Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (Template:IPA; 27 or 25 February 1861<ref name="birth" /> – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist,Template:Sfn social reformer, architect, esotericist,<ref>Some of the literature regarding Steiner's work in these various fields:Template:Bulleted list</ref><ref name="v651">Template:Cite web</ref> and claimed clairvoyant.<ref name="CorrDoc" /><ref name="Ruse2018">Template:Cite book</ref> Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom.<ref name="Cees">Template:Cite book</ref> At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian GnosticismTemplate:Efn-lr or neognosticism.<ref name="Christian Gnosticism">Sources for 'Christian Gnosticism': Template:Bulleted list</ref><ref name="Diener Hipolito 2013 p. 77">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Ellwood Partin 2016 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref> Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific.<ref>Sources for 'pseudoscientific':Template:Bulleted list</ref> He was also prone to pseudohistory.<ref name="Staudenmaier 2014 p. ">Sources for 'pseudohistory': Template:Bulleted list</ref>

In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality.<ref>R. Bruce Elder, Harmony and dissent: film and avant-garde art movements in the early twentieth century, Template:ISBN, p. 32</ref> His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,<ref name=RAMcD/>Template:Rp differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts.<ref>Sokolina, Anna, ed. Architecture and Anthroposophy. [Arkhitektura i Antroposofiia.] 2 editions. Moscow: KMK, 2001, 2010. 268p. 348 ills. 2001 Template:ISBN, 2010 Template:ISBN.</ref> In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education,<ref name="CL" /> biodynamic agriculture,<ref name="BD1924">Template:Cite journal</ref> and anthroposophical medicine.<ref name="CL">Christoph Lindenberg, Rudolf Steiner, Rowohlt 1992, Template:ISBN, pp. 123–6</ref>

Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas."<ref>Template:Citation.</ref> A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.<ref>Template:Citation.</ref>

Biography

Childhood and education

File:Rudolf Steiner Geburtshaus,Donji Kraljevec, Croatia.JPG

The house where Rudolf Steiner was born, in present-day Croatia

Steiner's father, Johann(es) Steiner (1829–1910), left a position as a gamekeeper<ref name="GL" /> in the service of Count Hoyos in Geras, northeast Lower Austria to marry one of the Hoyos family's housemaids, Franziska Blie (1834 Horn – 1918, Horn), a marriage for which the Count had refused his permission. Johann became a telegraph operator on the Southern Austrian Railway, and at the time of Rudolf's birth was stationed in Murakirály (Kraljevec) in the Muraköz region of the Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire (present-day Donji Kraljevec in the Međimurje region of northernmost Croatia). In the first two years of Rudolf's life, the family moved twice, first to Mödling, near Vienna, and then, through the promotion of his father to stationmaster, to Pottschach, located in the foothills of the eastern Austrian Alps in Lower Austria.<ref name="CL" />

Steiner entered the village school, but following a disagreement between his father and the schoolmaster, he was briefly educated at home. In 1869, when Steiner was eight years old, the family moved to the village of Neudörfl and in October 1872 Steiner proceeded from the village school there to the realschule in Wiener Neustadt.<ref name="Auto">Rudolf Steiner Autobiography: Chapters in the Course of My Life: 1861–1907, Lantern Books, 2006</ref>Template:Rp

File:Rudolf Steiner als Abiturient.jpg

Rudolf Steiner, graduation photo from secondary school

In 1879, the family moved to Inzersdorf to enable Steiner to attend the Vienna Institute of Technology,<ref>In Austria passing the matura examination at a Gymnasium (school) was required for entry to the University.[1] Template:Webarchive</ref> where he enrolled in courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and mineralogy and audited courses in literature and philosophy, on an academic scholarship from 1879 to 1883, where he completed his studies and the requirements of the Ghega scholarship satisfactorily.<ref name="Final exams at the Technical University">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>There was some controversy over this matter as researchers failed to note that at the time no "degrees" in the modern manner were awarded in Germany and Austria except doctorates. The research by Dr Sam confirms the details. Rudolf Steiner studied for eight semesters at the Technical University in Vienna - as a student in the General Department, which was there in addition to the engineering, construction, mechanical engineering and chemical schools. The general department comprised all subjects that could not be clearly assigned to one of these four existing technical schools. Around 1880 this included mathematics, descriptive geometry, physics, as well as general and supplementary subjects such as German language and literature, history, art history, economics, legal subjects, languages, The students in the General Department - unlike their fellow students in the specialist departments - neither had to complete a fixed curriculum nor take a final or state examination. They did not have to and could not - because that was not intended for this department, nor was the "Absolutorium". Final state examinations at the Vienna University of Technology only began in the academic year 1878/79. The paper reports how at that time, the so-called ‘individual examinations’ in the subjects studied seemed to be of greater importance and were reported first in the 'Annual Report of the Technical University 1879/80' - sorted according to the faculties of the Technical University. Steiner was in fact amongst the best student on these grounds and was cited by the University as one of its distinguished alumni. The records for the examinations he sat are on record as is the scholarship record.</ref> In 1882, one of Steiner's teachers, Karl Julius Schröer,<ref name=Auto/>Template:Rp suggested Steiner's name to Joseph Kürschner, chief editor of a new edition of Goethe's works,Template:Sfn who asked Steiner to become the edition's natural science editor,<ref>Alfred Heidenreich, Rudolf Steiner – A Biographical Sketch</ref> a truly astonishing opportunity for a young student without any form of academic credentials or previous publications.<ref name="ZanderBio">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Before attending the Vienna Institute of Technology, Steiner had studied Kant, Fichte and Schelling.<ref name="CorrDoc">Steiner, Correspondence and Documents 1901–1925, 1988, p. 9. Template:ISBN</ref>

Early spiritual experiences

File:Steiner als Student.jpg

Rudolf Steiner as 21-year-old student (1882)

When he was nine years old, Steiner believed that he saw the spirit of an aunt who had died in a far-off town, asking him to help her at a time when neither he nor his family knew of the woman's death.<ref>The Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner. Esoteric Lessons 1904–1909. SteinerBooks, 2007.</ref> Steiner later related that as a child, he felt "that one must carry the knowledge of the spiritual world within oneself after the fashion of geometry ... [for here] one is permitted to know something which the mind alone, through its own power, experiences. In this feeling I found the justification for the spiritual world that I experienced ... I confirmed for myself by means of geometry the feeling that I must speak of a world 'which is not seen'."<ref name=Auto/>

Steiner believed that at the age of 15 he had gained a complete understanding of the concept of time, which he considered to be the precondition of spiritual clairvoyance.<ref name="CorrDoc" /> At 21, on the train between his home village and Vienna, Steiner met a herb gatherer, Felix Kogutzki, who spoke about the spiritual world "as one who had his own experience therein".<ref name="Auto" />Template:Rp<ref>Steiner, GA 262, pp. 7–21.</ref>

Writer and philosopher

The young Steiner emerged as an individualist, positivist and freethinker, who was not afraid to refer to scandalous philosophers such as Stirner, Nietzsche and Haeckel. His freethinking culminated in a contempt for religion and faith. He attributed almost pathological traits to Christianity.<ref>So Gerhard Wehr: Rudolf Steiner. Leben, Erkenntnis, Kulturimpuls. Eine Biographie. Diogenes, Zürich 1993, p. 132.</ref>

In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kürschner edition of Goethe's works, Steiner was invited to work as an editor at the Goethe archives in Weimar. Steiner remained with the archive until 1896. It was a low-paid and boring job.<ref name="Cees" /> As well as the introductions for and commentaries to four volumes of Goethe's scientific writings, Steiner wrote two books about Goethe's philosophy: The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886),<ref>"Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception", also translated as Goethe's Theory of Knowledge, An Outline of the Epistemology of His Worldview</ref> which Steiner regarded as the epistemological foundation and justification for his later work,<ref>Preface to 1924 edition of The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception, with Specific Reference to Schiller, in which Steiner also wrote that the way of knowing he presented in this work opened the way from the sensory world to the spiritual one.</ref> and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897).<ref>Rudolf Steiner, Goethean Science, Mercury Press, 1988 Template:ISBN, Template:ISBN, link</ref> During this time he also collaborated in complete editions of the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and the writer Jean Paul and wrote numerous articles for various journals.

