy belongs to the New Age.[190][191] George D. Chryssides also considers Steiner to be New Age, or at least a forerunner of the New Age.[192]

### Judaism

[edit]

> 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 the noumenon, or at worst as someone who laid the groundwork for Hitler and National Socialism.[193]

> — Aaron French

Rudolf Steiner was an extreme pan-German nationalist, and never disavowed such stance.[194]

"Steiner was a member of a völkisch Wagner club, and anthroposophist authors endorsed Wagner's views on race."[195]

"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.'"[196] The theories of theosophy and anthroposophy were "later co-opted by National Socialism".[197]

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.[198][40][199] He also supported Émile Zola's position in the Dreyfus affair.[199] 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 book Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg (1919) by Karl Heise [de]; Steiner also wrote the foreword for the book, partly based upon his own ideas.[200][201][202] The publication comprised a conspiracy theory according to whom World War I was a consequence of a collusion of Freemasons and Jews – 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[202] "a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism".[200] The writing was later enthusiastically received by the Nazi Party.[203][204]

In his later life, Steiner was accused by the Nazis of being Jewish, and Adolf Hitler called anthroposophy "Jewish methods". The anthroposophical institutions in Germany were banned during Nazi rule and several anthroposophists sent to concentration camps.[1][205] 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.[206]

Important early anthroposophists who were Jewish included two central members on the executive boards of the precursors to the modern Anthroposophical Society,[207] and Karl König, the founder of the Camphill movement, who had converted to Christianity.[208] Martin Buber and Hugo Bergmann, who viewed Steiner's social ideas as a solution to the Arab–Jewish conflict, were also influenced by anthroposophy.[155]

There are numerous anthroposophical organisations in Israel, including the anthroposophical kibbutz Harduf, founded by Jesaiah Ben-Aharon, forty Waldorf kindergartens and seventeen Waldorf schools (as of 2018).[209] 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 near Haifa.

### Christian Community

[edit]

Main article: Christian Community

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".[4] They approached a notable Lutheran pastor, Friedrich Rittelmeyer, who was already working with Steiner's ideas, to join their efforts. Out of their co-operative endeavor, the Movement for Religious Renewal, now generally known as The Christian Community, was born. Steiner emphasized that he considered this movement, and his role in creating it, to be independent of his anthroposophical work,[4] as he wished anthroposophy to be independent of any particular religion or religious denomination.[80]

## Reception

[edit]

Anthroposophy's supporters include Saul Bellow,[27] Selma Lagerlöf,[28] Andrei Bely,[210][211] Joseph Beuys,[212] Owen Barfield, architect Walter Burley Griffin,[122] Wassily Kandinsky,[29][30] Andrei Tarkovsky,[31] Bruno Walter,[213] Right Livelihood Award winners Sir George Trevelyan,[214] and Ibrahim Abouleish,[215] and child psychiatrist Eva Frommer.[32][33]

The historian of religion Olav Hammer has termed anthroposophy "the most important esoteric society in European history."[42] However authors, scientists, and physicians including Michael Shermer, Michael Ruse, Edzard Ernst, David Gorski, and Simon Singh have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education to be dangerous and pseudoscientific.[43] 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.[216]

### Scientific basis

[edit]

Though Rudolf Steiner studied natural science at the Vienna Technical University at the undergraduate level, his doctorate 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 or Goethean science as an alternative to what he considered the materialistic science of his contemporaries.[42]

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 among esotericists[42]), and Steiner called anthroposophy Geisteswissenschaft (science of the mind, cultural/spiritual science), a term generally used in German to refer to the humanities and social sciences.[217]

Whether this is a sufficient basis for anthroposophy to be considered a spiritual science has been a matter of controversy.[80][42] 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."[218]

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.[219] 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, no intersubjective validation is possible by conventional scientific methods; it thus cannot stand up to empiricist critics.[80] 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.[79]

Olav Hammer suggests that anthroposophy carries scientism "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 as anthroposophic medicine and biodynamic agriculture are justified partly on the basis of the ethical and ecological values they promote, rather than purely on a scientific basis.[42]

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.[79]

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."[220]

According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims, also championed by Waldorf schools:

1. wrong color theory;[221]
2. obtuse criticism of the theory of relativity;[219][221]
3. weird ideas about motions of the planets;[221]
4. supporting vitalism;[221]
5. doubting germ theory;[221]
6. weird approach to physiological systems;[222]
7. "the heart is not a pump".[222][223]

The epistemology offered by anthroposophy represents a regression to pre-scientific modes of thought.[224]

### Religious nature

[edit]

Two German scholars have called Anthroposophy "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century."[225] Other scholars stated that Anthroposophy is "aspiring to the status of religious dogma".[226] According to Maria Carlson, anthroposophy is a "positivistic religion" "offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience."[19]

According to Swartz, Brandt, Hammer, and Hansson, Anthroposophy is a religion.[227] They also call it "settled new religious movement",[228] while Martin Gardner called it a cult.[229] Another scholar also calls it a new religious movement or a new spiritual movement.[230] Already in 1924 Anthroposophy got labeled "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".[20] Other scholars agree it is a new religious movement.[2] According to Helmut Zander [de], both the theory and practice of Anthroposophy display characteristics of religion, and, according to Zander, Rudolf Steiner would plead no contest.[231] According to Zander, Steiner's book Geheimwissenschaft [Occult Science] contains Steiner's mythology about cosmogenesis.[232] Hammer notices that Anthroposophy is a synthesis which does include occultism.[233] Hammer also notices that Steiner's occult doctrines bear a strong resemblance to post-Blavatskyan Theosophy (e.g. Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater).[234] 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, the Wright 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.[235]

As an explicitly spiritual movement, anthroposophy has sometimes been called a religious philosophy.[236] In 1998 People for Legal and Non-Sectarian Schools (PLANS) started a lawsuit alleging that anthroposophy is a religion for Establishment 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.[237][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.[238] In 2000, a French court ruled that a government minister's description of anthroposophy as a cult was defamatory.[239] The French governmental anti-cults agency MIVILUDES reported that it remains vigilant about Anthroposophy, especially because of its deviant medical applications and its work with underage persons, and that the works of Grégoire Perra which lambast anthroposophical medicine do not constitute defamation.[240] Anthroposophical MDs think diseases are caused primarily by karma and demons, rather than materialistic causes.[240] The Gospel 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.[240] 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.[240]

Scholars state that Anthroposophy is influenced by Christian Gnosticism.[241] 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".[242][243] The secular scholar Joan Braune agrees that Anthroposophy is Gnosticism.[244]

Some Baptist and mainstream academical heresiologists still appear inclined to agree with the more narrow prior edict of 1919[245] on dogma and the Lutheran (Missouri Sinod) apologist and heresiologist Eldon K. Winker quoted Ron Rhodes that Steiner's Christology is very similar to Cerinthus.[246] Steiner did perceive "a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos",[247] which could be construed as Gnostic but not Docetic,[247] since "they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion".[246] "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."[248] Older scholarship says Steiner's Christology is Nestorian.[249] According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner's Christology was, however, quite heterodox, and hardly compatible with official church doctrine."[165]

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."[250]

### Statements on race

[edit]

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.

* From the mid-1930s on, National Socialist ideologues attacked the anthroposophical worldview as being opposed to Nazi racist and nationalistic principles; anthroposophy considered "Blood, Race and Folk" as primitive instincts that must be overcome.[251][252]
* An academic analysis of the educational approach in public schools noted that "[A] naive version of the evolution of consciousness, a theory foundational to both Steiner's anthroposophy and Waldorf education, sometimes places one race below another in one or another dimension of development. It is easy to imagine why there are disputes [...] about Waldorf educators' insisting on teaching Norse tales and Greek myths to the exclusion of African modes of discourse."[253]

In response to such critiques, the Anthroposophical 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.[254]

Tommy Wieringa, a Dutch writer who grew among Anthroposophists, commenting upon an essay by the Anthroposophist Désanne 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."[255][256]

The racism of Anthroposophy is spiritual and paternalistic (i.e. benevolent), while the racism of fascism is materialistic and often malign.[257] Olav Hammer, university professor expert in new religious movements and Western 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".[258]

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.[259]

### Reception by Nazi regime in Germany

[edit]

Though several prominent members of the Nazi Party were supporters of anthroposophy and its movements, including agriculturalist Erhard Bartsch [de], SS colonel Hermann Schneider, and Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller,[260] anti-Nazis such as Traute Lafrenz, a member of the White Rose resistance movement, were also followers.[261] Rudolf Hess, the adjunct Führer, was a patron of Waldorf schools[62][61] and a staunch defender of biodynamic agriculture.[63] "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, [...]"[104]

"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."[262] According to Staudenmaier, the fascist and Nazi authorities saw occultism not as deviant, but as deeply familiar.[262]

## See also

[edit]

* Philosophy portal

* Esoteric Christianity
* Esotericism in Germany and Austria
* Pneumatosophy
* Spiritual but not religious

