Rudolf Steiner
Life Story
A brief overview of Rudolf Steiner’s life should be included at the beginning of this book. This description can be very concise, especially for the years after 1900, since from that time onward, Rudolf Steiner’s biography can increasingly be viewed in conjunction with the anthroposophical movement.
For the account of his life up to the years 1906/07, reference must be made emphatically to the autobiography “Mein Lebensgang.” (1, 2) For his childhood and youth, this is virtually the only source; for the later years he spent in Vienna and Weimar, it contains indispensable material for anyone wishing to understand Rudolf Steiner’s development in connection with the anthroposophical movement.
This book is certainly the most remarkable biography to have appeared in a long time, not only because of its content, but especially because of the way it is written. Right at the beginning, Rudolf Steiner states that it was not his intention to have such a work published. It was written at the request of friends who believed that, in the face of the frequent false claims made in public discussions of Rudolf Steiner’s work and person, an authentic account would be highly desirable for all who wished to form an impartial judgment.1Earlier, on February 4, 1913, Rudolf Steiner had given a lecture to the members of the Anthroposophical Society in Berlin in which he presented a “Sketch of a Life Summary, 1861–1893.” This lecture is printed in the first volume of the “Letters of Rudolf Steiner” (Dornach 1948), in which one also finds a description of the circumstances that led to this lecture. But especially because it happened time and again that critics felt compelled to point out certain changes in Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual development, which were interpreted as a shift in direction. In contrast, the “Life Course” clearly shows that a distinct line runs through Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual development, the first signs of which can already be recognized in his earliest childhood years, then become increasingly evident, and finally emerge with the greatest clarity from a certain stage of life onward.
One could compare this developmental path to a living, growing organism, to a tree that forms its thin, delicate trunk in its early years, then continues to grow, developing branch by branch, and finally stands in the world as a mighty trunk with broad, spreading branches, richly adorned with leaves and blossoms: A mighty unity and at the same time a diversity that can seem confusing at first glance.
It is clear from Rudolf Steiner’s entire personality that it was not his intention to write an autobiography. A few sentences from the beginning of “The Course of My Life” characterize the very special view Rudolf Steiner held regarding the relationship between work and personality. “It has always been my aim to shape what I had to say and what I believed I ought to do in a way that things themselves, not the personal, demanded. It has indeed always been my opinion that the personal aspect lends the most valuable color to human activities in many fields. Yet it seems to me that this personal aspect must be revealed through the way one speaks and acts, not through focusing on one’s own personality. What may result from such focusing is a matter that each person must settle with themselves. And so I can only bring myself to write the following account because I am obliged to set certain misguided judgments regarding the connection between my life and the cause I have championed in their proper light through an objective description, and because the insistence of well-meaning people regarding these judgments seems justified to me.”
It hardly needs to be emphasized that, following such an introduction, everything related to personality as such will be treated as simply as possible.
The “Life Course” depicts with the utmost precision the entire developmental path of the child, the youth, and the man, always in different environments, always described in such a way that the significance of these environments for the soul living within them can be felt and understood. Yet interest in the human being as such is never demanded. The same great modesty in everything that concerned him personally as a human being—a hallmark of Rudolf Steiner’s entire life—is found as an objective record in this book.
Many, after reading the “Life Course,” may perhaps feel they must doubt this. They will point to passages in which Rudolf Steiner, for example, recounts insights he had even as a very young person, or speaks of spiritual realms with which he was already engaged as a child. But those who believe they see in this a sign of immodesty fail to realize that a genuine love of truth can make it necessary to state certain facts, even when one knows full well that such facts can be very difficult to accept in a time like ours. But anyone who takes the trouble to pay attention to the manner in which these facts are communicated will have to recognize that a more straightforward and simpler way of communicating them was not possible.
Rudolf Steiner says very little about his parents. Yet the little he describes is telling and sufficient. We are introduced to the milieu of a simple family descended from Lower Austrian farmers. The father, born in Geras, a hunter in the service of a count for some time, became a telegraph operator for the Austrian Railways before his marriage. The mother was born in Horn. In Kraljevec, a small town on the Hungarian-Croatian border, Rudolf Steiner was born on February 27, 1861.
Both parents are described as people who felt deeply connected to their beautiful homeland. In Rudolf Steiner’s account, the father appears to us as a “thoroughly benevolent man” with a strong, passionate temperament, who dutifully fulfilled his cold, joyless service with the railroad, but followed political life with great interest. His mother was a woman whose life was entirely devoted to the loving care of her children and the household.
When little Rudolf was a year and a half old, the family moved to Pottschach in Lower Austria, where they remained for about seven years. The small train station stood amidst pleasant countryside, with the majestic peaks of the Semmering in the distance.
The child’s attention was focused on this station and everything that took place there. For the first time, a vague awareness of a contrast began to emerge in the sensitive child’s soul—a contrast that would later be of such great significance in his life: the contrast between nature as it reveals itself to humanity and the technology that humanity creates for itself.
After attending the village school for a short time, little Rudolf was taught at home by his father. However, he could not muster much interest in the material covered. Above all, he showed a tendency to want to imitate everything his father did. Everything related to the goings-on at the train station, and everything concerning practical matters and events, captured his attention. A mill and a spinning mill—the latter particularly mysterious due to its inaccessibility—sparked countless questions in him.
When he turned eight, the family—another daughter and a son had been born in Pottschach—moved to Neudörfl, a small Hungarian village about an hour’s walk from Wiener Neustadt. Here, too, the natural surroundings were beautiful, although the Alps were now further in the background. Hills covered with forests and dwarf trees lay all around. Blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries were diligently gathered in season.