File:Rudolf Steiner um 1891.jpg

Rudolf Steiner around 1891–92, etching by Otto Fröhlich

In 1891, Steiner received a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Rostock, for his dissertation discussing Fichte's concept of the ego,<ref name=RAMcD/><ref>His thesis title was Die Grundfrage der Erkenntnistheorie mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre – Prolegomena zur Verständigung des philosophierenden Bewusstseins mit sich selbst.</ref> submitted to Template:Ill, whose Seven Books of Platonism Steiner esteemed.<ref name=Auto/>Template:Rp Steiner's dissertation was later published in expanded form as Truth and Knowledge: Prelude to a Philosophy of Freedom, with a dedication to Eduard von Hartmann.<ref>Truth and Knowledge (full text). Template:Langx</ref> Two years later, in 1894, he published Die Philosophie der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedom or The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, the latter being Steiner's preferred English title), an exploration of epistemology and ethics that suggested a way for humans to become spiritually free beings. Steiner hoped that the book "would gain him a professorship", but the book was not well received.<ref name="Cees" /> Steiner later spoke of this book as containing implicitly, in philosophical form, the entire content of what he later developed explicitly as anthroposophy.<ref>Sergei Prokofieff, May Human Beings Hear It!, Temple Lodge, 2004. p. 460</ref>

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Steiner, c.1900

In 1896, Steiner declined an offer from Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche to help organize the Nietzsche archive in Naumburg. Her brother, Friedrich Nietzsche, was by that time non compos mentis. "Hoping for a job (which, in fact, he did not get), Steiner accepted the invitation immediately."<ref name="o046">Template:Cite book</ref> Förster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of the catatonic philosopher; Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the book Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom.<ref>Rudolf Steiner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom Garber Communications; 2nd revised edition (July 1985) Template:ISBN. Online [2] Template:Webarchive</ref> Steiner later related that:

My first acquaintance with Nietzsche's writings belongs to the year 1889. Previous to that I had never read a line of his. Upon the substance of my ideas as these find expression in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Nietzsche's thought had not the least influence....Nietzsche's ideas of the 'eternal recurrence' and of 'Übermensch' remained long in my mind. For in these was reflected that which a personality must feel concerning the evolution and essential being of humanity when this personality is kept back from grasping the spiritual world by the restricted thought in the philosophy of nature characterizing the end of the 19th century....What attracted me particularly was that one could read Nietzsche without coming upon anything which strove to make the reader a 'dependent' of Nietzsche's.<ref name=Auto/>Template:Rp

In 1897, Steiner left the Weimar archives and moved to Berlin. He became part owner of, chief editor of, and an active contributor to the literary journal Magazin für Literatur, where he hoped to find a readership sympathetic to his philosophy. Many subscribers were alienated by Steiner's unpopular support of Émile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair<ref name="GL">Template:Harvnb</ref> and the journal lost more subscribers when Steiner published extracts from his correspondence with anarchist John Henry Mackay.<ref name="GL" /> Dissatisfaction with his editorial style eventually led to his departure from the magazine. In 1899, Steiner married Anna Eunicke; the couple separated several years later. Anna died in 1911.<ref name="CL" /> Steiner's marriage to Anna "was clearly a marriage of convenience".Template:Sfn

Despite his fame as a teacher of esotericism, Steiner was culturally and academically isolated.Template:Sfn

Theosophical Society

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Rudolf Steiner in Munich with Annie Besant, leader of the Theosophical Society. Photo from 1907

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Marie Steiner, 1903

In 1899, Steiner published an article, "Goethe's Secret Revelation", discussing the esoteric nature of Goethe's fairy tale The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. This article led to an invitation by the Count and Countess Brockdorff to speak to a gathering of Theosophists on the subject of Nietzsche. Steiner continued speaking regularly to the members of the Theosophical Society, becoming the head of its newly constituted German section in 1902 without ever formally joining the society.<ref name=RAMcD/><ref name=Ravagli/> It was also in connection with this society that Steiner met and worked with Marie von Sivers, who became his second wife in 1914. By 1904, Steiner was appointed by Annie Besant to be leader of the Theosophical Esoteric Society for Germany and Austria. In 1904, Eliza, the wife of Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, became one of his favourite scholars.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Through Eliza, Steiner met Helmuth, who served as the Chief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Anna Eunicke was not pleased that her husband, having previously the reputation of a liberal academic, now joined the cult of a charlatan.Template:Sfn

In contrast to mainstream Theosophy, Steiner sought to build a Western approach to spirituality based on the philosophical and mystical traditions of European culture. The German Section of the Theosophical Society grew rapidly under Steiner's leadership as he lectured throughout much of Europe on his spiritual science. During this period, Steiner maintained an original approach, replacing Madame Blavatsky's terminology with his own, and basing his spiritual research and teachings upon the Western esoteric and philosophical tradition. This and other differences, in particular Steiner's vocal rejection of Leadbeater and Besant's claim that Jiddu Krishnamurti was the vehicle of a new Maitreya, or world teacher,<ref>See Lutyens, Mary (2005). J. Krishnamurti: A Life. New Delhi: Penguin Books India. Template:ISBN</ref> led to a formal split in 1912–13,<ref name=RAMcD/> when Steiner and the majority of members of the German section of the Theosophical Society broke off to form a new group, the Anthroposophical Society. Steiner took the name "Anthroposophy" from the title of a work of the Austrian philosopher Robert von Zimmermann, published in Vienna in 1856.<ref>Zimmermann's Geschichte der Aesthetik als philosophische Wissenschaft.: Anthroposophie im Umriss-Entwurf eines Systems idealer Weltansicht auf realistischer Grundlage: Steiner, Anthroposophic Movement: Lecture Two: The Unveiling of Spiritual Truths, 11 June 1923.[3]. Steiner took the name but not the limitations on knowledge which Zimmerman proposed. Steiner, The Riddles of Philosophy (1914), Chapter VI, "Modern Idealistic World Conceptions" [4]</ref> Despite his departure from the Theosophical Society, Steiner maintained his interest in Theosophy throughout his life.<ref name="RSLib">Template:Cite journal</ref>

According to Helmut Zander, Steiner's clairvoyant insights always developed according to the same pattern. He took revised texts from theosophical literature and then passed them off as his own higher insights. Because he did not want to be an occult storyteller, but a (spiritual) scientist, he adapted his reading, which he had seen supernaturally in the world's memory, to the current state of technology. When, for example, the Wright brothers began flying with gliders and eventually with motorized aircraft in 1903, Steiner transformed the ponderous gondola airships of his Atlantis story into airplanes with elevators and rudders in 1904.Template:Sfn Mainstream historians have lambasted Steiner's accounts about Lemuria and Atlantis as pseudohistory.<ref name="Staudenmaier 2014 p. "/>

Anthroposophical Society and its cultural activities

The Anthroposophical Society grew rapidly. Fueled by a need to find an artistic home for their yearly conferences, which included performances of plays written by Edouard Schuré and Steiner, the decision was made to build a theater and organizational center. In 1913, construction began on the first Goetheanum building, in Dornach, Switzerland. The building, designed by Steiner, was built to a significant part by volunteers. Steiner moved from Berlin<ref name="Berlin">Paull, John (2019) Rudolf Steiner: At Home in Berlin, Journal of Biodynamics Tasmania. 132: 26-29.</ref> to Dornach in 1913 and lived there to the end of his life.<ref name="HausHansi">Paull, John (2018) The Home of Rudolf Steiner: Haus Hansi, Journal of Biodynamics Tasmania, 126:19-23.</ref>

Steiner's lecture activity expanded enormously with the end of the war. Most importantly, from 1919 on Steiner began to work with other members of the society to found numerous practical institutions and activities, including the first Waldorf school, founded that year in Stuttgart, Germany. On New Year's Eve, 1922–1923, the Goetheanum burned to the ground; contemporary police reports indicate arson as the probable cause.<ref name=CL/>Template:Rp<ref name="GA259">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp Steiner immediately began work designing a second Goetheanum building - this time made of concrete instead of wood - which was completed in 1928, three years after his death.

At a "Foundation Meeting" for members held at the Dornach center during Christmas 1923, Steiner founded the School of Spiritual Science.<ref>Johannes Kiersch, A History of the School of Spiritual Science. Publ. Temple Lodge 2006. p.xiii, Template:ISBN</ref> This school, which was led by Steiner, initially had sections for general anthroposophy, education, medicine, performing arts (eurythmy, speech, drama and music), the literary arts and humanities, mathematics, astronomy, science, and visual arts. Later sections were added for the social sciences, youth and agriculture.<ref name="GoethRestruct">1923/1924 Restructuring and deepening. Refounding of the Anthroposophical Society Template:Webarchive, Goetheanum website</ref><ref>Rudolf Steiner, Constitution of the School of Spiritual Science: Its arrangement in Sections 1964 Template:ISBN</ref><ref name="wn.rsarchive.org">Template:Cite web</ref> The School of Spiritual Science included meditative exercises given by Steiner.

Political engagement and social agenda

Steiner became a well-known and controversial public figure during and after World War I. In response to the catastrophic situation in post-war Germany, he proposed extensive social reforms through the establishment of a Threefold Social Order in which the cultural, political and economic realms would be largely independent. Steiner argued that a fusion of the three realms had created the inflexibility that had led to catastrophes such as World War I. In connection with this, he promoted a radical solution in the disputed area of Upper Silesia, claimed by both Poland and Germany. His suggestion that this area be granted at least provisional independence led to his being publicly accused of being a traitor to Germany.<ref>Frankfurter Zeitung, 4 March 1921</ref>

Steiner opposed Wilson's proposal to create new European nations based around ethnic groups, which he saw as opening the door to rampant nationalism. Steiner proposed, as an alternative:

Attacks, illness, and death

The National Socialist German Workers Party gained strength in Germany after the First World War. In 1919, a political theorist of this movement, Dietrich Eckart, attacked Steiner and suggested that he was a Jew.<ref name="Werner">Template:Cite book</ref> In 1921, Adolf Hitler attacked Steiner on many fronts, including accusations that he was a tool of the Jews.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> That same year, Steiner warned against the disastrous effects it would have for Central Europe if the National Socialists came to power.<ref name="Werner" />Template:Rp In 1922 a lecture Steiner was giving in Munich was disrupted when stink bombs were let off and the lights switched out, while people rushed the stage apparently attempting to attack Steiner, who exited safely through a back door.<ref>Rudolf Steiner, The Esoteric Aspect of the Social Question: The Individual and Society, Steinerbooks, p xiv and see also Lindenberg, Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie, pp. 769–70</ref><ref>"Riot at Munich Lecture", New York Times, 17 May 1922.</ref> Unable to guarantee his safety, Steiner's agents cancelled his next lecture tour.<ref name=GL/>Template:Rp<ref>Marie Steiner, Introduction, in Rudolf Steiner, Turning Points in Spiritual History, Dornach, September 1926.</ref> The 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich led Steiner to give up his residence in Berlin, saying that if those responsible for the attempted coup (Hitler's Nazi party) came to power in Germany, it would no longer be possible for him to enter the country.<ref>Wiesberger, Die Krise der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft 1923 Template:Webarchive</ref>

From 1923 on, Steiner showed signs of increasing frailness and illness. He nonetheless continued to lecture widely, and even to travel; especially towards the end of this time, he was often giving two, three or even four lectures daily for courses taking place concurrently. Many of these lectures focused on practical areas of life such as education.<ref name="ReferenceA">Lindenberg, Christoph, Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie Vol. II, Chapter 52. Template:ISBN</ref>

File:Rudolf Steiner Grabmal Dornach.jpg

Steiner's gravestone at the Goetheanum

Increasingly ill, he held his last lecture in late September, 1924. He continued work on his autobiography during the last months of his life; he died at Dornach on 30 March 1925.