## References

[edit]

### Notes

[edit]

1. ^ Ethical individualism is the opposite of ethical collectivism (meaning a moral code which is good for everyone).
2. ^ Gnosticism meaning "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."[164]

### Citations

[edit]

1. ^ a b c Staudenmaier, Peter (2010). Between Occultism and Fascism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race and Nation in Germany and Italy, 1900–1945 (PDF) (PhD thesis). Cornell University. hdl:1813/17662. OCLC 743130298. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
2. ^ a b Sources for 'new religious movement':

* Norman, Alex (2012). Cusack, Carole M.; Norman, Alex (eds.). Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 213\. ISBN 978-90-04-22187-1. Retrieved 1 January 2024. "[...] continue to have influence beyond the institutional reach of Anthropospophy, the new religious movement he founded."
* Frisk, Liselotte (2012). Cusack, Carole M.; Norman, Alex (eds.). Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 204 fn. 10, 208. ISBN 978-90-04-22187-1. Retrieved 1 January 2024. "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."
* Cusack, Carole M. (2012). Cusack, Carole M.; Norman, Alex (eds.). Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 190\. ISBN 978-90-04-22187-1. Retrieved 1 January 2024. "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."
* Gilhus, Sælid (2016). Bogdan, Henrik; Hammer, Olav (eds.). Western Esotericism in Scandinavia. Brill Esotericism Reference Library. Brill. p. 56\. ISBN 978-90-04-32596-8. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
* Ahlbäck, Tore (2008). "Rudolf Steiner as a religious authority". Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis. 20. doi:10.30674/scripta.67323. ISSN 2343-4937.
* Toncheva, Svetoslava (2013). "Anthroposophy as religious syncretism". SOTER: Journal of Religious Science. 48 (48): 81–89\. doi:10.7220/1392-7450.48(76).5.
* Toncheva, Svetoslava (2015). Out of the New Spirituality of the Twentieth Century: The Dawn of Anthroposophy, the White Brotherhood and the Unified Teaching (PDF). Berlin: Frank & Timme GmbH. pp. 13, 17. ISBN 978-3-7329-0132-6. ISSN 2196-3312.
* Clemen, Carl (1924). "Anthroposophy". The Journal of Religion. 4 (3): 281–292\. doi:10.1086/480431. ISSN 0022-4189. S2CID 222446655.

3. ^ Anthroposophy Archived 2021-02-08 at the Wayback Machine, 1998?, Encyclopedia Britannica online. "Anthroposophy, philosophy based on the premise that the human mind 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."
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Steiner, Rudolf (1984). McDermott, Robert (ed.). The essential Steiner : basic writings of Rudolf Steiner (1st ed.). San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-065345-0.
5. ^ "Anthroposophy", Encyclopædia Britannica online, accessed 10/09/07
6. ^ a b Sources for 'pseudoscience':

* McKie, Robin; Hartmann, Laura (28 April 2012). "Holistic unit will 'tarnish' Aberdeen University reputation". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2022.
* Gardner 1957, pp. 169, 224–225
* Regal, Brian (2009). "Astral Projection". Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia: A Critical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 29\. ISBN 978-0-313-35508-0. Retrieved 31 January 2022. "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."
* Gorski, David H. (2019). Kaufman, Allison B.; Kaufman, James C. (eds.). Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science. MIT Press. p. 313\. ISBN 978-0-262-53704-9. Retrieved 31 January 2022. "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:"
* Oppenheimer, Todd (2007). The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology. Random House Publishing Group. p. 384\. ISBN 978-0-307-43221-6. Retrieved 31 January 2022. "In Dugan's view, Steiner's theories are simply "cult pseudoscience"."
* Ruse, Michael (2013b). Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (eds.). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. University of Chicago Press. p. 227\. ISBN 978-0-226-05182-6. Retrieved 31 January 2022. "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."
* Mahner, Martin (2007). Gabbay, Dov M.; Thagard, Paul; Woods, John; Kuipers, Theo A.F. (eds.). General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues. Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Elsevier Science. p. 548\. ISBN 978-0-08-054854-8. Retrieved 3 February 2022. "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."
* Carlson, Maria (2015) [1993]. No Religion Higher Than Truth: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875-1922. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton University Press. p. 136\. ISBN 978-1-4008-7279-4. Retrieved 14 August 2024. "Both turned out to be "positivistic religions," offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience."
* Pattberg, Thorsten J. (2012). Shengren: Above Philosophy and Beyond Religion. LoD Press, New York. p. 125. Retrieved 15 August 2024. "Worse, he couldn't be a real philosopher 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."
* See also Hansson, Sven Ove (2021) [2008]. "Science and Pseudo-Science". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 1095-5054. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
* Ruse 2013a, pp. 128–
* Dugan 2002, pp. 31–33
* Dugan 2007, pp. 74–76
* Ronchi, Claudio (2013). The Tree of Knowledge: The Bright and the Dark Sides of Science. SpringerLink : Bücher. Springer International Publishing. p. 180 fn. 2. ISBN 978-3-319-01484-5. Retrieved 17 November 2024. "merely represent, from a scientific point of view, examples of fuzzy reasoning"

7. ^ Sources for 'Theosophy':

* Staudenmaier 2008
* Dugan 2002, p. 32

8. ^ Rudolf Steiner, Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy, Anthroposophic Press 1995 ISBN 0880103876
9. ^ Steiner, Rudolf (1965). Philosophie und Anthroposophie: Gesammelte Aufsätze, 1904–1918 (in German). Verlag der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung.
10. ^ Carole M. Cusack; Alex Norman, eds. (2012). Handbook of new religions and cultural production. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-22648-7. OCLC 794328527.
11. ^ Phillips, D. C. (2014). Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy. SAGE Publications. p. 847\. ISBN 978-1-4833-6475-9. Archived from the original on 2021-06-01. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
12. ^ Steiner, Rudolf (2002). What is anthroposophy?: three perspectives on self-knowledge. Christopher Bamford. Great Barrington, MA: Anthroposophic Press. ISBN 0-88010-506-2. OCLC 49531507.
13. ^ Weiner, Irving B.; Craighead, W. Edward (2010). The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology, Volume 1. John Wiley & Sons. p. 86\. ISBN 978-0-470-17025-0. Archived from the original on 2021-06-01. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
14. ^ Blackburn, Simon (2016). "Steiner, Rudolf (1861–1925)". The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford Quick Reference. OUP Oxford. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-0-19-105427-3. Retrieved 2 January 2025. "a speculative and oracular metaphysic"
15. ^ a b Ginges, Hal Jon (2012). The act of knowing. Rudolf Steiner and the Neo-Kantian Tradition (PDF) (PhD thesis). University of Western Sydney.
16. ^ Mautner, Thomas (2005). "Steiner". The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Penguin Books. p. 593\. ISBN 978-0-14-101840-9. "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."
17. ^ Herzig van Wees, Sibylle; Ström, Maria (2024). ""Your child will have a bird brain!": Vaccination choices and stigma among vaccine enquirers in Sweden: A qualitative study". Social Science & Medicine. 349 116893\. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116893. PMID 38663145.
18. ^ Reznek, Lawrie (2010). "Communal Madness: Religious and Secular". Delusions and the Madness of the Masses. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. pp. 110–111\. ISBN 978-1-4422-0607-6. Retrieved 3 June 2025.
19. ^ a b Carlson 2015, p. 136.
20. ^ a b Clemen 1924, pp. 281–292.
21. ^ Randoll, Dirk; Peters, Jürgen (2015). "Empirical research on Waldorf education". Educar em Revista (56): 33–47\. doi:10.1590/0104-4060.41416. ISSN 0104-4060.
22. ^ Goldshmidt, Gilad (2017-09-02). "Waldorf Education as Spiritual Education". Religion & Education. 44 (3): 346–363\. doi:10.1080/15507394.2017.1294400. ISSN 1550-7394. S2CID 151518278.
23. ^ Garfat, Thom (2011-10-31). "Discovering Camphill: a personal narrative". Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care. 11 (1). ISSN 1478-1840.
24. ^ Paull, John (2013-07-01). "The Rachel Carson Letters and the Making of Silent Spring". SAGE Open. 3 (3): 215824401349486. doi:10.1177/2158244013494861. ISSN 2158-2440.
25. ^ Backfish, Charles (2016). "Long Island Women Preserving Nature and the Environment" (PDF). Long Island History Journal – via stonybrook.edu.
26. ^ Sources for 'additional applications':

* Steiner 1984
* Willmann 2001
* Ullrich 2000
* Schneider 1985
* Ullrich, Heiner (2011). Rudolf Steiner: Leben und Lehre (in German). München: C.H.Beck. p. 9\. ISBN 978-3-406-61205-3.

