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Ambrosius Bosschaert

Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (18 January 1573 – 1621) was a Flemish-born Dutch still life painter and art dealer. He is recognised as one of the earliest painters who created floral still lifes as an independent genre. He founded a dynasty of painters who continued his style of floral and fruit painting and turned Middelburg into the leading centre for flower painting in the Dutch Republic.

Biography

He was born in Antwerp, where he started his career, but he spent most of it in Middelburg (1587–1613), where he moved with his family because of the threat of religious persecution. He specialized in painting still lifes with flowers, which he signed with the monogram AB (the B in the A). At the age of twenty-one, he joined the city's Guild of Saint Luke and later became dean. Not long after, Bosschaert married and established himself as a leading figure in the fashionable floral painting genre.

He had three sons who all became flower painters: Ambrosius II, Johannes and Abraham. His brother-in-law Balthasar van der Ast also lived and worked in his workshop and accompanied him on his travels. Bosschaert later worked in Amsterdam (1614), Bergen op Zoom (1615–1616), Utrecht (1616–1619), and Breda (1619). In 1619 when he moved to Utrecht, his brother-in-law van der Ast entered the Utrecht Guild of St. Luke, where the renowned painter Abraham Bloemaert had just become dean. The painter Roelandt Savery (1576–1639) entered the St. Luke's guild in Utrecht at about the same time. Savery had considerable influence on the Bosschaert dynasty.

After Bosschaert died in The Hague while on commission there for a flower piece, Balthasar van der Ast took over his workshop and pupils in Middelburg.

Style

His bouquets were painted symmetrically and with scientific accuracy in small dimensions and normally on copper. They sometimes included symbolic and religious meanings. At the time of his death, Bosschaert was working on an important commission in the Hague. That piece is now in the collection in Stockholm.

Bosschaert was one of the first artists to specialize in flower still life painting as a stand-alone subject. He started a tradition of painting detailed flower bouquets, which typically included tulips and roses, and inspired the genre of Dutch flower painting. Thanks to the booming seventeenth-century Dutch art market, he became highly successful, as the inscription on one of his paintings attests. His works commanded high prices although he never achieved the level of prestige of Jan Brueghel the Elder, the Antwerp master who contributed to the floral genre.

Legacy
His sons and his pupil and brother-in-law, Balthasar van der Ast, were among those to uphold the Bosschaert dynasty which continued until the mid-17th century.

It may not be a coincidence that this trend coincided with a national obsession with exotic flowers which made flower portraits highly sought after.

Although he was highly in demand, he did not create many pieces because he was also employed as an art dealer.

title: Ambrosius Bosschaert


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Talk:AOL

Marty Lyons
Marty Lyons (not the football player) created America Online along with Marc Seriff, Steve Case, Jim Kimsey & William von Meister. Unfortunately, Marty wiped himself off the internet in the early 2000s/late 90s due to his schizophrenia. I am looking into these claims about "Marty Lyons" currently. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlfredVerrios (talk • contribs) 15:03, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Popup ads
I wish there were a section talking about AOL's introduction of popup ads, the most infamous policy of its history next to refusing to cancel accounts.

Brief History and Praise
Background: modems connected two computers, not attatched to the internet, using telephone lines (now DSL). Bulletin Board Server BBS was a craze of home computers connecting to a bigger BBS sites having a large scsi disk drive, free software, user chat; often run by government or colleges.

AOL made a chain market of this: buying BBS stations (small buildings with modems connected to PCs) to serve AOL customers. AOL later upgrade to internet connection with Netscape web browser (before Microsoft IE Browser existed). There was some competition by telephone company run ISDN, but limited. (telephone companies have always used small buildings similarly)

But when Cable Internet came out: it was far faster and using government super-funded Cable Modem. All of those BBS stations filled Hayes modems and PCs? Technological paper weights (no easy upgrade path). Subscriptions fell.

But AOL saw this and invested in cable tv companies and had it's own cable access brand as well. The "diving chart" above is wrong: it does not show people subscribed to cable services that AOL owns large shares in.

AOL marketed (in wash dc area) by sending out free floppy disks that installed AOL software. People used these instead of buy floppies, and it was great advertisement. Thanks Steve!

AOL was a boon to PC sales it let many "PC dummies" and experts experience connection with modems, who otherwise would not have had time or not have figured out how. AOL always had nice shared content (software, media, chat, mail, news groups) and was pleasant to see and use.

The only AOL "criticism" was: during one period they limited where one could internet browse but only while connected to AOL. The policy was temporary.

Disgruntlement over user profiles
There is a notable thread of AOL history that is missing from the article:

 * At one time, most AOL users had an online "profile" hosted by the AOL Hometown service. When AOL Hometown was discontinued, users had to create a new profile on Bebo.  This was an unsuccessful attempt to create a social network that would compete with Facebook.  When the value of Bebo decreased to a tiny fraction of the $850 million AOL paid for it, users were forced to recreate their profiles yet again, on a new service called "AOL Lifestream."

 * AOL took the decision to shut down Lifestream on 24 February 2017, and gave users one month's notice to save off photos and videos that had been uploaded to Lifestream. Following the shutdown, AOL no longer provides any option for hosting user profiles.

 * During the Hometown/Bebo/Lifestream era, a user's profile could be displayed by clicking the "Buddy Info" button in the AOL Desktop software. After the shutdown of Lifestream, clicking "Buddy Info" does something that provides no information whatsoever about the selected buddy:  it causes the AIM home page (www.aim.com) to be displayed.

This information should probably go into the Criticism section, because each of these "forced migrations," culminating in the complete termination of user profiles in 2017, contributed to the disgruntlement of AOL's user base. 75.163.201.149 (talk)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:AOL


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Anthroposophy

Anthroposophy is a spiritual new religious movement Sources for 'new religious movement': which was founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner that postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world, accessible to human experience. Followers of anthroposophy aim to engage in spiritual discovery through a mode of thought independent of sensory experience. Though proponents claim to present their ideas in a manner that is verifiable by rational discourse and say that they seek precision and clarity comparable to that obtained by scientists investigating the physical world, many of these ideas have been termed pseudoscientific by experts in epistemology and debunkers of pseudoscience. Sources for 'pseudoscience':

Anthroposophy has its roots in German idealism, Western and Eastern esoteric ideas, various religious traditions, and modern Theosophy. Steiner chose the term anthroposophy (from Greek ἄνθρωπος anthropos-, 'human', and σοφία sophia, 'wisdom') to emphasize his philosophy's humanistic orientation. He defined it as "a scientific exploration of the spiritual world", others have variously called it a "philosophy and cultural movement", a "spiritual movement", a "spiritual science", "a system of thought", or "a spiritualist movement".

Anthroposophical ideas have been applied in a range of fields including education (both in Waldorf schools and in the Camphill movement ), environmental conservation  and banking; with additional applications in agriculture, organizational development, the arts, and more.

The Anthroposophical Society is headquartered at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. Anthroposophy's supporters include writers Saul Bellow, and Selma Lagerlöf, painters Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, child psychiatrist Eva Frommer,  music therapist Maria Schüppel, Romuva religious founder Vydūnas,  and former president of Georgia Zviad Gamsakhurdia. While critics and proponents alike acknowledge Steiner's many anti-racist statements. "Steiner's collected works...contain pervasive internal contradictions and inconsistencies on racial and national questions."

The historian of religion Olav Hammer has termed anthroposophy "the most important esoteric society in European history". Many scientists, physicians, and philosophers, including Michael Shermer, Michael Ruse, Edzard Ernst, David Gorski, and Simon Singh have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education to be dangerous and pseudoscientific. Ideas of Steiner's that are unsupported or disproven by modern science include: racial evolution, clairvoyance (Steiner claimed he was clairvoyant), and the Atlantis myth. Sources for 'Atlantis':

History

The early work of the founder of anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner, culminated in his Philosophy of Freedom (also translated as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path). Here, Steiner developed a concept of free will based on inner experiences, especially those that occur in the creative activity of independent thought. "Steiner was a moral individualist".

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Steiner's interests turned almost exclusively to spirituality. His work began to draw the attention of others interested in spiritual ideas; among these was the Theosophical Society. From 1900 on, thanks to the positive reception his ideas received from Theosophists, Steiner focused increasingly on his work with the Theosophical Society, becoming the secretary of its section in Germany in 1902. During his leadership, membership increased dramatically, from just a few individuals to sixty-nine lodges.

By 1907, a split between Steiner and the Theosophical Society became apparent. While the Society was oriented toward an Eastern and especially Indian approach, Steiner was trying to develop a path that embraced Christianity and natural science. The split became irrevocable when Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society, presented the child Jiddu Krishnamurti as the reincarnated Christ. Steiner strongly objected and considered any comparison between Krishnamurti and Christ to be nonsense; many years later, Krishnamurti also repudiated the assertion. Steiner's continuing differences with Besant led him to separate from the Theosophical Society Adyar. He was subsequently followed by the great majority of the Theosophical Society's German members, as well as many members of other national sections.

