Rudolf Steiner | |
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![]() Steiner c. 1905 | |
Born | Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner 27 February 1861[1] |
Died | 30 March 1925 Dornach, Switzerland | (aged 64)
Education | Vienna Institute of Technology University of Rostock (PhD, 1891) |
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Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861[1] – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist,[10] social reformer, architect, esotericist,[11][12] and claimed clairvoyant.[13][14] Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom.[15] At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism[i][17] (for heresiologists it is little doubt that these are neognosticism[18][19][20]). Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific.[21] He was also prone to pseudohistory.[22]
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality.[23] His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,[24]: 291 differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts.[25] In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education,[26] biodynamic agriculture,[27] and anthroposophical medicine.[26]
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas."[28] A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.[29]
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was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Steiner moved to Weimar in 1890 and stayed there until 1897. He complained bitterly about the bad salary and the boring philological work, but found the time to write his main philosophical works during his Weimar period. ... Steiner's high hopes that his philosophical work would gain him a professorship at one of the universities in the German-speaking world were never fulfilled. Especially his main philosophical work, the Philosophie der Freiheit, did not receive the attention and appreciation he had hoped for.
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.
Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress...
Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered.
After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis.
Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter.
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.
a neognostic heresy
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.
Winker 1994 p.
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).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.
We have rather a mishmash of religion on the one hand and pseudoscience on the other, as critics have pointed out (e.g., Shermer 2002, 32). It is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, but for our purposes it is not really important.
The Austrian philosopher and occultist Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925) claimed that, by astral projection, he could read the Akashic Record. ... Other than anecdotal eyewitness accounts, there is no evidence of the ability to astral project, the existence of other planes, or of the Akashic Record.
To get an idea of what mystical nonsense anthroposophic medicine is, I like to quote straight from the horse's mouth, namely Physician's Association for Anthroposophic Medicine, in its pamphlet for patients:
In Dugan's view, Steiner's theories are simply "cult pseudoscience".
It is not so much that they have a persecution or martyr complex, but that they do revel in having esoteric knowledge unknown to or rejected by others, and they have the sorts of personalities that rather enjoy being on the fringe or outside. Followers of Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic agriculture are particularly prone to this syndrome. They just know they are right and get a big kick out of their opposition to genetically modified foods and so forth.
Examples of such fields are various forms of "alternative healing" such as shamanism, or esoteric world views like anthroposophy ... For this reason, we must suspect that the "alternative knowledge" produced in such fields is just as illusory as that of the standard pseudosciences.
Both turned out to be "positivistic religions," offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience.
For the Theosophists and other occultists Atlantis has a greater importance since it forms an integral part of their religious worldview.
In Steiner's view, "ordinary history" was "limited to external evidence" and hence no match for "direct spiritual perception."22 Indeed for anthroposophists, "conventional history" constitutes "a positive hindrance to occult research."23
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?
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