27. ^ a b Fulford, Robert (23 October 2000). "Bellow: the novelist as homespun philosopher". The National Post. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
28. ^ a b Kugler, Walter (2001). Feindbild Steiner (in German). Stuttgart: Verl. Freies Geistesleben & Urachhaus. p. 61\. ISBN 978-3-7725-1918-5.
29. ^ a b Peg Weiss (Summer 1997). "Kandinsky and Old Russia: The Artist as Ethnographer and Shaman". The Slavic and East European Journal. Vol. 41, no. 2\. pp. 371–373.
30. ^ a b David Hier. "Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction 1908–1922". Arts Ablaze. Archived from the original on 2013-10-14. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
31. ^ a b Layla Alexander Garrett. "Andrey Tarkovsky-Enigma and Mystery". Nostalghia. Archived from the original on 2009-09-27. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
32. ^ a b Frommer, Eva A. (1995). Voyage Through Childhood Into the Adult World – A Guide to Child Development. Rudolph Steiner Press. ISBN 978-1-869890-59-9.
33. ^ a b Fiona Subotsky, Eva Frommer (Obituary) Archived 2016-12-26 at the Wayback Machine, 29 April 2005. doi:10.1192/pb.29.5.197
34. ^ "Musiktherapie". www.musiktherapeutische-arbeitsstaette.de. Retrieved 2022-11-27.
35. ^ Bagdonavičius, Vaclovas. "Similarities and Differences between Vydūnas and Steiner ("Berührungspunkte und Unterschiede zwischen Vydūnas und Steiner"). [In Lithuanian]. Vydūnas und deutsche Kultur, sudarytojai Vacys Bagdonavičius, Aušra Martišiūtė-Linartienė, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2013, pp. 325–330.
36. ^ Jacobsen, Knut A.; Sardella, Ferdinando (2020). Handbook of Hinduism in Europe. Leiden: Brill. pp. 1177–1178\. ISBN 9789004432284. Retrieved 9 December 2022. "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."
37. ^ Urushadze, Levari Z. "Zviad Gamsakhurdia – the first President of Georgia". Georgian National Museum. Retrieved 9 December 2022. "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."
38. ^ Segall, Matthew (2023-09-27). "The Urgency of Social Threefolding in a World Still at War with Itself". Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy. 19 (1): 229–248\. ISSN 1832-9101.
39. ^ McKanan, Dan (2017). "Ecology. The Boundaries of Anthroposophy". Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-29006-8.
40. ^ a b Staudenmaier, Peter (2005). "Rudolf Steiner and the Jewish Question". Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 50 (1): 127–147\. doi:10.1093/leobaeck/50.1.127. ISSN 0075-8744. Archived from the original on 2017-09-16.
41. ^ See also Munoz, Joaquin (23 March 2016). "Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications: The Challenge of Waldorf Education for All Youth. Waldorf Education and Racism". The Circle of Mind and Heart: Integrating Waldorf Education, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Critical Pedagogy (PDF) (PhD thesis). The University of Arizona. pp. 189–190\. hdl:10150/621063. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
42. ^ a b c d e f Hammer, Olav (2021) [2004]. Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. Numen Book Series. Brill. pp. 204, 243, 329, 64f, 225–28, 176. ISBN 978-90-04-49399-5. Retrieved 21 January 2022. See also p. 98, where Hammer states that – unusually for founders of esoteric movements – Steiner's self-descriptions of the origins of his thought and work correspond to the view of external historians.
43. ^ a b Sources for 'dangerous' or 'pseudoscientific':

* Dugan 2002, pp. 31–33
* Ruse, Michael (2013a). The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet. University of Chicago Press. pp. 128–. ISBN 9780226060392. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
* "Schools of pseudoscience pose a serious threat to education | letters". The Guardian. 12 May 2012. Archived from the original on 10 September 2017. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
* Gorski, David (14 March 2011). "A University of Michigan Medical School alumnus confronts anthroposophic medicine at his alma mater". Science-Based Medicine. Archived from the original on 7 May 2019. Retrieved 29 November 2018.

44. ^ Staudenmaier 2010.
45. ^ Staudenmaier 2008.
46. ^ Ruse, Michael (2018). The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict. Oxford University Press. p. 97\. ISBN 978-0-19-086757-7.
47. ^ Kreidler, Marc (23 July 2012). "Rudolf Steiner's Quackery". Quackwatch. Retrieved 5 September 2021.
48. ^ Sources for 'Atlantis':

* Staudenmaier 2008
* Gardner, Martin (1957) [1952]. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Dover Books on the Occult. Dover Publications. pp. 169, 224–225\. ISBN 978-0-486-20394-2. Retrieved 31 January 2022. "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's An 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)
* Fritze, Ronald H. (2009). "Atlantis: Mother of Pseudohistory". Invented Knowledge : false history, fake science and pseudo-religions. London: Reaktion Books. pp. 45, 61. ISBN 978-1-86189-430-4. "For the Theosophists and other occultists Atlantis has a greater importance since it forms an integral part of their religious worldview."
* Lachman, Gary (2007). Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Penguin Publishing Group. pp. xix, 233. ISBN 978-1-101-15407-6. Retrieved 29 February 2024. "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?"
* Staudenmaier, Peter (2009). "Occultism, Race and Politics in German-speaking Europe, 1880—1940: A Survey of the Historical Literature". European History Quarterly. 39 (1): 47–70\. doi:10.1177/0265691408097366. ISSN 0265-6914.
* Beres, Derek; Remski, Matthew; Walker, Julian (2023). Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat. PublicAffairs. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-5417-0300-1. Retrieved 18 April 2025. "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 of The 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."

49. ^ Ryan, Alexandra E. (2004). "Anthroposophy". In Clarke, Peter (ed.). Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements. Taylor & Francis. p. 34\. ISBN 978-1-134-49970-0. Retrieved 2024-07-19.
50. ^ a b Of these, 55 lodges – about 2,500 people – seceded with Steiner to form his new Anthroposophical Society at the end of 1912. Geoffrey Ahern, Sun at Midnight: the Rudolf Steiner Movement and Gnosis in the West, 2nd edition Archived 2010-01-17 at the Wayback Machine, 2009, James Clark and Co, ISBN 978-0-227-17293-3, p. 43
51. ^ a b c Gary Lachman, Rudolf Steiner, New York:Tarcher/Penguin ISBN 978-1-58542-543-3
52. ^ Ahern, Geoffrey. (1984): Sun at Midnight: the Rudolf Steiner movement and the Western esoteric tradition
53. ^ especially How to Know Higher Worlds and An Outline of Esoteric Science
54. ^ Uhrmacher, P. Bruce (Winter 1995). "Uncommon Schooling: A Historical Look at Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and Waldorf Education". Curriculum Inquiry. 25 (4): 381–406\. doi:10.2307/1180016. JSTOR 1180016.
55. ^ "GA260 – The Foundation Stone Meditation". The Rudolf Steiner Archive. Retrieved 2022-10-17.
56. ^ Hansen-Schaberg, Inge; Schonig, Bruno, eds. (2006). Waldorf-Pädagogik (in German). Baltmannsweiler: Schneider-Verl. Hohengehren. ISBN 3-8340-0042-6.
57. ^ Staudenmaier, Peter (2013). Manthripragada, Ashwin; Mušanović, Emina; Theison, Dagmar (eds.). The Threat and Allure of the Magical: Selected Papers from the 17th Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference, University of California, Berkeley. Cambridge Scholars Publisher. pp. 44–46\. ISBN 978-1-4438-6586-9. Retrieved 15 November 2024. "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."
58. ^ Sources for 'Nazi Party':

* Dugan 2007, pp. 74–76
* Zander, Helmut (2007). Anthroposophie in Deutschland: Theosophische Weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Praxis 1884–1945 (in German). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 250\. ISBN 978-3-525-55452-4.
* Priestman, Karen (2009). Illusion of Coexistence: The Waldorf Schools in the Third Reich, 1933–1941 (PhD dissertation). Wilfrid Laurier University. ISBN 978-0-494-54260-6. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
* Ernst, Edzard. "Rudolf Hess (Hitler's deputy) on alternative medicine". Edzard Ernst. Archived from the original on 29 September 2019. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
* Staudenmaier, Peter (2014). Between occultism and Nazism: anthroposophy and the politics of race in the fascist era. Aries Books. pp. 101–145\. ISBN 9789004270152. Archived from the original on 29 November 2018. Retrieved 29 November 2018.