Spiritual research

Steiner first began speaking publicly about spiritual experiences and phenomena in his 1899 lectures to the Theosophical Society. By 1901 he had begun to write about spiritual topics, initially in the form of discussions of historical figures such as the mystics of the Middle Ages. By 1904 he was expressing his own understanding of these themes in his essays and books, while continuing to refer to a wide variety of historical sources. Template:Blockquote

Steiner aimed to apply his training in mathematics, science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences.<ref>Lindenberg, "Schritte auf dem Weg zur Erweiterung der Erkenntnis", pp. 77ff</ref> He believed that through freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience the spiritual world, including the higher nature of oneself and others.<ref name="GL" /> Steiner believed that such discipline and training would help a person to become a more moral, creative and free individual – free in the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love.<ref name="Schneider" /> His philosophical ideas were affected by Franz Brentano,<ref name="GL" /> with whom he had studied,<ref>Steiner described Brentano's Psychology from the Empirical Standpoint (1870) as symptomatic of the weakness of a psychology that intended to follow the method of natural science but lacked the strength and elasticity of mind to do justice to the demand of modern times: Steiner, The Riddles of Philosophy (1914), Chapter VI, "Modern Idealistic World Conceptions" [5]</ref> as well as by Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Goethe's phenomenological approach to science.<ref name="GL" /><ref>Bockemühl, J., Toward a Phenomenology of the Etheric World Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Edelglass, S. et al., The Marriage of Sense and Thought, Template:ISBN</ref>

Steiner used the word Geisteswissenschaft (from Geist = mind or spirit, Wissenschaft = science), a term originally coined by Wilhelm Dilthey as a descriptor of the humanities, in a novel way, to describe a systematic ("scientific") approach to spirituality.<ref>Dilthey had used this term in the title of one of the works listed in the Introduction to Steiner's Truth and Science (his doctoral dissertation) as concerned with the theory of cognition in general: Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, usw., (Introduction to the Spiritual Sciences, etc.) published in 1883.Template:Cite web.</ref> Steiner used the term Geisteswissenschaft, generally translated into English as "spiritual science," to describe a discipline treating the spirit as something actual and real, starting from the premise that it is possible for human beings to penetrate behind what is sense-perceptible.<ref>Steiner, "The Mission of Spiritual Science", lecture 1 of Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience, Vol. 1</ref> He proposed that psychology, history, and the humanities generally were based on the direct grasp of an ideal reality,<ref>The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception, ch XIX</ref> and required close attention to the particular period and culture which provided the distinctive character of religious qualities in the course of the evolution of consciousness. In contrast to William James' pragmatic approach to religious and psychic experience, which emphasized its idiosyncratic character, Steiner focused on ways such experience can be rendered more intelligible and integrated into human life.<ref>William James and Rudolf Steiner, Robert A. McDermott, 1991, in ReVision, vol.13 no.4 [6] Template:Webarchive</ref>

Steiner proposed that an understanding of reincarnation and karma was necessary to understand psychology<ref>Rudolf Steiner, Reincarnation and Karma: Concepts Compelled by the Modern Scientific Point of view, in Lucifer Gnosis 1903.[7]</ref> and that the form of external nature would be more comprehensible as a result of insight into the course of karma in the evolution of humanity.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Beginning in 1910, he described aspects of karma relating to health, natural phenomena and free will, taking the position that a person is not bound by his or her karma, but can transcend this through actively taking hold of one's own nature and destiny.<ref>Rudolf Steiner Manifestations of Karma 4th edition 2000 Template:ISBN. Online [8]</ref> In an extensive series of lectures from February to September 1924, Steiner presented further research on successive reincarnations of various individuals and described the techniques he used for karma research.<ref name="ReferenceA" /><ref>These lectures were published as Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies</ref>

Breadth of activity

After the First World War, Steiner became active in a wide variety of cultural contexts. He founded a number of schools, the first of which was known as the Waldorf school,<ref>IN CONTEXT No. 6, Summer 1984</ref> which later evolved into a worldwide school network. He also founded a system of organic agriculture, now known as biodynamic agriculture, which was one of the first forms of modern organic farming.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His work in medicine is based in pseudoscience and occult ideas. Even though his medical ideas led to the development of a broad range of complementary medications and supportive artistic and biographic therapies,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> they are considered ineffective by the medical community.<ref name="krit">Template:Cite journal</ref> Numerous homes for children and adults with developmental disabilities based on his work (including those of the Camphill movement) are found in Africa, Europe, and North America.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His paintings and drawings influenced Joseph Beuys and other modern artists. His two Goetheanum buildings are considered significant examples of modern architecture,<ref>Both Goetheanum buildings are listed as among the most significant 100 buildings of modern architecture by Goulet, Patrice, Les Temps Modernes?, L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, December 1982</ref><ref>Rudolf Steiner Template:Webarchive, Great Buildings Online</ref><ref>Michael Brennan, rudolf steiner, Artnet</ref><ref>Hortola, Policarp. "The Aesthetics of haemotaphonomy: A study of the stylistic parallels between a science and literature and the visual arts". Eidos 2009, n.10, pp. 162-193</ref><ref>Spirituelles Gemeinschaftswerk Das Erste Goetheanum in Dornach – eine Ausstellung im Schweizerischen Architekturmuseum Basel, Neue Zurcher Zeitung 10.5.2012</ref> and other anthroposophical architects have contributed thousands of buildings to the modern scene.<ref name="Verlag Freies Geistesleben 1982 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref>

Steiner's literary estate is broad. Steiner's writings, published in about forty volumes, include books, essays, four plays ('mystery dramas'), mantric verse, and an autobiography. His collected lectures, making up another approximately 300 volumes, discuss a wide range of themes. Steiner's drawings, chiefly illustrations done on blackboards during his lectures, are collected in a separate series of 28 volumes. Many publications have covered his architectural legacy and sculptural work.<ref name=Biesantz/><ref name=Kugler/>

Steiner has speculated about creating artificial life (and maybe about artificial intelligence), but such speculations were by no means a novelty.<ref name="p243">Template:Cite book</ref>

Education

File:Ecole Steiner-Waldorf Verrieres2.jpg

The Waldorf school in Verrières-le-Buisson (France)

Template:Main As a young man, Steiner was a private tutor and a lecturer on history for the Berlin Arbeiterbildungsschule,<ref name="zander2007">Template:Cite book</ref> an educational initiative for working class adults.<ref name="njacobs">Template:Cite journal</ref> Soon thereafter, he began to articulate his ideas on education in public lectures,<ref name="Ullrich" /> culminating in a 1907 essay on The Education of the Child in which he described the major phases of child development which formed the foundation of his approach to education.<ref>The original essay was published in the journal Lucifer-Gnosis in 1907 and can be found in Steiner's collected essays, Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908, GA34. This essay was republished as an independent brochure in 1909; in a Prefatory note to this editionTemplate:Dead link, Steiner refers to recent lectures on the subject. An English translation can be found in The Education of the Child: And Early Lectures on Education (first English edition 1927, Second English edition 1981, London and New York, 1996 edition Template:ISBN)</ref> His conception of education was influenced by the Herbartian pedagogy prominent in Europe during the late nineteenth century,<ref name=zander2007/>Template:Rp<ref name="Ullrich">Template:Cite book</ref> though Steiner criticized Herbart for not sufficiently recognizing the importance of educating the will and feelings as well as the intellect.<ref>Steiner, The Spirit of the Waldorf School, Template:ISBN. pp. 15-23</ref>

In 1919, Emil Molt invited him to lecture to his workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart. Out of these lectures came the first Waldorf School. In 1922, Steiner presented these ideas at a conference called for this purpose in Oxford by Professor Millicent Mackenzie. He subsequently presented a teacher training course at Torquay in 1924 at an Anthroposophy Summer School organised by Eleanor Merry.<ref name="Torquay">Paull, John (2018) Torquay: In the Footsteps of Rudolf Steiner, Journal of Biodynamics Tasmania. 125 (Mar): 26–31.</ref> The Oxford Conference and the Torquay teacher training led to the founding of the first Waldorf schools in Britain.<ref>Stewart Easton (1980), Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch, Anthroposophic Press. Template:ISBN. p. 267</ref> During Steiner's lifetime, schools based on his educational principles were also founded in Hamburg, Essen, The Hague and London; there are now more than 1000 Waldorf schools worldwide.