By this time, Steiner had reached considerable stature as a spiritual teacher and expert in the occult. He spoke about what he considered to be his direct experience of the Akashic Records (sometimes called the "Akasha Chronicle"), thought to be a spiritual chronicle of the history, pre-history, and future of the world and mankind. In a number of works, Steiner described a path of inner development he felt would let anyone attain comparable spiritual experiences. In Steiner's view, sound vision could be developed, in part, by practicing rigorous forms of ethical and cognitive self-discipline, concentration, and meditation. In particular, Steiner believed a person's spiritual development could occur only after a period of moral development.

In 1912, Steiner broke away from the Theosophical Society to found an independent group, which he named the Anthroposophical Society. After World War I, members of the young society began applying Steiner's ideas to create cultural movements in areas such as traditional and special education, farming, and medicine.

By 1923, a schism had formed between older members, focused on inner development, and younger members eager to become active in contemporary social transformations. In response, Steiner attempted to bridge the gap by establishing an overall School for Spiritual Science. As a spiritual basis for the reborn movement, Steiner wrote a Foundation Stone Meditation which remains a central touchstone of anthroposophical ideas.

Steiner died just over a year later, in 1925. The Second World War temporarily hindered the anthroposophical movement in most of Continental Europe, as the Anthroposophical Society and most of its practical counter-cultural applications were banned by the Nazi government. Though at least one prominent member of the Nazi Party, Rudolf Hess, was a strong supporter of anthroposophy, very few anthroposophists belonged to the National Socialist Party. In reality, Steiner had both enemies and loyal supporters in the upper echelons of the Nazi regime. Staudenmaier speaks of the "polycratic party-state apparatus", so Nazism's approach to Anthroposophy was not characterized by monolithic ideological unity. When Hess flew to the UK and was imprisoned, their most powerful protector was gone,  but Anthroposophists were still not left without supporters among higher-placed Nazis.

The Third Reich had banned almost all esoteric organizations, claiming that these were controlled by Jews. The truth was that while Anthroposophists complained of bad press, they were to a surprising extent tolerated by the Nazi regime, "including outspokenly supportive pieces in the Völkischer Beobachter". Ideological purists from Sicherheitsdienst argued largely in vain against Anthroposophy. According to Staudenmaier, "The prospect of unmitigated persecution was held at bay for years in a tenuous truce between pro-anthroposophical and anti-anthroposophical Nazi factions."

"The anti-esoteric faction ensconced in the SD and Gestapo recognized that they faced influential adversaries in other sectors of the Nazi hierarchy. They knew that Hess and his staff, Baeumler in the Amt Rosenberg, and Ohlendorf in the SD itself were willing to intervene on behalf of anthroposophical endeavors. Minister of Agriculture Darré and Lotar Eickhoff in the Interior Ministry were also seen as sympathizers of anthroposophy, and the SD considered the head of the party’s “Examination Commission for Safeguarding National Socialist Writings,” Karl Heinz Hederich, a supporter of occultists and astrologers.$52$" "While anthroposophists were in the center of the SD’s sights, they were supposed to receive relatively mild treatment compared to other occultists."

"Despite these measures, anthroposophist authors were able to write long after June 1941. Franz Dreidax, Max Karl Schwarz, Elisabeth Klein, Johannes Bertram-Pingel, Georg Halbe, Otto Julius Hartmann, Rudolf Hauschka, Jürgen von Grone, Wolfgang Schuchhardt and others continued to publish throughout the war. But serious disruptions were common."

Morals: Anthroposophy was not the stake of that dispute, but merely powerful Nazis wanting to get rid of other powerful Nazis. E.g. Jehovah's Witnesses were treated much more aggressively than Anthroposophists.

"Yet, the relative moderation of Heydrich's action, which paled in comparison to measures taken against communists and socialists, Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as the mentally and physically disabled, continued to reflect the Third Reich's underlying ambivalence toward policing the occult."

Kurlander stated that "the Nazis were hardly ideologically opposed to the supernatural sciences themselves"—rather they objected to the free (i.e. non-totalitarian) pursuit of supernatural sciences.

According to Hans Büchenbacher, an anthroposophist, the Secretary General of the General Anthroposophical Society, Guenther Wachsmuth,  as well as Steiner's widow, Marie Steiner, were “completely pro-Nazi.” Marie Steiner-von Sivers, Guenther Wachsmuth, and Albert Steffen, had publicly expressed sympathy for the Nazi regime since its beginnings; led by such sympathies of their leadership, the Swiss and German Anthroposophical organizations chose for a path conflating accommodation with collaboration, which in the end ensured that while the Nazi regime hunted the esoteric organizations, Gentile Anthroposophists from Nazi Germany and countries occupied by it were let be to a surprising extent. Of course they had some setbacks from the enemies of Anthroposophy among the upper echelons of the Nazi regime, but Anthroposophists also had loyal supporters among them, so overall Gentile Anthroposophists were not badly hit by the Nazi regime.

"Yet when Hitler threatened to suppress the Anthroposophical Society, its executive council—which had recently expelled much of its membership—chose to collaborate rather than resist. Marie Steiner, Günther Wachsmuth, and Albert Steffen knew of Hitler’s violent intentions toward the Jewish people, since Hitler’s attacks on anthroposophy included the accusation that anthroposophy was aligned with the Jews. Rather than standing in solidarity with Hitler’s other targets, they disavowed any sympathy for Judaism and assured Nazi leaders that both they and Steiner were of pure Aryan heritage.$59$"

Staudenmaier's overall argument is that "there were often no clear-cut lines between theosophy, anthroposophy, ariosophy, astrology and the völkisch movement from which the Nazi Party arose."

By 2007, national branches of the Anthroposophical Society had been established in fifty countries and about 10,000 institutions around the world were working on the basis of anthroposophical ideas.

Etymology and earlier uses of the word
Anthroposophy is an amalgam of the Greek terms ἄνθρωπος (anthropos 'human') and σοφία (sophia 'wisdom'). An early English usage is recorded by Nathan Bailey (1742) as meaning "the knowledge of the nature of man."

The first known use of the term anthroposophy occurs within Arbatel de magia veterum, summum sapientiae studium, a book published anonymously in 1575 and attributed to Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. The work describes anthroposophy (as well as theosophy) variously as an understanding of goodness, nature, or human affairs. In 1648, the Welsh philosopher Thomas Vaughan published his Anthroposophia Theomagica, or a discourse of the nature of man and his state after death.

The term began to appear with some frequency in philosophical works of the mid- and late-nineteenth century. In the early part of that century, Ignaz Troxler used the term anthroposophy to refer to philosophy deepened to self-knowledge, which he suggested allows deeper knowledge of nature as well. He spoke of human nature as a mystical unity of God and world. Immanuel Hermann Fichte used the term anthroposophy to refer to "rigorous human self-knowledge," achievable through thorough comprehension of the human spirit and of the working of God in this spirit, in his 1856 work Anthropology: The Study of the Human Soul. In 1872, the philosopher of religion Gideon Spicker used the term anthroposophy to refer to self-knowledge that would unite God and world: "the true study of the human being is the human being, and philosophy's highest aim is self-knowledge, or Anthroposophy."

In 1882, the philosopher Robert Zimmermann published the treatise, "An Outline of Anthroposophy: Proposal for a System of Idealism on a Realistic Basis," proposing that idealistic philosophy should employ logical thinking to extend empirical experience. Steiner attended lectures by Zimmermann at the University of Vienna in the early 1880s, thus at the time of this book's publication.

In the early 1900s, Steiner began using the term anthroposophy (i.e. human wisdom) as an alternative to the term theosophy (i.e. divine wisdom).

Spiritual knowledge and freedom
Anthroposophical proponents aim to extend the clarity of the scientific method to phenomena of human soul-life and spiritual experiences. Steiner believed this required developing new faculties of objective spiritual perception, which he maintained was still possible for contemporary humans. The steps of this process of inner development he identified as consciously achieved imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Steiner believed results of this form of spiritual research should be expressed in a way that can be understood and evaluated on the same basis as the results of natural science.

Steiner hoped to form a spiritual movement that would free the individual from any external authority. For Steiner, the human capacity for rational thought would allow individuals to comprehend spiritual research on their own and bypass the danger of dependency on an authority such as himself.

Steiner contrasted the anthroposophical approach with both conventional mysticism, which he considered lacking the clarity necessary for exact knowledge, and natural science, which he considered arbitrarily limited to what can be seen, heard, or felt with the outward senses.

Nature of the human being

In Theosophy, Steiner suggested that human beings unite a physical body of substances gathered from and returning to the inorganic world; a life body (also called the etheric body), in common with all living creatures (including plants); a bearer of sentience or consciousness (also called the astral body), in common with all animals; and the ego, which anchors the faculty of self-awareness unique to human beings.

