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Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner (February 25, 1861 – March 30, 1925) was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, architect, playwright, educator, social thinker and esotericist. He was born in Kraljevica, Croatia, then part of the Austrian Empire. He is the founder of anthroposophy, a movement based on the notion that there is a spiritual world accessible to pure thought through a path of self-development, and many of its practical applications, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine, and new artistic impulses, especially eurythmy.

Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual component. In his epistemological works, he advocated the Goethean view that thinking itself is a perceptive instrument for ideas, just as the eye is a perceptive instrument for light.

He characterized anthroposophy as follows:

Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe... Anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of life, certain questions on the nature of the human being and the universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst.

Biography

Childhood and education

Steiner's father was a huntsman in the service of Count Hoyos in Geras, and later became a telegraph operator and stationmaster on the Southern Austrian Railway. When he was born, his father was stationed in Murakirály in the Muraköz region, then part of Hungary (present-day Donji Kraljevec, Međimurje region, northernmost Croatia). When he was two years old, the family moved into Burgenland, Austria, in the foothills of the eastern Alps.

In his childhood, Steiner was interested in mathematics and philosophy. From 1879 to 1883 he attended the Technische Hochschule (Technical University) in Vienna, where he studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In 1882, one of Steiner's teachers at the university in Vienna, Karl Julius Schroer, suggested Steiner's name to Professor Joseph Kurschner, editor of a new edition of Goethe's works. Steiner was then asked to become the edition's scientific editor.

In his autobiography, Steiner related that at 21, on the train between his home village and Vienna, he met a simple herb gatherer, Felix Kogutski, who spoke about the spiritual world "as someone who had his own experiences of it...." This herb gatherer introduced Steiner to a person that Steiner only identified as a "master", and who had a great influence on Steiner's subsequent development, in particular directing him to study Fichte's philosophy.

In 1891 Steiner earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Rostock in Germany with his thesis, later published in expanded form as Truth and Science.

Rudolf Steiner 1889

Writer and philosopher

In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kurschner edition, Steiner was invited to come to the Goethe archives in Weimar to become an editor for the official complete edition of Goethe's works. Steiner remained with the archive until 1896. As well as the introductions for and commentaries to the resulting 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) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897). During this time he also collaborated in complete editions of Arthur Schopenhauer's work and that of the writer Jean Paul and wrote articles for various journals. These included a series for the Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus, a magazine devoted to combatting anti-semitism, in which Steiner attacked the anti-Semitism and anti-Semites of his time.

Steiner was among many (including Emile Zola) who wrote in defense of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish Captain in the French army falsely accused of treason.

During his time at the archives, Steiner wrote what he considered his most important philosophical work, Die Philosophie der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedom) (1894), an exploration of epistemology and ethics that suggested a path upon which humans can become spiritually free beings (see below).

In 1896, Friedrich Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, asked Steiner to set the Nietzsche archive in Naumburg in order. Her brother by that time was no longer compos mentis. Forster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of the catatonic philosopher and Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the book Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom.

In 1897, Steiner left the Weimar archives and moved to Berlin. He became the owner and chief editor of as well as an active contributor to the literary journal Magazin für Literatur, where he hoped to find a readership sympathetic to his philosophy. At this time he was also a close friend of the pederast writer John Henry Mackay. Dissatisfaction with his editorial style led to his departure from the magazine.

Rudolf Steiner 1900

Spiritual research

Beginning around 1900 and until his death in 1925, Steiner articulated an ongoing stream of "experiences of the spiritual world" — experiences he said had touched him from an early age on. Steiner aimed to apply his training in mathematics, science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences.

Steiner believed that non-physical beings existed everywhere and that through freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience these beings, as well as the higher nature of oneself and others. Steiner believed that such discipline and training would help a person to become a more creative and loving individual.

Steiner's goal for his work was for it to be a development of the philosophical work of Franz Brentano - with whom he had studied - and Wilhelm Dilthey, founders of the phenomenological movement in European philosophy. Steiner was also influenced by Goethe's phenomenological approach to science.

Steiner set forth his spiritual research in a vast number of texts and lectures; notable are:

  • Theosophy: An Introduction (1904), in which he sets forth his ideas of the body-soul-spirit constitution of the human being, reincarnation, and the unity of the spiritual and sense-perceptible ("as two sides of a single coin").
  • Knowledge of Higher Worlds (1904/5), in which he describes his conception of a path of spiritual development, detailing many principles of life (openness, positivity, respect for others), spiritual exercises (control of thought and will, directed imaginations) and experiences likely to arise on this path (trials and spiritual perceptions).
  • An Outline of Esoteric Science (1910), in which he describes a vast panorama of cosmic evolution, the spiritual hierarchies that guided and guide this evolution, and the path of spiritual development that leads to such perceptions.