59. ^ a b Staudenmaier 2014, pp. 118–119.
60. ^ Staudenmaier 2014, p. 104.
61. ^ a b Rieppel, Olivier (2016). Phylogenetic Systematics: Haeckel to Hennig. CRC Press. p. 246\. ISBN 978-1-4987-5489-7. Retrieved 3 October 2022. "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."
62. ^ a b Douglas-Hamilton, James (2012). "1 Turmoil at the Dictator's Court: 11 May 1941". The Truth About Rudolf Hess. Mainstream Publishing. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-78057-791-3. Retrieved 2 October 2022. "Organisations which Hess had supported, such as the Rudolf Steiner schools, were closed down."
63. ^ a b Tucker, S.D. (2018). False Economies: The Strangest, Least Successful and Most Audacious Financial Follies, Plans and Crazes of All Time. Amberley Publishing. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-4456-7235-9. Retrieved 3 October 2022. "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"
64. ^ a b c Staudenmaier 2014, pp. 103–106.
65. ^ Sutin, Lawrence (2014). Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley. St. Martin's Publishing Group. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-4668-7526-5. Retrieved 9 February 2023. "for the Third Reich had outlawed virtually all esoteric groups (alleged to be under covert Jewish control) in Germany"
66. ^ a b Staudenmaier 2014, p. 174: "Though anthroposophists complained regularly about negative publicity, Steiner's movement received remarkably positive press coverage in the Nazi era, including outspokenly supportive pieces in the Völkischer Beobachter.108 Anthroposophist authors generally encountered few difficulties in publishing their work,109 SD specialists on occult groups made suppression of anthroposophist publications a priority, but met with relatively little success. They argued that misuse of terms such as "race, nation, community, Germanness" by non-Nazi authors, even if sincere and well-meaning, "must be regarded as an attack on the National Socialist worldview."110 Criticizing "materialist misinterpretations" of Nazi racial theory, they contended that the Nazi conception of race united the biological with the spiritual, the physical with the soul, into one comprehensive synthesis. The SD was especially wary of spiritual groups claiming that Nazism had "adopted" some of their own ideas or that their teachings had all along been in concert with National Socialist precepts. Movements like anthroposophy, from this point of view, represented unwelcome competition."
67. ^ Staudenmaier 2014, p. 215.
68. ^ Staudenmaier 2014, pp. 173–174.
69. ^ Kurlander, Eric (2015b). Black, Monica; Kurlander, Eric (eds.). Revisiting the "Nazi Occult": Histories, Realities, Legacies. German history in context. Camden House. p. 149\. ISBN 978-1-57113-906-1. Retrieved 16 March 2024. "the Nazis were hardly ideologically opposed to the supernatural sciences themselves."
70. ^ Staudenmaier (2014: 18, 79). Quote: Though raised Catholic, Büchenbacher had partial Jewish ancestry and was considered a "half-Jew" by Nazi standards. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1936. According to his post-war memoirs, "approximately two thirds of German anthroposophists more or less succumbed to National Socialism." He reported that various influential anthroposophists were "deeply infected by Nazi views" and "staunchly supported Hitler." Both Guenther Wachsmuth, Secretary of the Swiss-based General Anthroposophical Society, and Marie Steiner, the widow of Rudolf Steiner, were described as "completely pro-Nazi." Büchenbacher retrospectively lamented the far-reaching "Nazi sins" of his colleagues.59
71. ^ Koehne, Samuel (2016). "Revisiting the "Nazi Occult": Histories, Realities, Legacies. Edited by Monica Black and Eric Kurlander. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015. Pp. 306. Cloth $90.00. ISBN 978-1571139061". Central European History. 49 (2): 281–283\. doi:10.1017/S0008938916000492. ISSN 0008-9389. S2CID 148281372. "there were often no clear-cut lines between theosophy, anthroposophy, ariosophy, astrology and the völkisch movement from which the Nazi Party arose."
72. ^ "Goetheanum". Goetheanum. Archived from the original on 2011-09-30. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
73. ^ "Anthroposophy", OED
74. ^ Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes): Anthroposophia Theomagica, or a discourse of the nature of man and his state after death. Oxford 1648
75. ^ The term was used for example in a discussion of Boehme Archived 2018-09-28 at the Wayback Machine in Notes and Queries, May 9, 1863, p. 373
76. ^ Die Philosophie des Grafen von Shaftesbury, 1872
77. ^ Anthroposophie im Umriß. Entwurf eines Systems idealer Weltsicht auf realistischer Grundlage, 1882
78. ^ Robert Zimmermann Geschichte der Aesthetik als philosophische Wissenschaft. Vienna, 1858. Anthroposophie im Umriss-Entwurf eines Systems idealer Weltansicht auf realistischer Grundlage. (Vienna, 1882): Steiner, Anthroposophic Movement: Lecture Two: The Unveiling of Spiritual Truths, 11 June 1923.[1]
79. ^ a b c d e f g h Schneider, Peter (1985). Einführung in die Waldorfpädagogik (in German). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. ISBN 3-608-93006-X.
80. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Willmann, Carlo (2001). "Waldorfpädagogik: Theologische und religionspädagogische Befunde". Kölner Veröffentlichungen zur Religionsgeschichte (in German). 27. Köln Weimar Wien: Böhlau. ISBN 978-3-412-16700-4. ISSN 0030-9230Especially chapters 1.3, 1.4.`{{cite journal}}`: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
81. ^ a b c Schneider 1985, pp. 20–21, Schneider quotes here from Steiner's dissertation, Truth and Knowledge
82. ^ a b c Paull, John (2018) A Portrait of Edith Maryon: Artist and Anthroposophist Archived 2020-03-22 at the Wayback Machine, Journal of Fine Arts, 1(2):8–15.
83. ^ Steiner, Rudolf (1922). "The Essential Nature of Man". Theosophy – An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man. Martino Fine Books. ISBN 1614270503. `{{cite book}}`: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
84. ^ a b McDermott, Robert A. (1995). "Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy". In Faivre, Antoine; Needleman, Jacob; Voss, Karen (eds.). Modern Esoteric Spirituality. New York: Crossroad Publishing. pp. 299–301, 288ff. ISBN 978-0-8245-1444-0.
85. ^ Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy, ISBN 0-85440-269-1
86. ^ Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Esoteric Science, ISBN 0-88010-409-0
87. ^ Verhulst, Jos (2003). Developmental Dynamics. Ghent, NY: Adonis Press. pp. 24–25\. ISBN 978-0-932776-28-0.
88. ^ Trevelyan, George (1981). Operation Redemption: A Vision of Hope in an Age of Turmoil. Turnstone. pp. 117–118\. ISBN 978-0-85500-150-6.
89. ^ Steiner, Man as Symphony of the Creative Word and Occult Science
90. ^ Waterman, John (1961). "Evolution and The Image of Man". In Harwood, A.C. (ed.). The Faithful Thinker: Centenary Essays on the Work and Thought of Rudolf Steiner, 1861-1925. Hodder and Stoughton. p. 45. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
91. ^ Lecaplain, Guillaume (30 October 2018). "L'anthroposophie est-elle une secte ?". Libération (in French). Retrieved 14 July 2025.
92. ^ See also Vaugrenard, Yannick (14 November 2019). "Lutte contre les dérives sectaires et anthroposophie". Sénat (in French). Retrieved 14 July 2025.
93. ^ Paull, John (2011) Rudolf Steiner and the Oxford Conference: The Birth of Waldorf Education in Britain Archived 2019-08-19 at the Wayback Machine. European Journal of Educational Studies, 3 (1): 53–66.
94. ^ German Education Research Group, "International Associations and Waldorf Schools in alphabetical order of country" Archived September 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
95. ^ Agenda Fact Sheet, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 18 April 2001 Archived 28 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine The foundation, Friends of Waldorf Education (Freunde der Erziehungskunst), is one of the 26 non-governmental organizations worldwide to maintain official relations with UNESCO. UNESCO Official Relations Archived 2019-12-06 at the Wayback Machine
96. ^ a b White, Ralph, Interview with Rene M. Querido Lapis Magazine [dead link]
97. ^ a b Ullrich, Heiner (2000) [1994]. "Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)" (PDF). Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education. XXIV (3/4). Paris: UNESCO: International Bureau of Education: 8–9 [555–572]. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2015.
98. ^ a b Lenart, Claudia M: "Steiner's Chicago Legacy Shines Brightly" Archived 2006-10-18 at the Wayback Machine, Conscious Choice June 2003
99. ^ Lazier, Benjamin (2008). God Interrupted. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press. p. 29\. ISBN 978-0-691-13670-7. "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."
100. ^ Lejano, Raul P.; Ingram, Mrill; Ingram, Helen M. (2013). "Chapter 6: Narratives of Nature and Science in Alternative Farming Networks". Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks. MIT Press. p. 155\. ISBN 9780262519571.
101. ^ Paull, John (2011) . "Attending the First Organic Agriculture Course: Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, 1924" Archived 2019-12-29 at the Wayback Machine, European Journal of Social Sciences, 21(1):64–70.
102. ^ Ferree, David Curtis; Warrington, Ian J. (2003). Apples: Botany, Production, and Uses. CABI Publishing Series. CABI Pub. p. 553\. ISBN 978-0-85199-592-2. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
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105. ^ Cf. François, Stéphane (14 March 2023). "10. Michael Moynihan and the Wulfing Kindred". Nazi Occultism: Between the SS and Esotericism. Taylor & Francis. pp. 124–135\. doi:10.4324/9781003278191-13. ISBN 978-1-000-84004-9. Retrieved 26 May 2025. "his defence of the biodynamic agriculture of the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner"
106. ^ Kurlander, Eric (2017). "Monstrous Science: Racial Resettlement, Human Experiments, and the Holocaust". Hitler's Monsters. Yale University Press. pp. 239–240\. ISBN 978-0-300-18945-2. JSTOR j.ctt1q31shs.13. Retrieved 19 February 2024. "'[...] 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."
107. ^ Purcell, Brendan (24 June 2018). "Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich". VoegelinView. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
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112. ^ Ades TB, ed. (2009). "Mistletoe". American Cancer Society Complete Guide to Complementary and Alternative Cancer Therapies (2nd ed.). American Cancer Society. pp. 424–428. ISBN 9780944235713. "Available evidence from well-designed clinical trials does not support claims that mistletoe can improve length or quality of life."
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115. ^ Weihs, Thomas J. (2000). Children in Need of Special Care. Souvenir Press. ISBN 978-0-285-63569-2.
116. ^ Sharp, Dennis, Rudolf Steiner and the Way to a New Style in Architecture, Architectural Association Journal, June 1963
117. ^ Sokolina, Anna P. (2016). "Biology in Architecture: The Goetheanum Case Study". In Terranova, Charissa; Tromble, Meredith (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture. Routledge. pp. 52–70\. doi:10.4324/9781315687896. ISBN 978-1-317-41951-8. Retrieved 7 July 2025.
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120. ^ Sokolina, Anna, ed., co-author, Architecture and Anthroposophy. (Arkhitektura i Antroposofiia. bilingual ed.) 1st and 2nd edition. 268p. M.: KMK Scientific Press. 2001, ISBN 5-87317-074-6. 2010, ISBN 5-87317-660-4.
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123. ^ Raab, Rex; Klingborg, Arne; Fant, Åke (1979). Eloquent Concrete. Rudolph Steiner Press. ISBN 978-0-85440-354-7.
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131. ^ "Earth Times". Earth Times. Archived from the original on 2014-01-01. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
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134. ^ Zander 2007, pp. 381–382, 1080, 1105.
135. ^ Staudenmaier 2014, p. 284: "The anthroposophist contribution to spiritual racism in theory and in practice yields new insights into the nature of the Fascist racial campaign between 1938 and 1945."
136. ^ "The Fellowship Community | An Anthroposophic Community | New York". The Fellowship Commu. Retrieved 2024-08-25.
137. ^ Leijenhorst, Cees (2005). Hanegraaff, Wouter J.; Faivre, Antoine; Broek, Roelof van den; Brach, Jean-Pierre (eds.). Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism: I. Brill. p. 1090\. ISBN 978-90-04-14187-2. Retrieved 2 January 2024. "Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism."
138. ^ a b Hill, Chris (2023). "'Gustavo Who?' — Notes Towards the Life and Times of Gustavo Rol; Putative Mage and Cosmic 'Drainpipe'". In Pilkington, Mark; Sutcliffe, Jamie (eds.). Strange Attractor Journal Five. MIT Press. p. 194\. ISBN 978-1-907222-52-8. Retrieved 1 November 2023.
139. ^ Baroni, Francesco (2014). "Occultism and Christianity in twentieth-century Italy. Tommaso Palamidessi's Christian magic". In Bogdan, Henrik; Djurdjevic, Gordan (eds.). Occultism in a Global Perspective. Approaches to new religions. Taylor & Francis. p. 104\. ISBN 978-1-317-54447-0. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
140. ^ Staudenmaier, Peter (2012). "Anthroposophy in Fascist Italy". In Versluis, Arthur; Irwin, Lee; Phillips, Melinda (eds.). Esotericism, Religion, and Politics. Minneapolis, MN: New Cultures Press. pp. 83–84\. ISBN 978-1596500136.
141. ^ Staudenmaier 2014, p. 271.
142. ^ Turris, Gianfranco de (June 1987). "L'Esoterismo Italiano degli anni Venti: il Gruppo di Ur, tra Magia e Super Fascismo". Abstracta. II (in Italian). No. 16.
143. ^ Beraldo, Michele (2006). "L'Antroposofia e il suo rapporto con il Regime Fascista". In Turris, Gianfranco de (ed.). Esoterismo e fascismo: storia, interpretazioni, documenti (in Italian). Edizioni mediterranee. p. 83\. ISBN 978-88-272-1831-0. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
144. ^ Asprem 2018, p. 494.
145. ^ Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts (1924)
146. ^ True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation, first English edition 1927 (online [2]), 2010 edition Kessinger Publishing Company ISBN 9781162592510
147. ^ a b Christoph Lindenberg, Rudolf Steiner, Rowohlt 1992, ISBN 3-499-50500-2
148. ^ "The Inner Development of Man". Fremont, Michigan. 1904-12-15. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
149. ^ a b Willmann 2001, pp. 10–13.
150. ^ Stein, W. J., Die moderne naturwissenschaftliche Vorstellungsart und die Weltanschauung Goethes, wie sie Rudolf Steiner vertritt, reprinted in Meyer, Thomas, W.J. Stein / Rudolf Steiner, pp. 267–75; 256–57.
151. ^ Pifer, Ellen (1991). Saul Bellow Against the Grain. Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-8122-1369-0. Retrieved 16 March 2024. See also Steiner's doctoral thesis, Truth and Science
152. ^ a b Tarnas, Richard (1996). The Passion of the Western Mind. London: Random House. ISBN 0-7126-7332-6.
153. ^ Myers, Doris T. (1994). C.S. Lewis in Context. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87338-617-3.
154. ^ Hans-Jürgen Bader, Lorenzo Ravagli, Rudolf Steiner als aktiver Gegner des Antisemitismus, Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen, 2005
155. ^ a b Paddock, Fred; Spiegler, Mado (2003). Judaism and Anthroposophy. Great Barrington (Mass.): SteinerBooks. ISBN 978-0-88010-510-1.
156. ^ Albert Einstein, Geometry and Experience Archived 2001-11-24 at the Library of Congress Web Archives
157. ^ Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy and Science, lecture of March 16, 1921
158. ^ Sources for 'Ahrimanic':

