Psychic Development in Anthroposophy

The Goetheanum, Headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society, Dornach, Switzerland

Anthroposophy [From Chapter Three of Psi Development Systems]
The Anthroposophical Society (from the Greek words anthropos and sophia, "man" and "wisdom") was founded in the early part of the 20th century by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian scholar.

At the age of 23, Steiner edited Goethe's scientific works for an edition of Deutsche National-Literatur. His early scholarship also embraced the works of Schopenhauer, Schiller, Kant, and Nietzsche. Steiner's own philosophy was published in Trust and Science (1891) (for which he received a Ph.D. from the University of Rostock) and The Philosophy of Freedom. In the latter book he argued that thought itself could become an organ of spiritual perception. During the course of his life, Steiner was to deliver over 6,000 different lectures, in addition to writing over sixty books and numerous articles and essays.

Before founding the Anthroposophical Society, Steiner served as the General Secretary to the German branch of the Theosophical Society. During this period he formed a small "Esoteric School" that remained in existence for ten years from 1904 until 1914. From his lectures at that time, the Rudolf Steiner Press in London has published a short volume titled Guidance in Esoteric Training (1972) in which Steiner outlines some basic exercises for psychic development.

Steiner states that as the first condition for psychic development "a man must rid himself of the will-o'-the-wisps of thought, even if only for a very short time during the day - about five minutes (the longer, the better)." This is accomplished by holding to a single, preferably uninteresting, thought for a period of time every day, for a month. Each particular thought can be changed daily or after several days.

In the second month, the student is asked to determine for himself an action, that is not normally performed in the course of daily life. The action can be insignificant, such as watering a particular plant at a specific time each day. While continuing the first exercise, this simple action must now additionally performed each day during the second month of training.

While maintaining the first two exercises, an additional exercise is added, in the third month, for the purpose of maintaining "equanimity towards the fluctuations of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain; ‘heights of jubilation' and ‘depths of despair' should quite consciously be replaced by an equable mood."

Another exercise is added, in the fourth month, in which the student cultivates a "positive attitude" to all situations, abstaining from all criticism. Steiner notes that a great deal of concentration is necessary for this exercise and adds that it helps to awaken psychic awareness. "He ... will gradually notice a feeling creeping into him as if his skin were becoming porous on all sides, and as if his soul were opening wide to all kinds of secret and delicate processes in his environment which hitherto entirely escaped his notice."

In the fifth month, the student is asked to develop an attitude of "open-mindedness" to all experiences. At every moment, regardless of previous conceptions, he must be ready to encounter and accept new experiences. Further bodily sensations and psychic awareness are said to be triggered by this exercise.

All of the foregoing exercises are repeated in the sixth month. Further, more intense exercises are given individually to students.

Another book of Steiner's relevant to psychic training is Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment (1918/ 1947). This text is one of the fundamental documents of the Anthroposophical movement. The major focus of the training is the attainment to a spiritual vision of which measurable psi abilities are only one aspect. In this book, Steiner states that the first prerequisite to the attainment of higher knowledge is the Cultivation of an attitude of "veneration" or "devotion to truth and knowledge." This attitude of veneration should also be accompanied with a lessening of adverse criticisms and harsh Judgments. Steiner acknowledges that the greatness of our civilization is based on the attitude of "test all things and hold fast to what is best." He maintains, however, that we have had to Pay for our external gains with a corresponding loss in our inner life. Steiner states that it is difficult for people to believe that "feelings like reverence and respect have anything to do with cognition." He points out that "it is the soul which exercises the faculty of cognition; and feelings are for the soul what food is for the body." Feelings of veneration, homage and devotion are nutriments for the soul; whereas "disrespect, antipathy, underestimation of what deserves recognition, all exert a paralyzing and withering effect on this faculty of cognition". The power obtained through devotion can be further enhanced by a general turning inward of attention to the inner life of thought and feeling, as opposed to external impressions of the world. This is not accomplished by blunting oneself to the external world, for the "outer world with all its phenomena is filled with divine splendor, but we must have experienced the divine within ourselves before we can hope to discover it in our environment." Steiner adds that the habitual emotions of an individual can be detected, by a clairvoyant, in the aura.

The student is asked to set aside special moments during the day in which to withdraw into himself quietly and alone. The process is subtle, as Steiner explains it: "He is not to occupy himself with the affairs of his own ego. This would result in the contrary of what is intended. He should rather let his experiences and the messages from the outer world re-echo within his own completely silent self. At such silent moments every flower, every animal, every action will unveil to him secrets undreamt of. And thus he will prepare himself to receive quite new impressions of the outer world through quite different eyes. The desire to enjoy impression after impression merely blunts the faculty of cognition; the latter, however, is nurtured and cultivated if the enjoyment once experienced is allowed to reveal its message. Thus the student must accustom himself not merely to let the enjoyment reverberate as it were, but rather to renounce any further enjoyment, and work upon the past experience. "

Steiner points out that there are a number of pitfalls and possibilities of error in this exercise. There are many temptations that would "harden the ego and imprison it within itself.' A fundamental principle is that psychic powers and knowledge must not be pursued merely for personal enrichment and gain but rather "for growth to ripeness within the process of human ennoblement."

