Anthroposophy (A Fragment): A New Foundation for the Study of Human Nature (CW 45)

Classics in Anthroposophy

by Rudolf Steiner, Robert Sardello (Foreword), Catherine E. Creeger (Translator)

Written in 1910 (CW 45) “This remarkable work by Rudolf Steiner concerns the human senses, the life processes, and the forming of the human body; and it provides a basis for an anthroposophical understanding of the human being. It is also an indispensable foundation for the development of a spiritual psychology that adheres to an anthroposophical mode of thought. Rudolf Steiner himself indicated that the study of the human soul follows from an examination of the senses, and from there it is necessary to move to a study of the human spirit.” ― Robert Sardello (foreword) This written attempt to create a spiritual anthropology was found among Rudolf Steiner’s unpublished works after his death. Although fragmentary, this key work on “Anthroposophy” is of enormous interest and importance. It is work whose time has finally arrived. Here are the first steps toward the development of a true psychology of spirit, using a phenomenological approach to the human senses, the life processes, the “I”-experience, the human form, and the human relationship to higher spiritual worlds. Steiner struggled to express the concepts related in this book, since many of the terms used in neurology, psychology, and cognitive studies did not yet exist in 1910. Since then there has been much progress, and this translation benefits from more than eighty years of development in the study of the human senses, cognition, and, neurology. Steiner's Anthroposophy lies halfway between anthropology and theosophy, serving as a means to study the whole human being. By contrast, anthropology studies the human being with the physical senses and an empirical scientific method, while theosophy recognizes the spiritual nature of the human being based on inner experience and attempts to understand human nature in the realm of spirit. Anthroposophy takes the middle way, studying human beings as presented to physical observation, while also trying to derive indications of the spiritual foundations of phenomena through a process of “phenomenological intensification.” The results of such “intensification” are vitally important and constitute the first steps toward a truly cognitive psychology. This volume includes an introduction by neurologist Dr. James Dyson, an anthroposophic doctor; a foreword by Robert Sardello, co-founder and co-director of The School of Spiritual Psychology; and a translator's preface by Detlef Hardorp. This is not an easy text, but Anthroposophy (A Fragment) is essential for understanding Steiner's view of the human body―especially its formation and function in relation to spirit. Anthroposophy (A Fragment) is a translation from German of Ein Fragment aus dem Jahre 1910 (GA 45).

Genres: Spirituality

Paperback

First published June 1, 1996

About the author

Author also wrote under the name Rudolph Steiner.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...


Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,  differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.

Reviews

[Hannah Connors · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish, I like woo woo stuff but I have no idea what this was saying.