Anthroposophy describes a broad evolution of human consciousness. Early stages of human evolution possess an intuitive perception of reality, including a clairvoyant perception of spiritual realities. Humanity has progressively evolved an increasing reliance on intellectual faculties and a corresponding loss of intuitive or clairvoyant experiences, which have become atavistic. The increasing intellectualization of consciousness, initially a progressive direction of evolution, has led to an excessive reliance on abstraction and a loss of contact with both natural and spiritual realities. However, to go further requires new capacities that combine the clarity of intellectual thought with the imagination and with consciously achieved inspiration and intuitive insights.

Anthroposophy speaks of the reincarnation of the human spirit: that the human being passes between stages of existence, incarnating into an earthly body, living on earth, leaving the body behind, and entering into the spiritual worlds before returning to be born again into a new life on earth. After the death of the physical body, the human spirit recapitulates the past life, perceiving its events as they were experienced by the objects of its actions. A complex transformation takes place between the review of the past life and the preparation for the next life. The individual's karmic condition eventually leads to a choice of parents, physical body, disposition, and capacities that provide the challenges and opportunities that further development requires, which includes karmically chosen tasks for the future life.

Steiner described some conditions that determine the interdependence of a person's lives, or karma.

Evolution
The anthroposophical view of evolution considers all animals to have evolved from an early, unspecialized form. As the least specialized animal, human beings have maintained the closest connection to the archetypal form; contrary to the Darwinian conception of human evolution, all other animals devolve from this archetype. The spiritual archetype originally created by spiritual beings was devoid of physical substance; only later did this descend into material existence on Earth. In this view, human evolution has accompanied the Earth's evolution throughout the existence of the Earth.

"The evolution of man, Steiner said, has consisted in the gradual incarnation of a spiritual being into a material body. It has been a true 'descent' of man from a spiritual world into a world of matter. The evolution of the animal kingdom did not precede, but rather accompanied the process of human incarnation. Man is thus not the end result of the evolution of the animals, but is rather in a certain sense their cause. In the succession of types which appears in the fossil record-the fishes, reptiles, mammals, and finally fossil remains of man himself — the stages of this process of incarnation are reflected."

Anthroposophy adapted Theosophy's complex system of cycles of world development and human evolution. The evolution of the world is said to have occurred in cycles. The first phase of the world consisted only of heat. In the second phase, a more active condition, light, and a more condensed, gaseous state separate out from the heat. In the third phase, a fluid state arose, as well as a sounding, forming energy. In the fourth (current) phase, solid physical matter first exists. This process is said to have been accompanied by an evolution of consciousness which led up to present human culture.

Ethics
The anthroposophical view is that good is found in the balance between two polar influences on world and human evolution. These are often described through their mythological embodiments as spiritual adversaries which endeavour to tempt and corrupt humanity, Lucifer and his counterpart Ahriman. These have both positive and negative aspects. Lucifer is the light spirit, which "plays on human pride and offers the delusion of divinity", but also motivates creativity and spirituality; Ahriman is the dark spirit that tempts human beings to "...deny [their] link with divinity and to live entirely on the material plane", but that also stimulates intellectuality and technology. Both figures exert a negative effect on humanity when their influence becomes misplaced or one-sided, yet their influences are necessary for human freedom to unfold.

Each human being has the task to find a balance between these opposing influences, and each is helped in this task by the mediation of the Representative of Humanity, also known as the Christ being, a spiritual entity who stands between and harmonizes the two extremes.

Steiner/Waldorf education
There is a pedagogical movement with over 1000 Steiner or Waldorf schools (the latter name stems from the first such school, founded in Stuttgart in 1919) located in some 60 countries; the great majority of these are independent (private) schools. Sixteen of the schools have been affiliated with the United Nations' UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network, which sponsors education projects that foster improved quality of education throughout the world. Waldorf schools receive full or partial governmental funding in some European nations, Australia and in parts of the United States (as Waldorf method public or charter schools) and Canada.

The schools have been founded in a variety of communities: for example in the favelas of São Paulo to wealthy suburbs of major cities; in India, Egypt, Australia, the Netherlands, Mexico and South Africa. Though most of the early Waldorf schools were teacher-founded, the schools today are usually initiated and later supported by a parent community. Waldorf schools are among the most visible anthroposophical institutions.

Biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture, is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts. It was also the first intentional form of organic farming, begun in 1924, when Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures published in English as The Agriculture Course. Steiner is considered one of the founders of the modern organic farming movement.

"And Himmler, Hess, and Darré all promoted biodynamic (anthroposophic) approaches to farming as an alternative to industrial agriculture." "'[...] with the active cooperation of the Reich League for Biodynamic Agriculture' [...] Pancke, Pohl, and Hans Merkel established additional biodynamic plantations across the eastern territories as well as Dachau, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz concentration camps. Many were staffed by anthroposophists."

"Steiner’s 'biodynamic agriculture' based on 'restoring the quasi-mystical relationship between earth and the cosmos' was widely accepted in the Third Reich (28)."

Anthroposophical medicine
Anthroposophical medicine is a form of alternative medicine based on pseudoscientific and occult notions rather than in science-based medicine.

Most anthroposophic medical preparations are highly diluted, like homeopathic remedies, while harmless in of themselves, using them in place of conventional medicine to treat illness is ineffective and risks adverse consequences.

One of the most studied applications has been the use of mistletoe extracts in cancer therapy, but research has found no evidence of benefit.

Special needs education and services
In 1922, Ita Wegman founded an anthroposophical center for special needs education, the Sonnenhof, in Switzerland. In 1940, Karl König founded the Camphill Movement in Scotland. The latter in particular has spread widely, and there are now over a hundred Camphill communities and other anthroposophical homes for children and adults in need of special care in about 22 countries around the world. Both Karl König, Thomas Weihs and others have written extensively on these ideas underlying Special education.

Architecture
Steiner designed around thirteen buildings in an organic—expressionist architectural style. Foremost among these are his designs for the two Goetheanum buildings in Dornach, Switzerland. Thousands of further buildings have been built by later generations of anthroposophic architects.

Architects who have been strongly influenced by the anthroposophic style include Imre Makovecz in Hungary, Hans Scharoun and Joachim Eble in Germany, Erik Asmussen in Sweden, Kenji Imai in Japan, Thomas Rau, Anton Alberts and Max van Huut in the Netherlands, Christopher Day and Camphill Architects in the UK, Thompson and Rose in America, Denis Bowman in Canada, and Walter Burley Griffin and Gregory Burgess in Australia. ING House in Amsterdam is a contemporary building by an anthroposophical architect which has received awards for its ecological design and approach to a self-sustaining ecology as an autonomous building and example of sustainable architecture.

Eurythmy
Together with Marie von Sivers, Steiner developed eurythmy, a performance art combining dance, speech, and music.

Social finance and entrepreneurship
Around the world today are a number of banks, companies, charities, and schools for developing co-operative forms of business using Steiner's ideas about economic associations, aiming at harmonious and socially responsible roles in the world economy. The first anthroposophic bank was the Gemeinschaftsbank für Leihen und Schenken in Bochum, Germany, founded in 1974. Socially responsible banks founded out of anthroposophy include Triodos Bank, founded in the Netherlands in 1980 and also active in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain and France. Other examples include Cultura Sparebank which dates from 1982 when a group of Norwegian anthroposophists began an initiative for ethical banking but only began to operate as a savings bank in Norway in the late 90s, La Nef in France and RSF Social Financein San Francisco.

Harvard Business School historian Geoffrey Jones traced the considerable impact both Steiner and later anthroposophical entrepreneurs had on the creation of many businesses in organic food, ecological architecture and sustainable finance.

Organizational development, counselling and biography work
Bernard Lievegoed, a psychiatrist, founded a new method of individual and institutional development oriented towards humanizing organizations and linked with Steiner's ideas of the threefold social order. This work is represented by the NPI Institute for Organizational Development in the Netherlands and sister organizations in many other countries.

Speech and drama
There are also anthroposophical movements to renew speech and drama, the most important of which are based in the work of Marie Steiner-von Sivers (speech formation, also known as Creative Speech) and the Chekhov Method originated by Michael Chekhov (nephew of Anton Chekhov).

Art
Anthroposophic painting, a style inspired by Rudolf Steiner, featured prominently in the first Goetheanum's cupola. The technique frequently begins by filling the surface to be painted with color, out of which forms are gradually developed, often images with symbolic-spiritual significance. Paints that allow for many transparent layers are preferred, and often these are derived from plant materials. Rudolf Steiner appointed the English sculptor Edith Maryon as head of the School of Fine Art at the Goetheanum. Together they carved the 9-metre tall sculpture titled The Representative of Humanity, on display at the Goetheanum.

Other

 * Phenomenological approaches to science, pseudo-scientific ideas based on Goethe's philosophy of nature.
 * New approaches to painting and sculpture.
 * John Wilkes' fountain-like flowforms, sculptural forms that guide water into rhythmic movement for the purposes of decoration.
 * Antisemitic legislation in Italy (1938–1945).