Nearby lay the village of Sauerbrunn with its iron- and carbon dioxide-rich spring, where residents from the surrounding area could come to fill their jugs.
The village school offered little to attract students. Five classes, boys and girls, were taught in a single room. Almost all instruction was left to an assistant teacher, since the actual teacher, as the “village notary,” had too much to do to be able to be at school. This assistant teacher is gratefully remembered in his “Life Story.” An event associated with him deserves a more detailed description, as it gives us a deep insight into the precocious soul of the child.
Soon after he arrived at the school in Neudörfl, Rudolf Steiner discovered a geometry book in the assistant teacher’s room. He was allowed to take it home, studied it, and was absorbed in it for weeks. It is moving to read what a sense of happiness this awakened in his soul:
“That one could live spiritually in the education of purely inwardly observed forms, without impressions from the external senses, gave me the greatest satisfaction. I found in it solace for the mood that had arisen in me due to the unanswered questions. To be able to grasp something purely in the mind brought me inner happiness. I know that it was through geometry that I first came to know happiness.”
Here the very earliest beginnings of a way of looking at things are clearly revealed, a perspective that comes increasingly to the fore in Rudolf Steiner’s later life:
“In my relationship to geometry, I must see the first sprouting of a perspective that gradually developed within me. It already lived more or less unconsciously within me during childhood and took on a definite, fully conscious form around the age of twenty.”
He experienced two worlds. On the one hand, the external world, in which all objects and phenomena are situated—a spatial world, in other words. In contrast, an inner world that the human being carries within their soul and in which spiritual phenomena and events manifest. “In my thoughts, I could not see anything like the images that people form of things, but rather revelations of a spiritual world on this stage of the soul.”
Geometry became for him a message from this world. “Geometry appeared to me as a form of knowledge that is seemingly generated by human beings themselves, yet which nevertheless has a meaning entirely independent of them. As a child, I did not, of course, articulate this clearly, but I felt: just as with geometry, one must carry the knowledge of the spiritual world within oneself. For the reality of the spiritual world was as certain to me as that of the sensory world.”
It is described in very simple terms how the child sought a relationship with these two worlds, the visible and the invisible, and how geometry formed a bridge for the soul, connecting the two worlds. The love for the invisible world is also spoken of in words that reveal to us unusual depths in this child’s soul. “I must also say this: I loved living in this world. For I would have had to experience the sensory world as a spiritual darkness around me if it had not received light from this side.”
Rudolf Steiner was also introduced to music and drawing by the assistant teacher.
The church service was closely connected to the school. The assistant teacher played the organ there and assisted with the liturgical service. The schoolchildren helped as choir singers and altar servers. The solemn element associated with all of this had a profound effect on these children’s souls, which thereby felt more strongly connected to the world of the supersensible.
During those same years, Rudolf Steiner was introduced to the great figures of German literature—Lessing, Goethe, Schiller—by a doctor from Wiener-Neustadt who treated patients in the area and spoke enthusiastically of the greatness of these names.
Elementary school was followed by secondary school in Wiener-Neustadt. Once again, we see the strong desire in the now eleven-year-old child to grasp the deeper connections between things. An essay by the principal on “Gravitational Force, Considered as an Effect of Motion” —almost incomprehensible to a child with little mathematical training—and then a book by the same principal on “The General Movement of Matter as the Fundamental Cause of All Natural Phenomena” captivated him to the highest degree.
In a remarkable way, the problems associated with Kant’s worldview arose early in Rudolf Steiner’s life. Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” which he discovered in the cheap Reclam edition in a bookseller’s window, aroused such a strong desire to possess it that he did everything he could to buy it as soon as possible.
In order to find time to study this book, he carefully took it apart and inserted the individual pages into the history textbook used at school. The history teacher had the habit of reading aloud from the book during class. In this way, he was able to devote a considerable amount of time to studying Kant time and again.
The development of thought itself and the relationship of thought to religious doctrine—these were the two problems that took center stage. The child always held the certainty that the human spirit, through cognition, could find its way into the supersensible. The study of Kant, however, did not lead to a solution of the deepest questions.
All of this took place within the context of normal childhood life, which was also entirely oriented toward the practical aspects of existence. Farm work, harvesting potatoes and picking fruit, shopping in the village—all of this played an equally important role.
Early on, after turning fifteen, the young Rudolf Steiner gave tutoring lessons to students in his own or lower grades, which enabled him to contribute somewhat to the family’s modest finances. In doing so, he also gained a great deal of practical insight into human nature.
The student also took it upon himself to learn Greek and Latin, and did so so thoroughly that a few years later, as a university student, he was able to tutor a high school student whom he guided through nearly the entire high school curriculum.
These school years passed in hard work. Before us stands the image of a Calm, quiet child who resolutely follows his own path in life and matures into a young man with a rich inner life. He took in everything the world around him offered in terms of phenomena and events, and within himself he lived in the world of thought, always preoccupied with the great question that would later dominate his life: the question of the relationship between the inner and outer worlds, the invisible and the visible, the world of the spirit and the world of perceptible phenomena.
A portrait from 1879 already shows the same features that later gave his face such a refined, spiritual beauty, only in a more youthful form. A noble, open forehead, thick, dark hair worn long, likely in the style of the local farmers, and open eyes with that distinctive expression characteristic of those who can look as sharply outward as they can gaze deeply inward. The entire image conveys generosity and spontaneity, and above all, nobility of spirit.
