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Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner
Born	25(27?) February 1861 Kraljevec, Austria-Hungary, now Donji Kraljevec, Croatia
Died	30 March 1925 (aged 64) Dornach, Switzerland

Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Phenomenology, Holism, Monism
Main interests	Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of science, Esotericism, Christianity, Spiritual Science, Freemasonry
Notable ideas	Anthroposophy, Anthroposophical Medicine, Biodynamic Agriculture, Eurythmy, Spiritual Science, Waldorf Education, Occult

Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (25 or 27 February 1861 in Donji Kraljevec, then Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire – 30 March 1925 in Dornach, Switzerland) was an Austrian mystic, philosopher, social thinker, architect and esotericist who advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual component. 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.” A consistent thread that runs from his earliest philosophical phase through his later spiritual orientation is the goal of demonstrating that there are no essential limits to human knowledge and of providing a connection between the cognitive path of Western philosophy and the inner and spiritual needs of the human being.

After gaining recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher, and although he had been initially opposed to Theosophy, Steiner became General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, from 1902 to 1913 and Arch Warden of its Esoteric School. From within the Theosophical movement Steiner developed, out of his Rosicrucian initiation, a comprehensive step-by-step path to gnosis which "attempted to find a synthesis between science and mysticism" and for "applying scientific strategies to induce spiritual visions." His philosophical work of these years, which he termed spiritual science, sought, through meditation and cognitive exercises to develop clairvoyance - to lead "the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe." He called this esoteric and occult spiritual philosophy Anthroposophy. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama and the movement arts, (developing a new artistic form, eurythmy) and later in architecture.

Although claiming he had never been a member, Steiner was expelled from the Theosophical Society in 1913 and the German section had its charter revoked for a perceived breach of its constitution - the result of Steiner's philosophical differences with its leader, Annie Besant. He went on to assist in the formation of the Anthroposophical Society founded by his future wife, Marie Von Sivers in 1913 as well as an Esoteric Occult School of Spiritual Science. Steiner designed and built the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland as the spiritual center of the movement as well as a cultural center to house its arts. After the First World War, Steiner worked with educators, farmers, doctors, and other professionals to develop Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine as well as new directions in numerous other areas.

Following the development of schism within the movement, Steiner re-founded the General Anthroposophical Society over Christmas 1923 stating in his founding speech "this Anthroposophical Movement, in its totality and in all its details is a service to the divine beings, a service to God."

Biography

Childhood and education

Anthroposophy
Part of a series on
General
Anthroposophy Rudolf Steiner Ita Wegman Anthroposophical Society Goetheanum
Anthroposophically inspired work
Waldorf education Biodynamic agriculture Anthroposophic medicine Camphill Movement Eurythmy The Christian Community
Philosophy
Social threefolding
v t e

Steiner's father, Johann(es) Steiner (June 23, 1829, Geras or Trabenreith, Irnfritz-Messern and lived Geras Abbey, Waldviertel - 1910, Horn), left a position as a gamekeeper in the service of Count Hoyos in Geras, northeast Lower Austria to marry one of the Hoyos family's housemaids, Franziska Blie (May 8, 1834, Horn, Waldviertel - 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 Kraljevec in the Muraköz region, then part of the Austrian Empire (present-day Donji Kraljevec, Međimurje region, 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.

From 1879 to 1883, Steiner attended and then graduated from the Vienna Polytechnic (Technische Hochschule or Institute of Technology ), where he studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy. In 1882, one of Steiner's teachers, Karl Julius Schröer, suggested Steiner's name to Joseph Kürschner, editor of a new Deutschen Nationalliteratur edition ('German National Literature')of Goethe's works. Steiner was then asked to become one of the edition's natural science editors.

In his autobiography, Steiner related that at 21, on the train between his home village and Vienna, he met a simple herb gatherer, Felix Koguzki, who spoke about the spiritual world "as one who had his own experience therein..." 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 a thesis based upon Fichte's concept of the ego, later published in expanded form as Truth and Knowledge.

Writer and philosopher

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. 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) 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 numerous articles for various journals.

During his time at the archives, Steiner wrote what he considered from that time forward to be his most important philosophical work, Die Philosophie der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedom or The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity - Steiner's preferred English title) (1894), an exploration of epistemology and ethics that suggested a path upon which humans can become spiritually free beings (see below).

In 1896, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche asked Steiner to help organize the Nietzsche archive in Naumburg. Her brother by that time was non compos mentis. Förster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of the catatonic philosopher; Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the book Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom. Of Nietzsche, Steiner says in his autobiography, "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."