Social goals
For a period after World War I, Steiner was extremely active and well known in Germany, in part because he lectured widely proposing social reforms. Steiner was a sharp critic of nationalism, which he saw as outdated, and a proponent of achieving social solidarity through individual freedom. A petition proposing a radical change in the German constitution and expressing his basic social ideas (signed by Herman Hesse, among others) was widely circulated. His main book on social reform is Toward Social Renewal.

Anthroposophy continues to aim at reforming society through maintaining and strengthening the independence of the spheres of cultural life, human rights and the economy. It emphasizes a particular ideal in each of these three realms of society:
 * Liberty in cultural life
 * Equality of rights, the sphere of legislation
 * Fraternity in the economic sphere

According to Cees Leijenhorst, "Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism."

Steiner did influence Italian Fascism, which exploited "his racial and anti-democratic dogma." The fascist ministers Giovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò (nicknamed "the Anthroposophist duke"; he became antifascist after taking part in Benito Mussolini's government ) and Ettore Martinoli have openly expressed their sympathy for Rudolf Steiner. Most from the occult pro-fascist UR Group were Anthroposophists.

According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner’s teachings had a clear authoritarian ring, and developed a rather crass polemic against 'materialism', 'liberalism', and cultural 'degeneration'. [...] For example, anthroposophical medicine was developed to contrast with the 'materialistic' (and hence 'degenerate') medicine of the establishment."

Paths of spiritual development
According to Steiner, a real spiritual world exists, evolving along with the material one. Steiner held that the spiritual world can be researched in the right circumstances through direct experience, by persons practicing rigorous forms of ethical and cognitive self-discipline. Steiner described many exercises he said were suited to strengthening such self-discipline; the most complete exposition of these is found in his book How To Know Higher Worlds. The aim of these exercises is to develop higher levels of consciousness through meditation and observation. Details about the spiritual world, Steiner suggested, could on such a basis be discovered and reported, though no more infallibly than the results of natural science.

"Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe…. Anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of life, certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst."

Steiner regarded his research reports as being important aids to others seeking to enter into spiritual experience. He suggested that a combination of spiritual exercises (for example, concentrating on an object such as a seed), moral development (control of thought, feelings and will combined with openness, tolerance and flexibility) and familiarity with other spiritual researchers' results would best further an individual's spiritual development. He consistently emphasised that any inner, spiritual practice should be undertaken in such a way as not to interfere with one's responsibilities in outer life. Steiner distinguished between what he considered were true and false paths of spiritual investigation.

In anthroposophy, artistic expression is also treated as a potentially valuable bridge between spiritual and material reality.

Prerequisites to and stages of inner development
"A person seeking inner development must first of all make the attempt to give up certain formerly held inclinations. Then, new inclinations must be acquired by constantly holding the thought of such inclinations, virtues or characteristics in one's mind. They must be so incorporated into one's being that a person becomes enabled to alter his soul by his own will-power. This must be tried as objectively as a chemical might be tested in an experiment. A person who has never endeavored to change his soul, who has never made the initial decision to develop the qualities of endurance, steadfastness and calm logical thinking, or a person who has such decisions but has given up because he did not succeed in a week, a month, a year or a decade, will never conclude anything inwardly about these truths."

Steiner's stated prerequisites to beginning on a spiritual path include a willingness to take up serious cognitive studies, a respect for factual evidence, and a responsible attitude. Central to progress on the path itself is a harmonious cultivation of the following qualities:
 * Control over one's own thinking
 * Control over one's will
 * Composure
 * Positivity
 * Impartiality

Steiner sees meditation as a concentration and enhancement of the power of thought. By focusing consciously on an idea, feeling or intention the meditant seeks to arrive at pure thinking, a state exemplified by but not confined to pure mathematics. In Steiner's view, conventional sensory-material knowledge is achieved through relating perception and concepts. The anthroposophic path of esoteric training articulates three further stages of supersensory knowledge, which do not necessarily follow strictly sequentially in any single individual's spiritual progress.
 * By focusing on symbolic patterns, images, and poetic mantras, the meditant can achieve consciously directed Imaginations that allow sensory phenomena to appear as the expression of underlying beings of a soul-spiritual nature.
 * By transcending such imaginative pictures, the meditant can become conscious of the meditative activity itself, which leads to experiences of expressions of soul-spiritual beings unmediated by sensory phenomena or qualities. Steiner calls this stage Inspiration.
 * By intensifying the will-forces through exercises such as a chronologically reversed review of the day's events, the meditant can achieve a further stage of inner independence from sensory experience, leading to direct contact, and even union, with spiritual beings ("Intuition") without loss of individual awareness.

Spiritual exercises
Steiner described numerous exercises he believed would bring spiritual development; other anthroposophists have added many others. A central principle is that "for every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development." According to Steiner, moral development reveals the extent to which one has achieved control over one's inner life and can exercise it in harmony with the spiritual life of other people; it shows the real progress in spiritual development, the fruits of which are given in spiritual perception. It also guarantees the capacity to distinguish between false perceptions or illusions (which are possible in perceptions of both the outer world and the inner world) and true perceptions: i.e., the capacity to distinguish in any perception between the influence of subjective elements (i.e., viewpoint) and objective reality.

Place in Western philosophy
Steiner built upon Goethe's conception of an imaginative power capable of synthesizing the sense-perceptible form of a thing (an image of its outer appearance) and the concept we have of that thing (an image of its inner structure or nature). Steiner added to this the conception that a further step in the development of thinking is possible when the thinker observes his or her own thought processes. "The organ of observation and the observed thought process are then identical, so that the condition thus arrived at is simultaneously one of perception through thinking and one of thought through perception."

Thus, in Steiner's view, we can overcome the subject-object divide through inner activity, even though all human experience begins by being conditioned by it. In this connection, Steiner examines the step from thinking determined by outer impressions to what he calls sense-free thinking. He characterizes thoughts he considers without sensory content, such as mathematical or logical thoughts, as free deeds. Steiner believed he had thus located the origin of free will in our thinking, and in particular in sense-free thinking.

Some of the epistemic basis for Steiner's later anthroposophical work is contained in the seminal work, Philosophy of Freedom. In his early works, Steiner sought to overcome what he perceived as the dualism of Cartesian idealism and Kantian subjectivism by developing Goethe's conception of the human being as a natural-supernatural entity, that is: natural in that humanity is a product of nature, supernatural in that through our conceptual powers we extend nature's realm, allowing it to achieve a reflective capacity in us as philosophy, art and science. Steiner was one of the first European philosophers to overcome the subject-object split in Western thought. Though not well known among philosophers, his philosophical work was taken up by Owen Barfield (and through him influenced the Inklings, an Oxford group of Christian writers that included J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis).

Christian and Jewish mystical thought have also influenced the development of anthroposophy.

Union of science and spirit
Steiner believed in the possibility of applying the clarity of scientific thinking to spiritual experience, which he saw as deriving from an objectively existing spiritual world. Steiner identified mathematics, which attains certainty through thinking itself, thus through inner experience rather than empirical observation, as the basis of his epistemology of spiritual experience.

Anthroposophy regards mainstream science as Ahrimanic.Sources for 'Ahrimanic':

Christ as the center of earthly evolution
Steiner's writing, though appreciative of all religions and cultural developments, emphasizes Western tradition as having evolved to meet contemporary needs. He describes Christ and his mission on earth of bringing individuated consciousness as having a particularly important place in human evolution, whereby:
 * Christianity has evolved out of previous religions;
 * The being which manifests in Christianity also manifests in all faiths and religions, and each religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born;
 * All historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed considerably to meet the continuing evolution of humanity.

"Spiritual science does not want to usurp the place of Christianity; on the contrary it would like to be instrumental in making Christianity understood. Thus it becomes clear to us through spiritual science that the being whom we call Christ is to be recognized as the center of life on earth, that the Christian religion is the ultimate religion for the earth's whole future. Spiritual science shows us particularly that the pre-Christian religions outgrow their one-sidedness and come together in the Christian faith. It is not the desire of spiritual science to set something else in the place of Christianity; rather it wants to contribute to a deeper, more heartfelt understanding of Christianity."

Thus, anthroposophy considers there to be a being who unifies all religions, and who is not represented by any particular religious faith. This being is, according to Steiner, not only the Redeemer of the Fall from Paradise, but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and of human history. To describe this being, Steiner periodically used terms such as the "Representative of Humanity" or the "good spirit" rather than any denominational term.

Divergence from conventional Christian thought
Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic elements:

 * One central point of divergence is Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma.
 * Steiner differentiated three contemporary paths by which he believed it possible to arrive at Christ:
 * Through heart-felt experiences of the Gospels; Steiner described this as the historically dominant path, but becoming less important in the future.
 * Through inner experiences of a spiritual reality; this Steiner regarded as increasingly the path of spiritual or religious seekers today.
 * Through initiatory experiences whereby the reality of Christ's death and resurrection are experienced; Steiner believed this is the path people will increasingly take.
 * Steiner also believed that there were two different Jesus children involved in the Incarnation of the Christ: one child descended from Solomon, as described in the Gospel of Matthew, the other child from Nathan, as described in the Gospel of Luke. (The genealogies given in the two gospels diverge some thirty generations before Jesus' birth, and 'Jesus' was a common name in biblical times.)
 * His view of the second coming of Christ is also unusual; he suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but that the Christ being would become manifest in non-physical form, visible to spiritual vision and apparent in community life for increasing numbers of people beginning around the year 1933.
 * He emphasized his belief that in the future humanity would need to be able to recognize the Spirit of Love in all its genuine forms, regardless of what name would be used to describe this being. He also warned that the traditional name of the Christ might be misused, and the true essence of this being of love ignored.

"Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress..."

According to Jane Gilmer, "Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered."

As Gilles Quispel put it, "After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis."

Maria Carlson stated "Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter."

R. McL. Wilson in The Oxford Companion to the Bible agrees that Steiner and Anthroposophy are under the influence of gnosticism.

Robert A. McDermott says Anthroposophy belongs to Christian Rosicrucianism. According to Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Rudolf Steiner "blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie".

Geoffrey Ahern states that Anthroposophy belongs to neo-gnosticism broadly conceived, which he identifies with Western esotericism and occultism.

"Was Steiner a Gnostic? Yes and no. Yes, from the point of view that he offered insights and methods for a personal experience of Christ. I have formulated this aspect of his work as his hermeneutical key: ‘not I, but Christ in me’. No, from the point of view that he was not trying to reestablish Gnosticism's practices into a neo-gnostic tradition. Steiner was, in his times, well aware of concerns articulated more recently by Pope Francis about the two subtle enemies of holiness, contemporary Gnosticism and contemporary Pelagianism."

"Granted that Steiner included Gnostic elements in his cosmological reinterpretation of Christianity, many of them from the Pistis Sophia, Steiner was not a Gnostic in the sense of someone who held that the world was ruled by a demiurge, that matter was evil, or that it was possible to escape from this fallen universe by acquiring secret spiritual knowledge. To characterize the structure of his thought as derived from Syrio-Egyptian gnosis (Ahern 2010) may be too strong and plays down the fact that he was critical of early Gnostic Christianity as having no adequate idea of Jesus as a man of flesh and blood."

According to Catholic scholars Anthroposophy belongs to the New Age.

Judaism
Rudolf Steiner wrote and lectured on Judaism and Jewish issues over much of his adult life. He was a fierce opponent of popular antisemitism, but asserted that there was no justification for the existence of Judaism and Jewish culture in the modern world, a radical assimilationist perspective which saw the Jews completely integrating into the larger society. He also supported Émile Zola's position in the Dreyfus affair. Steiner emphasized Judaism's central importance to the constitution of the modern era in the West but suggested that to appreciate the spirituality of the future it would need to overcome its tendency toward abstraction.

Steiner financed the publication of the book Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg (1919) by Karl Heise; Steiner also wrote the foreword for the book, partly based upon his own ideas. The publication comprised a conspiracy theory according to whom World War I was a consequence of a collusion of Freemasons and Jews – still favorite scapegoats of the conspiracy theorists – their purpose being the destruction of Germany. Fact is that Steiner spent a large sum of money for publishing "a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism". The writing was later enthusiastically received by the Nazi Party.

In his later life, Steiner was accused by the Nazis of being Jewish, and Adolf Hitler called anthroposophy "Jewish methods". The anthroposophical institutions in Germany were banned during Nazi rule and several anthroposophists sent to concentration camps.

Important early anthroposophists who were Jewish included two central members on the executive boards of the precursors to the modern Anthroposophical Society, and Karl König, the founder of the Camphill movement, who had converted to Christianity. Martin Buber and Hugo Bergmann, who viewed Steiner's social ideas as a solution to the Arab–Jewish conflict, were also influenced by anthroposophy.

There are numerous anthroposophical organisations in Israel, including the anthroposophical kibbutz Harduf, founded by Jesaiah Ben-Aharon, forty Waldorf kindergartens and seventeen Waldorf schools (as of 2018). A number of these organizations are striving to foster positive relationships between the Arab and Jewish populations: The Harduf Waldorf school includes both Jewish and Arab faculty and students, and has extensive contact with the surrounding Arab communities, while the first joint Arab-Jewish kindergarten was a Waldorf program in Hilf near Haifa.

Christian Community
Towards the end of Steiner's life, a group of theology students (primarily Lutheran, with some Roman Catholic members) approached Steiner for help in reviving Christianity, in particular "to bridge the widening gulf between modern science and the world of spirit". They approached a notable Lutheran pastor, Friedrich Rittelmeyer, who was already working with Steiner's ideas, to join their efforts. Out of their co-operative endeavor, the Movement for Religious Renewal, now generally known as The Christian Community, was born. Steiner emphasized that he considered this movement, and his role in creating it, to be independent of his anthroposophical work, as he wished anthroposophy to be independent of any particular religion or religious denomination.

Reception
Anthroposophy's supporters include Saul Bellow, Selma Lagerlöf, Andrei Bely, Joseph Beuys, Owen Barfield, architect Walter Burley Griffin, Wassily Kandinsky,  Andrei Tarkovsky, Bruno Walter, Right Livelihood Award winners Sir George Trevelyan, and Ibrahim Abouleish, and child psychiatrist Eva Frommer.

The historian of religion Olav Hammer has termed anthroposophy "the most important esoteric society in European history." However authors, scientists, and physicians including Michael Shermer, Michael Ruse, Edzard Ernst, David Gorski, and Simon Singh have criticized anthroposophy's application in the areas of medicine, biology, agriculture, and education to be dangerous and pseudoscientific. Others including former Waldorf pupil Dan Dugan and historian Geoffrey Ahern have criticized anthroposophy itself as a dangerous quasi-religious movement that is fundamentally anti-rational and anti-scientific.

Scientific basis
Though Rudolf Steiner studied natural science at the Vienna Technical University at the undergraduate level, his doctorate was in epistemology and very little of his work is directly concerned with the empirical sciences. In his mature work, when he did refer to science it was often to present phenomenological or Goethean science as an alternative to what he considered the materialistic science of his contemporaries.

Steiner's primary interest was in applying the methodology of science to realms of inner experience and the spiritual worlds (his appreciation that the essence of science is its method of inquiry is unusual among esotericists ), and Steiner called anthroposophy Geisteswissenschaft (science of the mind, cultural/spiritual science), a term generally used in German to refer to the humanities and social sciences.

Whether this is a sufficient basis for anthroposophy to be considered a spiritual science has been a matter of controversy. As Freda Easton explained in her study of Waldorf schools, "Whether one accepts anthroposophy as a science depends upon whether one accepts Steiner's interpretation of a science that extends the consciousness and capacity of human beings to experience their inner spiritual world."

Sven Ove Hansson has disputed anthroposophy's claim to a scientific basis, stating that its ideas are not empirically derived and neither reproducible nor testable. Carlo Willmann points out that as, on its own terms, anthroposophical methodology offers no possibility of being falsified except through its own procedures of spiritual investigation, no intersubjective validation is possible by conventional scientific methods; it thus cannot stand up to empiricist critics. Peter Schneider describes such objections as untenable, asserting that if a non-sensory, non-physical realm exists, then according to Steiner the experiences of pure thinking possible within the normal realm of consciousness would already be experiences of that, and it would be impossible to exclude the possibility of empirically grounded experiences of other supersensory content.

Olav Hammer suggests that anthroposophy carries scientism "to lengths unparalleled in any other Esoteric position" due to its dependence upon claims of clairvoyant experience, its subsuming natural science under "spiritual science." Hammer also asserts that the development of what he calls "fringe" sciences such as anthroposophic medicine and biodynamic agriculture are justified partly on the basis of the ethical and ecological values they promote, rather than purely on a scientific basis.

Though Steiner saw that spiritual vision itself is difficult for others to achieve, he recommended open-mindedly exploring and rationally testing the results of such research; he also urged others to follow a spiritual training that would allow them directly to apply his methods to achieve comparable results.

Anthony Storr stated about Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy: "His belief system is so eccentric, so unsupported by evidence, so manifestly bizarre, that rational skeptics are bound to consider it delusional... But, whereas Einstein's way of perceiving the world by thought became confirmed by experiment and mathematical proof, Steiner's remained intensely subjective and insusceptible of objective confirmation."

According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims, also championed by Waldorf schools:

 * 1) wrong color theory;
 * 2) obtuse criticism of the theory of relativity;
 * 3) weird ideas about motions of the planets;
 * 4) supporting vitalism;
 * 5) doubting germ theory;
 * 6) weird approach to physiological systems;
 * 7) "the heart is not a pump".

Religious nature
Two German scholars have called Anthroposophy "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century." Other scholars stated that Anthroposophy is "aspiring to the status of religious dogma".