* Steiner, Rudolf (1985). "1. Forgotten Aspects of Cultural Life". Karma of Materialism: 9 Lectures, Berlin, July 31–Sept. 25, 1917 (CW 176). SteinerBooks. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-62151-025-3. Retrieved 15 March 2024. "The whole content of natural science is ahrimanic and will only lose its ahrimanic nature when it becomes imbued with life."
* Steiner, Rudolf; Meuss, Anna R. (1993). The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness. Rudolf Steiner Press. pp. 160–161\. ISBN 978-1-85584-010-2. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
* Steiner, Rudolf; Barton, Matthew (2013). The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth. Rudolf Steiner Press. pp. 53–54\. ISBN 978-1-85584-278-6. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
* Wachsmuth, Guenther; Garber, Bernard J.; Wannamaker, Olin D.; Raab, Reginald E. (1995). The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner: From the Turn of the Century to His Death. SteinerBooks. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-62151-053-6. Retrieved 15 March 2024. "and all external science, to the extent that it is not spiritual science, is Ahrimanic."
* Al-Faruqi, Ismail Il Raji (1977). "Moral values in medicine and science". Biosciences Communications. 3 (1). S. Karger: 56–58\. ISSN 0302-2781. Retrieved 15 March 2024. "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."
* Prokofieff, Sergei O. (1998). The Case of Valentin Tomberg: Anthroposophy Or Jesuitism?. Temple Lodge. p. 118\. ISBN 978-0-904693-85-0. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
* Younis, Andrei (2015). Islam in Relation to the Christ Impulse: A Search for Reconciliation between Christianity and Islam. SteinerBooks. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-58420-185-4. Retrieved 16 March 2024. "Steiner emphasized that, when this deadened wisdom of Gondishapur began to spread in Europe, an ahrimanic, or ahrimanically inspired, natural science began to emerge."
* Selg, Peter (2022). The Future of Ahriman and the Awakening of Souls: The Spirit-Presence of the Mystery Dramas. Rudolf Steiner Press. p. 12\. ISBN 978-1-912230-92-1. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
* Beck, John H. (February 2007). Spiegler, Mado (ed.). "Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse by Valentin Tomberg SteinerBooks, 2006, 432 pgs. Review by John H. Beck". Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter. 41: 7–12\. "Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective."

159. ^ Egmond, Daniël van (1998). Broek, Roelof van den; Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (eds.). Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times. Albany: SUNY Press. pp. 313, 338. ISBN 978-0-7914-3612-7. "the many pansophical and occult groups belonging to high-grade Masonry."
160. ^ Galtier, Gérard (1989). Maçonnerie égyptienne, Rose-Croix et Néo-Chevalerie (in French). Monaco: Rocher. p. 304\. ISBN 978-2-268-00778-6.
161. ^ Rudolf Steiner,"Anthroposophy and Christianity"
162. ^ Steiner, Rudolf (1996). The foundations of human experience. Anthroposophic Press. p. 34\. ISBN 978-0-88010-392-3.
163. ^ Steiner, Rudolf (December 16, 1908). "A Chapter of Occult History".
164. ^ McClelland, Norman C. (2018). "Gnosticism". Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland. p. 100\. ISBN 978-0-7864-5675-8. "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."
165. ^ a b

* Asprem, Egil (2013). The problem of disenchantment: scientific naturalism and esoteric discourse, 1900-1939 (PDF) (dr. thesis). University of Amsterdam. p. 507.
* Asprem, Egil (2018) [2014]. Appelbaum, David (ed.). The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900-1939. SUNY series in Western Esoteric Traditions. State University of New York Press. p. 493\. ISBN 978-1-4384-6992-8. Retrieved 18 May 2024.

