Judaism and Anthroposophy

Judaism and Anthroposophy
Author: Fred Paddock
Publisher: SteinerBooks
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2003-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0880109238

Librarian Fred Paddock of the Rudolf Steiner Library initiated this book, because he had long felt the need to make available some of the cutting-edge writings of European anthroposophists. Judaism and Anthroposophy examines the relationship between anthroposophy and religion, between Christian and Jewish esotericism, and between Kabbalah and anthroposophy. It also focuses on Jewish lives in anthroposophy, including those of Martin Buber, Hugo Bergman, Shimon Levy, and Ernst Müller. Also, three leading anthroposophic thinkers explore the question of anti-Semitism. This is an important contribution to the understanding of anthroposophy and its historical and contemporary interface with Judaism. THE CONTRIBUTORS: Johannes Schneider: "Christianity and Other Religions" Günther Röschert: "On Judaism" Ruth Windolf: "The Hebrew Experience of Reality as Contrasted with the Greek" Schmuel Hugo Bergman: "The Blessing" Shimon Levy: "What Is the Contribution of Judaism to the Life of Anthroposophy?" Rolf Umbach: "The Kabbalah, an Esoteric Bridge to Christianity?" David Schweitzer: "Spiritual Background: The Cosmic Christ in Judaism" Hans Jürgen Bracker: "The Individual and Unity of Humankind--An Account of the Zionist and Anthroposophist Ernst Müller" Gerhard Wehr: "Between Martin Buber and Rudolf Steiner: Hugo Bergman in Martin Buber's Biography" Rudi Lissau: "Chosen Destiny" Samuel Ichmann: "What God Is--or Isn't: A Jewish Waldorf Teacher's View" Ralf Sonnenberg: "The Dark Side of the Enlightenment--The Eighteenth Century, changing Perception of the World, and Anti-Semitism in the Early Modern Age János Darvas: "François Joseph Molitor's Philosophy of History--Judaism As the Miniature Reflection of Humanity" Dirk Lorenz: "Against a Return to Normality--Accusations of Anti-Semitism As an Occasion for Self-Examination"

Judaism and Anthroposophy

Judaism and Anthroposophy
Author: Fred Paddock
Publisher: SteinerBooks
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2003
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780880105101

This book was initiated by the Rudolf Steiner Library where the librarian Fred Paddock had long felt the need to make available some of the cutting edge writings by European anthroposophists.

Contemporary Alternative Spiritualities in Israel

Contemporary Alternative Spiritualities in Israel
Author: Shai Feraro
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2016-11-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1137539135

This volume is the first English-language anthology to engage with the fascinating phenomena of recent surges in New Age and alternative spiritualties in Israel. Contributors investigate how these New Age religions and other spiritualties—produced in Western countries within predominantly Protestant or secular cultures–transform and adapt themselves in Israel. The volume focuses on a variety of groups and movements, such as Theosophy and Anthroposophy, Neopaganism, Channeling, Women’s Yoga, the New Age festival scene, and even Pentecostal churches among African labor migrants living in Tel Aviv. Chapters also explore more Jewish-oriented practices such as Neo-Kabballah, Neo-Hassidism, and alternative marriage ceremonies, as well as the use of spiritual care providers in Israeli hospitals. In addition, contributors take a close look at the state’s reaction to the recent activities and growth of new religious movements.

Shmuel Hugo Bergmann

Shmuel Hugo Bergmann
Author: Olaf Glöckner
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2024-07-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 311104601X

In recent years, the interest on life and work of the Jewish writer, philosopher, mystic and politician Shmuel Hugo Bergmann (1883–1975) has perceptibly increased. Well-known as a protagonist of the famous "Prague Circle", Bergmann headed for Palestine in 1920, became the driving force for building the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem and finally advanced as first Rector of the Hebrew University. All his life, close ties to the Czech Republic remained. In the State of Israel, Bergmann became a leading philosopher and highly admired cultural figure. He himself showed great interest in world religions, mysticism, and Western esotericism. Bergmann also emerged as an important point of reference for left-wing Israeli discourse. Up from the late 1920ies has was one of the protagonists of the “Brit Shalom”, an initiative which called for an advocated peaceful coexistence of Jews and Arabs and a bi-national State in Israel/Palestine. In this volume, distinguished historians, scholars of religion, and cultural scientists conflate a fascinating life story of a man who always worked on social and educational improvements and searched for fairness and deeper truths in a world full of conflict and antagonisms.

Anthroposophy and the Accusation of Racism

Anthroposophy and the Accusation of Racism
Author: Peter Selg
Publisher: SteinerBooks
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2022-05-13
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1621482731

"No longer should the blood that runs through the ancestors be of sole account. From this point onward, what every single person achieves in one's soul shall count. Every single human being shall be of value during their incarnation..." -- Rudolf Steiner The original subtitle of Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom (1894) --"the basis for a modern worldview" --points to the lifelong project with which he was engaged: laying the basic groundwork for modern (contemporary) human beings to be able to comprehend the world in which we live, beginning with ourselves as individual, utterly unique embodiments of humanity. It's a spiritual worldview born of the essence of the modern scientific reckoning with knowledge. But its detractors, critics, and outright opponents, speaking from the standpoint of other worldviews and denying the validity of this one, from the early 1900s to today, have continued to portray it in a very different light. One such critic, typical of others, writing in 2019, deemed it "dogmatic, irrational, anti-Enlightenment, racist . . ." Those with even a passing knowledge of this worldview and the fruits of its application to life may wonder how such a modern, innovative, universally inclusive, and rational approach --one that has led to such positive and beneficial results in the world --could be so distorted and defamed. What is the substance of these accusations and are they at all well-founded? With this book, out of his comprehensive grasp of Steiner's work (its history, background, and subsequent development), together with the contextual background of twentieth-century European totalitarianism and the contemporary landscape, Peter Selg addresses these and other related questions head on.