According to Swartz, Brandt, Hammer, and Hansson, Anthroposophy is a religion. Sources for 'religion':• apud

• See also

• See also They also call it "settled new religious movement", while Martin Gardner called it a cult. Another scholar also calls it a new religious movement or a new spiritual movement. Already in 1924 Anthroposophy got labeled "new religious movement" and "occultist movement". Other scholars agree it is a new religious movement. According to Helmut Zander, both the theory and practice of Anthroposophy display characteristics of religion, and, according to Zander, Rudolf Steiner would plead no contest. According to Zander, Steiner's book Geheimwissenschaft [Occult Science] contains Steiner's mythology about cosmogenesis. Hammer notices that Anthroposophy is a synthesis which does include occultism. Hammer also notices that Steiner's occult doctrines bear a strong resemblance to post-Blavatskyan Theosophy (e.g. Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater).

As an explicitly spiritual movement, anthroposophy has sometimes been called a religious philosophy. In 1998 People for Legal and Non-Sectarian Schools (PLANS) started a lawsuit alleging that anthroposophy is a religion for Establishment Clause purposes and therefore several California school districts should not be chartering Waldorf schools; the lawsuit was dismissed in 2012 for failure to show anthroposophy was a religion. A 2012 paper in legal science reports this verdict as being provisional, and disagrees with its result, i.e. anthroposophy was declared "not a religion" due to an outdated legal framework. In 2000, a French court ruled that a government minister's description of anthroposophy as a cult was defamatory. The French governmental anti-cults agency MIVILUDES reported that it remains vigilant about Anthroposophy, especially because of its deviant medical applications and its work with underage persons, and that the works of Grégoire Perra which lambast anthroposophical medicine do not constitute defamation. Anthroposophical MDs think diseases are caused primarily by karma and demons, rather than materialistic causes. The Gospel of Luke is their main handbook of medical science; this makes them believe they have magical powers, and that medicine is essentially a form of magic. The professional French organization of Anthroposophic MDs have sued Mr. Perra for such claims; they have been condemned to pay 25,000 Euros damages for abusively suing him.

Scholars state that Anthroposophy is influenced by Christian Gnosticism. The Catholic Church did in 1919 issue an edict classifying Anthroposophy as "a neognostic heresy" despite the fact that Steiner "very well respected the distinctions on which Catholic dogma insists".

Some Baptist and mainstream academical heresiologists still appear inclined to agree with the more narrow prior edict of 1919 on dogma and the Lutheran (Missouri Sinod) apologist and heresiologist Eldon K. Winker quoted Ron Rhodes that Steiner's Christology is very similar to Cerinthus. Steiner did perceive "a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos", which could be construed as Gnostic but not Docetic, since "they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion". "Steiner's Christology is discussed as a central element of his thought in Johannes Hemleben, Rudolf Steiner: A Documentary Biography, trans. Leo Twyman (East Grinstead, Sussex: Henry Goulden, 1975), pp. 96-100. From the perspective of orthodox Christianity, it may be said that Steiner combined a docetic understanding of Christ's nature with the Adoptionist heresy." Older scholarship says Steiner's Christology is Nestorian. According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner’s Christology was, however, quite heterodox, and hardly compatible with official church doctrine."

Statements on race
Some anthroposophical ideas challenged the National Socialist racialist and nationalistic agenda. In contrast, some American educators have criticized Waldorf schools for failing to equally include the fables and myths of all cultures, instead favoring European stories over African ones.

 * From the mid-1930s on, National Socialist ideologues attacked the anthroposophical worldview as being opposed to Nazi racist and nationalistic principles; anthroposophy considered "Blood, Race and Folk" as primitive instincts that must be overcome.
 * An academic analysis of the educational approach in public schools noted that "[A] naive version of the evolution of consciousness, a theory foundational to both Steiner's anthroposophy and Waldorf education, sometimes places one race below another in one or another dimension of development. It is easy to imagine why there are disputes [...] about Waldorf educators' insisting on teaching Norse tales and Greek myths to the exclusion of African modes of discourse."

In response to such critiques, the Anthroposophical Society in America published in 1998 a statement clarifying its stance: "We explicitly reject any racial theory that may be construed to be part of Rudolf Steiner's writings. The Anthroposophical Society in America is an open, public society and it rejects any purported spiritual or scientific theory on the basis of which the alleged superiority of one race is justified at the expense of another race."

Tommy Wieringa, a Dutch writer who grew among Anthroposophists, commenting upon an essay by the Anthroposophist Désanne van Brederode, he wrote "It was a meeting of old acquaintances: Nazi leaders such as Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler already recognized a kindred spirit in Rudolf Steiner, with his theories about racial purity, esoteric medicine and biodynamic agriculture."

The racism of Anthroposophy is spiritual and paternalistic (i.e. benevolent), while the racism of fascism is materialistic and often malign. Olav Hammer, university professor expert in new religious movements and Western esotericism, confirms that now the racist and anti-Semitic character of Steiner's teachings can no longer be denied, even if that is "spiritual racism".

According to Munoz, in the materialist perspective (i.e. no reincarnations), Anthroposophy is racist, but in the spiritual perspective (i.e. reincarnations mandatory) it is not racist.

Reception by Nazi regime in Germany
Though several prominent members of the Nazi Party were supporters of anthroposophy and its movements, including (an agriculturalist), SS colonel Hermann Schneider, and Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller, anti-Nazis such as Traute Lafrenz, a member of the White Rose resistance movement, were also followers. Rudolf Hess, the adjunct Führer, was a patron of Waldorf schools and a staunch defender of biodynamic agriculture. "Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darré (the future Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Höss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, [...]"

Societies

 * General Anthroposophical Society
 * Anthroposophical Society in America
 * Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain
 * Anthroposophical Initiatives in India
 * Anthroposophical Society in Australia
 * Anthroposophical Society in New Zealand

title: Anthroposophy


text:
Aurochs

The aurochs (Bos primigenius) ( or ) is an extinct cattle species, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to 180 cm in bulls and 155 cm in cows, it was one of the largest herbivores in the Holocene; it had massive elongated and broad horns that reached 80 cm in length.

The aurochs was part of the Pleistocene megafauna. It probably evolved in Asia and migrated west and north during warm interglacial periods. The oldest-known aurochs fossils found in India and North Africa date to the Middle Pleistocene and in Europe to the Holstein interglacial. As indicated by fossil remains in Northern Europe, it reached Denmark and southern Sweden during the Holocene. The aurochs declined during the late Holocene due to habitat loss and hunting, and became extinct around the 17th century.

The aurochs is depicted in Paleolithic cave paintings, Neolithic petroglyphs, Ancient Egyptian reliefs and Bronze Age figurines. It symbolised power, sexual potency and prowess in religions of the ancient Near East. Its horns were used in votive offerings, as trophies and drinking horns.

Two aurochs domestication events occurred during the Neolithic Revolution. One gave rise to the domestic cattle (Bos taurus) in the Fertile Crescent in the Near East that was introduced to Europe via the Balkans and the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Hybridisation between aurochs and early domestic cattle occurred during the early Holocene. Domestication of the Indian aurochs led to the zebu cattle (Bos indicus) that hybridised with early taurine cattle in the Near East about 4,000 years ago. Some modern cattle breeds exhibit features reminiscent of the aurochs, such as the dark colour and light eel stripe along the back of bulls, the lighter colour of cows, or an aurochs-like horn shape.

Etymology
Both "aur" and "ur" are Germanic or Celtic words meaning "wild ox". In Old High German this word was compounded with ohso ('ox') to ūrohso, which became the early modern Aurochs. The Latin word "urus" was used for wild ox from the Gallic Wars onwards.

The use of the plural form aurochsen in English is a direct parallel of the German plural Ochsen and recreates the same distinction by analogy as English singular ox and plural oxen. "Aurochs" is both the singular and the plural term used to refer to the animal.

Taxonomy and evolution
The scientific name Bos taurus was introduced by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for feral cattle in Poland. The scientific name Bos primigenius was proposed for the aurochs by Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus who described the skeletal differences between the aurochs and domestic cattle in 1825, published in 1827. The name Bos namadicus was used by Hugh Falconer in 1859 for cattle fossils found in Nerbudda deposits. Bos primigenius mauritanicus was coined by Philippe Thomas in 1881 who described fossils found in deposits near Oued Seguen west of Constantine, Algeria.

In 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature placed Bos primigenius on the Official List of Specific Names in Zoology and thereby recognized the validity of this name for a wild species.

Four aurochs subspecies are recognised:
 * The Eurasian aurochs (B. p. primigenius) was part of the Pleistocene megafauna in Eurasia.
 * The Indian aurochs (B. p. namadicus) lived on the Indian subcontinent.
 * The North African aurochs (B. p. mauritanicus) lived north of the Sahara.
 * B. p. thrinacius, an insular dwarf subspecies, lived on the Greek island of Kythira.

Evolution
Calibrations using fossils of 16 Bovidae species indicate that the Bovini tribe evolved about. The Bos and Bison genetic lineages are estimated to have genetically diverged from the Bovini about. The following cladogram shows the phylogenetic relationships of the aurochs based on analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes in the Bovini tribe:

The cold Pliocene climate caused an extension of open grassland, which enabled the evolution of large grazers. Bos acutifrons is a possible ancestor of the aurochs, of which a fossil skull was excavated in the Sivalik Hills in India that dates to the Early Pleistocene about.

