Anthroposophy � an Introduction
Frank
Thomas Smith
(Based on lectures given by the author in Argentina)
There is nothing secret about anthroposophy. An enormous literature on the subject exists, including many books
and lectures (more than 6,000) by Rudolf Steiner, published in German. Only a
small portion has been translated into Spanish, but what is available is more
than sufficient for anyone who desires to be well informed. Literature by many
other authors also exists.
�
As anthroposophy
is intimately connected with Rudolf Steiner, it will be convenient to say a few
words about him before going into the material itself. Steiner was born in 1861 in what was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, then became Yugoslavia and is now Croatia. His father, a hunter by profession, was chief of a railroad
station in a small rural town. Steiner was a gifted child, so his parents later
moved close to Vienna so he could continue his studies.
After graduating
from the Technological University of Vienna, he obtained his doctorate in
philosophy from the University of Rostock in Germany. He worked for several years in the Goethe archives in Weimar, where he
edited Goethe�s scientific works. (It isn�t widely known that Goethe was a
scientist as well as Germany�s greatest poet.) Goethe made a profound impression on Steiner, for
in him he found similarities to his own way of thinking. For example, Goethe
proposed his theory of the �Urpflanze� (primal plant), from which, according to
him, all vegetal life originated. He described this Urpflanze to Schiller,
another great German poet, who remarked that it was all very interesting, but
no more than an idea after all. Goethe replied: But I see this idea.
During his time
in Weimar, Steiner wrote his �Philosophy of Freedom�. Although this is a
purely philosophical work, Steiner later said that it really contains
anthroposophy, only described in a different way. Afterwards he was editor of
various literary journals in Berlin, until he was discovered by the Theosophists, his future wife,
Marie von Sivers, being one of them. There Steiner found people to whom he
could speak openly about his esoteric knowledge and experiences. He lectured
regularly at the Theosophical Society and was eventually named secretary
general of the German branch of the Society.
The split came
when the theosophical leaders declared that Krishnamurti � then a ten year old
boy � was the reincarnation of Christ. Steiner said this was nonsense. Whether
he resigned or was asked to do so isn�t clear, but in any case he took most of
the German members with him and formed the Anthroposophical Society. When he
was older, by the way, Krishnamurti denied that he was the reincarnation of
Christ and went his own admirable way.
Over the course
of the years Steiner wrote and gave many lectures about diverse subjects:
medicine, agriculture, Christianity, science, the arts, the social question,
spiritual development � even the life of bees. There is hardly a subject that
he didn�t analyze at one time or another.
Rudolf Steiner
died in Dornach, Switzerland � headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society �
in 1925, a little over a year after the first Goetheanum, the building made
mostly of wood that he designed and worked on for ten years, was destroyed by
fire. The second Goetheanum, made of poured concrete, stands on the same spot
today.
The Nature of the Human Being
The human soul
is studied in psychology and religion, the physical body in medicine and
physiology. In Freudian psychology the soul is no more than a biological
function of the unconscious. The spirit is left unattended. But it wasn�t
always so. At a ninth century Church council, it was decided that man consisted of body and soul, and
not the trinity of body, soul and spirit. Since then soul and spirit have been
essentially synonymous. This is obviously a grave error if in fact the human
being has a body, soul and a spirit. In order to affirm this, we will
have to define the difference between the two.
The physical
body is the material element that we see with our physical eyes. And the soul?
