Dramatic Anthroposophy is the first academic assessment, world-wide, of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-esoteric worldview. This thesis is also the first doctorate to critique a Steiner literary work, one of his ‘mystery daramas’, The Portal of Initiation, which is itself a dramatization of an esoteric fairy tale by Johann W. von Goethe, Das Marchen. Academic involvement with Rudolf Steiner’s worldview is rare, in recent years there have been some academic papers on the practical application of Steiner’s teachings such as education or social therapies.

The identification and contextualizing of the primary elements of Steiner’s ‘anthroposophy’ has not been previously attempted academically; this is in part because Steiner’s works were viewed as mystical, and also because they comprise some 360 volumes in German.

Steiner’s drama presents the experiences which befall a student seeking spiritual development, and as such incorporates all of his ‘anthroposophical’ teachings. In his assessment of this drama, Anderson also sheds new light on Goethe, as well as on Steiner’s earlier, pre-anthroposophical epistemological theories.