Anthroposophy and the Philosophy of Freedom

Book Reviews / the Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter

by Sergei O. Prokofieff; Temple Lodge, 2009, 304pgs; review by Sara Ciborski

The double subtitle of this extraordinary book could serve as a synopsis: Anthroposophy and Its Method of Cognition: The Christological and Cosmic-Human Dimension of the Philosophy of Freedom. Its aim, says Prokofieff in his preface, is to show how the anthroposophical path of cognition—as given in Rudolf Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom—is inseparable from the Mystery of the Resurrection. Through a “thorough examination of the deeply Christian roots” of this foundational book, he intends to “throw a new light not just on the spiritual sources of anthroposophy as a ‘science of resurrection’, but likewise on the whole importance of The Philosophy of Freedom for modern Christian esotericism.”

The most recent English edition (1995) of Rudolf Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom (GA 4) is titled Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom, and is translated by Michael Lipson.

This statement of ambitious aim, however, falls short of conveying the richness and profound significance of what I venture to suggest is the most important book about anthroposophy yet written. Prokofieff says in an epilogue that it is a radical departure from numerous other books dealing with The Philosophy of Freedom: most of them try to explain and bridge the seeming break between Rudolf Steiner’s early philosophical works and his later esoteric ones. Instead, Prokofieff reveals The Philosophy of Freedom itself as an esoteric work, and one moreover that contains seeds for all Steiner’s major themes to come. Sixteen chapter titles indicate those themes, among them the working of the hierarchies; the “study of man”; the Fifth Gospel; the Being Anthroposophia; life between death and rebirth; Rosicrucian and Michaelic impulses; karma and reincarnation; the modern science of the Grail; and the Foundation Stone—all woven seamlessly into a unified whole with the content of The Philosophy of Freedom. It is a brilliant, compelling, inspirational synthesis. Anthroposophy and the Philosophy of Freedom is a demanding book for serious anthroposophists; readers need to have studied the so-called basic books, especially of course The Philosophy of Freedom, and some books in Rudolf Steiner’s Christology. Prokofieff also assumes familiarity with the Christmas Conference and the Foundation Stone meditation. He frequently refers to and draws considerably from his own books, especially the rather long May Human Beings Hear It! and the shorter What is Anthroposophy? (which he says would serve as a good introduction to the present book). Having read the latter but not the former, I would say neither of these is critical to understanding the work at hand given the background just noted.

Prokofieff’s books (only half of which, unfortunately, are available in English) are remarkable for his impeccable research and exhaustive grasp of anthroposophical content, which we expect from a member of the Goetheanum’s executive council. Anthroposophy and the Philosophy of Freedom is no exception. But despite its formidable density it is very readable—a model of literary construction and lucid prose presenting readers with an astonishingly rich and engrossing stream of ideas and insights.

The content of the opening chapter, “Method of Cognition in Anthroposophy,” will serve to illustrate the depth of the author’s thought along with his method. First he correlates the terminology that Rudolf Steiner uses for describing the anthroposophical path of cognition in The Stages of Higher Knowledge with that of The Philosophy of Freedom. Then he extends these correlations to specific spiritual exercises on the path, attainable stages of cognition, activities of the hierarchies at each stage, the development of Resurrection forces, and the spiritual path between death and rebirth. He provides a series of wonderful seven-step lemniscates that enliven and clarify these interrelationships.

Going further, he depicts the three-part encounter of Mary Magdalene with the Risen Christ as an archetype for the individual’s progress through three stages on the inner path. And ultimately, it is the Mystery of Golgotha that is the archetype for our own transit from intuitive thinking in meditation through the transit point of the “exceptional state” to imagination as an organ of perception. To follow this path is to experience a resurrection in consciousness; it is Christ’s death and resurrection that guarantee our capacity to make the transition. Even though we may have grasped them previously, these are soul-stirring thoughts.

Our capacity to make the transition is our ‘I’. Prokofieff elaborates on Rudolf Steiner’s fluid terminology for the self or ‘I’ in an important addendum (one of two in the book), reminding us that beyond what we commonly refer to as the “lower” and “higher” selves is a third ‘I’, the true human ‘I’ that derives from the primordial Word of Worlds (the Christ). Assembling indications from a range of Rudolf Steiner’s lectures, Prokofieff persuasively presents correspondences of the threefold ‘I’ with the threefold sun, the three spiritual members of our higher being, and the journey of I-development as related in the three microcosmic parts of the Foundation Stone meditation. In one of his more complex diagrams he visualizes the path of the development of the threefold ‘I’ in relation to twelvefoldness.

