View source for Anthroposophy

{{short description|Spiritual and pseudoscientific philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner in 1912 Germany}}
{{Anthroposophy}}

'''Anthroposophy''' is a [[Spirituality|spiritual]]<ref name="Staudenmaierthesis">{{Cite thesis |last=Staudenmaier |first=Peter |title=Between Occultism and Fascism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race and Nation in Germany and Italy, 1900–1945 |date=2010 |degree=PhD |publisher=Cornell University |url=https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/17662/Staudenmaier%2C%20Peter.pdf |oclc=743130298 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/17662/Staudenmaier%2C%20Peter.pdf |archive-date=9 October 2022 |url-status=live |hdl=1813/17662}}</ref>{{rp|i}} [[new religious movement]]<ref name="newreli">Sources for 'new religious movement':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Norman |first=Alex |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5aRyJ-vbrJsC&pg=PA213 |title=Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production |publisher=Brill |year=2012 |isbn=978-90-04-22187-1 |editor-last=Cusack |editor-first=Carole M. |series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion |page=213 |quote=[...] continue to have influence beyond the institutional reach of Anthropospophy, the new religious movement he founded. |access-date=1 January 2024 |editor-last2=Norman |editor-first2=Alex}}|{{cite book | first1=Liselotte | last1=Frisk | editor-last1=Cusack | editor-first1=Carole M. | editor-last2=Norman | editor-first2=Alex | title=Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion | year=2012 | isbn=978-90-04-22187-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5aRyJ-vbrJsC&pg=PA204 | access-date=1 January 2024 | page=204 fn. 10, 208 | quote=Thus my conclusion is that it is quite uncontroversial to see Anthroposophy as a whole as a religious movement, in the conventional use of the term, although it is not an emic term used by Anthroposophists themselves.}}|{{cite book | first1=Carole M. | last1=Cusack | editor-last1=Cusack | editor-first1=Carole M. | editor-last2=Norman | editor-first2=Alex | title=Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion | year=2012 | isbn=978-90-04-22187-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5aRyJ-vbrJsC&pg=PA190 | access-date=1 January 2024 | page=190 | quote=Steiner, of all esoteric and new religious teachers of the early twentieth century, was acutely aware of the peculiar value of cultural production, an activity with which he engaged with tireless energy, and considerable (amateur and professional) skill and achievement.}}|{{cite book | first1=Sælid | last1=Gilhus | editor-last1=Bogdan | editor-first1=Henrik | editor-last2=Hammer | editor-first2=Olav | title=Western Esotericism in Scandinavia | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Esotericism Reference Library | year=2016 | isbn=978-90-04-32596-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rGpyDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA56 | access-date=6 February 2024 | page=56 | quote=the most successful New Religious Movement in Norway in the twentieth century}}|{{cite journal | last=Ahlbäck | first=Tore | title=Rudolf Steiner as a religious authority | journal=Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis | volume=20 | year=2008 | issn=2343-4937 | doi=10.30674/scripta.67323 | page=15 | doi-access=free | quote=Based on my analysis of the source material, I regard the pair of terms 'founder of a religion-teacher' as the concept expressing the most  essential elements of Steiner's religious authority.}}|{{cite journal | last=Toncheva | first=Svetoslava | title=Anthroposophy as religious syncretism | journal=SOTER: Journal of Religious Science | volume=48 | issue=48 | date=2013 | doi=10.7220/1392-7450.48(76).5 | pages=81–89| url=http://vddb.library.lt/fedora/get/LT-eLABa-0001:J.04~2013~ISSN_1392-7450.N_48_76.PG_81-89/DS.002.1.01.ARTIC | doi-access=free }}|{{cite book | last=Toncheva | first=Svetoslava | title=Out of the New Spirituality of the Twentieth Century: The Dawn of Anthroposophy, the White Brotherhood and the Unified Teaching | publisher=Frank & Timme GmbH | publication-place=Berlin | year=2015 | isbn=978-3-7329-0132-6 | pages=13, 17 | issn=2196-3312 | url=https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9783732998463_A34278232/preview-9783732998463_A34278232.pdf}}|{{cite journal | last=Clemen | first=Carl | title=Anthroposophy | journal=The Journal of Religion | volume=4 | issue=3 | date=1924 | issn=0022-4189 | doi=10.1086/480431 | pages=281–292| s2cid=222446655 }}|{{cite book | first=Ingvild Sælid | last=Gilhus | editor-last1=Bowman | editor-first1=Marion | editor-last2=Valk | editor-first2=Ulo | title=Vernacular Religion in Everyday Life: Expressions of Belief | publisher=Routledge | date=2014 | isbn=978-1-317-54354-1 | chapter=Angels in Norway: Religious Border-crossers and Border-makers | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VfDOBAAAQBAJ&dq=is+anthroposophy+a+religion&pg=PA238 | access-date=24 August 2025 | page=238}}}}</ref><ref name="religion"/><ref>Other sources for 'new religious movement', 'religion', 'cult', 'sect', 'gnosticism', 'neognostic heresy', or otherwise 'heretical' or 'heterodox':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Hammer|2015|pp=56–57}}|{{harvnb|Hammer|2014|p=350}}|{{harvnb|Braune|2014|p=52}}|{{harvnb|Ellwood|Partin|2016}}|{{harvnb|Rhea|2012}}|{{harvnb|Ryan|2004|p=34}}|{{harvnb|Zander|2002|p=537}}|{{harvnb|Chryssides|2007|p=7}}|{{harvnb|Chryssides|2011|p=32}}|{{harvnb|Gardner|1957|pp=169, 224–225}}|{{harvnb|Brown|2019|pp=229–254}}|{{harvnb|Reznek|2010|pp=110–111}}|{{harvnb|Robertson|2021|p=57}}|{{harvnb|Gilmer|2021|p=41}}|{{harvnb|Quispel|1980|p=123}}|{{harvnb|Quispel|Oort|2008|p=370}}|{{harvnb|Carlson|2018|p=58}}|{{harvnb|Carlson|1996|p=53}}|{{harvnb|Carlson|2015|p=136}}|{{harvnb|McDermott|1987|p=320}}|{{harvnb|McDermott|1992|p=288}}|{{harvnb|McL. Wilson|1993|p=256}}|{{harvnb|Diener|Hipolito|2013|p=77}}|{{harvnb|DWB|2022|pp=76–77}}|{{harvnb|Schnurbein|2016|pp=34–35 fn. 57}}|{{harvnb|Steiner|Seddon|Goodrick-Clarke|2004|p=7}}|{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|2013|p=301}}|{{harvnb|Waldin|2002}}|{{harvnb|Mellors|2005|p=17}}|{{harvnb|Etter|2019|p=unpaginated. fn. 80}}|{{harvnb|Sanders|1962|p=165}}|{{harvnb|Asprem|2018|p=493}}|{{harvnb|Dipple|2019}}|{{harvnb|Ullrich|2014|pp=137–138|ps=: "In anthroposophical gnosis this sort of knowledge is predicated upon the certainty of belief in the interlinked natures of the human and the cosmic spirits, much as Christian gnosis and mysticism advance an essential relatedness between the soul and God."}}<!-- Do you doubt that some of these sources pass [[WP:V]]? Check the title of the book! E.g., it belongs in the Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements because it is a NRM. It belongs in the Handbook of Nordic New Religions because it is a NNR. -->|{{cite book | last1=Karina | first1=Lilian | last2=Kant | first2=Marion | last3=Steinberg | first3=Jonathan | title=Hitler's Dancers: German Modern Dance and the Third Reich | publisher=Berghahn Books | date=2004 | isbn=978-1-78238-958-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aRPdCwAAQBAJ&q=rudolf%2520steiner%2520%2522guru%2522&pg=PA35 | access-date=7 November 2025 | page=35}}}}</ref> which was founded in the early 20th century by the [[Western esotericism|esotericist]] [[Rudolf Steiner]]<ref name="t421">{{cite web | title=Anthroposophy | website=Encyclopedia Britannica | date=22 May 2013 | orig-date=20 July 1998 | url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/anthroposophy | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210208022011/https://www.britannica.com/topic/anthroposophy | archive-date=8 February 2021 | url-status=unfit | access-date=23 September 2025 | quote=Anthroposophy, philosophy based on the premise that the human intellect has the ability to contact spiritual worlds. It was formulated by Rudolf Steiner (q.v.), an Austrian philosopher, scientist, and artist, who postulated the existence of a spiritual world comprehensible to pure thought but fully accessible only to the faculties of knowledge latent in all humans.}}</ref> that postulates the existence of an [[Platonic realism|objective]], intellectually comprehensible [[spirituality|spiritual]] world, accessible to human experience. Followers of anthroposophy aim to engage in spiritual discovery through a mode of thought independent of sensory experience.<ref name="Essential">{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |title=The essential Steiner: basic writings of Rudolf Steiner |date=1984 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=0-06-065345-0 |editor-last=McDermott |editor-first=Robert |edition=1st |location=San Francisco}}</ref>{{rp|3–11, 392–5}}<ref name="j011">{{cite web | title=Anthroposophy | website=Britannica Library | url=https://library.eb.com/eb/article-9007798 | access-date=9 October 2007}}</ref> Though proponents claim to present their ideas in a manner that is verifiable by rational discourse and say that they seek precision and clarity comparable to that obtained by [[scientists]] investigating the physical world, many of these ideas have been termed [[pseudoscientific]] by experts in [[epistemology]] and debunkers of pseudoscience.<ref name="pssci">Sources for 'pseudoscience':{{Bulleted list|<!--{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2008}}|{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2010}}|{{Cite book |title=Schriften über Mystik, Mysterienwesen und Religionsgeschichte |date=2013 |publisher=Frommann-Holzboog |isbn=978-3-7728-2635-1 |editor-last=Clement |editor-first=Christian |location=Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt |page=xlii |language=de}}-->{{Cite news |last1=McKie |first1=Robin |last2=Hartmann |first2=Laura |date=28 April 2012 |title=Holistic unit will 'tarnish' Aberdeen University reputation |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/29/holistic-unit-tarnish-aberdeen-university-reputation |access-date=1 October 2022 |work=The Guardian |language=en}}|{{harvnb|Gardner|1957|pp=169, 224–225}}|{{Cite book |last=Regal |first=Brian |title=Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-313-35508-0 |page=29 |chapter=Astral Projection |quote=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. |access-date=31 January 2022 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c6PACQAAQBAJ&pg=PA29}}|{{Cite book |last=Gorski |first=David H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZLT4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA313 |title=Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science |publisher=MIT Press |year=2019 |isbn=978-0-262-53704-9 |editor-last=Kaufman |editor-first=Allison B. |page=313 |quote=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: |access-date=31 January 2022 |editor-last2=Kaufman |editor-first2=James C.}}|{{Cite book |last=Oppenheimer |first=Todd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WrTQtLgxZeQC&pg=PA384 |title=The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-307-43221-6 |page=384 |quote=In Dugan's view, Steiner's theories are simply "cult pseudoscience". |access-date=31 January 2022}}|{{Cite book |last=Ruse |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pc4OAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA227 |title=Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2013b |isbn=978-0-226-05182-6 |editor-last=Pigliucci |editor-first=Massimo |page=227 |quote=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. |access-date=31 January 2022 |editor-last2=Boudry |editor-first2=Maarten}}|{{Cite book |last=Mahner |first=Martin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qUMuFaXjNjEC&pg=PA548 |title=General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues |publisher=Elsevier Science |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-08-054854-8 |editor-last=Gabbay |editor-first=Dov M. |series=Handbook of the Philosophy of Science |page=548 |quote=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. |access-date=3 February 2022 |editor-last2=Thagard |editor-first2=Paul |editor-last3=Woods |editor-first3=John |editor-last4=Kuipers |editor-first4=Theo A.F.}}|{{Cite book |last=Carlson |first=Maria |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jrl9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA136 |title=No Religion Higher Than Truth: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875-1922 |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-4008-7279-4 |series=Princeton Legacy Library |page=136 |quote=Both turned out to be "positivistic religions," offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience. |access-date=14 August 2024 |orig-date=1993}}|{{Cite book |last=Pattberg |first=Thorsten J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nbh_EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA125 |title=Shengren: Above Philosophy and Beyond Religion |publisher=LoD Press, New York |year=2012 |page=125 |quote=Worse, he couldn't be a real ''philosopher'' either; his theosophy and anthroposophy and the Waldorf humanism in particular were considered pseudoscience or at best pedagogy, not a philosophical system. Steiner's credentials were not university-level professional work. [...] German mainstream scholarship called him an 'autodidact, with a poor teacher' and 'gypsy-intellectual.'{{sup|144}} Not uncommon for practitioners at the fringes of society, he was accused of class treason. |access-date=15 August 2024}}|See also {{Cite web |last=Hansson |first=Sven Ove |year=2021 |orig-date= 2008 |title=Science and Pseudo-Science |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ |access-date=15 August 2024 |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |issn=1095-5054}}|{{harvnb|Ruse|2013a|pp=128–}}|{{harvnb|Dugan|2002|pp=31–33}}|{{harvnb|Dugan|2007|pp=74–76}}|{{cite book | last=Ronchi | first=Claudio | title=The Tree of Knowledge: The Bright and the Dark Sides of Science | publisher=Springer International Publishing | series=SpringerLink: Bücher | year=2013 | isbn=978-3-319-01484-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qRUJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=180 fn. 2 | quote=merely represent, from a scientific point of view, examples of fuzzy reasoning}}}}</ref>

Anthroposophy has its roots in [[German idealism]], Western and Eastern esoteric ideas, various religious traditions, and modern [[Theosophy]].<ref>Sources for 'Theosophy':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2008}}|{{harvnb|Dugan|2002|p=32}}}}</ref> Steiner chose the term ''anthroposophy'' (from Greek ἄνθρωπος {{Lang|grc-latn|anthropos-}}, 'human', and ''σοφία [[Sophia (wisdom)|sophia]]'', 'wisdom') to emphasize his philosophy's [[humanist]]ic orientation.<ref name="Essential" /><ref>Rudolf Steiner, ''Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy'', Anthroposophic Press 1995 {{ISBN|0880103876}}</ref> He defined it as "a scientific exploration of the spiritual world";<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jNAOAAAAIAAJ&q=Philosophie+und+Anthroposophie,++Rudolf+Steiner |title=Philosophie und Anthroposophie: Gesammelte Aufsätze, 1904–1918 |date=1965 |publisher=Verlag der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung |language=de}}</ref> others have variously called it a "philosophy and cultural movement",<ref>{{Cite book |title=Handbook of new religions and cultural production |date=2012 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-22648-7 |editor-last=Carole M. Cusack |location=Leiden |oclc=794328527 |editor-last2=Alex Norman}}</ref> a "spiritual movement",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Phillips |first=D. C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=84StBAAAQBAJ&q=phillips+encyclopedia+of+educational+theory+and+philosophy |title=Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy |year=2014 |publisher=SAGE Publications |isbn=978-1-4833-6475-9 |page=847 |language=en |access-date=10 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601024947/https://books.google.com/books?id=84StBAAAQBAJ&q=phillips+encyclopedia+of+educational+theory+and+philosophy |archive-date=2021-06-01 |url-status=live}}</ref> a "spiritual science",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |title=What is anthroposophy?: three perspectives on self-knowledge |date=2002 |publisher=Anthroposophic Press |others=Christopher Bamford |isbn=0-88010-506-2 |location=Great Barrington, MA |oclc=49531507}}</ref> "a system of thought",<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Weiner |first1=Irving B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=be0VYic5iWwC&q=Corsini%20encyclopedia%20of%20psychology |title=The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology, Volume 1 |last2=Craighead |first2=W. Edward |year=2010|publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-470-17025-0 |page=86 |language=en |access-date=2021-04-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601024948/https://books.google.com/books?id=be0VYic5iWwC&q=Corsini+encyclopedia+of+psychology |archive-date=1 June 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> "a speculative and oracular metaphysic",<ref name="k734">{{cite book | last=Blackburn | first=Simon | title=The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy | publisher=OUP Oxford | series=Oxford Quick Reference | year=2016 | isbn=978-0-19-105427-3 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mc55CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT719 | access-date=2 January 2025 | page=unpaginated | chapter=Steiner, Rudolf (1861–1925) | quote=a speculative and oracular metaphysic}}</ref><ref name="Ginges"/> "system [...] replete with esoteric and occult mystifications",<ref name="j611">{{cite book | last=Mautner | first=Thomas | title=The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy | publisher=Penguin Books | publication-place=London | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-14-101840-9 | page=593 | chapter=Steiner | quote=Although Steiner's anthroposophical system is replete with esoteric and occult mystifications, impartial observers have found much of value in his ideas for schooling (including an emphasis on the development of children's aesthetic and creative potential), practised in the so-called Waldorf or Steiner schools.}}</ref><ref name="Ginges">{{Cite thesis |last=Ginges |first=Hal Jon |title=The act of knowing. Rudolf Steiner and the Neo-Kantian Tradition |date=2012 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of Western Sydney |url=https://researchers-admin.westernsydney.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/94865558/uws_12220.pdf}}</ref> or "a spiritualist movement",<ref name="m378">{{Cite journal |last1=Herzig van Wees |first1=Sibylle |last2=Ström |first2=Maria |date=2024 |title="Your child will have a bird brain!": Vaccination choices and stigma among vaccine enquirers in Sweden: A qualitative study |journal=Social Science & Medicine |volume=349 |article-number=116893 |doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116893 |pmid=38663145 |doi-access=free}}</ref> or ''folie a culte'',<ref name="i777">{{cite book | last=Reznek | first=Lawrie | title=Delusions and the Madness of the Masses | publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. | date=2010 | isbn=978-1-4422-0607-6 | chapter=Communal Madness: Religious and Secular | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=303RBuf7W8wC&dq=rudolf+steiner+delusion&pg=PA110 | access-date=3 June 2025 | pages=110–111}}</ref> or "positivistic religion",{{sfn|Carlson|2015|p=136}} or "a form of 'Christian occultism'",<ref name="t345">{{cite book | last=Chryssides | first=George D. | title=Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | date=2011 | isbn=978-0-8108-7967-6 | chapter=Anthroposophy | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LgvvaMgTsZ0C&dq=is+anthroposophy+religion&pg=PA32 | access-date=24 August 2025 | page=32}}</ref> or "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".{{sfn|Clemen|1924|pp=281–292}}

Anthroposophical ideas have been applied in a range of fields including education (both in [[Waldorf education|Waldorf schools]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Randoll |first1=Dirk |last2=Peters |first2=Jürgen |date=2015 |title=Empirical research on Waldorf education |url=https://www.scielo.br/j/er/a/8nyN7QDpx6JYdh4VvYsPBHN/ |journal=Educar em Revista |language=en |issue=56 |pages=33–47 |doi=10.1590/0104-4060.41416 |issn=0104-4060 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Goldshmidt |first=Gilad |date=2 September 2017 |title=Waldorf Education as Spiritual Education |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15507394.2017.1294400 |journal=Religion & Education |language=en |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=346–363 |doi=10.1080/15507394.2017.1294400 |issn=1550-7394 |s2cid=151518278|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and in the [[Camphill movement]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Garfat |first=Thom |date=31 October 2011 |title=Discovering Camphill: a personal narrative |url=https://www.celcis.org/knowledge-bank/sircc-journal/all-issues |journal=Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care |volume=11 |issue=1 |issn=1478-1840}}</ref>), environmental conservation<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Paull |first=John |date=1 July 2013 |title=The Rachel Carson Letters and the Making of Silent Spring |journal=SAGE Open |language=en |volume=3 |issue=3 |article-number=2158244013494861 |doi=10.1177/2158244013494861 |issn=2158-2440 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Backfish |first=Charles |date=2016 |title=Long Island Women Preserving Nature and the Environment. |url=https://lihj.cc.stonybrook.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Long-Island-Women-Preserving-Nature-and-the-Environment-_-Long-Island-History-Journal.pdf |journal=Long Island History Journal |via=stonybrook.edu}}</ref> and [[ethical banking|banking]]; with additional applications in [[biodynamic agriculture|agriculture]], [[organizational development]], the [[arts]], and more.<ref>Sources for 'additional applications':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Steiner|1984}}|{{harvnb|Willmann|2001}}|{{harvnb|Ullrich|2000}}|{{harvnb|Schneider|1985}}|{{Cite book |last=Ullrich |first=Heiner |title=Rudolf Steiner: Leben und Lehre |date=2011 |publisher=C.H.Beck |isbn=978-3-406-61205-3 |publication-place=München |page=9 |language=de}}}}</ref>

The [[Anthroposophical Society]] is headquartered at the [[Goetheanum]] in [[Dornach]], Switzerland. Anthroposophy's supporters have included writers [[Saul Bellow]],<ref name=":0" /> and [[Selma Lagerlöf]],<ref name=":1" /> <!-- I doubt that a thorough rationalist like Schweitzer supported occultism: theologian [[Albert Schweitzer]],<ref name=":14" /> -->painters [[Piet Mondrian]], [[Wassily Kandinsky]] and [[Hilma af Klint]],<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":7" /> filmmaker [[Andrei Tarkovsky]],<ref name=":8" /> child psychiatrist [[Eva Frommer]],<ref name="Frommer 1995 p. " /><ref name=":13" /> music therapist [[Maria Schüppel]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Musiktherapie |url=http://www.musiktherapeutische-arbeitsstaette.de/index.php?open=Maria_Schuppel/maria_schuppel |access-date=27 November 2022 |website=www.musiktherapeutische-arbeitsstaette.de}}</ref> [[Romuva (religion)|Romuva]] religious founder [[Vydūnas]],<ref name="VydunasAnthroHindu">Bagdonavičius, Vaclovas. "[https://www.lituanistika.lt/content/51874 Similarities and Differences between Vydūnas and Steiner] ("Berührungspunkte und Unterschiede zwischen Vydūnas und Steiner"). [In Lithuanian]. Vydūnas und deutsche Kultur, sudarytojai Vacys Bagdonavičius, Aušra Martišiūtė-Linartienė, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2013, pp. 325–330.</ref><ref name="JacobsenHinduism">{{Cite book |last1=Jacobsen |first1=Knut A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rAT1DwAAQBAJ |title=Handbook of Hinduism in Europe |last2=Sardella |first2=Ferdinando |date=2020 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-43228-4 |location=Leiden |pages=1177–1178 |quote="The philosopher Vilhelmas (Vilius) Storosta, or Vydunas (1868-1953), joined the Theosophical Society and was particularly interested in anthroposophy and its attempts to combine religion, science, and philosophy." |access-date=9 December 2022}}</ref> and former president of Georgia [[Zviad Gamsakhurdia]].<ref name="Urushadze">{{Cite web |last=Urushadze |first=Levari Z. |title=Zviad Gamsakhurdia – the first President of Georgia |url=https://archive.org/details/ZviadGamsakhurdia-TheFirstPresidentOfGeorgia |access-date=9 December 2022 |website=Georgian National Museum |language=English |quote="Gamsakhurdia, although his self-proclaimed Orthodoxy was overlaid with the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, promoted a distinct program of Orthodox Church-Georgian State cooperation in such spheres as education. It is interesting that "Steinerism" has come under attack in Madli [Grace], the monthly newspaper of the Georgian Patriarchate."}}</ref> While critics and proponents alike acknowledge Steiner's many anti-racist statements,<ref name="Staudenmaierthesis" /><ref name=":14">{{Cite journal |last=Segall |first=Matthew |date=27 September 2023 |title=The Urgency of Social Threefolding in a World Still at War with Itself |url=https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1069 |journal=Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy |language=en |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=229–248 |issn=1832-9101}}</ref><ref name=":15">{{Cite book |last=McKanan |first=Dan |url=https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520290068/eco-alchemy |title=Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism |publisher=University of California Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-520-29006-8 |language=en |chapter=Ecology. The Boundaries of Anthroposophy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KL42DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA196}}</ref> "Steiner's collected works...contain pervasive internal contradictions and inconsistencies on racial and national questions."<ref name=Peter/><ref>See also {{Cite thesis |last=Munoz |first=Joaquin |title=The Circle of Mind and Heart: Integrating Waldorf Education, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Critical Pedagogy |date=2016 |access-date=8 February 2024 |degree=PhD |publisher=The University of Arizona |url=https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/621063/azu_etd_14891_sip1_m.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |pages=189–190 |chapter=Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications: The Challenge of Waldorf Education for All Youth. Waldorf Education and Racism|hdl=10150/621063}}</ref>