Steiner led the following esoteric schools:

  • His independent Esoteric School of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1904. This school continued after the break with theosophy (see below) and eventually led into the
  • School of Spiritual Science of the Anthroposophical Society, founded in 1923. This was intended to have three "grades", but Steiner only developed the first one of these. Unlike most esoteric schools, all of the texts relating to the "School of Spiritual Science" have been published (in the full edition of Steiner's works).
  • In 1906 Steiner became leader of a lodge called Mystica Aeterna within the masonic Order of Memphis and Mizraim, an affiliation that ended around 1914. Steiner added to the masonic rite a number of Rosicrucian references. (The figure of Christian Rosenkreutz also plays an important role in several of his later lectures.)

Steiner and the Theosophical Society

Main article: Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical Society

A turning point in Steiner's life came in 1899, when he published an article titled "Goethe's Secret Revelation" on 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. (It was also within this society that Steiner met Marie von Sievers, who was to become his second wife.) In 1904 Steiner was appointed by Annie Besant to be leader of the Esoteric Society for Germany and Austria, having made it clear that this school would teach a Western spiritual path harmonious with, but differing fundamentally in approach from, mainstream Theosophical paths.

The German Section of the Theosophical Society grew rapidly as Steiner lectured throughout much of Europe on his new spiritual science. Initially, there was a harmonious relationship of mutual appreciation between Besant and Steiner despite the divergences in their spiritual paths and teachings. Beginning in 1907, however, tensions began to grow between the main society and the German section over a variety of issues. These came to a head over the question of Jiddu Krishnamurti, a young Indian boy to whom Besant and Leadbeater attributed messianic status. The vast majority of German-speaking theosophists broke away to found a new Anthroposophical Society at the end of 1912. Shortly thereafter, Besant revoked the German section's membership in the Theosophical Society on the grounds of the national section's refusal to allow admission to adherents of the Krishnamurti cult Star of the East.

The Anthroposophical Society and its cultural activities

The Anthroposophical Society grew rapidly. Fueled by a need to find a home for their yearly conferences, which included performances of plays written by Eduard Schuré as well as Steiner himself, 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 significant part by volunteers who offered craftsmanship or simply a will to learn new skills. Once World War I started in 1914, the Goetheanum volunteers could hear the sound of cannon fire beyond the Swiss border, but despite the war, people from all over Europe worked peaceably side by side on the building's construction. In 1919, the Goetheanum staged the world premiere of a complete production of Goethe's Faust. In this same year, the first Waldorf school was founded in Stuttgart, Germany.

Beginning in 1919, Steiner was called upon to assist with numerous practical activities (see below). His lecture activity expanded enormously. At the same time, the Goetheanum developed as a wide-ranging cultural centre. On New Year's Eve, 1922/1923, it was burned down by arson; only his massive sculpture depicting the spiritual forces active in the world and the human being, the Representative of Humanity, was saved. Steiner immediately began work designing a second Goetheanum building – made of concrete instead of wood – which was completed in 1928, three years after his death.

During the Anthroposophical Society's Christmas conference in 1923, Steiner founded the School of Spiritual Science, intended as an open university for research and study. This university, which has various sections or faculties, has grown steadily; it is particularly active today in the fields of education, medicine, agriculture, art, natural science, literature, philosophy, sociology and economics. Steiner spoke of laying the foundation stone of the new society in the hearts of his listeners, while the First Goetheanum's foundation stone had been laid in the earth. He gave a Foundation Stone meditation to anchor this.

Attacks, illness and death

The arson had a context. Threats had been made publicly against the Goetheanum and against Steiner himself.

Reacting to the catastrophic situation in post-war Germany, Steiner had gone on extensive lecture tours promoting his social ideas of the Threefold Social Order, entailing a fundamentally different political structure; he suggested that only through independence of the cultural, political and economic realms could such catastrophes as the World War be avoided. He also 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.