In the fall of 1879, Rudolf Steiner entered the Technical University in Vienna. The external circumstances of his life were by no means favorable. However, his father had been transferred to the small town of Inzersdorf near Vienna; this made it possible for the young student to commute daily. He had to raise part of the money needed for his studies by giving private lessons and preparing students for their exams.
Rudolf Steiner’s inner life and inner development during his student years stood in stark contrast to these simple external circumstances. At the Technical University, he found ample opportunity to further develop and deepen his great love for philosophy and the natural sciences. Above all, however, it was philosophy that drew him in. His first act upon arriving in Vienna was to purchase a large number of philosophical books. He continued his study of Kant. In addition, he read Fichte, particularly his “Science of Knowledge”, as well as Schelling and Hegel. Later, he turned to the works of Eduard von Hartmann.
In addition to the required courses he had to take at the Technical University, he found time to attend lectures at the University as well, particularly those by Robert Zimmermann on Herbart’s philosophy. Alongside this intensive study, he became completely absorbed in the major issues facing the art world during those years. Rudolf Steiner enthusiastically joined the debate for and against Richard Wagner.
He also participated in social life with deep engagement and warmth. The “Lebensgang” recounts warm and deep friendships. Various people played a significant role in his development during these years. First and foremost must be mentioned his teacher and later friend Karl Julius Schröer, who gave lectures on German literature at the Technical University and, moreover, held “exercises in oral presentation and written exposition.” His entire personality made a deep impression on Rudolf Steiner, both through the refined, inspiring manner in which he spoke about the various poets, and because of the nobility of his entire inner life.
Karl Julius Schröer came from Pressburg, where his father, Tobias Gottfried Schröer, was the principal of a lyceum. Under the pseudonym Chr. Oeser, his father wrote various books on historical and aesthetic subjects. His mother, Therese Schröer, was an extraordinary woman, noble and refined, of great talent. She was bound by warm ties of friendship to the Silesian poet Karl von Holtei. It is to him that we owe the edition of “Letters and Writings of Mrs. Therese,” which he compiled from her letters to him. In her letters, we come to know her as an educator of extraordinary significance. (3) With all her heart, with all the innate depth of her extraordinary soul, she devoted herself to the education of her children.
It is no surprise that Karl Julius Schröer, who grew up in this milieu, held such an important place in the lives of many students, to whom he was a friend and helper. Rudolf Steiner saw in him, above all, the great Goethe scholar. “Karl Julius Schröer,” Rudolf Steiner later wrote, “holds such a high place in my estimation in Goethe research because his gaze always goes beyond the individual to the ideas.”
By following this path, always seeking in all of Goethe’s works the ideas that permeate them as driving forces, Schröer was able to see Goethe, the creative human being, as a whole. Not, on the one hand, the great poet, nor the natural scientist on the other, but the human being in whom art and science, arising from the same striving, converge into a higher synthesis. In his preface to Goethe’s Faust, he says: “Goethe’s spirit was so constituted that he could not do otherwise; he was born to take in the entirety of the phenomena of nature and culture. To faithfully reflect the world was his calling. But since he was not only receptive but also creatively inclined, he recreated reality as he was accustomed to seeing it: his gaze directed toward the essential, which he strives to recognize in science, just as it becomes his ideal in art. — The idealism derived from the real world attains conscious dominance in art through Goethe. Thus, Goethe the scientific researcher is none other than Goethe the creative artist. His research and his creative work can be tested against one another.”(4)
Schröer keenly felt the lack of idealism, of love for beauty and virtue, within the generation growing up around him. “The younger generation no longer has any ideas or ideals. We look in vain for goals to inspire enthusiasm in our youth.” (5) — “An idealism of love” is, for him, a particularly striking trait in Goethe’s character. Anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of this phrase from Schröer should, above all, read his two lectures on this topic. (6)
One can imagine that Rudolf Steiner felt strongly drawn to this enthusiastic and at the same time deeply sensitive man. “I felt spiritually uplifted when I was with him,” we read in “Lebensgang.” And further: “Whenever I sat alone with Schröer, I truly always had the feeling that a third person was present: Goethe’s spirit. For Schröer lived so deeply within Goethe’s being and works that with every feeling or idea that arose in his soul, he would ask himself emotionally: ‘Would Goethe have felt or thought this way?’”
Through Schröer, Rudolf Steiner also became acquainted with the old German Christmas plays, which used to be performed regularly near Pressburg by the Germans living there. In such so-called “language islands,” the German language lived on as it had been brought there centuries ago by German colonists from more westerly regions. Schröer had collected these plays— the Paradise Play, the Nativity Play, and the Epiphany Play, and published them under the title “German Christmas Plays from Hungary.”
However profound the impression Schröer’s great personality made on Rudolf Steiner, differences in their perspectives soon became apparent on the most crucial points of their worldviews. While for Schröer, the true idealist, the world of ideas acted as the driving force in all of existence, for Rudolf Steiner ideas could be nothing other than shadows of a living spiritual world. “At that time,” writes Rudolf Steiner, “I could find no other word for my way of thinking than ‘objective idealism.’ By this I meant that, for me, the essential aspect of the idea is not that it appears in the human subject, but that it appears—much like color on a living being—on the spiritual object, and that the human soul—the subject—perceives it there, just as the eye perceives color on a living being.”