The historian of religion [[Olav Hammer]] has termed anthroposophy "the most important esoteric society in European history".<ref name="Hammer">{{Cite book |last=Hammer |first=Olav |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zpJOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA153 |title=Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age |publisher=Brill |year=2021 |isbn=978-90-04-49399-5 |series=Numen Book Series |pages=204, 243, 329, 64f, 225–28, 176 |access-date=21 January 2022 |orig-date=2004}} See also p. 98, where Hammer states that – unusually for founders of esoteric movements – Steiner's self-descriptions of the origins of his thought and work correspond to the view of external historians.</ref> Many scientists, physicians, and philosophers, including [[Michael Shermer]], [[Michael Ruse]], [[Edzard Ernst]], [[David Gorski]], and [[Simon Singh]] have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education, considering it dangerous and [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]].<ref name="dangerous">Sources for 'dangerous' or 'pseudoscientific':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Dugan|2002|pp=31–33}}|{{cite book|last=Ruse|first=Michael|title=The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EQRuAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA128|access-date=21 June 2015|year=2013a|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-06039-2|pages=128–}}|{{cite news |title=Schools of pseudoscience pose a serious threat to education {{!}} letters |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2012/may/13/letters-steiner-maharishi-schools-wrong |access-date=29 November 2018 |work=The Guardian |date=12 May 2012 |language=en |archive-date=10 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170910173601/https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2012/may/13/letters-steiner-maharishi-schools-wrong |url-status=live }}|{{Cite web |last=Gorski |first=David |date=14 March 2011 |title=A University of Michigan Medical School alumnus confronts anthroposophic medicine at his alma mater |url=https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-university-of-michigan-medical-school-alumnus-confronts-anthroposophic-medicine-at-his-alma-mater/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190507155634/https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-university-of-michigan-medical-school-alumnus-confronts-anthroposophic-medicine-at-his-alma-mater/ |archive-date=7 May 2019 |access-date=29 November 2018 |website=Science-Based Medicine}}}}</ref> Ideas of Steiner's that are unsupported or disproven by modern science include: racial evolution,{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2010}}{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2008}} clairvoyance ([[Rudolf Steiner|Steiner]] claimed he was clairvoyant),<ref name="Ruse2018">{{Cite book |last=Ruse |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D1RuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97 |title=The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict |year=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-086757-7 |page=97}}</ref><ref name="QuackWatch">{{Cite web |last=Kreidler |first=Marc |date=23 July 2012 |title=Rudolf Steiner's Quackery |url=https://quackwatch.org/11ind/steiner/ |access-date=5 September 2021 |publisher=Quackwatch}}</ref> and the [[Atlantis]] myth.<ref>Sources for 'Atlantis':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2008}}|{{Cite book |last=Gardner |first=Martin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TwP3SGAUsnkC&pg=PA169 |title=Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science |publisher=Dover Publications |year=1957 |isbn=978-0-486-20394-2 |series=Dover Books on the Occult |pages=169, 224–225 |quote=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. |access-date=31 January 2022 |orig-date=1952}}|{{cite book | last=Fritze | first=Ronald H. | chapter=Atlantis: Mother of Pseudohistory | title=Invented Knowledge: false history, fake science and pseudo-religions | url=https://archive.org/details/inventedknowledg0000frit | publisher=Reaktion Books | publication-place=London | year=2009 | isbn=978-1-86189-430-4 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/inventedknowledg0000frit/page/45 45], [https://archive.org/details/inventedknowledg0000frit/page/60/mode/2up 61] | quote=For the Theosophists and other occultists Atlantis has a greater importance since it forms an integral part of their religious worldview.}}|{{cite book | last=Lachman | first=Gary | title=Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work | publisher=Penguin Publishing Group | year=2007 | isbn=978-1-101-15407-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gsfrzMrkkc8C&pg=PT10 | access-date=29 February 2024 | pages=xix, 233 | quote=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?}}|{{cite journal | last=Staudenmaier | first=Peter | title=Occultism, Race and Politics in German-speaking Europe, 1880—1940: A Survey of the Historical Literature | journal=European History Quarterly | volume=39 | issue=1 | date=2009 | issn=0265-6914 | doi=10.1177/0265691408097366 | pages=47–70}}|{{cite book | last1=Beres | first1=Derek | last2=Remski | first2=Matthew | last3=Walker | first3=Julian | title=Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat | publisher=PublicAffairs | date=2023 | isbn=978-1-5417-0300-1 | chapter=9. Evolving the Souls of Children | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iruSEAAAQBAJ&dq=steiner+pseudohistory&pg=PT96 | access-date=18 April 2025 | page=unpaginated | quote=For Steiner, it wasn't enough to just overshare his spiritual nerdery. He was also keen to undermine the basics of evidentiary research and the scientific method. His 1911 pseudohistory of ''The Submerged Continents of Atlantis and Lemuria, Their History and Civilization'', opens with a self-serving attack on the legit discipline of history. He derides the idea that scholarly opinions can change when confronted with new evidence, and argues that the eternal truth of what happened can only be accessed through meditation.}}}}</ref>

==History==
=== Early 20th century and before ===
[[File:Steiner um 1905.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Rudolf Steiner]]]]

The early work of the founder of anthroposophy, [[Rudolf Steiner]], culminated in his ''[[The Philosophy of Freedom|Philosophy of Freedom]]'' (also translated as ''The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity'' and ''Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path''). Here, Steiner developed a concept of [[free will]] based on inner experiences, especially those that occur in the creative activity of independent thought.<ref name="Essential" /> "Steiner was a moral individualist".{{efn-lr|Ethical individualism is the opposite of ethical collectivism (meaning a moral code which is good for everyone).}}<ref name="t661">{{Cite book |last=Ryan |first=Alexandra E. |chapter=Anthroposophy |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DouBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA34 |title=Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-134-49970-0 |editor-last=Clarke |editor-first=Peter |page=34 |access-date=2024-07-19}}</ref>

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Steiner's interests turned almost exclusively to spirituality. His work began to draw the attention of others interested in spiritual ideas; among these was the [[Theosophical Society]]. From 1900 on, thanks to the positive reception his ideas received from Theosophists, Steiner focused increasingly on [[Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical Society|his work with the Theosophical Society]], becoming the [[General Secretary|secretary]] of its section in Germany in 1902. During his leadership, membership increased dramatically, from just a few individuals to sixty-nine lodges.<ref name="ahern2edAnthSec">Of these, 55 lodges – about 2,500 people – seceded with Steiner to form his new Anthroposophical Society at the end of 1912. Geoffrey Ahern, ''[http://www.sun-at-midnight.com/ Sun at Midnight: the Rudolf Steiner Movement and Gnosis in the West, 2nd edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100117174448/http://www.sun-at-midnight.com/ |date=17 January 2010}}'', 2009, James Clark and Co, {{ISBN|978-0-227-17293-3}}, p. 43</ref>

By 1907, a split between Steiner and the Theosophical Society became apparent. While the Society was oriented toward an [[Orient|Eastern]] and especially [[India]]n approach, Steiner was trying to develop a path that embraced [[Christianity]] and [[natural science]].<ref name="Lachman">Gary Lachman, ''Rudolf Steiner'', New York:Tarcher/Penguin {{ISBN|978-1-58542-543-3}}</ref> The split became irrevocable when [[Annie Besant]], then president of the Theosophical Society, presented the child [[Jiddu Krishnamurti]] as the [[reincarnation|reincarnated]] Christ. Steiner strongly objected and considered any comparison between Krishnamurti and Christ to be nonsense; many years later, Krishnamurti also repudiated the assertion. Steiner's continuing differences with Besant led him to separate from the [[Theosophical Society Adyar]]. He was subsequently followed by the great majority of the Theosophical Society's German members, as well as many members of other national sections.<ref name="ahern2edAnthSec" /><ref name="Lachman" />

By this time, Steiner had reached considerable stature as a spiritual teacher and [[List of occult writers|expert in the occult]].<ref>Ahern, Geoffrey. (1984): Sun at Midnight: the Rudolf Steiner movement and the Western esoteric tradition</ref> He spoke about what he considered to be his direct experience of the [[Akashic Records]] (sometimes called the "Akasha Chronicle"), thought to be a spiritual chronicle of the history, pre-history, and future of the world and mankind. In a number of works,<ref>especially ''How to Know Higher Worlds'' and ''An Outline of Esoteric Science''</ref> Steiner described a path of inner development he felt would let anyone attain comparable spiritual experiences. In Steiner's view, sound vision could be developed, in part, by practicing rigorous forms of ethical and cognitive self-discipline, concentration, and meditation. In particular, Steiner believed a person's spiritual development could occur only after a period of moral development.<ref name="Essential" />

[[File:Goetheanum Dornach.jpg|thumb|right|Second [[Goetheanum]], seat of the Anthroposophical Society]]
In 1912, Steiner broke away from the ''Theosophical Society'' to found an independent group, which he named the ''Anthroposophical Society.'' After [[World War I]], members of the young society began applying Steiner's ideas to create cultural movements in areas such as [[Waldorf education|traditional]] and [[Camphill Movement|special education]], farming, and [[anthroposophical medicine|medicine]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Uhrmacher |first=P. Bruce |date=Winter 1995 |title=Uncommon Schooling: A Historical Look at Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy, and Waldorf Education |journal=Curriculum Inquiry |volume=25 |issue=4 |pages=381–406 |doi=10.2307/1180016 |jstor=1180016}}</ref>

By 1923, a schism had formed between older members, focused on inner development, and younger members eager to become active in contemporary social transformations. In response, Steiner attempted to bridge the gap by establishing an overall School for ''Spiritual Science''. As a spiritual basis for the reborn movement, Steiner wrote a ''Foundation Stone Meditation'' which remains a central touchstone of anthroposophical ideas.<ref>{{Cite web |title=GA260 – The Foundation Stone Meditation |url=https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/19231227p02.html |access-date=17 October 2022 |website=The Rudolf Steiner Archive}}</ref>

=== Nazi period ===

Steiner died just over a year later, in 1925. The Second World War temporarily hindered the anthroposophical movement in most of Continental Europe, as the Anthroposophical Society and most of its practical counter-cultural applications were banned by the [[National Socialist|Nazi government]].<ref name="Hansen-Schaberg 2006 p. ">{{Cite book |title=Waldorf-Pädagogik |date=2006 |publisher=Schneider-Verl. Hohengehren |isbn=3-8340-0042-6 |editor-last=Hansen-Schaberg |editor-first=Inge |editor-link=Inge Hansen-Schaberg |publication-place=Baltmannsweiler |language=de |editor-last2=Schonig |editor-first2=Bruno}}</ref> Though at least one prominent member of the Nazi Party, [[Rudolf Hess]], was a strong supporter of anthroposophy,<ref name="g287">{{cite book | last=Staudenmaier | first=Peter | editor-last=Manthripragada | editor-first=Ashwin | editor-last2=Mušanović | editor-first2=Emina | editor-last3=Theison | editor-first3=Dagmar | title=The Threat and Allure of the Magical: Selected Papers from the 17th Annual Interdisciplinary German Studies Conference, University of California, Berkeley | publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publisher | year=2013 | isbn=978-1-4438-6586-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VzYyBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA44 | access-date=15 November 2024 | pages=44–46 | quote=Without endorsing Steiner's doctrines as a whole, Nazi leaders like Hess, Ohlendorf, and Baeumler considered specific aspects of anthroposophy, both ideological and practical, to be compatible with and complementary to National Socialist principles.}}</ref> very few anthroposophists belonged to the National Socialist Party.<ref>Sources for 'Nazi Party':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Dugan|2007|pp=74–76}}|{{cite book|title=Anthroposophie in Deutschland: Theosophische Weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Praxis 1884–1945|first1=Helmut|last1=Zander|language=de|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht|year=2007|location=Göttingen|isbn=978-3-525-55452-4|page=250}}|{{cite thesis |last1=Priestman |first1=Karen |date=2009 |title=Illusion of Coexistence: The Waldorf Schools in the Third Reich, 1933–1941 |type=PhD dissertation |publisher=Wilfrid Laurier University |url=https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/1080/ |access-date=16 March 2023 |isbn=978-0-494-54260-6 }}|{{Cite web |last=Ernst |first=Edzard |title=Rudolf Hess (Hitler's deputy) on alternative medicine |url=https://edzardernst.com/2015/01/rudolf-hess-hitlers-deputy-on-alternative-medicine/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190929125131/https://edzardernst.com/2015/01/rudolf-hess-hitlers-deputy-on-alternative-medicine/ |archive-date=29 September 2019 |access-date=29 November 2018 |website=Edzard Ernst}}|{{cite book |last1=Staudenmaier |first1=Peter |title=Between occultism and Nazism: anthroposophy and the politics of race in the fascist era |date=2014 |publisher=Aries Books |isbn=978-90-04-27015-2 |pages=101–145 |url=http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/b9789004270152_005 |access-date=29 November 2018 |archive-date=29 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181129100522/http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/b9789004270152_005 |url-status=live }}}}</ref> In reality, Steiner had both enemies and loyal supporters in the upper echelons of the Nazi regime.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=118–119}} Staudenmaier speaks of the "polycratic party-state apparatus", so Nazism's approach to Anthroposophy was not characterized by monolithic ideological unity.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=104}} When Hess flew to the UK and was imprisoned, their most powerful protector was gone,<ref name="Rieppel 2016 p. 246" /><ref name="Douglas-Hamilton 2012 p. 106" /><ref name="Tucker 2018 p. 165" /> but Anthroposophists were still not left without supporters among higher-placed Nazis.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=103–106}}

As Cristina Burack put it, "Steiner's contradictory views meant that anthroposophy was both attractive and a threat to the Nazi movement."<ref name="o449">{{cite web | last=Burack | first=Cristina | title=Waldorf schools and Weleda founder: Who was Rudolf Steiner? – DW – 03/28/2025 | website=dw.com | date=28 March 2025 | url=https://www.dw.com/en/who-was-waldorf-schools-founder-rudolf-steiner/a-71920999 | access-date=7 November 2025}}</ref> According to Staudenmaier, "He sometimes held antisemitic views and philosemitic views at the same time".<ref name="o449"/>

The Third Reich had banned almost all esoteric organizations, claiming that these were controlled by Jews.<ref name="Sutin 2014 p. 506">{{Cite book |last=Sutin |first=Lawrence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p9iZAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT506 |title=Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley |publisher=St. Martin's Publishing Group |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4668-7526-5 |page=unpaginated |quote=for the Third Reich had outlawed virtually all esoteric groups (alleged to be under covert Jewish control) in Germany |access-date=9 February 2023}}</ref> The truth was that while Anthroposophists complained of bad press, they were to a surprising extent tolerated by the Nazi regime, "including outspokenly supportive pieces in the ''Völkischer Beobachter''".{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=174|ps=: "Though anthroposophists complained regularly about negative publicity, Steiner's movement received remarkably positive press coverage in the Nazi era, including outspokenly supportive pieces in the ''Völkischer Beobachter''.<sup>108</sup> Anthroposophist authors generally encountered few difficulties in publishing their work,<sup>109</sup> SD specialists on occult groups made suppression of anthroposophist publications a priority, but met with relatively little success. They argued that misuse of terms such as "race, nation, community, Germanness" by non-Nazi authors, even if sincere and well-meaning, "must be regarded as an attack on the National Socialist worldview."<sup>110</sup> Criticizing "materialist misinterpretations" of Nazi racial theory, they contended that the Nazi conception of race united the biological with the spiritual, the physical with the soul, into one comprehensive synthesis. The SD was especially wary of spiritual groups claiming that Nazism had "adopted" some of their own ideas or that their teachings had all along been in concert with National Socialist precepts. Movements like anthroposophy, from this point of view, represented unwelcome competition."}} Ideological purists from [[Sicherheitsdienst]] argued largely in vain against Anthroposophy.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=174|ps=: "Though anthroposophists complained regularly about negative publicity, Steiner's movement received remarkably positive press coverage in the Nazi era, including outspokenly supportive pieces in the ''Völkischer Beobachter''.<sup>108</sup> Anthroposophist authors generally encountered few difficulties in publishing their work,<sup>109</sup> SD specialists on occult groups made suppression of anthroposophist publications a priority, but met with relatively little success. They argued that misuse of terms such as "race, nation, community, Germanness" by non-Nazi authors, even if sincere and well-meaning, "must be regarded as an attack on the National Socialist worldview."<sup>110</sup> Criticizing "materialist misinterpretations" of Nazi racial theory, they contended that the Nazi conception of race united the biological with the spiritual, the physical with the soul, into one comprehensive synthesis. The SD was especially wary of spiritual groups claiming that Nazism had "adopted" some of their own ideas or that their teachings had all along been in concert with National Socialist precepts. Movements like anthroposophy, from this point of view, represented unwelcome competition."}} According to Staudenmaier, "The prospect of unmitigated persecution was held at bay for years in a tenuous truce between pro-anthroposophical and anti-anthroposophical Nazi factions."{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=118–119}}

{{blockquote|The anti-esoteric faction ensconced in the SD and Gestapo recognized that they faced influential adversaries in other sectors of the Nazi hierarchy. They knew that Hess and his staff, Baeumler in the ''Amt Rosenberg,'' and Ohlendorf in the SD itself were willing to intervene on behalf of anthroposophical endeavors. Minister of Agriculture Darré and Lotar Eickhoff in the Interior Ministry were also seen as sympathizers of anthroposophy, and the SD considered the head of the party's "Examination Commission for Safeguarding National Socialist Writings," Karl Heinz Hederich, a supporter of occultists and astrologers.{{sup|52}}|{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2014|p=228}}}}
{{blockquote|While anthroposophists were in the center of the SD's sights, they were supposed to receive relatively mild treatment compared to other occultists.|{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2014|p=236}}}}

{{blockquote|Despite these measures, anthroposophist authors were able to write long after June 1941. Franz Dreidax, Max Karl Schwarz, Elisabeth Klein, Johannes Bertram-Pingel, Georg Halbe, Otto Julius Hartmann, Rudolf Hauschka, Jürgen von Grone, Wolfgang Schuchhardt and others continued to publish throughout the war. But serious disruptions were common.|{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2014|p=238}}}}

Morals: Anthroposophy was not the stake of that dispute, but merely powerful Nazis wanting to get rid of other powerful Nazis.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=215}} E.g. [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] were treated much more aggressively than Anthroposophists.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=173–174}}

{{blockquote|Yet, the relative moderation of Heydrich's action, which paled in comparison to measures taken against communists and socialists, Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as the mentally and physically disabled, continued to reflect the Third Reich's underlying ambivalence toward policing the occult.|{{harvnb|Kurlander|2015a|p=514}}}}

Kurlander stated that "the Nazis were hardly ideologically opposed to the supernatural sciences themselves"—rather they objected to the free (i.e. non-totalitarian) pursuit of supernatural sciences.<ref name="Black Kurlander 2015 p. 149">{{Cite book |last=Kurlander |first=Eric |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hlS3CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA149 |title=Revisiting the "Nazi Occult": Histories, Realities, Legacies |publisher=Camden House |year=2015b |isbn=978-1-57113-906-1 |editor-last=Black |editor-first=Monica |series=German history in context |page=149 |quote=the Nazis were hardly ideologically opposed to the supernatural sciences themselves. |access-date=16 March 2024 |editor-last2=Kurlander |editor-first2=Eric}}</ref>

According to Hans Büchenbacher, an anthroposophist, the Secretary General of the General Anthroposophical Society, Guenther Wachsmuth, as well as Steiner's widow, Marie Steiner, were "completely pro-Nazi."<ref name="Büchenbacher">Staudenmaier (2014: 18, 79). Quote: Though raised Catholic, Büchenbacher had partial Jewish ancestry and was considered a "half-Jew" by Nazi standards. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1936. According to his post-war memoirs, "approximately two thirds of German anthroposophists more or less succumbed to National Socialism." He reported that various influential anthroposophists were "deeply infected by Nazi views" and "staunchly supported Hitler." Both Guenther Wachsmuth, Secretary of the Swiss-based General Anthroposophical Society, and Marie Steiner, the widow of Rudolf Steiner, were described as "completely pro-Nazi." Büchenbacher retrospectively lamented the far-reaching "Nazi sins" of his colleagues.{{sup|59}}</ref> Marie Steiner-von Sivers, Guenther Wachsmuth, and Albert Steffen, had publicly expressed sympathy for the Nazi regime since its beginnings; led by such sympathies of their leadership, the Swiss and German Anthroposophical organizations chose for a path conflating accommodation with collaboration, which in the end ensured that while the Nazi regime hunted the esoteric organizations, Gentile Anthroposophists from Nazi Germany and countries occupied by it were let be to a surprising extent.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=103–106}} Of course they had some setbacks from the enemies of Anthroposophy among the upper echelons of the Nazi regime, but Anthroposophists also had loyal supporters among them, so overall Gentile Anthroposophists were not badly hit by the Nazi regime.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=103–106}}

{{blockquote|Yet when Hitler threatened to suppress the Anthroposophical Society, its executive council—which had recently expelled much of its membership—chose to collaborate rather than resist. Marie Steiner, Günther Wachsmuth, and Albert Steffen knew of Hitler's violent intentions toward the Jewish people, since Hitler's attacks on anthroposophy included the accusation that anthroposophy was aligned with the Jews. Rather than standing in solidarity with Hitler's other targets, they disavowed any sympathy for Judaism and assured Nazi leaders that both they and Steiner were of pure Aryan heritage.{{sup|44}}|{{harvnb|McKanan|2017|p=196}}}}

Staudenmaier's overall argument is that "there were often no clear-cut lines between theosophy, anthroposophy, [[ariosophy]], astrology and the ''völkisch'' movement from which the Nazi Party arose."<ref name="Koehne 2016 pp. 281–283">{{Cite journal |last=Koehne |first=Samuel |date=2016 |title=Revisiting the "Nazi Occult": Histories, Realities, Legacies. Edited by Monica Black and Eric Kurlander. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015. Pp. 306. Cloth $90.00. ISBN 978-1571139061. |journal=Central European History |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=281–283 |doi=10.1017/S0008938916000492 |issn=0008-9389 |s2cid=148281372 |quote=there were often no clear-cut lines between theosophy, anthroposophy, ariosophy, astrology and the ''völkisch'' movement from which the Nazi Party arose.}}</ref>

=== 21st century ===

By 2007, national branches of the Anthroposophical Society had been established in fifty countries and about 10,000 institutions around the world were working on the basis of anthroposophical ideas.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Goetheanum |url=http://www.goetheanum.org/121.html?&L=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930063201/http://www.goetheanum.org/121.html?&L=1 |archive-date=30 September 2011 |access-date=31 December 2013 |publisher=Goetheanum}}</ref>

===Etymology and earlier uses of the word===
''Anthroposophy'' is an amalgam of the [[Greek language|Greek]] terms {{lang|grc|[[:wikt:ἄνθρωπος|ἄνθρωπος]]}} ({{Lang|grc-latn|anthropos}} 'human') and {{lang|grc|[[Sophia (wisdom)|σοφία]]}} ({{Lang|grc-latn|sophia}} 'wisdom'). An early English usage is recorded by [[Nathan Bailey]] (1742) as meaning "the knowledge of the nature of man".<ref>"Anthroposophy", [[OED]]</ref>

[[File:Troxler Portrait 1830.jpg|thumb|right |upright|Ignaz Paul Vitalis Troxler]]
The first known use of the term ''anthroposophy'' occurs within ''[[Arbatel|Arbatel de magia veterum, summum sapientiae studium]]'', a book published anonymously in 1575 and attributed to [[Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim|Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa]]. The work describes anthroposophy (as well as theosophy) variously as an understanding of goodness, nature, or human affairs. In 1648, the Welsh philosopher [[Thomas Vaughan (philosopher)|Thomas Vaughan]] published his ''Anthroposophia Theomagica, or a discourse of the nature of man and his state after death.''<ref>Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes): ''Anthroposophia Theomagica, or a discourse of the nature of man and his state after death.'' Oxford 1648</ref>

The term began to appear with some frequency in philosophical works of the mid- and late-nineteenth century.<ref>The term was used for example in a [http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ilej/image1.pl?item=page&seq=1&size=1&id=nq.1863.5.9.3.71.x.373 discussion of Boehme] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928235524/http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/ilej/image1.pl?item=page&seq=1&size=1&id=nq.1863.5.9.3.71.x.373 |date=28 September 2018}} in ''[[Notes and Queries]]'', 9 May 1863, p. 373</ref> In the early part of that century, [[Ignaz Paul Vitalis Troxler|Ignaz Troxler]] used the term ''anthroposophy'' to refer to philosophy deepened to self-knowledge, which he suggested allows deeper knowledge of nature as well. He spoke of human nature as a mystical unity of God and world. [[Immanuel Hermann Fichte]] used the term ''anthroposophy'' to refer to "rigorous human self-knowledge", achievable through thorough comprehension of the human spirit and of the working of God in this spirit, in his 1856 work ''Anthropology: The Study of the Human Soul''. In 1872, the philosopher of religion [[Gideon Spicker]] used the term ''anthroposophy'' to refer to self-knowledge that would unite God and world: "the true study of the human being is the human being, and philosophy's highest aim is self-knowledge, or Anthroposophy."<ref>''Die Philosophie des Grafen von Shaftesbury'', 1872</ref>

In 1882, the philosopher [[Robert von Zimmermann|Robert Zimmermann]] published the treatise, "An Outline of Anthroposophy: Proposal for a System of Idealism on a Realistic Basis," proposing that idealistic philosophy should employ logical thinking to extend empirical experience.<ref>''Anthroposophie im Umriß. Entwurf eines Systems idealer Weltsicht auf realistischer Grundlage'', 1882</ref> Steiner attended lectures by Zimmermann at the [[University of Vienna]] in the early 1880s, thus at the time of this book's publication.<ref>Robert Zimmermann ''Geschichte der Aesthetik als philosophische Wissenschaft. Vienna, 1858. Anthroposophie im Umriss-Entwurf eines Systems idealer Weltansicht auf realistischer Grundlage.'' (Vienna, 1882): Steiner, ''Anthroposophic Movement'': Lecture Two: ''The Unveiling of Spiritual Truths'', 11 June 1923.[http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA258/English/RSP1993/19230611p01.html]</ref>

In the early 1900s, Steiner began using the term ''anthroposophy'' (i.e. human wisdom) as an alternative to the term ''theosophy'' (i.e. divine wisdom).

