Founders of Anthroposophy

"To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world." -Aristotle 

"Those of you who concern themselves even a little with our Spiritual Scientific Movement know that our first aim is to form the core of a  mutual help which is founded on an all embracing love for people, without regard for race, sex, creed, or profession. Thus the  Anthroposophical Society itself puts this principle of an all-embracing mutual help as the spearhead of its movement, as the most important of its ideals." -Rudolf Steiner, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA054/English/Singles/19051123p01.html 

This is a partial list of some of the founders of Anthroposophy in the early 20th century headquartered in Dornach, Switzerland. However, there are thousands of people who have supported the task of Anthroposophy across the world.

 "Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge that wants to lead the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe."  -Rudolf Steiner

Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner

Rudolf Steiner (b. February 27, 1861. d.March 30, 1925 on Easter) is expressed through a movement he founded called "Anthroposophy" ("Anthro = Human Being, "Sophy"  = Wisdom) which consists of facts and a life-path based on the premise that the human intellect has the ability to establish and maintain conscious contact and a bridge to the spiritual worlds and therefore perceive and see beyond the veil of the physical world and these senses. His approach was a scientific one.

In the ancient world, the quest for spiritual initiation was available only to the few who gained admittance to ancient mystery centers which have long since faded into history and the paths that they taught and embraced are no longer valid for the conditions of the modern world. Dr. Steiner brought a unique path of knowledge and attainment publicly for the modern age connected to the mission of the Archangel Michael who, as the herald of the Christ impulse, began his "regency" in the late 19th century; that mission is to lead human beings to a perception and view of the spiritual worlds in an objective and mature way.

Over the course of his life, Steiner delivered thousands of lectures across Europe and his work comprises some 330 volumes of written material. Included in this lifetime effort are inner facts regarding the universe, earth, and humanity which can only be discerned by someone who has expanded and mature faculty of spiritual perception to a high degree.

Thus, he leads the way in that regard as, perhaps, the leading public initiate-teacher of the 20th century. He founded and created the Gotheanum in Dornach, Switzerland based on the principles of the world-conception and works of the German natural philosopher Goethe. 

Waldorf Education

According to Steiner's philosophy, the human being is a threefold being consisting of spirit, soul, and body whose capacities unfold in three developmental stages on the path to adulthood: early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence.  In April of 1919, Rudolf Steiner visited the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany. The German nation, defeated in war, was teetering on the brink of economic, social, and political chaos. Steiner spoke to the workers about the need for social renewal, for a new way of organizing society and its political and cultural life.  

Emil Molt, the owner of the factory, asked Steiner if he would undertake to establish and lead a school for the children of the employees of the company. Steiner agreed, and in September 1919, the Independent Waldorf School (die Freie Waldorfschule) opened its doors. In North America, Waldorf education has been available since 1928, and there are now over 250 schools and 14 teacher education centers in some level of development. These schools exist in large cities and small towns, suburbs and rural enclaves. No two schools are identical; each is administratively independent. Nevertheless, a visitor would recognize many characteristics common to them all.   

Beginning at the end of the 19th century, a relatively unknown Austrian philosopher and teacher began to sow the seeds of what he hoped would blossom into a new culture. The seeds were his ideas, which he sowed through extensive writings, lectures and countless private consultations. The seeds germinated and took root in the hearts and minds of his students, among whom were individuals who would later become some of the best known and most influential figures of the 20th century. Since the teacher's death in 1925, a quiet but steadily growing movement, unknown and unseen by most people, has been spreading over the world, bringing practical solutions to the problems of our global, technological civilization. 

The seeds are now coming to flower in the form of thousands of projects infused with human values. From what he learned, he gave practical indications for nearly every field of human endeavor. Art, architecture, drama, science, education, agriculture, medicine, economics, religion, care of the dying, social organization - there is almost no field he did not touch.  

Today, wherever there is a human need you'll find groups of people working out of Steiner's ideas. There are an estimated ten thousand initiatives worldwide - the movement is a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity, social and political activism, artistic expression, scientific research, and community building. Contemporary manifestations of Steiner's influence include Waldorf education, Biodynamic farming and gardening, and the Camphill Movement for the support of people with disabilities. 

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-"This spiritual science (Anthroposophy) is not trying to found either a new religion or a new religious sect of any kind. It hopes to be able to fulfill the tasks required spiritually of our contemporary culture.    

...Natural science opened the modern age for mankind through the knowledge of external physical laws. Spiritual science should play a similar role in the present and near future in recognizing the laws of the realms of soul and spirit and applying them to ethical, social, and all other aspects of cultural life." -Rudolf Steiner,  Anthroposophy and Christianity, GA 155, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/AntChr_index.html  This is an abridged quote. The Parenthesis are the author's.