If I stand in the open and gaze up at the star-filled sky, I will experience a
feeling of awe, even happiness. These feelings are functions of the soul. But
then if I begin to ask myself what the stars are made of and why they�re there
at all, and here comes the moon: beautiful, my soul says, but my spirit wonders
how long it will take to cross the sky and if that crescent shape isn�t formed
by the earth�s shadow. This function, thinking, is an attribute of the spirit,
the I, the immortal, self-aware, individual component of the human being.� [1]����
Now let�s
complicate the situation somewhat and enter into more detail. The physical body
is composed of the same substances as its environment: minerals, chemicals,
liquids, etc. But if it were only that it would lie in bed like Frankenstein�s
monster before getting the electric shock. It has life, and that cannot be
explained by chemical formulas, or electricity. Let�s call this life component
the �life body�, which plant and animal life also possess. But what plants do
not possess is the �astral� body, closely identified with the soul. Animals and
humans on the other hand do have an astral body. Animals are conscious, have
sensations, experience pain and joy, hunger and, above all instincts. But,
despite having various degrees of intelligence according to species, they do
not think and aren�t self-aware. In other words, they have no individual I.
Only the human being possesses this component.
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During the
course of evolution, the I works on the astral body in order to transform it
into a more elevated vehicle � denominated �Spirit-self� in the above diagram.
It works on the life body to transform it into the �Life-spirit� and, finally,
it will transform the physical body into the �Spirit-man�. The latter two
transformations are relegated to the distant future, so distant that these
transformations will occur during future incarnations of the earth itself. We
are still occupied with the transformation of the astral body � with lesser or
greater success, depending upon the individual.
REINCARNATION AND KARMA
Now, to complicate
things even further, we will say a few words about reincarnation and karma. A
few days ago I read in the newspaper about a ship in Africa carrying a cargo of
children kidnapped or sold in one country to be re-sold as slaves in another.
This reminded me of Dosteyevsky�s �The Brothers Karamazov�, when Ivan, one of
the brothers, says that he cannot believe in a God who permits children to
suffer. An even if he existed, Ivan would reject him. This is the best argument
I know for reincarnation and karma (the law of destiny). How do we explain the
fact that often the good and the innocent suffer and the evil prosper? There
are two explanations. Either the suffering is the result of actions in a past
life, or new karma is being created and the suffering will be compensated for
in a future life. There�s also the question of evolution and development. It is
generally accepted that more complex organisms develop from simpler ones over
the ages. And what about the human soul? Shouldn�t the same law hold true? There
is a spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness, as well as an organic
one. From incarnation to incarnation we strive to develop. Of course
environment and genetics play a role in determining whether or not we are
successful. But if genius could be explained genetically, the children of
geniuses should also be geniuses. They are not. We all know from experience
that siblings � even twins � are almost always very different
personalities.����� ����
According to Steiner, after death we
experience our past life in temporal reverse, and must experience the suffering
we caused in others.�
EDUCATION AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION
The relation
between Anthroposophy and Education is exemplified in the more than 800 Waldorf
schools and 1,000 kindergartens that exist worldwide. We will not go into the
Waldorf educational method here, as that is being done by the teachers in the
regular monthly meetings with parents. However, education, Anthroposophy and
the social question have much to do with each other. Just think: the first
Waldorf school was founded for the workers of a cigarette factory. The founder,
the owner of the factory, wasn�t an educator. He was much more interested in
Steiner�s social ideas. Here�s an example from his Basic Issues of the
Social Question: [2]
This book must
assume the unpopular task of showing that the chaotic condition of our public
life derives from the dependence of spiritual/cultural life on the political
state and economic interests. It must also show that the liberation of
spiritual life and culture from this dependence constitutes an important
element of the burning social question.
By �spiritual/cultural
life�, Steiner is referring, above all, to education, which was originally in
the hands of the Church and was then taken over by the political state, a
necessary historical step in order to make education available to all. However,
persisting in state control of education in a time when it is no longer
necessary is destructive, if not fatal. We all know that the Argentine school
system is in chaos. We tend to blame economic conditions for this. Of course
the schools here are under-financed, of course teachers are paid miserable
salaries. But did you know that in the so-called first world where enormous
amounts of money are invested in public education, the school systems are also
in crisis? Steiner maintained that the principle cause of this chaos was, in
his time, the dependence of the school system on the political state and
economic interests. In other words, that the teachers were not free to teach
the children in the children�s own interests. I maintain that nothing has
changed in this respect.