Benjamin Lazier calls Steiner a "maverick educator".<ref name="r012">Template:Cite book</ref>

Biodynamic agriculture

Template:Main In 1924, a group of farmers concerned about the future of agriculture requested Steiner's help. Steiner responded with a lecture series on an ecological and sustainable approach to agriculture that increased soil fertility without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.<ref name="BD1924" /> Steiner's agricultural ideas promptly spread and were put into practice internationally<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and biodynamic agriculture is now practiced in Europe,<ref name="olympiad">Template:Cite journal</ref> North America, South America,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Africa,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Asia<ref name="olympiad" /> and Australasia.<ref name="Koberwitz">Paull, John (2011) "Biodynamic Agriculture: The Journey from Koberwitz to the World, 1924–1938", Journal of Organic Systems, 2011, 6(1):27–41.</ref><ref>Groups in N. America, List of Demeter certifying organizations, Other biodynamic certifying organization, Some farms in the world</ref><ref>How to Save the World: One Man, One Cow, One Planet; Thomas Burstyn</ref>

"Steiner’s 'biodynamic agriculture' based on 'restoring the quasi-mystical relationship between earth and the cosmos' was widely accepted in the Third Reich (28)."<ref name="Purcell 2018 t965">Template:Cite web</ref>

A central aspect of biodynamics is that the farm as a whole is seen as an organism, and therefore should be a largely self-sustaining system, producing its own manure and animal feed. Plant or animal disease is seen as a symptom of problems in the whole organism. Steiner also suggested timing such agricultural activities as sowing, weeding, and harvesting to utilize the influences on plant growth of the moon and planets; and the application of natural materials prepared in specific ways to the soil, compost, and crops, with the intention of engaging non-physical beings and elemental forces.Template:Citation needed He encouraged his listeners to verify such suggestions empirically, as he had not yet done.<ref name="Koberwitz" />

In a 2002 newspaper editorial, Peter Treue, agricultural researcher at the University of Kiel, characterized biodynamics as pseudoscience and argued that similar or equal results can be obtained using standard organic farming principles. He wrote that some biodynamic preparations more resemble alchemy or magic akin to geomancy.<ref name="treue">Template:Cite web (Translation: "Blood and Beans: The paradigm shift in the Ministry of Renate Künast replaces science with occultism")</ref>

Anthroposophical medicine

Template:Main From the late 1910s, Steiner was working with doctors to create a new approach to medicine. In 1921, pharmacists and physicians gathered under Steiner's guidance to create a pharmaceutical company called Weleda which now distributes naturopathic medical and beauty products worldwide. At around the same time, Dr. Ita Wegman founded a first anthroposophic medical clinic (now the Ita Wegman Clinic) in Arlesheim. Anthroposophic medicine is practiced in some 80 countries.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> It is a form of alternative medicine based on pseudoscientific and occult notions.<ref name="teils">Template:Cite journal Cited in Template:Cite journal</ref>

Social reform

Template:Main For a period after World War I, Steiner was active as a lecturer on social reform. A petition expressing his basic social ideas was widely circulated and signed by many cultural figures of the day, including Hermann Hesse.

In Steiner's chief book on social reform, Toward Social Renewal, he suggested that the cultural, political and economic spheres of society need to work together as consciously cooperating yet independent entities, each with a particular task: political institutions should be democratic, establish political equality and protect human rights; cultural institutions should nurture the free and unhindered development of science, art, education and religion; and economic institutions should enable producers, distributors, and consumers to cooperate voluntarily to provide efficiently for society's needs.<ref name="Essential">Template:Cite book</ref> He saw this division of responsibility as a vital task which would take up consciously the historical trend toward the mutual independence of these three realms. Steiner also gave suggestions for many specific social reforms.

Steiner proposed that societal well-being fundamentally depends upon a relationship of mutuality between the individuals and the community as a whole:

He expressed another aspect of this in the following motto: Template:Blockquote

According to Cees Leijenhorst, "Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism."<ref name="Hanegraaff Faivre van den Broek Brach 2005 p. 1090">Template:Cite book</ref>

According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner’s teachings had a clear authoritarian ring, and developed a rather crass polemic against 'materialism', 'liberalism', and cultural 'degeneration'. [...] For example, anthroposophical medicine was developed to contrast with the 'materialistic' (and hence 'degenerate') medicine of the establishment."Template:Sfn

Architecture and visual arts

File:Edith Maryon.jpg

English sculptor Edith Maryon belonged to the innermost circle of founders of anthroposophy and was appointed to head the Section of Sculptural Arts at the Goetheanum.

Steiner designed 17 buildings, including the First and Second Goetheanums.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> These two buildings, built in Dornach, Switzerland, were intended to house significant theater spaces as well as a "school for spiritual science".<ref>Sokolina, Anna. Architecture and Anthroposophy. [Arkhitektura i Antroposofiia.] Editor, co-author, transl., photogr. 2 editions. 268p. 348 ills. Moscow: KMK, 2001 Template:ISBN; 2010 Template:ISBN. (In Russian with the summary in English) [www.iartforum.com]</ref> Three of Steiner's buildings have been listed amongst the most significant works of modern architecture.<ref>Goulet, P: "Les Temps Modernes?", L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, December 1982, pp. 8–17.</ref><ref>Sokolina, Anna. "Modernist Topologies: The Goetheanum in Building." In Modernity and Construction of Sacred Space, edited by Aaron French and Katharina Waldner, 149–168. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2024. ISBN 9783111061382 and 9783111062624. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111062624-008.</ref>

His primary sculptural work is The Representative of Humanity (1922), a nine-meter high wood sculpture executed as a joint project with the sculptor Edith Maryon. This was intended to be placed in the first Goetheanum. It shows a central human figure, the "Representative of Humanity," holding a balance between opposing tendencies of expansion and contraction personified as the beings of Lucifer and Ahriman.<ref>Art as Spiritual Activity: Rudolf Steiner's Contribution to the Visual Arts. (1998) Intro. Michael Howard, p.50. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>The Representative of Humanity Between Lucifer and Ahriman, The Wooden Model at the Goetheanum, Judith von Halle, John Wilkes (2010) Template:ISBN from the German Die Holzplastik des Goetheanum (2008) [9] Template:Webarchive</ref><ref>Rudolf Steiner Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman, lecture May, 1915 [10]</ref> It was intended to show, in conscious contrast to Michelangelo's Last Judgment, Christ as mute and impersonal such that the beings that approach him must judge themselves.<ref>Rudolf Steiner, The Etheric Body as a Reflexion of the Universe lecture, June 1915 [11]</ref> The sculpture is now on permanent display at the Goetheanum.

Steiner's blackboard drawings were unique at the time and almost certainly not originally intended as art works.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Joseph Beuys' work, itself heavily influenced by Steiner, has led to the modern understanding of Steiner's drawings as artistic objects.<ref>Lawrence Rinder, Rudolf Steiner: An Aesthetic Perspective Template:Webarchive</ref>

Performing arts

Template:See also Steiner wrote four mystery plays between 1909 and 1913: The Portal of Initiation, The Souls' Probation, The Guardian of the Threshold and The Soul's Awakening, modeled on the esoteric dramas of Edouard Schuré, Maurice Maeterlinck, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.<ref>Ehrenfried Pfeiffer 'On Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas, Four Lectures Given in Spring Valley, 1948' Template:ISBN</ref> Steiner's plays continue to be performed by anthroposophical groups in various countries, most notably (in the original German) in Dornach, Switzerland and (in English translation) in Spring Valley, New York and in Stroud and Stourbridge in the U.K.

In collaboration with Marie von Sivers, Steiner also founded a new approach to acting, storytelling, and the recitation of poetry. His last public lecture course, given in 1924, was on speech and drama. The Russian actor, director, and acting coach Michael Chekhov based significant aspects of his method of acting on Steiner's work.<ref>Template:Cite journalTemplate:Dead link</ref><ref>Richard Solomon, Michael Chekhov and His Approach to Acting in Contemporary Performance Training Template:Webarchive, MA thesis University of Maine, 2002</ref>

Together with Marie von Sivers, Rudolf Steiner also developed the art of eurythmy, sometimes referred to as "visible speech and song". According to the principles of eurythmy, there are archetypal movements or gestures that correspond to every aspect of speech – the sounds (or phonemes), the rhythms, and the grammatical function – to every "soul quality" – joy, despair, tenderness, etc. – and to every aspect of music – tones, intervals, rhythms, and harmonies.

