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Friends,
Across the over 300 episodes of this show, I’ve often found myself in the funny position of bringing spiritual, esoteric, and occult considerations to leftists thinkers and activists, who seem to desperately want to discuss these themes, even as leftism is often antagonistic towards them.

One reason I find this so important is because esotericism offers a reframe of reality itself. Even though occultism is thought of as “old” it presents a “new” way of looking at the world that can offer wild and useful solutions in a time when the solutions we are used to bringing to the challenges of the world no longer work.

My foundation for occultism comes from esoteric christianity, and more particularly, much of my foundation foresoteric christianityhas come from over two decades of engagement with anthroposophy; the approach to being human developed by the late 19th early 20th century philosopher, occultist, and social reformer, Rudolf Steiner.

If you don’t know anything about Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy – if you’ve somehow managed to miss his presence on my show, or if you’re new – you can listen to my encounter with anthroposophy on AEWCH 225 on which I’m interviewed about the topic in my own life by my sister, Laura Scappaticci. But briefly: you are likely to know some of the fruits of Steiner’s work: biodynamic farming or biodynamic wine, community shared agriculture, Steiner or Waldorf schools, and more. There’s plenty to check into with Steiner’s almost 6000 lectures and 27 books (not to mention the thousands of books written on his work). He is a major influence on the environmental movement, education, medicine, and more. Yet his work remains, in some senses, rejected knowledge. In the same way so much occultism does.

More than rejected, it raises eyebrows and ire.

This is true, as I mentioned, of esotericism broadly, but Steiner specifically. Perhaps because of his profound influence, but also because there’s a lot of tension around what he believed and where he was situated in the years before World War II, and also what happened with some anthroposophists in the rise of Nazism.

It doesn’t help that many anthroposophists carrying and preserving Steiner’s work are not exactly living up to the ideals they purport to live by. 

I’ve experienced this firsthand – from the anthroposophists who called me a “pornographer” in a snide tone – who I was later told was herself sexually manipulating people that lived on her property. To the anthroposophical editor one who called me an “anthro-degenerate.” Or the prominent anthroposophical author who told me, all-but unprompted, that I needed “to think about why so many gay men died of AIDS.” Perhaps worst of all was the way anthroposophical leadership at the Goetheanum – the beautiful building that serves as a hub for anthroposophical activity in Europe – issued a statement of sympathy with Israel on October 7, 2023 but refused for years to respond to multiple messages from myself and other anthroposophists – many of whom were quite well known and connected in the anthroposophical world – about the horrifying mass state-led violence against Palestinians which continues to this day. 

Many anthroposophists have little more than their own cloistered political or philosophical depth, and perhaps more broadly don’t have much knowledge of art outside of an anthroposophical context. 

In other words, their are plenty of anthroposophists living exactly as critics of Steiner and anthroposophy would expect them to be living. And yet many of these critics are critics in bad faith; critics who cherrypick by pretending, for instance that anthroposophists only collaborated with the Nazis, ignoring the fact that other anthroposophists rescued Jewish people form the Nazis and was a source of inspiration for members of groups like the White Rose who gave thbeir lives fighting Hitler.

Trapped between ineffectual anthroposophists who won’t confront themselves and their critics, who want to create an overwhelming but limited vision of anthroposophy, it can become hard to find breathing room for the newly curious.

And yet, I find, in the work of anthroposophy, a profound, important and moving contribution to the world. Whether it’s how Steiner stood side by side with Rosa Luxemburg at a workers’ school talking about a building a proletariat science. Or a how anthropsophy inspired Rachel Carson and the environmental movement.

Or the genuine encounter with healing after an anthroposophical doctor helped me when I was ill and terrified.

I’ve been to Camphill Communities for people with disabilities – founded by Jewish anthropospphist Karl Konig at the same time when hitler was demanding people with disabilities be executed.

And I am excited by the concept of social threefolding, devleoped by Steiner — which I will talk about at length in episodes in the coming year — and its way of organizing a living society so that individuals can thrive in connection with the commonwealth.