==Central ideas==

===Spiritual knowledge and freedom===
Anthroposophical proponents aim to extend the clarity of the [[scientific method]] to phenomena of human soul-life and spiritual experiences. Steiner believed this required developing new faculties of objective spiritual perception, which he maintained was still possible for contemporary humans. The steps of this process of inner development he identified as consciously achieved ''[[imagination]]'', ''[[:wikt:inspiration|inspiration]]'', and ''[[Intuition (knowledge)|intuition]]''.<ref name="Schneider">{{Cite book |last=Schneider |first=Peter |title=Einführung in die Waldorfpädagogik |date=1985 |publisher=Klett-Cotta |isbn=3-608-93006-X |publication-place=Stuttgart |language=de}}</ref> Steiner believed results of this form of spiritual research should be expressed in a way that can be understood and evaluated on the same basis as the results of natural science.<ref name="Willmann" /><ref name="Schneider20" />

Steiner hoped to form a spiritual movement that would free the individual from any external authority.<ref name="Schneider20">{{harvnb|Schneider|1985|pp=20–21}}, Schneider quotes here from Steiner's dissertation, ''Truth and Knowledge''</ref> For Steiner, the human capacity for [[rationality|rational]] thought would allow individuals to comprehend spiritual research on their own and bypass the danger of dependency on an authority such as himself.<ref name="Schneider20" />

Steiner contrasted the anthroposophical approach with both conventional [[mysticism]], which he considered lacking the clarity necessary for exact knowledge, and [[natural science]], which he considered arbitrarily limited to what can be seen, heard, or felt with the outward senses.

===Nature of the human being===
[[File:Representative of humanity.gif|thumb|upright|''The Representative of Humanity'', detail of a sculpture in wood by Rudolf Steiner and [[Edith Maryon]]<ref name="EM" />]]

In ''Theosophy'', Steiner suggested that human beings unite a ''physical body'' of substances gathered from and returning to the inorganic world; a ''life body'' (also called the [[etheric body]]), in common with all living creatures (including plants); a bearer of [[sentience]] or [[consciousness]] (also called the [[astral body]]), in common with all [[animal]]s; and the ego, which anchors the faculty of self-awareness unique to human beings.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |author-link=Rudolf Steiner |url=https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/AP1971/GA009_c01_4.html |title=Theosophy – An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man |date=2011 |orig-date=first published 1922 |publisher=Martino Fine Books |location=Mansfield Center, Connecticut |isbn=978-1-61427-050-8 |page=<!-- or pages= --> |chapter=1. The Essential Nature of Man}}</ref>

Anthroposophy describes a broad evolution of human consciousness. Early stages of human evolution possess an intuitive perception of reality, including a [[clairvoyance|clairvoyant]] perception of spiritual realities. Humanity has progressively evolved an increasing reliance on [[intellect]]ual faculties and a corresponding loss of intuitive or clairvoyant experiences, which have become [[atavism|atavistic]]. The increasing intellectualization of consciousness, initially a progressive direction of evolution, has led to an excessive reliance on [[abstraction]] and a loss of contact with both natural and spiritual realities. However, to go further requires new capacities that combine the clarity of intellectual thought with the imagination and with consciously achieved inspiration and [[Intuition (knowledge)|intuitive]] insights.<ref name="RAMcD">{{Cite book |last=McDermott |first=Robert A. |title=Modern Esoteric Spirituality |date=1995 |publisher=Crossroad Publishing |isbn=978-0-8245-1444-0 |editor-last=Faivre |editor-first=Antoine |publication-place=New York |pages=299–301, 288ff |chapter=Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy |editor-last2=Needleman |editor-first2=Jacob |editor-last3=Voss |editor-first3=Karen}}</ref>

Anthroposophy speaks of the reincarnation of the human spirit: that the human being passes between stages of existence, incarnating into an earthly body, living on earth, leaving the body behind, and entering into the spiritual worlds before returning to be born again into a new life on earth. After the [[death]] of the physical body, the human spirit recapitulates the past life, perceiving its events as they were experienced by the objects of its actions. A complex transformation takes place between the review of the past life and the preparation for the next life. The individual's [[karmic]] condition eventually leads to a choice of parents, physical body, disposition, and capacities that provide the challenges and opportunities that further development requires, which includes karmically chosen tasks for the future life.<ref name=RAMcD/>

Steiner described some conditions that determine the interdependence of a person's lives, or [[karma]].<ref>Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy, {{ISBN|0-85440-269-1}}</ref><ref>Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Esoteric Science, {{ISBN|0-88010-409-0}}</ref>

====Evolution====
The anthroposophical view of [[evolution]] considers all [[animals]] to have evolved from an early, unspecialized form. As the least specialized animal, human beings have maintained the closest connection to the archetypal form;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Verhulst |first=Jos |title=Developmental Dynamics |publisher=Adonis Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-932776-28-0 |location=Ghent, NY |pages=24–25}}</ref> contrary to the Darwinian conception of human evolution, all other animals ''devolve'' from this archetype.<ref name="Trevelyan 1981 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Trevelyan |first=George |title=Operation Redemption: A Vision of Hope in an Age of Turmoil |date=1981 |publisher=Turnstone |isbn=978-0-85500-150-6 |pages=117–118}}</ref> The spiritual archetype originally created by spiritual beings was devoid of physical substance; only later did this descend into material existence on Earth.<ref>Steiner, ''Man as Symphony of the Creative Word'' and ''Occult Science''</ref> In this view, human evolution has accompanied the Earth's evolution throughout the existence of the Earth.

{{Blockquote|1=The evolution of man, Steiner said, has consisted in the gradual incarnation of a spiritual being into a material body. It has been a true "descent" of man from a spiritual world into a world of matter. The evolution of the animal kingdom did not precede, but rather ''accompanied'' the process of human incarnation. Man is thus not the end result of the evolution of the animals, but is rather in a certain sense their ''cause''. In the succession of types which appears in the fossil record-the fishes, reptiles, mammals, and finally fossil remains of man himself — the stages of this process of incarnation are reflected.<ref name="Harwood 1961 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Waterman |first=John |title=The Faithful Thinker: Centenary Essays on the Work and Thought of Rudolf Steiner, 1861-1925 |publisher=Hodder and Stoughton |year=1961 |editor-last=Harwood |editor-first=A.C. |page=45 |chapter=Evolution and The Image of Man |access-date=16 March 2024 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHASSQAACAAJ}}</ref>|2={{harvnb|Waterman|1961|p=45}}}}

Anthroposophy adapted [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|Theosophy]]'s complex system of cycles of world development and human evolution. The evolution of the world is said to have occurred in cycles. The first phase of the world consisted only of heat. In the second phase, a more active condition, light, and a more condensed, gaseous state separate out from the heat. In the third phase, a fluid state arose, as well as a sounding, forming energy. In the fourth (current) phase, solid physical matter first exists. This process is said to have been accompanied by an evolution of consciousness which led up to present human culture.

===Ethics===
The anthroposophical view is that good is found in the balance between two polar influences on world and human evolution. These are often described through their mythological embodiments as spiritual adversaries which endeavour to tempt and corrupt humanity, [[Lucifer]] and his counterpart [[Ahriman]]. These have both positive and negative aspects. Lucifer is the light spirit, which "plays on human pride and offers the delusion of divinity", but also motivates [[creativity]] and [[spirituality]]; Ahriman is the dark spirit that tempts human beings to "...deny [their] link with divinity and to live [[materialism|entirely on the material plane]]", but that also stimulates intellectuality and [[technology]]. Both figures exert a negative effect on humanity when their influence becomes misplaced or one-sided, yet their influences are necessary for human freedom to unfold.<ref name="Essential" /><ref name="Willmann" />

Each human being has the task to find a balance between these opposing influences, and each is helped in this task by the mediation of the ''Representative of Humanity'', also known as the Christ being, a spiritual entity who stands between and harmonizes the two extremes.<ref name="Willmann" />

==Claimed applications==
{{further|Rudolf Steiner#Breadth of activity}}

===Rationale===

{{block quote|1=As noted by Hammer, this means that anthroposophy harbors extensive empirical claims on "the most diverse subjects: matters normally defined as belonging to the domain of science, yet made immune to scientific critique because of Steiner's radical dichotomy—agronomy, chemistry, pharmacology, physiology, anatomy, developmental psychology, astronomy, physics etc." (Hammer 2004, 227).{{sfn|Hansson|2022}}|2={{harvnb|Hansson|2022}}}}

[[Libération]] described Steiner's claims as fantasist theories; it also notes that this did not prevent him from getting traction.<ref name="p421">{{cite web | last=Lecaplain | first=Guillaume | title=L'anthroposophie est-elle une secte ? | website=Libération | date=30 October 2018 | url=https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/10/30/l-anthroposophie-est-elle-une-secte_1688775/ | language=fr | access-date=14 July 2025}}</ref><ref name="d484">See also {{cite web | last=Vaugrenard | first=Yannick | title=Lutte contre les dérives sectaires et anthroposophie | website=Sénat | date=14 November 2019 | url=https://www.senat.fr/questions/base/2019/qSEQ191113035.html | language=fr | access-date=14 July 2025}}</ref>

===Steiner/Waldorf education===
{{Main|Waldorf education}}
There is a pedagogical movement with over 1000 [[Waldorf education|Steiner or Waldorf schools]] (the latter name stems from the first such school, founded in Stuttgart in 1919)<ref>Paull, John (2011) [https://www.academia.edu/9168722/Rudolf_Steiner_and_the_Oxford_Conference_The_birth_of_Waldorf_education_in_Britain Rudolf Steiner and the Oxford Conference: The Birth of Waldorf Education in Britain] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190819215344/https://www.academia.edu/9168722/Rudolf_Steiner_and_the_Oxford_Conference_The_birth_of_Waldorf_education_in_Britain |date=19 August 2019}}. European Journal of Educational Studies, 3 (1): 53–66.</ref> located in some 60 countries; the great majority of these are independent (private) schools.<ref>German Education Research Group, [http://www.waldorfschule.info/index.71.0.3.html "International Associations and Waldorf Schools in alphabetical order of country"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080916210620/http://www.waldorfschule.info/index.71.0.3.html |date=16 September 2008 }}</ref> Sixteen of the schools have been affiliated with the United Nations' [[UNESCO ASPNet|UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network]], which sponsors education projects that foster improved quality of education throughout the world.<ref>[http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001223/122345E.pdf Agenda Fact Sheet, ''United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization'',  18 April 2001] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070628123844/http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001223/122345E.pdf |date=28 June 2007}} The foundation, [[Friends of Waldorf Education]] (Freunde der Erziehungskunst), is one of the 26 non-governmental organizations worldwide to maintain official relations with UNESCO. [http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=32925&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html UNESCO Official Relations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191206100505/http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID%3D32925%26URL_DO%3DDO_PRINTPAGE%26URL_SECTION%3D201.html |date=6 December 2019}}</ref> Waldorf schools receive full or partial governmental funding in some European nations, Australia and in parts of the United States (as Waldorf method public or charter schools) and Canada.

The schools have been founded in a variety of communities: for example in the ''[[favela]]s'' of São Paulo<ref name="White">White, Ralph, [http://www.lapismagazine.org/archives/L08/querido-interview.html Interview with Rene M. Querido] ''Lapis Magazine'' {{dead link|date=July 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> to wealthy suburbs of major cities;<ref name="White" /> in India, [[SEKEM|Egypt]], Australia, the Netherlands, Mexico and South Africa. Though most of the early Waldorf schools were teacher-founded, the schools today are usually initiated and later supported by a parent community.<ref name="Ullrich" /> Waldorf schools are among the most visible anthroposophical institutions.<ref name="Ullrich">{{Cite journal |last=Ullrich |first=Heiner |year=2000 |orig-date=1994 |title=Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) |url=http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/steinere.pdf |journal=Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education |location=Paris |publisher=UNESCO: International Bureau of Education |volume=XXIV |issue=3/4 |pages=8–9 [555–572] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924041958/http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/steinere.pdf |archive-date=24 September 2015}}</ref><ref name="Lenart">Lenart, Claudia M: [http://www.consciouschoice.com/2003/cc1606/steinerchicago1606.html "Steiner's Chicago Legacy Shines Brightly"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061018121557/http://www.consciouschoice.com/2003/cc1606/steinerchicago1606.html |date=18 October 2006}}, ''Conscious Choice'' June 2003</ref>

Benjamin Lazier calls Steiner a "maverick educator".<ref name="r012">{{cite book | last=Lazier | first=Benjamin | title=God Interrupted | publisher=Princeton University Press | publication-place=Princeton (N.J.) | date=2008 | isbn=978-0-691-13670-7 | page=29 | quote=By the 1920s gnosticism (the term) had hardly a vestige of an agreed-upon meaning. That gnosticism had returned in some form was a sentiment shared by many, but what that meant was up for debate. Some, notably those on the occult scene inspired by the maverick educator Rudolf Steiner, greeted the new age with enthusiasm.}}</ref>

===Biodynamic agriculture===
{{Main|Biodynamic agriculture}}
Biodynamic agriculture, is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Lejano |first1=Raul P. |title=Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks |last2=Ingram |first2=Mrill |last3=Ingram |first3=Helen M. |publisher=MIT Press |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-262-51957-1 |page=155 |chapter=Chapter 6: Narratives of Nature and Science in Alternative Farming Networks}}</ref> It was also the first intentional form of organic farming,<ref name=Lenart/> begun in 1924, when Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures published in English as ''The Agriculture Course''.<ref name="first">Paull, John (2011) [http://orgprints.org/18809/1/Paull2011KoberwitzEJSS.pdf . "Attending the First Organic Agriculture Course: Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, 1924"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191229042256/https://orgprints.org/18809/1/Paull2011KoberwitzEJSS.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://orgprints.org/18809/1/Paull2011KoberwitzEJSS.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |date=29 December 2019}}, ''European Journal of Social Sciences'', 21(1):64–70.</ref> Steiner is considered one of the founders of the modern [[organic farming]] movement.<ref name="Ferree Warrington 2003 p. ">{{Cite book |last1=Ferree |first1=David Curtis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MmuBCwAAQBAJ |title=Apples: Botany, Production, and Uses |last2=Warrington |first2=Ian J. |publisher=CABI Pub. |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-85199-592-2 |series=CABI Publishing Series |page=553 |access-date=16 March 2024}}</ref><ref>David Kupfer, [http://www.wildnesswithin.com/kupfer.html "Trailblazers, Heroes & Pioneers: The Organic Farming Movement"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009183558/http://www.wildnesswithin.com/kupfer.html |date=9 October 2007}}</ref>

"And Himmler, Hess, and Darré all promoted biodynamic (anthroposophic) approaches to farming as an alternative to industrial agriculture."<ref name="Kurlander 2015 pp. 498–522"/><ref name="x531">Cf. {{cite book | last=François | first=Stéphane | title=Nazi Occultism: Between the SS and Esotericism | publisher=Taylor & Francis | date=2023 | isbn=978-1-000-84004-9 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NR-pEAAAQBAJ&dq=rudolf+steiner+heterodox&pg=PT136 | access-date=26 May 2025 | quote=his defence of the biodynamic agriculture of the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner | chapter=10. Michael Moynihan and the Wulfing Kindred | pages=124–135 | doi=10.4324/9781003278191-13}}</ref> "'[...] with the active cooperation of the Reich League for Biodynamic Agriculture' [...] Pancke, Pohl, and Hans Merkel established additional biodynamic plantations across the eastern territories as well as Dachau, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz concentration camps. Many were staffed by anthroposophists."<ref name="Kurlander 2017 pp. 231–262">{{Cite book |last=Kurlander |first=Eric |title=Hitler's Monsters |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-300-18945-2 |pages=239–240 |chapter=Monstrous Science: Racial Resettlement, Human Experiments, and the Holocaust |jstor=j.ctt1q31shs.13 |quote='[...] with the active cooperation of the Reich League for Biodynamic Agriculture' [...] Pancke, Pohl, and Hans Merkel established additional biodynamic plantations across the eastern territories as well as Dachau, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz concentration camps. Many were staffed by anthroposophists. }}</ref>

"Steiner's 'biodynamic agriculture' based on 'restoring the quasi-mystical relationship between earth and the cosmos' was widely accepted in the Third Reich (28)."<ref name="Purcell 2018 t965">{{Cite web |last=Purcell |first=Brendan |date=24 June 2018 |title=Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich |url=https://voegelinview.com/9101-2/ |access-date=28 February 2024 |website=VoegelinView}}</ref>

===Anthroposophical medicine===
{{Main|Anthroposophical medicine}}
Anthroposophical medicine is a form of [[alternative medicine]] based on [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] and [[occult]] notions rather than in [[science-based medicine]].<ref name="teils">{{Cite journal |last1=Kienle |first1=Gunver S. |last2=Kiene |first2=Helmut |last3=Albonico |first3=Hans Ulrich |year=2006 |title=Anthroposophische Medizin: Health Technology Assessment Bericht – Kurzfassung |journal=Forschende Komplementärmedizin |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=7–18 |doi=10.1159/000093481 |pmid=16883076 |s2cid=72253140 |quote=teils ergänzend und teils ersetzend zur konventionellen Medizin}} ''Cited in'' {{cite journal |pmid=18540325 |year=2008 |last1=Ernst |first1=Edzard |title=Anthroposophic medicine: A critical analysis |volume=150 |pages=1–6 |journal=MMW Fortschritte der Medizin |issue=Suppl 1}}</ref>

Most anthroposophic medical preparations are highly diluted, like homeopathic remedies, while harmless in of themselves, using them in place of conventional medicine to treat illness is ineffective and risks adverse consequences.<ref name="krit">{{Cite journal |last=Ernst |first=Edzard |year=2008 |title=Anthroposophic medicine: A critical analysis |journal=MMW Fortschritte der Medizin |volume=150 |issue=Suppl 1 |pages=1–6 |pmid=18540325}}</ref>

One of the most studied applications has been the use of mistletoe extracts in cancer therapy,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Study by the National Cancer Institute on mistletoe's use for treating cancer |url=http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/mistletoe |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101221133732/http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/mistletoe |archive-date=21 December 2010 |access-date=31 December 2013|website=Cancer.gov}}</ref> but research has found no evidence of benefit.<ref name="coch-2010">{{Cite journal |vauthors=Horneber MA, Bueschel G, Huber R, Linde K, Rostock M |year=2008 |title=Mistletoe therapy in oncology |journal=Cochrane Database Syst Rev |type=Systematic review |volume=2020 |issue=2 |article-number=CD003297 |doi=10.1002/14651858.CD003297.pub2 |pmc=7144832 |pmid=18425885 |quote=The review found that there was not enough evidence to reach clear conclusions about the effects on any of these outcomes and it is therefore not clear to what extent the application of mistletoe extracts translates into improved symptom control, enhanced tumour response or prolonged survival.}}</ref><ref name=ACS>{{cite book | last1=Ades | first1=Terri | last2=Russell | first2=Jill | last3=Rovere | first3=Amy | last4=Rosenthal | first4=David | author5=[[:en:American Cancer Society|American Cancer Society]] | title=American Cancer Society complete guide to complementary & alternative cancer therapies | publisher=American Cancer Society | publication-place=Atlanta, Ga. | year=2009 | isbn=978-0-944235-71-3 | oclc=1513785276 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/americancancerso0000unse/page/424 424–428] |chapter=Mistletoe |quote=Available evidence from well-designed clinical trials does not support claims that mistletoe can improve length or quality of life. |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americancancerso0000unse/page/424|language=en}}</ref>

[[Joseph A. Schwarcz]] regards Steiner as a [[quackery|quack]].{{sfn|Schwarcz|2022|pp=52–54|ps=: "To a scientist, this of course is silly stuff. Even Steiner admitted this. 'I know perfectly well that all of this may seem utterly mad,' he once said. 'I only ask that you remember how many things have seemed utterly mad which have nonetheless been introduced a few years later.' An interesting notion, but quite misleading. The fact is that most ideas that seem utterly mad, are utterly mad."}}

===Special needs education and services===
{{Main|Camphill Movement}} {{See also|Garvald Centres}}
In 1922, [[Ita Wegman]] founded an anthroposophical center for special needs education, the Sonnenhof, in Switzerland. In 1940, [[Karl König]] founded the [[Camphill Movement]] in Scotland. The latter in particular has spread widely, and there are now over a hundred Camphill communities and other anthroposophical homes for children and adults in need of special care in about 22 countries around the world.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Camphill |url=http://www.camphill.org/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208172552/http://www.camphill.org/ |archive-date=8 February 2007 |access-date=22 February 2007}}</ref> Both Karl König, [[Thomas Weihs]] and others have written extensively on these ideas underlying Special education.<ref name="König 2009 p. ">{{Cite book |last=König |first=Karl |title=The Child with Special Needs |date=2009 |publisher=Floris Books |isbn=978-0-86315-693-9}}</ref><ref name="Weihs 2000 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Weihs |first=Thomas J. |title=Children in Need of Special Care |date=2000 |publisher=Souvenir Press |isbn=978-0-285-63569-2}}</ref>

===Architecture===
[[File:First Goetheanum.jpg|thumb|right|The first [[Goetheanum]], designed by Steiner in 1920, [[Dornach]], Switzerland]]
Steiner designed around thirteen buildings in an [[organic architecture|organic]]—[[expressionist architecture|expressionist architectural]] style.<ref>Sharp, Dennis, ''Rudolf Steiner and the Way to a New Style in Architecture'', Architectural Association Journal, June 1963</ref><ref name="g594">{{cite book | last=Sokolina | first=Anna P. | chapter=Biology in Architecture: The Goetheanum Case Study | title=The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture | publisher=Routledge | date=2016 | isbn=978-1-317-41951-8 | doi=10.4324/9781315687896 | url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317419518 | access-date=7 July 2025 | pages=52–70 | editor-last1=Terranova | editor-first1=Charissa | editor-last2=Tromble | editor-first2=Meredith}}</ref> Foremost among these are his designs for the two Goetheanum buildings in Dornach, Switzerland.<ref name="a141">{{cite book | last=Sokolina | first=Anna | title=Modernity and the Construction of Sacred Space | chapter=Modernist Topologies: The Goetheanum In-Building | isbn=978-3-11-106262-4 | doi=10.1515/9783111062624-008 | doi-access=free | pages=149–168 | editor-last1=French | editor-first1=Aaron | editor-last2=Waldner | editor-first2=Katharina | publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG | publication-place=Basel/Berlin/Boston | date=2024 | orig-date=2023}}</ref> Thousands of further buildings have been built by later generations of anthroposophic architects.<ref name="Verlag Freies Geistesleben 1982 p. ">{{Cite book |last1=Raab |first1=Rex |title=Die Waldorfschule baut: sechzig Jahre Architektur der Waldorfschulen: Schule als Entwicklungsraum menschengemässer Baugestaltung |last2=Klingborg |first2=Arne |date=1982 |publisher=Verlag Freies Geistesleben |isbn=978-3-7725-0240-8 |publication-place=Stuttgart |language=de}}</ref><ref>Sokolina, Anna, ed., co-author, ''Architecture and Anthroposophy''. (Arkhitektura i Antroposofiia. bilingual ed.) 1st and 2nd edition. 268p. M.: KMK Scientific Press. 2001, {{ISBN|5-87317-074-6}}. 2010, {{ISBN|5-87317-660-4}}.</ref>

