It states that [human being]?s consists of three entities: the body?, the soul and the spirit. The aim is to reach higher levels of consciousness through meditation, observation and openness over a lifelong 'quest'. The movement is adverse to earthly pleasures - if the spirit enjoys earthly pleasures it will be reincarnated in a new body and will not reach the higher spirit world. The movement advocates homeopathy and uses the theories that a plant treats diseases in organs which look similar to parts of the plant and that 'astral forces' in plants affect the body.
- - - - Comments on this text by Valdemar W. Setzer (http://www.ime.usp.br/~vwsetzer) on Dec. 14, 2001.
1. Anthroposophy is NOT based on Theosophy. Its creator, Rudolf Steiner, was a philosopher and editor of Goethe's scientific works until the beginning of the 20th century. Then on request of a group of Theosophists in Berlin, he began to give public lectures on spiritual subjects. In his autobiography, he said that Theosophists were the only people that were opened to hear the results of his spiritual research. He eventually joined the Theosophical Society, but had always stressed that his ideas were original, and were not based on previous writings by other authors. He repeatedly said that, after having done some of his own research, he would check to see how much his findings were in accordance with other texts, as for instance the Bible. In 1913, due to differences in opinions, he left the Theosophical Society and founded the Anthroposophic Society, which has its headquarters at the Goetheanum, in Dornach, Switzerland. The reader is urged to read some of his writings to verify these statements. For those with no inclination to spiritualism, I recommend starting with a book that he considered his most important one, and which was a development of his Doctoral Thesis at the University of Rostock: _The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity_. Some translations have used a titled which is a transliteration of the original German: _The Philosophy of Freedom_. It contains a very important and original analysis of perception, thinking and consciousness.
2. The statement "reality is essentially spiritual" should be clarified. In Anthroposophic terms, a more precise formulation could be "behind any reality there is something spiritual." Physical reality is absolutely essential from the Anthroposophic point of view.
3. The subdivision of the human being in body, soul and spirit is just one of the human structures used in Anthroposophy. There are others, which help e.g. to understand why developed plants are different from minerals, why animals are different from plants and why humans are so different from animals. Obviously, there are concepts connecting each possible structure to others. Steiner gave clear concepts on the various constituents of the human being, e.g. clearly separating what he meant by "soul" and what by "spirit."
4. The aim of Anthroposophy is NOT to reach higher levels of consciousness. In a lecture of Nov. 13, 1909 (he gave more than 6,000 lectures, all published, and wrote almost 30 books - Anthroposophy has absolutely nothing secret or sectarian) he said that understanding the spiritual word was more important than observing it. He was absolutely against observing the spiritual word through mystic visions, which are characterized by lack of conscious thinking accompanying the observations. In general, mystics direct themselves to feelings, and not to reasoning, and do not transmit their observations through clear concepts, as Steiner did.
5. The phrase "The movement is adverse to earthly pleasures - if the spirit enjoys earthly pleasures it will be reincarnated in a new body and will not reach the higher spirit world." is absolutely wrong from the Anthroposophical point of view. According to the latter, reincarnation does not depend on "earthly pleasures." I challenge the anonymous author of the text to cite one of Steiner's passages - or of any of the thousands of works written by Anthroposophists - where such an absurdity is found. This phrase reveals that the author has at best "heard" about Anthroposophy, and has not studied it.
6. Steiner inaugurated a new form of Medicine, called Anthroposophical Medicine, which he insisted to call an "Erweiterung," an extension of academic medicine. Among others, it uses homeopathic drugs, but their preparation differs from classical Homeopathy. The statement of a part of a plant looking similar to an organ is not correct. Furthermore, in the Anthroposohic terminology, plants do no have what it calls "astral body." Only humans and animals have it. This is one further demonstration that the author of the text is not familiar with the basics of Anthroposophy.
7. Besides a new form of medicine, Steiner renewed many other fields: Waldorf Education, now with more than 100 schools in the USA, and more than 800 in the world; Biodynamic Farming; Organic Architecture; and social renewal, the so-called "Threefold Social Organization." He also introduced two new forms of art, Eurithmy and Speech Formation. A new kind of curative education was developed following his ideas, of which the most popular initiative is the Camphill Movement.
For further information on Anthroposophy, please visit the site of the General Anthroposophic Society, http://www.goetheanum.ch. I am the webmaster of the Anthroposophic Society in Brazil; its site contains some material in English, including a chronological biography of Rudolf Steiner, at http://www.sab.org.br; maybe it would be interesting for the reader to give a look at its section "Anthroposophy."
End of VWS's contribution.
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