In 1919, the political theorist of the National Socialist movement in Germany, Dietrich Eckart, attacked Steiner and suggested that he was a Jew. In 1921, Adolf Hitler attacked Steiner in an article in the right-wing "Völkischen Beobachter" newspaper and other nationalist extremists in Germany were calling up a "war against Steiner". 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 came to power in Germany, it would no longer be possible for him to enter the country; he also warned against the disastrous effects it would have for Central Europe if the National Socialists came to power.

The loss of the Goetheanum affected Steiner's health seriously. From 1923 on, he showed signs of increasing frailness and illness. He 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. On the one hand, many of these were for practical areas of life: education, curative eurythmy, speech and drama. On the other hand, Steiner began a new, extensive series of lectures presenting his research on the successive lives of various individuals, and on the technique of karma research generally. The theme of karma, he once said, was his true life mission; though he had attempted to treat it before, it had never met with sufficient interest. Finally, he had an interested listenership.

By autumn, 1924, however, he was too weak to continue; his last lecture was held in September of that year. He died on March 30, 1925.

Philosophical development

Goetheanistic science

In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884-97, 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 imagination was required to find the biological archetypes (Urpflanze), and 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.

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. He 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.

Knowledge and freedom

Steiner approached the philosophical questions of epistemology and freedom in two stages. The first was his dissertation, published in expanded form in 1892 as Truth and Knowledge. Here Steiner suggests that there is an inconsistency between Kant's philosophy, which postulated that the essential verity of the world was inaccessible to human consciousness, and modern science, which assumes that all influences can be found in what Steiner termed the "sinnlichen und geistlichen" (sensory and mental/spiritual) world to which we have access. Steiner terms Kant's "Jenseits-Philosophie" (philosophy of an inaccessible beyond) a stumbling block in achieving a satisfying philosophical viewpoint.

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 explicitly denies all justification to a division between faith and knowledge; otherwise expressed, between the spiritual and natural worlds. Their apparent duality is conditioned by the structure of our consciousness, which separates perception and thinking, but these two faculties give us 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.

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."

A new stage of Steiner's philosophical development is expressed in his Philosophy of Freedom. Here, he further explores potentials within thinking: freedom, he suggests, can only be approached asymptotically and 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, and the real activity of acting in full consciousness. (See the main article on the book Philosophy of Freedom for a fuller exposition.)

Steiner sees human consciousness, indeed, all human culture, as a product of natural evolution that transcends itself; nature becomes self-conscious in the human being. He thus affirms Darwin's and Haeckel's evolutionary perspectives but extends this beyond its materialistic consequences. He seems here to build upon Solvyov, whose description of the nature of human consciousness is virtually identical with Steiner's:

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.

Spiritual science

Main article: Anthroposophy

In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity. 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, followed by How to Know Higher Worlds (1904/5), Cosmic Memory (a collection of articles written between 1904 and 1908), and An Outline of Esoteric Science (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, which he considered to be his own central theme.

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, but including extraordinary 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.

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 knowledge always entails inner creativity.

Steiner termed his work from this period on Anthroposophy.

Breadth of activity

File:Steiner drawing.jpg
Blackboard drawing by Rudolf Steiner

Steiner is certainly remarkable for the breadth of his achievements. The school movement he founded has become as successful as those of Maria Montessori. Biodynamic agriculture is one of the two pillars of the modern organic farming movement, and is as important today as the ideas of one of the other founders of modern organic agriculture, Albert Howard. Anthroposophic medicine has achieved as broad a range of medicinal remedies as Hahnemann's homeopathy; in addition, a broad range of supportive therapies — both artistic and biographical — have arisen out of Steiner's work. The homes for the handicapped based on his work are as successful as those of L'Arche. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries, and the list of people influenced by him includes Joseph Beuys and other significant modern artists. His two Goetheanum buildings are generally accepted to be masterpieces of modern architecture, and other anthroposophical architects have contributed thousands of innovative buildings to the modern scene. One of first institutions to practice ethical banking was an anthroposophical bank working out of Steiner's ideas.

Steiner's literary estate is correspondingly broad. Steiner's writings are published in about forty volumes, including books, essays, plays ('mystery dramas'), mantric verse and an autobiography. His collected lectures make up another approximately 300 volumes, and nearly every imaginable theme is covered somewhere here. (Much of Steiner's work is available on-line at the Rudolf Steiner archive, and Steiner's complete works are searchable at the German language archive). Steiner's drawings are collected in a separate series of 28 volumes. Many publications have covered his architectural legacy and sculptural work.

