The School of Spiritual Science

Not all Anthroposophists are visionaries but probably all acknowledge the legitimacy of vision. They generally aspire to become aware of ‘etheric’, ‘astral’ and other spiritual essences that, according to Steiner, transcend and in part at least infuse the world. The collective aspect of this striving tends to be concentrated in the School of Spiritual Science: it, more than any other social organ, is designed to be at the centre of the movement, the connecting corolla for its petals.

Steiner gave specific directions for spiritual research. The School of Spiritual Science has ‘sections’ for research to advance Anthroposophical education, natural science, mathematics and astronomy, medicine, social science, the appreciation of beauty, the appreciation of the plastic and visual arts and architecture, speaking, drama, eurythmy and music, painting and modelling, and the understanding of young people. The school has also been related to professional philosophy, psychiatry and psychology.2 Steiner made provision for three Classes. Only one − the ‘First Class’ − is known to be in operation. There are no special conditions demanded for membership of the General Anthroposophical Society, which is exoteric and concerned with the external governance and arrangements of the movement. But the door of the First Class is not opened to everyone, and not all members wish to belong to it. Probably 10 to 30 per cent of recent General Society members have belonged to this inner society which, to outsiders, appears mysterious.

At least two years’ affiliation to the General Society is a pre-condition for joining. Also, ‘inner responsibility’ for Anthroposophy has to be accepted. Rudolf Steiner, who was distressed at the state of the movement, founded the First Class in 1923 as an organ of regeneration.

Anthroposophists stress the individual taking responsibility, in contrast to the old mysteries where the neophyte was deemed ready by the hierophant and taken through a process controlled by others. In Anthroposophy you have to know for yourself when you are ready to start. The regenerating source is believed not to be accessed through a priest, temple, guru or Rudolf Steiner, but through yourself.

The First Class adapts Steiner’s meditative path for individuals. The latter is generally available in publications such as Occult Science and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.3 However, only the place and times of meetings of local branches of the School of Spiritual Science are published, together with the number of the ‘Lesson’ concerned (there is a cycle of 19). Members of this elite are pledged to secrecy, a vow which is usually strictly observed. I had no success when I asked for information about the mantras of the First Class: I was told that they ‘belong to the School’. The nineteen Lessons of the First Class contain mantras from Steiner and his own commentaries on them. When as an outsider I asked questions about them (or the commentaries on them), this was one of the few acts that would, almost predictably, incur annoyance. Recently, however, and without authorisation, the ‘Stunden’ or Lessons of the ‘erste Klasse’or First Class have been released in German on the internet, accompanied by arguments about the need for openness. They can also be purchased, though this is for a considerable sum of money (about £200 GBP).

Insiders have not perceived the First Class as secretive. Its authority is implicit; it is seen in terms of colleagueship, spontaneity and openness.

The classes in the late 1970s, adjusting to the spirit of the times, were said to be intended as ‘happenings’ and Steiner was emphatic that his mantras, which are understood as ‘given by the spirit of our time’, should move from mouth to ear as ‘living speech’. Recently there has been a practice of ‘free holding’ or free presentation out of one’s individual work with the verses to encourage greater participation and thus esoteric deepening. Anthroposophists do not generally think in terms of the School’s hierarchical power but see it as striving − and sometimes as stumbling − in the search for understanding and truth.

The dilemma is as old as that of religious renewal: what from the outside is seen as cultural elitism tends both to keep inspiration ‘pure’ and to inhibit it. Preserving a social boundary helps avoid trivialisation, but the price paid is the exclusion of outside creativity and thought.

The power of the Lessons as agents of spiritual rebirth seems not so much intrinsic in the printed material, which appears unexceptional, as dependent on having a contained, spiritual context for study, sacred boundaries and engaged personal preparation building up to it.

To illustrate this let us take what purports to be an example. This is available in English translation. It starts almost immediately with a mantra. The first four lines:

O man, know thou thyself!

Thus sounds the cosmic word.

Thou hearest it strong-in-soul,

Thou feelest it mighty-in-spirit.

These and further mantras are contained within a lecture (Lesson 17) given by Steiner. The general content appears to have a great deal in common with the meditative path already generally available to the non- Anthroposophical public. Thus the lecture later refers frequently to the Spiritual Hierarchies and the Guardian of the Threshold, and contains comments such as matter is empty nothingness, spirit shines in matter and that the Being of Christ in the death of matter wakens spirit-birth.

Around the turn of the century Steiner himself was accused of betraying ‘esoteric’ secrets. He replied that the age required that they should be made public to those who had reached the stage of higher education. It was later, when he established his own inner circle, that he enjoined secrecy. The closed system means that no effective defence can be made against damaging allegations. Thus a serious Scandinavian researcher told me authoritatively that Tantric sex yoga is practised. Anthroposophists refute charges that Steiner himself experimented with sexual magic. Later strong denials to me by members of the School may necessarily have lacked evidence in support, but there is no reason to suppose that leading Anthroposophists are dishonest about such a matter. As has been seen, those apparent Lessons which have found their way out give no support to the sexual magic hypothesis.

The closed system also perpetuates the dominance of Steiner as ‘the’ seer. It is not open to outside scrutiny and thereby forced to adapt to criticism. Members of the school are, no doubt, already committed to Anthroposophy as objective truth. Anthroposophy is understood inclusively, as in the following insider’s definition: Anthroposophy is the experience that the human being, motivated by love for truth, can know himself/herself and the world through the application of thinking and self-reflection. Yet the ‘undogmatic’ spiritual research which is the School’s explicit aim seems at some level to be latently modeled on Steiner’s clairvoyance. This could include the recent practice of ‘free holding’, or free rendering of the texts, though it might also lead to schism. An implicit inhibition on deviant thought − or, at least, its external expression − may encourage emotional dependence on the founder.

An advantage of this apparent absence of epistemological individualism is the tendency for the School, however much criticised, to be the authoritative and cohesive force of the movement. Centred on the sacred Goetheanum, it seems to be the main focus of directionmaking and decision-taking. It has a hierarchical structure, the local branches being headed by ‘readers’, who have their own ‘circle’.

Emotional identification is helped through the use of sympathetic educational terminology: the ‘School’ of Spiritual Science, the ‘First Class’, ‘Lessons’. I was told it was analogous to a ‘university’ and that its aim was ‘development and research’.

It takes almost two years to go through the entire cycle of Lessons when there is a lesson each month. Because the Class members may not feel the continuity between the Lessons, and because attendance may have to be irregular for external reasons, in 2005 an intensive conference was held at the Goetheanum, taking only a week. All nineteen lessons were covered. The event was for First Class members only and there was no fee for the conference itself, as contrasted with food and lodging (the principle is that the substance cannot be bought). Members needed to bring a ‘blue Class certificate’ with them. The flier stated synaesthetically: Each morning, after a short transition pause, we will see silent eurythmy compositions inspired from the Class Lesson. Through the eurythmy something of the substance of the mantra is shown in movement-pictures. You can perceive the mantric verse as it were behind the sequence of movements that are shown. The composition in movement unfolds in clearly differentiated zones, following the form of the verses in the respective zones of the etheric, the soul and the spirit. The inner process is brought out in the various colours, in the differentiated forms in space; and in the gestures of the sounds and the soul-gestures.

Before dying unexpectedly in 1925 Steiner is said to have intended to found a ‘Second’ and ‘Third’ Class. There was a rumour − which was also denied − that a Second Class was being established. No such classes, however, apparently exist. As part of their striving, Anthroposophists try to understand what a Second and Third Class might have been like. There seem to be no indications from Steiner on this.