Anthroposophy
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Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy (meaning wisdom of the human being), offers a comprehensive knowledge of spiritual realities, together with a modern path for attaining such knowledge. It also gives new insight and inspiration in many practical fields. The spiritual research developed by its founder, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) is conducted methodically and in fully wakeful, clear thinking consciousness, as is required in any other field of scientific investigation. For this reason Steiner also referred to Anthroposophy as Spiritual Science.
From childhood onwards Steiner perceived both natural and spiritual realities, but realised the need to reconcile the latter with the scientific culture of the modern age. This led him as a student to intense scientific and philosophical enquiries into the foundations of knowledge, truth and human cognition. His doctoral thesis Truth and Science and books The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, Goethe the Scientist, and The Philosophy of Freedom established a sound basis for extending scientific investigation beyond the bounds of the sense perceptible, by means of enhanced thinking. This is in contrast to many approaches to the spirit which suppress or neglect the thinking faculty.
At the beginning of the 20th Century Steiner began to share the results of his spiritual research in written works and numerous lecture cycles. These describe the spiritual evolution and constitution of the human being and the earth, the nature and working of the hierarchies of spiritual beings, and the spiritual background to world religions and cultural epochs. After 1910 he turned to the renewal of the arts as inspired by spiritual wisdom and vision, and between 1917 and his death in 1925 he initiated Waldorf Education and new approaches in the areas of practical work introduced on this website.