In 1897, Steiner left the Weimar archives and moved to Berlin. He became owner, chief editor, and active contributor to the literary journal Magazin für Literatur, where he hoped to find a readership sympathetic to his philosophy. His work in the magazine was not well received by its readership. Many subscribers were alienated by Steiner's unpopular support of Émile Zola in the Dreyfus Affair and the journal lost more subscribers when Steiner published extracts from his correspondence with anarchist writer John Henry Mackay. 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.

Steiner and the Theosophical Society

Main article: Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical Society

In 1899, Steiner published an article in his Magazin für Literatur, 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 without ever formally joining the society. It was within 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.

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 C. W. Leadbeater and Annie Besant's pronouncement that Jiddu Krishnamurti was the vehicle of a new world teacher, or Maitreya, led to a formal split in 1912/13, 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.

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 a 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.

Beginning in 1919, Steiner was called upon to assist with numerous practical activities (see below), including the first Waldorf school, founded that year in Stuttgart, Germany. His lecture activity expanded enormously.At the same time, the Goetheanum developed as a wide-ranging cultural centre.

Attacks, Goetheanum Fire

In September 1922 a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Munich was disrupted when stink bombs were let off and the lights switched out. Such was the growing level of animosity against Steiner that, after further disruptions in Berlin, Steiner's agents for his lectures cancelled all further lectures in Germany stating that they were unable to guarantee his safety.

In part this animosity was political since following the catastrophic situation in post-war Germany, Steiner had developed political ambitions and made lecture tours promoting his social ideas of a Threefold Social Order, suggesting that only through independence of the cultural, political and economic realms could such catastrophes as the World War be avoided. Steiner was accused by German nationalists of trying to "reform communism". Steiner 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 that included accusations that Steiner was a tool of the Jews, and other nationalist extremists in Germany called 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.

Other opposition developed after the Vatican declared Theosophy heretical in 1919. In particular the Christian Community became a focus for rising anti-Steiner hostility after Steiner provided it with Sacraments similar to those found in the Christian Church and celebrated the Eucharistic sacrament at the Goetheanum as "The Act of the Consecration of Man".

The Goetheanum was destroyed by fire on New Year's Eve 1922/23. Steiner's massive sculpture depicting the spiritual forces active in the world and the human being, the Representative of Humanity, were saved along with neighboring buildings. Because of the level of hostility against him, Steiner and others assumed arson. In his first lecture on January 1, 1923, the day after the fire, Steiner pointed directly to "two main sources of irreconcilable animosity against the Goetheanum": the Roman Catholic Association in Dornach and the Freemasons. Arson was also stated as a likely cause in an early report made by the police: a disgruntled Anthroposophist, Jakob Ott, a hunchback watchmaker who had financial difficulties connected with the Society, was suspected and was said to have fled the country immediately after the fire. A manhunt was launched but Ott's body was later found in the ruins and witnesses accounted for his presence in fighting the fire. Marie Steiner continued to believe Ott was responsible although Steiner apparantly did not.

The suggestion that the burning of the Goetheanum was arson, however, has never been proved and is disputed. The District Commissioner's Report states that "no trace of arson" was found although it left open that arson was certainly a possible cause. It concludes that the source of the fire was inside a hollow wall and although smoke was noticed at an early stage, the location of the fire was only found after an hour's search when the wall was broken open, probably by Ott, during the search for the source of the smoke. This has led some commentators to suggest the fire was caused by an electrical fault The District Commissioner's report discounted the possibility of an electrical short circuit after the Goetheanum Association claimed that no electrical cables had been located inside that wall. Another police report states that a paraffin "cooking utility" on which the Eurythmists were said to make tea was also found in the area of the source of the fire but this finding was excluded from the Commissioner's report. The final judicial report report made by the Swiss Cantonal Superior Court was entirely inconclusive, supporting Gary Lachman, Steiner's biographer's contention that "more than likely we will never know the cause."

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.

Christmas Conference 1923, School of Spiritual Science

After schisms had divided the movement, Steiner, during the Anthroposophical Society's Christmas conference in 1923, refounded the Society as The General Anthroposophical Society and created The School of Spiritual Science, intended as an "organ of initiative" for research and study and as "the soul of the Anthroposophical Society". In 1924 Rudolf Steiner developed for the School, a course of study based on meditative exercises that lead «the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.» According to the School, this is the basis for its work. With various sections or faculties it has grown steadily and 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.