Esoteric schools

Steiner was founder and leader of the following:

• His independent Esoteric School of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1904. This school continued after the break with Theosophy but was disbanded at the start of World War I.
• A lodge called Mystica Aeterna within the Masonic Order of Memphis and Mizraim, which Steiner led from 1906 until around 1914. Steiner added to the Masonic rite a number of Rosicrucian references.<ref>Ellic Howe: The Magicians of the Golden Dawn London 1985, Routledge, pp 262 ff</ref>
• The School of Spiritual Science of the Anthroposophical Society, founded in 1923 as a further development of his earlier Esoteric School. This was originally constituted with a general section and seven specialized sections for education, literature, performing arts, natural sciences, medicine, visual arts, and astronomy.<ref name=GoethRestruct/><ref name="wn.rsarchive.org" /><ref>Elisabeth Vreede, who Steiner had nominated as the first leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section, was responsible for the posthumous 1926 edition of Steiner's astronomy course, concerning this branch of natural science from the point of view of Anthroposophy and spiritual science, under the title The Relationship of the various Natural-Scientific Subjects to Astronomy, [12]</ref> Steiner gave members of the School the first Lesson for guidance into the esoteric work in February 1924.Template:Sfn Though Steiner intended to develop three "classes" of this school, only the first of these was developed in his lifetime (and continues today). An authentic text of the written records on which the teaching of the First Class was based was published in 1992.<ref>Johannes Kiersch, A History of the School of Spiritual Science: The First Class, Temple Lodge Publishing, 2006, p.xii. The detailed account is given in chapter 8</ref>

Philosophical ideas

Goethean science

Template:See also In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884 and 1897, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as essentially phenomenological in nature, rather than theory or model-based. He developed this conception further in several books, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), particularly emphasizing the transformation in Goethe's approach from the physical sciences, where experiment played the primary role, to plant biology, where both accurate perception and imagination were required to find the biological archetypes (Urpflanze). He postulated that Goethe had sought, but been unable to fully find, the further transformation in scientific thinking necessary to properly interpret and understand the animal kingdom.<ref name="Hemleben">Johannes Hemleben, Rudolf Steiner: A documentary biography, Henry Goulden Ltd, 1975, Template:ISBN, pp. 37–49 and pp. 96–100 (German edition: Rowohlt Verlag, 1990, Template:ISBN)</ref> Steiner emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy.<ref name=Hemleben/> Steiner defended Goethe's qualitative description of color as arising synthetically from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast to Newton's particle-based and analytic conception.

A variety of authors have termed Goethean science pseudoscience.<ref name="Storr-Einstein" /><ref name="FlynnDawkins2007">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32">Template:Cite book</ref> According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims:

1. Goethe's Theory of Colours;<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
2. "he called relativity 'brilliant nonsense'";<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" /><ref name="Sven Ove">Template:Cite journal</ref>
3. "he taught that the motions of the planets were caused by the relationships of the spiritual beings that inhabited them";<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
4. vitalism;<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
5. doubting germ theory;<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
6. non-standard approach to physiological systems, including claiming that the heart is not a pump.<ref name="FlynnDawkins2007" />Template:Sfn

According to Rudolf Steiner, mainstream science is Ahrimanic.<ref name="Ahrimanic">Sources for 'Ahrimanic':Template:Bulleted list</ref>

Knowledge and freedom

Template:See also Steiner approached the philosophical questions of knowledge and freedom in two stages. In his dissertation, published in expanded form in 1892 as Truth and Knowledge, Steiner suggests that there is an inconsistency between Kant's philosophy, which posits that all knowledge is a representation of an essential verity inaccessible to human consciousness, and modern science, which assumes that all influences can be found in the sensory and mental world to which we have access. Steiner considered Kant's philosophy of an inaccessible beyond ("Jenseits-Philosophy") a stumbling block in achieving a satisfying philosophical viewpoint.Template:Sfn

Steiner postulates that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that our consciousness divides it into the sense-perceptible appearance, on the one hand, and the formal nature accessible to our thinking, on the other. He sees in thinking itself an element that can be strengthened and deepened sufficiently to penetrate all that our senses do not reveal to us. Steiner thus considered what appears to human experience as a division between the spiritual and natural worlds to be a conditioned result of the structure of our consciousness, which separates perception and thinking. These two faculties give us not two worlds, but two complementary views of the same world; neither has primacy and the two together are necessary and sufficient to arrive at a complete understanding of the world. In thinking about perception (the path of natural science) and perceiving the process of thinking (the path of spiritual training), it is possible to discover a hidden inner unity between the two poles of our experience.<ref name="Schneider" />Template:Rp Truth, for Steiner, is paradoxically both an objective discovery and yet "a free creation of the human spirit, that never would exist at all if we did not generate it ourselves. The task of understanding is not to replicate in conceptual form something that already exists, but rather to create a wholly new realm, that together with the world given to our senses constitutes the fullness of reality."<ref>Steiner, Rudolf, Truth and Science, Preface.</ref>

In The Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner further explores potentials within thinking: freedom, he suggests, can only be approached gradually with the aid of the creative activity of thinking. Thinking can be a free deed; in addition, it can liberate our will from its subservience to our instincts and drives. Free deeds, he suggests, are those for which we are fully conscious of the motive for our action; freedom is the spiritual activity of penetrating with consciousness our own nature and that of the world,<ref>"To be conscious of the laws underlying one's actions is to be conscious of one's freedom. The process of knowing ... is the process of development towards freedom." Steiner, GA3, pp. 91f, quoted in Rist and Schneider, p. 134</ref> and the real activity of acting in full consciousness.<ref name="Schneider" />Template:Rp This includes overcoming influences of both heredity and environment: "To be free is to be capable of thinking one's own thoughts – not the thoughts merely of the body, or of society, but thoughts generated by one's deepest, most original, most essential and spiritual self, one's individuality."<ref name=RAMcD/>

Steiner affirms Darwin's and Haeckel's evolutionary perspectives but extended this beyond its materialistic consequences; he sees human consciousness, indeed, all human culture, as a product of natural evolution that transcends itself. For Steiner, nature becomes self-conscious in the human being. Steiner's description of the nature of human consciousness thus closely parallels that of Solovyov.<ref name="Tarnas">Template:Cite book Cf. Solovyov: "In human beings, the absolute subject-object appears as such, i.e. as pure spiritual activity, containing all of its own objectivity, the whole process of its natural manifestation, but containing it totally ideally – in consciousness....The subject knows here only its own activity as an objective activity (sub specie object). Thus, the original identity of subject and object is restored in philosophical knowledge." (The Crisis of Western Philosophy, Lindisfarne 1996 pp. 42–3)</ref>

"Steiner was a moral individualist".Template:Efn-lr<ref name="t661">Template:Cite book</ref>

Spiritual science

File:Steiner Berlin 1900 big.jpg

Rudolf Steiner 1900

In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity.<ref name="GL" /> From 1900 on, he began lecturing about concrete details of the spiritual world(s), culminating in the publication in 1904 of the first of several systematic presentations, his Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos. As a starting point for the book Steiner took a quotation from Goethe, describing the method of natural scientific observation,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> while in the Preface he made clear that the line of thought taken in this book led to the same goal as that in his earlier work, The Philosophy of Freedom.<ref>Theosophy, from the Prefaces to the First, Second, and Third Editions [13]</ref>

In the years 1903–1908 Steiner maintained the magazine Lucifer-Gnosis and published in it essays on topics such as initiation, reincarnation and karma, and knowledge of the supernatural world.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Some of these were later collected and published as books, such as How to Know Higher Worlds (1904–5) and Cosmic Memory. The book An Outline of Esoteric Science was published in 1910. Important themes include:

• the human being as body, soul and spirit;
• the path of spiritual development;
• spiritual influences on world-evolution and history; and
• reincarnation and karma.

Steiner emphasized that there is an objective natural and spiritual world that can be known, and that perceptions of the spiritual world and incorporeal beings are, under conditions of training comparable to that required for the natural sciences, including self-discipline, replicable by multiple observers. It is on this basis that spiritual science is possible, with radically different epistemological foundations than those of natural science. He believed that natural science was correct in its methods but one-sided for exclusively focusing on sensory phenomena, while mysticism was vague in its methods, though seeking to explore the inner and spiritual life. Anthroposophy was meant to apply the systematic methods of the former to the content of the latter<ref>Steiner, Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, Anthroposophic Press 2006 Template:ISBN</ref><ref>One of Steiner's teachers, Franz Brentano, had famously declared that "The true method of philosophy can only be the method of natural science" (Walach, Harald, "Criticism of Transpersonal Psychology and Beyond", in The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology, ed. H. L. Friedman and G. Hartelius. P. 45.)</ref>

For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective spiritual knowledge always entails creative inner activity.<ref name="GL" /> Steiner articulated three stages of any creative deed:<ref name="Schneider" />Template:Rp

• Moral intuition: the ability to discover or, preferably, develop valid ethical principles;
• Moral imagination: the imaginative transformation of such principles into a concrete intention applicable to the particular situation (situational ethics); and
• Moral technique: the realization of the intended transformation, depending on a mastery of practical skills.

