Essay:GW0

The task and purpose of Anthroposophy, along with its intrinsic methods and philosophy have not changed. And this is for the better. But, us Anthroposophists have forgotten an extremely important part of what the philosophy was in its earlier days. I am talking here about visibility. In the olden days, someone searching for a spiritual group will no doubt find Anthroposophy at some point in their journey, for it was a new and exiting thing. It never lost this newness, or (to those who understand it), its excitement. But now, we have run into a problem. Inside Anthroposophical circles, there are workshops, talks, courses, yet outside, there is nothing. And I understand the reason for this, but Anthroposophy has stagnated. It is not making itself clear to those who wish to know more, yet don't care enough to go down to a group or email someone.

Would Anthroposophy be "bigger", especially in the western world, if it was more visible? My answer to this is yes. There are many spiritual and religious philosophies and movements that have ideals, beliefs, teachings and practices that are incredibly similar to Anthroposophy, (almost as if they come from the same place, yes?) and if people in these movements were to simply find Anthroposophy, it would not only be good for Anthroposophy, it would indeed be good for them.

The wide majority of Anthroposophists, when asked what "got them into" Anthroposophy, they simply reply something along the lines of "Well I read a bit, and just made sense, I felt like I already knew it!". This speaks not only to the truth of Anthroposophy, but also to what we need to do. There are many people that are spiritual now, but are not Anthroposophists simply because they have never heard of Anthroposophy, and if they have, it has been portrayed in an overly and overtly negative manner. We must bring Anthroposophy to the people, in the way that Steiner and Freeman did before! If we do not, in an overly materialistic and "evil" world, our flame will surely be extinguished within a relatively short timeframe.

We have many new problems that arise from not only the new dystopian-capitalist technology of today, but also from an increasingly reactionary, materialistic, and irrational "Vox Populi". People are fed ideas by the news, by movies and television, by their schools, and by their phones. The problem here is that they sincerely think that these ideas are original, and theirs. People genuinely believe themselves to be "alone in the crowd of sheep", that they are secretly and inexpressibly more self aware or smart than everyone else, and this delusion is being fed by platforms like social media and the discouraging of discussion of complex topics.

In other words, we are in a thought epidemic, and Anthroposophy is basically the perfect thing to deal with this. How do you deal with strange ideas of a person's own intellect? Self awareness, and spiritual-scientific thinking! How do you deal with materialism? Spirituality! These are things that Anthroposophy can do. We just need to get it out there.