-"I should like to conclude these lectures by speaking of the living Anthroposophy that must remain with us, so that even when we separate in space we are together in spirit. Our thoughts will meet and in reality we are not parting at all. Through study of super-sensible realities we know that those who have been brought together by Anthroposophy can always be together in soul and in spirit. Therefore let these lectures to the Group here conclude on this note: You and I have been together for a time in space, and in spirit we will remain united." - Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships Volume 5, Lecture 7. https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA239/English/RSP1966/19240525p01.html

-"Love is higher than opinion. If people love one another, the most varied opinions can be reconciled. Hence it is deeply significant that in Theosophy no religion is attacked and no religion is specially singled out, but all are understood, and so there can be brotherhood because the adherents of the most varied religions understand one another.

This is one of the most important tasks for mankind today and in the future: that men should learn to live together and understand one another." -Steiner, Rudolf. At the Gates of Spiritual Science, GA 95, 11. The Post-Atlantean Culture-Epochs, 1 September 1906, Stuttgart, https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA095/English/RSPAP1986/19060901p01.html

From Wikipedia:

Ita Wegman (22 February 1876 – 4 March 1943) co-founded Anthroposophical Medicine with Rudolf Steiner. In 1921, she founded the first anthroposophical medical clinic in Arlesheim, known until 2014 as the Ita Wegman Clinic. She also developed a special form of massage therapy, called rhythmical massage, and other self-claimed therapeutic treatments. 

Ita Wegman, as she was known throughout her life, was born as Maria Ita Wegman in 1876 in Karawang, West Java, the first child of a Dutch colonial family. Around the turn of the century, she returned to Europe (she had visited before) and studied therapeutic gymnastics and massage. In 1902, when she was 26, she met Rudolf Steiner for the first time. Five years later, she began medical school at the University of Zurich, where women were not discriminated to study medicine. She was granted a diploma as a medical doctor in 1911 with a specialization in women's medicine and joined an existing medical practice. 

In 1917, having opened an independent practice, she developed a cancer treatment using an extract of mistletoe following indications from Steiner. This first remedy, which she called Iscar, was later developed into Iscador and has become an complementary cancer treatment in Germany and a number of other countries, and is undergoing clinical trials in the U.S.A.[3]  By 1919 she had a joint practice together with two other doctors, also women. In 1920 she purchased land in Arlesheim, where she opened her own clinic, the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut, or Clinical-Therapeutic Institute, the next year. A number of other doctors joined the institute, which grew steadily over the next years as a first center for anthroposophical medicine. In 1922 she founded a therapeutic home for mentally handicapped children, Haus Sonnenhof, also in Arlesheim, and co-founded a pharmaceutical laboratory, Weleda, that has since grown into a significant producer of medicines and health-care products.  In the following year, Rudolf Steiner asked Wegman to join the Executive Council of the newly reformed Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. She also directed the Medical Section of the research center at the Goetheanum.

Together, Wegman and Steiner wrote what was to be Steiner's last book, Extending Practical Medicine (earlier editions were published as Fundamentals of Therapy), which gave a theoretical basis to the new medicine they were developing. The book was partly written while Wegman cared for Steiner, who was already terminally ill. Wegman founded a new medical journal, Natura, the following year.  In 1936, the clinic opened a second home in Ascona, Switzerland. Shortly thereafter, difficulties between Wegman and the rest of the Executive Council flared up, and Wegman was asked to leave the council; in addition, she and a number of supporters had their membership in the Anthroposophical Society itself withdrawn. The medical work flourished, however, and Wegman traveled extensively in support of the rapidly growing movement to extend medicine's limits; she was especially active in the Netherlands and England during this time.  Wegman died in Arlesheim in 1943, at the age of 67. 

From Wikipedia:

Marie Steiner-von Sivers (born Marie von Sivers, 14 March 1867 – 27 December 1948) was a Baltic German actress, the second wife of Rudolf Steiner and one of his closest colleagues. She made a great contribution to the development of anthroposophy, particularly in her work on the renewal of the performing arts (eurythmy, speech and drama), and the editing and publishing of Rudolf Steiner's literary estate.

