Israel Koren
Abstract
This article joins the debate regarding the issue of continuity in the worldview of Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), known as the founder of anthroposophy. It presents the early Steiner’s philosophy, especially in The Philosophy of Freedom (written before Steiner became a theosophist/anthroposophist), as belonging to what scholars refer to as “philosophic mysticism.” Herein, mystical experience is achieved through philosophical thought, the possibility and features of that mystical experience being justified on philosophical grounds, and mystical experience itself and its contents are linked to thought/thinking/“idea.” The early Steiner drew on his idealistic interpretation of Goethe’s inquiries in nature and Goethe’s claim that he perceived the “idea” in nature, and Nietzsche’s individualism and ideals of authenticity, and human beings as the source of ethics; both thinkers serving him as sources of inspiration for his distinctive philosophical fusion of idealism and individualism on an experimental mystical plane. Steiner’s early philosophic mysticism carried through into his later thought (Steiner the occultist, theosophist, and anthroposophist), forming the conceptual foundation for all his spiritual experiences and inquiries and their objective verifiability (anthroposophical Spiritual Science).
The later (from 1902 onwards) Steiner’s occult knowledge thus functions as another brick in his arguments regarding spiritual experience and its nature in his early philosophy. This article thus essentially confirms Steiner’s own assertion that his early and later thought were consistent in principle, without yet being identical—while challenging the claim that he became an anti-idealist individualist during the 1890s. Based on a diachronic analysis, the latter reading focuses on the development of his thought, ignoring its synchronic elements—such as his desire to found a spiritual science as an alternative to the sciences of his day, and his altering ideas and arguments by which he sought to justify his new scientific spiritual ideal. It also takes no account of the essentially dialectical component of his philosophy (the blending of idealism and individualism)—which is revealed precisely by treating it as “philosophic mysticism.”
Keywords
mysticism; philosophic mysticism; theosophy; anthroposophy; occultism; esotericism; Goethe; Nietzsche