Between Occultism and Nazism

Between Occultism and Nazism
Author: Peter Staudenmaier
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2014-04-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004270159

The relationship between Nazism and occultism has been an object of fascination and speculation for decades. Peter Staudenmaier’s Between Occultism and Nazism provides a detailed historical examination centered on the anthroposophist movement founded by Rudolf Steiner. Its surprising findings reveal a remarkable level of Nazi support for Waldorf schools, biodynamic farming, and other anthroposophist initiatives, even as Nazi officials attempted to suppress occult tendencies. The book also includes an analysis of anthroposophist involvement in the racial policies of Fascist Italy. Based on extensive archival research, this study offers rich material on controversial questions about the nature of esoteric spirituality and alternative cultural ideals and their political resonance.

Occult Roots of Religious Studies

Occult Roots of Religious Studies
Author: Yves Mühlematter
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110660334

The historiographers of religious studies have written the history of this discipline primarily as a rationalization of ideological, most prominently theological and phenomenological ideas: first through the establishment of comparative, philological and sociological methods and secondly through the demand for intentional neutrality. This interpretation caused important roots in occult-esoteric traditions to be repressed. This process of “purification” (Latour) is not to be equated with the origin of the academic studies. De facto, the elimination of idealistic theories took time and only happened later. One example concerning the early entanglement is Tibetology, where many researchers and respected chair holders were influenced by theosophical ideas or were even members of the Theosophical Society. Similarly, the emergence of comparatistics cannot be understood without taking into account perennialist ideas of esoteric provenance, which hold that all religions have a common origin. In this perspective, it is not only the history of religious studies which must be revisited, but also the partial shaping of religious studies by these traditions, insofar as it saw itself as a counter-model to occult ideas.

Camphill and the Future

Camphill and the Future
Author: Dan McKanan
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2020-10-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520344081

A free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. The Camphill movement, one of the world’s largest and most enduring networks of intentional communities, deserves both recognition and study. Founded in Scotland at the beginning of the Second World War, Camphill communities still thrive today, encompassing thousands of people living in more than one hundred twenty schools, villages, and urban neighborhoods on four continents. Camphillers of all abilities share daily work, family life, and festive celebrations with one another and their neighbors. Unlike movements that reject mainstream society, Camphill expressly seeks to be “a seed of social renewal” by evolving along with society to promote the full inclusion and empowerment of persons with disabilities, who comprise nearly half of their residents. In this multifaceted exploration of Camphill, Dan McKanan traces the complexities of the movement’s history, envisions its possible future, and invites ongoing dialogue between the fields of disability studies and communal studies.

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman
Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: SteinerBooks
Total Pages: 100
Release: 1993
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 9780880103756

In these lectures, Steiner focuses on the vital task of developing the proper orientation toward a free spiritual life. With great compassion and understanding, he offers telling examples of how humanity must walk a conscious middle way between the two tempting powers of Lucifer and Ahriman. He describes the incarnation of Lucifer in the third millennium before the Christ event, out of which flowed not just the wisdom of paganism, but also the conscious intellect we enjoy today. Ahriman, on the other hand, is shown approaching human beings through such phenomena as materialism, nationalism, and literalism, all in preparation for his incarnation in the third millennium. Keep in mind, however, that these two powers do not work separately; rather, they are working increasingly together. Our task as human beings is to hold them in balance, continually permeating one with the other. Steiner tells us that "Lucifer and Ahriman must be regarded as two scales of a balance, and it is we who must hold the beam in equipoise. How can we train ourselves to do this? By permeating what takes ahrimanic form within us with a strongly luciferic element." To accomplish this task we need a new, more conscious inner life.

Alfred Bergel

Alfred Bergel
Author: Anne Weise
Publisher: Temple Lodge Publishing
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2021-11-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1912230844

In a remarkable deed of original scholarly research and detailed detective work, Anne Weise recreates sketches of a lost life – of one of the millions of forgotten souls whose lives came to a violent end in the Holocaust. Her focus is Alfred Bergel (1902–1944), an artist and teacher from Vienna who was a close associate of Karl König – the founder of the Camphill Movement for people with special needs – who wrote of Bergel in his youthful diaries as his best friend ‘Fredi’. After the annexation of Austria, Alfred Bergel found himself unable to escape the horror of the National Socialist regime. Subsequently, in 1942 he was deported to the Theresienstadt camp. Imprisoned there, he produced numerous artistic works of the inmates of the ghetto and taught drawing, art history and art appreciation – sometimes in collaboration with the Bauhaus artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. During this period, he was also forced by the Nazis to produce forgeries of classic art works. One of the central figures of cultural life in the Theresienstadt ghetto, Bergel was eventually transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 where, tragically, he was murdered. His name and his work are largely forgotten today, even amongst Holocaust researchers, but Weise succeeds in honouring the life of the Jewish artist by lovingly piecing together his biography, based on numerous personal testimonies by friends and contemporaries and supplemented with documents and many dozens of photos and colour reproductions of Bergel’s artistic works. This invaluable recreation of a life provides insight not only into the desperate plight of a single individual, but also illustrates the human will and determination to survive in the context of one of the darkest periods of recent history.