Architects who have been strongly influenced by the anthroposophic style include [[Imre Makovecz]] in Hungary,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Heathcote |first=Edwin |date=28 September 2011 |title=Imre Makovecz (1935–2011) |url=http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/imre-makovecz-%281935-%E2%80%93-2011%29/5025237.article |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131213022831/http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/imre-makovecz-%281935-%E2%80%93-2011%29/5025237.article |archive-date=13 December 2013|access-date=31 December 2013 |publisher=Bdonline.co.uk}}</ref> [[Hans Scharoun]] and Joachim Eble in Germany, [[Erik Asmussen]] in Sweden, [[Kenji Imai (architect)|Kenji Imai]] in Japan, [[Thomas Rau]], [[Anton Alberts (architect)|Anton Alberts]] and Max van Huut in the Netherlands, Christopher Day and Camphill Architects in the UK, Thompson and Rose in America, Denis Bowman in Canada, and [[Walter Burley Griffin]]<ref name="WBGriffin">Paull, John (2012) [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319670934_Walter_Burley_Griffin_and_Marion_Mahony_Griffin_Architects_of_Anthroposophy Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, Architects of Anthroposophy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180111165307/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319670934_Walter_Burley_Griffin_and_Marion_Mahony_Griffin_Architects_of_Anthroposophy |date=11 January 2018}}, Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania, 106:20–30.</ref> and [[Gregory Burgess]] in Australia.<ref name="Raab Klingborg Fant 1979 p. ">{{Cite book |last1=Raab |first1=Rex |title=Eloquent Concrete |last2=Klingborg |first2=Arne |last3=Fant |first3=Åke |date=1979 |publisher=Rudolph Steiner Press |isbn=978-0-85440-354-7}}</ref><ref name="Pearson 2001 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Pearson |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5fncJliXFdgC |title=New Organic Architecture: The Breaking Wave |publisher=University of California Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-520-23289-1 |series=A Gaia original |access-date=16 March 2024}}</ref><ref>Sokolina, Anna, "The Goetheanum Culture in Modern Architecture." In: Science, Education and Experimental Design (Nauka, obrazovaniie i eksperimental'noie proiektirovaniie. Trudy Markhi) (In Russian), edited by D.O. Shvidkovsky, G.V. Yesaulov, et al., 157–159. Moscow: Markhi, 2014. 536p.</ref>
[[ING House]] in [[Amsterdam]] is a contemporary building by an anthroposophical architect which has received awards for its [[ecological design]] and approach to a self-sustaining ecology as an [[autonomous building]] and example of [[sustainable architecture]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Meyer en van Schooten, Architect |url=http://www.urbika.com/firms/view/187-meyer-en-van-schooten |access-date=8 December 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100914052719/http://www.urbika.com/firms/view/187-meyer-en-van-schooten |archive-date=14 September 2010 |publisher=Urbika}}</ref>

===Eurythmy===
{{Main|Eurythmy}}
Together with [[Marie von Sivers]], Steiner developed [[eurythmy]], a [[performing art|performance art]] combining [[dance]], speech, and music.<ref name="Poplawski 1998 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Poplawski |first=Thomas |title=Eurythmy |date=1998 |publisher=Central European University Press |isbn=978-0-88010-459-3 |page=67}}</ref><ref>Ogletree, Earl J. [http://sed.sagepub.com/content/10/3/305.extract Eurythmy: A therapeutic art of movement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601024956/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002246697601000312 |date=1 June 2021}} ''Journal of Special Education'' Fall 1976 vol. 10 no. 3 305–319 {{doi|10.1177/002246697601000312}}</ref>

===Social finance and entrepreneurship===
{{See also|Social finance}}
Around the world today are a number of banks, companies, charities, and schools for developing co-operative forms of business using Steiner's ideas about economic associations, aiming at harmonious and socially responsible roles in the world economy.<ref name="Essential" /> The first anthroposophic bank was the ''[[GLS bank|Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken]]'' in [[Bochum]], Germany, founded in 1974.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken |url=http://www.gls.de/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130529145719/http://www.gls.de/ |archive-date=29 May 2013 |access-date=31 December 2013 |publisher=Gls.de}}</ref>
[[Socially responsible investing|Socially responsible banks]] founded out of anthroposophy include [[Triodos Bank]], founded in the [[Netherlands]] in 1980 and also active in the [[United Kingdom|UK]], Germany, [[Belgium]], [[Spain]] and [[France]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=29 April 2017 |title=Is Triodos the ethical bank that could replace the Co-op? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/29/triodos-ethical-bank-replace-co-op-bank |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411010936/https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/29/triodos-ethical-bank-replace-co-op-bank |archive-date=11 April 2021 |access-date=19 March 2021 |website=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> Other examples include [[Cultura Sparebank]] which dates from 1982 when a group of Norwegian anthroposophists began an initiative for ethical banking but only began to operate as a savings bank in [[Norway]] in the late 90s, La Nef in [[France]] and RSF Social Financein [[San Francisco]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Earth Times |url=http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,132566.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140101160356/http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,132566.shtml |archive-date=1 January 2014|access-date=31 December 2013 |publisher=Earth Times}}</ref>

Harvard Business School historian [[Geoffrey Jones (academic)|Geoffrey Jones]] traced the considerable impact both Steiner and later anthroposophical entrepreneurs had on the creation of many businesses in organic food, ecological architecture and [[sustainable finance]].<ref name="Jones2017">{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Geoffrey |title=Profits and Sustainability. A History of Green Entrepreneurship |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-019-870697-7}}</ref>

===Organizational development, counselling and biography work===
[[Bernard Lievegoed]], a psychiatrist, founded a new method of individual and institutional development oriented towards humanizing organizations and linked with Steiner's ideas of the threefold social order. This work is represented by the NPI Institute for Organizational Development in the Netherlands and sister organizations in many other countries.<ref name="Essential" />

===Speech and drama===
There are also anthroposophical movements to renew speech and drama, the most important of which are based in the work of [[Marie Steiner-von Sivers]] (''speech formation'', also known as ''Creative Speech'') and the ''Chekhov Method'' originated by [[Michael Chekhov]] (nephew of [[Anton Chekhov]]).<ref>Byckling, L: [https://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/01/chekhovwest.shtml Michael Chekhov as Actor, Teacher and Director in the West] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061231085044/http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/01/chekhovwest.shtml |date=31 December 2006 }}. ''[[Toronto Slavic Quarterly]]'' No 1 — Summer 2002. University of Toronto, Academic Electronic Journal in Slavic Studies.</ref>

===Art===
[[File:Groupeenbois.jpg|thumb|upright|''The Representative of Humanity'', by Rudolf Steiner and Edith Maryon]]
Anthroposophic painting, a style inspired by [[Rudolf Steiner]], featured prominently in the first [[Goetheanum]]'s cupola. The technique frequently begins by filling the surface to be painted with color, out of which forms are gradually developed, often images with symbolic-spiritual significance. Paints that allow for many transparent layers are preferred, and often these are derived from plant materials.{{sfn|Zander|2007|pp=381–382, 1080, 1105}} [[Rudolf Steiner]] appointed the English sculptor [[Edith Maryon]] as head of the School of [[Fine Art]] at the [[Goetheanum]].<ref name="EM">Paull, John (2018) [https://www.academia.edu/37021855/A_Portrait_of_Edith_Maryon_Artist_and_Anthroposophist A Portrait of Edith Maryon: Artist and Anthroposophist] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322174156/https://www.academia.edu/37021855/A_Portrait_of_Edith_Maryon_Artist_and_Anthroposophist |date=22 March 2020}}, Journal of Fine Arts, 1(2):8–15.</ref> Together they carved the 9-metre tall sculpture titled ''The Representative of Humanity'', on display at the [[Goetheanum]].<ref name=EM/>

===Other===
[[File:Flowform Vortex Garten Darmstadt.jpg|thumb |upright|Flowforms in [[Darmstadt]], Germany]]
* Phenomenological approaches to science, pseudo-scientific<ref name="pssci"/> ideas based on [[Goethean science|Goethe's philosophy of nature]].<ref name="Essential" />
* John Wilkes' fountain-like flowforms, sculptural forms that guide water into rhythmic movement for the purposes of decoration.
* Antisemitic legislation in Italy (1938–1945).{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=284|ps=: "The anthroposophist contribution to spiritual racism in theory and in practice yields new insights into the nature of the Fascist racial campaign between 1938 and 1945."}}
* The Fellowship Community in [[Chestnut Ridge, New York]], United States, which includes a [[retirement community]] and other anthroposophic projects.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Fellowship Community {{!}} An Anthroposophic Community {{!}} New York |url=https://www.fellowshipcommunity.org |access-date=25 August 2024 |website=The Fellowship Commu |language=en}}</ref>
* The [[Harduf]] ''[[kibbutz]]'' in Israel.

==Social goals==
{{Main|Social Threefolding}}
For a period after World War I, Steiner was extremely active and well known in Germany, in part because he lectured widely proposing social reforms. Steiner was a sharp critic of [[nationalism]], which he saw as outdated, and a proponent of achieving social solidarity through individual freedom.<ref name="Essential" /> A petition proposing a radical change in the German constitution and expressing his basic social ideas (signed by [[Hermann Hesse]], among others) was widely circulated. His main book on social reform is ''Toward Social Renewal''.<ref name="Essential" />

Anthroposophy continues to aim at reforming society through maintaining and strengthening the independence of the spheres of [[culture|cultural life]], [[human rights]] and the [[economy]]. It emphasizes a particular ideal in each of these three realms of society:<ref name="Essential" />
* Liberty in cultural life
* [[Equality before the law|Equality]] of [[rights]], the sphere of [[legislation]]
* Fraternity in the economic sphere

According to Cees Leijenhorst, "Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism."<ref name="Hanegraaff Faivre van den Broek Brach 2005 p. 1090">{{Cite book |last=Leijenhorst |first=Cees |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HCUOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1090 |title=Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism: I |publisher=Brill |year=2005 |isbn=978-90-04-14187-2 |editor-last=Hanegraaff |editor-first=Wouter J. |page=1090 |quote=Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism. |access-date=2 January 2024 |editor-last2=Faivre |editor-first2=Antoine |editor-last3=Broek |editor-first3=Roelof van den |editor-last4=Brach |editor-first4=Jean-Pierre}}</ref>

Steiner did influence Italian Fascism, which exploited "his racial and anti-democratic dogma."<ref name="Pilkington Sutcliffe 2023 p. 194">{{Cite book |last=Hill |first=Chris |title=Strange Attractor Journal Five |publisher=MIT Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-907222-52-8 |editor-last=Pilkington |editor-first=Mark |page=194 |chapter='Gustavo Who?' — Notes Towards the Life and Times of Gustavo Rol; Putative Mage and Cosmic 'Drainpipe' |access-date=1 November 2023 |editor-last2=Sutcliffe |editor-first2=Jamie |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YMFNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA194}}</ref> The fascist ministers [[Giovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò]]<ref name="c227">{{cite book | last=Baroni | first=Francesco | editor-last=Bogdan | editor-first=Henrik | editor-last2=Djurdjevic | editor-first2=Gordan | title=Occultism in a Global Perspective | publisher=Taylor & Francis | series=Approaches to new religions | year=2014 | isbn=978-1-317-54447-0 | chapter=Occultism and Christianity in twentieth-century Italy. Tommaso Palamidessi's Christian magic | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y15_BAAAQBAJ&pg=PA104 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=104}}</ref> (nicknamed "the Anthroposophist duke"; he became antifascist after taking part in [[Benito Mussolini]]'s government<ref name="peter1">{{Cite book |last=Staudenmaier |first=Peter |title=Esotericism, Religion, and Politics |publisher=New Cultures Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-59650-013-6 |editor-last=Versluis |editor-first=Arthur |location=Minneapolis, MN |pages=83–84 |chapter=Anthroposophy in Fascist Italy |editor-last2=Irwin |editor-first2=Lee |editor-last3=Phillips |editor-first3=Melinda}}</ref>) and Ettore Martinoli have openly expressed their sympathy for Rudolf Steiner.<ref name="Pilkington Sutcliffe 2023 p. 194" /> Most from the occult pro-fascist [[UR Group]] were Anthroposophists.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=271}}<ref name="turris">{{Cite magazine |last=Turris |first=Gianfranco de |title=L'Esoterismo Italiano degli anni Venti: il Gruppo di Ur, tra Magia e Super Fascismo |url=https://zdocs.mx/doc/abstracta-de-turris-le1225kj971v |magazine=Abstracta |publication-date=June 1987 |author-link=Gianfranco de Turris |number=16 |series=II |lang=it}}</ref><ref name="beraldo">{{Cite book |last=Beraldo |first=Michele |title=Esoterismo e fascismo: storia, interpretazioni, documenti |publisher=Edizioni mediterranee |year=2006 |isbn=978-88-272-1831-0 |editor-last=Turris |editor-first=Gianfranco de |page=83 |language=it |chapter=L'Antroposofia e il suo rapporto con il Regime Fascista |access-date=11 December 2023 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3pgrCbVilI8C}}</ref>

According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner's teachings had a clear authoritarian ring, and developed a rather crass polemic against 'materialism', 'liberalism', and cultural 'degeneration'. [...] For example, anthroposophical medicine was developed to contrast with the 'materialistic' (and hence 'degenerate') medicine of the establishment."{{sfn|Asprem|2018|p=494}}

The Social Threefolding has been called a "nebulous scheme".<ref name="h302">{{cite book | last=Myers | first=Perry | title=Spiritual Empires in Europe and India: Cosmopolitan Religious Movements from 1875 to the Interwar Era | publisher=Springer International Publishing | publication-place=Cham | date=2021 | isbn=978-3-030-81002-3 | doi=10.1007/978-3-030-81003-0 | url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-030-81003-0 | access-date=28 October 2025 | page=175}}</ref> Steiner pleaded for a hegemonic spiritual elite.{{sfn|Myers|2021|p=176}}

==Esoteric path==
=== Guru ===
Many authors see Anthroposophy as having been founded by a [[guru]] (meaning Steiner).{{refn|Sources for 'guru'<ref name="s481">{{cite book | last=Washington | first=Peter | title=Madame Blavatsky's Baboon | publisher=Schocken | publication-place=New York | date=1995 | isbn=0-8052-1024-5 | page=387}}</ref>{{sfn|Storr|1997|p=211}}<ref name="dhondt">{{cite journal | last1=Dhondt | first1=Pieter | last2=Van De Vijver | first2=Nele | last3=Verstraete | first3=Pieter | title=The Possibility of an Unbiased History of Steiner/Waldorf Education? | journal=Contemporary European History | volume=24 | issue=4 | date=2015 | issn=0960-7773 | doi=10.1017/S0960777315000387 | pages=639–649 | url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0960777315000387/type/journal_article | access-date=25 August 2025 | quote=strengthening in that way the mythologisation of the guru’s views | language=en| url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="mof110">{{cite book | last=Moffitt | first=John Francis | title=Occultism in Avant-garde Art | publisher=UMI Research Press | publication-place=Ann Arbor, Mich. | date=1988 | isbn=978-0-8357-1881-3 | page=110}}</ref>{{sfn|Karina|Kant|Steinberg|2004|p=35}}<ref name="k635">{{cite book | last=Campion | first=Nicholas | title=A History of Western Astrology Volume II: The Medieval and Modern Worlds | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing | date=2009 | isbn=978-1-4411-0749-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fZq6BwAAQBAJ&q=rudolf%2520steiner%2520%2522gurus%2522&pg=PA240 | access-date=7 November 2025 | page=240}}</ref><ref name="b102">{{cite book | last=West | first=Kevin | title=The Cook's Garden: A Gardener's Guide to Selecting, Growing, and Savoring the Tastiest Vegetables of Each Season: A Cookbook | publisher=Random House | date=2025 | isbn=978-0-593-31932-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RyUMEQAAQBAJ&q=Rudolf%2520Steiner%2520quack&pg=PA42 | access-date=6 November 2025 | page=42}}</ref><ref name="t256">{{cite book | first=Dirk | last=Luckow | editor-last1=Michely | editor-first1=Viola | editor-last2=Mesch | editor-first2=Claudia | title=Joseph Beuys: The Reader | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing | date=2007 | isbn=978-0-85773-643-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6SmDwAAQBAJ&q=rudolf%2520steiner%2520guru&pg=PT204 | access-date=7 November 2025 | quote='anthroposophical guru' Rudolf Steiner}}</ref><ref name="r170">{{cite book | first=J.M. | last=Ritchie | editor-first1=Anthony | editor-last1=Grenville | editor-first2=Andrea | editor-last2=Reiter | title='I didn't want to float; I wanted to belong to something': Refugee Organizations in Britain 1933-1945 | publisher=Brill | date=2008 | isbn=978-90-420-2893-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1_l5DwAAQBAJ&q=anthroposophical%2520guru&pg=PA181 | access-date=7 November 2025 | page=181 fn. 7}}</ref><ref name="w770">{{cite book | last=Derman | first=Emanuel | title=My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | date=2016 | isbn=978-0-470-19273-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JUy3EAAAQBAJ&q=anthroposophical%2520guru&pg=PA72 | access-date=7 November 2025 | page=72}}</ref><ref name="p712">{{cite book | last=Ashperger | first=Cynthia | title=The Rhythm of Space and the Sound of Time: Michael Chekhov's Acting Technique in the 21st Century | publisher=Brill | date=2008 | isbn=978-94-012-0576-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-v15DwAAQBAJ&q=anthroposophical%2520guru&pg=PA60 | access-date=7 November 2025 | page=60 fn. 20}}</ref><ref name="Livak8">{{cite book | last=Livak | first=Leonid | title=A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's "petersburg | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | year=2018 | isbn=978-0-299-31930-4 | chapter=Introduction | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yS93DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 | access-date=3 January 2023 | page=8}}</ref><ref name="y674">{{cite book | last=Freese | first=Peter | title=Germany and German Thought in American Literature and Cultural Criticism: Proceedings of the German-American Conference in Paderborn, May 16-19, 1990 | publisher=Die Blaue Eule | date=1990 | isbn=978-3-89206-382-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_bZZAAAAMAAJ&q=anthroposophical+guru | access-date=7 November 2025 | page=260 | quote=Now, with Steiner, Bellow appears to have found his mystical guru.}}</ref><ref name="i357">{{cite book | last=Lachman | first=Gary | title=Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung's Life and Teachings | publisher=Penguin | date=2010 | isbn=978-1-101-18829-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yd6IbOS_mNEC&q=At%2520eighty%252C%2520he%2520had%2520already%2520outlived%2520other%2520gurus%2520such%2520as%2520Rudolf%2520Steiner%2520and%2520Gurdjieff&pg=PT138 | access-date=7 November 2025 | quote=At eighty, he had already outlived other gurus such as Rudolf Steiner and Gurdjieff}}</ref><ref name="l136">{{cite book | last=Saliba | first=John A. | title=Understanding New Religious Movements | publisher=Rowman & Littlefield | date=2004 | isbn=978-0-585-48310-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bby2AQAAQBAJ&q=anthroposophical%2520guru&pg=PA91 | access-date=7 November 2025 | page=91}}</ref><ref name="p351">Cf. {{cite book | last=McDermott | first=Robert | title=Steiner and Kindred Spirits | publisher=SteinerBooks | date=2015 | isbn=978-1-62148-137-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-u6DCgAAQBAJ&q=anthroposophical%2520guru&pg=PT94 | access-date=7 November 2025 | quote=dependence on him as a kind of guru}}</ref>}}

===Paths of spiritual development===
According to Steiner, a real [[supernatural|spiritual]] world exists, evolving along with the material one. Steiner held that the spiritual world can be researched in the right circumstances through direct experience, by persons practicing rigorous forms of [[ethics|ethical]] and [[Cognition|cognitive]] [[self-discipline]]. Steiner described many exercises he said were suited to strengthening such self-discipline; the most complete exposition of these is found in his book ''How To Know Higher Worlds''. The aim of these exercises is to develop higher levels of [[higher consciousness|consciousness]] through [[meditation]] and [[observation]]. Details about the spiritual world, Steiner suggested, could on such a basis be discovered and reported, though no more infallibly than the results of natural science.<ref name="Schneider" />

{{Blockquote|Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.... Anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of life, certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst.<ref>Steiner, ''Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts'' (1924)</ref>}}

Steiner regarded his research reports as being important aids to others seeking to enter into spiritual experience. He suggested that a combination of spiritual exercises (for example, concentrating on an object such as a seed), moral development (control of thought, feelings and will combined with openness, tolerance and flexibility) and familiarity with other spiritual researchers' results would best further an individual's spiritual development. He consistently emphasised that any inner, spiritual practice should be undertaken in such a way as not to interfere with one's responsibilities in outer life.<ref name="Schneider" /> Steiner distinguished between what he considered were true and false paths of spiritual investigation.<ref>''True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation'', first English edition 1927 (online [http://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Lectures/GA243/English/RSP1969/TruFal_index.html]), 2010 edition Kessinger Publishing Company {{ISBN|9781162592510}}</ref>

In anthroposophy, artistic expression is also treated as a potentially valuable bridge between spiritual and material reality.<ref name=Lindenberg/>{{rp|97}}

===Prerequisites to and stages of inner development===
{{Blockquote|A person seeking inner development must first of all make the attempt to give up certain formerly held inclinations. Then, new inclinations must be acquired by constantly holding the thought of such inclinations, virtues or characteristics in one's mind. They must be so incorporated into one's being that a person becomes enabled to alter his soul by his own will-power. This must be tried as objectively as a chemical might be tested in an experiment. A person who has never endeavored to change his soul, who has never made the initial decision to develop the qualities of endurance, steadfastness and calm logical thinking, or a person who has such decisions but has given up because he did not succeed in a week, a month, a year or a decade, will never conclude anything inwardly about these truths.|Rudolf Steiner|"On the Inner Life",<ref>{{Cite web |date=15 December 1904 |title=The Inner Development of Man |url=http://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/InnDev_index.html |access-date=31 December 2013 |location=Fremont, Michigan}}</ref>}}

Steiner's stated prerequisites to beginning on a spiritual path include a willingness to take up serious cognitive studies, a respect for factual evidence, and a responsible attitude. Central to progress on the path itself is a harmonious cultivation of the following qualities:<ref name="Willmann" />
* Control over one's own thinking
* Control over one's will
* Composure
* Positivity
* Impartiality

Steiner sees meditation as a concentration and enhancement of the power of thought. By focusing consciously on an idea, feeling or intention the meditant seeks to arrive at pure thinking, a state exemplified by but not confined to pure mathematics. In Steiner's view, conventional sensory-material knowledge is achieved through relating perception and concepts. The anthroposophic path of esoteric training articulates three further stages of supersensory knowledge, which do not necessarily follow strictly sequentially in any single individual's spiritual progress.{{sfn|Willmann|2001|pp=10-13}}<ref name="Stein">Stein, W. J., ''Die moderne naturwissenschaftliche Vorstellungsart und die Weltanschauung Goethes, wie sie Rudolf Steiner vertritt'', reprinted in Meyer, Thomas, ''W.J. Stein / Rudolf Steiner'', pp. 267–75; 256–57.</ref>
* By focusing on symbolic patterns, images, and poetic mantras, the meditant can achieve consciously directed Imaginations that allow sensory phenomena to appear as the expression of underlying beings of a soul-spiritual nature.
* By transcending such imaginative pictures, the meditant can become conscious of the meditative activity itself, which leads to experiences of expressions of soul-spiritual beings unmediated by sensory phenomena or qualities. Steiner calls this stage Inspiration.
* By intensifying the will-forces through exercises such as a chronologically reversed review of the day's events, the meditant can achieve a further stage of inner independence from sensory experience, leading to direct contact, and even union, with spiritual beings ("Intuition") without loss of individual awareness.{{sfn|Willmann|2001|pp=10-13}}

