Rudolf Steiner

File:RSteiner.jpg

Rudolf Steiner.

Rudolf Steiner (February 25, 1861 – March 30, 1925) was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, architect, playwright, educator, social thinker and esotericist . He is the founder of anthroposophy, "a movement based on the notion that there is a spiritual world comprehensible to pure thought but accessible only to the highest faculties of mental knowledge" 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.

Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts (1924)

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.[1]

Steiner relates in his autobiography 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; Steiner mentions particularly that this individual directed 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. Steiner also wrote articles for various journals, including a magazine devoted to combatting anti-semitism, during this time. Steiner was one of the defenders (with Emile Zola) of Alfred Dreyfus, a Captain in the French army falsely accused of treason because he was Jewish.

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. 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.

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 mythology of Christian Rosenkreutz continued to fascinate Steiner, and appears 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. The break was complete.

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. By 1921, Adolf Hitler and other right-wing nationalist figures 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 [Hitler and others] came to power in Germany, it would no longer be possible for him to enter the country.[2]

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 (Urplanze), 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 a 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.)

Spiritual science

In his earliest works, Steiner already speaks of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity. From 1900 on, he begins 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;
• spiritual influences on world-evolution and history; and
• reincarnation and karma.

Steiner emphasizes 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. Thus for Steiner, a spiritual science of a sort is a real possibility, though 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.

Main article: Anthroposophy

Practical initiatives

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.

Medicine and biodynamic farming

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).

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 renewal of religious life

In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, an eminent 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 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.

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 the other founder 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 his pupils include 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. The first institution to practice ethical banking was an anthroposophical bank working out of Steiner's ideas (GMB-Bochum, Germany). This list could be extended considerably.

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.

Scientists, scholars, authors and artists influenced by Steiner

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. Some of the better known scientists scholars, authors and artists and who have been deeply influenced by Steiner are listed below.

• Physics
  • Henri Bortoft, The Wholeness of Nature
  • Arthur Zajonc, Catching the Light
  • Georg Unger, Forming Concepts in Physics
  • Stephen Edelglas, The Marriage of Sense and Thought
• Mathematics
  • Hermann von Baravalle
  • Lawrence Edwards
• Biology
  • Craig Holdrege Genetics and the Manipulation of Life
  • Wolfgang Schad, Man and Mammals: Toward a Biology of Form
  • Jos Verhulst, Developmental Dynamics in Humans and Other Primates
• Medicine
  • Eugene Kolisko
  • Rudolf Hauschka, The Nature of Substance
  • Dr. Robert Zieve, Healthy Medicine
  • Victor Bott, Introduction to Anthroposophical Medicine
• Phenomenological science
  • Zajonc and Seamon, Goethe's Way of Science, A Phenomenology of Nature
• Philosophy
  • Georg Kuehlewind, From Normal to Healthy
  • Joseph Chilton Pearce, The Crack in the Cosmic Egg
  • Theodore Roszak, Unfinished Animal
  • Richard Tarnas, Passion of the Western Mind
• Literature and literary criticism
  • Albert Steffen (Swiss playwright and novelist)
  • Andrei Bely Petersburg
  • Christian Morgenstern (German poet)
  • Edith Södergran, Finland-Swedish poet
  • Michael Ende, German writer of fantasy novels and children's books
  • Owen Barfield, British philosopher, author, poet, and critic
  • Saul Bellow, American writer, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner
  • Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish Nobel Literature Laureate 1909

• History
  • Walter Johannes Stein
• Music
  • Evgeni Kostitsyn
  • Bruno Walter
• Visual and performing arts
  • Andrei Tarkovsky Russian movie and opera director, writer, and actor.
  • Joseph Beuys
  • Michael Chekhov, actor and founder of the Chekhov Method of acting
  • Piet Mondrian
• Architecture
  • Anton Alberts
  • Erik Asmussen
  • Gregory Burgess
  • Christopher Day
  • Frank Gehry
  • Walter Burley Griffin
  • Kenji Imai
  • Imre Makovecz
  • Hans Scharoun

Reception of Steiner

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

Steiner and Christianity

Main article: Anthroposophy § Relationship_to_religion

Some religious critics have called Steiner's views heretical, in particular gnostic. But for Steiner the Incarnation of Christ was a unique and real historical event, and in that sense he was certainly no gnostic. Others have criticized Steiner as being one-sidedly Christian.

Steiner and racism

Main article: Rudolf Steiner's views on races

Rudolf Steiner's views on race are complex. He advocated treating every individual as unique and suggested that races should no longer be an important factor for humanity, but on a few occasions spoke about particular races (including his own) in ways that appear denigrating or offensive to modern ears.

"When Negroes go to the west, they cannot absorb as much light and heat any more as they were used to in their Africa. (...) That is why they turn copper red, they become Indians. That is because they are forced to reflect a part of the light and heat. They turn shiny copper red. They cannot keep up this copper red shining. That is why the Indians die out in the West, they die because of their own nature which does not get enough light and heat, they die because of the earthly factor.(...)