Education

As a young man, Steiner already supported the independence of educational institutions from governmental control. In 1907, he wrote a long essay, entitled "Education in the Light of Spiritual Science", in which he described the major phases of child development and suggested that these would be the basis of a healthy approach to education.

In 1919, Emil Molt invited him to lecture on the topic of education to the workers at Molt's factory in Stuttgart. Out of this came a new school, the Waldorf school, and Waldorf education — sometimes known as Steiner Education — which has grown to be one of the largest independent schooling systems in the world. There are now nearly 1,000 Waldorf/Steiner schools worldwide; see the List of Waldorf Schools.

Social activism

For a period after World War I, Steiner was extremely active as a lecturer on social questions. A petition expressing his basic social ideas (signed by Herman Hesse, among others) was very widely circulated. His main book on social questions, Toward Social Renewal, sold tens of thousands of copies. Today around the world there are a number of innovative banks, companies, charitable institutions, and schools for developing new cooperative forms of business, all working partly out of Steiner’s social ideas. One example is The Rudolf Steiner Foundation (RSF), incorporated in 1984, and as of 2004 with estimated assets of $70 million. RSF provides "charitable innovative financial services". According to the independent organizations Co-op America and the Social Investment Forum Foundation, RSF is "one of the top 10 best organizations exemplifying the building of economic opportunity and hope for individuals through community investing."

Steiner suggested that the cultural, political and economic spheres of society needed to be sufficiently independent of one another to be able to mutually correct each other in an ongoing way. He suggested that human society had been moving slowly, over thousands of years, toward articulation of society into three independent yet mutually corrective realms, and that a Threefold Social Order was not some utopia that could be implemented in a day or even a century. It was a gradual process that he expected would continue to develop for thousands of years. Nevertheless, he gave many specific suggestions for social reforms that he thought would increase the threefold articulation of society. He believed in democracy for political life, liberty in cultural life, and voluntary, uncoerced cooperation in economic life.

First Goetheanum.

Architecture and sculpture

Steiner designed 17 buildings, including the First and Second Goetheanums. These two buildings, built in Dornach, Switzerland, were intended to house a University for Spiritual Science. Three of Steiner's buildings, including both Goetheanum buildings, have been listed amongst the most significant works of modern architecture.

As a sculptor, his works include The Representative of Humanity (1922). This nine-meter high wood sculpture was a joint project with the sculptor Edith Maryon; it is on permanent display at the Goetheanum in Dornach.

The Representative of Humanity (detail).

Performing arts

Together with Marie von Sievers-Steiner, Rudolf Steiner developed the art of Eurythmy, sometimes referred to as "visible speech and visible 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, the grammatical function, and so on - to every "soul quality" - laughing, despair, intimacy, etc. - and to every aspect of music - tones, intervals, rhythms, harmonies, etc.

Eurythmy performances are held at the Goetheanum in Dornach, and theatres throughout the world. Eurythmy schools in many countries offer trainings.

As a playwright, Steiner wrote four "Mystery Dramas" between 1909 and 1913, including The Portal of Initiation and The Soul's Awakening. They are still performed today.

Steiner also founded a new approach to artistic speech and drama; see his Speech and Drama Course. Various ensembles work with this approach, called "speech formation" (Ger.:Sprachgestaltung), and trainings exist in various countries, including England, the United States, Switzerland, and Germany. The actor Michael Chekhov extended this approach in what is now known as the Chekhov method.

Anthroposophical Medicine

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 natural medical products worldwide. At around the same time, Dr. Ita Wegman founded a first anthroposophic medical clinic in Arlesheim, Switzerland (now called the Wegman Clinic).

Anthroposophical medicine is a holistic and salutogenetic approach to health. It thus focuses on ensuring that the conditions for health are present in a person; combating illness is often necessary but is insufficient alone. The approach was founded in the 1920s by Rudolf Steiner in conjunction with Ita Wegman, who carried the impulse forward after Steiner's death in 1925.

This approach to medicine begins from the proposition that true healing takes place when the body is stimulated to overcome the influences that are causing illness, whether these arise from its own constitution or the surroundings — whether they be poisonous substances, antagonistic organisms (bacterial or viral), or psychological states. Under circumstances where it is not possible to support the body's own resistance, it may be necessary to overcome symptoms by purely external means such as surgery and allopathic medicine offer. As conventional medicines and therapies may also be employed, anthroposophical medicine provides an extension of conventional medical approaches rather than an alternative to these.

