Rudolf Steiner
Meeting
It is winter 1920. In the foothills of the Swiss Jura Mountains, near Basel, lies the small village of Dornach. On a hill, surrounded on three sides by high ridges and facing west, stands the Goetheanum. The light, gleaming slate roof of the two domes is barely visible in the snow that covers the entire landscape.
Next to the Goetheanum stands a large wooden barn. One half serves as a carpentry workshop, for although it was opened the previous fall, the Goetheanum is not yet complete. In the other part, which has been set up as a lecture and theater hall, Rudolf Steiner delivers his lectures.
Several hundred listeners sit on simple chairs. Rudolf Steiner stands on a small podium covered with blue linen, in front of curtains of the same blue that separate the stage from the hall in the background. While he speaks, the hall is deathly quiet. All eyes are constantly fixed on the dark figure before them.
Rudolf Steiner is of moderate height and slender, almost delicate. The listener notices this immediately, for the voice with which he speaks is powerful and deep. A voice whose sound one will never forget. There is something moving about it, as if the speaker were bearing the suffering of all humanity.
At times, the voice sounds warm and enveloping. The listening soul feels carried aloft by it into worlds inaccessible to ordinary consciousness. Then the voice resounds more powerfully. One experiences a power that can belong only to higher forces. Words resound across the earth like warning blasts of a trumpet. Then again, one hears in the sound something intimate, something tender, which deeply moves the listener’s soul and gives them the feeling of awakening in an inner world where a hidden light shines. But it is always as if every word spoken takes on a life of its own. These are not words that envelop thoughts as abstract symbols; these words are born as living beings and thus continue to live on in the hearts of the listeners.
Rudolf Steiner speaks freely, without notes, improvising, as it were. Thus he gives more than a hundred, sometimes more than two hundred lectures a year, almost all of them different, on the most varied subjects. The uncorrected stenographic transcripts reveal an extraordinary richness in his entire use of language. The lectures seem to be structured in accordance with the highest demands that can be made in terms of artistry and conceptual clarity. Those who read them regularly recognize a regularity in them that brings to mind organic growth. Just as a plant grows, sprouts, unfolds leaf by leaf, stands in full bloom, and then condenses again into fruit and seed, so too does the content of such a lecture grow and blossom. There is always a strong inner coherence and yet a free and lively development.
Rudolf Steiner accompanies his words with harmonious arm and hand movements. It is not arbitrary gesticulation, nor is it a play of gestures driven by emotion. Rather, it is the natural continuation of what lives in the soul of language and seeks to express itself further from the chest through the arms and hands.
An unusual liveliness characterizes his entire manner of speaking. Even where great calm and deep inner stillness dominate what is spoken, a subtle, continuous movement can still be sensed in his gestures and facial expression.
The bearing of Rudolf Steiner, who is nearly sixty years old, is very youthful. He moves with suppleness and springiness. His face reveals at once an expression of the deepest humanity and the highest spirituality. His high, broad forehead, which slopes slightly backward, is strongly formed. His black hair, slightly higher on the right than on the left, is combed smoothly back. The dark complexion of the face seems to lighten toward the almost black hair. One has the feeling that only the clearest, noblest, and highest thoughts could dwell behind this forehead.
The eyes are deep-set, shaded by heavy eyebrows. They are dark brown, yet this says little about their true nature. How should one describe them? Sometimes they possess an unfathomable depth. One gazes into them as into an abyss, standing teetering on its edge. Then again, this depth is like that of a dark night in which one cannot see the stars, yet feels their presence. Most often, however, the eyes shine with a warm light. A golden glow lives within the dark brown. Infinite kindness speaks from them, love for all creatures. — They can also be searching, inquiring at the same time, as if they wanted to penetrate the inner essence of appearances. Then again, sparkling with joy or mischievously playful in friendly mockery. The gaze constantly shifts outward, toward nature, toward the world, and inward toward the realms of life where the mysteries of existence reveal themselves to the soul. A mystery of love and wisdom, of tenderness and strength, speaks from these eyes. They are the eyes of a person who has discovered this mystery within themselves and has dedicated their life to proclaiming it to humanity.
The face acquires a very distinct character through the remarkably strong lines of the nose and mouth. Together with the broad yet finely sculpted chin, the mouth conveys an impression of great yet measured strength. It is a sign of a firm will born of the spirit.
Yet how great is the change of expression in this face! At times one feels one is facing a man in the prime of life, in the full vigor of his years, filled with energy and a practical sense of life; then again, he is an old man, a sage full of quiet love for all that lives and suffers; and then a young man, inspired and inflamed by a sacred fire.
It happened that people seeing Rudolf Steiner for the first time could not hide a certain disappointment. They had imagined a “world-renewer,” a prophet with a corresponding appearance, a corresponding gaze. And then they found themselves face to face with this remarkable, vibrant human being, who was constantly being reborn, who appeared to them now as an artist, then as a scientist or a priest, but who above all remained a human being, without any pretense or facade. A human being who lived from the deepest depths of the spirit, who wanted to let the spirit triumph—not outside of Earth and humanity, but as a creative world power active on Earth, shaping human souls. This spirit has become manifest, recognizable to all, in Rudolf Steiner’s life’s work; it has become visible in the purest humanity in his person.
Rudolf Steiner! For many, this name represents a purpose in life; for many, the encounter with him meant a new life. How many more years must pass before the mystery of the man who bore this name is fully fathomed?