Life and work  Marie von Sivers was born to an aristocratic family in Włocławek, Poland, then part of Imperial Russia. She was well-educated and was fluent in Russian, German, English, French and Italian. She studied theater and recitation with several teachers in Europe. Relationship to Rudolf Steiner  Marie von Sivers "appeared one day" at one of Rudolf Steiner's early lectures in 1900. In the autumn of 1901, she posed the question to Steiner, "Would it be possible to create a spiritual movement based on European tradition and the impetus of Christ?" Rudolf Steiner later reported: With this, I was given the opportunity to act in a way that I had only previously imagined. The question had been put to me, and now, according to spiritual laws, I could begin to answer it.  Marie von Sivers collaborated with Steiner for the rest of Steiner's life and carried his work beyond his death in 1925 until her own death in 1948. She accompanied him and helped him as secretary, translator, editor, and organizer of his lecture tours and other public activities. 

She assisted Steiner's work with her own resources and in 1908 founded the Philosophical-Theosophical Press (later Philosophical-Anthroposophical) to publish Steiner's work.  On 24 December 1914, von Sivers married Rudolf Steiner. Anna Eunicke Steiner, Steiner's first wife, had died in 1911. Beginning in 1914, Steiner drew up a succession of wills naming Marie Steiner-von Sivers as heir to his entire work and property and his successor in the leadership of the anthroposophical movement. Eurythmy and speech formation  Starting in 1912, Rudolf Steiner developed the art of eurythmy. With Marie's guidance, it developed in three directions: as a stage art, as an integral part of Waldorf pedagogy, and as a therapeutic method. Under her tutelage, two schools of eurythmy were founded, in Berlin and in Dornach, Switzerland.  Marie von Sivers, who had been trained in recitation and elocution, and made a study of purely artistic speaking. She gave introductory poetry recitals at Steiner's lectures and assisted him in the development of the four Mystery Dramas (1910–1913). With her help, Steiner conducted several speech and drama courses with the aim of raising these forms to the level of true art.

From Wikipedia:

Walter Johannes Stein (6 February 1891, in Vienna – 7 July 1957, in London) was an Austrian philosopher, Waldorf school teacher, Grail researcher, and one of the pioneers of anthroposophy. 

Of Jewish descent, Stein studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy at Vienna University, before completing a doctorate in philosophy at the end of the First World War, having continued work on it throughout his service in an artillery unit in the war. He became a personal student of Rudolf Steiner from about the age of 21, and enjoyed the unofficial supervision of Steiner while writing his dissertation. Broadly speaking, the dissertation was an attempt to write a theory of cognition for spiritual knowledge.  After the First World War, Stein assisted Steiner in promoting Social Threefolding. When it became apparent in 1919 that these efforts were not going to succeed, Steiner asked Stein to teach history and German literature at the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart. It was as part of this work that Stein began his research on the Grail, which culminated in 1928 with his book The Ninth Century and the Holy Grail. In this work, he attempted to identify historical people and events represented in the Grail epic and to interpret Parzival as an esoteric document representing the human path of inner development. Stein also wrote various articles on these themes. Stein lectured extensively on anthroposophy and related themes from the early 1920s onward, giving up to 300 lectures a year. He also contributed many articles to The Present Age and similar periodicals, and wrote a number of short books including The Principle of Reincarnation, Gold: in History and in Modern Times, West-East: A Study in National Relationships, Labour: in History and in Modern Times, and The British: Their Psychology and Destiny. Stein claimed to have had a spiritual breakthrough in 1924 using the meditative methods of Steiner and to have attained some insight into his own karmic background.  Stein moved to London in 1933, at the invitation of the Theosophist-turned-Anthroposophist Daniel Nicol Dunlop. 

Dunlop was director of the British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers' Association (BEAMA), and chairman of the executive council of the World Power Conference. Dunlop had called Stein to London to take up a post in research for the World Power Conference; he had apparently founded the World Power Conference as a precursor to a World Economic Conference, and he had called Stein to London to assist him especially with this latter, more ambitious, project. Dunlop died in 1935 before this plan could be brought to fruition, but Stein did bring about Dunlop's wish for an independent cultural journal in the form of The Present Age. Stein, having taken up various studies in economics, geography, and geology for his collaborative work with Dunlop, was able to bring together the results of this work in a special issue of the journal under the title The Earth as a Basis of World Economy. The publication of the journal ceased with the start of the Second World War.  During and after the Second World War Stein made many connections in government circles in Britain, as well as with the Dutch and Belgian royal families. 

From Wikipedia:

Daniel Nicol Dunlop (28 December 1868, Kilmarnock, Scotland – 30 May 1935, London) was a Scottish entrepreneur, founder of the World Power Conference and other associations, and a Theosophist-turned-Anthroposophist. He was the father of artist Ronald Ossory Dunlop. 

