General Introduction, Page 3

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 Nationaalliterature” edition. From this, too, a series of fundamental, ground-breaking texts resulted [Goethean Science (GS), Goethe’s 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 [The Course of My Life (CML)], “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 Christian streams and taking on esoteric students. From this period (1904-1910) date what would become the basic texts of Anthroposophy [Christianity as Mystical Fact (CMF) in 1902, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment (KHW), Theosophy (THSY) and Occult Science, An Outline (OS) and the previously published PSA (1894)]. But Anthroposophy itself, under that name, would not arise as a separate, independent spiritual movement until 1913 when, as a 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 a sacred unity. It was in this sense that Steiner described the work of Anthroposophy as the renewal of the 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.