Illness and death

Although Steiner had complained of digestive disorders for some time before, after the loss of the Goetheanum, Steiner's health deterioriated seriously. From 1923 on, he showed signs of increasing frailness and illness. Speculation occured within the movement that Steiner had been poisoned by his enemies at a Christmas party or 'rout' following the 1923 Christmas Conference. Although Steiner continued to lecture widely, and even to travel, his fatigue was evident. He was often giving two, three or even four lectures daily with different courses taking place concurrently. Many of these were for practical areas of life. Simultaneously, however, Steiner began an extensive series of lectures presenting his research on the successive incarnations of various individuals, and on the technique of karma research generally. In letters to his wife in 1924 he complained of painful daily Anthroposophical medical treatments he received for hemorrhoids and of ongoing stomach problems. Ita Wegman, the anthroposophical naturopath, who assisted in his treatment, wrote in her autobiography that his "digestive and metabolic apparatus functioned very weakly because ether body could no longer intervene in these organs in the proper way. ... Food had the effect of posion because it could not be sufficiently spiritualised and transformed for absorption." She particularly expressed concern that Steiner insisted on directing the treatment of his last illness from beginning to end and that his treatments were ineffective. Increasingly ill, Steiner's last lecture was held in September, 1924 when he had to cut the lecture short and be helped to his studio where he remained as an invalid for the following six months until his death. He continued to work on his autobiography during the last months of his life. On 2 January 1925 he suffered a massive heart attackand although he seemed to recover from this and was said to be improving, he died on 30 March 1925.

Spiritual research

From 1899 until his death in 1925, Steiner articulated an ongoing stream of experiences that he claimed were 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 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. 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.

Steiner's ideas about the inner life were influenced by Franz Brentano, with whom he had studied, and Wilhelm Dilthey, both founders of the phenomenological movement in European philosophy, as well as the transcendentalist stream in German philosophy represented by Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling. Steiner was also influenced by Goethe's phenomenological approach to science.

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 but was disbanded at the start of World War One.
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. The figure of Christian Rosenkreutz also plays an important role in several of his later lectures.
The School of Spiritual Science of the Anthroposophical Society, founded in 1923 as a further development of his earlier Esoteric School. The School of Spiritual Science was intended to have three “classes”, but only the first of these was developed in Steiner's lifetime. All the texts relating to the “School of Spiritual Science” have been published in the full edition of Steiner's works.

Philosophical development

Goethean science

Knowledge and freedom

Spiritual science

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.

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.

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. Steiner articulated three stages of any creative deed:

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 on 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. 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.

Breadth of activity

After the First World War, Steiner became active in a wide variety of cultural contexts. He founded a school, known as the Waldorf school, in Stuttgart, in then Weimar Germany, which later evolved into a worldwide school network. The agricultural system he founded, now known as Biodynamic agriculture, was one of the initial forms of and has contributed significantly to the development of modern organic farming. His work in medicine has led to the development of a broad range of complementary medications and supportive artistic and biographic therapies. Homes for children and adults with developmental disabilities based on his work (including those of the Camphill movement) are widespread. His paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries, and he influenced 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 buildings to the modern scene. One of the 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, making up another approximately 300 volumes, discuss an extremely 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.

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. 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.

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.

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 equality of human rights for political life, individual freedom in cultural life (including the sciences, arts, education and religion), and voluntary, uncoerced cooperation between organizations of producers, distributors and consumers to provide solidarity in economic life.

Architecture and visual arts

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.

Steiner's blackboard drawings were unique at the time and almost certainly not originally intended as art works. Josef Beuys' work, itself heavily influenced by Steiner, has led to the modern understanding of Steiner's drawings as artistic objects.

Performing arts

Together with Marie Steiner-von Sivers, 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, and the grammatical function - to every "soul quality" - laughing, despair, and intimacy - and to every aspect of music - tones, intervals, rhythms, and harmonies.

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 by Anthroposophical groups.

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

Main article: 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).

Steiner's descriptions of certain bodily organs and their functions sometimes differ significantly from those found in medical textbooks. He stated, for example, that the heart is not a mechanical pump but a dynamic regulator of circulatory flow.

Biodynamic farming and gardening

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 bringing no or few 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 20th-century agriculture started using inorganic fertilizers such as nitrogen "condensed" from the air and subsequently applied to the fields. Steiner believed that the introduction of this chemical farming was very detrimental. Stating "Mineral manuring is a thing that must cease altogether in time, for the effect of every kind of mineral manure, after a time, is that the products grown on the fields thus treated lose their nutritive value. It is an absolutely general law." Steiner was convinced that the quality of food in his time had degraded, and he believed the source of the problem was chemical farming's use of 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.

Biodynamic farming has had a significant influence on agriculture in some countries, including Germany, Switzerland and India.

Steiner and Christianity

In 1899 Steiner experienced what he described as a life-transforming inner encounter with the being of Christ; previously he had little or no relation to Christianity in any form. Then and thereafter, his relationship to Christianity remained entirely founded upon personal experience, and thus both non-denominational and strikingly different from conventional religious forms.

