Here's a funny old thought.

I'm puzzled why Steiner did certain things that appear to be mistakes.
 
The first thing is the direct insulting of other philosophers in POF. It's peculiar to name them in the first place, but he is quite rude about them. Being rude in politics is short termist, highly counter-productive in the long term. My sense is that this fact alone would have been enough to prompt his work to be ignored by the academic world of the time. Perhaps such behaviour was quite normal, but I think that when you wind forwards to today these references to other philosophers are incredibly off putting for people.
 
But surely Steiner knew that one day these philosopher references would be irrelevant. Surely he knew that in terms of being noticed by the mainstream, being rude about them was not going to cut the mustard?
 
The second thing is that although he pleaded with people to take the thoughts that Anthroposophy offered in to themselves and let them live within he nevertheless handed out plenty of specific advice. This specific advice worked in the first instance, but in the second instance it became the food of “Steiner says”…
 
He named people’s children. He gave specific advice for biodynamic farming. He outlined how to organise the economy in precise detail – detail that was only appropriate for his time and place.
 
It seems extraordinary to me that Steiner let his behaviour so blatantly contradict his words. He said “let these thoughts live”, but when people didn’t and asked him to think for them he said “ok, do this…”.
 
Then I realised that what he has done is ensured that his thoughts will only go forward if they are lived. We all have the experience of Anthroposophy constantly dieing. We sense that this is because people don’t live it, they mimic it.
 
My assertion is that this is exactly what Steiner intended. As long as people do as Steiner said their endeavour will struggle and die. He said I want you to bring these concepts to life within you, and he ensured that if you didn’t then you wouldn’t be able to carry Anthroposophy any further than you yourself take it.  It won't last beyond your generation.
 
In other words he built a self-destruct mechanism in. This plays out of generations rather than years, months or days. As long as someone works with Anthroposophy in a dead way they won’t be able to propagate it. Only when they live it will they meet success.
 
Of course, once someone is really living an Anthroposophical concept, they might or might not acknowledge Steiner, because they act out of their own being they own what they are doing. They aren’t looking for a higher authority, they act with love out of love for the purpose.
 
Steiner is different from Aristotle in that he leaves a personal imprint that self-destructs. He masters his ego so that the ideas he brought can fulfil their destiny unimpeded.