166. ^ Johnson, Marshall D. (1969). Black, Matthew (ed.). The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies with Special Reference to the Setting of the Genealogies of Jesus. London: Cambridge University Press. p. 144\. ISBN 978-0-521-07317-2.
167. ^ Rudolf Steiner, "The Appearance of Christ in the Etheric World"
168. ^ Waldin, Monty (2002). "Rudolf Steiner". Biodynamic Wines. Octopus. ISBN 978-1-84533-604-2. Retrieved 27 May 2025. "a view heretical to mainstream Christians"
169. ^ Mellors, Anthony (2005). Late Modernist Poetics: From Pound to Prynne. Manchester University Press. p. 17\. ISBN 978-0-7190-5885-1. Retrieved 27 May 2025.
170. ^ Robertson, David G. (2021). Gnosticism and the History of Religions. Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 57\. ISBN 978-1-350-13770-7. Retrieved 3 January 2023. "Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress..."
171. ^ Gilmer, Jane (2021). The Alchemical Actor. Consciousness, Literature and the Arts. Brill. p. 41\. ISBN 978-90-04-44942-8. Retrieved 3 January 2023. "Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered."
172. ^ Sources for 'Quispel':

* Quispel, Gilles (1980). Layton, Bentley (ed.). The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: The school of Valentinus. Studies in the history of religions : Supplements to Numen. E.J. Brill. p. 123\. ISBN 978-90-04-06176-7. Retrieved 3 January 2023. "After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis."
* Quispel, Gilles; Oort, Johannes van (2008). Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies. Brill. p. 370\. ISBN 978-90-474-4182-3. Retrieved 3 January 2023.

173. ^ Carlson, Maria (2018). "Petersburg and Modern Occultism". In Livak, Leonid (ed.). A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's "petersburg. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 58\. ISBN 978-0-299-31930-4. Retrieved 3 January 2023. "Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter."
174. ^ Carlson, Maria (1996). "Gnostic Elements in Soloviev's Cosmogony". In Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch; Gustafson, Richard F. (eds.). Russian Religious Thought. Russian studies: Religion. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 53\. ISBN 978-0-299-15134-8. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
175. ^ McL. Wilson, Robert (1993). "Gnosticism". In Metzger, Bruce M.; Coogan, Michael D. (eds.). The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford Companions. Oxford University Press. p. 256\. ISBN 978-0-19-974391-9. Retrieved 3 January 2023. "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."
176. ^ McDermott, Robert A. (1987). "Anthroposophy". In Eliade, Mircea (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan Reference USA. p. 320\. ISBN 0-02-909700-2.
177. ^ McDermott, Robert A. (1992). "Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy". In Faivre, Antoine; Needleman, Jacob; Voss, Karen (eds.). Modern Esoteric Spirituality. New York: Crossroad Publishing. p. 288\. ISBN 0-8245-1145-X. "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."
178. ^ Steiner, Rudolf; Seddon, Richard; Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2004). Rudolf Steiner. Western Esoteric Masters. North Atlantic Books. p. 7\. ISBN 978-1-55643-490-7. Retrieved 2 January 2024. "blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie"
179. ^ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2013). "Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy". In Hammer, Olav; Rothstein, Mikael (eds.). Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 301\. ISBN 978-90-04-23597-7. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
180. ^ Ahern, Geoffrey (2009) [1984]. Sun at Midnight. Cambridge: James Clarke Company. p. 11\. ISBN 978-0-227-17293-3.
181. ^ Schnurbein, Stefanie von (2016). Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism. Boston: BRILL. pp. 34–35 fn. 57. ISBN 978-90-04-30951-7.
182. ^ Samson, Martin (2023). The Christology of Rudolf Steiner (PhD thesis). Flinders University. p. 180.
183. ^ Hudson, Wayne (2019). "Rudolf Steiner: Multiple bodies". In Trompf, Garry W.; Mikkelsen, Gunner B.; Johnston, Jay (eds.). The gnostic world. London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 510\. ISBN 978-1-315-56160-8. apud Samson 2023, p. 56
184. ^ Dipple, Elizabeth (2019). The Unresolvable Plot: Reading Contemporary Fiction. Routledge Library Editions: Modern Fiction. Taylor & Francis. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-000-63913-1. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
185. ^ Ullrich 2014, p. 46.
186. ^ Knight, Gareth (2010). The Magical World of the Inklings. Skylight Press. p. 23\. ISBN 978-1-908011-01-5. Retrieved 27 May 2025.
187. ^ Brandt & Hammer 2013, p. 125.
188. ^ Abrahamsson, Carl; Lachman, Gary (2018). Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward. Inner Traditions/Bear. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-62055-704-4. Retrieved 17 November 2024. "This gnostic Christ principle balances the ungrounded [...]"
189. ^ Lazier 2008, p. 208 fn. 6.
190. ^ G.K. Chesterton Society; G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture (February–May 2000). "A conference on New Age and Christian spirituality" (PDF). The Chesterton Review. XXVI (1&2). Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; South Orange, New Jersey: G.K. Chesterton Society, 1974 – G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture. ISSN 0317-0500. OCLC 2247651. "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."
191. ^ Pontifical Council for Culture; Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. "Jesus Christ the bearer of the water of life. A Christian reflection on the "New Age"". vatican.va. The State of Vatican: The Catholic Church. Retrieved 18 May 2024. "The Age of Aquarius has such a high profile in the New Age movement largely because of the influence of theosophy, spiritualism and anthroposophy, and their esoteric antecedents."
192. ^ Chryssides, George D. (2007). "Defining the New Age". In Kemp, Daren; Lewis, James R. (eds.). Handbook of New Age. Leiden ; Boston: BRILL. p. 7\. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004153554.i-484.5. ISBN 978-90-04-15355-4. OCLC 77797550. Retrieved 28 June 2025.
193. ^ French, Aaron (31 January 2025). Max Weber, Rudolf Steiner, and Modern Western Esotericism: A Transcultural Approach. London: Routledge. p. 32\. doi:10.4324/9781003436515-2. ISBN 978-1-003-43651-5. Retrieved 19 June 2025.
194. ^ Zegers, Peter; Staudenmaier, Peter (9 January 2009) [2000]. "Anthroposophy and its Defenders". Humanist (4). Institute for Social Ecology.
195. ^ Staudenmaier 2014, p. 79.
196. ^ Kurlander 2017, p. 19.
197. ^ Kurlander 2017, pp. 19–20.
198. ^ Jan-Erik Ebbestad Hansen, The Jews – Teachers of the Nazis? Archived 2018-04-19 at the Wayback Machine In: NORDEUROPAforum. Journal for the Study of Culture. Yearbook 2015. Humboldt University Berlin. ISSN 1863-639X.
199. ^ a b Ralf Sonnenberg, "Judentum, Zionismus und Antisemitismus aus der Sicht Rudolf Steiners" Archived 2014-02-03 at the Wayback Machine
200. ^ a b French, Aaron (2022). "Esoteric Nationalism and Conspiracism in WWI". In Piraino, Francesco; Pasi, Marco; Asprem, Egil (eds.). Religious Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories: Comparing and Connecting Old and New Trends. London: Routledge. pp. 107–123\. doi:10.4324/9781003120940-8. ISBN 978-1-000-78268-4. Retrieved 2024-03-01. "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 entitled Die 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)."
201. ^ Zander 2007, pp. 991–992: "Ein weiteres Motiv könnte in der Kollision von Steiners Freimaureraktivitäten mit seinem deutschen Patriotismus liegen (s. 14.3.1). Nach dem Krieg nannte Steiner diesen Punkt sehr deutlich, als er in Karl Heises »Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg«, in der es um die Kriegsschuldfrage ging178, ein nicht gezeichnetes, auf den 10. Oktober 1918 datiertes Vorwort verfaßte, sich also einen Monat vor dem Waffenstillstand und inmitten des Zusammenbruchs des Deutschen Reiches äußerte. »Die Geheimgesellschaften der Entente-Länder«, hieß es dort, hätten eine »die Weltkatastrophe vorbereitende politische Gesinnung und Beeinflussung der Weltereignisse« an den Tag gelegt. Bei der Suche nach der »Schuld am Weltkriege« habe man auch an die Freimaurer zu denken. Dies war nicht nur eine reduktive Lösung der »Kriegsschuldfrage« im Jahr 1918, sondern möglicherweise auch ein Hinweis auf seine Motivlage im Jahr 1914: Steiner hätte sich dann aus Solidarität mit Deutschland aus dem Internationalismus der Freimaurerei verabschiedet179. Andere theosophische Gesellschaften haben diesen Schnitt übrigens nicht so deutlich vollzogen180."
202. ^ a b Staudenmaier 2014, p. 96: "The foremost example of a full-fledged antisemitic conspiracy theory based squarely on anthroposophist premises was Karl Heise's 1919 tome blaming the World War on a cabal of freemasons and Jews. Heise wrote the book with Steiner's encouragement and founded its argument on Steiner's own teachings, while Steiner himself wrote the foreword and contributed a substantial sum toward publication costs.101"
203. ^ Zander 2007, pp. 306, 991–992.
204. ^ Staudenmaier 2014, pp. 96–97.
205. ^ Lorenzo Ravagli, Unter Hammer und Hakenkreuz: Der völkisch-nationalsozialistische Kampf gegen die Anthroposophie, Verlag Freies Geistesleben, ISBN 3-7725-1915-6
206. ^ McKanan 2017, pp. 33–34, 196.
207. ^ Adolf Arenson Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine (board member 1904–1913) and Carl Unger Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine (board member 1908–1923)
208. ^ Paddock & Spiegler 2003, pp. 125–126.
209. ^ "Statistics for Waldorf schools worldwide" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-12-12. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
210. ^ Liukkonen, Petri. "Andrey Bely". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 2002-06-10.
211. ^ Elsworth, J. D. (1983). "Andrej Bely: A Critical Study of the Novels". The Russian Review. 45 (1): 53–55\. JSTOR 129408.
212. ^ John F. Moffitt (Spring 1991). "Occultism in Avant-Garde Art: The Case of Joseph Beuys". Art Journal. Vol. 50, no. 1\. pp. 96–98.
213. ^ Bruno Walter, "Mein Weg zur Anthroposophie". In: Das Goetheanum 52 (1961), 418–2
214. ^ B J Nesfield-Cookson, "Rudolf Steiner" Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine from Sir George Trevelyan: thoughts and writings
215. ^ Abouleish, Ibrahim (2005). Sekem: A Sustainable Community in the Egyptian Desert. Edinburgh: Floris Books. ISBN 0-86315-532-4. OCLC 61302498.
216. ^ Sources for 'anti-rational' or 'anti-scientific':