Christ and human evolution

Steiner describes Christ's being and mission on earth as having a central place in human evolution:

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 considerably in our times in order 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. He understood Christ's incarnation as a historical reality, and a pivotal point in human history, however. The "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 all human history. The essence of being "Christian" is, for Steiner, a search for balance between polarizing extremes and the ability to manifest love in freedom.

Divergence from conventional Christian thought

Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic elements. One of the central points of divergence 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. He references in this regard the fact that the genealogies given in these two gospels diverge some thirty generations before Jesus' birth.

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 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 and theology students, but including several Roman Catholic priests. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the sacraments of their various services, combining Catholicism's emphasis on the rites of a sacred tradition with the emphasis on freedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life characteristic of modern, Johannine Christianity.

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 movement founded by Rittelmeyer and others independently of the Anthroposophical Society. 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 and controversy

Scientism

Olav Hammer critiques as scientism Steiner's claim to use a scientific methodology to investigate spiritual phenomena based upon his claims of clairvoyant experience. Steiner regarded the "observations" of spiritual research as more dependable (and above all, consistent) than observations of physical reality yet considered spiritual research as fallible and, perhaps surprisingly, held the view that anyone capable of thinking logically was in a position to correct errors by spiritual researchers.

Race and ethnicity

Steiner's work includes both universalist, humanist elements and historically influenced racial assumptions. Due to the contrast and even contradictions between these elements, "whether a given reader interprets Anthroposophy as racist or not depends upon that reader's concerns." Steiner considered that every people, by dint of a shared language and culture, has a unique essence, which he called its soul or spirit, saw race as a physical manifestation of humanity's spiritual evolution and at times seemed to place races into a complex hierarchy largely derived from contemporary theosophical views, yet he consistently and explicitly subordinated the role of hereditary factors, including race and ethnicity, to individual factors in development. The human individuality, for Steiner, is centered in a person's unique spiritual biography (i.e., the vast sum of an individuality's experiences and development not bound by waking hours or a single lifetime), not the body's accidental qualities. More specifically:

Steiner characterized specific races, nations, and ethnicities in ways that have been termed racist by critics including characterizations of various races and ethnic groups as flowering, others as backward or destined to disappear; and hierarchical views of the spiritual evolution of different races, including—at times, and inconsistently—portraying the white race, European culture, or the Germanic culture as representing the high point of human evolution as of the early 20th century, though describing these as destined to be superseded by future cultures. Nevertheless, his views about German culture were not ethnically based; he saw this culture, in particular Goethe and the German transcendentalists, as the source of spiritual ideals that were of central importance both for the immediate region and for the world.

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; that race and ethnicity are transient and superficial, not essential aspects of the individual; that each individual incarnates among / as part of many different peoples and races over successive lives, thus bearing within him- or herself a range of races and peoples; and that race is rapidly losing any remaining significance for humanity.

Above all, 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.

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". Towards the end of his life and after his death, massive defamatory press attacks against Steiner were undertaken by early National Socialist leaders (including Adolf Hitler) and other right-wing nationalists. These criticized Steiner's thought, and Anthroposophy, as being incompatible with National Socialist racist ideology and charged both that Steiner was influenced by his close connections with Jews and that he was himself Jewish. On a number of occasions, Steiner promoted full assimilation of the Jewish people into the nations in which they lived, a stance that has come under criticism in recent years. He was also a critic of his contemporary Theodor Herzl's goal of a Zionist state, as well as of any other ethnically determined nation, as he considered ethnicity to be an outmoded basis for social life in today's world.

Bibliography

The more than 350 volumes of Steiner's collected works include about forty volumes containing his writings as well as over 6000 lectures.

Writings (selection)

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 Freedom (1894) ISBN 088010385X
Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Age (1901/1925)
Christianity as Mystical Fact (1902)
Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man (1904)
Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos (1904) ISBN 0-88010-373-6
How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (1904-5) ISBN 0-88010-508-9
The Education of the Child, (1907) ISBN 0-85440-620-4
An Outline of Esoteric Science (1910) ISBN 0-88010-409-0
Four Mystery Dramas (1913)
The Renewal of the Social Organism (1919)
Reordering of Society: The Fundamental Social Law (1919) (article)
Fundamentals of Therapy: An Extension of the Art of Healing Through Spiritual Knowledge (1925)
The Story of my Life (1924-5) (autobiography)

