Steiner's Continuity of Thought

Tarjei Straume (February 22nd 2003):
"RS also made it clear that what later became anthroposophy was evolving within him long before the turn of the century. For this reason, Steiner's "theosophical/anthroposophical period" can be said to have started with his work on Goethe in the 1880's."

Peter Staudenmaier (February 2nd, 2004):
You're forgetting his caustic criticisms of Theosophy in the 1890's.

Tarjei Straume (February 22nd 2003):
Steiner was opposed to the approach to the spiritual being practiced in the Theosophical Society from the beginning. what he taught as "Theosophy" was radically different from Blavatsky's tradition. Steiner chose the natural-scientific discipline of Darwin as his epistemological point of departure, which differed radically from the crystal balls and seances of the Theosophists.

Peter Staudenmaier (February 22nd, 2004):
I disagree with the first sentence, and with the modifier "radically" in the second sentence. Steiner frequently emphasized the continuities between his own system and Blavatsky's, even in the midst of the organizational break from mainstream Theosophy. Here, for example, is Steiner in May 1912: "I am not speaking against Madame Blavatsky but in complete harmony with her when I say the one thing I wish for is that our Western conception of the world shall come to its own in this Theosophical movement." (Rudolf Steiner, Spiritualism, Madame Blavatsky, and Theosophy, Anthroposophic Press 2001, p. 130).
[This quote merely indicates that Steiner agreed with Blavatsky on one, single point, and not in everything. It does nothing to characterize the overall nature of their relationship, which is indeed how Tarjei indicated.]

Tarjei Straume (February 22nd 2003):
There was correspondence within cosmology and theology to a certain extent, but if you don't recognize that the methods of HPB and RS were radically different and that RS develped a thoroughly disciplined epistemology and spiritual science that was unthinkable for the Besant and the traditional theosophists, you haven't made a close enough study of them.