===Spiritual exercises===
{{Main|Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development}}

Steiner described numerous exercises he believed would bring spiritual development; other anthroposophists have added many others. A central principle is that "for every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development." According to Steiner, moral development reveals the extent to which one has achieved control over one's inner life and can exercise it in harmony with the spiritual life of other people; it shows the real progress in spiritual development, the fruits of which are given in spiritual perception. It also guarantees the capacity to distinguish between false perceptions or illusions (which are possible in perceptions of both the outer world and the inner world) and true perceptions: i.e., the capacity to distinguish in any perception between the influence of subjective elements (i.e., viewpoint) and objective reality.<ref name="Schneider" />

==Place in Western philosophy==
Steiner built upon [[Goethe]]'s conception of an imaginative power capable of synthesizing the sense-perceptible form of a thing (an image of its outer appearance) and the concept we have of that thing (an image of its inner structure or nature). Steiner added to this the conception that a further step in the development of thinking is possible when the thinker observes his or her own thought processes. "The organ of observation and the observed thought process are then identical, so that the condition thus arrived at is simultaneously one of perception through thinking and one of thought through perception."<ref name="Schneider" />

Thus, in Steiner's view, we can overcome the subject-object divide through inner activity, even though all human experience begins by being conditioned by it. In this connection, Steiner examines the step from thinking determined by outer impressions to what he calls sense-free thinking. He characterizes thoughts he considers without sensory content, such as mathematical or logical thoughts, as free deeds. Steiner believed he had thus located the origin of free will in our thinking, and in particular in sense-free thinking.<ref name="Schneider" />

Some of the [[Epistemology|epistemic]] basis for Steiner's later anthroposophical work is contained in the seminal work, [[The Philosophy of Freedom|Philosophy of Freedom]].<ref name="Pifer 1991 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Pifer |first=Ellen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jVP559h--0wC |title=Saul Bellow Against the Grain |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-8122-1369-0 |series=Penn Studies in Contemporary American Fiction |access-date=16 March 2024}} See also Steiner's doctoral thesis, ''Truth and Science''</ref> In his early works, Steiner sought to overcome what he perceived as the dualism of [[Cartesian dualism|Cartesian]] idealism and [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]]ian subjectivism by developing Goethe's conception of the human being as a natural-supernatural entity, that is: natural in that humanity is a product of nature, supernatural in that through our conceptual powers we extend nature's realm, allowing it to achieve a reflective capacity in us as philosophy, art and science.<ref name="Tarnas">{{Cite book |last=Tarnas |first=Richard |title=The Passion of the Western Mind |date=1996 |publisher=Random House |isbn=0-7126-7332-6 |publication-place=London}}</ref> Steiner was one of the first European philosophers to overcome the subject-object split in [[Western thought]].<ref name="Tarnas" /> Though not well known among philosophers, his philosophical work was taken up by [[Owen Barfield]] (and through him influenced the [[Inklings]], an [[Oxford]] group of Christian writers that included [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] and [[C. S. Lewis]]).<ref name="Myers 1994 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Myers |first=Doris T. |title=C.S. Lewis in Context |date=1994 |publisher=Kent State University Press |isbn=978-0-87338-617-3 |publication-place=Kent, Ohio}}</ref>

Christian and Jewish mystical thought have also influenced the development of anthroposophy.<ref>Hans-Jürgen Bader, Lorenzo Ravagli, ''Rudolf Steiner als aktiver Gegner des Antisemitismus'', Bund der Freien Waldorfschulen, 2005</ref><ref name="Paddock Spiegler 2003 p. ">{{Cite book |last1=Paddock |first1=Fred |title=Judaism and Anthroposophy |last2=Spiegler |first2=Mado |date=2003 |publisher=SteinerBooks |isbn=978-0-88010-510-1 |publication-place=Great Barrington (Mass.)}}</ref>

===Union of science and spirit===
Steiner believed in the possibility of applying the clarity of scientific thinking to spiritual experience, which he saw as deriving from an objectively existing spiritual world.<ref name="Lindenberg">Christoph Lindenberg, ''Rudolf Steiner'', Rowohlt 1992, {{ISBN|3-499-50500-2}}</ref>{{rp|77ff}} Steiner identified [[mathematics]], which attains certainty through thinking itself, thus through inner experience rather than empirical observation,<ref>Albert Einstein, [http://www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/Geometry.html Geometry and Experience] {{webarchive|url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011124171015/http%3A//www.tu%2Dharburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/geometry.html |date=2001-11-24 }}</ref> as the basis of his epistemology of spiritual experience.<ref>Rudolf Steiner, ''Anthroposophy and Science'', lecture of March 16, 1921</ref>

Anthroposophy regards mainstream science as [[Ahriman]]ic.<ref name="Ahrimanic">Sources for 'Ahrimanic':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tfOUcjMD-WUC&pg=PT34 |title=Karma of Materialism: 9 Lectures, Berlin, July 31–Sept. 25, 1917 (CW 176) |publisher=SteinerBooks |year=1985 |isbn=978-1-62151-025-3 |page=unpaginated |chapter=1. Forgotten Aspects of Cultural Life |quote=The whole content of natural science is ahrimanic and will only lose its ahrimanic nature when it becomes imbued with life. |access-date=15 March 2024 |chapter-url=https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA176/English/AP1985/19170731p01.html}}|{{cite book | last1=Steiner | first1=Rudolf | last2=Meuss | first2=Anna R. | title=The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=1993 | isbn=978-1-85584-010-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wgc6fjIeFVUC&pg=PA161 | access-date=16 March 2024 | pages=160–161}}|{{cite book | last1=Steiner | first1=Rudolf | last2=Barton | first2=Matthew | title=The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=2013 | isbn=978-1-85584-278-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qR9FDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA54 | access-date=16 March 2024 | pages=53–54}}|{{cite book | last1=Wachsmuth | first1=Guenther | last2=Garber | first2=Bernard J. | last3=Wannamaker | first3=Olin D. | last4=Raab | first4=Reginald E. | title=The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner: From the Turn of the Century to His Death | publisher=SteinerBooks | year=1995 | isbn=978-1-62151-053-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UE_Dfrpi4-wC&pg=PT445 | access-date=15 March 2024 | page=unpaginated | quote=and all external science, to the extent that it is not spiritual science, is Ahrimanic.}}|{{cite journal | last=Al-Faruqi | first=Ismail Il Raji | journal=Biosciences Communications | publisher=S. Karger | volume=3 | issue=1 | year=1977 | title=Moral values in medicine and science | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=09hEAAAAYAAJ | access-date=15 March 2024 | pages=56–58 | issn=0302-2781 | quote=Medical science is Ahrimanic in that it treats the body solely as a mechanism, having no knowledge of or concern with the etheric structure, that invisible field of force and energy which all too often is found to be the seat of disease.}}|{{cite book | last=Prokofieff | first=Sergei O. | title=The Case of Valentin Tomberg: Anthroposophy Or Jesuitism? | publisher=Temple Lodge | year=1998 | isbn=978-0-904693-85-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-9Rq81-xGwC&pg=PA118 | access-date=15 March 2024 | page=118}}|{{cite book | last=Younis | first=Andrei | title=Islam in Relation to the Christ Impulse: A Search for Reconciliation between Christianity and Islam | publisher=SteinerBooks | year=2015 | isbn=978-1-58420-185-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5X95CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT57 | access-date=16 March 2024 | page=unpaginated | quote=Steiner emphasized that, when this deadened wisdom of Gondishapur began to spread in Europe, an ahrimanic, or ahrimanically inspired, natural science began to emerge.}}|{{cite book | last=Selg | first=Peter | title=The Future of Ahriman and the Awakening of Souls: The Spirit-Presence of the Mystery Dramas | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=2022 | isbn=978-1-912230-92-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ei1qEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA12 | access-date=16 March 2024 | page=12}}|{{cite journal |last1=Beck |first1=John H. |display-authors= |author-mask= |name-list-style= |date=February 2007 |editor1-last=Spiegler |editor1-first=Mado |display-editors= |title=Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse by Valentin Tomberg SteinerBooks, 2006, 432 pgs. Review by John H. Beck |script-title= |trans-title= |url=https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/nyrud/id/387/download |format= |department= |journal=Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter |type= |series= |language= |edition= |volume=41 |issue= |pages=7–12 |no-pp= |arxiv= |asin= |bibcode= |bibcode-access= |biorxiv= |citeseerx= |doi= |doi-access= |issn= |jfm= |jstor= |jstor-access= |lccn= |mr= |oclc= |ol= |ol-access= |osti= |osti-access= |pmc= |pmid= |rfc= |ssrn= |zbl= |id= |via= |url-access= |quote=Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective. }}}}</ref> Steiner lambasted especially sociology and economics.{{sfn|Tucker|2018|ps=: "Even worse, Ahrimanic forces had now managed to convince Western man to create the nonsensical field of 'social science' as yet another means through which the 'scientific superstition' of the future Anti-Christ could spread. The chief agent behind the promotion of such evil Positivist claptrap as sociology, Steiner said, was the figure of the economist, a fairly recent arrival upon the world scene:"}}

==Relationship to religion==

=== Esoteric School ===

The Esoteric School of the Anthroposophical Society originated, directly and indirectly, from "the many pansophical and occult groups belonging to high-grade Masonry", going through the [[Theosophical Society]] and [[Ordo Templi Orientis]].<ref name="d553">{{cite book | last=Egmond | first=Daniël van | editor-last1=Broek | editor-first1=Roelof van den | editor-last2=Hanegraaff | editor-first2=Wouter J. | title=Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times | publisher=SUNY Press | publication-place=Albany | date=1998 | isbn=978-0-7914-3612-7 | pages=313, 338 | quote=the many pansophical and occult groups belonging to high-grade Masonry.}}</ref> Steiner had the Masonic degrees 33 and 95.<ref name="n238">{{cite book | last=Galtier | first=Gérard | title=Maçonnerie égyptienne, Rose-Croix et Néo-Chevalerie | url=https://archive.org/details/maonneriegyptien0000galt | publisher=Rocher | publication-place=Monaco | date=1989 | isbn=978-2-268-00778-6 | language=fr | page=[https://archive.org/details/maonneriegyptien0000galt/page/n311 304]}}</ref>

===Christ as the center of earthly evolution===
Steiner's writing, though appreciative of all religions and cultural developments, emphasizes Western tradition as having evolved to meet contemporary needs.<ref name="Lachman" /> He describes Christ and his mission on earth of bringing individuated consciousness as having a particularly important place in human evolution,<ref name="Essential" /> whereby:<ref name="Willmann" />
* Christianity has evolved out of previous religions;
* The being which manifests in Christianity also manifests in all faiths and religions, and each religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born;
* All historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed considerably to meet the continuing evolution of humanity.

{{Blockquote|Spiritual science does not want to usurp the place of Christianity; on the contrary it would like to be instrumental in making Christianity understood. Thus it becomes clear to us through spiritual science that the being whom we call Christ is to be recognized as the center of life on earth, that the Christian religion is the ultimate religion for the earth's whole future. Spiritual science shows us particularly that the pre-Christian religions outgrow their one-sidedness and come together in the Christian faith. It is not the desire of spiritual science to set something else in the place of Christianity; rather it wants to contribute to a deeper, more heartfelt understanding of Christianity.<ref>Rudolf Steiner,[http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/AntChr_index.html "Anthroposophy and Christianity"]</ref>}}

Thus, anthroposophy considers there to be a being who unifies all religions, and who is not represented by any particular religious faith. This being is, according to Steiner, not only the Redeemer of [[the Fall of Man|the Fall from Paradise]], but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and of human history.<ref name="Willmann" /> To describe this being, Steiner periodically used terms such as the "Representative of Humanity" or the "good spirit"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |title=The foundations of human experience |publisher=Anthroposophic Press |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-88010-392-3 |page=34}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |date=16 December 1908 |title=A Chapter of Occult History |url=http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19081216p01.html}}</ref> rather than any denominational term.

===Divergence from conventional Christian thought===
Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include [[gnostism|gnostic]]{{efn-lr|Gnosticism meaning "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."<ref name="McClelland 2018 p. ">{{Cite book |last=McClelland |first=Norman C. |title=Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma |year=2018 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5675-8 |page=100 |chapter=Gnosticism |quote=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. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S_Leq4U5ihkC&dq=gnosticism+reincarnation&pg=PA100}}</ref>}} elements:
* One central point of divergence is Steiner's views on [[reincarnation]] and karma.
* Steiner differentiated three contemporary paths by which he believed it possible to arrive at [[Christ]]:
** Through heart-felt experiences of the [[Gospels]]; Steiner described this as the historically dominant path, but becoming less important in the future.
** Through inner experiences of a spiritual reality; this Steiner regarded as increasingly the path of spiritual or religious seekers today.
** Through [[initiation|initiatory experiences]] whereby the reality of Christ's death and resurrection are experienced; Steiner believed this is the path people will increasingly take.<ref name="Willmann" />
* Steiner also believed that there were two different [[Jesus]] children involved in the [[Incarnation]] of the Christ: one child descended from [[Solomon]], as described in the [[Gospel of Matthew]], the other child from [[Nathan (son of David)|Nathan]], as described in the [[Gospel of Luke]].<ref name="Essential" /><ref name="aspremthesis" /><ref name="x337">{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Marshall D. |title=The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies with Special Reference to the Setting of the Genealogies of Jesus |date=1969 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-07317-2 |editor-last=Black |editor-first=Matthew |publication-place=London |page=144}}</ref> (The genealogies given in the two gospels diverge some thirty generations before Jesus' birth, and 'Jesus' was a common name in biblical times.)
* His view of [[the second coming]] of Christ is also unusual; he suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but that the Christ being would become manifest in non-physical form, visible to spiritual vision and apparent in community life for increasing numbers of people beginning around the year 1933.<ref>Rudolf Steiner, [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ReapChrist/19100125p01.html "The Appearance of Christ in the Etheric World"]</ref>
* He emphasized his belief that in the future humanity would need to be able to recognize the ''Spirit of Love'' in all its genuine forms, regardless of what name would be used to describe this being. He also warned that the traditional name of the ''Christ'' might be misused, and the true essence of this being of love ignored.

Monty Waldin notes that the two Jesus children sound heretical to mainstream Christians.<ref name="i757">{{cite book | last=Waldin | first=Monty | title=Biodynamic Wines | publisher=Octopus |year=2002 | isbn=978-1-84533-604-2 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rs6PXE-dSSYC&dq=rudolf+steiner+%2522heretical%2522&pg=PT104 | access-date=27 May 2025 | quote=a view heretical to mainstream Christians | chapter=Rudolf Steiner}}</ref> Anthony Mellors states that Steiner's interpretation of the Bible is heretical.<ref name="n565">{{cite book | last=Mellors | first=Anthony | title=Late Modernist Poetics: From Pound to Prynne | publisher=Manchester University Press |year=2005 | isbn=978-0-7190-5885-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3EzbAfJzviIC&dq=rudolf+steiner+%2522heretical%2522&pg=PA17 | access-date=27 May 2025 | page=17}}</ref> The Catholic Church considers Anthroposophy to be heretical.<ref name="Diener Hipolito 2013 p. 77"/><ref name="k531"/> According to Steiner, Christ will never again have a physical body.{{sfn|Campion|2012|p=195}}

{{blockquote|Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress...<ref name="Robertson 2021 p. 57">{{Cite book |last=Robertson |first=David G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B6s5EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 |title=Gnosticism and the History of Religions |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-350-13770-7 |series=Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation |page=57 |quote=Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress... |access-date=3 January 2023}}</ref>|[[C.G. Jung]]}}

According to Jane Gilmer, "Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered."<ref name="Gilmer 2021 p. 41">{{Cite book |last=Gilmer |first=Jane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mUAvEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 |title=The Alchemical Actor |publisher=Brill |year=2021 |isbn=978-90-04-44942-8 |series=Consciousness, Literature and the Arts |page=41 |quote=Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered. |access-date=3 January 2023}}</ref>

As [[Gilles Quispel]] put it, "After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis."<ref name="Layton 1980 p. ">Sources for 'Quispel':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Quispel |first=Gilles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MBTXAAAAMAAJ |title=The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: The school of Valentinus |publisher=E.J. Brill |year=1980 |isbn=978-90-04-06176-7 |editor-last=Layton |editor-first=Bentley |series=Studies in the history of religions: Supplements to Numen |page=123 |quote=After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis. |access-date=3 January 2023}}|{{cite book | last1=Quispel | first1=Gilles | last2=Oort | first2=Johannes van | title=Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel | publisher=Brill | series=Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-474-4182-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2u15DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA370 | access-date=3 January 2023 | page=370}}}}</ref>

Maria Carlson stated "Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter."<ref name="Livak 2018 p. 58">{{Cite book |last=Carlson |first=Maria |title=A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's "petersburg |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-299-31930-4 |editor-last=Livak |editor-first=Leonid |page=58 |chapter=Petersburg and Modern Occultism |quote=Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter. |access-date=3 January 2023 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yS93DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA58}}</ref> She also stated that Theosophy and Anthroposophy "are both modern gnostic doctrines."<ref name="d438">{{cite book | last=Carlson | first=Maria | editor-last=Kornblatt | editor-first=Judith Deutsch | editor-last2=Gustafson | editor-first2=Richard F. | title=Russian Religious Thought | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | series=Russian studies: Religion | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-299-15134-8 | chapter=Gnostic Elements in Soloviev's Cosmogony | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AqwGUM4tFoEC&pg=PA53 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=53 |quote=During their lifetime Soloviev's contemporaries not only saw the publication of many studies of gnosticism and the enthusiastic activity of archaeologists and historians of comparative religions, but also witnessed the creation of entire systems of modern gnosis, both pagan and Christian. Here one might mention that the neo-Buddhist Theosophy of Mme. Blavatsky, mentioned above, and the "Christian Theosophy" (upper-case T) of Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), are both modern gnostic doctrines; Dr. Steiner would later speak in his lectures of Soloviev as a mediator between East and West and a true clairvoyant who anticipated Steiner's own vision of the coming of the Christ in the etheric world, while Western Anthroposophists would write books about Soloviev (Allen 341–43).{{sup|3}}}}</ref>

[[R. McL. Wilson]] in ''The Oxford Companion to the Bible'' agrees that Steiner and Anthroposophy are under the influence of gnosticism.<ref name="Metzger Coogan 1993 p. 256">{{Cite book |last=McL. Wilson |first=Robert |title=The Oxford Companion to the Bible |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-19-974391-9 |editor-last=Metzger |editor-first=Bruce M. |series=Oxford Companions |page=256 |chapter=Gnosticism |quote=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. |access-date=3 January 2023 |editor-last2=Coogan |editor-first2=Michael D. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y2KGVuym5OUC&pg=PA256}}</ref>

[[Robert A. McDermott]] says Anthroposophy belongs to Christian [[Rosicrucianism]].<ref name="Eliade 1987 p. ">{{Cite book |last=McDermott |first=Robert A. |title=The Encyclopedia of Religion |date=1987 |publisher=Macmillan Reference USA |isbn=0-02-909700-2 |editor-last=Eliade |editor-first=Mircea |publication-place=New York |page=320 |chapter=Anthroposophy}}</ref><ref name="g904">{{cite book | last=McDermott | first=Robert A. | editor-last1=Faivre | editor-first1=Antoine | editor-last2=Needleman | editor-first2=Jacob | editor-last3=Voss | editor-first3=Karen | title=Modern Esoteric Spirituality | publisher=Crossroad Publishing | publication-place=New York | date=1992 | isbn=0-8245-1145-X | page=288 | chapter=Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy | quote=Rudolf Steiner was an esoteric teacher in the Rosicrucian-Christian tradition who delineated a comprehensive and detailed account of the evolution of consciousness as a background to his plea for the transformation of thinking, feeling, and willing in the present century. }}</ref> According to [[Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke]], Rudolf Steiner "blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie".<ref name="Steiner Seddon Goodrick-Clarke 2004 p. 7">{{Cite book |last1=Steiner |first1=Rudolf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dkw96EUVPfwC&pg=PA7 |title=Rudolf Steiner |last2=Seddon |first2=Richard |last3=Goodrick-Clarke |first3=Nicholas |publisher=North Atlantic Books |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-55643-490-7 |series=Western Esoteric Masters |page=7 |language=en |quote=blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie |access-date=2 January 2024}}</ref>

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke described Anthroposophy as a [modern] offshoot of Ancient Gnosticism, especially of "the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma".<ref name="b670">{{cite book | first=Nicholas | last=Goodrick-Clarke | editor-last=Hammer | editor-first=Olav | editor-last2=Rothstein | editor-first2=Mikael | title=Handbook of the Theosophical Current | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion | year=2013 | isbn=978-90-04-23597-7 | chapter=Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VozAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA301 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=301 |quote=Steiner's teaching continued to reflect a form of Gnostic Christianity, where the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma reappeared both in ninefold Dionysian hierarchies and the septenary scheme of Oriental Theosophy (Ahern 2009: 168–180; Reaugh Smith 2001, vol. I: 550-677).}}</ref>

Geoffrey Ahern states that Anthroposophy belongs to neo-gnosticism broadly conceived, which he identifies with [[Western esotericism]] and [[occultism]].<ref name="Ahern 2009 p. 11">{{Cite book |last=Ahern |first=Geoffrey |title=Sun at midnight: the Rudolf Steiner movement and gnosis in the West |publisher=James Clarke Company |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-227-17293-3 |publication-place=Cambridge |page=11 |orig-date=1984 |edition=Rev. and expanded |oclc=429428500}}</ref>

[[Stefanie von Schnurbein]] briefly agrees that Steiner propagated Gnostic Christianity.<ref name="i639">{{cite book | last=Schnurbein | first=Stefanie von | title=Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism | publisher=Brill | publication-place=Boston | date=2016 | isbn=978-90-04-30951-7 | pages=34–35 fn. 57 | quote=Anthroposophy shifted the emphasis from Eastern to Gnostic-Christian spirituality and was to bring forth a number of alternative reform efforts}}</ref>

{{blockquote|1=Was Steiner a Gnostic? Yes and no. Yes, from the point of view that he offered insights and methods for a personal experience of Christ. I have formulated this aspect of his work as his hermeneutical key: 'not I, but Christ in me'. No, from the point of view that he was not trying to reestablish Gnosticism's practices into a neo-gnostic tradition. Steiner was, in his times, well aware of concerns articulated more recently by Pope Francis about the two subtle enemies of holiness, contemporary Gnosticism and contemporary Pelagianism.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Samson |first=Martin |title=The Christology of Rudolf Steiner |date=2023 |degree=PhD |publisher=Flinders University |url=https://flex.flinders.edu.au/items/4cb1a804-963e-4a75-8b02-69bcfaa63110/1/?.vi=file&attachment.uuid=c450e767-a595-4981-a4b7-546ae735f46b |page=180}}</ref>|2={{harvnb|Samson|2023|p=180}}}}

{{blockquote|1=Granted that Steiner included Gnostic elements in his cosmological reinterpretation of Christianity, many of them from the ''Pistis Sophia,'' Steiner was not a Gnostic in the sense of someone who held that the world was ruled by a demiurge, that matter was evil, or that it was possible to escape from this fallen universe by acquiring secret spiritual knowledge. To characterize the structure of his thought as derived from Syrio-Egyptian gnosis (Ahern 2010) may be too strong and plays down the fact that he was critical of early Gnostic Christianity as having no adequate idea of Jesus as a man of flesh and blood.<ref name="v029">{{Cite book |last=Hudson |first=Wayne |title=The gnostic world |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group |isbn=978-1-315-56160-8 |editor-last=Trompf |editor-first=Garry W. |publication-place=London; New York |page=510 |chapter=Rudolf Steiner: Multiple bodies |editor-last2=Mikkelsen |editor-first2=Gunner B. |editor-last3=Johnston |editor-first3=Jay}} apud {{harvnb|Samson|2023|p=56}}</ref>|2={{harvnb|Hudson|2019|p=510}}}}

According to Steiner, "Christ’s role is to ease the transition to the Age of Aquarius, while for Gnostics, his task was to save humanity from God".{{sfn|Campion|2012|p=164}}