Inspired by his association with Schröer, Rudolf Steiner studied Goethe’s scientific works in depth as part of his own search for the relationship between nature and spirit. The prevailing physical conceptions of sound and light at the time prompted him to investigate the related problems. Through his own experiments, he became increasingly convinced of the depth of Goethe’s “Theory of Colors.” This was followed by the study of Goethe’s “Theory of Metamorphosis,” as well as anatomy and physiology.
Even here one can see the seeds of the important discovery of the threefold structure of the human organism, which must be discussed in detail later. It was not until thirty years later that this indescribably profound and fruitful idea was published in his book “On the Riddles of the Soul.”
Of great significance even during this period are the views Rudolf Steiner adopted regarding the fundamental problems of philosophy. When reference is made later to the “Philosophy of Freedom” that provides the epistemological foundation for his works, one will see a tentative search for such a philosophy of freedom—a search that was already evident in his boyhood—mature into a complete and internally coherent whole during this student period.
A very different figure who also held an important place in Rudolf Steiner’s life was an old herb gatherer, a simple man of the people who collected medicinal herbs and sold them in Vienna. In the “Lebensgang” he is described as a person who, filled with inner piety, lived in complete harmony with the hidden forces of nature. “With him, one could speak about the spiritual world as with someone who had experience with it. He revealed himself as if his personality were merely the speaking organ for a spiritual content that wished to speak from hidden worlds. When one was with him, one could gain deep insights into the mysteries of nature.”
For Rudolf Steiner, associating with this man, for whom he felt the greatest affection, offered the opportunity to connect with the spiritual world in a way different from his own. “If one takes the ordinary concept of ‘learning,’ one could say: One could learn nothing from this man. But if one already had a vision of the spiritual world, one could gain deep insights into it through another who was firmly rooted within it.” Rudolf Steiner later portrayed this man in his Mystery Dramas in the character of Felix Balde.
In addition to his extremely varied studies and his social interactions with an ever-growing number of people, he achieved much in the field of education. From the age of fifteen, the young Rudolf Steiner had been giving private lessons. This continued during his student years. Lessons in mathematics and physics above all, but also in other subjects, not only to students, but also to children—boys and girls—and to adults. “I had to learn much from the ground up myself in order to be able to teach it,” it says in the “Autobiography”.
A special task was entrusted to him as a private tutor in a family where four boys needed to be taught. One of them, a ten-year-old boy, was physically and mentally abnormal, mentally retarded, slow in his thinking, hypersensitive to the slightest mental exertion—a case of severe hydrocephalus. Rudolf Steiner proposed to the parents that he take over the entire upbringing of this child himself. The mother, in particular, accepted this with great trust.
In his description of how he treated this child, we already find much of what later appeared in Rudolf Steiner’s educational writings and lectures. In his treatment, he proceeded from the connection between physical and mental processes that was evident to him. In this case, the soul had to be led to connect more intensely with the body. The latent talents present in the soul had to be awakened.
The child’s loving attachment to the teacher provided the foundation. Instruction was now given according to special methods he had developed himself, always for only very short periods at a time. The sequence of the various subjects, the entire daily schedule, the manner in which the content of the various subjects could be presented to the child most effectively—all of this was carefully considered. An understanding of human nature was developed here, grounded in the true interrelationships between the soul-spiritual life on the one hand and the physical-organic life on the other. “I realized how education and instruction must become an art grounded in a true understanding of human nature.”
The results of this education exceeded all expectations. After two years, the child was able to take the entrance exam for the high school. His health had improved noticeably, and the hydrocephalus had greatly subsided. From then on, the boy attended school but continued to work under Rudolf Steiner’s guidance. After graduating, he studied medicine. He was killed in action during World War I.
In 1883, Rudolf Steiner was offered the opportunity to take a position the intellectual life of his time from which he could continue to prepare for his monumental tasks for the future. On Schröer’s recommendation, Joseph Kürschner offered him the task of introducing and editing Goethe’s scientific writings for Kürschner’s “Deutsche National-Literatur.” Schröer, who was to edit Goethe’s dramas in that series, wanted to write a preface to the first volume of the scientific works.
Rudolf Steiner prepared for this work by revisiting all the philosophical and scientific problems he had encountered and bringing them to a certain conclusion. The great figure of Goethe, in whose mind ideas themselves came to life and who was therefore able to develop a science of living nature, emerged ever more clearly before him. “I saw in Goethe a personality who, through the special spiritual relationship in which he had placed humanity in the world, was also able to integrate the knowledge of nature in the proper way into the entire realm of human creativity. The mode of thinking of the age into which I had grown up seemed to me suitable only for forming ideas about inanimate nature. I considered it incapable of approaching animate nature with the powers of cognition. I told myself, “To gain ideas capable of conveying an understanding of the organic, it is necessary first to enliven the intellectual concepts suitable for inorganic nature. For they appeared dead to me, and therefore only capable of grasping the dead. How these ideas came to life in Goethe’s mind, how they became forms of the idea—this is what I sought to present as an explanation of Goethe’s view of nature.”
A new theory of knowledge took shape and form, discovered and initiated by Goethe, shaped and brought to completion by Rudolf Steiner. In 1886, his work “Grundlinien einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung” (“Outlines of a Theory of Knowledge Based on Goethe’s Worldview”) was published.
Little by little, one sees the life of the mathematics and physics student transition into that of the young scholar and publicist, who begins to express himself more and more in two areas in particular: the field of Goethe research and that of the fundamental problems of epistemology.