* Dugan 2007, pp. 74–76
* Ruse 2013a, pp. 128–
* Williams, Lee (8 November 2016). "steiner schools". The Independent. Archived from the original on 1 June 2021. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
* Dugan 2002, p. 32
* Ahern 2009

217. ^ "Philolex entry". Philolex.de. Archived from the original on 2013-11-10. Retrieved 2013-12-31.
218. ^ Easton, Freda (1995). The Waldorf Impulse in Education: Schools as Communities that Educate the Whole Child by Integrating Artistic and Academic Work. Teachers College, Columbia University. Retrieved 16 March 2024.
219. ^ a b Hansson, Sven Ove (1991). "Is Anthroposophy Science?" [Ist die Anthroposophie eine Wissenschaft?]. Conceptus: Zeitschrift für Philosophie. XXV (64): 37–49\. ISSN 0010-5155.
220. ^ Storr, Anthony (1997) [1996]. "IV. Rudolf Steiner". Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus. New York: Free Press Paperbacks, Simon & Schuster. pp. 69–70\. ISBN 978-0-684-83495-5.
221. ^ a b c d e Dugan, Dan (2002). Shermer, Michael; Linse, Pat (eds.). The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. ABC-CLIO. pp. 31–33\. ISBN 978-1-57607-653-8. "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."
222. ^ a b Dugan, Dan (2007). Flynn, Tom; Dawkins, Richard (eds.). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books, Publishers. pp. 74–75\. ISBN 9781615922802. Retrieved 21 June 2015. "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)."
223. ^ Hammer 2021, p. 228 fn. 102.
224. ^ Ullrich, Heiner (2014). Rudolf Steiner. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 131\. ISBN 978-1-4411-6270-0. Retrieved 27 May 2025.
225. ^ Schnurbein & Ulbricht 2001, p. 38.
226. ^ Diener & Hipolito 2013, p. 78.
227. ^ Sources for 'religion':

* Schnurbein, Stefanie von; Ulbricht, Justus H. (2001). Völkische Religion und Krisen der Moderne: Entwürfe "arteigener" Glaubenssysteme seit der Jahrhundertwende (in German). Königshausen & Neumann. p. 38\. ISBN 978-3-8260-2160-2. Retrieved 8 February 2024. apud Staudenmaier, Peter (1 February 2008). "Race and Redemption: Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy". Nova Religio. 11 (3). University of California Press: 4–36\. doi:10.1525/nr.2008.11.3.4. ISSN 1092-6690.
* Swartz, Karen; Hammer, Olav (14 June 2022). "Soft charisma as an impediment to fundamentalist discourse: The case of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden". Approaching Religion. 12 (2): 18–37\. doi:10.30664/ar.113383. ISSN 1799-3121. "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."
* Hammer, Olav; Swartz-Hammer, Karen (2024). "NRMs in Comparative Perspective". New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion. Elements in New Religious Movements. Cambridge University Press. p. 62\. ISBN 978-1-009-03402-9. Retrieved 2024-07-19.
* Brandt, Katharina; Hammer, Olav (2013). "Rudolf Steiner and Theosophy". In Hammer, Olav; Rothstein, Mikael (eds.). Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 113 fn. 1. ISBN 978-90-04-23597-7. Retrieved 23 January 2024. "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."
* Hammer, Olav (2008). Geertz, Armin; Warburg, Margit (eds.). New Religions and Globalization. Renner Studies On New Religions. Aarhus University Press. p. 69\. ISBN 978-87-7934-681-9. Retrieved 23 January 2024. "Anthroposophy is thus from an emic point of view emphatically not a religion."
* Hansson, Sven Ove (1 July 2022). "Anthroposophical Climate Science Denial". Critical Research on Religion. 10 (3). Sage Publications: 281–297\. doi:10.1177/20503032221075382. ISSN 2050-3032. "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)."
* Zander, Helmut (2002). "Die Anthroposophie — Eine Religion?". In Hoheisel, Karl; Hutter, Manfred; Klein, Wolfgang Wassilios; Vollmer, Ulrich (eds.). Hairesis: Festschrift für Karl Hoheisel zum 65. Geburtstag. Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum (in German). Aschendorff. p. 537\. ISBN 978-3-402-08120-4. Retrieved 2 January 2024.
* See also International Bureau of Education (1960). Organization of Special Education for Mentally Deficient Children: A Study in Comparative Education. UNESCO. p. 15. Retrieved 9 February 2024. "anthroposophy – a religion based upon the philosophical and scientific knowledge of man"
* See also International Bureau of Education (1957). Bulletin of the International Bureau of Education. International Bureau of Education. p. 36. Retrieved 9 February 2024. "anthroposophy – a religion based upon the philosophical and scientific knowledge of man"
* Beekman, Scott (2005). William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult. Syracuse University Press. p. 196 fn. 43. ISBN 978-0-8156-0819-6. Retrieved 26 May 2025.

228. ^ Swartz & Hammer 2022, pp. 18–37.
229. ^ Sources for 'cult' or 'sect':

* Gardner 1957, pp. 169, 224–225
* Brown, Candy Gunther (2019). "Waldorf Methods". Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 229–254\. doi:10.5149/northcarolina/9781469648484.003.0012. ISBN 978-1-4696-4848-4. S2CID 241945146. "premised on anthroposophy, a religious sect founded by Steiner;"

230. ^ Toncheva 2013, pp. 81–89.
231. ^ Zander 2002, p. 537.
232. ^ Zander 2002, p. 528.
233. ^ Hammer, Olav (2015). Lewis, James R.; Tøllefsen, Inga Bårdsen (eds.). Handbook of Nordic New Religions. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. pp. 56–57\. ISBN 978-90-04-29246-8. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
234. ^ Hammer, Olav (2014). "The Theosophical Current in the Twentieth Century". In Partridge, Christopher (ed.). The Occult World. Routledge Worlds. Taylor & Francis. p. 350\. ISBN 978-1-317-59676-9. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
235. ^ Zander, Helmut (2011). Rudolf Steiner: Die Biografie (in German). München Zürich: Piper. pp. 191ff. ISBN 978-3-492-05448-5.
236. ^ anthroposophy definition – Dictionary – MSN Encarta. Archived from the original on 2009-11-25.
237. ^ PLANS, Inc. v. Sacramento City Unified School District,  2:98-cv-00266-FCD-EFB (United States District Court Eastern District of California November 5, 2010), archived from the original.
238. ^ Rhea, Michael (2012). "Denying and Defining Religion Under the First Amendment: Waldorf Education as a Lens for Advocating a Broad Definitional Approach". Louisiana Law Review (72). ISSN 0024-6859.
239. ^ United States Department of State, U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2000 – France Archived 2019-12-13 at the Wayback Machine, 26 Feb. 2001
240. ^ a b c d Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires (28 April 2023). "Rapport d'activité 2021" (PDF) (in French). pp. 72–74\. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-07-21. Retrieved 2024-07-19.
241. ^ Sources for 'Christian Gnosticism':

