Editing Rudolf Steiner (section)

=== Spiritual science ===
{{See also|Anthroposophy|Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development}}
[[File:Steiner Berlin 1900 big.jpg|thumb|upright|Rudolf Steiner 1900]]
In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity.<ref name="GL" /> From 1900 on, he began lecturing about concrete details of the spiritual world(s), culminating in the publication in 1904 of the first of several systematic presentations, his ''Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos''. As a starting point for the book Steiner took a quotation from Goethe, describing the method of natural scientific observation,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Theosophy: Chapter I: The Nature of Man |url=https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/RSP1965/GA009_c01.html |website=wn.rsarchive.org}}</ref> while in the Preface he made clear that the line of thought taken in this book led to the same goal as that in his earlier work, ''The Philosophy of Freedom''.<ref>''Theosophy'',
from the Prefaces to the First, Second, and Third Editions [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/AP1971/GA009_c01.html]</ref>

In the years 1903–1908 Steiner maintained the magazine ''Lucifer-Gnosis'' and published in it essays on topics such as initiation, reincarnation and karma, and knowledge of the supernatural world.<ref>{{Cite web |last=e.Librarian |first=The |title=Rudolf Steiner Archive: Steiner Articles Bn/GA 34 |url=https://www.rsarchive.org/Articles/GA034/ |website=www.rsarchive.org}}</ref> Some of these were later collected and published as books, such as ''How to Know Higher Worlds'' (1904–5) and ''Cosmic Memory''. The book ''An Outline of Esoteric Science'' was published in 1910. Important themes include:
* the human being as body, [[Soul (spirit)|soul]] and [[Vitalism|spirit]];
* the path of spiritual development;
* spiritual influences on world-evolution and history; and
* [[reincarnation]] and [[karma]].

Steiner emphasized that there is an objective natural and spiritual world that can be known, and that perceptions of the spiritual world and incorporeal beings are, under conditions of training comparable to that required for the natural sciences, including self-discipline, replicable by multiple observers. It is on this basis that [[spiritual science]] is possible, with radically different epistemological foundations than those of natural science. He believed that natural science was correct in its methods but one-sided for exclusively focusing on sensory phenomena, while mysticism was vague in its methods, though seeking to explore the inner and spiritual life. Anthroposophy was meant to apply the systematic methods of the former to the content of the latter<ref>Steiner, ''Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity'', Anthroposophic Press 2006 {{ISBN|0880104368}}</ref><ref>One of Steiner's teachers, Franz Brentano, had famously declared that "The true method of philosophy can only be the method of natural science" (Walach, Harald, "Criticism of Transpersonal Psychology and Beyond", in The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology, ed. H. L. Friedman and G. Hartelius. P. 45.)</ref>

For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective spiritual knowledge always entails creative inner activity.<ref name="GL" /> Steiner articulated three stages of any creative deed:<ref name="Schneider" />{{rp|Pt II, Chapter 1}}
* Moral intuition: the ability to discover or, preferably, develop valid ethical principles;
* Moral imagination: the imaginative transformation of such principles into a concrete intention applicable to the particular situation ([[situational ethics]]); and
* Moral technique: the realization of the intended transformation, depending on a mastery of practical skills.

Steiner termed his work from this period onwards ''[[Anthroposophy]]''. He emphasized that the spiritual path he articulated builds upon and supports individual freedom and independent [[judgment]]; for the results of spiritual research to be appropriately presented in a modern context they must be in a form accessible to [[logic]]al understanding, so that those who do not have access to the spiritual experiences underlying anthroposophical research can make independent evaluations of the latter's results.<ref name="Schneider">Peter Schneider, ''Einführung in die Waldorfpädagogik'', {{ISBN|3-608-93006-X}}</ref> Spiritual training is to support what Steiner considered the overall purpose of human evolution, the development of the mutually interdependent qualities of love and [[free will|freedom]].<ref name="RAMcD">{{Cite book |last=McDermott |first=Robert A. |title=Modern Esoteric Spirituality |date=1995 |publisher=Crossroad Publishing |isbn=978-0-8245-1444-0 |editor-last=Faivre |editor-first=Antoine |publication-place=New York |pages=299–301; 288ff |chapter=Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy |editor-last2=Needleman |editor-first2=Jacob |editor-last3=Voss |editor-first3=Karen}}</ref>