References

Rudolf Steiner Autobiography: Chapters in the Course of My Life: 1861-1907, xvi Lantern Books, 2006 ISBN 088010600X
Steiner's autobiography gives his date of birth as 27 February 1861. However, there is an undated autobiographical fragment written by Steiner, referred to in a footnote in his autobiography in German (GA 28), that says, "My birth fell on the 25th of February 1861. Two days later I was baptized." See Christoph Lindenberg, Rudolf Steiner, Rowohlt 1992, ISBN 3-499-50500-2, p. 8. In 2009 new documentation appeared supporting a date of 27 Feb.: see Günter Aschoff, "Rudolf Steiners Geburtstag am 27. Februar 1861 - Neue Dokumente", Das Goetheanum 2009/9, pp. 3ff
Some of the literature regarding Steiner's work in these various fields: Goulet, P: “Les Temps Modernes?”, L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, December 1982, pp. 8-17; Architect Rudolf Steiner at GreatBuildings.com; Rudolf Steiner International Architecture Database; Brennan, M.: Rudolf Steiner ArtNet Magazine, 18 March 1998; Blunt, R.: Waldorf Education: Theory and Practice — A Background to the Educational Thought of Rudolf Steiner. Master Thesis, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 1995; Ogletree, E.J.: Rudolf Steiner: Unknown Educator, Elementary School Journal, 74(6): 344-352, March 1974; Nilsen, A.:A Comparison of Waldorf & Montessori Education, University of Michigan; Rinder, L: Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings: An Aesthetic Perspective and exhibition of Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings, at Berkeley Art Museum, 11 October 1997 – 4 January 1998; Aurélie Choné, “Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Plays: Literary Transcripts of an Esoteric Gnosis and/or Esoteric Attempt at Reconciliation between Art and Science?”, Aries, Volume 6, Number 1, 2006, pp. 27-58(32), Brill publishing; Christopher Schaefer, “Rudolf Steiner as a Social Thinker”, Re-vision Vol 15, 1992; and Antoine Faivre, Jacob Needleman, Karen Voss; Modern Esoteric Spirituality, Crossroad Publishing, 1992.
“Who was Rudolf Steiner and what were his revolutionary teaching ideas?” Richard Garner, Education Editor, The Independent
Rudolf Steiner, “Goethean Science”, GA1, 1883
Helmut Zander, Schweizer Fernsehen, Sternstunden Philosophie: Die Anthroposophie Rudolf Steiners, program aired Feb. 15, 2009
Robert A. McDermott, "Philosophy and Evolution of Consciousness", in James Ogilvy, Revisioning Philosophy, pp. 279-280
Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy Publ. Magazin fur Literatur 1897. Article at http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/4236
Lachner, Rudolf Steiner Ibid. p.133 et seq.
Édouard Schuré’s 1908 Introduction to the First French Edition of Rudolf Steiner’s Le Mystère Chrétien et les Mystères Antiques 1st French Edition Publ. Paris, Librairie Academique, Perrin et Cie. 1908. An English translation of Schuré’s introduction was reprinted in the 1910 English language edition of Steiner’s The Way of Initiation: or, How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds Reprinted New York, McCoy 1910: "These lectures give a kind of summary of what Rudolf Steiner calls Anthroposophy … vast and all-embracing philosophy. Its principles are contained in a theogony, cosmogony and psychology complete in themselves. It lays down the basis of a moral philosophy, an art of education, a science of aesthetics. … At the time when Rudolf Steiner entered the Theosophical Society - which he had chosen as his first field of action - he was already fully master of the doctrine he owed to his own Initiation. These lectures, given in the year 1906, are proof of this. …The essential difference between Indian Theosophy and Anthroposophy lies in the supreme rôle attributed by Anthroposophy to the Christ in human evolution and also in its connection with Rosicrucian tradition."
R. Bruce Elder, Harmony and dissent: film and avant-garde art movements in the early twentieth century, Publ. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2008 isbn 978-1-55458-028-6, p. 32
Ahern ibid pp.87 et seq.
Rudolf Steiner quoted in "Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch" by Stewart Copinger Easton Publ. Steinerbooks p.125 "I will ally myself only with a movement that is connected exclusively with Western occultism and cultivates its development"
Professor Carl Clemen, University of Bonn, "Anthroposophy" Publ. Journal Article in Chicago University Press. Publ. The Journal of Religion 1925 pp.281 et seq
Johannes Kiersch, A History of the School of Spiritual Science: The First Class Publ. Temple Lodge 2007
^ Christoph Lindenberg, Rudolf Steiner, Rowohlt 1992, ISBN 3-499-50500-2, pp. 123-6
Rudolf Steiner, The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society 1923-1924, Publ. Steinerbooks 1987 p.46
Gary Lachman, Rudolf Steiner Publ. Penguin 2007
^ Helmut Zander, Anthroposophie in Deutschland, Göttingen, 2007, ISBN 3525554524.
Geoffrey Ahern, Sun at Midnight, Publ. Cambridge, Clarke 2010 Rev Ed. p.30.
Alfred Heidenreich, Rudolf Steiner - A Biographical Sketch
Rudolf Steiner, The Story of My Life. NY:Anthroposophic Press, 1928. pp. 39-40
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.