The dissertation (“The Fundamental Question of Epistemology, with Special Reference to Fichte’s Science of Knowledge, Prolegomena for the Understanding of the Philosophizing Consciousness with Itself”), with which he earned his doctorate from the University of Rostock in 1891, was written at a time when various other, smaller publications had already appeared. Two volumes of Kürschner’s edition of Goethe’s works, with introductions and annotations by Rudolf Steiner, had also already been published.
In Rudolf Steiner’s description of this period, we come to know the Vienna of earlier times; Vienna as it was at the end of the previous century, right up to the beginning of the First World War: not only a center of science and art, but a place where everything of cultural significance was given its due. Where was there a more beautiful and radiant glow over the entire intellectual life than in the Vienna of that time? Where were humanity and beauty experienced with more warmth, where was truth experienced with more vitality and temperament?
Countless circles formed around the most diverse people—poets, artists, or scholars—groups of people who met regularly, repeatedly drawn together by a shared love of beauty and spirituality. Rudolf Steiner moved in many of these circles. A large number of significant people crossed his path during those years. Above all, the poet Marie Eugenie delie Grazie, who died in 1931, must be mentioned here, whose poems made a deep impression on her contemporaries. In the description of this remarkable woman, a particular trait of Rudolf Steiner’s character emerges. A deep pessimism lived in her soul: the human soul, filled with ideals, was, for her, too weak in the face of the overwhelming power of nature. A great poem, a “Satanide,” was intended to express this. She wanted to portray a primordial being rising from the cruel, all-consuming nature as a counter-image to God. Rudolf Steiner was deeply impressed by what she told him about this: “The grandeur with which she had spoken stood before me; the content of her ideas was the antithesis of everything that stood before my spirit as a conception of the world. But I was never inclined to withhold my admiration and interest from what appeared great to me, even if its content was entirely repugnant to me. Yes, I told myself: such opposites in the world must surely find harmony somewhere. And that made it possible for me to follow what I found repulsive with understanding, as if it were in the direction of my own state of mind.”
Inspired by a particular poem in which nature was celebrated as the highest power, Rudolf Steiner wrote a short essay, “Nature and Our Ideals,” in which he acknowledged the honest and courageous gaze into the abysses of being. Yet at the same time, he pointed to the inwardly free nature of the human being, who is capable of creating from within himself that which gives life meaning and substance. This free nature would not be able to unfold fully if that which must arise from within were to flow to him from without, from nature:
This short essay had significant consequences for Schröer’s relationship with Rudolf Steiner. Schröer, who lived in the purest and noblest idealism, could not understand such a view. Nor was it any longer acceptable to him that art should descend into the depths explored by the poetic genius Marie Eugenie delle Grazies. It was painful for Rudolf Steiner to witness how his remarks had hurt the man he held in such high esteem.
In the poet’s circle, Rudolf Steiner came to know a number of remarkable people: the Catholic priest Laurenz Müllner, her friend and former teacher; the highly learned Cistercian Wilhelm Neumann, with whom Rudolf Steiner had interesting conversations; the writer Emilie Mataja; the poet Fritz Lemmermayer, who later became his friend, the composer Alfred Stroß, and many others.
Both the poetess and Laurenz Müllner had a pronounced aversion to Goethe. Indeed, Rudolf Steiner even called their circle “a haven of anti-Goetheanism.”
A second circle he came to know during these years was that of a group of young poets centered around the aforementioned Fritz Lemmermayer. Joseph Kitir was among them, as was the brilliant eccentric Fercher von Steinwand, whose cosmic poems “Chor der Urtriebe” and “Chor der Urträume” made a deep impression on Rudolf Steiner. “There, ideas weave like living beings in magnificent harmony, functioning as images of the world’s germinal forces,” he writes, and then continues: “I regard the fact that I was able to get to know Fercher von Steinwand as one of the most significant experiences that came my way in my younger years. For his personality had the effect of a sage who reveals his wisdom through genuine poetry.”
It was also through Lemmermayer that he was introduced to the home of the Viennese Protestant pastor Alfred Formey, a man with a childlike, devout soul and a poetic disposition who radiated a warm and cordial atmosphere. Friedrich Hebbel’s widow, the famous actress Christine Hebbel, was a welcome guest there. There was recitation, performance, music, and conversation about everything that was happening in Vienna at the time.
The circle that had formed around Marie Lang, a woman with a profound, mystical-theosophical outlook on life, was of a quite different nature. Through the works of Franz Hartmann, the teachings of H.P. Blavatsky had also become known there. Hartmann’s books made little impression on Rudolf Steiner. “For the attitude toward the spiritual world that was expressed in Franz Hartmann’s writings was completely opposed to my own spiritual orientation. I could not concede that it was grounded in genuine inner truth. I was less concerned with its content than with the way it affected people who were, after all, genuine seekers.”
In this circle, Rudolf Steiner also met Rosa Mayreder, who later became so well-known and whom he came to hold in high esteem. Despite the vast differences in their worldviews, an intense exchange of ideas was always possible between them. In the preface to his 1891 book “Truth and Science,” Rudolf Steiner mentions her name in connection with the discussions about his “Philosophy of Freedom”, which was then in the process of being written.
Two other important encounters took place during this period: one with the poet-philosopher Robert Hamerling and the other with Eduard von Hartmann, the author of “Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness.” He visited Hartmann during a trip to Weimar and Berlin. He had a long, in-depth conversation with him about fundamental philosophical problems.
Robert Hamerling made a particular impression on Rudolf Steiner through the way he characterized and criticized soulless, mechanized civilization, for example in his satirical epic “Homunculus.”