All this raises
a lot of questions, like: someone�s got to control what the teachers do. If not
the state, then who? But why should anyone control the teachers? Who knows
better than they, who are with the children every day, what their needs are?
Especially in Waldorf schools where the same teacher stays with the group
through the entire primary years. Of course the college of teachers of each
school must exercise some control. If a teacher is doing the wrong thing or
maybe shouldn�t even be a teacher � it happens � then that group must take the
necessary action. Another question involves financing. If the state doesn�t
control the schools, can it still be expected to finance them? The money to
finance schools in any country comes from the productive institutions �
industry � of that country. It makes a detour through the state in the form of
taxes. The state then distributes a portion of those taxes to public schools
and therefore considers that it has they right to oversee what the schools do
with that money. Perhaps it would be unrealistic to expect the state to act
otherwise. The funds for education could, however, be paid directly to a
non-governmental educational organization, which would then distribute them to
the schools. All this is only a matter of changing the procedure once the
decision has been made to free the schools from state control � which could be
done in a democratic society if enough people wanted it. Nowadays, when it is
recognized that the state is incompetent to manage industry, it�s curious that
this same state is judged competent to manage education � an area more
important than industry, because without education there would be no industry.
This idea of
free schools was a part of Steiner�s concept of a threefold or tripartite
society. Education suffers because it is dependent on the political state. The
political state suffers because it is dependent on economic interests. Does
anyone doubt this? The name of the game in politics today is to make laws that
the economic interests want and think they need. Today just about all
governments are pushing the free market ideology. Without defending or
criticizing free markets, we should nevertheless ask what they have to do with
human and civil rights, the defense of which is the legitimate function of the
state?
The motto of the
French revolution was Liberty, Equality, Fraternity � a beautiful motto. But the government the
revolutionaries imposed failed when the motto became Liberty, Equality
and the guillotine. Their error was trying to organize a unitary state
containing all three elements. Liberty (Freedom is better in English) is a characteristic of the
spiritual/cultural sphere, as explained above. Equality is a political concept:
all citizens have equal rights. The state can and should guarantee rights, but
it should not be able to restrict freedom in the process.
And what about
the third element: fraternity? We only have one sphere of social activity left,
and it would seem difficult to attribute fraternity to the economic sphere. But
if we look at economics more closely, we will see that it is quite correct to
do so. Economic activity consists of three elements: Production, distribution
(wholesale, retail) and consumption. In the production process goods are
produced in order to be consumed. And who consumes them? Mostly those who did not
produce them. Therefore we have one group, producers, working to make goods for
others, the consumers. This is essentially a fraternal process. Of course if
you ask anyone in the productive group why he works, he will say he works for
money. Well, this is a problem of consciousness and the way things are
organized. They could be organized differently. Steiner suggested that Economic
Associations of representatives of Producers, Distributors and Consumers be
formed. These associations would make the decisions relating to the economic
sphere, for they are the ones active in it.
Centrally
planned economies, such as the communists attempted in the Soviet bloc, China, Cuba and
elsewhere, are eminently inefficient and lead to an excess of state power.
Capitalism is efficient, but it leads to social injustice. Furthermore, the
so-called free market is never really free, because the producers control it. They plan all right � for their
own benefit. But if all three basic elements � producers, middlemen and
consumers � met in associations, they could do the planning required to benefit
society as a whole and still leave the market relatively free.
Another problem
is the ownership of the means of production. Nowadays most industrial power is
in the hands of a few holdings. The big guys are consuming the little ones. It
is almost as though Karl Marx�s theory was coming true: that those with the
most capital would eventually absorb those with less capital until one huge
capitalist unit ruled the word. The Marxist solution to this was to turn the
means of production over to the state. This failed miserably. We should
remember, however, that Communism was a reaction to Capitalism�s injustices,
which have not been resolved. The means of production, capital, should be in
the hands of all those who actually do the producing � not anonymous
shareholders.
