A
major task facing humanity as it moves into the new millennium is
that of uniting spiritual and practical life. In the Middle Ages the
time of Christendom science, art, religion, and society were still
to a great extent united. Untold monks and nuns labored and loved
mightily for the sake of God and the world. Their lives of prayer
and devotion, centered around the Eucharist, kept the interior flame
of worship burning brightly. Radiating outward, the spiritual consequences
of their steadfastness resonated throughout the landscape, impregnating
villages, towns, and cities with a sense of the divine presence in
the world. At this time, too, great cathedrals and humble churches
alike filled ordinary people with the understanding that every aspect
of life participated in God's purpose. Scholars, philosophers, scientists,
and crafts people all of whom contributed to the creation of a sacramental
vision of the world in which each thing and every human act were imbued
with spiritual significance gathered around these Houses of the Spirit,
amplifying its effectiveness.
This
pervasive sense of the sacred also existed in earlier, pre-Christian
times, when the priests and hierophants of the ancient Mystery Centers
and Temples coordinated human culture in a way that permitted the
spirit to realize itself in the manner appropriate to the moment.
But, with the rise of the Modern Age, a powerful cleft was driven
between human beings, nature, and the divine. We may call the process
"secularization." Religion and spiritual life became increasingly
marginalized. Instead of spiritual realities, human beings pursued
this-worldly ends, such as comfort and wealth. Thus, gradually, the
thread connecting saints and esoteric masters with the general life
of humanity was broken; meaning fragmented; and the sacramental relation
of human beings to each other and the cosmos ceased to function. Materialism
in its many guises (Positivism, Darwinism, Marxism etc.) now became
the guiding principle in science and society. Religion and culture-religion
and the state were separated and spiritual; religious life became
a question of individual responsibility.
This
was a heavy burden to bear for individuals who had not only to create
a spiritual life for themselves, but increasingly had to do so in
opposition to the very quarters from which help might have been expected.
For, as society plunged into materialism, the Churches, not wishing
to be left out, joined willingly in the descent. There were, of course,
exceptions to this tendency, but such generally was the situation
at the beginning of the twentieth century when Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)
began to teach, initially under the auspices of the Theosophical Society.
As
a natural clairvoyant, of great spiritual gifts, Steiner began his
journey by assimilating the best of what the culture of his time had
to offer. He chose for himself a scientific-technical education. At
the same time, realizing the need to transform our present consciousness
so that it might become a vehicle of spiritual knowledge, he undertook
a phenomenological study of the processes by which we come to know what
is called 'epistemology.' Up against the pervasive influence of the
philosopher Kant, who maintained that we could never truly know anything
in itself but only our own forms of thought, Steiner knew from his
own experience as a free spiritual being that the possibility of brain-free
thinking lay within the capacity of human beings who thus could know
truly and fully the world's actual spiritual reality. In two central
early works Truth and Knowledge [TK] and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual
Path [originally, The Philosophy Of Freedom and then in America, The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (PSA)] he laid the ground for what
he would accomplish in the future. He was greatly helped in this work
of preparation by prolonged study and meditation on the scientific
works of Goethe, which he was asked to edit for a new edition of the
Complete Works the Kurschner "Deutschen Nationalliterature" edition.
From this, too, a series of fundamental, groundbreaking texts resulted
[Goethean Science (GS), Goethean World View (GWV) and The Science
of Knowing(SK)].
During
this period, though already initiated into his spiritual task, Steiner
was still very much a free thinker of his time. Then, as he wrote
in his autobiography in the original English translation The Course
of My Life (CML), now Autobiography, Chapters in the Course of
My Life: 1861-1907/Rudolf Steiner (AUTO), "shortly before
the turn of the century," a profound experience was given to him:
an experience that "culminated in my standing in the spiritual presence
of the Mystery of Golgotha in a most profound and solemn festival
of knowledge." This experience marked a call. Shortly thereafter,
he left the literary and philosophical world of letters and joined
his destiny to the movement for the renewal of spiritual knowledge
in our time.
The
tasks lying before him were manifold. In order to undertake them,
he realized that, acting wholly and freely out of the spirit, he would
also have to connect himself horizontally with the various traditions
flowing together to herald the possibility of a "new age of light."
He
linked himself first to the Theosophical Society founded by H. P.
Blavatsky, becoming the secretary of the German Section. From the
very beginning, he made complete independence and autonomy the condition
of his taking on this task. Thus, as an independent spiritual teacher,
working within the Theosophical Society, Steiner began to lecture
freely from his own experience on spiritual matters. At the same time,
he began to work more esoterically transforming the legacy of masonic,
hermetic, and esoteric students. From this period (1904-1910) date
what would become the basic texts of Anthroposophy currently in English translation
Christianity as Mystical Fact (CMF) in 1902,
How to Know Higher Worlds (HKHW) Theosophy (THSY) and Outline of
Esoteric Science (OES) and the previously published Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path
(ITSP) in 1894. But Anthroposophy itself,
under that name, would not arise as a separate, independent spiritual
movement until 1913 when, as as result of the controversy surrounding
the young Krishnamurti (whether he was, or was not, the reincarnation
of Christ [Steiner himself denying such]) Steiner split permanently
from the Adyar theosophists.
From
the beginning, Steiner saw his task as the rescue of humanity from
materialism and secularism. He knew that for evolution the divine
work of the Gods to continue in an organic, healthy, direction, the
world and human beings which are essentially not two, but one must
once again be seen and lived as the profound spiritual reality they
are. The task of Anthroposophy, he recognized, could not proceed piecemeal,
but called for a renewal of culture as a whole: a bringing together
of science, religion, and art in sacred unity. It was in this sense
that Steiner described the work of Anthroposophy as the renewal of
ancient Mysteries. But renewal here does not mean repetition. The
old must die away for the new to come into being. But it cannot simply
be replaced by something already known, no matter how illustrious
or well tested. Rather, something new must be created. But such a
new revelation can no longer be received passively from the Gods,
as was the case in previous epochs. It must now be created by, in,
and through human beings.
Continued...