Childhood, education, marriage and children  Dunlop was born on 28 December 1868 in Kilmarnock as the only child of Alexander Dunlop and Catherine Nicol (1847–1873). His father was an architect and a Quaker preacher. He lost his mother at the age of five and was brought up by his grandfather on the Isle of Arran, where he learnt the trade of fishing. After his grandfather died in turn, he returned to his father in Kilmarnock once again, attending the local school. On completing his schooling, he did an apprenticeship with an engineering company in Ardrossan, Ayrshire in western Scotland.  After some differences of opinion with his father, he left home in 1886, taking a job in a bicycle shop in Glasgow. He moved to Dublin 1889, working for a tea and wine merchant, where he befriended the poets Æ (George William Russell) and William Butler Yeats, and became active in the Irish Theosophical Society. He was also known to James Joyce, who mentioned him in Ulysses.  In 1891 he married Eleanor Fitzpatrick (ca. 1867–1932); becoming the father of three children, Ronald Ossory Dunlop, a well-known painter, and daughters Edith, the mother of the sociologist Michael Young, Baron Young of Dartington, and Aileen. In business  Dunlop moved to America, and in 1896 was employed by the American Westinghouse Electric Company, becoming later assistant manager, and then manager of its European Publicity Department. In 1899 he returned to Britain with his family in this capacity. In 1911, with Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti and others, Dunlop helped to found the British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers' Association (BEAMA) in London, which still exists today. While Ferranti became its first chairman (to 1913) Dunlop was at first its secretary and later its director. A year or two after World War I, Dunlop began to organise the World Power Conference, the precursor to the World Energy Council, which met for the first time on 11 July 1924 and of which he was elected chairman.

Towards the close of his life he was elected independent chairman of the Electrical Fair Trading Council and chairman of the executive council of the World Power Conference. His work for Theosophy  Shortly after leaving home for Glasgow in 1886, Dunlop began to study works on occultism and philosophy. This was greatly stimulated by his friendship with Æ and led to their lifelong connection. After moving to Dublin, he became a member of the local lodge of the Theosophical Society. Together with Æ and Yeats he attended meetings of the Hermetic Society and in 1892 founded the magazine "The Irish Theosophist", which he edited until his departure from Dublin in 1897 for the United States.  When the Theosophical Society split in 1895, Dunlop became a member of the Theosophical Society in America, where he at intervals functioned as secretary to its president, Katherine Tingley, At the end of 1899 he resigned from the Theosophical Society in America, or was perhaps, expelled, the documentation being unclear on this point, and joined the Theosophical Society Adyar in London. He published many articles in the "Theosophical Review" and "The Vahan". In 1909 he initiated the Summer Schools, regular international meetings with theosophical lecture cycles and events where participants got to know one another more intimately. 

In 1910 he founded the Blavatsky Institute in Manchester in the same year, together with Charles Lazenby, the magazine "the Path". He also founded his own theosophical lodge under the auspices of the Theosophical Society with the name "Light on the Path" and became its president. Meeting with Anthroposophy  Dunlop saw Rudolf Steiner for the first time while the latter was still General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society. He did not, however, join the Anthroposophical Society until 1920, at which time he called into being the anthroposophical "Human Freedom Group", which he led. Here once again, he introduced the idea of, this time, anthroposophical Summer Schools that were realised in 1923 and again in 1924. After personally meeting with Rudolf Steiner, both of them expressed their intimate spiritual connection and respect for one another. In 1928 he organised the first and only World Conference on Anthroposophy and in 1929 he was elected General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. He was on terms of intimate friendship with Eleanor Merry (1873–1956), who supported his work, especially after the death of his own wife, Eleanor in 1932. As a result of conflicts and power struggles within the General Anthroposophical Society, leading to its splintering in April 1935, Dunlop was expelled together with a number of other leading members.He died shortly afterwards of an appendicitis. Dunlop enlisted the help of fellow Anthroposophist Walter Johannes Stein in the hope of founding a World Economic Organization, but his death prevented this.

From Wikipedia:

Elisabeth Vreede (16 July 1879, in The Hague – 31 August 1943, in Ascona) was a Dutch mathematician, astronomer and Anthroposophist. 

Elisabeth Vreede was born in The Hague in 1879. She was her parents' second child. Her father was a lawyer and her mother devoted her time to charitable work. She was a sensitive person and later on played an important part in the Anthroposophical life in the Netherlands.  Elisabeth Vreede came into contact with Theosophy in her home growing up. She was interested early on in the starry sky, read the works of Camille Flammarion and learned French at the same time. She first went to school at the age of seven. She completed her years in primary and higher schools and afterwards took private studies for two years, so as to gain qualifications for university entrance.  At the University of Leyden she studied mathematics, astronomy, philosophy (especially Hegel) and Sanskrit. She was also actively involved in student life, founding a boatclub, and was a council member of the students' union.  Her first meeting with Rudolf Steiner took place at the Theosophical Congress in London in 1903. Her parents were theosophists and she, too, was a member of the Theosophical Society. At the congress Rudolf Steiner straightaway made a great impression on her. A year later she heard Steiner's lecture on 'Mathematics and Occultism' given at the Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society at Amsterdam in 1904. The next European Congress was in 1906 when Steiner held a cycle of 18 lectures there. 