* Robertson 2021, p. 57
* Gilmer 2021, p. 41
* Quispel 1980
* Quispel & Oort 2008, p. 1
* Carlson 2018, p. 58
* McL. Wilson 1993, p. 256
* Ullrich 2014, p. 138

242. ^ Diener, Astrid; Hipolito, Jane (2013) [2002]. The Role of Imagination in Culture and Society: Owen Barfield's Early Work. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 77\. ISBN 978-1-7252-3320-1. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
243. ^ See also DWB (2022) [2005]. "anthroposophy". In Louth, Andrew (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4th ed.). OUP Oxford. pp. 76–77\. ISBN 978-0-19-263815-1. Retrieved 18 May 2024.
244. ^ Braune, Joan (2014). Erich Fromm's Revolutionary Hope: Prophetic Messianism as a Critical Theory of the Future. Imagination and Praxis: Criticality and Creativity in Education and Educational Research. SensePublishers. p. 52\. ISBN 978-94-6209-812-1. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
245. ^ Ellwood, Robert; Partin, Harry (2016) [1988, 1973]. Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-315-50723-1. Retrieved 6 March 2023. "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."
246. ^ a b Sources for 'Christology':

* Winker, Eldon K. (1994). The New Age is Lying to You. Concordia scholarship today. Concordia Publishing House. p. 34\. ISBN 978-0-570-04637-0. Retrieved 6 March 2023. "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"
* Rhodes, Ron (1990). The Counterfeit Christ of the New Age Movement. Christian Research Institute Series. Baker Book House. p. 19\. ISBN 978-0-8010-7757-9. Retrieved 26 October 2023.

247. ^ a b Leijenhorst, Cees (2006). "Antroposophy". In Hanegraaff, Wouter J.; Faivre, Antoine; Broek, Roelof van den; Brach, Jean-Pierre (eds.). Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden / Boston: Brill. p. 84\. "Nevertheless, he made a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos."
248. ^ Etter, Brian K. (2019) [2001]. "Chapter Six The New Music and the Influence of Theosophy". From Classicism to Modernism: Western Musical Culture and the Metaphysics of Order. Routledge. p. unpaginated. fn. 80. ISBN 978-1-315-18576-7.
249. ^ Sanders, John Oswald (1962) [1948]. "Anthroposophy". Cults and Isms: Ancient and Modern. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. p. 165\. ISBN 978-0-551-00458-0. OCLC 3910997. `{{cite book}}`: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
250. ^ Bălan, George (9 July 2021). "Amintirile unui dezrădăcinat. Antroposofia". Observator Cultural (in Romanian). Retrieved 26 May 2025.
251. ^ Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, 7. Februar 1935. BAD R 4901–3285.
252. ^ Report of the SD-Hauptamtes Berlin: "Anthroposophy", May 1936, BAD Z/B I 904.
253. ^ McDermott, Ray; Henry, Mary E.; Dillard, Cynthia; Byers, Paul; Easton, Freda; Oberman, Ida; Uhrmacher, Bruce (1996). "Waldorf education in an inner-city public school". The Urban Review. 28 (2): 119–140\. doi:10.1007/BF02354381. ISSN 0042-0972. Archived from the original on 2021-06-01. Retrieved 2021-06-01.`{{cite journal}}`: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
254. ^ The General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America (1998) Position Statement on Diversity.
255. ^ Wieringa, Tommy (8 May 2021). "Groene vingers". NRC (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 7 February 2023. "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."
256. ^ Brederode, Désanne van (27 February 2021). "Désanne van Brederode is verbijsterd: corona drijft antroposofen in extreemrechtse armen". Trouw (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 19 April 2021. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
257. ^ Martins, Ansgar (2022). Vukadinović, Vojin Saša (ed.). Rassismus: Von der frühen Bundesrepublik bis zur Gegenwart (in German). De Gruyter. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-3-11-070278-1. Retrieved 24 February 2023. "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."
258. ^ Hammer, Olav (2016). "Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era, written by Peter Staudenmaier". Numen. 63 (1). Brill: 118–121\. doi:10.1163/15685276-12341412. ISSN 0029-5973. JSTOR 24644844. "their founder or their movement has been tainted with racism or anti-Semitism. [...] Denial, it would seem, is no longer an option."
259. ^ Munoz 2016, pp. 189–190.
260. ^ Staudenmaier, Peter (1 April 2013). "Organic Farming in Nazi Germany: The Politics of Biodynamic Agriculture, 1933–1945". Environmental History. 18 (2): 383–411\. doi:10.1093/envhis/ems154.
261. ^ Cowell, Alan (March 10, 2023). "Traute Lafrenz, Last Survivor of Anti-Hitler Group, Dies at 103". The New York Times – via NYTimes.com.
262. ^ a b Strube, Julian (2019). "Doesn't occultism lead straight to fascism?". In Forshaw, Peter; Hanegraaff, Wouter J.; Pasi, Marco (eds.). Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. p. 230\. ISBN 978-90-485-4285-7. "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."

## External links

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Library resources about
Anthroposophy

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anthroposophy.

Look up anthroposophy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

* Rudolf Steiner Archive (Steiner's works online)
* Steiner's complete works in German
* Rudolf Steiner Handbook (PDF; 56 MB)
* Goetheanum

### Societies

[edit]

* General Anthroposophical Society
* Anthroposophical Society in America
* Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain
* Anthroposophical Initiatives in India[usurped]
* Anthroposophical Society in Australia Archived 2008-07-04 at the Wayback Machine
* Anthroposophical Society in New Zealand

* v
* t
* e

Anthroposophy

Founding board members of the
General Anthroposophical Society|

* Rudolf Steiner
* Albert Steffen
* Marie Steiner-von Sivers
* Elisabeth Vreede
* Gunther Wachsmuth
* Ita Wegman

Anthroposophists|

* Hilma af Klint
* Henri Bortoft
* Georg Kühlewind
* Ehrenfried Pfeiffer
* Theodor Schwenk
* Emil Bock
* Bernard Lievegoed
* Edith Maryon
* Sergei O. Prokofieff
* Peter Selg
* Jens Bjørneboe
* Aasmund Brynildsen
* Daniel Nicol Dunlop
* Zviad Gamsakhurdia
* John Fentress Gardner
* Walter Burley Griffin
* Karl König
* Robert A. McDermott
* Arthur Zajonc
* Douglas M. Sloan
* Marjorie Spock
* Walter Johannes Stein
* Ernst Lehrs
* Herbert Witzenmann
* Massimo Scaligero
* Ross Rentea
* Rudolf Hauschka
* Oskar Schmiedel
* Hermann Poppelbaum
* Alfred Meebold
* Wilhelm Rath
* Herbert Hahn
* Francis Edmunds
* Thomas Weihs
* Cecil Harwood
* Daphne Olivier
* Marguerite Lundgren
* Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström
* Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff
* John Davy
* Jakob Streit
* Alfred Rexroth
* Ernst Weissert
* Michael Henry Wilson
* Margaret Cross
* Fried Geuter
* Arnold Freeman
* Rudi Lissau
* Margaret Bennell
* Edith Rigby
* Bertram Keightley
* Arild Rosenkrantz
* Eileen Hutchins
* Eleanor Merry
* Paul Nordoff
* Clive Robbins
* Violetta Plincke
* Hans Schauder
* George Adams Kaufmann
* Liane Collot d'Herbois
* Egil Tynæs
* Else Klink
* Carlo Pietzner
* Marta Fuchs
* Wolfgang Schad
* Julian Sleigh
* Botho Sigwart zu Eulenburg
* Johannes Tautz
* Vydūnas
* Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven

Notable supporters|

* Saul Bellow
* Owen Barfield
* Andrei Bely
* Joseph Beuys
* Russell Davenport
* Wassily Kandinsky
* Selma Lagerlöf
* Albert Schweitzer
* Andrei Tarkovsky
* Bruno Walter
* Ibrahim Abouleish
* Nicanor Perlas
* Jacques Lusseyran
* Millicent Mackenzie
* Margaret McMillan

Cultural influences|

* Anthroposophic medicine
* Biodynamic agriculture
* Camphill Movement
* Eurythmy
* Threefold social order
* The Christian Community
* Waldorf education

Institutions and publications|

* Anthroposophical Society in America
* Associação Comunitária Monte Azul
* Demeter International
* General Anthroposophical Society
* GLS Bank
* Goetheanum
* Harduf
* SEKEM
* Triodos Bank
* Weleda

Authority control databases

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Japan
* Czech Republic
* Poland
* Israel

Other|

* Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
* Yale LUX

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