In chapter two, “The Philosophy of Freedom and the Mystery of the Resurrection,” he deepens the theme of resurrection, drawing especially on Rudolf Steiner’s From Jesus to Christ. In comprehending the deed of Christ we become able to conceive of utmost freedom and utmost love as possibilities within our own grasp. The death and resurrection of Christ are prototypical—a fountainhead—for all deeds of freedom and love. Freedom and love, as students of The Philosophy of Freedom know, are the keys to parts 1 and 2 of that book. Our faculty for moral intuition, moral technique, and moral deeds described therein is given by the Resurrection forces and is the source of eternal life for the human personality. Thus Prokofieff concludes the chapter: “From what has been said…we have in The Philosophy of Freedom the book that inwardly builds on the resurrectionimpulse, and thus in seed-form bears within itself the whole future of man and the cosmos.”

In chapter seven he takes up the relationship of The Philosophy of Freedom to The Fifth Gospel, the lectures in which Steiner communicated the essence of anthroposophical Christology. He begins by reviewing the paths of the two Jesus children, familiar to anthroposophists. Then he broaches relationships that may be less familiar. He suggests that the mission of the Solomon Jesus was to provide the insights, as concepts, lacking in the Nathan Jesus, whose faculty of perception was pure and direct. He connects these paths to the two trees in Paradise, then to the two concepts “image” and “likeness,” and finally to the two aspects of earthly cognition (perception and thinking) that are the starting point for The Philosophy of Freedom. And further: the transformation from Jesus consciousness to Christ consciousness—the moment when, having lost the Zarathustra ‘I’ as Son of Man, Jesus receives the Son of God—can be understood as the world-historical archetype for the process—in true cognition—of creating new reality.

Creation out of nothing is the theme of chapter nine, where Prokofieff affirms unconditionality as the Christian basis of The Philosophy of Freedom. For Rudolf Steiner describes there how the individual human being, as micro-Logos, can in freedom and motivated only by love actualize a capacity for pure cognition— conditioned by nothing—manifesting in moral intuition and moral technique. The macrocosmic template for pure cognition is the creation of the world out of nothing. Prokofieff’s elaboration of the Godhead unfolding into triune Godhead, the (limited) creative role of the hierarchies, and Christ‘s deed as Second Creation with its “implanting” of the divine creative potency in the human being—all this merits repeated reading, pondering, and meditation.

Isolated from their context, these examples hardly do justice to the fluid conceptual relationships and spiritual insights rooted in The Philosophy of Freedom that Prokofieff supports with copious and careful referencing (over 100 GA numbers are cited), a total of 35 diagrams, and his own penetrating and synthetic vision. I should stress that Prokofieff is never pedantic. His writing is imbued with warmth, reverence, and deepest gratitude toward Rudolf Steiner. In relation to every theme he shows parallels in the development of anthroposophy and in Rudolf Steiner’s own path of initiation, a path that he suggests is an imitation of Christ, culminating as it did in Steiner taking on the karma of the Anthroposophical Society as Christ did that of humankind.

Anthroposophy and the Philosophy of Freedom has considerable relevance for our task today of upholding anthroposophy in an increasingly anti-spiritual world. It will send us back to our sources with new questions and renewed dedication, enthusiasm, and especially gratitude for Rudolf Steiner’s inestimable contribution to humanity and to the further evolution of consciousness, which as we know is now in our hands. It will awaken or reawaken us to the fact that Rudolf’s Steiner’s life was a sacrificial deed of love.

If we are under the misconception that as a philosophical rather than an esoteric work The Philosophy of Freedom stands apart from the rest of anthroposophy, if we have relished working with The Philosophy of Freedom but not yet pondered its relationship to the Christian Mystery, then this book should be required reading. If we have been reading Rudolf Steiner randomly, assuming that he addressed disparate themes, through this book we will happily rediscover anthroposophy as a unified and sacred revelation. Perhaps most important, we will be newly attentive to the integration of the philosophic-esoteric content of anthroposophy with Steiner’s life: his personal path from The Philosophy of Freedom to the Christmas Conference is an uninterrupted actualization of the philosophic-esoteric content of anthroposophy.

The numerous endnotes are important. Maria St. Goar has made an admirable, smoothly flowing translation; she provides an occasional German word in brackets, helpful in conveying nuances where the English might not suffice.