From Rudolf Steiner to Anthroposophy: Spiritual Science Comes of Age

Among indigenous people like the Kogi of Colombia, traditional wisdom is passed on from generation to generation, but at the same time it is engaged with directly and unpredictably through divinatory practices that allow for communication with the very beings of which the tradition speaks. A parallel might be drawn with gnostic invocations of Sophia, whereby deep engagement with tradition is combined with living access to wisdom. While Helena Blavatsky framed her research as Theosophy, Rudolf Steiner stands out for his framing of Anthroposophy explicitly as a living, evolving being of wisdom with whom we can directly relate, coupled with a methodological approach that aims to be "scientific." In assessing Rudolf Steiner's legacy 100 years after his death, then, the question arises of how to think about the relationship between the legacy of Rudolf Steiner the man and Anthroposophy conceived as a living being. What if, rather than limiting ourselves merely to debates between critics of Steiner and his defenders, we were to think of anthroposophy as a dynamic constellation of ideals that Steiner, however imperfectly, pointed towards in such a way that others could take it up themselves? Could such a characterization of anthroposophy be framed meaningfully, coherently, and rigorously? And could such an approach enable us to wrestle, from within anthroposophy itself, with challenging aspects of Steiner's legacy? Building on recent scholarship, I will seek to clarify these questions through engaging with Steiner's own articulation of what characterizes anthroposophy while also considering its conceptual and epistemological scope and its corresponding methodology. In doing so, I will suggest that by clarifying the relationship between Steiner the person and Anthroposophy the being, we can elucidate the movement's history more clearly and engage with its present and future more productively.