Antroposofi,ruhani bilim,ruh gözlemleri-Anthroposophy,spiritual philosophy

world · #2 14.05.08, 02:28

history

The early work of the founder of anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner, culminated in his 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 which is based upon inner experiences, especially those which occur in the creative activity of independent thought.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Steiner's interests were leading him further and further into explicitly spiritual areas of research. These studies were of interest to others who were already oriented towards spiritual ideas; among these was the Theosophical Society. Theosophy was in vogue in Esotericism in Germany and Austria during that time. Steiner took a leading role in the Society's section in Germany, becoming its secretary.

By 1907, a split between Steiner and the mainstream Theosophical Society began to be apparent. While the Society was oriented toward an Eastern and especially Indian approach, Steiner was trying to develop a path which embraced Christianity and natural science. The split became irrevocable when Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society, began to present the child Jiddu Krishnamurti as the 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 followed by the great majority of the membership of the Theosophical Society's German Section, as well as members of other national sections.

By this time, Steiner had reached considerable stature as a spiritual teacher.[9] 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, Steiner described a path of inner development which he felt would enable anyone to attain comparable spiritual experiences. Sound vision could be developed, in part, by practicing rigorous forms of ethical and cognitive self-discipline, concentration, and meditation; in particular, a person's moral development must precede the development of spiritual faculties.

Second Goetheanum, seat of the Anthroposophical Society.

In 1912, the Anthroposophical Society was founded. After World War I, the Anthroposophical movement took on new directions. Projects such as schools, centers for those with special needs, organic farms and medical clinics were established, all inspired by anthroposophy. In 1923, faced with differences between older members focusing on inner development and younger members eager to become active in the social transformations of the time, Steiner refounded the Society in an inclusive manner and established a School for Spiritual Science. As a spiritual basis for the refounded movement, Steiner wrote the mantric poem Foundation Stone Meditation expressing the aspects of the human soul in relation to the outer and spiritual worlds. 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 daughter movements (e.g. Steiner/Waldorf education) were banned by the National Socialists (Nazis); virtually no anthroposophists ever joined the National Socialist Party.

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 anthroposophy. In the same year, the Anthroposophical Society was called the "most important esoteric society in European history.

Etymology of anthroposophy

The term anthroposophy is from the Greek, virtually *ανθρωποσοφία, from ἄνθρωπος "human", and σοφία "wisdom". It is listed by Nathan Bailey (1742) in the meaning of "the knowledge of the nature of man" (OED). Previous authors who used the term include Agrippa von Nettesheim and Immanuel Hermann Fichte. Steiner began using the word to refer to his philosophy in the early 1900s as an alternative to theosophy, the term for Madame Blavatsky's movement, itself from the Greek θεοσοφία, with a longer history with a meaning of "divine wisdom".

Spiritual knowledge and freedom
Anthroposophical proponents aim to extend the clarity of the scientific method to phenomena of human soul-life and to spiritual experiences. This requires developing new faculties of objective spiritual perception, which Steiner maintained was possible for humanity today. The steps of this process of inner development he identified as consciously achieved imagination, inspiration and intuition Steiner believed that the results of this form of spiritual research should be expressed in a way which can be understood and evaluated on the same basis as the results of natural science: "The anthroposophical schooling of thinking leads to the development of a non-sensory, or so-called supersensory consciousness, whereby the spiritual researcher brings the experiences of this realm into ideas, concepts, and expressive language in a form which people can understand who do not yet have the capacity to achieve the supersensory experiences necessary for individual research."

Steiner hoped to form a spiritual movement which would free the individual from any external authority: "The most important problem of all human thinking is this: to comprehend the human being as a personality grounded in him or herself." For Steiner, it was the human capacity for rational thought which would allow individuals to comprehend spiritual research on their own and to bypass the danger of dependency on an authority.

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 investigating the outer world.

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