anthroposophy

From anthropo- +‎ -sophy, from Renaissance Latin anthroposophia (attested in Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, d. 1535, and Thomas Vaughan, d. 1666), popularized from the 1910s via German Anthroposophie (Rudolf Steiner, 1861–1925).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌænθɹəˈpɑsəfi/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌænθɹəˈpɒsəfi/

anthroposophy (uncountable)

1. (archaic, as used before Rudolf Steiner) Knowledge or understanding of human nature.
2. A philosophy founded in the early 20th century by the esotericist Rudolf Steiner (also capitalized as Anthroposophy), postulating the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development.
   • 1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 223:

     Anthroposophy was having definite effects. I couldn't take any of this to heart. Other-worldliness tinged it all and every little while my spirit seemed to dissociate itself.

• anthroposophic
• anthroposophist