New age: Details about 'Spiritual Science'
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Spiritual science refers to the application of scientific methodology to spiritual experiences or phenomena. Interest in such an application arose widely at the beginning of the twentieth century. Edmund Husserl, for example, wrote in 1935 (in his Crisis of European Humanity):
The term spiritual science is often used as a synonym for anthroposophy. The latter, however, refers more narrowly to the work of Rudolf Steiner and the movement that arose out of this work, while spiritual science refers more broadly to any such research, whether connected to Steiner's work or not. The topic has not found any easy acceptance. On the one hand, many who accept the existence of a spiritual Being or beings see faith and revelation, not scientific research, as the portal to these. On the other hand, many who see in the scientific method the sole route to legitimate truth and knowledge deny the very existence of a spiritual realm.
Historical FoundationsEven before the rise of modern science, Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics asserted the applicability of reason to the divine. They could thus be regarded as forerunners of Rudolf Steiner, who at the beginning of the twentieth century began to apply scientific methods of systematic investigation to his own spiritual experiences. Slightly later, Husserl attempted to include physical, psychological and spiritual phenomena in his phenomenological philosophy. Husserl emphasized that all our experience originates in the psychological realm; thus, soul experience is primary for Husserl. From this, we derive physical and spiritual phenomena as secondary results. It was and is easy to misinterpret this as extreme subjectivism, an interpretation against which Husserl fought vigorously, clarifying his standpoint that, though I can only know the physical and spiritual worlds through my experience of them, nevertheless they exist and are objectively real. Because later phenomenological philosophers generally have not followed up Husserl's work on the spiritual level of reality, Steiner remains the most important figure for the contemporary usage and understanding of a scientific spirituality. Rudolf Steiner called his research Geisteswissenschaft, which has the triple meaning in English of the Humanities generally, of a science of the mind, and of spiritual science. He reported his evolving methodology in a series of books; of these, the most important are: The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds. He also reported on a vast number of research results, both in a series of books (e.g. Theosophy: An Introduction and An Outline of Occult Science) and in many lectures, about 6000 of which were transcribed and are now published. Steiner's research extended into nearly every aspect of human life; the major categories of his publications (those for which there are multiple published works devoted solely to the theme) include art, eurythmy, speech and drama, music, fine arts and architecture, art history, education, medicine, science, agriculture, sociology, Christianity and religion. His declared purpose was to bring a new foundation to human existence, and he certainly succeeded in bringing significant impulses to many realms, as out of his work has come a new kind of education, medicine, agriculture, phenomenological approach to science (often called Goethean science), jurisprudence, sociology, psychology, art, and other new directions. Central to his work is a unique view of the human being as a reincarnating, developing soul originating in a spiritual existence and indwelling a bodily organization composed of the physical body; a life and rhythmic organization; and consciousness. Steiner describes a complex interaction of destiny and freedom with considerable scope for free will. Present-Day WorkThere are a large number of researchers that have followed a spiritual-scientific methodology since Steiner's times, some examples being: Ita Wegman, Albert Steffen, George Adams, Carl Unger, Karl König, Ernst Kranich, Lawrence Edwards, Sergei Prokofieff, and Dennis Klocek. Future DirectionsSteiner regarded his work as preliminary. 2000 years of development would be required, according to him, before spiritual science reached a flowering comparable to natural science today. The latter, in fact, had its own roots in the work of Greek philosophers such as Thales, Pythagoras, Archimedes and Aristotle. Judged by our modern scientific standard, these thinkers gathered an eclectic collection of empirically discovered facts and rules; only after the Renaissance did science as we know it today begin to develop. Steiner seems to have expected a similar slow fruition of his own work. Part of this would certainly need to be the establishment of more rigorous methodology, as Steiner often did not cite his own research approach when reporting results. This has raised the question of the replicability of his results. In fact, even the methodology itself (insofar as he reported this) is extremely difficult to replicate. Steiner recognized this problem but seems to have been unable to train others to anything like his own apparent level of competence here. Publishers of literature on spiritual science(Note: this is by no means a comprehensive list) For further references and links, see anthroposophy.
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