Paper short abstract:

By employing the concept of boundary work, this paper analyzes how Anthroposophists, a spiritual group originating from German-speaking Europe, authorize their spiritual discourse by utilizing scientific language, and spiritualize science by claiming the centrality of subjective experience.

Paper long abstract:

Anthroposophy is a spiritual school founded by Rudolf Steiner in 1912 in German-speaking Europe, which he called “a spiritual science.” In founding the Anthroposophical Society, Steiner aimed at bringing together occult knowledge, natural science, and Christianity. Despite their official discourse, which does not deny natural science but sees it as “one layer of reality,” their followers did constitute one of the two largest groups in demonstrations against Covid-19 measures in Germany, the other group being the Neo-Nazis. In this paper, I delve into the ways in which they negotiate science and spirituality in their official training provided by their world headquarters in Dornach, Switzerland. Employing Thomas Gieryn’s concept of “boundary work,” I look at how they try to strike a balance between spiritual knowledge that originates from the writings of Steiner and their subjective experience, and scientific knowledge of the body. In these trainings, they engage in a double movement: On the one hand, they employ a scientific language to talk about spiritual phenomena, thus authorizing their spiritual knowledge. On the other hand, they spiritualize science by claiming the centrality of subjective experience for an understanding of reality, that is at once physical and spiritual. By focusing on a variety of exercises offered to develop the spiritual organs of the “new human,” I ethnographically engage with Anthroposophy as an object of study that connects science and spirituality in a post-truth and post-pandemic Europe.