Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2025 is the 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death. How does he live on in individuals? Dan McKanan, professor at Harvard Divinity School and author of several books on the anthroposophical movement, gives his answers.
Which sentence of Rudolf Steiner has particularly touched you and why?
I love this sentence from the Agriculture Course: “In great Nature, everything, everything is connected.” It reminds me that the most important connections may be the ones I haven’t seen yet.
Where did anthroposophy irritate you?
I find that many anthroposophists think more highly of Rudolf Steiner than they do of themselves. But for me, what is truly inspiring about anthroposophy is the way thousands of ordinary people give practical shape to Steiner’s inspirations through biodynamics, Waldorf Education, Camphill, and other initiatives. It is only through the ongoing creativity of anthroposophical initiatives that spirit finds its place in the material world.
For which life questions is anthroposophy particularly important to you?
Steiner’s writings about social threefolding were the first ones that I felt I understood. I have always been wary of excessive corporate power and of excessive government power. Yet I am too appreciative of the human benefits that governments and corporations offer to embrace the purely critical approach of classical anarchism. Threefolding opens up the possibility that governments, businesses, and cultural institutions all carry important values, but that a lack of balance can turn those values into vices.
Where has anthroposophy specifically changed your life?
Rudolf Steiner’s exposition of Goethean Science has inspired me to change the way I conduct historical research, even (and especially) when that research has nothing to do with anthroposophy. In my current research on forest preservation in Boston, I chose not to formulate any hypotheses about my subject. Instead, I sought to experience the forests in all their complexity by walking through all the parks that had been preserved more than a century ago. The land became my teacher, and it taught me some surprising things—not only about forests, but about ancestors, disability, capitalism, and much more.
Contact dmckanan@hds.harvard.edu
Image private