Steiner termed his work from this period onwards Anthroposophy. He emphasized that the spiritual path he articulated builds upon and supports individual freedom and independent judgment; for the results of spiritual research to be appropriately presented in a modern context they must be in a form accessible to logical understanding, so that those who do not have access to the spiritual experiences underlying anthroposophical research can make independent evaluations of the latter's results.<ref name="Schneider">Peter Schneider, Einführung in die Waldorfpädagogik, Template:ISBN</ref> Spiritual training is to support what Steiner considered the overall purpose of human evolution, the development of the mutually interdependent qualities of love and freedom.<ref name="RAMcD">Template:Cite book</ref>

Steiner and Christianity

Steiner appreciated the ritual of the mass he experienced while serving as an altar boy from school age until he was ten years old, and this experience remained memorable for him as a genuinely spiritual one, contrasting with his irreligious family life.<ref name="Steiner 1982 pp. 31-32">Template:Cite book</ref> As a young adult, Steiner had no formal connection to organized religion. In 1899, he experienced what he described as a life-transforming inner encounter with the being of Christ. Steiner was then 38, and the experience of meeting Christ occurred after a tremendous inner struggle. To use Steiner's own words, the "experience culminated in my standing in the spiritual presence of the Mystery of Golgotha in a most profound and solemn festival of knowledge."<ref>Autobiography, Chapters in the Course of My Life: 18611907, Rudolf Steiner, SteinerBooks, 2006</ref> His relationship to Christianity thereafter remained entirely founded upon personal experience, and thus both non-denominational and strikingly different from conventional religious forms.<ref name=RAMcD/>

Christ and human evolution

Steiner describes Christ as the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and human history, redeeming the Fall from Paradise.<ref name="Willmann">Template:Cite journal</ref> He understood the Christ as a being that unifies and inspires all religions, not belonging to a particular religious faith. To be "Christian" is, for Steiner, a search for balance between polarizing extremes<ref name="Willmann" />Template:Rp and the ability to manifest love in freedom.<ref name=RAMcD/>

Central principles of his understanding include:

• The being of Christ is central to all religions, though called by different names by each.
• Every religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born.
• Historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed in our times in order to meet the ongoing evolution of humanity.

In Steiner's esoteric cosmology, the spiritual development of humanity is interwoven in and inseparable from the cosmological development of the universe. Continuing the evolution that led to humanity being born out of the natural world, the Christ being brings an impulse enabling human consciousness of the forces that act creatively, but unconsciously, in nature.<ref>An Outline of Esoteric Science, Anthroposophic, SteinerBooks, 1997</ref>

Divergence from conventional Christian thought

Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic elements.<ref name=Hemleben/> However, unlike many gnostics, Steiner affirms the unique and actual physical Incarnation of Christ in Jesus at the beginning of the Christian era.

One of the central points of divergence with conventional Christian thought is found in Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma.

Steiner also posited two different Jesus children involved in the Incarnation of the Christ: one child descended from Solomon, as described in the Gospel of Matthew; the other child from Nathan, as described in the Gospel of Luke.<ref name="Essential" /><ref name="aspremthesis" /><ref name="x337">Template:Cite book</ref> He references in this regard the fact that the genealogies in these two gospels list twenty-six (Luke) to forty-one (Matthew) completely different ancestors for the generations from David to Jesus.

Steiner's view of the second coming of Christ is also unusual. He suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but rather, meant that the Christ being would become manifest in non-physical form, in the "etheric realm" – i.e. visible to spiritual vision and apparent in community life – for increasing numbers of people, beginning around the year 1933. He emphasized that the future would require humanity to recognize this Spirit of Love in all its genuine forms, regardless of how this is named. He also warned that the traditional name, "Christ", might be used, yet the true essence of this Being of Love be ignored.<ref name=Hemleben/>

The teachings of Anthroposophy got called Christian Gnosticism.<ref name="Christian Gnosticism" /> Indeed, according to the official stance of the Catholic Church, Anthroposophy is "a neognostic heresy".<ref name="Diener Hipolito 2013 p. 77" /><ref name="k531">See also Template:Cite book</ref> Other heresiologists agree.<ref name="Ellwood Partin 2016 p. " /> The Lutheran (Missouri Sinod) apologist and heresiologist Eldon K. Winker quoted Ron Rhodes that Steiner had the same Christology as Cerinthus.<ref name="Winker 1994 p. ">Sources for 'Christology':Template:Bulleted list</ref> Indeed, Steiner thought that Jesus and Christ were two separated beings, who got fused at a certain point in time,<ref name="Cees Christ" /> which can be construed as Gnostic but not as Docetic,<ref name="Cees Christ">Template:Cite book</ref> since "they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion".<ref name="Winker 1994 p."/> "Steiner's Christology is discussed as a central element of his thought in Johannes Hemleben, Rudolf Steiner: A Documentary Biography, trans. Leo Twyman (East Grinstead, Sussex: Henry Goulden, 1975), pp. 96-100. From the perspective of orthodox Christianity, it may be said that Steiner combined a docetic understanding of Christ's nature with the Adoptionist heresy."<ref name="g483">Template:Cite book</ref> Older scholarship says Steiner's Christology is Nestorian.<ref name="k343">Template:Cite book</ref> According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner’s Christology was, however, quite heterodox, and hardly compatible with official church doctrine."<ref name="aspremthesis">Template:Bulleted list</ref>

Two German scholars have called Anthroposophy "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century."Template:Sfn Other scholars stated that Anthroposophy is "aspiring to the status of religious dogma".Template:Sfn According to Maria Carlson, anthroposophy is a "positivistic religion" "offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience."Template:Sfn

According to Swartz, Brandt, Hammer, and Hansson, Anthroposophy is a religion.<ref name="religion">Sources for 'religion':Template:Bulleted list</ref> They also call it "settled new religious movement",Template:Sfn while Martin Gardner called it a cult.<ref>Sources for 'cult' or 'sect':Template:Bulleted list</ref> Another scholar also calls it a new religious movement or a new spiritual movement.Template:Sfn Already in 1924 Anthroposophy got labeled "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".Template:Sfn Other scholars agree it is a new religious movement.<ref name="newreli">Sources for 'new religious movement':Template:Bulleted list</ref> According to Template:Ill, both the theory and practice of Anthroposophy display characteristics of religion, and, according to Zander, Rudolf Steiner would plead no contest.Template:Sfn According to Zander, Steiner's book Geheimwissenschaft [Occult Science] contains Steiner's mythology about cosmogenesis.Template:Sfn Hammer notices that Anthroposophy is a synthesis which does include occultism.<ref name="Lewis Tøllefsen 2015 p. 57">Template:Cite book</ref> Hammer also notices that Steiner's occult doctrines bear a strong resemblance to post-Blavatskyan Theosophy (e.g. Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater).<ref name="Partridge 2014 p. 350">Template:Cite book</ref>

Robert A. McDermott says Anthroposophy belongs to Christian Rosicrucianism.<ref name="Eliade 1987 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref> According to Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Rudolf Steiner "blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie".<ref name="Steiner Seddon Goodrick-Clarke 2004 p. 7">Template:Cite book</ref> He also described Anthroposophy as a [modern] offshoot of Ancient Gnosticism, especially of "the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma".<ref name="b670">Template:Cite book</ref>

According to McDermott, "Rudolf Steiner was an esoteric teacher in the Rosicrucian-Christian tradition [...]".<ref name="g904">Template:Cite book</ref>

Geoffrey Ahern states that Anthroposophy belongs to neo-gnosticism broadly conceived, which he identifies with Western esotericism and occultism.<ref name="Ahern 2009 p. 11">Template:Cite book</ref>

According to Catholic scholars Anthroposophy belongs to the New Age.<ref name="q189">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Between 1903 and 1910 Steiner published multiple Gnostic texts, while that publishing house was having intention of subverting orthodox Christianity.<ref name="u610">Template:Cite book</ref>

Elizabeth Dipple stated that Rudolf Steiner's system was a "neo-Platonic, semi-Gnostic, occult anthroposophical system [...] with its allegiance to mystical Christianity, Rosicrucianism and certain versions of spiritualism [...]".<ref name="y640">Template:Cite book</ref>

Carl Abrahamsson stated that Steiner posited a gnostic Christ.<ref name="a836">Template:Cite book</ref>

Steiner's theology is "redemption through sin", he accuses good Christians of killing the spirit of Christianity.Template:Sfn

The Christian Community

In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Lutheran pastor with a congregation in Berlin, who asked if it was possible to create a more modern form of Christianity. Soon others joined Rittelmeyer – mostly Protestant pastors and theology students, but including several Roman Catholic priests. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the spiritual potency of the sacraments while emphasizing freedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life. He envisioned a new synthesis of Catholic and Protestant approaches to religious life, terming this "modern, Johannine Christianity".<ref name="Essential" />

The resulting movement for religious renewal became known as "The Christian Community". Its work is based on a free relationship to Christ without dogma or policies. Its priesthood, which is open to both men and women, is free to preach out of their own spiritual insights and creativity.

Steiner emphasized that the resulting movement for the renewal of Christianity was a personal gesture of help to a movement founded by Rittelmeyer and others independently of his anthroposophical work.<ref name="Essential" /> The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with Anthroposophy to create a scientific, not faith-based, spirituality.<ref name="Willmann" /> He recognized that for those who wished to find more traditional forms, however, a renewal of the traditional religions was also a vital need of the times.

