Spiritual Science
Anthroposophy is the spiritual science created by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Dr. Steiner is most famous for the Steiner schools (also known as Waldorf schools), but his contribution is far not limited to education, but also to agriculture, spiritual dance (eurithmy), arts, social-economic relationships and also revelations about the spiritual origins of the Earth and humans in particular and their interrelationships with the spiritual world. He was the first one who invented a language in which to describe the spiritual world so that even ordinary people without special clairvoyant abilities could form a concept about it. In his books he also gave recommendations how people can raise their consciousness into higher levels of spiritual perception and made a remarkable revelations for the past, the present and the future of humanity from a spiritual, clairvoyant point of view.
The spiritual science originally stemmed from theosophy, which means a science about Gods. Dr. Steiner was a secretary of the German section of the Theosophical Society for number of years. Theosophy was founded by Madame Helena Blavatsky and originally this teaching incorporated in itself most of the esoteric truths which were made available to humanity in the 19th century. However, later on, this teaching fell under the influence of a particular eastern Tibeto-Indian occultist group, which inspired her ‘Secret Doctrine’. This eastern turn became even more evident after the death of Madame Blavatsky, and became especially prominent under the rule of the new head of the theosophical society – Annie Besant. At one stage she even tried to to put forth a young person called Krishnamurti as the Christ, or Maitreya, or both.
The whole scheme collapsed some years later, when Krishnamutri in an unprecedented public speech disavowed his nomination due to loss of faith in his mission. Soon after this major turning point, he left the society and went to live in Tibet. This event was extremely damaging to the theosophical society as a whole and even today, some 80 years later it is still struggling to recover from it. Even before its occurrence, it was becoming more and more apparent that Dr. Steiner disagreed with the direction in which the Theosophical society was heading. After this incident it was impossible for him to continue as a member of the Theosophical society, so he left it and established his own organization. He called it Anthroposophy society, or a science about the spiritual organization of humans.
Both sciences (anthroposophy and theosophy) are based on the same esoteric truths, which are depicting the human organism as comprising 7 bodies that make up the human structure. Out of these 7 bodies only the physical body is visible, while the rest are subtle and invisible. More information about it you can find in my article ‘The Sevenfold Human Structure’ (see Articles). Both disciplines describe in similar manner the esoteric events that unfold to a man after his death and before his new rebirth and both of them portray the evolution of the Earth as a chain of consecutive, evolutionary ‘rebirths’ etc.
However, due to its strong eastern turn of its orientation, theosophy is not in a position to explain the most important events in the human history in the last 2000 years, starting with the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Eastern teachings are very old indeed and their roots can be found in an epoch, which was in many respects very different to what occurred thousands of years later. Thus, theosophy neither operates with the appropriate terminology, nor really understands the fundamental and pivotal role of the incarnation of the Christ being for the future evolution of humanity.
Let’s use the following example to illustrate this fact. When children grow, normally they progress at school from year 1, to year 2, then year 3 etc. Students in year 3, for example, do not demolish everything that they studied at year 1: rather they build upon it. However, they cannot continue to study the alphabet forever. As they gain more understanding, they do not think about the alphabet itself, but they use it as a stepping stone to read books, write short stories etc. Similarly, if one is stuck in the eastern doctrines only, he or she would not be in a position to understand the fundamental changes, which occurred in the spiritual world and on earth, during and after the incarnation of the Christ being, 2000 years ago. This does not mean that we necessarily have to become religious in the narrow sense of this word, but without gaining a scientific knowledge about the Christ being and His mission we will not be in a position to understand what is happening with the Earth and with the human beings in the last 2000 years or so. This is why theosophy is putting us in a position of a student who in three consecutive years continues to study the alphabet, repeating religiously A, B, C…
For this reason, Dr. Rudolf Steiner established the spiritual discipline of Anthroposophy, inspiring people to grow and develop, explaining the spiritual facts and impulses from the correct, scientific perspective. Being educated as a scientist from early childhood, he was the first clairvoyant to translate his visions and observations of the spiritual reality into understandable, logical and scientific language. The great significance of his works lies also in the fact that he was the first one to implement a proper terminology, based not only on the Eastern teachings, but primarily borrowed from the esoteric Christianity. This was imperative in order to explain a good number of the most sacred spiritual processes and mysteries, which occurred during the epoch of the Christian mysticism in the Age of Pisces
His books are not easy to read. The reader should not expect to extract immediately from Steiner’s books all the deep and profound spiritual facts in a quick, chocolate coated, easy to swallow form. Rather, he should be prepared to earn this knowledge after resolving lots of mental and spiritual conflicts and sufferings within him- or herself. However, similarly to conditioning your physical body after exercising it on a regular basis, the human mind can also be conditioned and put into a good shape after regularly exercising it with good anthroposophical literature.
My articles are an attempt to simplify further the language which Steiner used in the beginning of the century. In such a way I am hoping to make his ideas more understandable for the people, living in the 21-st century. We have to recognise the changes which occurred in the past 100 years in the souls and in the minds of the people and move along with the times. I made every attempt to present the anthroposophical ideas in a much easier to understand form than they are in the original Steiner’s books. You can download my articles for free from here.More about Anthroposophy you can read if you click on the following link:
http://www.waldorfanswers.com/Anthroposophy.htm
IIf you never read any book from Dr. Steiner before, it is probably best to start with his An Outline of Occult Science. This 143 pages book will teach you everything you need to know about the sevenfold human structure. In this book the greatest world clairvoyant describes in detail the creation and evolution of the Earth and humanity and gives predictions for the future development of our civilization. The book gives also a practical guidance about the methods and exercises with which one can achieve a higher state of clairvoyance consciousness. This book is not easy to read, but the conscientious reader will find it extremely rewarding. Click on the link above or on the image of the book if you want to download it and read it for free.
A very comprehensive free online selection of Dr. Steiner’s books, lectures and articles you can find if you click on the following link:
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