Elizabeth Dipple stated that Rudolf Steiner's system was a "neo-Platonic, semi-Gnostic, occult anthroposophical system [...] with its allegiance to mystical Christianity, Rosicrucianism and certain versions of spiritualism [...]".<ref name="y640">{{cite book | last=Dipple | first=Elizabeth | title=The Unresolvable Plot: Reading Contemporary Fiction | publisher=Taylor & Francis | series=Routledge Library Editions: Modern Fiction | year=2019 | isbn=978-1-000-63913-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MyGzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT328 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=unpaginated}}</ref>

According to Heiner Ullrich, Steiner's point of view was that of a "neo-Platonic gnostic".{{sfn|Ullrich|2014|p=46}} [[Gareth Knight]] agrees that Steiner was neo-Platonic.<ref name="c803">{{cite book | last=Knight | first=Gareth | title=The Magical World of the Inklings | publisher=Skylight Press | date=2010 | isbn=978-1-908011-01-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=35i6GHWBpf0C&dq=rudolf+steiner+%2522neo-platonic%2522&pg=PA23 | access-date=27 May 2025 | page=23}}</ref> Brandt and Hammer describe Steiner's anthropology (spirit, soul, and body) as neo-Platonic.{{sfn|Brandt|Hammer|2013|p=125}}

Carl Abrahamsson stated that Steiner posited a gnostic Christ.<ref name="a836">{{cite book | last1=Abrahamsson | first1=Carl | last2=Lachman | first2=Gary | title=Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward | publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear | year=2018 | isbn=978-1-62055-704-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dt0zDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT82 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=unpaginated | quote=This gnostic Christ principle balances the ungrounded [...]}}</ref>

Steiner's theology is "redemption through sin", he accuses good Christians of killing the spirit of Christianity.{{sfn|Lazier|2008|p=208 fn. 6}}

According to Catholic scholars Anthroposophy belongs to the [[New Age]].<ref name="q189">{{Cite journal |last1=G.K. Chesterton Society |last2=G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture |date=February–May 2000 |title=A conference on ''New Age'' and Christian spirituality |url=http://www.cultura.va/content/dam/cultura/docs/pdf/Rivista/2001-2.pdf |journal=The Chesterton Review |publisher=G.K. Chesterton Society, 1974 – G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture |publication-place=Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; South Orange, New Jersey |volume=XXVI |issue=1&2 |issn=0317-0500 |oclc=2247651 |quote=One needs to recognise several things in New Age in order not to over-react: it is not monolithic; it is not a den of demons; nor is it a den of fools. Three main currents need to be taken very seriously, even if they reject being included in the broad term New Age. They are René Guénon's tariqa or school of intellectual Sufism, Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy and 'the Work', devised by Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Pontifical Council for Culture |last2=Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue |title=Jesus Christ the bearer of the water of life. A Christian reflection on the "New Age" |url=https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html |access-date=18 May 2024 |website=vatican.va |publisher=The Catholic Church |quote=The Age of Aquarius has such a high profile in the ''New Age'' movement largely because of the influence of theosophy, spiritualism and anthroposophy, and their esoteric antecedents. |location=The State of Vatican}}</ref> [[George D. Chryssides]] also considers Steiner to be New Age, or at least a forerunner of the New Age.<ref name="a674">{{cite book | last=Chryssides | first=George D. | editor-last=Kemp | editor-first=Daren | editor-last2=Lewis | editor-first2=James R. | title=Handbook of New Age | publisher=Brill | publication-place=Leiden ; Boston | date=2007 | isbn=978-90-04-15355-4 | oclc=77797550 | url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/ocm77797550 | access-date=28 June 2025 | page=7 | chapter=Defining the New Age | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xsCwCQAAQBAJ&dq=%2522krishnamurti,+steiner,+and+fortune%2522&pg=PA7 | doi=10.1163/ej.9789004153554.i-484.5}}</ref> John Paull considers him a New Age philosopher.<ref name="p147">{{cite journal | last=Paull | first=John | title=An Introduction to the Library of Rudolf Steiner, Martina Maria Sam, Chadwick Library Press, 2025, 106 pp., US$25, ISBN 7981737194767 | journal=International Journal of Social Science Research and Review | volume=8 | issue=10 | date=2 October 2025 | issn=2700-2497 | doi=10.47814/ijssrr.v8i10.2905 | doi-access=free | pages=40–46 | url=https://www.academia.edu/144288553 | access-date=6 October 2025}}</ref> [[Nicholas Campion]] says Steiner was a New Age Christian.<ref name="p907">{{cite book | last=Campion | first=Nicholas | title=Astrology and cosmology in the world's religions | publisher=New York University Press | publication-place=New York | date=2012 | isbn=978-0-8147-4445-1 | page=164}}</ref> Campion stated that "Anthroposophy is perhaps the most vibrant of New Age movements".{{sfn|Campion|2012|p=194}}

Even allowing that Steiner himself was not New Age, an author wrote "anthroposophy—a spiritual movement that is the basis for much of the New Age thinking in Europe and North America today."<ref name="s293">{{cite book | last=Williams | first=William F. | title=Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience | publisher=Facts on File | publication-place=New York, NY | date=2000 | isbn=978-0-8160-3351-5 | page=330 | chapter=STEINER, RUDOLF (1861-1925) | quote=anthroposophy—a spiritual movement that is the basis for much of the New Age thinking in Europe and North America today.}}</ref>

===Judaism===

{{blockquote|1=Steiner's critics, on the other hand, past and present, see him at best as a pseudo-scientist who was delusional and possibly mentally unstable in believing that he had accessed Kant's realm of the ''noumenon'', or at worst as someone who laid the groundwork for Hitler and National Socialism.<ref name="q821">{{cite book | last=French | first=Aaron | title=Max Weber, Rudolf Steiner, and Modern Western Esotericism: A Transcultural Approach | publisher=Routledge | publication-place=London | date=2025 | isbn=978-1-003-43651-5 | doi=10.4324/9781003436515-2 | chapter=Some Surprising Historical Connections | chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003436515 | access-date=19 June 2025 | page=32}}</ref>|2=Aaron French}}

Rudolf Steiner was an extreme pan-German nationalist, and never disavowed such stance.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Zegers |first1=Peter |last2=Staudenmaier |first2=Peter |date=9 January 2009 |orig-date=2000 |title=Anthroposophy and its Defenders |url=https://social-ecology.org/wp/2009/01/anthroposophy-and-its-defenders-2/ |journal=Humanist |publisher=Institute for Social Ecology |issue=4}}</ref>

"Steiner was a member of a ''völkisch'' Wagner club, and anthroposophist authors endorsed Wagner's views on race."{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=79}}

"Steiner, along with Hübbe-Schleiden and Hartmann, was affiliated with the racist and anti-Semitic Guido von List Society. For many anthroposophists in fact, 'Jewishness signified the very antithesis of spiritual progress and the epitome of modern debasement.'"{{sfn|Kurlander|2017|p=19}} The theories of theosophy and anthroposophy were "later co-opted by National Socialism".{{sfn|Kurlander|2017|pp=19–20}}

Rudolf Steiner wrote and lectured on Judaism and Jewish issues over much of his adult life. He was a fierce opponent of popular antisemitism, but asserted that there was no justification for the existence of Judaism and Jewish culture in the modern world, a radical assimilationist perspective which saw the Jews completely integrating into the larger society.<ref name="Peter">{{cite journal | last=Staudenmaier | first=Peter | title=Rudolf Steiner and the Jewish Question | journal=The Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook | volume=50 | issue=1 | date=1 January 2005 | issn=0075-8744 | doi=10.1093/leobaeck/50.1.127 | doi-access=free | pages=127–147 | url=https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=hist_fac | access-date=23 August 2025 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170916050406/http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=hist_fac | archive-date=16 September 2017 | url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>Jan-Erik Ebbestad Hansen, [https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/8831 The Jews – Teachers of the Nazis?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180419210521/https://edoc.hu-berlin.de/handle/18452/8831 |date=19 April 2018 }} In: NORDEUROPAforum. Journal for the Study of Culture. Yearbook 2015. Humboldt University Berlin. {{ISSN|1863-639X}}.</ref><ref name="Ralf">Ralf Sonnenberg, [http://www.hagalil.com/antisemitismus/deutschland/steiner.htm "Judentum, Zionismus und Antisemitismus aus der Sicht Rudolf Steiners"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140203070920/http://www.hagalil.com/antisemitismus/deutschland/steiner.htm |date=3 February 2014}}</ref> He also supported [[Émile Zola]]'s position in the [[Dreyfus affair]].<ref name=Ralf/> Steiner emphasized Judaism's central importance to the constitution of the modern era in the West but suggested that to appreciate the spirituality of the future it would need to overcome its tendency toward abstraction.

Steiner financed the publication of the book ''Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg'' (1919) by {{ill|Karl Heise|de}}; Steiner also wrote the foreword for the book, partly based upon his own ideas.<ref name="Piraino Pasi Asprem 2022 p. 126">{{Cite book |last=French |first=Aaron |title=Religious Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories: Comparing and Connecting Old and New Trends |publisher=Routledge |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-000-78268-4 |editor-last=Piraino |editor-first=Francesco |publication-place=London |pages=107–123 |chapter=Esoteric Nationalism and Conspiracism in WWI |doi=10.4324/9781003120940-8 |quote=One man inspired by Steiner's lectures during World War I was the enigmatic Karl Heise, who, in 1918, published a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism entitled ''Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg'', which was partially backed by Steiner, who wrote a cagey introduction to the first edition, very cautiously choosing his words and not signing his name (Zander, 2007, p. 991). |access-date=2024-03-01 |editor-last2=Pasi |editor-first2=Marco |editor-last3=Asprem |editor-first3=Egil |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ksKZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT126}}</ref>{{sfn|Zander|2007|pp=991–992|ps=: "Ein weiteres Motiv könnte in der Kollision von Steiners Freimaureraktivitäten mit seinem deutschen Patriotismus liegen (s. 14.3.1). Nach dem Krieg nannte Steiner diesen Punkt sehr deutlich, als er in Karl Heises »Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg«, in der es um die Kriegsschuldfrage ging{{sup|178}}, ein nicht gezeichnetes, auf den 10. Oktober 1918 datiertes Vorwort verfaßte, sich also einen Monat vor dem Waffenstillstand und inmitten des Zusammenbruchs des Deutschen Reiches äußerte. »Die Geheimgesellschaften der Entente-Länder«, hieß es dort, hätten eine »die Weltkatastrophe vorbereitende politische Gesinnung und Beeinflussung der Weltereignisse« an den Tag gelegt. Bei der Suche nach der »Schuld am Weltkriege« habe man auch an die Freimaurer zu denken. Dies war nicht nur eine reduktive Lösung der »Kriegsschuldfrage« im Jahr 1918, sondern möglicherweise auch ein Hinweis auf seine Motivlage im Jahr 1914: Steiner hätte sich dann aus Solidarität mit Deutschland aus dem Internationalismus der Freimaurerei verabschiedet{{sup|179}}. Andere theosophische Gesellschaften haben diesen Schnitt übrigens nicht so deutlich vollzogen{{sup|180}}."}}{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=96|ps=: "The foremost example of a full-fledged antisemitic conspiracy theory based squarely on anthroposophist premises was Karl Heise's 1919 tome blaming the World War on a cabal of freemasons and Jews. Heise wrote the book with Steiner's encouragement and founded its argument on Steiner's own teachings, while Steiner himself wrote the foreword and contributed a substantial sum toward publication costs.{{sup|101}}"}} The publication comprised a [[conspiracy theory]] according to whom World War I was a consequence of a collusion of [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]] and [[Jews]] – still favorite scapegoats of the conspiracy theorists – their purpose being the destruction of Germany. Fact is that Steiner spent a large sum of money for publishing{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=96|ps=: "The foremost example of a full-fledged antisemitic conspiracy theory based squarely on anthroposophist premises was Karl Heise's 1919 tome blaming the World War on a cabal of freemasons and Jews. Heise wrote the book with Steiner's encouragement and founded its argument on Steiner's own teachings, while Steiner himself wrote the foreword and contributed a substantial sum toward publication costs.{{sup|101}}"}} "a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism".<ref name="Piraino Pasi Asprem 2022 p. 126" /> The writing was later enthusiastically received by the Nazi Party.{{sfn|Zander|2007|pp=306, 991–992}}{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=96–97}}

In his later life, Steiner was accused by the Nazis of being Jewish, and [[Adolf Hitler]] called anthroposophy "Jewish methods". The anthroposophical institutions in Germany were banned during Nazi rule and several anthroposophists sent to [[Nazi concentration camps|concentration camps]].<ref name="Staudenmaierthesis" /><ref name="x333">{{cite book | last=Ravagli | first=Lorenzo | title=Unter Hammer und Hakenkreuz: Der völkisch-nationalsozialistische Kampf gegen die Anthroposophie | date=2004 | isbn=3-7725-1915-6 | language=de | publisher=Verlag Freies Geistesleben}}</ref> Later, the non-Aryan, the non-German, and the antifascist members of the direction board of the Anthroposophical Society were purged from it; it is unclear if that happened due to Nazi ideology or for other reasons, but the purge clearly brought the Anthroposophic Society closer to Nazism.{{sfn|McKanan|2017|pp=33–34, 196}}

Important early anthroposophists who were Jewish included two central members on the executive boards of the precursors to the modern Anthroposophical Society,<ref>[http://biographien.kulturimpuls.org/detail.php?&id=24 Adolf Arenson] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402181944/http://biographien.kulturimpuls.org/detail.php?&id=24 |date=2 April 2015}} (board member 1904–1913) and [http://biographien.kulturimpuls.org/detail.php?&id=724 Carl Unger] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402131232/http://biographien.kulturimpuls.org/detail.php?&id=724 |date=2 April 2015}} (board member 1908–1923)</ref> and Karl König, the founder of the [[Camphill movement]], who had converted to Christianity.{{sfn|Paddock|Spiegler|2003|pp=125–126}} [[Martin Buber]] and [[Hugo Bergmann]], who viewed Steiner's social ideas as a solution to the [[Arab–Israeli conflict|Arab–Jewish conflict]], were also influenced by anthroposophy.<ref name="Paddock Spiegler 2003 p. " />

There are numerous anthroposophical organisations in [[Israel]], including the anthroposophical [[kibbutz]] [[Harduf]], founded by Jesaiah Ben-Aharon, forty Waldorf kindergartens and seventeen [[Waldorf schools]] (as of 2018).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Statistics for Waldorf schools worldwide |url=http://www.freunde-waldorf.de/fileadmin/user_upload/images/Waldorf_World_List/Waldorf_World_List.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191212024849/https://www.freunde-waldorf.de/fileadmin/user_upload/images/Waldorf_World_List/Waldorf_World_List.pdf |archive-date=12 December 2019 |access-date=13 June 2018}}</ref> A number of these organizations are striving to foster positive relationships between the Arab and Jewish populations: The Harduf Waldorf school includes both Jewish and Arab faculty and students, and has extensive contact with the surrounding Arab communities, while the first joint Arab-Jewish kindergarten was a Waldorf program in Hilf near [[Haifa]].

===Christian Community===
{{Main|Christian Community}}
Towards the end of Steiner's life, a group of theology students (primarily Lutheran, with some Roman Catholic members) approached Steiner for help in reviving Christianity, in particular "to bridge the widening gulf between modern science and the world of spirit".<ref name="Essential" /> They approached a notable [[Lutheran]] pastor, [[Friedrich Rittelmeyer]], who was already working with Steiner's ideas, to join their efforts. Out of their co-operative endeavor, the ''Movement for Religious Renewal'', now generally known as [[The Christian Community]], was born. Steiner emphasized that he considered this movement, and his role in creating it, to be independent of his anthroposophical work,<ref name="Essential" /> as he wished anthroposophy to be independent of any particular [[religion]] or religious denomination.<ref name="Willmann" />

==Reception==
=== Supporters and critics ===
Anthroposophy's supporters include [[Saul Bellow]],<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Fulford |first=Robert |date=23 October 2000 |title=Bellow: the novelist as homespun philosopher |url=http://www.robertfulford.com/SaulBellow.html |access-date=16 March 2024 |work=The National Post}}</ref> [[Selma Lagerlöf]],<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Kugler |first=Walter |title=Feindbild Steiner |date=2001 |publisher=Verl. Freies Geistesleben & Urachhaus |isbn=978-3-7725-1918-5 |publication-place=Stuttgart |page=61 |language=de}}</ref> [[Andrei Bely]],<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Liukkonen |first=Petri |title=Andrey Bely |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bely.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020610132804/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bely.htm |archive-date=10 June 2002 |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Elsworth |first=J. D. |year=1983 |title=Andrej Bely: A Critical Study of the Novels |journal=The Russian Review |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=53–55 |jstor=129408}}</ref> [[Joseph Beuys]],<ref name=":4">{{Cite magazine |last=John F. Moffitt |date=Spring 1991 |title=Occultism in Avant-Garde Art: The Case of Joseph Beuys |magazine=Art Journal |pages=96–98 |volume=50 |number=1}}</ref> [[Owen Barfield]], architect [[Walter Burley Griffin]],<ref name=WBGriffin/> [[Wassily Kandinsky]],<ref name=":6">{{Cite magazine |last=Peg Weiss |date=Summer 1997 |title=Kandinsky and Old Russia: The Artist as Ethnographer and Shaman |magazine=The Slavic and East European Journal |pages=371–373 |volume=41 |number=2}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite web |last=David Hier |title=Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction 1908–1922 |url=http://www.artsablaze.co.uk/News/kandinsky.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014210937/http://www.artsablaze.co.uk/News/kandinsky.htm |archive-date=14 October 2013 |access-date=31 December 2013 |website=Arts Ablaze}}</ref> [[Andrei Tarkovsky]],<ref name=":8">{{Cite web |last=Layla Alexander Garrett |title=Andrey Tarkovsky-Enigma and Mystery |url=http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Layla.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090927213535/http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Layla.html |archive-date=27 September 2009 |access-date=31 December 2013 |website=Nostalghia}}</ref> [[Bruno Walter]],<ref name=":9">Bruno Walter, "Mein Weg zur Anthroposophie". In: ''Das Goetheanum'' 52 (1961), 418–2</ref> [[Right Livelihood Award]] winners [[Sir George Trevelyan, 4th Baronet|Sir George Trevelyan]],<ref name=":10">B J Nesfield-Cookson, [http://www.sirgeorgetrevelyan.org.uk/mem-steiner.html "Rudolf Steiner"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924102200/http://www.sirgeorgetrevelyan.org.uk/mem-steiner.html |date=24 September 2015}} from Sir George Trevelyan: thoughts and writings</ref> and [[Ibrahim Abouleish]],<ref name="Abouleish 2005 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Abouleish |first=Ibrahim |title=Sekem: A Sustainable Community in the Egyptian Desert |date=2005 |publisher=Floris Books |isbn=0-86315-532-4 |publication-place=Edinburgh |oclc=ocm61302498}}</ref> and child psychiatrist [[Eva Frommer]].<ref name="Frommer 1995 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Frommer |first=Eva A. |title=Voyage Through Childhood Into the Adult World – A Guide to Child Development |publisher=Rudolph Steiner Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-1-869890-59-9}}</ref><ref name=":13">Fiona Subotsky, [http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/29/5/197.1 Eva Frommer (Obituary)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161226055842/http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/29/5/197.1 |date=26 December 2016}}, 29 April 2005. {{doi|10.1192/pb.29.5.197}}</ref>

The historian of religion [[Olav Hammer]] has termed anthroposophy "the most important esoteric society in European history."<ref name=Hammer/> However authors, scientists, and physicians including [[Michael Shermer]], Michael Ruse, [[Edzard Ernst]], [[David Gorski]], and [[Simon Singh]] have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education to be dangerous and [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]].<ref name="dangerous" /> Others including former Waldorf pupil Dan Dugan and historian Geoffrey Ahern have criticized anthroposophy itself as a dangerous quasi-religious movement that is fundamentally anti-rational and anti-scientific.<ref>Sources for 'anti-rational' or 'anti-scientific':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Dugan|2007|pp=74–76}}|{{harvnb|Ruse|2013a|pp=128–}}|{{Cite news |last=Williams |first=Lee |date=8 November 2016 |title=steiner schools |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/steiner-schools-have-some-questionable-lessons-for-todays-children-a7402911.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601025031/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/steiner-schools-have-some-questionable-lessons-today-s-children-a7402911.html |archive-date=1 June 2021 |access-date=29 November 2018 |work=The Independent}}|{{harvnb|Dugan|2002|p=32}}|{{harvnb|Ahern|2009}}}}</ref>

===Scientific basis===
Though Rudolf Steiner studied [[natural science]] at the Vienna Technical University at the undergraduate level, his [[doctorate]] was in epistemology and very little of his work is directly concerned with the empirical sciences. In his mature work, when he did refer to science it was often to present phenomenological or [[Goethean science]] as an alternative to what he considered the materialistic science of his contemporaries.<ref name=Hammer/>

Steiner's primary interest was in applying the methodology of science to realms of inner experience and the spiritual worlds (his appreciation that the essence of science is its method of inquiry is unusual among [[esoteric]]ists<ref name=Hammer/>), and Steiner called anthroposophy ''[[Geisteswissenschaft]]'' (science of the mind, cultural/spiritual science), a term generally used in German to refer to the [[humanities]] and [[social science]]s.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Philolex entry |url=http://www.philolex.de/geistwis.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110222130/http://www.philolex.de/geistwis.htm |archive-date=10 November 2013 |access-date=31 December 2013 |publisher=Philolex.de}}</ref>

Whether this is a sufficient basis for anthroposophy to be considered a spiritual science has been a matter of controversy.<ref name=Hammer/><ref name="Willmann">{{Cite journal |last=Willmann |first=Carlo |year=2001 |title=Waldorfpädagogik: Theologische und religionspädagogische Befunde |journal=Kölner Veröffentlichungen zur Religionsgeschichte |language=de |publisher=Böhlau |publication-place=Köln Weimar Wien |volume=27 |isbn=978-3-412-16700-4 |issn=0030-9230}} Especially chapters 1.3, 1.4.</ref> As Freda Easton explained in her study of Waldorf schools, "Whether one accepts anthroposophy as a science depends upon whether one accepts Steiner's interpretation of a science that extends the consciousness and capacity of human beings to experience their inner spiritual world."<ref name="Easton 1995 p. ">{{Cite book |last=Easton |first=Freda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kInpHAAACAAJ |title=The Waldorf Impulse in Education: Schools as Communities that Educate the Whole Child by Integrating Artistic and Academic Work |publisher=Teachers College, Columbia University |year=1995 |access-date=16 March 2024}}</ref>

[[Sven Ove Hansson]] has disputed anthroposophy's claim to a scientific basis, stating that its ideas are not empirically derived and neither reproducible nor testable.<ref name="Sven Ove" /> Carlo Willmann points out that as, on its own terms, anthroposophical methodology offers no possibility of being falsified except through its own procedures of spiritual investigation, no [[intersubjectivity|intersubjective validation]] is possible by conventional scientific methods; it thus cannot stand up to empiricist critics.<ref name="Willmann" /> Peter Schneider describes such objections as untenable, asserting that if a non-sensory, non-physical realm exists, then according to Steiner the experiences of pure thinking possible within the normal realm of consciousness would already be experiences of that, and it would be impossible to exclude the possibility of empirically grounded experiences of other supersensory content.<ref name="Schneider" />

Olav Hammer suggests that anthroposophy carries [[scientism]] "to lengths unparalleled in any other Esoteric position" due to its dependence upon claims of clairvoyant experience, its subsuming natural science under "spiritual science". Hammer also asserts that the development of what he calls "fringe" sciences such as [[anthroposophic medicine]] and [[biodynamic agriculture]] are justified partly on the basis of the ethical and ecological values they promote, rather than purely on a scientific basis.<ref name=Hammer/>

Though Steiner saw that spiritual vision itself is difficult for others to achieve, he recommended open-mindedly exploring and rationally testing the results of such research; he also urged others to follow a spiritual training that would allow them directly to apply his methods to achieve comparable results.<ref name="Schneider" />

[[Anthony Storr]] stated about Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy: "His belief system is so eccentric, so unsupported by evidence, so manifestly bizarre, that rational skeptics are bound to consider it delusional... But, whereas Einstein's way of perceiving the world by thought became confirmed by experiment and mathematical proof, Steiner's remained intensely subjective and insusceptible of objective confirmation."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Storr |first=Anthony |author-link=Anthony Storr |title=Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus |publisher=Free Press Paperbacks, Simon & Schuster |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-684-83495-5 |location=New York |pages=69–70 |chapter=IV. Rudolf Steiner |orig-date=1996}}</ref>