The basic
concept of the threefold, or tripartite society is that the spiritual/cultural,
the political and the economic spheres of society should each enjoy relative
autonomy, and that none should dominate the other. It could be objected that
this is a nice idea, but no more than that. Steiner said otherwise. He
maintained that the human being, consisting of Body, Soul and Spirit, that is,
threefold, needs a society that is
also threefold: the spiritual sphere in which his potentially free spirit may
develop; the rights sphere where his soul feels the justice and injustice of
society, and the economic sphere where his physical needs are produced.
A Philosophy of Freedom
This is the
title of one of Steiner�s earliest books. It is purely philosophical and
therefore may cause problems for those who have no knowledge of that branch of
thinking. I taught the subject for ten years in the Teachers� Training Seminar
in Buenos Aires and it took me half that time to realize that since most of the
students had only the vaguest notion of philosophy, it would be better to start
with a general history of philosophy and get to Steiner later. From then on I
had the impression that the students understood what it was all about. That was
a twenty-hour course and we don�t have the time to do that here, so I�ll just
assume that you�re all philosophers.
�Is man in his
thinking and acting a spiritually free being, or is he compelled by the
iron necessity of purely natural law?� This is the first line of the book and
it is the question Steiner will try to answer using philosophical arguments
throughout. He also writes that �..we are dealing here with one of the most
important questions for life, religion, conduct and science.�
In order to
answer this question, the concepts of dualism and monism are elucidated,
dualism being the separation between us and the world around us. That is, if I
observe any object in nature, a tree let�s say, I feel that I, the subject, am
looking at an object, the tree, which is separate from me. This is a barrier
that we erect as soon as we have consciousness � we become conscious of our
antithesis to the world, the universe appears to us in two parts: I and the
world. The striving to bridge this antithesis constitutes the spiritual
striving of humanity. To be able to do so would constitute the monism we are
seeking. The question is how.
According to
Steiner, the answer can be found in thinking, which he considered to be a
spiritual activity. He even suggested that the English translation of his book
be entitled �The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity�. Put simply, the argument is
that if we observe our own thinking, we are overcoming the duality of subject
vs. object in that the subject � �I� � is observing something which is
completely of its own making: the object: �thinking�. Therefore, the subject
and the object become one. If this is possible, then it is also possible for
objects outside of myself. When we observe the physical object �tree�, we are
seeing only a part of it. The other part, the idea �tree�, is lacking. The
chairs you are sitting on certainly exist physically. But before they existed
someone had the idea �chair� � the carpenter or designer, someone, or the
chairs couldn�t exist. And we can share this idea �chair� with the carpenter.
And the tree? If the tree exists physically, the idea �tree� must have existed
previously. Therefore the whole tree consists of its physical manifestation
that we observe with our eyes and the concept or idea �tree� which we can
observe by means of thinking.
�We can find
nature outside us only if we have first learned to know her within us.
What is akin to her within us must be our guide. This marks out our path of
inquiry. We shall attempt no speculations concerning the interaction of nature
and spirit. Rather shall we probe into the depths of our own being, to find
there those elements which we saved in our flight from nature.�
Are there limits
to knowledge? Steiner seems to say that any such limits are self-imposed and
that the object of knowledge is merely relative to the perceiving subject.� �As soon as the I, which is separated from
the world in the act of perceiving, reintegrates itself into the world
continuum through thoughtful contemplation, all further questioning ceases,
having been a consequence of the separation.� This seems to me a clue as to
what kind of thinking is meant here. Certainly not to the usual thoughts that
come and go willy-nilly, but what Steiner calls something more profound: �..not
a shadowy copy of some reality, but a self-sustaining spiritual essence�that is
brought into consciousness for us through intuition.� Intuition is the conscious experience�in pure
spirit�of a purely spiritual content. Only through an intuition can the essence
of thinking be grasped.� In this sense, the physical organization, i.e., the
brain, can have no influence on the essential nature of thinking. Of
course the brain is necessary for thinking, just as a piano or other instrument
is necessary for playing music, but such instruments � and the brain is an
instrument � are not the essence of music.