The “Lebensgang” also recounts many other encounters and friendships. Some are mentioned only briefly, while others are described with great intimacy and warmth. Anyone who truly wishes to gain even a rough understanding of what was going on in Rudolf Steiner’s soul at that time will have to study these human relationships just as closely as the inner path of development that accompanied them.
In 1888, Rudolf Steiner briefly took over the editorship of the “Deutsche Wochenschrift.” Every week he had to write articles on political and cultural events. The bibliography (7) includes articles on Robert Hamerling and other writers, on Goethe, on the educational controversy of those days, on political issues, etc. Furthermore, various articles from that period appear in the new edition of Pierer’s Konversationslexikon, particularly those on geology. Many of his reviews and critiques also appeared in the “Nationale Blätter,” a publication of the German Association in Vienna, primarily on the subject of theater.
The highly significant lecture “Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetics,” which he also delivered in 1888 at the “Wiener Goethe-Verein,” will require further discussion.
Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxony, who had received Goethe’s manuscripts from the estate of his grandson and last descendant, Walther, wanted to publish a complete edition of Goethe’s works with the help of leading Goethe scholars. Herman Grimm, Gustav von Loeper, and Wilhelm Scherer directed the publication, supported by Bernhard Suphan, the director of the Goethe-Schiller Archive, Julius Wahle, a permanent staff member of the archive, and many other well-known Germanists. Rudolf Steiner was invited to collaborate as early as 1888 on the basis of his earlier publications. In 1890, he was hired as a permanent staff member with the specific task of editing Goethe’s morphological writings.
In “Lebensgang,” he characterizes the remarkable people he encountered at the archive. First and foremost, Herman Grimm, who was undoubtedly the most significant of all the staff members. “Intellectual distinction entered the archive whenever Herman Grimm appeared.” He is described as a person with a deep insight into the powerful impulses at work in human history, someone who, moreover, possessed the special gift of not only writing but also speaking in a personal, witty, and noble style. “The whole man was the embodiment of a unified style.”
A significant encounter took place during this time between Rudolf Steiner and Ernst Haeckel. It is necessary to go into this in somewhat greater detail, as there have been many misunderstandings regarding Steiner’s relationship with Haeckel. The occasion for their acquaintance was a lecture by Haeckel on “Monism as a Link Between Religion and Science,” a transcript of which he had sent to Rudolf Steiner in Weimar. Steiner then sent him a lecture he had given shortly before in Vienna, which also dealt with the problem of a monistic worldview. In it, he describes how human beings perceive the physical side of reality through their senses and its spiritual side through their inner spiritual perceptions. In this way, every experience appears as a unity in which the sensory is a reflection of the spirit, and the spirit reveals itself creatively in the sensory. A monism, therefore, that stands in stark contrast to Haeckel’s. His position had already been very difficult for some time. Philosophers regarded him as a dilettante; natural scientists as a fantasist. Rudolf Steiner was interested in Haeckel’s endeavor to arrive at a comprehensive worldview through the observation of nature. In this sense, he regarded him as someone who was continuing Goethe’s work in spirit. On Haeckel’s sixtieth birthday, which was celebrated in Jena, he also met him personally.
In later years, Rudolf Steiner repeatedly pointed out Haeckel’s significance, though he never failed to sharply distinguish his own standpoint from Haeckel’s, while still acknowledging the value of Haeckel’s approach to nature. In a lecture he gave in Berlin in 1905, he speaks of the moral strength that was at work in Haeckel. “With tremendous courage, this man has fought for his worldview for decades and has had to defend himself against manifold adversities that stood in his way. On the other hand, we must not overlook the fact that Haeckel possesses a great power of synthesis and comprehensive thinking. What so many ‘natural scientists’ lack in this regard, he possesses to a high degree. He dared, even though in recent decades the prevailing scientific currents were opposed to such an undertaking, to synthesize the results of his research into a worldview.” (8)
Another important encounter for him was with the philosopher Nietzsche. When Rudolf Steiner saw him, Nietzsche was already living in a state of mental derangement. Nevertheless, it was a profound experience for him to see this once-powerful thinker. Steiner had already come into contact with Nietzsche’s writings earlier. He described the significance of his thoughts in a book which he wrote in 1895: “Friedrich Nietzsche, a Fighter Against His Time.” Shortly before this book was written, Rudolf Steiner received an invitation from Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, to collaborate on a Nietzsche archive. The disputes that later arose in this context are mentioned only briefly in the “Life Course” as a series of misunderstandings without any deeper underlying causes.
When Rudolf Steiner arrived in Weimar, he was at the end of a first phase of his life that, in a certain sense, constitutes a unity and is concluded with the "Philosophy of Freedom." At the end of the seven years in Weimar, he once again felt himself facing a great inner transformation. Even if the "Philosophy of Freedom", as will be shown in detail later, can be a path for human beings to enter the world of the spirit through thinking, an answer to all the world’s mysteries could not be found along this path. The world’s mysteries, as Rudolf Steiner describes in “Lebensgang”, cannot be solved by thought. Thoughts merely set human beings on the path to an answer. The solutions themselves lie elsewhere. “In the real world, a mystery arises; it is there as a phenomenon; its solution likewise arises in reality. Something occurs that is an entity or a process, and which constitutes the solution to the other. So I also said to myself: the whole world, apart from the human being, is a mystery, the actual mystery of the world; and the human being is the solution itself.”
