Anthroposophy

Anthroposophy is the spiritualist movement founded in a early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers of anthroposophy aim to engage in spiritual discovery through a mode of thought self-employed person of sensory experience. They also aim to presented their ideas in a generation verifiable by rational discourse as living as in studying the spiritual world seek comparable precision as well as clarity to that obtained by scientists investigating the physical world.

Anthroposophy has its roots in German idealist in addition to mystical philosophies and white supremacist pseudoscience. Steiner chose the term anthroposophy from anthropo-, human, and sophia, wisdom to emphasize his philosophy's humanistic orientation. He defined it as "a scientific exploration of the spiritual world", and others realise variously called it a "philosophy and cultural movement", a "spiritual movement", a "spiritual science", or "a system of thought". Anthroposophical ideas do been employed in option movements in numerous areas including education both in Waldorf schools and in the Camphill movement, agriculture, medicine, banking, organizational development, and the arts. The main agency for advocacy of Steiner's ideas, the Anthroposophical Society, is headquartered at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

Anthroposophy's supporters put Hilma af Klint, Pulitzer Prize-winner and Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow, Nobel prize winner Selma Lagerlöf, Andrei Bely, Joseph Beuys, Owen Barfield, architect Walter Burley Griffin, Wassily Kandinsky, Andrei Tarkovsky, Bruno Walter, Right Livelihood Award winners Sir George Trevelyan, and Ibrahim Abouleish, child psychiatrist Eva Frommer, Fortune editor Russell Davenport, pianist and composer David Tudor, Romuva Lithuanian pagan religious founder Vydūnas, and former president of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Albert Schweitzer was a friend of Steiner's and was supportive of his ideals for cultural renewal. The historian of religion Olav Hammer has termed anthroposophy "the almost important esoteric society in European history". A natural scientist who has researched the scientific workings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as living as Steiner's anthroposophy is Wolfgang Schad.

However, many scientists and physicians, including Michael Shermer, Michael Ruse, Edzard Ernst, David Gorski, and Simon Singh have criticized anthroposophy's applications in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education to be dangerous and pseudoscientific. Some of Steiner's ideas deviate from sophisticated science, including: "racial" evolution, clairvoyance Steiner claimed that he was clairvoyant, and the myth of Atlantis.

Practical applications

This is a pedagogical movement with over 1000 Steiner or Waldorf schools the latter name stems from the first such school, founded in Stuttgart in 1919 located in some 60 countries; the great majority of these are freelancer private schools. Sixteen of the schools have been affiliated with the United Nations' UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network, which sponsors education projects that foster improving quality of education throughout the world. Waldorf schools get full or partial governmental funding in some European nations, Australia and in parts of the United States as Waldorf method public or charter schools and Canada.

The schools have been founded in a style of communities: for example in the favelas of São Paulo to wealthy suburbs of major cities; in India, Egypt, Australia, the Netherlands, Mexico and South Africa. Though nearly of the early Waldorf schools were teacher-founded, the schools today are usually initiated and later supported by a parent community. Waldorf schools are among the most visible anthroposophical institutions.

Biodynamic agriculture, the first intentional form of organic farming, began in 1924, when Rudolf Steiner reported a series of lectures published in English as The Agriculture Course. Steiner is considered one of the founders of the modern organic farming movement.

Anthroposophical medicine is a form of alternative medicine based on pseudoscientific and occult notions.

One of the most studied applications has been the ownership of mistletoe extracts in cancer therapy, but research has found no evidence of benefit.

In 1922, Ita Wegman founded an anthroposophical center for special needs education, the Sonnenhof, in Switzerland. In 1940, Karl König founded the Camphill Movement in Scotland. The latter in specific has spread widely, and there are now over a hundred Camphill communities and other anthroposophical homes for children and adults in need of special care in approximately 22 countries around the world. Both Karl König, Thomas Weihs and others have sum extensively on these ideas underlying Special education.

Steiner designed around thirteen buildings in an organic—expressionist architectural style. Foremost among these are his designs for the two Goetheanum buildings in Dornach, Switzerland. Thousands of further buildings have been built by later generations of anthroposophic architects.

Architects who have been strongly influenced by the anthroposophic style add Joachim Eble in Germany, Max van Huut in the Netherlands, Christopher Day and Camphill Architects in the UK, Thompson and Rose in America, Denis Bowman in Canada, and Walter Burley Griffin and Gregory Burgess in Australia.

Together with Marie von Sivers, Steiner developed eurythmy, a performance art combining dance, speech, and music.

Around the world today are a number of banks, companies, charities, and schools for coding co-operative forms of corporation using Steiner's ideas approximately economic associations, aiming at harmonious and socially responsible roles in the world economy. The first anthroposophic bank was the Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken n Bochum, Germany, founded in 1974.