After receiving her diploma in 1906, she gave instruction in mathematics at a higher girls school until 1910. From 1910, she lived in Berlin, working on her dissertation and occasionally working as a secretary for Rudolf Steiner. In April 1914 she moved to Dornach to help in the work for the first Goetheanum, where she would often be found carving the wood required for the building.  M. P. van Deventerwho would become Vreede's biographer first met her in the summer of 1915. She was living with her parents in a small house in Neu-Reinach. From an elevated position there was a beautiful view over the building and over the chain of the Canton of Jura, with the Gempen.  During the War years 1916/17 Elisabeth Vreede broke off from her residence in Dornach to work in Berlin as a coworker of Elisabeth Rotten, caring for prisoners of war.  After the War, Rudolf Steiner developed his idea of the threefold social order. Vreede had an intense interest in this initiative and work and she was the first to bring this idea to England. Around 1918 she began to construct the library and archive at the Goetheanum, using her own means to purchase the expensive lecture transcripts as soon as they were typed from the stenogram. Occasionally friends contributed to her efforts to build an archive.  

In 1920 Vreede moved to Arlesheim where she had built a small house of her own. It was the second dwelling-house for which Rudolf Steiner himself had given the model in 1919. There, in Arlesheim, Ita Wegman founded the first anthroposophical medical clinic in 1921.  In December 1923 Vreede was appointed as leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum. She belonged to the board of directors (Vorstand) of the General Anthroposophical Society from December 1923 to 1935. In 1924 she attended the Agriculture Course of Rudolf Steiner at Koberwitz which laid the foundations for the development of biodynamic agriculture. Between September 1927 and August 1930, in her capacity as leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section, she wrote a monthly letter, then available by subscription, about both modern astronomy and classical astrology in the light of spiritual science. The letters included explanations of the fundamentals of astronomy and discussions of astrology in the modern world, with reference to such topics as nutation, precession of the equinoxes, comets, solar eclipses and lunar eclipses and the meaning of the Christian holidays such as Easter and Whitsun. The Letters in English translation were published in 2007 with the title Astronomy and Spiritual Science.  On 9 and 11 July 1930 she held two lectures in Stuttgart with the title "The Bodhisattva Question" in the History of the Anthroposophical Society, published in English translation in 1993.

When the separation within the Anthroposophical Society took place in 1935 Vreede was expelled from the Vorstand and her Section passed into other hands. This resulted after internal discussions in the Anthroposophical Society. On her exclusion from the Vorstand along with Ita Wegman, Vreede was cut off from the observatory and archives that she herself helped assemble.  The last years of her life became more lonely. She was cut off from her friends abroad by the War. The death of Ita Wegman at the beginning of March, 1943, was a great shock for her. At the internal commemoration in the clinic she spoke words at her eulogy. It was the first time she faced her former colleagues on the Vorstand.  On the anniversary of Rudolf Steiner's death (30 March) she spoke to the circle of friends and co-workers in Ita Wegman's clinic at Arlesheim. 

They wanted to commemorate not just Rudolf Steiner but also the many who had been leading Anthroposophists but who to most were no longer known. She spoke in a devoted way of Edith Maryon, and with a fine characterization of her being about Alice Sauerwein. She portrayed Count Keyserlingk and Louis Werbeck. Finally she told about Caroline von Heydebrand and Eugen Kolisko.  At the beginning of May she spoke once more on the 400th anniversary of the death of Copernicus. At the lecture it was noticed that only by exceptional exertion could she keep herself upright. A few days later, on 6 May, she had to take her bed. She, who had never before been ill nor depended on people, was treated at home thanks to the devoted care of Frl. Schunemann.  It was a case of septic disease. Phases of high fever with shivering fits repeatedly recurred. Nourishment could not be taken and complications supervened, like cardiac insufficiency and blood-poisoning. For her treatment Dr. Kaelin and Dr. Martin stood beside her biographer, M. P. van Deventer, with advice and help. The septicaemia spread rapidly. After a slight improvement she went finally to Ascona, where the Casa Andrea Cristoforo clinic had been founded by Ita Wegman, and died there on 31 August 1943.