Copenhagen, Denmark. 2025 is the 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death. How does he live on in specific individuals? Aaron French, religious scholar at the University of Copenhagen, gives his answers.
For which life questions is anthroposophy particularly important to you?
When I first encountered Steiner, I felt like a new world opened up for me. The same is true of my discovery of esotericism more generally. Here were ideas and approaches I had never heard of before, which seemed absent from mainstream academic and professional culture (at least on the surface). Working my way through other writers, poets, esotericists, and philosophers, I found my way to Steiner, who seemed to bring everything together in one package. Reading Steiner’s writings and lectures gave me new perspectives: for example, an alternative approach to science through his interpretation of Goetheanism; an exciting version of radical philosophy through his Philosophy of Freedom and individualist anarchism; a visionary esoteric Christianity that included so-called pagan and occult themes; especially a metaphysics of technology that seemed increasingly relevant as time went on. Steiner led an extremely interesting life, and he was at the center of many intersections of modern history and culture. I approach Steiner as a scholar because I am interested in academic approaches, but I am also interested in challenging those approaches, and Steiner serves as a great object of study in this regard. Working on Steiner keeps my academic research interesting. When anthroposophy is doing what it does best, I think it encourages people to ask envelope-pushing questions and to keep going with those questions, not to settle for easy answers about what is possible or how something “should be,” but to see how far these questions can take you and what you can learn along the way.
Contact afh@hum.ku.dk
Image Aaron French, Photo: Alan Velasquez
