Antroposophy - spiritualisation of Western culture and thought

The Anthroposophical movement was founded by the Austrian philosopher and spiritual scientist, Rudolf Steiner, in the 1920's, as a movement for spiritualisation of Western culture and thought. Steiner had formerly been the general secretary of the German section of the Theosophical Society, but he felt that it was too much influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism and felt a need to develop a spiritual way for the West, and doing this became his life's work.

Picture of Rudolf Steiner:

During the oourse of his life, Steiner wrote about 20 books and gave a msssive amount of lectures, so that his collected works, including the transcribed lectures, comprise about 360 volumes.He has given major inspiration to the following areas of culture and human endeavour:

Education                                                                                                                                                             Agriculture                                                                                                                                                               Spiritual science and cosmology                                                                                                                         Philosophy  ´                                                                                                                                                         Artitecture                                                                                                                                                           Sculpturing                                                                                                                                                                    Painting

In fact I think it is fair to say that there is almost no area of human life that he hasn't touched with his insight and inspiration.

Education                                                                                                                                                                Steiner was active for many years of his life as a teacher both for adults and children, and had a deep insight into education. In the 1920's, the director of the Waldorf-Astoria cigar factories, who had become interested in Steiner's ideas about education and transformation of society, invited Steiner to help him with establishing a school for the children of the workers at his factories. Steiner accepted this offer, and this is the reason why the schools which work on the basis of Steiner's inspirations are called "Waldorf Schools". Must European and Commonwealth countries as well as the United States has Waldorf Schools which work on the basis of  Steiner's inspirations. Waldorf schools work on the basis of a spiritual understanding of the child as a spiritual being which unfold in certain stages in life. For instance, the first 7 years of life deal with the unfoldment of the physical body, the next 7 years with the unfoldment of the etheric or vital body, and the next 7 years again with the unfoldment of the emotional body, which also carried with it our sexual characteristics and our emotional individuality. This is why "behaviour problems" arise with the teenagers when they reach this age. Finally, the years from 21-28 deal with the unfoldment of the mental body, or the I, so that the person is fully grown at the age of 28, after which the unfoldment of the "consciousness soul" begins. Waldorf education is planned on the basis of these realisations, and seek to aid and stimulate the aspects of the human being which are unfolding at a given time, and to make the child or the pupil conscious of his/her interaction with the spiritual world, and of humanity's spiritual heritage.

Agriculture                                                                                                                                                                     With his inspiration for the betterment of agricultural methods, Steiner introduced both an ecological perspective into agriculture, and an understanding of the interaction of the cosmic energies and cycles with agriculture. This means that the bio-dynamical agriculture works with the soil, plants and animals, not only from a purely physical/scientific perspective, but that there's also an understanding of the spiritual aspects of agriculture, for instance, care is taken that the plants have a high contents of etheric energy which makes them better suited for food, and that their contents of minerals and nutritional elements harmonise with the human needs or the needs of the animals which will eat them. Special care is taken to enrich the soil and co-operate with the etheric beings which work with the soil and plants, such as portrayed on the first three pictures by Eskild Tjalve under the section about devas.

Architecture                                                                                                                                                                    With his architectural impulse, Steiner sought to spiritualise and vitalise architecture. The idea is that the buildings should appear in harmony with the landscape they are built in, both with regards to form and material, that their form should reflect their function and at the same time be both practical and artistic. Furthermore, Steiner wanted architecture to mirror the living processes of the etheric realm, wherein  the archetypes which mould the physical form before it appears physically, exist. Steiner worked a lot with metamorphosis, and the changes of form within nature - between the  different seasons, in plant growth and in the larger creative processes of nature - the formation of  landscapes, mountains and even planets - had his great interest. Seen from an Anthroposophical viewpoint (and for that matter with the eyes of spiritual science as such), all physical forms are merely reflections of forces which operate on higher levels - firstly the etheric, or "form-force field" as Steiner sometimes called it, and secondary the higher spiritual worlds where the creative hierarchies exist and work with the creative processes of the universe. Materialism, or the idea that physical matter is the only thing which exist, and there are no vital or spiritual forces behind physical creation, was one of the ideas which Steiner sought to counteract, and one way of doing this was to open people's eyes to the beauty and life of the spiritual world through art and architecture. Steiner's whole world view was an organic one, where the world and cosmos is seen as a vast living, spiritual entity which is influenced and created by many different spiritual beings of many grades,  orders and characters. The ancient myths of this planet all reflect this same view, as Steiner pointed out, and his architectural impulse was and is an attempt to do in architecture what Antroposophy always seeks: To bring man and his culture into harmony and alignment with cosmos and its living, spiritual forces.

Some examples of Antroposophical architecture:

The 1st Goetheanum                                                                                                                                                     Pictures of the first Goetheanum, built in Dornach, Switzerland during the two first decades of the 20th century. It was built entirely in wood on a foundation of concrete and was a msssive artwork, but tragically it was put on fire and burned down at New Year's Eve 1922/23.

The Glas House                                                                                                                                                           This house, which can be seen on the picture of the 1st Goetheanum in the lower left corner, survived the fire and still stands as a living example of the organic, living architecture of Rudolf Steiner. It was used as a workshop for the crafting of the glass windows for the 1st Goetheanum which is how it got its name.

The 2nd Goetheanum                                                                                                                                                This concrete building was modelled in clay by Steiner, who said after the fire of the 1st Geotheanum, that culture had evolved so that a new structure was also needed as the frame for Anthroposophical activities. It reflects the landscape of the Jura Mountains in Switzerland and is built in steel and concrete. The construction started in 1924, and there are still interior sections which haven't been finished yet. Currently, the great scene is being re-built, and the outer concrete cover is being removed, a new steel frame inserted and conrete put on top of it - an ardeous process, but even Steiner hadn't foreseen the acid rain of the later part of our century.