According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims, also championed by Waldorf schools:

# wrong [[color theory]];<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
# obtuse criticism of the [[theory of relativity]];<ref name="Sven Ove">{{Cite journal |last=Hansson |first=Sven Ove |year=1991 |title=Is Anthroposophy Science? |trans-title=Ist die Anthroposophie eine Wissenschaft? |url=http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/Hansson.html |journal=Conceptus: Zeitschrift für Philosophie |volume=XXV |issue=64 |pages=37–49 |issn=0010-5155}}</ref><ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
# weird ideas about [[Celestial mechanics|motions of the planets]];<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
# supporting [[vitalism]];<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
# doubting [[germ theory]];<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32">{{Cite book |last=Dugan |first=Dan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gr4snwg7iaEC&pg=PA32 |title=The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-57607-653-8 |editor-last=Shermer |editor-first=Michael |pages=31–33 |quote=In physics, Steiner championed Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's color theory over Isaac Newton, and he called relativity "brilliant nonsense." In astronomy, he taught that the motions of the planets were caused by the relationships of the spiritual beings that inhabited them. In biology, he preached vitalism and doubted germ theory. |editor-last2=Linse |editor-first2=Pat |volume=1}}</ref>
# weird approach to physiological systems;<ref name="FlynnDawkins2007" />
# "the heart is not a pump".<ref name="FlynnDawkins2007">{{Cite book |last=Dugan |first=Dan |url=http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/Anthroposophy.html |title=The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief |publisher=Prometheus Books, Publishers |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-61592-280-2 |editor-last=Flynn |editor-first=Tom |pages=74–75 |quote=Anthroposophical pseudoscience is easy to find in Waldorf schools. "Goethean science" is supposed to be based only on observation, without "dogmatic" theory. Because observations make no sense without a relationship to some hypothesis, students are subtly nudged in the direction of Steiner's explanations of the world. Typical departures from accepted science include the claim that Goethe refuted Newton's theory of color, Steiner's unique "threefold" systems in physiology, and the oft-repeated doctrine that "the heart is not a pump" (blood is said to move itself). |editor-last2=Dawkins |editor-first2=Richard |access-date=21 June 2015}}</ref>{{sfn|Hammer|2021|p=228 fn. 102}}

The epistemology offered by anthroposophy represents a regression to pre-scientific modes of thought.<ref name="s518">{{cite book | last=Ullrich | first=Heiner | title=Rudolf Steiner | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2014 | isbn=978-1-4411-6270-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uFKCBAAAQBAJ&dq=rudolf+steiner+theology&pg=PA131 | access-date=27 May 2025 | page=131}}</ref> Ullrich stated that its epistemology is "rationalized mysticism".{{sfn|Ullrich|2014|p=47}} Others stated that anthroposophy is "an arcane pseudoscience based on medieval mysticism".<ref name="o176">{{cite book | last=Akkerman | first=Abraham | title=The Urban Archetypes of Jane Jacobs and Ebenezer Howard: Contradiction and Meaning in City Form | publisher=University of Toronto Press | date=2020 | isbn=978-1-4875-0126-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8cLDDwAAQBAJ&q=rudolf%2520Steiner%2520pseudoscience&pg=PA99 | access-date=8 November 2025 | page=99}}</ref> Another author stated that it is "Rudolf Steiner's innovative doctrine that combined fashionable mysticism with no less fashionable pseudoscience."<ref name="k040">{{cite book | last=Etkind | first=Alexander | title=Eros Of The Impossible: The History Of Psychoanalysis In Russia | publisher=Routledge | date=2019 | isbn=978-0-429-72088-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZRGjDwAAQBAJ&q=rudolf%2520Steiner%2520pseudoscience&pg=PT19 | access-date=8 November 2025 | quote=Rudolf Steiner's innovative doctrine that combined fashionable mysticism with no less fashionable pseudoscience.}}</ref> A French author wrote that Anthroposophy "is a clever mix of pseudoscience, esotericism and mysticism".<ref name="v223">{{cite book | last=Braconnier | first=Alain | title=Le meilleur thérapeute, c'est vous | publisher=Odile Jacob | date=6 September 2023 | isbn=978-2-415-00615-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TRHUEAAAQBAJ&q=rudolf%2520steiner%2520savant%2520melange&pg=PT3 | language=fr | access-date=10 November 2025 | quote=est un savant mélange de pseudoscience, d'ésotérisme et de mysticisme}}</ref>

===Religious nature===

Two German scholars have called Anthroposophy "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century."{{sfn|Schnurbein|Ulbricht|2001|p=38}}{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2008|p=4}} Other scholars stated that Anthroposophy is "aspiring to the status of religious dogma".{{sfn|Diener|Hipolito|2013|p=78}} According to Maria Carlson, anthroposophy is a "positivistic religion" "offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience."{{sfn|Carlson|2015|p=136}}

According to Swartz, Brandt, Hammer, Hansson, and others Anthroposophy ''is'' a religion.<ref name="religion">Sources for 'religion':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last1=Schnurbein |first1=Stefanie von |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xHNhQgAACAAJ |title=Völkische Religion und Krisen der Moderne: Entwürfe "arteigener" Glaubenssysteme seit der Jahrhundertwende |last2=Ulbricht |first2=Justus H. |publisher=Königshausen & Neumann |year=2001 |isbn=978-3-8260-2160-2 |page=38 |language=de |access-date=8 February 2024}} apud {{cite journal | last=Staudenmaier | first=Peter | title=Race and Redemption: Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy | journal=Nova Religio | publisher=University of California Press | volume=11 | issue=3 | date=1 February 2008 | issn=1092-6690 | doi=10.1525/nr.2008.11.3.4 | pages=4–36| url=https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=hist_fac | url-access=subscription | quote=In Germany, historians of religion have described Anthroposophy as "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century."}}|{{cite journal | last1=Swartz | first1=Karen | last2=Hammer | first2=Olav | title=Soft charisma as an impediment to fundamentalist discourse: The case of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden | journal=Approaching Religion | volume=12 | issue=2 | date=14 June 2022 | issn=1799-3121 | doi=10.30664/ar.113383 | pages=18–37 | quote=2. It can be noted that insiders routinely deny that Anthroposophy is a religion and prefer to characterise it as, for example, a philosophical perspective or a form of science. From a scholarly perspective, however, Anthroposophy has all the elements that one typically associates with a religion, for example, a charismatic founder whose status is based on claims of having direct insight into a normally invisible spiritual dimension of existence, a plethora of culturally postulated suprahuman beings that are said to influence our lives, concepts of an afterlife, canonical texts and rituals. Religions whose members deny that the movement they belong to has anything to do with religion are not uncommon in the modern age, but the reason for this is a matter that goes beyond the confines of this article.| doi-access=free }}|{{cite book | last1=Hammer | first1=Olav | last2=Swartz-Hammer | first2=Karen | title=New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion | publisher=Cambridge University Press | series=Elements in New Religious Movements | year=2024 | isbn=978-1-009-03402-9 | chapter=NRMs in Comparative Perspective | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lkn8EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA62 | access-date=19 July 2024 | page=62 | quote=Being scientific is so important in the eyes of the adherents of some NRMs they vehemently reject the label religion. Anthroposophy, for instance, was founded by a charismatic leader whose status is based on claims of having direct insight into a normally invisible, spiritual dimension of existence, a plethora of culturally postulated suprahuman beings that are said to influence our lives, concepts of an afterlife, canonical texts, and a gamut of rituals. Many Anthroposophists nevertheless describe their movement as a science or a path toward knowledge and, when asked, deny that Anthroposophy is a religious movement.}}|{{cite book | last1=Brandt | first1=Katharina | last2=Hammer | first2=Olav | editor-last1=Hammer | editor-first1=Olav | editor-last2=Rothstein | editor-first2=Mikael | title=Handbook of the Theosophical Current | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion | year=2013 | isbn=978-90-04-23597-7 | chapter=Rudolf Steiner and Theosophy| chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VozAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA113 | access-date=23 January 2024 | page=113 fn. 1 | quote=From a scholar's point of view, Anthroposophy presents characteristics typically associated with religion, and in particular concepts of suprahuman agents (such as angels), a charismatic founder with postulated insight into the suprahuman realm (Steiner himself), rituals (for instance, eurythmy), and canonical texts (Steiner's writings). From an insider's perspective, however, "anthroposophy is not a religion, nor is it meant to be a substitute for religion. While its insights may support, illuminate or complement religious practice, it provides no belief system" (from the Waldorf school website www.waldorfanswers.com/NotReligion1.htm, accessed 9 October 2011). The contrast between a scholarly and an insiders' perspective on what constitutes religion is highlighted by the clinching warrant for this assertion. Although the website argues that Anthroposophy is not a religion by stating that there are no spiritual teachers and no beliefs, it does so by adding a reference to a text by Steiner, who thus functions as an unquestioned authority figure.}}|{{cite book | last1=Hammer | first1=Olav | editor-last1=Geertz | editor-first1=Armin | editor-last2=Warburg | editor-first2=Margit | title=New Religions and Globalization | publisher=Aarhus University Press | series=Renner Studies On New Religions | year=2008 | isbn=978-87-7934-681-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XdsKEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 | access-date=23 January 2024 | page=69 | quote=Anthroposophy is thus from an emic point of view emphatically not a religion. }}|{{cite journal | last=Hansson | first=Sven Ove | title=Anthroposophical Climate Science Denial | journal=Critical Research on Religion | publisher=Sage Publications | volume=10 | issue=3 | date=1 July 2022 | issn=2050-3032 | doi=10.1177/20503032221075382 | pages=281–297| doi-access=free | quote=Anthroposophy has characteristics usually associated with religions, not least a belief in a large number of spiritual beings (Toncheva 2015, 73–81, 134–135). However, its adherents emphatically reject that it is a religion, claiming instead that it is a spiritual science, Geisteswissenschaft (Zander 2007, 1:867).}}|{{cite book | last1=Zander | first1=Helmut | editor-last1=Hoheisel | editor-first1=Karl | editor-last2=Hutter | editor-first2=Manfred | editor-last3=Klein | editor-first3=Wolfgang Wassilios | editor-last4=Vollmer | editor-first4=Ulrich | title=Hairesis: Festschrift für Karl Hoheisel zum 65. Geburtstag | publisher=Aschendorff | series=Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum | year=2002 | isbn=978-3-402-08120-4 | chapter=Die Anthroposophie — Eine Religion? | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ZrYAAAAMAAJ | language=de | access-date=2 January 2024 | page=537}}|See also {{cite journal |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_bulletin-of-the-international-bureau-of-education_1959_33_130/page/36/mode/2up|title=II. Bibliography: 371.461 Rudolf Steiner Schools |journal=Bulletin of the International Bureau of Education |publisher=[[International Bureau of Education]] |location=Geneva |year=1959 |volume=33 |issue=130 |page=36|quote=Application of the teachings of anthroposophy—a religion based upon the philosophical and scientific knowledge of man—to education.}}|{{cite book | last=Beekman | first=Scott | title=William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult | publisher=Syracuse University Press | year=2005 | isbn=978-0-8156-0819-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LDQRUDaivdAC&dq=rudolf+steiner+heterodox&pg=PA196 | access-date=26 May 2025 | page=196 fn. 43 | quote=Steiner developed a religious system}}|{{cite book | last1=Gallagher | first1=Eugene V. | last2=Willsky-Ciollo | first2=Lydia | title=New Religions: Emerging Faiths and Religious Cultures in the Modern World [2 volumes] | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing USA | date=2021 | isbn=978-1-4408-6236-6 | chapter=Anthroposophy | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZETPEAAAQBAJ&dq=is+Anthroposophy+religion&pg=PA20 | access-date=24 August 2025 | page=20}}|{{cite book | last=Zduniak | first=Agnieszka | title=Metamorphoses of Religion and Spirituality in Central and Eastern Europe | chapter=Modern directions of development of religion and spirituality: an attempt at systematisation | publisher=Routledge | publication-place=London | date=2022 | isbn=978-1-003-27199-4 | doi=10.4324/9781003271994-6 | url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003271994/chapters/10.4324/9781003271994-6 | access-date=24 August 2025 | pages=55–65 | editor-last1=Zaręba | editor-first1=Sławomir H. | editor-last2=Sroczyńska | editor-first2=Maria | editor-last3=Cipriani | editor-first3=Roberto | editor-last4=Choczyński | editor-first4=Marcin | editor-last5=Klimski | editor-first5=Wojciech}}|{{cite book | last1=Hoffmann | first1=Ann-Kathrin | last2=Buck | first2=Marc Fabian | title=Critically Assessing the Reputation of Waldorf Education in Academia and the Public: Recent Developments the World Over, 1987–2004 | publisher=Taylor & Francis | date=2024 | isbn=978-1-04-009332-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WFpEEQAAQBAJ&dq=is+Anthroposophy+religion&pg=PA2002 | access-date=24 August 2025 | page=unpaginated | quote=Some "secularists" are further drawn to New Age types of Western spirituality and their cultural and practical aspects - including holistic and communal education.{{sup|21}} Like anthroposophy, the New Age movement is an "alternative religion" or "religion after religion." Steiner's views on education and other matters can readily be incorporated into New Age cultural and spiritual pluralism.}}|{{cite book | last=Bailey | first=Nancy E. | title=Losing America's Schools: The Fight to Reclaim Public Education | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | date=2016 | isbn=978-1-4758-2863-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u0FKDAAAQBAJ&dq=is+Anthroposophy+religion&pg=PA81 | access-date=24 August 2025 | page=81}}|{{cite book | last=Hansson | first=Sven Ove | editor-last=Humphreys | editor-first=Paul | title=The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science | publisher=Oxford University Press | date=2016 | isbn=978-0-19-936882-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F4LADAAAQBAJ&dq=is+anthroposophy+religion&pg=PA499 | access-date=24 August 2025 | page=499}}|{{cite book | last1=Zeugin | first1=Barbara | last2=Lüddeckens | first2=Dorothea | last3=Schrimpf | first3=Monika | editor-last1=Lüddeckens | editor-first1=Dorothea | editor-last2=Schrimpf | editor-first2=Monika | title=Medicine – Religion – Spirituality: Global Perspectives on Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Healing | publisher=transcript Verlag | date=2018 | isbn=978-3-8394-4582-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z2x3DwAAQBAJ&dq=is+anthroposophy+religion&pg=PA204 | access-date=25 August 2025 | pages=203–204 fn. 7 | language=en}}|{{cite book | last=Schwarcz | first=Joe | title=Quack Quack: The Threat of Pseudoscience | publisher=ECW Press | publication-place=Toronto, Ontario | date=2022 | isbn=978-1-77852-023-5 | chapter=Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy | pages=52–54 | quote=only to found his own peculiar religion, which he called anthroposophy.}}|{{cite book | last=McDermott | first=Robert | title=The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism | chapter=Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy | publisher=Cambridge University Press | date=18 April 2016 | doi=10.1017/cbo9781139027649.023 | pages=260–271 | isbn=978-0-521-50983-1 | quote=Anthroposophy overlaps with religion and mysticism in that it is focused on the human experience of the divine, but its emphasis is on a spiritual knowledge that is in principle difficult to attain.}}|{{cite book | last=Britt | first=Brian | title=Religion Around Walter Benjamin | publisher=Penn State Press | date=2022 | isbn=978-0-271-09357-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SMXKEAAAQBAJ&dq=Rudolf+Steiner+religion&pg=PA46 | access-date=27 October 2025 | page=46 | quote=Steiner may be best remembered today as the thinker who inspired Waldorf schools, but his speculative religious thought influenced a wide range of artists, thinkers, and religious leaders. Embracing theosophy in 1900, he developed his own system of thought, anthroposophy, and founded a society around it in 1912, advancing bold ideas involving education, medicine, health, and religion until his death in 1925. Steiner gave Goethe a central place in his work, and he named his headquarters in Switzerland, a masterpiece of modern architecture he designed, the Goetheanum.{{sup|88}} Like Mazdaznan, Steiner's thought combined elements of nineteenth-century spiritualism, race theory, spirituality, and speculative cosmology. Steiner also consulted with Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a popular Berlin pastor who had denounced the war in 1917 and established a new Christian church that echoed some of Steiner's ideas of personal belief and freedom, the Christian Community (''Christengemeinschaft'').{{sup|89}}}}}}</ref> They also call it "settled new religious movement",{{sfn|Swartz|Hammer|2022|pp=18–37}} while [[Martin Gardner]] and others called it a [[cult]].<ref>Sources for 'cult' or 'sect':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Gardner|1957|pp=169, 224–225}}|{{harvnb|Reznek|2010|pp=110–111}}|{{harvnb|Karina|Kant|Steinberg|2004|p=35}}|{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Candy Gunther |title=Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools |year=2019 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-1-4696-4848-4 |pages=229–254 |chapter=Waldorf Methods |doi=10.5149/northcarolina/9781469648484.003.0012 |quote=premised on anthroposophy, a religious sect founded by Steiner; |s2cid=241945146}}}}</ref> Another scholar also calls it a new religious movement or a new spiritual movement.{{sfn|Toncheva|2013|pp=81–89}} Already in 1924 Anthroposophy got labeled "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".{{sfn|Clemen|1924|pp=281–292}} Other scholars agree it is a new religious movement.<ref name="newreli" /> According to {{ill|Helmut Zander|de}}, both the theory and practice of Anthroposophy display characteristics of religion, and, according to Zander, Rudolf Steiner would plead no contest.{{sfn|Zander|2002|p=537}} According to Zander, Steiner's book ''Geheimwissenschaft'' [''Occult Science''] contains Steiner's [[mythology]] about [[cosmogenesis]].{{sfn|Zander|2002|p=528}} Hammer notices that Anthroposophy is a synthesis which does include occultism.<ref name="Lewis Tøllefsen 2015 p. 57">{{Cite book |last=Hammer |first=Olav |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3tfaCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 |title=Handbook of Nordic New Religions |publisher=Brill |year=2015 |isbn=978-90-04-29246-8 |editor-last=Lewis |editor-first=James R. |series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion |pages=56–57 |access-date=6 February 2024 |editor-last2=Tøllefsen |editor-first2=Inga Bårdsen}}</ref> Hammer also notices that Steiner's occult doctrines bear a strong resemblance to [[Helena Blavatsky|post-Blavatskyan]] Theosophy (e.g. [[Annie Besant]] and [[Charles Webster Leadbeater]]).<ref name="Partridge 2014 p. 350">{{Cite book |last=Hammer |first=Olav |title=The Occult World |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-317-59676-9 |editor-last=Partridge |editor-first=Christopher |series=Routledge Worlds |page=350 |chapter=The Theosophical Current in the Twentieth Century |access-date=6 February 2024 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_E-2BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA350}}</ref> According to Helmut Zander, Steiner's clairvoyant insights always developed according to the same pattern. He took revised texts from theosophical literature and then passed them off as his own higher insights. Because he did not want to be an occult storyteller, but a (spiritual) scientist, he adapted his reading, which he had seen supernaturally in the world's memory, to the current state of technology. When, for example, the [[Wright brothers]] began flying with gliders and eventually with motorized aircraft in 1903, Steiner transformed the ponderous gondola airships of his Atlantis story into airplanes with elevators and rudders in 1904.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zander |first=Helmut |title=Rudolf Steiner: Die Biografie |date=2011 |publisher=Piper |isbn=978-3-492-05448-5 |publication-place=München Zürich |pages=191ff |language=de}}</ref>

Another author states that the question whether Anthroposophy is a religion cannot be answered by "Yes" or "No".<ref name="g977">{{cite book | last=Ven | first=Johannes A. van der | title=God Reinvented?: A Theological Search in Texts and Tables | publisher=Brill | date=2023 | isbn=978-90-04-66564-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9tr7EAAAQBAJ&dq=is+Anthroposophy+religion&pg=PA9 | access-date=24 August 2025 | page=9}}</ref>

As an explicitly spiritual movement, anthroposophy has sometimes been called a religious philosophy.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=anthroposophy definition – Dictionary – MSN Encarta |url=http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561500913/anthroposophy.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091125142135/http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_561500913/anthroposophy.html |archive-date=25 November 2009}}</ref> In 1998 [[PLANS (Non-profit)|People for Legal and Non-Sectarian Schools (PLANS)]] started a lawsuit alleging that anthroposophy is a religion for [[Establishment Clause]] purposes and therefore several California school districts should not be chartering Waldorf schools; the lawsuit was dismissed in 2012 for failure to show anthroposophy was a religion.<ref>{{cite court |litigants= PLANS, Inc. v. Sacramento City Unified School District|vol= |reporter= |opinion=2:98-cv-00266-FCD-EFB|pinpoint= |court=United States District Court Eastern District of California|date=November 5, 2010|url=http://waldorfanswers.org/351MemorandumAndOrder4November2010.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://waldorfanswers.org/351MemorandumAndOrder4November2010.pdf <!--|archive-date=2022-10-09--> |url-status=live |quote=}}</ref>{{Primary source inline|reason=Original research based upon court documents, find a better source.|date=April 2024}} A 2012 paper in legal science reports this verdict as being provisional, and disagrees with its result, i.e. anthroposophy was declared "not a religion" due to an outdated legal framework.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rhea |first=Michael |year=2012 |title=Denying and Defining Religion Under the First Amendment: Waldorf Education as a Lens for Advocating a Broad Definitional Approach |url=https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3075&context=lalrev |journal=Louisiana Law Review |issue=72 |issn=0024-6859}}</ref> Another author disagrees with the point of that paper.<ref name="g817">{{cite book | last=Stehlik | first=Thomas | title=Waldorf Schools and the History of Steiner Education: An International View of 100 Years | publisher=Springer Nature | date=2019 | isbn=978-3-030-31631-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JU67DwAAQBAJ&dq=is+Anthroposophy+religion&pg=PA113 | access-date=24 August 2025 | page=113}}</ref> Yet another author agrees with the point of that paper.{{sfn|Bailey|2016|p=81}} In 2000, a French court ruled that a government minister's description of anthroposophy as a cult was defamatory.<ref>[[United States Department of State]], [https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6aa9918.html ''U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2000 – France''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191213092132/https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6aa9918.html |date=2019-12-13 }}, 26 Feb. 2001</ref> The French governmental anti-cults agency [[MIVILUDES]] reported that it remains vigilant about Anthroposophy, especially because of its deviant medical applications and its work with underage persons, and that the works of {{ill|Grégoire Perra|fr}} which lambast anthroposophical medicine do not constitute defamation.<ref name="miviludes">{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires |author-link=MIVILUDES |date=28 April 2023 |title=Rapport d'activité 2021 |url=https://www.miviludes.interieur.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/publications/francais/MIVILUDES-RAPPORT2021_web_%2027_04_2023%20_0.pdf |pages=72–74 |language=fr |access-date=16 November 2024 |archive-date=21 July 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240721001825/https://www.miviludes.interieur.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/publications/francais/MIVILUDES-RAPPORT2021_web_%2027_04_2023%20_0.pdf |chapter=L'anthroposophie: de multiples facettes pour un même visage}}|{{Cite book |last=Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires |author-link=MIVILUDES |date=21 July 2025 |title=Rapport d'activité 2021 |url=https://www.miviludes.interieur.gouv.fr/sites/miviludes/files/medias/documents/2025-07/MIVILUDES-RAPPORT2021.pdf |pages=72–74 |language=fr |access-date=7 August 2025|chapter=L'anthroposophie: de multiples facettes pour un même visage}}}}</ref> Anthroposophical MDs think diseases are caused primarily by karma and demons, rather than materialistic causes.<ref name="miviludes" /> The [[Gospel of Luke]] is their main handbook of medical science; this makes them believe they have magical powers, and that medicine is essentially a form of magic.<ref name="miviludes" /> The professional French organization of Anthroposophic MDs have sued Mr. Perra for such claims; they have been condemned to pay 25,000 Euros damages for abusively suing him.<ref name="miviludes" /><ref name="y399">{{cite web | last=Gérard | first=Jean-François | title=À Strasbourg, des médecins anthroposophes condamnés pour avoir voulu "faire taire Grégoire Perra" | website=Rue89 Strasbourg | date=12 October 2021 | url=https://www.rue89strasbourg.com/association-medecins-anthroposophes-condamnee-poursuites-ancien-professeur-219029 | language=fr | access-date=23 August 2025}}</ref>