^ Robert A. McDermott, "Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy", in Faivre and Needleman, Modern Esoteric Spirituality, ISBN 0-8245-1444-0, p. 288ff
| Rudolf Steiner | Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception | 1886
Rudolf Steiner, Goethean Science Mercury Press, 1988 ISBN 0936132922, ISBN 9780936132921 | Rudolf Steiner | Goethean Science | 1883
^ Steiner, The Story of My Life, chapter 18
^ Gary Lachman, Rudolf Steiner, Tarcher/Penguin 2007.
^ Lorenzo Ravagli, Zanders Erzählungen, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-8305-1613-2, pp. 184f
See Lutyens, Mary (2005). J. Krishnamurti: A Life. New Delhi: Penguin Books India. ISBN 0-14-400006-7. Leadbeater's occult investigations concluded that Krishnamurti was the likely "vehicle" for the New World Teacher prophesied by Helena Blavatsky. This is described as a messianic figure corresponding to, and combining aspects of, Christ, the Buddhist Maitreya, and the Hindu Avatar, among others. A founder of the Theosophical Society, Helena Blavatsky, had divulged to select associates before her death that the ultimate purpose of the Society was to prepare the way for this arrival. Besant Leadbeater and Steiner considered this to be imminent. Blavatsky 1889 pp. 306–307. Hodson 1929. Schuller 1997. Order of the Star in the East: Background . 2011. Misplaced Pages. Background on Theosophy, the Theosophical Society, and the World Teacher.
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
"Riot at Munich Lecture", New York Times, 17 May 1922.
Marie Steiner, Introduction, in Rudolf Steiner, Turning Points in Spiritual History, Dornach, September, 1926.
Dusty Sklar, Gods and Beasts Publ Crowell 1987 p.47 quoting Thule Society founder Von Sebottendorff
Frankfurter Zeitung, 4 March 1921
^ Uwe Werner, Anthroposophen in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, Munich (1999), p. 7.
Völkische Beobachter, 15 March 1921
Wiesberger, Die Krise der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft 1923
Vatican Holy Office Article 2189 The Doctrines of Theosophy a reply of the Holy Office, July 18 1919
Gary Lachman, Rudolf Steiner, Penguin Books 2007 pp. 199 - 204
Rudolf Steiner GA259 Appendix 7 including multiple Newspaper Interviews with Steiner and GA260a Rudolf Steiner Lecture at Paris May 25, 1924 in which Steiner claimed "Es ist aber eine behördlich anerkannte Tatsache, daß das Goetheanum von den Gegnern in Brand gesetzt worden ist."
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New York Times Jan 2, 1923 HOME OF THEOSOPHY BURNS; Incendiarism Suspected in Destruction of Steiner's Temple Near Basle: Basle Switzerand Jan 1. The Goethanim headquarters of the International Anthroposophical Society at Dornach, near here was burned last night. ... It has not been determined whether the fire was incendiary, but opponents of Steiner's teachings which are Theosophical, have threatened to burn the building, so that a guard of three men has been constantly on duty for the last eighteen months."
Rudolf Steiner (1991), Das Schicksalsjahr 1923 in der Geschichte der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft: vom Goethanumbrand zur Weihnachtstagung: Ansprachen, Versammlungen, Dokumente, Januar bis Dezember 1923, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, p. 787, ISBN 978-3727425905
Sergei O. Prokofieff, May human beings hear it!: the mystery of the Christmas Conference Publ. Temple Lodge Publishing, 2004; pp.720-722. See also GA259 Ibid Steiner also read from an astrological prediction by the renowned German astrologer Elsbeth Ebertin - whose prediction he described as a Masonic threat: "a real spark of fire shall put an ignominious end to the Dornach pomp."
GA 259 Police Inspector Report of January 4, 1923
Prokofieff Ibid pp.904 Footnote 16 quoting Marie Steiner: Briefe und Dokumente p.295
Prokofieff ibid. Gary Lachman ibid pp.204-205; Lindenberg ibid chapter 46, "Der Brand des Goetheanum" pp.789-797; René Maikowski, "Schicksalswege auf der Suche nach dem lebendigen Geist" Publ. Freiburg 1980, pp.59-65: "Der Brand des Goetheanum"
GA259 ibid Appendix 7 January 22, 1923
Lachman ibid p.204 See for one such commentator Colin Wilson, Rudolf Steiner, the man and his vision: an introduction to the life and ideas of the founder of anthroposophy Publ Aquarian Press 1985 p.153. Wilson writes "Most commentators suggest that the fire was due to arson, but the fact that it began inside a wall suggests an electrical fault."
GA259 Appendix 7
GA259 ibid "Die Untersuchung der Brandursache des Anthroposophentempels von Dornach ist dem Vernehmen nach noch immer nicht abgeschlossen und wird vermutlich überhaupt nie zu einer vollen Abklärung der teilweise mysteriösen Begleitumstände der Feuersbrunst führen."
Lachman ibid
Johannes Kiersch, A History of the School of Spiritual Science. Publ. Temple Lodge 2006. p.xiii.
The School of Spiritual Science website at The Goetheanum: http://www.goetheanum.org/300.html?L=1
Sergei O. Prokofieff, May Human beings hear it!: the mystery of the Christmas Conference Publ. Forest Row, Temple Lodge Publishing 2004 p.725-730
Lindenberg, Christoph, Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie Vol. II, Chapter 52. ISBN 3-7725-1551-7