Reception

File:Wien - Schweizergarten, Rudolf-Steiner-Denkmal.JPG

Memorial for Rudolf Steiner in Vienna

Steiner's work has influenced a broad range of notable personalities. These include:

• philosophers Albert Schweitzer, Owen Barfield and Richard Tarnas;<ref name="GL" />
• writers Saul Bellow,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Andrej Belyj,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Judith Wermuth-Atkinson, The Red Jester: Andrei Bely's Petersburg as a Novel of the European Modern (2012). Template:ISBN</ref><ref>J.D. Elsworth, Andrej Bely:A Critical Study of the Novels, Cambridge:1983, cf. [14]</ref> Michael Ende,<ref>Michael Ende biographical notes Template:Webarchive, "Michael Ende und die magischen Weltbilder"</ref> Selma Lagerlöf,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Edouard Schuré, David Spangler,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and William Irwin Thompson;<ref name="GL" />
• child psychiatrist Eva Frommer;<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• music therapist Maria Schüppel<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• economist Leonard Read;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• ecologist Rachel Carson;<ref name="Rachel Carson Letters">Template:Cite journal</ref>
• artists Joseph Beuys,<ref>John F. Moffitt, "Occultism in Avant-Garde Art: The Case of Joseph Beuys", Art Journal, Vol. 50, No. 1, (Spring, 1991), pp. 96–98</ref> Wassily Kandinsky,<ref>Peg Weiss, "Kandinsky and Old Russia: The Artist as Ethnographer and Shaman", The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 371–373</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Murray Griffin;<ref>Alana O'Brien, In Search of the Spiritual: Murray Griffin's View of the Supersensible World, La Trobe University Museum of Art, 2009</ref>
• esotericist and educationalist George Trevelyan;<ref>Michael Barker, Sir George Trevelyan's Life Of Magic, Swans Commentary, 5 November 2012</ref>
• actor and acting teacher Michael Chekhov;<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• cinema director Andrei Tarkovsky;<ref name="Tarkovsky">Layla Alexander Garrett on Tarkovsky Template:Webarchive, Nostalgia.com</ref>
• composers Jonathan Harvey<ref>Alexandra Coghlan "Weltethos: CBSO, Gardner, Royal Festival Hall" ArtsDesk 08/10/2012</ref> and Viktor Ullmann;<ref>Gwyneth Bravo, Viktor Ullmann</ref> and
• conductor Bruno Walter.<ref>Bruno Walter, "Mein Weg zur Anthroposophie". In: Das Goetheanum 52 (1961), 418–2</ref>

Olav Hammer, though sharply critical of esoteric movements generally, terms Steiner "arguably the most historically and philosophically sophisticated spokesperson of the Esoteric Tradition."<ref name="Hammer">Template:Cite book See also p. 98, where Hammer states that – unusually for founders of esoteric movements – Steiner's self-descriptions of the origins of his thought and work correspond to the view of external historians.</ref>

Albert Schweitzer wrote that he and Steiner had in common that they had "taken on the life mission of working for the emergence of a true culture enlivened by the ideal of humanity and to encourage people to become truly thinking beings".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, Schweitzer was not an adept of mysticism or occultism, but of Age of Enlightenment rationalism.<ref name="Oermann 2016 p. 150">Template:Cite book</ref>

Anthony Storr stated about Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy: "His belief system is so eccentric, so unsupported by evidence, so manifestly bizarre, that rational skeptics are bound to consider it delusional.... But, whereas Einstein's way of perceiving the world by thought became confirmed by experiment and mathematical proof, Steiner's remained intensely subjective and insusceptible of objective confirmation."<ref name="Storr-Einstein">Template:Cite book</ref>

Robert Todd Carroll has said of Steiner that "Some of his ideas on education – such as educating the handicapped in the mainstream – are worth considering, although his overall plan for developing the spirit and the soul rather than the intellect cannot be admired".<ref name="Carroll">Template:Cite web</ref> Translators have pointed out that the German term Geist can be translated equally properly as either mind or spirit, however,<ref>J. B. Baillie (trans.), in Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, v. 2, London: Swan Sonnenschein. p. 429</ref> and that Steiner's usage of this term encompassed both meanings.<ref>Frederick Amrine and Konrad Oberhuber (trans.), in Rudolf Steiner, The Boundaries of Natural Science, Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press. Template:ISBN. p. 125, fn. 1</ref>

The 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner's birth was marked by the first major retrospective exhibition of his art and work, 'Kosmos - Alchemy of the everyday'. Organized by Vitra Design Museum, the traveling exhibition presented many facets of Steiner's life and achievements, including his influence on architecture, furniture design, dance (Eurythmy), education, and agriculture (Biodynamic agriculture).<ref name="SteinerExhibition">Paull, John (2011) Rudolf Steiner - Alchemy of the Everyday - Kosmos - A photographic review of the exhibition</ref> The exhibition opened in 2011 at the Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart, Germany,<ref name="Kosmos">Paull, John (2011) "A Postcard from Stuttgart: Rudolf Steiner's 150th anniversary exhibition 'Kosmos'", Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania, 103 (September), pp. 8–11.</ref>

File:Solothurn Police file on Rudolf Steiner.png

Solothurn Police file on Steiner

The German psychiatrist Wolfgang Treher diagnosed Rudolf Steiner with schizophrenia, in a book from 1966.<ref>Sources for 'Treher':Template:Bulleted list</ref> The Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung was of the same opinion.<ref name="a600">Template:Cite book</ref> Colin Wilson admitted that such a diagnosis makes some sense.<ref name="b917">Template:Cite book</ref> Francis X. King recognizes that other have stated that about Steiner, but King disagrees with the claim that Steiner was a charlatan.<ref name="u297">Template:Cite book</ref> John Francis Moffitt speaks of "Steiner's typically schizoid verbiage", considering it a symptom of schizophrenia.Template:Sfn

Steiner was investigated by the Swiss Police, which stated he was not psychologically normal, but they decided that he was harmless.<ref>Template:YouTube ZDF, 2024. "geistig nicht ganz normalen Menschen"</ref>

Scientism

Olav Hammer has criticized as scientism Steiner's claim to use scientific methodology to investigate spiritual phenomena that were based upon his claims of clairvoyant experience.<ref name=Hammer/> Steiner regarded the observations of spiritual research as more dependable (and above all, consistent) than observations of physical reality. However, he did consider spiritual research to be fallible,<ref name="Zander2">Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland, Göttingen, 2007, Template:ISBN.</ref>Template:Rp and held the view that anyone capable of thinking logically was in a position to correct errors by spiritual researchers.<ref>Steiner: "It may even happen that a researcher who has the power of perception in supersensible realms may fall into error in his logical presentation, and that someone who has no supersensible perception, but who has the capacity for sound thinking, may correct him."Occult Science, Chapter IV</ref>

Race and ethnicity

Rudolf Steiner was an extreme pan-German nationalist and never disavowed such a stance.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Steiner's work includes both universalist, humanist elements and racial assumptions.Template:Sfn Due to the contrast and even contradictions between these elements, one commentator argues: "whether a given reader interprets Anthroposophy as racist or not depends upon that reader's concerns".<ref name="Zander">"Es hängt dabei von den Interessen der Leser ab, ob die Anthroposophie rassistisch interpretiert wird oder nicht." Helmut Zander, "Sozialdarwinistische Rassentheorien aus dem okkulten Untergrund des Kaiserreichs", in Puschner et al., Handbuch zur "Völkischen Bewegung" 1871–1918: 1996.</ref> Steiner considered that by dint of its shared language and culture, each people has a unique essence, which he called its soul or spirit.<ref name=Hammer/> He saw race as a physical manifestation of humanity's spiritual evolution, and at times discussed race in terms of complex hierarchies that were largely derived from 19th century biology, anthropology, philosophy and theosophy. However, he consistently and explicitly subordinated race, ethnicity, gender, and indeed all hereditary factors, to individual factors in development.<ref name=Zander/> For Steiner, human individuality is centered in a person's unique biography, and he believed that an individual's experiences and development are not bound by a single lifetime or the qualities of the physical body.<ref name="Ravagli">Lorenzo Ravagli, Zanders Erzählungen, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag 2009, Template:ISBN, pp. 184f</ref>

Steiner occasionally characterized specific races, nations and ethnicities in ways that have been deemed racist by critics.<ref>Arno Frank, "Einschüchterung auf Waldorf-Art", Die Tageszeitung 4 August 2000.</ref> This includes descriptions by him of certain races and ethnic groups as flowering, others as backward, or destined to degenerate or disappear.<ref name=Zander/> He presented explicitly hierarchical views of the spiritual evolution of different races,<ref name="Treitel 2004 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref> including—at times, and inconsistently—portraying the white race, European culture or Germanic culture as representing the high point of human evolution as of the early 20th century, although he did describe them as destined to be superseded by future cultures.<ref name=Zander/>

Throughout his life Steiner consistently emphasized the core spiritual unity of all the world's peoples and sharply criticized racial prejudice. He articulated beliefs that the individual nature of any person stands higher than any racial, ethnic, national or religious affiliation.<ref name="CL" /><ref name="Essential" /> His belief that race and ethnicity are transient and superficial, and not essential aspects of the individual,<ref name=Zander/> was partly rooted in his conviction that each individual reincarnates in a variety of different peoples and races over successive lives, and that each of us thus bears within him or herself the heritage of many races and peoples.<ref name=Zander/><ref name="Kugler Baur 2007 p. ">Template:Cite book</ref> Toward the end of his life, Steiner predicted that race will rapidly lose any remaining significance for future generations.<ref name=Zander/> In Steiner's view, culture is universal, and explicitly not ethnically based, and he vehemently criticized imperialism.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In the context of his ethical individualism, Steiner considered "race, folk, ethnicity and gender" to be general, describable categories into which individuals may choose to fit, but from which free human beings can and will liberate themselves.<ref name=Ravagli/>

