Our history

Dr. Karl Koenig was an Austrian pediatrician and educator. He fled the Nazi invasion of his own country and settled in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1939 with a group of young physicians, artists and caregivers. These individuals founded the first Camphill community with children having developmental disabilities. Dr. Koenig and his colleagues were inspired by Anthroposophy and the teaching of philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D.

Dr. Koenig's vision was to develop lively Camphill communities together with people who have special needs. His unique and effective approach focused on the abilities of each person, not the disabilities. Members of the communities teach and learn from each other in a process of mutual interaction. The needs of each person are met through living in a cooperative community - each individual contributing his or her own special gifts and talents. This vision lives on and each new generation in Camphill strives towards achieving it.

The International Camphill Movement consists of more than 100 communities in 22 countries. Camphill continues to work to create communities in which children, youth, and adults with special needs can live, learn, and work with others in healthy social relationships based on mutual care and respect.

Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D. was born in Austria in 1861. He studied modern science and philosophy, edited Goethe's scientific works, and developed anthroposophy which is a science of the spirit. Anthroposophy derives from two Greek words - anthropos, "human being," and sophia, "wisdom." As Theosophy ("Theo" "Sophia") means wisdom of God, or divine wisdom, Anthroposophy means "wisdom of the human being" or the wisdom that knows what it means to be human. In other words, it is a path of self-knowledge.

In his Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, written in the last year of his life (1924), Steiner wrote: "Anthroposophy is a way of knowledge - a cognitive path - that leads the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe." Rudolf Steiner practiced this path, and his perceptions into the spiritual world, communicated in his books and lectures, laid the foundation and established the parameters of anthroposophy.

Activities arising from the initiatives of Rudolf Steiner include: Waldorf Education; Curative Education, Youth Guidance, and Social Therapy; Biodynamic Agriculture; Anthroposophical Medicine and Architecture; Eurhythmy (speech made visible through movement); Organizational Development; and many other art and therapy forms.