This anthroposophy is not defensive. It is an anthroposophy that holds the value expressed by Steiner that “love is the only passion which must not be discarded in the pursuit of truth.”

It’s as if there are two anthroposophies: the anthroposophy of love and inspiration, and its double: the anthroposophy of small-mindedness and its observant critics.

Which one will live, which one will gain its footing?

Without any serious consideration of anthroposophy and Steiner in broader culture – it seemed that the double was destined to win. But serious consideration is happening. One example – the one that gave rise to this episode – is at Harvard, where a Rudolf Steiner conference at Harvard Divinity School has just taken place.

Its keynote speakers, AARON FRENCH and HENRY HOLLAND are this episode’s guests.
Their keynote can be found here.Crucially, both Aaron and Henry interested in anthroposophy, but not exactly anthroposophists. 

Aaron’s book, Max Weber, Rudolf Steiner, and Modern Western Esotericism: A Transcultural Approachexamines connections between Steiner and anarchism. He is a philosopher and esoteric scholar, as well as a lecturer at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen.
Henry is a scholar and historian with a Marxist perspective who has also been a Yale a Translation Fellow at Yale University’s Fortunoff Archive of Holocaust Testimonies.

When I started this podcast over eight years ago, I would have never thought a conference on Rudolf Steiner at Harvard would be possible. Though I still have mixed feelings about academia in general, it is impossible for me to deny the significance of an event centering on Steiner at the institution emblematic of the highest standards of intellectual rigor in the West.

And Aaron and Henry are currently taking part in another activity that brings further acadmeic if not mainstream light to Steiner an anthroposophy: A two volume biography of Rudolf Steiner for State University of New York Press, the first volume of which — Modernity’s Provocateur: The Young Rudolf Steiner and the Rebirth of Outsider Philosophy – will be out in 2027. 

Together, Aaron, Henry, and I end our enthusiasm to the question of what Steiner’s political project really was, and is today.

And we find ourselves in resonance with Henry’s statement on this episode – His answer to a question he poses:

“Is a leftist reading of Steiner possible? …Yes, it has to be possible. It’s the ethically right thing to do and… if it’s not done, then you just leave the field open to the rightwing, and they’re going to take that and cherry pick Steiner for all he’s worth.”

This episode holds deep meaning for me, and I hope it can serve as a touchstone for people struggling with anthroposophy’s offerings and failures, its good and bad faith critics, its beauty and its challenges.

MORE ON AARON & HENRY

One of Aaron’s main public platforms is the Hermitix podcast (which has a lot of great episodes and a patreon, by the way!) and one of my favorite conversations of his on the show is about Steiner and Gurdjieff. (And for a good summary of French’s understanding of Steiner & Max Stirner, you can listen to this episode.)
Aaron has also written lots of horror fiction! That’s the main focus of his website, here.

Henry’s website is here, and you can find a very little interview with Henry here.

MORE ON THE THEMES OF THIS EPISODE

AEWCH 141 guest Jason Ananda Jospehson Storm’s book The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciencesis a great read connected to the ways in which esotericism never disappeared in the age of modernity and postmodernity; it just changed its footing – including with many philosophers who are largely thought of as “anti-” esotericism.

My own encounters with anthroposophy are examined on AEWCH 225 on which I’m interviewed by my sister.

Here’s “The German Jewish Occult: Frankfurt School Critical Theory and the Philosophy of the Irrational, in: Aries. Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism” by Angus Martins.

Here’s an exchange between Rudolf Steiner and his friend, the anarchist John Henry Mackey : ‘Individualist Anarchism: An Opponent of the ‘Propaganda of the Deed’.

Steiner’s collected works are being collected and reprinted in full, in English, by Steiner Books. Here’s the website for this tremendous undertaking.

If you’d like to learn more about or contribute to the Anthroposophical Prison Outreach Project, here’s their site.