An aurochs skull excavated in Tunisia's Kef Governorate from early Middle Pleistocene strata dating about is the oldest-known fossil specimen to date, indicating that the genus Bos might have evolved in Africa and migrated to Eurasia during the Middle Pleistocene. Middle Pleistocene aurochs fossils were also excavated in a Saharan erg in the Hoggar Mountains.

The earliest aurochs fossils excavated in Europe date to the Holstein interglacial 230,000 years Before Present (BP). A mitochondrial DNA analysis showed that hybridisation between the aurochs and the steppe bison (Bos priscus) occurred about 120,000 years ago; the European bison (Bos bonasus) contains up to 10% aurochs ancestry.

Fossils of the Indian subspecies (Bos primigenius namadicus) were excavated in alluvial deposits in South India dating to the Middle Pleistocene. This lead Van Vuure to conclude that it possibly migrated west into the Middle East during the Middle or Late Pleistocene.

Late Pleistocene aurochs fossils were found in Affad 23 in Sudan dating to 50,000 years ago when the climate in this region was more humid than during the African humid period. Two aurochs bones found in the Romito Cave in Italy were radiocarbon dated to 20,210 and 19,351 years BP. Aurochs bones found in a cave near San Teodoro, Sicily date to the Late Epigravettian 14,785–14,781 years BP.

Fossils found at various locations in Denmark date to the Holocene 9,925–2,865 years BP. Mesowear analysis of aurochs premolar teeth indicates that it changed from an abrasion-dominated grazer in the Danish Preboreal to a mixed feeder in the Boreal, Atlantic and Subboreal periods of the Holocene.

Description
According to a 16th-century description by Sigismund von Herberstein, the aurochs was pitch-black with a grey streak along the back; his wood carving made in 1556 was based on a culled aurochs, which he had received in Mazovia. In 1827, Charles Hamilton Smith published an image of an aurochs that was based on an oil painting that he had purchased from a merchant in Augsburg, which is thought to have been made in the early 16th century. This painting is thought to have shown an aurochs, although some authors suggested it may have shown a hybrid between an aurochs and domestic cattle, or a Polish steer. Contemporary reconstructions of the aurochs are based on skeletons and the information derived from contemporaneous artistic depictions and historic descriptions of the animal.

Coat colour
Remains of aurochs hair were not known until the early 1980s. Depictions show that the North African aurochs may have had a light saddle marking on its back. Calves were probably born with a chestnut colour, and young bulls changed to black with a white eel stripe running down the spine, while cows retained a reddish-brown colour. Both sexes had a light-coloured muzzle, but evidence for variation in coat colour does not exist. Egyptian grave paintings show cattle with a reddish-brown coat colour in both sexes, with a light saddle, but the horn shape of these suggest that they may depict domesticated cattle. Many primitive cattle breeds, particularly those from Southern Europe, display similar coat colours to the aurochs, including the black colour in bulls with a light eel stripe, a pale mouth, and similar sexual dimorphism in colour. A feature often attributed to the aurochs is blond forehead hairs. According to historical descriptions of the aurochs, it had long and curly forehead hair, but none mentions a certain colour. Although the colour is present in a variety of primitive cattle breeds, it is probably a discolouration that appeared after domestication.

Body shape
The proportions and body shape of the aurochs were strikingly different from many modern cattle breeds. For example, the legs were considerably longer and more slender, resulting in a shoulder height that nearly equalled the trunk length. The skull, carrying the large horns, was substantially larger and more elongated than in most cattle breeds. As in other wild bovines, the body shape of the aurochs was athletic, and especially in bulls, showed a strongly expressed neck and shoulder musculature. Therefore, the fore hand was larger than the rear, similar to the wisent, but unlike many domesticated cattle. Even in carrying cows, the udder was small and hardly visible from the side; this feature is equal to that of other wild bovines.

Size
The aurochs was one of the largest herbivores in Holocene Europe. The size of an aurochs appears to have varied by region, with larger specimens in northern Europe than farther south. Aurochs in Denmark and Germany ranged in height at the shoulders between 155 - 180 cm in bulls and 135 - 155 cm in cows, while aurochs bulls in Hungary reached 160 cm.

The African aurochs was similar in size to the European aurochs in the Pleistocene, but declined in size during the transition to the Holocene; it may have also varied in size geographically.

The body mass of aurochs appears to have shown some variability. Some individuals reached around 700 kg, whereas those from the late Middle Pleistocene are estimated to have weighed up to 1500 kg. The aurochs exhibited considerable sexual dimorphism in the size of males and females.

Horns
The horns were massive, reaching 80 cm in length and between 10 and 20 cm in diameter. Its horns grew from the skull at a 60-degree angle to the muzzle facing forwards and were curved in three directions, namely upwards and outwards at the base, then swinging forwards and inwards, then inwards and upwards. The curvature of bull horns was more strongly expressed than horns of cows. The basal circumference of horn cores reached 44.5 cm in the largest Chinese specimen and 48 cm in a French specimen. Some cattle breeds still show horn shapes similar to that of the aurochs, such as the Spanish fighting bull, and occasionally also individuals of derived breeds.

Genetics
A well-preserved aurochs bone yielded sufficient mitochondrial DNA for a sequence analysis, which showed that its genome consists of 16,338 base pairs. Further studies using the aurochs whole genome sequence have identified candidate microRNA-regulated domestication genes.

Distribution and habitat
The aurochs was widely distributed in North Africa, Mesopotamia, and throughout Europe to the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Caucasus and Western Siberia in the west and to the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in the north.

Fossil horns attributed to the aurochs were found in Late Pleistocene deposits at an elevation of 3400 m on the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau close to the Heihe River in Zoigê County that date to about 26,620±600 years BP. Most fossils in China were found in plains below 1000 m in Heilongjiang, Yushu, Jilin, northeastern Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, near Beijing, Yangyuan County in Hebei province, Datong and Dingcun in Shanxi province, Huan County in Gansu and in Guizhou provinces. Ancient DNA in aurochs fossils found in Northeast China indicate that the aurochs survived in the region until at least 5,000 years BP. Fossils were also excavated on the Korean Peninsula, and in the Japanese archipelago.

Landscapes in Europe probably consisted of dense forests throughout much of the last few thousand years. The aurochs is likely to have used riparian forests and wetlands along lakes. Pollen of mostly small shrubs found in fossiliferous sediments with aurochs remains in China indicate that it preferred temperate grassy plains or grasslands bordering woodlands. It may have also lived in open grasslands. In the warm Atlantic period of the Holocene, it was restricted to remaining open country and forest margins, where competition with livestock and humans gradually increased leading to a successive decline of the aurochs.

Extinction
The Indian aurochs (B. p. namadicus) became extinct during the Indus Valley Civilisation, likely due to habitat loss caused by expanding pastoralism and interbreeding with the domestic zebu. The latest-known remains were dated to 3,800 YBP, making it the first of the three aurochs subspecies to die out.

The African aurochs (B. p. mauritanicus) may have survived until at least to the Roman period, as indicated by fossils found in Buto and Faiyum in the Nile Delta. The Eurasian aurochs (B. p. primigenius) was present in southern Sweden during the Holocene climatic optimum until at least 7,800 years BP. In Denmark, the first-known local extinction of the aurochs occurred after the sea level rise on the newly formed Danish islands about 8,000–7,500 years BP, and the last documented aurochs lived in southern Jutland around 3,000 years BP. The latest-known aurochs fossil in Great Britain dates to 3,245 years BP, and it was probably extinct by 3,000 years ago.

Excessive hunting began and continued until the aurochs was nearly extinct. The gradual extinction of the aurochs in Central Europe was concurrent with the clearcutting of large forest tracts between the 9th and 12th centuries.

By the 13th century, the aurochs existed only in small numbers in Eastern Europe, and hunting it became a privilege of nobles and later royals. The population in Hungary was declining from at least the 9th century and was extinct in the 13th century.

Findings from subfossil records indicate that wild aurochs might have survived in northwestern Transylvania until the 14th to 16th century, in western Moldavia until probably the early 17th century.

The last-known aurochs herd lived in a marshy woodland in Poland's Jaktorów Forest. It decreased from around 50 individuals in the mid 16th century to four individuals by 1601. The last aurochs cow died in 1627 from natural causes.

A 2021 study argued that the aurochs possibly survived in northeastern Bulgaria until at least the 17th century. A horn-core excavated in 2020 in Sofia was identified as being from an aurochs; the archaeological layer in which it was found was dated to the second half of the 17th or first half of the 18th century, suggesting that Aurochs may have survived in Bulgaria until that date.

Behaviour and ecology
Aurochs formed small herds mainly in winter, but typically lived singly or in smaller groups during the summer. If aurochs had social behaviour similar to their descendants, social status would have been gained through displays and fights, in which both cows and bulls engaged. With its hypsodont jaw, the aurochs was probably a grazer, with a food selection very similar to domesticated cattle feeding on grass, twigs and acorns.