As a variety of influences may be causing illness, a corresponding range of treatment possibilities are employed. Therapeutic approaches presently used by anthroposophical doctors include anthroposophic remedies based upon homeopathic principles, oil dispersion baths, massage therapy, artistic therapies to heal the psychological causes of illness, and biographical therapy to establish or re-establish a sense of purpose in the ill person. There are specialized trainings in each of these therapeutic professions, as well as in anthroposophical nursing and medicine. An anthroposophic doctor must also have a medical degree from an established and certified medical school.

Biodynamic Farming

Biodynamic agriculture, or biodynamics comprises an ecological and sustainable farming system, that includes many of the ideas of organic farming (but predates the term). In 1924, a group of farmers concerned about the future of agriculture requested Steiner's help; Steiner responded with a lecture series on agriculture. This was the origin of biodynamic agriculture, which is now practiced throughout much of Europe, North America, and Australasia. A central concept of these lectures was to "individualize" the farm by not bringing outside materials onto the farm, but producing all needed materials such as manure and animal feed from within what he called the "farm organism". Other aspects of Biodynamic farming inspired by Steiner's lectures include timing activities such as planting in relation to the movement patterns of the moon and planets and applying "preparations", which consist of natural materials which have been processed in specific ways, to soil, compost piles, and plants with the intention of engaging non-physical beings and elemental forces. Steiner, in his lectures, encouraged his listeners to verify his suggestions scientifically, as he had not yet done.

The early decades of the twentieth-century saw new methods of agriculture being proposed and used Steiner believed that the introduction of chemical farming was a major problem. Steiner was convinced that the quality of food in his time was degraded, and he believed the source of the problem were artificial fertilizers and pesticides, however he did not believe this was only because of the chemical or biological properties relating to the substances involved, but also due to spiritual shortcomings in the whole chemical approach to farming. Steiner considered the world and everything in it as simultaneously spiritual and material in nature, an approach termed monism. He also believed that living matter was different from dead matter. In other words, Steiner believed synthetic nutrients were not the same as their more living counterparts.

The name "biologically dynamic" or "biodynamic" was coined by Steiner's adherents. A central aspect of biodynamics is that the farm as a whole is seen as an organism, and therefore should be a closed self-nourishing system, which the preparations nourish. Disease of organisms is not to be tackled in isolation but is a symptom of problems in the whole organism.

Steiner and Christianity

Multicultural emphasis

Steiner was early in seeing the challenges of a multicultural society. He articulated the need for a spirituality that could respect and unite all religions and cultures. His line of thought can be summarized as follows:

Many people, especially those of Eastern cultures, see the need for a spiritual basis for a culture. Others, especially in the West, live in a materialistic framework that has achieved astonishing results, especially through the achievements of modern science, but has abandoned its spiritual roots. Steiner suggested that, without a reconciliation of these two, a clash of cultures would be inevitable. He suggested that the East (for Steiner, characteristically spiritually centered people and peoples) would only respect the West (characteristically people and peoples who focus on external reality and achievements) when a new spirituality arose in the West, a spirituality that united the achievements of both cultures.

The Christ being as the center of earthly evolution

Steiner's writing, though appreciative of all religions and cultural developments, emphasizes recent Western (rather than older Hindu or Buddhist) esoteric thought as having evolved to meet contemporary needs. He describes Christ and his mission on earth as having a particularly important place in human evolution.

Steiner emphasized, however, that:

Christianity has evolved out of previous religions, The being that manifests in Christianity also manifests in all faiths and religions, Each religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born, The historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed considerably to meet the on-going evolution of humanity. It is the being that unifies all religions, and not a particular religious faith, that Steiner saw as the central force in human evolution. This "Christ Being" is for Steiner not only the Redeemer of the Fall from Paradise, but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's "evolutionary" processes and of human history, manifesting in all religions and cultures.

Steiner's Christianity differs from that of the Gnostics who viewed the Christ phenomenon through the knowledge gained through earlier gnosticism, whereas for Steiner, Christ's incarnation was a historical reality and a pivotal and unique point in human history. In a lecture explaining the relationship between Anthroposophy and Christianity, Steiner explained: "Spiritual science does not want to usurp the place of Christianity; on the contrary it would like to be instrumental in making Christianity understood. Thus it becomes clear to us through spiritual science that the being whom we call Christ is to be recognized as the center of life on earth, that the Christian religion is the ultimate religion for the earth's whole future. Spiritual science shows us particularly that the pre-Christian religions outgrow their one-sidedness and come together in the Christian faith. It is not the desire of spiritual science to set something else in the place of Christianity; rather it wants to contribute to a deeper, more heartfelt understanding of Christianity."