Once the student has attained some mastery of the preceding exercise, he is ready to embark on the path of initiation. In the preparatory stages this involves maintaining a state of stillness as one goes about the workday. This is particularly important with regard to listening to others when they speak

Steiner urges that one suppress inner feelings of superiority to others, and suggests practicing this exercise while listening to children. By listening without criticism, even when the most hopeless mistake is committed, the candidate "learns, little by little, to blend himself with the being of another and become identified with it.... Then-he hears through the words into the soul of the other." This exercise, Steiner states, requires the strictest self-discipline.

In the next stage toward initiation, which Steiner refers to as "enlightenment," the student is given the exercise of contemplating a stone and an animal and noticing the different feelings aroused by these contemplations. "The organs of clairvoyance are formed" out of the feelings and accompanying thoughts of this exercise. The exercise is refined by including a plant in the contemplation. One learns to associate different mental colors with the inner qualities of every stone, plant or animal. At this point the student is likely also to encounter spiritual beings, some higher than man some lower. The student must take care to enlarge his moral strength and sympathy. Otherwise the exercises could blunt moral sensitivity, "and that could only lead to perilous results."

Progress in these exercises may not be immediately apparent, according to Steiner. However, the student is urged to realize that progress is occurring even if it is not obvious. Otherwise he can easily lose heart and abandon all attempts in a short time. Steiner writes, "No one will ever travel far who cannot bring himself to repeat, over and over again, an exercise Which has failed, apparently, for a countless number of times."

Further exercises concern intense contemplation both on One's own thoughts and on nature, particularly on the process of a Plant growing from a seed. At the Goetheanum, the world headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland, agricultural research is conducted. The purpose of this research is as much to train the inner vision of the researchers as it is to gather factual data about the plants. Other contemplations involve visualizing individuals in a state of desire-in one case where it is uncertain whether the desire will be realized, and in another case where the desire has been fulfilled. In proceeding through these exercises, Steiner warns, " Above all, strict care must be taken not to drift at random into vague reveries, or to experiment with all kinds of exercises. The trains of thought here indicated have been tested and practiced in esoteric training since the earliest times, and only such are given in these pages. Anyone attempting others devised by himself, or of which he may have heard or read at one place or another, will inevitably go astray and find himself on the path of boundless chimera."

The higher stages of initiation involve purification processes, which are only understandable to an individual according to his degree of maturity. In one of these processes, the individual must be able to "distinguish illusion, superstition, and everything fantastic, from true reality.... This is, at first, more difficult to accomplish in the higher stages of existence than in the lower. . . . There must be perfect readiness to abandon at once any idea, opinion, or inclination when logical thought demands it."

In addition to his esoteric training, Rudolf Steiner founded the Waldorf School system, which is now the second largest nonsectarian private educational system in the world, with over 100 schools. These schools do not attempt to serve as vehicles for indoctrinating the ideologies of anthroposophy. They do serve to enhance the natural unfolding of the genius within each child. The curriculum shows a sensitivity to the physiological rhythms of childhood development, as well as nonverbal forms of education. For instance, the alphabet is learned through body-movement and dance as well as recitation. The anthroposophists have their own college in England, Emerson College, where Waldorf School teachers are trained. Educational programs also exist at Adelphi University in New York and Wayne State University in Michigan.

Steiner's thought has had an important influence on agriculture and has resulted in the bio-dynamic movement in farming that stresses the organic relationship between the soil, the plant and the animal. Also of interest are Steiner's techniques of curative education, which are embodied in a rural community near Copake, New York, called Camphill Village, as well as several other small communities where the anthroposophists live communally with the mentally retarded.

In the area of medicine, hundreds of physicians are now practicing the models of treatment outlined by Steiner. These are essentially homeopathic and herbal. There are several organizations of anthroposophical physicians and therapists throughout the world.

All of these activities-as well as work in architecture, geometry, metallurgy, drama, and dance-are said to stem from the concrete application of clairvoyant perceptions to the needs of everyday personal and community life. Yet the purpose of anthroposophy, as opposed to parapsychology, is not to measure or demonstrate phenomena, but rather the inner development and training of a conscious approach to the spiritual realities which are believed to penetrate all of life.

Steiner, R. Guidance in esoteric training. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972.

Steiner, R. Knowledge of the higher worlds and its attainment. New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1947. (Originally published, 1918.)