Mating season was in September, and calves were born in spring. Rutting bulls had violent fights, and evidence from the Jaktorów forest shows that they were fully capable of mortally wounding one another. In autumn, aurochs fed for the winter, gaining weight and possessing a shinier coat than during the rest of the year. Calves stayed with their mothers until they were strong enough to join and keep up with the herd on the feeding grounds. Aurochs calves would have been vulnerable to predation by grey wolves (Canis lupus) and brown bears (Ursus arctos), while the immense size and strength of healthy adult aurochs meant they likely did not need to fear most predators. The lion (Panthera leo), tiger (Panthera tigris) and spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) were probable predators in prehistoric times. According to historical descriptions, the aurochs was swift despite its build and could be very aggressive if provoked, but was not generally fearful of humans.

In Asia
Acheulean layers in Hunasagi on India's southern Deccan Plateau yielded aurochs bones with cut marks. An aurochs bone with cut marks induced with flint was found in a Middle Paleolithic layer at the Nesher Ramla Homo site in Israel; it was dated to Marine Isotope Stage 5 about 120,000 years ago. An archaeological excavation in Israel found traces of a feast held by the Natufian culture around 12,000 years BP, in which three aurochs were eaten. This appears to be an uncommon occurrence in the culture and was held in conjunction with the burial of an older woman, presumably of some social status. Petroglyphs depicting aurochs in Gobustan Rock Art in Azerbaijan date to the Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic periods. Aurochs bones and skulls found at the settlements of Mureybet, Hallan Çemi and Çayönü indicate that people stored and shared food in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B culture. Remains of an aurochs were also found in a necropolis in Sidon, Lebanon, dating to around 3,700 years BP; the aurochs was buried together with numerous animals, a few human bones and foods.

Seals dating to the Indus Valley civilisation found in Harappa and Mohenjo-daro show an animal with curved horns like an aurochs. Aurochs figurines were made by the Maykop culture in the Western Caucasus.

The aurochs is denoted in the Akkadian words rīmu and rēmu, both used in the context of hunts by rulers such as Naram-Sin of Akkad, Tiglath-Pileser I and Shalmaneser III; in Mesopotamia, it symbolised power and sexual potency, was an epithet of the gods Enlil and Shamash, denoted prowess as an epithet of the king Sennacherib and the hero Gilgamesh. Wild bulls are frequently referred to in Ugaritic texts as hunted by and sacrificed to the god Baal. An aurochs is depicted on Babylon's Ishtar Gate, constructed in the 6th century BC.

In Africa
Petroglyphs depicting aurochs found in Qurta in the upper Nile valley were dated to the Late Pleistocene about 19–15,000 years BP using luminescence dating and are the oldest engravings found to date in Africa. Aurochs are part of hunting scenes in reliefs in a tomb at Thebes, Egypt dating to the 20th century BC, and in the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu dating to around 1175 BC. The latter is the youngest depiction of aurochs in Ancient Egyptian art to date.

In Europe
The aurochs is widely represented in Paleolithic cave paintings in the Chauvet and Lascaux caves in southern France dating to 36,000 and 21,000 years BP, respectively. Two Paleolithic rock engravings in the Calabrian Romito Cave depict an aurochs. Palaeolithic engravings showing aurochs were also found in the Grotta del Genovese on the Italian island of Levanzo. Upper Paleolithic rock engravings and paintings depicting the aurochs were also found in caves on the Iberian Peninsula dating from the Gravettian to the Magdalenian cultures. Aurochs bones with chop and cut marks were found at various Mesolithic hunting and butchering sites in France, Luxemburg, Germany, the Netherlands, England and Denmark. Aurochs bones were also found in Mesolithic settlements by the Narva and Emajõgi rivers in Estonia. Aurochs and human bones were uncovered from pits and burnt mounds at several Neolithic sites in England. A cup found in the Greek site of Vaphio shows a hunting scene, in which people try to capture an aurochs. One of the bulls throws one hunter on the ground while attacking the second with its horns. The cup seems to date to Mycenaean Greece. Greeks and Paeonians hunted aurochs and used their huge horns as trophies, cups for wine, and offerings to the gods and heroes. The ox mentioned by Samus, Philippus of Thessalonica and Antipater as killed by Philip V of Macedon on the foothills of mountain Orvilos, was actually an aurochs; Philip offered the horns, which were 105 cm long and the skin to a temple of Hercules. The aurochs was described in Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Aurochs were occasionally captured and exhibited in venatio shows in Roman amphitheatres such as the Colosseum. Aurochs horns were often used by Romans as hunting horns.

In the Nibelungenlied, Sigurd kills four aurochs. During the Middle Ages, aurochs horns were used as drinking horns including the horn of the last bull; many aurochs horn sheaths are preserved today. The aurochs drinking horn at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge was engraved with the college's coat of arms in the 17th century. An aurochs head with a star between its horns and Christian iconographic elements represents the official coat of arms of Moldavia perpetuated for centuries.

Aurochs were hunted with arrows, nets and hunting dogs, and its hair on the forehead was cut from the living animal; belts were made out of this hair and believed to increase the fertility of women. When the aurochs was slaughtered, the os cordis was extracted from the heart; this bone contributed to the mystique and magical powers that were attributed to it. In eastern Europe, the aurochs has left traces in expressions like "behaving like an aurochs" for a drunken person behaving badly, and "a bloke like an aurochs" for big and strong people.

Domestication
The earliest-known domestication of the aurochs dates to the Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent, where cattle hunted and kept by Neolithic farmers gradually decreased in size between 9800 and 7500 BC. Aurochs bones found at Mureybet and Göbekli Tepe are larger in size than cattle bones from later Neolithic settlements in northern Syria like Dja'de el-Mughara and Tell Halula. In Late Neolithic sites of northern Iraq and western Iran dating to the sixth millennium BC, cattle remains are also smaller but more frequent, indicating that domesticated cattle were imported during the Halaf culture from the central Fertile Crescent region. Results of genetic research indicate that the modern taurine cattle (Bos taurus) arose from 80 aurochs tamed in southeastern Anatolia and northern Syria about 10,500 years ago. Taurine cattle spread into the Balkans and northern Italy along the Danube River and the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Hybridisation between male aurochs and early domestic cattle occurred in central Europe between 9500 and 1000 BC. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequences of Italian aurochs specimens dated to 17–7,000 years ago and 51 modern cattle breeds revealed some degree of introgression of aurochs genes into south European cattle, indicating that female aurochs had contact with free-ranging domestic cattle. Cattle bones of various sizes found at a Chalcolithic settlement in the Kutná Hora District provide further evidence for hybridisation of aurochs and domestic cattle between 3000 and 2800 BC in the Bohemian region. Whole genome sequencing of a 6,750-year-old aurochs bone found in England was compared with genome sequence data of 81 cattle and single-nucleotide polymorphism data of 1,225 cattle. Results revealed that British and Irish cattle breeds share some genetic variants with the aurochs specimen; early herders in Britain might have been responsible for the local gene flow from aurochs into the ancestors of British and Irish cattle. The Murboden cattle breed also exhibits sporadic introgression of female European aurochs into domestic cattle in the Alps. Domestic cattle continued to diminish in both body and horn size until the Middle Ages.

The Indian aurochs is thought to have been domesticated 10–8,000 years ago. Aurochs fossils found at the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan are dated to around 8,000 years BP and represent some of the earliest evidence for its domestication on the Indian subcontinent. Female Indian aurochs contributed to the gene pool of zebu (Bos indicus) between 5,500 and 4,000 years BP during the expansion of pastoralism in northern India. The zebu initially spread eastwards to Southeast Asia. Hybridisation between zebu and early taurine cattle occurred in the Near East after 4,000 years BP coinciding with the drought period during the 4.2-kiloyear event. The zebu was introduced to East Africa about 3,500–2,500 years ago, and reached Mongolia in the 13th and 14th centuries.

A third domestication event thought to have occurred in Egypt's Western Desert is not supported by results of an analysis of genetic admixture, introgression and migration patterns of 3,196 domestic cattle representing 180 populations.

Breeding of aurochs-like cattle
In the early 1920s, Heinz Heck initiated a selective breeding program in Hellabrunn Zoo attempting to breed back the aurochs using several cattle breeds; the result is called Heck cattle. Herds of these cattle were released to Oostvaardersplassen, a polder in the Netherlands in the 1980s as aurochs surrogates for naturalistic grazing with the aim to restore prehistorical landscapes. Large numbers of them died of starvation during the cold winters of 2005 and 2010, and the project of no interference ended in 2018.

Starting in 1996, Heck cattle were crossed with southern European cattle breeds such as Sayaguesa Cattle, Chianina and to a lesser extent Spanish Fighting Bulls in the hope of creating a more aurochs-like animal. The resulting crossbreeds are called Taurus cattle. Other breeding-back projects are the Tauros Programme and the Uruz Project. However, approaches aiming at breeding an aurochs-like phenotype do not equate to an aurochs-like genotype.

title: Aurochs