Rudolf Steiner, Marie Steiner, Correspondence and Documents 1901-1925 Publ. London, Rudolf Steiner Press 1988. See Letters of 31 May 1924 and 11 Oct 1924.
Ita Wegman, An die Freunde: Aufsätze und Berichte aus den Jahren 1925-27 Natura-Verlag, 1968 p.5 et seq. and as quoted in Sergei O. Prokofieff ibid
Sergei O. Prokofieff ibid
Wegman ibid
Prokofieff ibid p.730
Lindenberg, "Schritte auf dem Weg zur Erweiterung der Erkenntnis", pp. 77ff
^ Peter Schneider, Einführung in die Waldorfpädagogik, ISBN 3-608-93006-X
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
Ellic Howe: The Magicians of the Golden Dawn London 1985, Routledge, pp 262 ff
^ Johannes Hemleben, Rudolf Steiner: A documentary biography, Henry Goulden Ltd, 1975, ISBN 090482202-8, pp. 37-49 and pp. 96-100 (German edition: Rowohlt Verlag, 1990, ISBN 349950079-5)
Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay, Free Press-Simon and Schuster, 1996. Storr quotes Steiner p72, "If, however, we regard the sum of all percepts as the one part and contrast with this a second part, namely the things-in-themselves, then we are philosophising into the blue. We are merely playing with concepts."
Steiner, Rudolf, Truth and Science, Preface.
"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
Richard Tarnas, The Passion of the Western Mind, ISBN 0712673326
Solovyov, Vladimir, The Crisis of Western Philosophy, Lindisfarne 1996 pp. 42-3
IN CONTEXT #6, Summer 1984
ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
Evans, M. and Rodger, I. Anthroposophical Medicine: Treating Body, Soul and Spirit
Camphill list of communities
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
Great Buildings Online
^ Robert McDermott, The Essential Steiner, Harper San Francisco 1984 ISBN 0-06-065345-0
Goulet, P: "Les Temps Modernes?", L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, Dec. 1982, pp. 8-17.
Lawrence Rinder, Rudolf Steiner: An Aesthetic Perspective
Byckling, L: Michael Chekhov as Actor, Teacher and Director in the West. Toronto Slavic Quarterly No 1 - Summer 2002. University of Toronto, Academic Electronic Journal in Slavic Studies.
Groups in N. America, List of Demeter certifying organizations, Other biodynamic certifying organization,Some farms in the world
Agriculture Course, Rudolf Steiner (1924) This quote appears in the discussion after the sixth lecture.
Steve Diver, Biodynamic Farming & Compost Preparation
How to Save the World: One Man, One Cow, One Planet; Thomas Burstyn
^ Carlo Willmann, Waldorfpädagogik: Theologische und religionspädagogische Befunde, Kölner Veröffentlichungen zur Religionsgeschichte, Volume 27, ISBN 3-412-16700-2, especially Chapters 1.3, 1.4
Robert Fulford, "Bellow: the novelist as homespun philosopher", The National Post, 23 October 2000
Michael Ende biographical notes, "Michael Ende und die magischen Weltbilder"
Selma Lagerlöf - Biography
Andrey Bely
J.D. Elsworth, Andrej Bely:A Critical Study of the Novels, Cambridge:1983, cf.
John F. Moffitt, "Occultism in Avant-Garde Art: The Case of Joseph Beuys", Art Journal, Vol. 50, No. 1, (Spring, 1991), pp. 96-98
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
Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction 1908 - 1922
Alana O'Brien, In Search of the Spiritual: Murray Griffin's View of the Supersensible World, La Trobe University Museum of Art, 2009
Daboo, Jerri (2007). "Michael Chekhov and the embodied imagination: Higher self and non-self". Studies in Theatre & Performance. 27 (3): 261–273. doi:10.1386/stap.27.3.261_1. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
[Nostalghia.com|The Topics:: Layla Alexander Garrett on Tarkovsky ]
Bruno Walter, "Mein Weg zur Anthroposophie". In: Das Goetheanum 52 (1961), 418–2
^ Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age, Brill 2004, pp. 329; 64f; 225-8; 176. 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.
Albert Schweitzer: Friendship with Rudolf Steiner
Robert Todd Carroll (12 September 2004). "The Skeptic's Dictionary: Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)". The Skeptic's Dictionary. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help); Text "http://www.skepdic.com/steiner.html" ignored (help)
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
Staudenmaier, Peter (February 2008). "Race and Redemption". Nova Religio. University of California Press: 4ff.
^ "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.
Arno Frank, "Einschüchterung auf Waldorf-Art", Die Tageszeitung Aug 4, 2000.
Corinna Treitel, A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern, Johns Hopkins Press, ISBN 0-8018-7812-8, p. 103
Perry Myers, "Colonial consciousness: Rudolf Steiner's Orientalism and German Cultural Identity", Journal of European Studies 36(4): 387-417
Eugen Blume, "Joseph Beuys". In Kugler and Baur, Rudolf Steiner in Kunst und Architektur, ISBN 3832190120, p. 186
Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus, 11(37):307-8, September 11, 1901. Article. Mitteilungen, 11(38):316, 18 September 1901. Article. Cf. GA31 for a complete list and text of articles.
^ "Hammer und Hakenkreuz – Anthroposophie im Visier der völkischen Bewegung", Südwestrundfunk, 26 Nov. 2004