Divergence from conventional Christian thought

Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic elements. Only a very simplified account of those views can be given here, because though they only amount to about 4% of his total works, that 4% still amounts to about 15 volumes of books and lectures — and many of the other 335 or more volumes contain additional scattered comments on Christianity. One central point of divergency is Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma; these are explicated in the article on Anthroposophy (see sub-section titled "Anthroposophy in Brief/Reincarnation and Karma").

Steiner also claimed that there were 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. (The genealogies given in the two gospels diverge some thirty generations before Jesus' birth, and 'Jesus' was a common name in biblical times.) In Steiner's descriptions, the divine "Christ Spirit", the Son-God of the Trinity, incarnated in the Nathan Jesus at the moment of the baptism by John; up until the moment of the baptism by John in the Jordan, the Nathan Jesus was a very great holy man, but not yet the divine Son of God.

His view of the second coming of Christ is also unusual; he suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but meant 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 and — 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 ignored.

The Christian Community

In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Lutheran pastor with a congregation in Berlin. Rittelmeyer asked if it was possible to create a more modern form of Christianity. Soon others joined Rittelmeyer - mostly Protestant pastors, but including at least one Roman Catholic priest. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the sacraments of their various services, combining Catholicism's emphasis on a sacred tradition with the Protestant emphasis on freedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life. Steiner made it clear, however, that the resulting movement for the renewal of Christianity, which became known as The Christian Community, was a personal gesture of help to a deserving cause. It was not, he emphasized, founded by the movement known as "Spiritual Science" or "Anthroposophy," but by Rittelmeyer and the other founding personalities with Steiner's help and advice. The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with anthroposophy to create a scientific, not faith-based, spirituality. 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 of Steiner

Main article: Rudolf Steiner's influence on major cultural figures

Steiner's work has influenced a number of physicists, biologists, medical doctors, architects, philosophers, and artists. Research centers staffed by trained professionals in various fields of study do research along lines suggested or inspired by Steiner's ideas.

The high regard in which Steiner and Steiner's work are held within the Anthroposophical movement has been criticized by some critics as devotion to the point of uncritical belief. They have suggested that the fact that Dr. Steiner said something, rather than the verifiability of the statement, has been decisive.

Steiner himself seems to have noted this tendency, as he frequently asked his students to test everything he said, and not to take his statements on authority or faith. He also said that if it had been practicable, he would have changed the name of his teachings every day, to keep people from hanging on to the literal meaning of those teachings, and to stay true to their character as something intended to be alive and metamorphic. Nor was Steiner shy about saying that his works would gradually become obsolete, and that each generation should rewrite them. Individual freedom and spiritual independence are among the values Steiner most emphasized in his books and lectures.

Many anthroposophical writers emphasize the importance of individual freedom and thought, and there is considerable diversity within anthroposophical thought. Nevertheless, a critical approach to the works of Steiner is not as common as some would like and not always welcomed within some Anthroposophic circles.

Given Steiner's clear statements about political democracy being the proper kind of State for humanity, his consistent and emphatic support for liberty and pluralism in education, religion, scientific opinion, the arts, and in the press, not to mention his rejection of the idea that the State should take over economic life - one cannot justly link Steiner or his movement with a totalitarian intent; rather the reverse, for his whole philosophy is based upon individual freedom.

My meeting with Rudolf Steiner led me to occupy myself with him from that time forth and to remain always aware of his significance...We both felt the same obligation to lead men once again to true inner culture. I have rejoiced at the achievement which his great personality and his profound humanity have brought about in the world.

— Albert Schweizer

Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity

Main article: Rudolf Steiner's views on race and ethnicity

Steiner believed that humanity is made up of individuals first and foremost, each of which exists sui generis: as a unique entity unto him- or herself, and that each individual passes through incarnations in changing settings; the individual's evolving soul and eternal spirit incarnate into a temporal body for the duration of a particular incarnation. For Steiner, race and ethnicity are thus transient characteristics, not essential aspects of an individual. In addition, even in a given lifetime these are minor influences compared to more individual factors. Through a person's inner development, racial or ethnic backgrounds actually become less significant. The individual spirit, that which is truly unique, manifests itself to an even greater degree. Steiner also emphasized that race was rapidly losing any remaining significance for human civilization. One of his central principles was to battle racial prejudice; "any racial prejudice hinders me from looking into a person's soul".