A more direct relationship with the spiritual world became a constant need for him and led his soul ever deeper into the spiritual depths of being. He increasingly distanced himself from the general views of others. The question of whether this gulf that had opened up was indeed unbridgeable preoccupied him more and more.
During this period of his life, Rudolf Steiner was given the opportunity to continue editing the continue as editor of the “Magazin für Literatur.” This weekly journal, founded in 1832, covered various fields. When Steiner took over as editor in 1897, the magazine had strong ties to the literature of the time. This work brought him into contact with various people, such as Otto Erich Hartleben, the co-editor, Otto Julius Bierbaum, Paul Scheerbarth, and many others who played a role in the artistic life of Berlin, where Steiner now lived.
Also important during this time was the theater work carried out in connection with Rudolf Steiner’s “Dramatic Society.” This society had set itself the task of staging, with the help of various professional actors, plays that had no place in the standard theater repertoire, such as Maeterlinck’s “The Uninvited.”
During his early years in Berlin, a deep connection to Christianity matured within Rudolf Steiner’s soul. Everything he had come to know of the various forms of this religion appeared to him as a revelation from sources lying beyond the human soul. In contrast, he himself had sought to find the source of moral life in the inner being of the human being, in which the divine dwells. The result of this search for a spiritual Christianity was to come to light a few years later.
During this time, he was invited to teach history and lead public speaking exercises at the “Berlin Workers’ Educational School.” This school was a foundation established by the elder Liebknecht, one of the leaders of the Social Democratic movement. For Rudolf Steiner, who had expressly reserved the right to speak as he himself deemed correct, the main thing was that this offered him the opportunity to work with many young people. On the occasion of the great Gutenberg anniversary, he was asked to deliver the commemorative lecture before 7,000 printers. After some time, the directors made it impossible for him to continue his work there. In the meantime, however, a new opportunity had already arisen to work in education within wider circles. For example, at the “Freie Hochschule,” where Rudolf Steiner was invited to speak on history, while Wilhelm Bölsche was to speak on the natural sciences and several others on philosophy and religion. A second, similar institution was the “Giordano Bruno Society,” where Steiner delivered a fundamentally important lecture on anthroposophy.
At the end of the 19th century, in August 1899, he wrote an essay in the “Magazin” on the occasion of Goethe’s 150th birthday about Goethe’s “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” He also spoke on the same topic in a more intimate setting within a circle that Count and Countess Brockdorff gathered weekly. The Brockdorffs were leaders of a group within the Theosophical Society founded by H. P. Blavatsky. Rudolf Steiner, however, spoke in this circle exclusively about the results of his own spiritual research, while he was scarcely familiar with Blavatsky’s works. In his “Lebensgang,” he emphatically points out that everyone in his circle knew full well that he spoke only of what had revealed itself to his own spiritual vision. Even later, when the German Section of the Theosophical Society was founded in Berlin in the presence of Annie Besant and he was elected General Secretary, the situation was such that, for example, he had to leave the founding meeting of the Theosophical Society early because he had to give lectures on the spiritual development of humanity to a non-theosophical audience, the titles of which included the words “anthroposophy”.
Before the founding of the German Section, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures on the topic “From Buddha to Christ” to a group of people who called themselves “Die Kommenden” (The Coming Ones). In the circle of the Brockdorffs, he gave the lectures that he later revised into the book “Christianity as a Mystical Fact.” The content of these lectures placed Steiner in complete opposition to the theosophical dogmas of the time. Nevertheless, in 1902 he was entrusted with the leadership of the German Section of the Theosophical Society. Only shortly before that had he been asked to become a member of this section.
Through his new position, Rudolf Steiner now came into contact with leading figures of the theosophical movement at various theosophical congresses and conferences, for example with Mead and Keightley. He also met Annie Besant and Sinnet. Marie von Sivers, who later became his wife, assisted him in leading the German Section. It is largely thanks to her that a completely different atmosphere could be felt among the group of people who gathered around her. The work in the artistic field, which will be discussed later, was already significant during this time. It was difficult for both of them to find a good relationship with the actual theosophical work, since much of it was distorted by triviality and dilettantism. For since the year 1906, certain phenomena had come to light which pointed to an internal decline. The climax was reached with the claim that the personality through whom Christ was to come to a new life on earth had been born in a Hindu boy. A special society, the “Star of the East,” was founded. For Rudolf Steiner, it was completely impossible to admit the followers of the “Star in the East” into the German Section, especially not in the manner Annie Besant demanded. After many difficulties, the German Section was expelled from the Theosophical Society in 1913. (9)
This separation of the groups now continuing under the name “Anthroposophical Society,” had not the slightest influence on the work Rudolf Steiner was doing. In later lectures, he once said that being “included” in the Theosophical Society had influenced his spiritual work just as little as the later “exclusion.” A genuine inner connection between the two methods had never been possible. The scientific endeavors of the Theosophists of that time were strongly oriented toward modern natural sciences, for example, in the search for an atomistic worldview. The so-called “permanent atom” was a final offshoot of this tendency. For Rudolf Steiner, Goethe’s path—the search for the primordial phenomenon—was the truly spiritual one. In the search for the permanent atom, he could see nothing other than a refined and misguided materialism.
At the same time as the founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, Rudolf Steiner, together with Marie von Sivers, had founded the monthly journal “Lucifer.” Here, this name meant “bearer of light.” Later, this journal was expanded through a merger with another, “Gnosis.” This new journal, “Luzifer-Gnosis,” attracted an ever-growing readership, but due to the rapid spread of the anthroposophical movement, Steiner was invited to give so many lectures that it was no longer possible for him to continue publishing the journal.