"Really, it is the whites who develop the human factor within themselves. Therefore they have to rely on themselves. When whites do emigrate, they partly take on the characteristics of other areas, but they die more as individuals than as a race. The white race is the race of the future, the race that is working creatively with the spirit."

[Steiner, March 3 1923, lecture to the workmen (GA 349 p. 67)]

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

• Goethean Science
• Truth and Knowledge (doctoral thesis)
• Philosophy of Freedom (1894) E-version ISBN 1-85884-082-0
  • also published as Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path ISBN 0-88010-385-X
• Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886)
• 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
• Anthroposophy and the Inner Life (also published as Anthroposophy, an Introduction), Lectures from 1924 or 1925. (A very difficult but very powerful introduction)
• How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation (1904-5) ISBN 0-88010-508-9
• The Education of the Child (1907)
• Study of Man (First lecture series on Waldorf Education. A very difficult but very rewarding book.)
• An Outline of Esoteric Science (1910) ISBN 0-88010-409-0
• Four Mystery Dramas - The Soul's Awakening (1913)
• Toward Social Renewal (1919)
• Fundamentals of Therapy: An Extension of the Art of Healing Through Spiritual Knowledge (1925)
• An Autobiography (1924-5)

Articles about social renewal

• Reordering of Society: Capital and Credit (1919)
• Reordering of Society: Requirements of Spiritual, Social and Economic Life (1919)
• Reordering of Society: The Fundamental Social Law (1919)

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

• public lectures
• lectures for workmen at the Goetheanum
• lectures for members of the Anthroposophical Society
  • An Esoteric Cosmology (1906)
  • Occult Signs and Symbols (1907)
  • The East in the Light of the West (1909)
  • Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy (1912)
  • Balance in the World and Man, Lucifer and Ahriman (1914)
  • Preparing for the Sixth Epoch (1915)
  • Supersensible Knowledge (1916)
  • Cosmic and Human Metamorphoses (1917)
  • Evil and the Future of Man (1918)
  • On the life of the Soul (1923)
  • Man as Symphony of the Creative Word (1923)
  • Anthroposophy and the Inner Life (1924)
  • Knowledge of the State Between Death and a New Birth (1926?)
• lectures for members of the School of Spiritual Science
• lectures about karma and reincarnation
  • Manifestations of Karma (1910)
  • Reincarnation and Karma: How Karma Works (1922)
  • Buermann, Uwe, Die Anschauung des Karma bei Rudolf Steiner. Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 2006. ISBN 3-7725-1912-1

The arts

• fine arts
• eurythmy
• speech and drama
• music
• architecture
• art history

Education and science

• education
  • Study of Man (1918)
  • Practical Advice To Teachers (1919)
• medicine
  • Medicine: An Introductory Reader (ed. Andrew Maendl, M.D.) ISBN 1-85584-133-9.
  • Spiritual Science and Medicine (1920)
  • Physiology and Therapeutics (1920)
  • Fundamentals of Anthroposophical Medicine (1922)
  • The Human Heart (1922)
• science
  • First Scientific Lecture: The Light Course (1919-20)
  • The Origins of Natural Science (1923). ISBN 0-88010-140-7
• Agriculture
  • Agriculture Course, ISBN 1855841487
• Sociology
  • Social Understanding Through Spiritual Scientific Knowledge (1919)
  • Social and Anti-Social Forces in the Human Being (1918)

Religion

• Christianity
  • Collected Christmas lectures (various dates)
  • Collected Easter lectures (various dates)
  • Collected Ascension and Pentecostal lectures (various dates)
  • Collected Michaelmas lectures (various dates)
  • The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers: Lucifer, Ahriman, Asuras. Mephistopheles and Earthquakes. (1909)
  • The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of St. Paul (1912-13)
  • Anthroposophy and Christianity (1914)
  • Fifth Gospel, ISBN 1855840391
  • Pre-Earthly Deeds of Christ (1914)
  • Self Knowledge and the Christ Experience (1923)
• lectures for The Christian Community

Works about Steiner by other authors

• Almon, Joan (ed.) Meeting Rudolf Steiner, first-hand 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

General

• Goetheanum
• Rudolf Steiner Overview
• Rudolf Steiner and Criticism
• The Anthroposophy Network
• The Calendar of the Soul
• Article about Steiner by Gary Lachman published in the Fortean Times
• The Anthroposophical Society in America
• "News" of the anthroposophical movement
• U.S. Directory of Initiatives

Writings

• The Rudolf Steiner On-Line Archive
• Steiner Books Press
• Steiner lending library

Practical activities

• Rudolf Steiner Foundation
• Association of Waldorf Schools of North America
• Steiner/Waldorf Schools Fellowship of the UK
• Camphill Association
• Weleda
• The Christian Community
• Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association
• Rudolf Steiner Library U.S. lending library

Further interest

• See photos from Motzstraße 30, Schöneberg, Berlin, where Rudolf Steiner lived from 1903 to 1923.