HERMETICISM AND ANTHROPOSOPHY
Via Bruce Brunsdon and Kim Munch Michelsen
Rudolf Steiner was asked by Walter Johannes Stein: "What's the source of knowledge of the higher worlds?" He said, "Basil Valentine," [Stefan Rautter] an alchemist.
"That Eleusinian wisdom which came, but in infinite dilution, through Africa into Spain, shone out here and there in the Middle Ages, and notwithstanding the general standard of culture, was cultivated in certain monasteries and lived on under the surface. For instance, we meet with it in mystical form as brought down to posterity in Basilius Valentinus."
-R.J.L.S
https://southerncrossreview.org/47/klocek.htm
"Steiner was a co-creator of the European esoteric traditions up through time and saw anthroposophy as a continuation of the European tradition, inclusive of hermeticism.
"The European tradition worked with the three soul components, the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the consciousness soul, up through time.
"These three were developed in steps and it was necessary to use what I call artificial methods until they were fully developed, and hermeticism is such a methodology.
"In 1879 the Michael Age began, this is also the consciousness soul Age, now all three soul components were fully functioning and the artificial methods were no longer necessary, so Steiner moved the outer work into the inner.
"He gave some methods that were needed at the start of the last century as it was difficult to permeate the veil to the spiritual world so shortly after the end of Kali Yuga, but it's not necessary today and it will become easier in the coming years."