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Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy
Who was Rudolf Steiner?
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was an exceptional spiritual teacher, whose unique genius was to translate into modern consciousness humanity's most ancient striving to know itself and, in knowing itself, to know nature, the cosmos, and the divine. A philosopher, scientist, and esotericist, Steiner was a dedicated servant of humanity, who gave unstintingly to the world the wisdom he gained through the radical method of meditative, spiritual research that he inaugurated and practiced. The range of his research, far-reaching in its practical implications, included every aspect of human striving, from cosmology, evolution, and history to physics, mathematics, biology, psychology, and astronomy. He was also an artist, a playwright, and an architect. Above all, he was a thinker, a world-transforming, paradigm-creating figure. Because he was a thinker, his anthroposophical path of meditation, whatever form it took (Theosophical, philosophical, Rosicrucian, or Christian-Gnostic) was always (whether it involved thinking, feeling, or willing) a path of knowing. His was a cognitive path.
Although he does not denigrate ordinary thinking, thinking in the higher sense that Steiner uses does not involve any kind of ratiocination, cerebration, calculation, or logical deduction. The kind of thinking Steiner aims at does not demand that the "brain" produce thoughts, but rather that it become so still that, instead of thinking in the ordinary sense, we begin to experience—to think, feel, and will—what it is "to be thought, felt, and willed." Thinking is a supersensory, "brain-free" activity. It engages the whole person: not "I think, therefore I am," but "It thinks me." We may call this kind of thinking "thinking of the heart." Steiner believed that heart thinking was the next stage in humanity's ever-evolving journey of consciousness and dedicated his life and work to developing it.
[From the Introduction of Start Now, Great Barrington, MA: Steiner Books, 2004.]
What is Anthroposophy?
MAN IS EFFECTIVE IN THE WORLD NOT ONLY THROUGH WHAT HE DOES, BUT ABOVE ALL THROUGH WHAT HE IS ~ Rudolf Steiner Anthroposophy is sometimes described as a path of knowledge; more accurately it is a path of knowing. This western esoteric way of exploring the world — given the name spiritual science by Rudolf Steiner — has provided the foundation and scientific methods for an extraordinary range and quantity of work. Built upon Steiner's own substantial legacy, anthroposophy is now studied and practiced by people who work in fields as diverse as education, agriculture, medicine, the arts, the sciences, and in the social environments of organizations, governments and institutions.
Because anthroposophy is a spiritual path of knowing and not a religious movement, it also has become a free social space where people from all belief streams find common ground. At the center of this worldwide movement is the Anthroposophical Society, which has a membership that extends throughout the world community. The Rudolf Steiner Institute offers courses that demonstrate the breadth and depth of this anthroposophical movement.
Rudolf Steiner's basic books.
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