Steiner comes
into conflict with Kant on two basic issues. One, that we cannot know the
�thing in itself� because we are dependent on our fallible senses. And two, his
principle of morality: �Act so the basis of your action may be valid for all
men�. For Steiner, �..the standard can never be the way all men would act, but
rather what, for me, is to be done in each individual case.� In other words,
what he calls ethical individualism. �I act�not because I acknowledge a
lord over me, or an external authority, or a so-called inner voice; I
acknowledge no external principle for my action, because I have found in myself
the ground for my action, namely, my love of the action. I do not work out
mentally whether my action is good or bad; I carry it out because I love
it.��
In answer to the
question posed at the beginning: whether the human being, in his acts and thinking
is free or not, Steiner says finally that a true philosophy of freedom does not
consider man as a finished product, so it considers the dispute as to whether
man is free or not (now) to be irrelevant. It sees in man a developing being
and only asks whether the stage of the free spirit can be attained during this
development.
There is very
much more in �The Philosophy of Freedom� than can be discussed in these few
minutes. Anyone who is interested in what freedom is and in Rudolf Steiner�s
philosophical concepts which led to his later writings and lectures of a more
esoteric nature, will do well to read it carefully. To close this subject, I
think the following words appropriate: �Hence, every person, in their thinking,
lays hold of the universal primordial Being which pervades all people. To live
in reality, filled with the content of thought, is at the same time to live in
God.�
������
�
Anthroposophy and Religion
The word religion is derived from the
Latin �re-ligere� = reunite. In this sense of reuniting the spiritual in
humankind with the spiritual in the universe, anthroposophy is religious. It is
not a religion however, nor is it associated with a church or confession, but
it recognizes all religions as being true it their own way. Steiner placed
enormous importance in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his
books and lectures on this subject, he explains Christianity�s essence and most
of its mysteries in a way quite different from the teachings of the traditional
confessions. This essence differentiates the man Jesus of Nazareth and the
being we call Christ, the latter being a divinity who incarnated in Jesus
during the baptism in the Jordan. In our time of rational thinking it isn�t
really possible to accept the basic tenet of Christianity � that Jesus of
Nazareth was God and at the same time a human being like the rest of us. If he
is the son, how can he be the father at the same time? But if two beings are
involved, Jesus the man and the other Christ the divine being who incorporated
in him at the moment of baptism, the contradiction is erased. �Many of Rudolf Steiner�s teachings are equally
astonishing, for example:
There were two Jesus children, the one
described in the Gospel of Matthew and the other as described in the Gospel of
Luke � the former being of the royal and the other the priestly lineage of
David. They united into one being shortly before the event in the synagogue
when Jesus, a twelve-year-old boy, was found teaching the elders.
His mother, Mary, was indeed a virgin �
in her soul. There is much more to be found in anthroposophy about the feminine
mysteries and their relation to Sophia, the personification of wisdom. �
Lazarus, whom Jesus loved, was going
through a process of spiritual initiation governed by Jesus, which took three
days, and it was for this reason that Jesus had to wait that period of time
before �resurrecting� him. Lazarus then becomes John the Evangelist, the
apostle whom Jesus loved.
The body of Jesus Christ resurrected was
not his material body, but the spiritualized body of future humanity, the one
named �spirit-man� in the section above entitled �The Nature of the Human
Being�. And the �second coming� is now in process � in the etheric realm.
These examples
are no more than a truncated index. A study of Steiner�s basic works, followed
by his lectures on this specific subject, can open the reader�s eyes to the
meaning of many so-called mysteries and give him or her a new appreciation of
Christianity, one she never knew existed. �������������������
"Anthroposophy is a path of cognition
from the
spiritual in man to the Spiritual in the Universe."