At the same time, Steiner described what he believed to be the particular characteristics of races, ethnic groups, nations and other groupings of people. Some people today find these descriptions troubling or problematic, and in some cases difficult to reconcile with his more general statements about the role race and ethnicity play in present-day humanity. For these reasons, reception of Steiner's ideas about race has ranged from sharp criticism of these as racist to warm praise of his uncompromising stance against racism

References

  1. Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz by Rudolf Steiner. In contrast to the esoteric tradition, Steiner however argued that the secrecy up to his time concerning esoteric knowledge belonged to the past, and through his life worked extensively to make public what earlier had been keep secret. Supersensible Knowledge. Its Secrecy in the Past and Publication in our Time.
  2. Encyclopedia Brittanica, Rudolf Steiner
  3. Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts (1924)
  4. Steiner, Rudolf, The Course of My Life, Chapter III and GA 262, pp. 7-21. Fichte is mentioned by Alfred Heidenreich; see this article, but his reference to Steiner's autobiography as the source for this seems to be erroneous.
  5. Steiner wrote seven articles for this journal, appearing in his Collected Works GA (GesamtAusgabe) 31: Adolf Bartels, der Literarhistoriker. Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 37 (1901), in: Gesammelte Aufsätze (GA 31), p. 382-386; Die "Post" als Anwalt des Germanentums. Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 30 (1901), ibid. p. 387-388; Ein Heine-Hasser. Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 38 (1901), ibid. p. 388-393; Der Wissenschaftsbeweis der Antisemiten. Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 40 (1901), ibid. p. 393-398; Verschämter Antisemitismus. Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 46-48 (1901), ibid. p. 398-414; Zweierlei Maß. Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 50 (1901), ibid. p. 414-417; Idealismus gegen Antisemitismus. Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus 52 (1901), ibid. p. 417-419. Steiner's complete early articles are collected in five volumes of the complete edition of his works, GA 29-33.
  6. See Rudolf Steiner's Emile Zola an die Jugend, Magazin für Literatur 7 (1898) and Zolas Schwur und die Wahrheit über Dreyfus, Magazin für Literatur 9 (1898).
  7. "On 28 November 1899 the Volksbühne gave a “Mackay evening” at which Frau Strauss sang the Mackay songs, accompanied by her husband at the piano. The evening was introduced by an appreciation of Mackay’s work by Rudolf Steiner, the later anthroposophist, but then editor of a literary journal and a particularly close friend of Mackay." Hubert Kennedy, "Richard Strauss and John Henry Mackay" in Thamyris 2
  8. Steiner, Rudolf, Autobiography, Chapter One.
  9. Steiner, Rudolf, How to Know Higher Worlds, Chapter Six.
  10. Steiner, Rudolf, Autobiography, Chapter Three and Riddles of the Soul (see footnote below). Brentano was also an important influence on Edmund Husserl and Jose Ortega y Gasset.
  11. Steiner, Rudolf, Goethean Science and Goethe's Conception of the World.
  12. *Bockemühl, J., Toward a Phenomenology of the Etheric World ISBN 0-88010-115-6
    • Edelglass, S. et al., The Marriage of Sense and Thought, ISBN 0-940262-82-7.
  13. Ellic Howe: The Magicicians of the Golden Dawn London 1985, Routledge, pp 262 ff
  14. The accusation was published in the Frankfurter Zeitung, March 4 1921
  15. Uwe Werner, Anthroposophen in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Munich (1999), p. 7.
  16. ibid.
  17. Werner, p. 8
  18. Steiner, Rudolf, Truth and Knowledge, introduction
  19. Steiner, Rudolf, Truth and Science, Preface.
  20. Solovyov, Vladimir, The Crisis of Western Philosophy, Lindisfarne 1996 pp. 42-3
  21. IN CONTEXT #6, Summer 1984
  22. ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
  23. Evans, M. and Rodger, I. Anthroposophical Medicine: Treating Body, Soul and Spirit
  24. Camphill list of communities
  25. *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.
  26. Goulet, Patrice, "Les Temps Modernes?", L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, Dec. 1982, pp. 8-17.
  27. See this list of fully accredited training programs.
  28. Groups in N. America, List of Demeter certifying organizations, Other biodynamic certifying organization,Some farms in the world
  29. Uwe Werner, Anthroposophen in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Munich 1999, p. 8
  30. Nevertheless, racial differences present in the physical body are "mere trifles by comparison with differences in individual gifts and skills"; "We are equal as human beings" through all bearing a human countenance and form. "... as regards ... what is independent of our bodily makeup we are all individually made; each one of us is his or her own self, an individual. With the exception of the far less important differences that show up as racial or national differences ... but which are (if you have a sense for this you cannot help noticing it) mere trifles by comparison with differences in individual gifts and skills: with the exception of these we are all equal as human beings ... as regards our external, physical humanity. We are equal as human beings, here in the physical world, specifically in that we all have the same human form and all manifest a human countenance. The fact that we all bear a human countenance and encounter one another as external, physical human beings... this makes us equal on this footing. We differ from one another in our individual gifts which, however, belong to our inner nature." Steiner, Education as a Force for Social Change Hudson 1997, lecture of 23 April 1919.
  31. Steiner, "Practical Perspectives", Knowledge of Higher Worlds
  32. Article about reception in the Netherlands
  33. Transcript of an emission on German TV
  34. Article about reception of two Steiner critical emissions on TV
  35. Archiati, Pietro, Die Überwindung des Rassismus durch die Geisteswissenschaft Rudolf Steiners, ISBN 3-7235-0999-1
  36. Info3 news report Rudolf Steiner recognized as opponent of anti-Semitism and nationalism April 1, 2000,
  37. [Comments by independent reviewers cited in Peter Normann Waage, Humanism and Polemical Populism, 'Humanist' 3/2000 (organ of the Norwegian Human-Ethical Union)
  38. The Nazi movement in Germany repeatedly investigated Steiner's ideas and found them absolutely incompatible with racist ideology; see e.g. Alfred Bäumler's Gutachten über die Waldorfschulen, 1938, cited in Uwe Werner's Anthroposophen in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, ISBN 3486563629