Martins and Vukadinović describe the racism of Anthroposophy as spiritual and paternalistic (i.e. benevolent), in contrast to the materialistic and often malign racism of fascism.<ref name="Vukadinović 2022 p. 582">Template:Cite book</ref> Olav Hammer, university professor expert in new religious movements and Western esotericism, confirms that now the racist and anti-Semitic character of Steiner's teachings can no longer be denied, even if that is "spiritual racism".<ref name="confirm">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Steiner did influence Italian Fascism, which exploited "his racial and anti-democratic dogma."<ref name="Pilkington Sutcliffe 2023 p. 194">Template:Cite book</ref> The fascist ministers Giovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò (nicknamed "the Anthroposophist duke"; he became antifascist after taking part in Benito Mussolini's government<ref name="peter">Template:Cite book</ref>) and Ettore Martinoli have openly expressed their sympathy for Rudolf Steiner.<ref name="Pilkington Sutcliffe 2023 p. 194" /> Most from the occult pro-fascist UR Group were Anthroposophists.Template:Sfn<ref name="turris">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="beraldo">Template:Cite book</ref>

In fact, "Steiner's collected works, moreover, totalling more than 350 volumes, contain pervasive internal contradictions and inconsistencies on racial and national questions."<ref name="Peter">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>See also Template:Cite thesis</ref>

According to Munoz, in the materialist perspective (i.e. no reincarnations), Anthroposophy is racist, but in the spiritual perspective (i.e. reincarnations mandatory) it is not racist.Template:Sfn

Judaism

During the years when Steiner was best known as a literary critic, he published a series of articles attacking various manifestations of antisemitism and criticizing some of the most prominent anti-Semites of the time as "barbaric" and "enemies of culture".<ref>Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus, 11(37):307-8, 11 September 1901. Article. Mitteilungen, 11(38):316, 18 September 1901. Article. Cf. GA31 for a complete list and text of articles.</ref><ref name="HuH">"Hammer und Hakenkreuz – Anthroposophie im Visier der völkischen Bewegung"Template:Dead link, Südwestrundfunk, 26 November 2004</ref> In contrast, however, Steiner also promoted full assimilation of the Jewish people into the nations in which they lived, suggesting that Jewish cultural and social life had lost its contemporary relevance<ref>Thesenpapier von Dr. Jan Badewien zur Veranstaltung: Antijudaismus bei Rudolf Steiner?, Universität Paderborn Template:Webarchive, 23.01.02.</ref> and "that Judaism still exists is an error of history".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Steiner was a critic of his contemporary Theodor Herzl's goal of a Zionist state, and indeed of any ethnically determined state, as he considered ethnicity to be an outmoded basis for social life and civic identity.<ref>"The need to overcome nationalism was one of the central themes of [Steiner's] social agenda": Hans-Jürgen Bracker, "The individual and the unity of humankind". in Judaism and Anthroposophy, ed. Fred Paddock and Mado Spiegler. Anthroposophic Press, 2003, Template:ISBN. p. 100. See also "Humanistischer Zionismus", in Novalis 5 (1997): "Steiner generell die allmähliche Überwindung und Auflösung von Stammes-, Volks-, Nationen- und »Rasse«-grenzen vertrat"</ref>

Steiner financed the publication of and wrote a foreword for the book Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg (1919) by Template:Ill, partly based upon his own ideas,<ref>Sources for 'Heise':Template:Bulleted list</ref> a book which has been called "a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism."Template:Sfn The publication comprised a conspiracy theory according to which World War I was a consequence of a collusion of Freemasons and Jews their purpose being the destruction of Germany. The writing was later enthusiastically received by the Nazi Party.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Writings (selection)

See also Works in German

The standard edition of Steiner's Collected Works constitutes about 422 volumes. This includes 44 volumes of his writings (books, essay, plays, and correspondence), over 6000 lectures, and some 80 volumes (some still in production) documenting his artistic work (architecture, drawings, paintings, graphic design, furniture design, choreography, etc.).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His architectural work, particularly, has also been documented extensively outside of the Collected Works.<ref name="Kugler">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Biesantz">Template:Cite book</ref>

• Goethean Science (1883–1897)
• Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886)
• Truth and Knowledge, doctoral thesis, (1892)
• Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path, also published as the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and the Philosophy of Freedom (1894) Template:ISBN
• Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Age (Template:Not a typo)
• Christianity as Mystical Fact (1902)
• Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos (1904) Template:ISBN
• How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (1904–5) Template:ISBN
• Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man (1904) (Also published as The Submerged Continents of Atlantis and Lemuria)
• The Education of the ChildTemplate:Dead link, (1907) Template:ISBN
• The Way of Initiation Template:Webarchive, (1908) (English edition trans. by Max Gysi)
• Initiation and Its Results Template:Webarchive, (1909) (English edition trans. by Max Gysi)
• An Outline of Esoteric Science (1910) Template:ISBN
• Four Mystery Dramas (1913)
• The Renewal of the Social Organism (1919)
• Fundamentals of Therapy: An Extension of the Art of Healing Through Spiritual Knowledge (1925)
• Reincarnation and Immortality, Rudolf Steiner Publications. (1970) Template:LCCN
• Rudolf Steiner: An Autobiography, Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1977, Template:ISBN (Originally, The Story of my Life)
• Rudolf Steiner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom Template:Webarchive Garber Communications; 2nd revised edition (July 1985) Template:ISBN

See also

• Esotericism
• Guardian of the Threshold
• Rudolf Steiner and colour mysticism
• Martinus

Further reading

• Almon, Joan (ed.) Meeting Rudolf Steiner, firsthand experiences compiled from the Journal for Anthroposophy since 1960, Template:ISBN
• Anderson, Adrian: Rudolf Steiner Handbook, Port Campbell Press, 2014, Template:ISBN
• Childs, Gilbert, Rudolf Steiner: His Life and Work, Template:ISBN
• Davy, Adams and Merry, A Man before Others: Rudolf Steiner Remembered. Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993.
• Easton, Stewart, Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch, Template:ISBN
• Hemleben, Johannes and Twyman, Leo, Rudolf Steiner: An Illustrated Biography. Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001.
• Kries, Mateo and Vegesack, Alexander von, Rudolf Steiner: Alchemy of the Everyday, Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, 2010. Template:ISBN
• Lachman, Gary, Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work, 2007, Template:ISBN
• Lindenberg, Christoph, Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie (2 vols.). Stuttgart, 1997, Template:ISBN
• Template:Cite book
• Lissau, Rudi, Rudolf Steiner: Life, Work, Inner Path and Social Initiatives. Hawthorne Press, 2000.
• McDermott, Robert, The Essential Steiner. Harper Press, 1984
• Prokofieff, Sergei O., Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries. Temple Lodge Publishing, 1994.
• Seddon, Richard, Rudolf Steiner. North Atlantic Books, 2004.
• Shepherd, A. P., Rudolf Steiner: Scientist of the Invisible. Inner Traditions, 1990.
• Schiller, Paul, Rudolf Steiner and Initiation. SteinerBooks, 1990.
• Selg, Peter, Rudolf Steiner as a Spiritual Teacher. From Recollections of Those Who Knew Him, SteinerBooks Publishing, 2010.
• Sokolina, Anna, ed. Architecture and Anthroposophy. 2 editions. 268p. 348 ills. (In Russian with the Summary in English.) Moscow: KMK, 2001 Template:ISBN; 2010 Template:ISBN
• Tummer, Lia and Lato, Horacio, Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy for Beginners. Writers & Readers Publishing, 2001.
• Turgeniev, Assya, Reminiscences of Rudolf Steiner and Work on the First Goetheanum, Template:ISBN
• Villeneuve, Crispian, Rudolf Steiner: The British Connection, Elements from his Early Life and Cultural Development, Template:ISBN
• Wachsmuth, Guenther, The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner: From the Turn of the Century to his Death, Whittier Books 1955.
• Welburn, Andrew, Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy and the Crisis of Contemporary Thought, Template:ISBN
• Wilkinson, Roy, Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to his Spiritual World-View, Template:ISBN
• Wilson, Colin, Rudolf Steiner: The Man and His Vision. An Introduction to the Life and Ideas of the Founder of Anthroposophy, The Aquarian Press, 1985, Template:ISBN

External links

Template:Sister project links Template:Library resources box General

• Rudolf Steiner Biographies
• Rudolf Steiner Overview
• The Goetheanum

Writings

• The Rudolf Steiner Archive with English translations of thousands of Steiner's works: books, lectures, articles, essays, verses, etc.
• Rudolf Steiner Library, USA
• Rudolf Steiner Audio
• An index of ALL lectures given by Rudolf Steiner, searchable and sort-able by title, keyword, date, place, and GA or Schmidt number
• An index of lectures in English translationTemplate:Dead link, sort-able by title, date, place, and GA or Schmidt number
• A list of all known English translations
• Template:Gutenberg author
• Template:Internet Archive author
• Template:Librivox author
• Collected works in English Template:Webarchive
• German/English list of collected works

Articles and broadcasts about Steiner

• The Personality of Rudolf Steiner and his Development, Edouard Schuré, Macoy Publishing (1910), from French, Paris (1908)
• Heiner Ullrich, "Rudolf Steiner" Template:Webarchive, Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol.XXIV, no. 3/4, 1994, p. 555–572
• Rudolf Steiner: 'Scientist of the Invisible' (Carlin Romano, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Volume 53, Issue 37, 2007, p. B16)
• "From schools to business – Rudolf Steiner's legacy lives on", Deutsche Welle broadcast (in English), 28.02.2011
• Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings, Berkeley Art Museum Template:Webarchive
• Skeptics Dictionary
• Template:PM20