Anthroposophical Society
Theosophy with a twist.
Origin
The Anthroposophical Society was founded on December 28, 1912 in Cologne, Germany…
Mission
The Anthroposophical Society in America (ASA) supports and furthers the work of Rudolf Steiner in the United States. We are an open membership organization that fosters self-development and inspired social engagement.
Anthroposophy is a discipline of research as well as a path of knowledge, service, personal growth, and social engagement. Introduced and developed by Rudolf Steiner, it is concerned with all aspects of human life and spirit, and with humanity’s future evolution and well-being.
What is Anthroposophy?
Anthroposophy is a source of spiritual knowledge and a practice of inner development. Through it one seeks to penetrate the mystery of our relationship with the spiritual world by searching for answers and insights that come through a schooling of one’s inner life. It draws, and strives to build, on the spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner, who maintained that every human being (anthropos) has the inherent wisdom (sophia) to solve the riddles of existence and to transform both self and society. Rudolf Steiner shared the results of this research in 40 books and in over 6,000 lectures now available in 300 volumes. He is increasingly recognized as a seminal thinker of the 20th century and one of humanity’s great spiritual teachers.
Source Archive
…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.
Inspiration
Inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner, hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide are finding inspiration for meaningful choices in daily living,—
for parenting and community, for healing the Earth, for artistic and scientific work, and for building a new culture of freedom, fairness, and solidarity.
Roots in The Theosophical Society
The Anthroposophical Society traces its history back to 1902, when Rudolf Steiner became General Secretary of the German branch of the Theosophical Society. Prior to this time, Theosophy had made little headway in Germany; despite some visits by Helena Blavatsky, a founder of the Theosophical Society, to Germany and its prominent Theosophists, it was not until after her death in 1891 that a single Berlin Lodge was officially chartered in 1894. Its nominal leadership by Dr Huebbe-Schleiden was supported by the ongoing efforts of Count and Countess Brockdorff, under whose auspices Steiner was first asked to lecture to an audience including German Theosophists in August 1900. His spiritual ideas found a responsive audience here, as many German Theosophists had found in Theosophy only an imperfect reflection of their own beliefs.
The German branch had numbered only a single Lodge and a few individual members when Steiner became its head in 1902. By 1913, it had burgeoned to 69 Lodges, 55 of which (about 2,500 people) left with Steiner to be part of the new Anthroposophical Society.
Connection to Freemasonry
Though no one knows exactly when or how Steiner came into Freemasonry, in 1906 Steiner became the Master of Mystica Aeterna Lodge, a part of the order of Memphis and Mizraim, which traces its lineage back to Cagliostro and the great alchemists of the late renaissance. He would write heavily about Freemasonry, its connection to the mystical symbols of the Rosicrucians, and the whole of Esoteric philosophy. Though all Masonic Lodges in Germany would be closed in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I, Steiner continued to be influenced by Freemasonry throughout the entirety of his life and writings.
…Steiner had reached considerable stature as a spiritual teacher and expert in the occult.
Anthroposophy’s Race Doctrines
Anthroposophy’s race doctrines center on a theory of racial evolution that is directly correlated to spiritual evolution. Steiner posited a hierarchy of racial forms arranged from lower to higher through which individual souls progress via a series of successive incarnations. Souls that advance spiritually reincarnate in a higher race, while souls that stagnate incarnate in less developed races. According to this theory, physical characteristics are a reflection of spiritual characteristics, and specific races and peoples can take either an upward evolutionary course or a downward evolutionary course; some races are backward and decadent, while others are progressing into the future. For Steiner, less developed souls incarnate in races that have remained behind on earlier racial levels, while souls that have progressed further incarnate in an advanced race, that is, in the bodies of racial and ethnic groups that have progressed further evolutionarily.
In Steiner’s Words
“The entire ownership of capital must be arranged so that the especially talented individual or the especially talented group of individuals comes to possess capital in a way which arises solely from their own personal initiative.”
In a full-fledged ‘threefold commonwealth’ Steiner foresaw a spiritualized meritocracy in which the “most capable” would be given effective control over economic resources, and he rejected the notion of tempering this arrangement through community oversight. He derided the idea of “transferring the means of production from private ownership into communal property” and insisted that
“the management of the means of production must be left in the hands of the individual.”
In Steiner’s view,
“The individual cannot make his abilities effective in business, if he is tied down in his work and decisions to the will of the community.”
Steiner denied that the exploitation of labor arises “from the economic order of capitalism”; for him the problem lay “not in capitalism, but in the misuse of spiritual talents.”
Astral Projection
The akashic records (akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sky", "space" or "aether") is a term used in theosophy (and Anthroposophy) to describe a compendium of mystical knowledge encoded in a non-physical plane of existence. These records are described to contain all knowledge of human experience and the history of the cosmos. They are metaphorically described as a library and other analogues commonly found in discourse on the subject include a 'universal computer' and the 'Mind of God'. Descriptions of the records assert that they are constantly updated and that they can be accessed through astral projection. The concept originated in the theosophical movements of the 19th century, and remains prevalent in New Age discourse.
Banned by the NAZIs
On November 1, 1935, the National Socialist regime banned the society in Germany for its "close relations with foreign freemasons, Jews and pacifists." The order issued by Reinhard Heydrich stated that, as a result of its opposition to the National Socialistic idea of Volk, the activities of the Anthroposophical Society endangered the National Socialistic state.
The Goetheanum
The Goetheanum, the Center for Anthroposophy and Spiritual Science is located in Dornach, Switzerland. Here are some pictures showing the first Goetheanum, a dual domed wooden structure that was destroyed by an arsonist. The second Goetheanum was built with concrete after Rudolf Steiner’s death in 1925 based on a model he constructed. This revolutionary architecture is intended to speak to the soul of one who comes to experience it, especially from within.
Reformation in the 1960s
From the 1930s until the 1960s, disputes over two separate issues, publishing rights for Steiner's books and the spiritual direction of the society, led to the Anthroposophical Society being effectively divided into several groups with little connection. Through efforts on all sides, the splinter groups merged again into the present Society in the early 1960s.
In the United States
The Anthroposophical Society in America, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is one of over seventy national societies of the international General Anthroposophical Society, headquartered at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. The American Society has branches, groups, and sections in over 36 states.
The goal of the Anthroposophical Society in America is to further the work of Rudolf Steiner.
Size of the Anthroposophical Society
…as of 2015, the Anthroposophical Society had over 40,000 members worldwide.
Closing
My first impression, a Cult. But to know what really makes them tick, one must focus on their fascination with their founder, Rudolf Steiner. That is a subject for future research. But on a cursory level, this is the occult wearing a smiley face. Still, one of the largest occult societies in the world.