Anthroposophy: A Concise Introduction to Rudolf Steiner’s Spiritual Philosophy

by Henk van Oort

People today recognize Rudolf Steiner's work largely because of initiatives such as the worldwide Waldorf school movement, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophic medicine. Nevertheless, the comprehensive spiritual philosophy behind these movements is not so well known. In this concise presentation, based on years of teaching introductory courses on the subject, van Oort presents an overview of key aspects of Steiner's thought. He deals with concepts such as body, soul, and spirit; the relationship between humankind and the animal kingdom; and the evolution of consciousness, a topic that opens panoramic vistas of human development in the form of successive cultural periods extending over thousands of years. Originally published in Dutch as Antroposofie, Een kennismaking (2006).

Genres: Philosophy

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

I trained as a primary teacher before taking a Masters Degree in English at the University of Amsterdam. My forty years’ teaching comprises work in primary education as a general teacher, as a teacher of English and headmaster. I have also run classes for highly gifted children. I also teach on the Primary Methodology Courses run by PILGRIMS on the university campus of the University of Kent at Canterbury, England. I am married, father of three grown-up children and I am based in Bergen N.H. in the Netherlands.

I feel inspired by NLP, psychosynthesis, the ideas of Waldorf Education and most of all by the children that I meet in my lessons. Over the years I have developed a kind of intuition that enables me to produce exactly the lessons my pupils want me to. In doing so I try to strike a balance between modern technology that is present in every classroom nowadays and the human factor. My Challenging Children is based on these principles. Children strongly connect their learning processes with the personality of the teacher. Also in foreign language teaching the teacher acts as an example that cannot be dispensed with. With all their senses and with their innate imitative forces children absorb all aspects of the foreign language as presented by the teacher. Whilst doing so they hardly notice that they are learning. I find teaching children in this way a most rewarding activity.

Reviews

[Anthony Zappia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This truly is a concise introduction to the thoughts, ideas and concepts of Rudolf Steiner - otherwise known as anthroposophy. I think this book is a great place to start if you wish to become acquainted with this philosophy. It's brief (85 pages) but still manages to cover and explain many of the key concepts.