About Us
Anthroposophy, the Anthroposophical Society and the ASGWB
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) created the body of knowledge and practice known as anthroposophy, and founded the General Anthroposophical Society. His insights, offered in a number of books and thousands of published lectures, have stimulated many practical and cultural initiatives including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophically-extended medicine, the movement for a threefold social order, the art of eurythmy, and the visual and musical arts.
The Greater Washington, DC, Branch of the Anthroposophical Society is affiliated with the Anthroposophical Society in America. This in turn is affiliated with the General Anthroposophical Society, which has its center at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. While there is a rich and growing anthroposophically-oriented literature that should be consulted by anyone interested in learning about anthroposophy, the following excerpts from the Anthroposophical Society's original 1923 Constitution provide a glimpe of the anthroposophical world view and the intention of the Society:
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The General Anthroposophical Society is meant to be a union of people who desire to further the life of the soul – both in the individual and in human society – on the basis of a true knowledge of the spiritual world.
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The anthroposophy pursued in the Goetheanum leads to results which can be of assistance to every human being — without distinction of nation, social standing or religion — acting as an incentive in spiritual life. These results can in a real sense give rise to a social life based on brotherly love. The possibility of making them one's own and founding life upon them depends on no special degree of learning or education, but alone on a free, unbiased human nature. The researches, however, which lead to them, and the power of competent judgment on the results of research, are subject to a spiritual-scientific training which must be acquired step by step. The results are in their way no less exact than those of natural science; and when like these they attain general recognition, they will bring about a like progress in all spheres of life — not only in the spiritual but in the practical domain.
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The Anthroposophical Society is an entirely public organisation, and in no sense a secret society. Without distinction of nationality, social standing, religion, scientific or artistic conviction, any person feeling the existence of such an institution as the School of Spiritual Science — the Goetheanum in Dornach — to be justified, can become a member of the Society. The Anthroposophical Society is averse to any kind of sectarian tendency. Politics it does not consider to be among its tasks.
For more information about the Branch and its activities please contact us!
Information on how to become a member of the national Anthroposophical Society can be found at www.anthroposophy.org.
Donations to the Branch can be made by check payable to ASGWB mailed to the PO Box on the left or by Paypal using the link on the right.
To become a Branch member and pay annual dues fill out the Google Form OR the Word Document:
Link to Annual Dues Google Form
Link to Annual Dues Word Document
If you have questions please email ASGWB.DC@gmail.com.
How to be added to the ASGWB List-Serve:
If you would like to receive announcements of Branch and related events by email join the Branch list-serve. To do so email Eileen King at Kingeil656@aol.com that you would like to be added. She will then send you an invitation to join the Branch list-serve on Yahoo groups.