Follow the link below to see more pictures of the 2nd Goetheanum (Swiss site) click on the address and then click on their link to Goetheanum in the upper, left corner.                                               http://www.goetheanum.ch/          

The Anthroposophical Centre in Järna, Sweden:                                                                                            Here, the style of the architecture is in accordance with Scandinavian tradition, and the buildings are given names which correspond with Norse mythology, about which Steiner lectured a lot, seeking to show how cosmic truths are interwoven with the stories and legends.

Spiritual science and cosmology                                                                                                                   Steiner's cosmology is presented in his many books and lectures and is a fascinating and illuminating  study, enough for a decade or more.I will try to give a brief outline here, and perhaps add more when I feel the need or am inspired to it. In Steiner's cosmology, the universe is viewed as a vast, living being, inhabited by hosts of spiritual beings at different stages of development. Steiner describes these creative hierarchies, each of which is one Earth period further in development than the other, with the following names:

Minerals                                                                                                                                                                      Plants                                                                                                                                                                             Animals                                                                                                                                                                           Human beings

Angels                                                                                                                                                                 Archangels                                                                                                                                                              Archai

Thrones                                                                                                                                                                    Dominions                                                                                                                                                                     Virtues

Principalities                                                                                                                                                           Cherubim                                                                                                                                                                    Seraphim

Each of these group of beings is one planetary period ahead of the others, meaning that they have perfected qualities which those who stand lower in the hierarchy are still working to develop. As an example, human beings are working on perfecting the ability to think, while the angels (for instance solar angels, which work directly with the human evolution to assist it) have already perfected this ability, giving them the ability to understand the connection between past, present and future and the lines of cause and effect at lightning speed. Higher beings, such as the archangels, express themselves through an entire nation (the spirits of a nation), and the youth, blooming and decay of a nation or an empire actually follows the growth of these angelic beings who attract to them souls who match their own qualities, or who need to learn something by incarnating in that specific period and area.

Planetary periods:                                                                                                                                                     With his clairvoyant vision, Steiner described the evolution of this planet in seven stages which he saw intuitively:

1. Saturn 
2. Sun
3. Moon  
4. Earth  
5. Mercury  
6. Venus  
7. Vulcan

We are presently in the Earth period - our physical body was developed in the Saturn period, the etheric body during the Sun period; the astral during the Moon period and the mental body, or "I", as Steiner calls it, is under development in this Earth period. This shows us from the scheme, that when the Earth reaches the "Mercury" period, the human beings will have evolved to the same stage as the present angels. On Venus we will be like the Archangels, and on Vulcan like the Archai. The Hierarchies both above us and below us will have progressed in the same way.

Philosophy                                                                                                                                                            Steiner, who had been clairvoyant from a very early age, sought to spiritualise philosophy and bring spiritual understanding into philosophy, to enable his contemporaries and his culture to see the spiritual aspects of the world, and the history of human thinking as the result of influences from higher, spiritual beings who are leading humanity from step to step on the ladder of evolution. For instance, Steiner said that the materialist philosophy of his own age (continuing into our own age) was the result of strong influences from the "Ahrimanic" beings, whose influence show, for instance, as the crystalling powers in minerals. He has written several books about philosophy, amongst them "The Riddle of Philosophy" and "The Philosophy of Freedom" which was his Ph. D. treatise at the University of Rostock.

Sculpturing                                                                                                                                                               While they were working on the 1st Goetheanum, many famous artists from that period came to Switzerland to assist in the work, amongst them skillful sculptors. Steiner worked together with an English sculptor on the great wooden statue, "The Human Representative", which is now standing in a room of its own in the 2nd Goetheanum. It's approx. 7 metres high and weights about 20 tons. I'll add a picture when I find one :)) One of the ideas of Anthroposophical sculpturing is to portray the life forces, the etheric or higher forces in things, as it is seen on Steiner's great sculpture, whiche expresses the different forces which influence the human being, or symbolic sculpturs of the different seasons, which seek to portray the spiritual forces active in that season.

Painting

In painting, again, the Anthroposophical painters seek to express the higher forces and the spiritual life in things, using various techniques that I know too little about. However, I will add a collection of anthroposophical
paintings when I get one, and then my readers can see if with their own eyes :))

Personal comments about Anthroposophy: The most important, and yet maybe also the most difficult thing to convey in this section about Anthroposophy, is the Spirit of Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is a spiritual, living and organic thing, and the organisation, when people work in it with the right spirit, is vivified by high spiritual beings who support the groups and their activities, since the aim of Anthroposophy is to make the spiritual world active and visible on the physical level. In Steiner's cosmology, the conflict in the human being between the forces of Ahriman and Lucifer (Ahriman=materialism, crystallisation, cold intellectualism; Lucifer=escapism, mysticism and superstition....the words actually denote groups of spiritual beings who work in the inner worlds and influence humanity, hence they are spiritual forces active in our own psyche), and those of Michael and Christ, is seen as central for understanding of the human culture, and the mission of Anthroposophy is mainly to lead people to the Christ spirit and the positive spiritual forces in Cosmos.This is done through right understanding of both the physical and the spiritual world, and consequently a wise use of the forces in them both. The ideal, thus, is a human being in contact with the life forces in cosmos who has conquered the negative forces which seek to seduce or ensnare humanity (so prevalent in Steiner's own time period and area, even if he died before its culmination in the 2nd World War), and has become a Christed being....as illustrated in Steiner's beautiful wooden statue.

Anthroposophical sites: Go to the links page: Links

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