External links

General

Rudolf Steiner Overview
The Anthroposophical Society in America
Goetheanum
Official site of the Rudolf Steiner Archive (German language)

Writings

Articles about Steiner

Heiner Ullrich, "Rudolf Steiner", 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)
Rudolf Steiner introduced by Owen Barfield.
Skeptics Dictionary
Steiner biography by Gary Lachman

v t e Anthroposophy
Founding board members of the General Anthroposophical Society	Rudolf Steiner Albert Steffen Marie Steiner-von Sivers Elisabeth Vreede Gunther Wachsmuth Ita Wegman
Anthroposophists	Hilma af Klint Henri Bortoft Georg Kühlewind Ehrenfried Pfeiffer Theodor Schwenk Emil Bock Bernard Lievegoed Edith Maryon Sergei O. Prokofieff Peter Selg Jens Bjørneboe Aasmund Brynildsen Daniel Nicol Dunlop Zviad Gamsakhurdia John Fentress Gardner Walter Burley Griffin Karl König Robert A. McDermott Arthur Zajonc Douglas M. Sloan Marjorie Spock Walter Johannes Stein Ernst Lehrs Herbert Witzenmann Massimo Scaligero Ross Rentea Rudolf Hauschka Oskar Schmiedel Hermann Poppelbaum Alfred Meebold Wilhelm Rath Herbert Hahn Francis Edmunds Thomas Weihs Cecil Harwood Daphne Olivier Marguerite Lundgren Valborg Werbeck-Svärdström Wilhelm Ernst Barkhoff John Davy Jakob Streit Alfred Rexroth Ernst Weissert Michael Henry Wilson Margaret Cross Fried Geuter Arnold Freeman Rudi Lissau Margaret Bennell Edith Rigby Bertram Keightley Arild Rosenkrantz Eileen Hutchins Eleanor Merry Paul Nordoff Clive Robbins Violetta Plincke Hans Schauder George Adams Kaufmann Liane Collot d'Herbois Egil Tynæs Else Klink Carlo Pietzner Marta Fuchs Wolfgang Schad Julian Sleigh Botho Sigwart zu Eulenburg Johannes Tautz Vydūnas Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven
Notable supporters	Saul Bellow Owen Barfield Andrei Bely Joseph Beuys Russell Davenport Wassily Kandinsky Selma Lagerlöf Albert Schweitzer Andrei Tarkovsky Bruno Walter Ibrahim Abouleish Nicanor Perlas Jacques Lusseyran Millicent Mackenzie Margaret McMillan
Cultural influences	Anthroposophic medicine Biodynamic agriculture Camphill Movement Eurythmy Threefold social order The Christian Community Waldorf education
Institutions and publications	Anthroposophical Society in America Associação Comunitária Monte Azul Demeter International General Anthroposophical Society GLS Bank Goetheanum Harduf SEKEM Triodos Bank Weleda

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