The development of the anthroposophical movement between the years 1902 and 1925 can be described very briefly here, as its history will be discussed in the following chapters. This development unfolded in three distinct yet internally connected periods. The first period lasted roughly until the years 1907–09. During this time, Rudolf Steiner worked on the actual development of a spiritual science as it could emerge from anthroposophy. In various articles in the aforementioned journal “Luzifer-Gnosis” and especially in the book “Theosophy”, published in 1904, the nature of the human being was presented in relation to the whole of the world in such a way that those trained in the natural sciences could find in it a continuation of the ideas that had brought natural science to its flowering in the preceding centuries. The book “Outline of Esoteric Science,” published in 1910, was essentially written during this period. Likewise, the concepts of reincarnation and karma found a new foundation in spiritual science, while the book “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” pointed out a clear, precise path for anyone wishing to develop further in this spiritual direction.
Rudolf Steiner gave countless lectures during these years, primarily in Germany’s major cities—Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, and so on.
The second period, which lasted roughly until the years 1914–16, brought above all a further elaboration of the relationship between anthroposophy and Christianity. This was of great significance, considering that many who belonged to the anthroposophical movement at that time had come to it through the theosophical writings of H. P. Blavatsky. Her writings are, in their essence, unchristian; indeed, one might even say anti-Christian, since they cast the significance of the Christ impulse for the Earth in a false light.
Many lecture series held during those years dealt directly or indirectly with this topic. The Gospels were discussed in detail. In addition to Germany’s major cities, lecture series were also held in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.
During this period, work in the artistic field began. In 1910, Rudolf Steiner’s first Mystery Drama, “The Portal of Initiation,” was published; it was performed in Munich and was followed by three further dramas. Subsequently, under the direction of Marie von Sivers, significant artistic work in the fields of eurythmy and speech formation developed in the following years.
At the end of 1913, construction began on the Goetheanum near Basel, initially intended primarily as a dedicated venue for the performance of the Mystery Dramas. Due to the further expansion and development of the Anthroposophical Society, it was opened as the School of Spiritual Science in September 1920.
The third period begins in the early years of the World War and lasts until 1923. A large number of people working in various scientific fields who had found their way to anthroposophy felt dissatisfied due to the limited opportunities to work meaningfully in their fields. They therefore turned to Rudolf Steiner with the question of whether new impulses could be provided through anthroposophy. In response, many lectures and courses followed in the fields of natural science, education, astronomy, theology, and others. Various institutes, laboratories, schools, and clinics were established in Dornach and Stuttgart, and over the years also in many other German cities and eventually in a number of other countries.
The Anthroposophical Society suffered a heavy loss when the Goetheanum burned down on New Year’s Eve 1922–23. Yet the work was not interrupted for a single moment. A year later, Rudolf Steiner was already drawing up the first plans for a new Goetheanum, construction of which began in 1925; in September 1928, the opening took place in the still-unfinished building.
During this third period, Rudolf Steiner also presented his ideas for social renewal to the world through the book “The Core Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life for the Present and the Future”, in which he developed the idea of the threefold social order. A “League for the Threefold Social Order” was founded, which invited Rudolf Steiner to give many lectures on this subject.
During the Christmas season of 1923, the various branches and fields of activity were brought together into the “General Anthroposophical Society,” which united the entire movement and the society of that time; Rudolf Steiner himself assumed the leadership of the new society as chairman of an executive committee appointed by him and confirmed by the members. As early as 1923, the “School of Spiritual Science” was established in its present form.
Outwardly, it stands in the world like any other university; it is divided into several sections. The first section, which encompassed general anthroposophy and pedagogy, remained under the direction of Rudolf Steiner himself. A Section for “Fine Arts” was placed under the direction of the Swiss poet Albert Steffen. The Section for Eurythmy and Speech Formation came under the direction of Marie Steiner-von Sivers, and the Section for Medicine under the direction of Dr. Ita Wegman. The Section for Astronomy and Mathematics was led by Dr. Elisabeth Vreede, and the Section for Natural Sciences by Dr. Günther Wachsmuth. A seventh section for plastic arts was to be led by Miss Maryon. The early death of this sculptor prevented her from taking over. The six section leaders mentioned above also formed the executive council of the “General Anthroposophical Society” under the chairmanship of Rudolf Steiner.
During the nine months that followed, Rudolf Steiner accomplished a superhuman amount of work. A large part of this time was taken up by trips abroad. In Dornach, lectures and courses characterized by great diversity took place during the remaining time. In September, for several weeks, three to five lectures were held daily, both for doctors and priests of the Christian Community as well as for artists, and almost every evening a members’ lecture was given to an audience of about a thousand people.
Immediately before Michaelmas 1924, Rudolf Steiner was forced to give up his public activities due to complete exhaustion of his strength, a condition that had been looming for some time. From his sickbed, he continued to write letters and articles for the members every week and worked daily in a wide variety of fields.2 In the last years of his life, Rudolf Steiner wrote articles almost every week for the journal “Das Goetheanum,” which was edited by Albert Steffen, the current chairman.
He died on March 30, 1925, fully conscious and lucid until the very last moment.
Rarely has a person’s illness been shared in such deep sympathy by so many as in this case. Thousands around the world were in constant worry and anxious suspense for months on end. An unceasing stream of letters and gifts flowed in from all countries and continents. When news of his passing became known, hundreds flocked to Dornach from all directions to pay their last respects to their teacher and leader at his deathbed.