Bibliography

The style and content of Steiner's works can vary greatly. Therefore, while it might be stimulating to read a single lecture or book by Steiner, it would probably be a mistake, having read even four or five of his books, to suppose one has a representative picture of the whole body of his work. Many works are available in web versions through the Rudolf Steiner Archive. The full German texts of all of Steiner's published works is searchable at the Rudolf Steiner Archiv. A list of all English translations of all works by Steiner is available at this site.

Out of the 350 volumes of his collected works (including more than forty volumes containing his writings, and over 6000 published lectures), some of the more significant works include

Steiner's writings

Books

Articles about social renewal

Steiner's lectures

The subjects of the over 6,000 published lectures by Steiner are classified by the publisher as follows (see complete catalog in pdf format):

General anthroposophy

Education and science

Religion

Steiner Schools

Works about Steiner by other authors

  • Ahern, Geoffrey Sun at Midnight. The Rudolf Steiner Movement and the Western Esoteric Tradition 1984 ISBN 0-85030-338-9
  • Almon, Joan (ed.) Meeting Rudolf Steiner, firsthand experiences compiled from the Journal for Anthroposophy since 1960 ISBN 0-9674562-8-2
  • Childs, Gilbert, Rudolf Steiner: His Life and Work, ISBN 0-88010-391-4
  • Davy, Adams and Merry, A Man Before Others: Rudolf Steiner Remembered. Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993.
  • Easton, Stewart, Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch, ISBN 0-910142-93-9
  • Hemleben, Johannes and Twyman,Leo, Rudolf Steiner: An Illustrated Biography. Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001.
  • Lindenberg, Christoph Andreas, Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie (2 vols.). Stuttgart, 1997. ISBN 3-7725-1551-7
  • Lissau, Rudi, Rudolf Steiner: Life, Work, Inner Path and Social Initiatives. Hawthorne Press, 2000.
  • McDermott, Robert, The Essential Steiner. Harper Press, 1984
  • 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. Steiner Books, 1990.
  • Swassjan, Karen, The Ultimate Communion of Mankind: A Celebration of Rudolf Steiner's Book "The Philosophy of Freedom", ISBN 0-904693-82-1
  • 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, ISBN 1-902636-40-6
  • Welburn, Andrew, Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy and the Crisis of Contemporary Thought, ISBN 0-86315-436-0
  • Wilkinson, Roy, Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to his Spiritual World-View, ISBN 1-902636-28-7

External links

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Further interest

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