Julian Rivers stated that is by no means easy to tell whether the Steiner schools are religious schools.<ref name="c995">{{cite book | first=Julian | last=Rivers | title=The law of organized religions | publisher=Oxford University Press | date=2010 | isbn=978-0-19-922610-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xorCI_hbEbQC&dq=Rudolf+Steiner+religion&pg=PA264 | access-date=27 October 2025 | page=264}}</ref> The Anthroposophist N.C. Thomas denies that Anthroposophy is a religion.<ref name="c425">{{cite book | first=N.C. | last=Thomas | editor-last1=Taylor | editor-first1=Bron Raymond | editor-last2=Kaplan | editor-first2=Jeffrey | editor-first3=Laura | editor-last3=Hobgood-Oster | title=The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature: K-Z | publisher=A&C Black | publication-place=London | date=2005 | isbn=1-84371-138-9 | page=1597 | chapter=Steiner, Rudolf (1861–1925) – and Anthroposophy | quote=However, knowing that the academic establishment would shun him, he nevertheless decided in 1902 to begin speaking openly about his spiritual observations.}}</ref> Joel Beversluis recognizes that is what Anthroposophists claim.<ref name="m626">{{cite book | last=Beversluis | first=Joel | title=Sourcebook of the World's Religions: An Interfaith Guide to Religion and Spirituality | publisher=New World Library | date=2011 | orig-date=2000, 1995, 1993 | isbn=978-1-57731-332-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dbSPOoQfu0IC&q=Rudolf%2520Steiner%2520religion&pg=PA98 | access-date=28 October 2025 | page=98 | edition=Third}}</ref> Two Socialist German scholars say Anthroposophy is semi-religious.<ref name="r302">{{cite book | last1=Engel | first1=Stefan | last2=Gärtner-Engel | first2=Monika | title=The Crisis of Bourgeois Social Sciences, Religion and Culture | publisher=Verlag Neuer Weg | date=2025 | isbn=978-3-88021-725-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yqR3EQAAQBAJ&q=rudolf%2520steiner%2520religion&pg=PA35 | access-date=27 October 2025 | pages=35–36}}</ref> James A. Santucci says Anthroposophy is based upon esoteric Christianity.<ref name="n122">{{cite book | first=James A. | last=Santucci | editor-last1=Lewis | editor-first1=James R. | editor-last2=Petersen | editor-first2=Jesper Aagaard | title=Controversial New Religions | publisher=Oxford University Press, USA | date=2004 | isbn=978-0-19-803565-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cHwEZkb7P1gC&q=rudolf%2520steiner%2520religion&pg=PA281 | access-date=28 October 2025 | page=281}}</ref>

Scholars state that Anthroposophy is influenced by [[Christianity|Christian]] [[Gnosticism]].<ref>Sources for 'Christian Gnosticism' or simply 'Gnosticism':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Robertson|2021|p=57}}|{{harvnb|Gilmer|2021|p=41}}|{{harvnb|Quispel|1980}}|{{harvnb|Quispel|Oort|2008|p=370}}|{{harvnb|Carlson|2018|p=58}}|{{harvnb|McL. Wilson|1993|p=256}}|{{harvnb|Goodrick-Clarke|2013|p=301}}|{{harvnb|Steiner|Seddon|Goodrick-Clarke|2004|p=7}}|{{harvnb|Schnurbein|2016|pp=34–35 fn. 57.}}|{{harvnb|Dipple|2019}}|{{harvnb|Ullrich|2014|pp=137–138|ps=: "In anthroposophical gnosis this sort of knowledge is predicated upon the certainty of belief in the interlinked natures of the human and the cosmic spirits, much as Christian gnosis and mysticism advance an essential relatedness between the soul and God."}}}}</ref> The Catholic Church did in 1919 issue an edict classifying Anthroposophy as "a neognostic heresy" despite the fact that Steiner "very well respected the distinctions on which Catholic dogma insists".<ref name="Diener Hipolito 2013 p. 77">{{Cite book |last1=Diener |first1=Astrid |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2kf7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77 |title=The Role of Imagination in Culture and Society: Owen Barfield's Early Work |last2=Hipolito |first2=Jane |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-7252-3320-1 |page=77 |access-date=6 March 2023 |orig-date=2002| quote=According to a strict interpretation of Catholic dogma, anthroposophy is a "neugnostische Irrlehre" ("a neognostic heresy") [cf. eg. Simmel vol. i, 631].}}</ref><ref name="k531">See also {{Cite book |last=DWB |title=The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church |publisher=OUP Oxford |year=2022 |isbn=978-0-19-263815-1 |editor-last=Louth |editor-first=Andrew |edition=4th |pages=76–77 |chapter=anthroposophy |access-date=18 May 2024 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3CNeEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT591 |orig-date=2005 |quote=It was condemned by the Catholic Church in 1919.}}</ref><ref name="x403">{{cite book | last=Hardon | first=John A. | title=Modern Catholic Dictionary | publisher=Doubleday Books | publication-place=Garden City, N.Y | date=1980 | isbn=978-0-385-12162-0 | page=29 | chapter=Anthroposophy | chapter-url=https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=31845&randomterm=false | language=en}}</ref> The secular scholar Joan Braune agrees that Anthroposophy is Gnosticism.<ref name="d182">{{cite book | last=Braune | first=Joan | title=Erich Fromm's Revolutionary Hope: Prophetic Messianism as a Critical Theory of the Future | publisher=SensePublishers | series=Imagination and Praxis: Criticality and Creativity in Education and Educational Research | year=2014 | isbn=978-94-6209-812-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TfibBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA52 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=52 |quote=Although generally "Gnosticism" refers to an early Christian heresy combated by neo-Platonists like Plotinus and Church fathers like Irenaeus and Tertullian, in 1920s Germany it described a cultural phenomenon ranging in influence from Theosophist educator Rudolf Steiner (Steiner's "Lucifer-Gnosis") and Stefan George to Walter Benjamin and (to a more limited extent) Ernst Bloch (Lazier 28, 29, 32).}}</ref>

Some Baptist and mainstream academical heresiologists still appear inclined to agree with the more narrow prior edict of 1919<ref name="Ellwood Partin 2016 p.">{{Cite book |last1=Ellwood |first1=Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oWN4DQAAQBAJ |title=Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America |last2=Partin |first2=Harry |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-315-50723-1 |edition=2nd |page=unpaginated |quote=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. |access-date=6 March 2023 |orig-date=1988, 1973}}</ref> on dogma and the Lutheran (Missouri Sinod) apologist and heresiologist Eldon K. Winker quoted Ron Rhodes that Steiner's Christology is very similar to [[Cerinthus]].<ref name="Winker 1994 p. ">Sources for 'Christology':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Winker |first=Eldon K. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W90QAQAAIAAJ |title=The New Age is Lying to You |publisher=Concordia Publishing House |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-570-04637-0 |series=Concordia scholarship today |page=34 |quote=The Christology of Cerinthus is notably similar to that of Rudolf Steiner (who founded the Anthroposophical Society in 1912) and contemporary New Age writers such as David Spangler and George Trevelyan. These individuals all say the Christ descended on the human Jesus at his baptism. But they differ with Cerinthus in that they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion.{{sup|12}} |access-date=6 March 2023}}|{{cite book | last=Rhodes | first=Ron | title=The Counterfeit Christ of the New Age Movement | publisher=Baker Book House | series=Christian Research Institute Series | year=1990 | isbn=978-0-8010-7757-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QwtBPQAACAAJ | access-date=26 October 2023 | page=19}}}}</ref> Steiner did perceive "a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos",<ref name="Cees Christ">{{Cite book |last=Leijenhorst |first=Cees |author-link=Cees Leijenhorst |title=Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism |publisher=Brill |year=2006 |editor-last=Hanegraaff |editor-first=Wouter J. |editor-link=Wouter Hanegraaff |location=Leiden / Boston |page=84 |chapter=Anthroposophy |quote=Nevertheless, he made a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos. |editor-last2=Faivre |editor-first2=Antoine |editor-last3=Broek |editor-first3=Roelof van den |editor-last4=Brach |editor-first4=Jean-Pierre}}</ref> which could be construed as Gnostic but not [[docetism|Docetic]],<ref name="Cees Christ" /> since "they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion".<ref name="Winker 1994 p."/> "Steiner's Christology is discussed as a central element of his thought in Johannes Hemleben, ''Rudolf Steiner: A Documentary Biography,'' trans. Leo Twyman (East Grinstead, Sussex: Henry Goulden, 1975), pp. 96-100. From the perspective of orthodox Christianity, it may be said that Steiner combined a docetic understanding of Christ's nature with the Adoptionist heresy."<ref name="g483">{{Cite book |last=Etter |first=Brian K. |title=From Classicism to Modernism: Western Musical Culture and the Metaphysics of Order |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-315-18576-7 |page=unpaginated. fn. 80 |chapter=Chapter Six The New Music and the Influence of Theosophy |orig-date=2001}}</ref> Older scholarship says Steiner's Christology is [[Nestorianism|Nestorian]].<ref name="k343">{{Cite book |last=Sanders |first=John Oswald |title=Cults and Isms: Ancient and Modern |publisher=Zondervan |year=1962 |isbn=978-0-551-00458-0 |publication-place=Grand Rapids, Michigan |page=165 |chapter=Anthroposophy |oclc=3910997 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XPZOAQAAMAAJ |orig-date=1948 |quote=To Steiner, Christ is not one of many Saviours, nor the product of many reincarnations, but he reproduces the Nestorian error of differentiating between the Christ and Jesus. At the baptism, the Son of God descended on the Son of Man.}}</ref> According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner's Christology was, however, quite heterodox, and hardly compatible with official church doctrine."<ref name="aspremthesis">{{Bulleted list|{{Cite thesis |last=Asprem |first=Egil |title=The problem of disenchantment: scientific naturalism and esoteric discourse, 1900-1939. |date=2013 |degree=dr. |publisher=University of Amsterdam |url=https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/2010817/117215_thesis.pdf |page=507 |hdl=11245/1.393117}}|{{Cite book |last=Asprem |first=Egil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2e9dDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA493 |title=The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900-1939 |publisher=State University of New York Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4384-6992-8 |editor-last=Appelbaum |editor-first=David |series=SUNY series in Western Esoteric Traditions |page=493 |access-date=18 May 2024 |orig-date=2014}}}}</ref>

[[George Bălan]] wrote "Even before Nazism and communism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism had declared war on anthroposophy for daring to step into territory considered the privileged domain of the Church."<ref name="g311">{{cite web | last=Bălan | first=George | title=Amintirile unui dezrădăcinat. Antroposofia | website=Observator Cultural | date=9 July 2021 | url=https://www.observatorcultural.ro/articol/amintirile-unui-dezradacinat-antroposofia/ | language=ro | access-date=26 May 2025}}</ref>

Steiner's Anthroposophy influenced the Russian theologians [[Pavel Florensky]] and [[Sergei Bulgakov]].<ref name="s947">{{cite book | last=Russell | first=Norman | title=Theosis and Religion: Participation in Divine Life in the Eastern and Western Traditions | publisher=Cambridge University Press | date=2024 | isbn=978-1-108-31101-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mDX9EAAAQBAJ&dq=Rudolf+Steiner+religion&pg=PA24 | access-date=27 October 2025 | page=24}}</ref>

===Statements on race===

Some anthroposophical ideas challenged the National Socialist racialist and nationalistic agenda. In contrast, some American educators have criticized Waldorf schools for failing to equally include the fables and myths of all cultures, instead favoring European stories over African ones.
* From the mid-1930s on, National Socialist ideologues attacked the anthroposophical worldview as being opposed to Nazi racist and nationalistic principles; anthroposophy considered "Blood, Race and Folk" as primitive instincts that must be overcome.<ref>Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, 7. Februar 1935. BAD R 4901–3285.</ref><ref>Report of the SD-Hauptamtes Berlin: "Anthroposophy", May 1936, BAD Z/B I 904.</ref>
* An academic analysis of the educational approach in public schools noted that "[A] naive version of the evolution of consciousness, a theory foundational to both Steiner's anthroposophy and Waldorf education, sometimes places one race below another in one or another dimension of development. It is easy to imagine why there are disputes [...] about Waldorf educators' insisting on teaching Norse tales and Greek myths to the exclusion of African modes of discourse."<ref name="McDermott">{{Cite journal |last1=McDermott |first1=Ray |last2=Henry |first2=Mary E. |last3=Dillard |first3=Cynthia |last4=Byers |first4=Paul |last5=Easton |first5=Freda |last6=Oberman |first6=Ida |last7=Uhrmacher |first7=Bruce |date=1996 |title=Waldorf education in an inner-city public school |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02354381 |url-status=live |journal=The Urban Review |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=119–140 |doi=10.1007/BF02354381 |issn=0042-0972 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210601025024/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02354381 |archive-date=1 June 2021 |access-date=1 June 2021 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In response to such critiques, the [[Anthroposophical Society]] in America published in 1998 a statement clarifying its stance:
<blockquote>We explicitly reject any racial theory that may be construed to be part of Rudolf Steiner's writings. The Anthroposophical Society in America is an open, public society and it rejects any purported spiritual or scientific theory on the basis of which the alleged superiority of one race is justified at the expense of another race.<ref>The General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America (1998) [https://web.archive.org/web/20080106140711/http://www.anthroposophy.org/Gov/StatementOnDiversity.php Position Statement on Diversity].</ref></blockquote>

[[Tommy Wieringa]], a Dutch writer who grew among Anthroposophists, commenting upon an essay by the Anthroposophist {{ill|Désanne van Brederode|nl}}, he wrote "It was a meeting of old acquaintances: Nazi leaders such as Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler already recognized a kindred spirit in Rudolf Steiner, with his theories about racial purity, esoteric medicine and biodynamic agriculture."<ref name="NRC 2021">{{Cite web |last=Wieringa |first=Tommy |date=8 May 2021 |title=Groene vingers |url=https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/05/08/groene-vingers-a4042900 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507202917/https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/05/08/groene-vingers-a4042900 |archive-date=7 May 2021 |access-date=7 February 2023 |website=NRC |language=nl |quote=Het was een ontmoeting van oude bekenden: nazi-kopstukken als Rudolf Hess en Heinrich Himmler herkenden in Rudolf Steiner al een geestverwant, met zijn theorieën over raszuiverheid, esoterische geneeskunst en biologisch-dynamische landbouw.}}</ref><ref name="Brederode 2021">{{Cite web |last=Brederode |first=Désanne van |date=27 February 2021 |title=Désanne van Brederode is verbijsterd: corona drijft antroposofen in extreemrechtse armen |url=https://www.trouw.nl/religie-filosofie/desanne-van-brederode-is-verbijsterd-corona-drijft-antroposofen-in-extreemrechtse-armen~bb13d660/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419072542/https://www.trouw.nl/religie-filosofie/desanne-van-brederode-is-verbijsterd-corona-drijft-antroposofen-in-extreemrechtse-armen~bb13d660/ |archive-date=19 April 2021 |access-date=7 February 2023 |website=Trouw |language=nl}}</ref>

The racism of Anthroposophy is spiritual and paternalistic (i.e. benevolent), while the racism of fascism is materialistic and often malign.<ref name="Vukadinović 2022 p. 582">{{Cite book |last=Martins |first=Ansgar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B7efEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT582 |title=Rassismus: Von der frühen Bundesrepublik bis zur Gegenwart |publisher=De Gruyter |year=2022 |isbn=978-3-11-070278-1 |editor-last=Vukadinović |editor-first=Vojin Saša |page=unpaginated |language=de |quote=Und genau diese komfortable Situation macht es möglich, dass Anthroposophie bis heute eine ganz erstaunliche Auswahl von rassischen und Völker-Stereotypen tradiert, die in ihrer Gründerzeit anscheinend kaum als skandalös auffielen, aber heute den politischen Status des Ganzen verändern. Steiners nationalistische, antijüdische und rassistische Vorstellungen notierten um 1920 nicht einmal linke Kritiker wie Ernst Bloch Oder Siegfried Kracauer, aber sie sickern zum Beispiel auch noch in die jüngere Waldorf-Literatur ein und führen seit den 1990er Jahren periodisch zu erbitterten wissenschaftlichen, journalistischen und juristischen Auseinandersetzungen. Die Argumente Sind seit Jahrzehnten ausgetauscht, das Andauern der Debatte gleicht einem Sich wahnsinnig weiterdrehenden Hamsterrad. Anthroposophen reagieren dabei stets reaktiv auf externe Kritik. Dass Steiner Sich von den wilden Rassisten des 19. Jahrhunderts distanzierte, wird manchen seiner heutigen Anhänger zur Ausrede, um seinen eigenen, spirituell-paternalistischen Rassismus in der Gegenwart schönzureden.{{sup|4}} Einer überschaubaren Anzahl kritischer Aufsätze{{sup|5}} stehen monographische Hetzschriften gegenüber, die Kritiker des "gezielten, vorsätzlich unternommenen Rufmords"{{sup|6}} bezichtigen. Derweil sprechen Sich die anthroposophischen Dachverbände, wenn die Kritik allzu laut wird, in formelhaften Allgemeinplätzen gegen Rassismus aus und gestehen vage, zeitbedingte' Formulierungen Steiners zu.{{sup|7}} Überhaupt dreht Sich die Diskussion zu oft um Steiner. Es Sind jüngere Beiträge, die seine Stereotype in die Gegenwart transportieren. |access-date=24 February 2023}}</ref> [[Olav Hammer]], university professor expert in [[new religious movements]] and [[Western esotericism]], confirms that now the racist and anti-Semitic character of Steiner's teachings can no longer be denied, even if that is "spiritual racism".<ref name="confirm">{{Cite journal |last=Hammer |first=Olav |date=2016 |title=Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era, written by Peter Staudenmaier |journal=Numen |publisher=Brill |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=118–121 |doi=10.1163/15685276-12341412 |issn=0029-5973 |jstor=24644844 |quote=their founder or their movement has been tainted with racism or anti-Semitism. [...] Denial, it would seem, is no longer an option.}}</ref>

According to Munoz, in the materialist perspective (i.e. no reincarnations), Anthroposophy is racist, but in the spiritual perspective (i.e. reincarnations mandatory) it is not racist.{{sfn|Munoz|2016|pp=189-190}}

{{blockquote|1=One crucial stumbling block for English language readers is the anthroposophical tendency to delete racist and antisemitic passages from translated editions of Steiner's publications.{{sfn|Beres|Remski|Walker|2023}}<ref name="m541">{{cite web | last=Staudenmaier | first=Peter | title=Anthroposophy and Ecofascism | website=Institute for Social Ecology | date=10 January 2009 | url=https://social-ecology.org/wp/2009/01/anthroposophy-and-ecofascism-2/ | access-date=25 August 2025}}</ref>|2=Peter Staudenmaier}}

Two Socialist German scholars say Steiner was racist and reactionary.<ref name="r302"/>

===Reception by Nazi regime in Germany===
Though several prominent members of the [[Nazi Party]] were supporters of anthroposophy and its movements, including agriculturalist {{interlanguage link|Erhard Bartsch|de}}, SS colonel [[List of SS personnel|Hermann Schneider]], and [[Gestapo]] chief [[Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)|Heinrich Müller]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Staudenmaier |first=Peter |date=1 April 2013 |title=Organic Farming in Nazi Germany: The Politics of Biodynamic Agriculture, 1933–1945 |journal=Environmental History |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=383–411 |doi=10.1093/envhis/ems154}}</ref> anti-Nazis such as [[Traute Lafrenz]], a member of the [[White Rose]] resistance movement, were also followers.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Cowell |first=Alan |date=10 March 2023 |title=Traute Lafrenz, Last Survivor of Anti-Hitler Group, Dies at 103 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/world/europe/traute-lafrenz-page-dead.html |work=The New York Times |via=NYTimes.com}}</ref> [[Rudolf Hess]], the adjunct Führer, was a patron of Waldorf schools<ref name="Douglas-Hamilton 2012 p. 106">{{Cite book |last=Douglas-Hamilton |first=James |title=The Truth About Rudolf Hess |publisher=Mainstream Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-78057-791-3 |page=unpaginated |chapter=1 Turmoil at the Dictator's Court: 11 May 1941 |quote=Organisations which Hess had supported, such as the Rudolf Steiner schools, were closed down. |access-date=2 October 2022 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J5SyahCctVsC&pg=PT106}}</ref><ref name="Rieppel 2016 p. 246">{{Cite book |last=Rieppel |first=Olivier |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vgN-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA246 |title=Phylogenetic Systematics: Haeckel to Hennig |publisher=CRC Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-4987-5489-7 |page=246 |quote=Although in his reply, Himmler pretended to share Astel's assessment of anthroposophy as a dangerous movement, he admitted to be unable to do anything about the school of Rudolf Steiner because Rudolf Hess supported and protected it. |access-date=3 October 2022}}</ref> and a staunch defender of biodynamic agriculture.<ref name="Tucker 2018 p. 165">{{Cite book |last=Tucker |first=S.D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2K6IDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT165 |title=False Economies: The Strangest, Least Successful and Most Audacious Financial Follies, Plans and Crazes of All Time |publisher=Amberley Publishing |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4456-7235-9 |page=unpaginated |quote=according to Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), those sceptics who criticised biodynamic methods on scientific grounds were just 'carrying out a kind of witch-trial' against Steiner's followers |access-date=3 October 2022}}</ref> "Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darré (the future Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Höss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, [...]"<ref name="Kurlander 2015 pp. 498–522">{{Cite journal |last=Kurlander |first=Eric |year=2015a |title=The Nazi Magicians' Controversy: Enlightenment, "Border Science," and Occultism in the Third Reich |journal=Central European History |publisher=[Cambridge University Press, Central European History Society] |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=498–522 |issn=<!--00089389, -->15691616 |jstor=43965203 |quote=Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darré (the future Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Höss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, [...]}}</ref>

"One of the most insightful contributions to this area is Peter Staudenmaier's case study of Anthroposophy, which has demonstrated the ambiguous role of Anthroposophists in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany."<ref name="o691">{{Cite book |last=Strube |first=Julian |title=Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism |year=2019 |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |isbn=978-90-485-4285-7 |editor-last=Forshaw |editor-first=Peter |publication-place=Amsterdam |page=230 |chapter=Doesn't occultism lead straight to fascism? |quote=One of the most insightful contributions to this area is Peter Staudenmaier's case study of Anthroposophy, which has demonstrated the ambiguous role of Anthroposophists in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. |editor-last2=Hanegraaff |editor-first2=Wouter J. |editor-last3=Pasi |editor-first3=Marco |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7nGaDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA230}}</ref> According to Staudenmaier, the fascist and Nazi authorities saw occultism not as deviant, but as deeply familiar.<ref name="o691" />

==See also==
{{Portal|Philosophy}}
* [[Esoteric Christianity]]
* [[Esotericism in Germany and Austria]]
* [[Pneumatosophy]]
* [[Spiritual but not religious]]

==References==
===Notes===
{{notelist-lr}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Library resources box|by=no|onlinebooks=no|wikititle=anthroposophy}}
{{wiktionary|spiritual}}
{{commons category|Anthroposophy}}
{{wiktionary}}
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/ Rudolf Steiner Archive] (Steiner's works online)
* [http://fvn-rs.net/ Steiner's complete works in German]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130514194542/http://www.rudolf-steiner-handbuch.de/images/SteinerHandbook2012.pdf Rudolf Steiner Handbook] (PDF; 56 MB)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160812104906/http://www.goetheanum.org/45.html?L=1 Goetheanum]

===Societies===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160806033214/https://www.goetheanum.org/Anthroposophical-Society.336.0.html?&L=1 General Anthroposophical Society]
* [http://www.anthroposophy.org/ Anthroposophical Society in America]
* [http://www.anthroposophy.org.uk/ Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain]
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20040429055726/http://anthroposophyindia.org/ Anthroposophical Initiatives in India]}}
* [http://www.anthroposophy.org.au/ Anthroposophical Society in Australia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704074440/http://www.anthroposophy.org.au/ |date=2008-07-04 }}
* [http://www.anthroposophy.org.nz/ Anthroposophical Society in New Zealand]

{{Anthroposophy series}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Anthroposophy| ]]
[[Category:Esoteric Christianity]]
[[Category:New religious movements established in the 1910s]]
[[Category:Rudolf Steiner]]
[[Category:Theosophist groups]]