What is an Anthroposophist?

[Bruce Michael]

My Dear Friends,
One thing's for sure, it's not a person who says "I believe everything Rudolf Steiner said". That is the kind of Guru complex he wanted to avoid.



His desire would be that students think for themselves. If one follows the above statment one would have to define anthroposophy as "what Rudolf Steiner said". That's how some theosophists define theosophy- "what Blavatsky said".

To define an anthroposophist you'd have to define anthroposophy- it's not the kind of word a marketer would choose, is it?

There are many definitions of anthroposophy I've seen over the years- things like "Christian yoga after the coming of Michael", "the Wisdom in Man". But perhaps the best one is to be found in the "Awakening to Community" lectures- it has to do with the development of the Consciousness Soul. The anthroposophist is one who strives to work out of the Consciousness Soul. That is at least one of the qualities of an real anthroposophist.


"Anthroposophy is a path of cognition from the spiritual in man to
the Spiritual in the Cosmos" First Leading Thought.


Here is Alfred Meebold's translation:

Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge which would lead the spiritual in man to the spiritual in the Universe. It appears in men as a need of the heart and feeling. It must find its justification in that it can afford satisfaction to this need. Only he can acknowledge Anthroposophy who finds in it what he must seek out of his Gemut.
Hence only those men can be called Anthroposophists who feel certain questions as to the nature of man and the world as life necessities in the same way as one feels hunger and thirst.

The "true and the good" the "eternal" is God (attributes of God), ie the spiritual in Man which leads to the spiritual in the Universe (God).


-Br.Bruce

 

[Bruce Michael]

The term, 'Anthroposophy', was used in a book on white magic from Germany: Arbatel from 1575. I haven't heard of an earlier reference than that.

Thomas Vaughan, the twin brother of Henry Vaughan, used the term in the 17th century.

"Death is the `recession of life into the unknown', not the annihilation of any one particle, but a retreat of hidden natures to the same state they were in before …"
— Thomas Vaughan, Anthroposophia Theomagica.

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright,
And round beneath it,
Time in hours, days, years
Driven by the spheres
Like a vast shadow moved …
— Henry Vaughan, `The World'

Literary Encyclopedia: Henry Vaughan

"The brothers were born at Newton in Breconshire in 1621, In his years in London Vaughan devoted himself to alchemical experiment and theory. He published a series of treatises, the first three of which appeared in 1650. These were Anthroposophia Theomagica: or a Discourse of the Nature of Man and his State after Death; Grounded on his Creator's Proto-Chemistry and verifi'd by a practicall Examination of Principles in the Great World, Anima Magica Abscondita: or a Discourse of the universall Spirit of Nature and Magia Adamica: or the Antiquitie of Magic. All three were published under the name of Eugenius Philalethes, as were Lumen de Lumine: or a New Magical Light, which appeared in 1651, and Euphrates: or the Waters of the East, published in 1655. In 1652 there had been published Aula Lucis: or The House of Light, attributed to one S.N., but identified by Henry Vaughan as one of his brother's works (S and N being the final letters of Thomas Vaughan's Christian name and surname)."

-Br.Bruce