The Gift of Spirituality

"anthroposophy" to refer to philosophy deepened to self-knowledge, which he
suggested allows deeper knowledge of nature as well. He spoke of human nature as a
mystical unity of God and world. Immanuel Hermann Fichte used the term
anthroposophy to refer to "rigorous human self-knowledge," achievable through
thorough comprehension of the human spirit and of the working of God in this spirit, in
his 1856 work Anthropology: The Study of the Human Soul. In 1872, the philosopher of
religion Gideon Spicker used the term anthroposophy to refer to self-knowledge that
would unite God and world: "the true study of the human being is the human being, and
philosophy's highest aim is self-knowledge, or Anthroposophy."
In 1882, the philosopher Robert Zimmermann published the treatise, "An Outline of
Anthroposophy: Proposal for a System of Idealism on a Realistic Basis," proposing that
idealistic philosophy should employ logical thinking to extend empirical experience.
Steiner attended lectures by Zimmermann at the University of Vienna in the early
1880s, thus at the time of this book's publication.
In the early 1900s, Steiner began using the term anthroposophy (i.e. human wisdom) as
an alternative to the term theosophy (i.e. divine wisdom).
Spiritual knowledge and freedom
Central Ideas
Anthroposophical proponents aim to extend the clarity of the scientific method to
phenomena of human soul-life and to spiritual experiences. This requires developing
new faculties of objective spiritual perception, which Steiner maintained was possible for
humanity today. The steps of this process of inner development he identified as
consciously achieved imagination, inspiration and intuition.
Steiner believed results of this form of spiritual research should be expressed in a way
that can be understood and evaluated on the same basis as the results of natural
science: "The anthroposophical schooling of thinking leads to the development of a nonsensory,
or so-called supersensory consciousness, whereby the spiritual researcher
brings the experiences of this realm into ideas, concepts, and expressive language in a
form which people can understand who do not yet have the capacity to achieve the
supersensory experiences necessary for individual research."
Steiner hoped to form a spiritual movement that would free the individual from any
external authority: "The most important problem of all human thinking is this: to
comprehend the human being as a personality grounded in him or herself." For Steiner,
the human capacity for rational thought would allow individuals to comprehend spiritual
research on their own and bypass the danger of dependency on an authority.
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