In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis betweenscience andspirituality[46] by developing what he termed "spiritual science", which he sought to apply the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,[47]: 291 differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of theGoetheanum, a cultural centre to houseall the arts.[48] In the third phase of his work, beginning afterWorld War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly appliedprojects, includingWaldorf education,[49]biodynamic agriculture,[50] andanthroposophical medicine.[49]
Steiner advocated a form ofethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based hisepistemology onJohann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking...is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas."[51] A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.[52]
The house where Rudolf Steiner was born, in present-dayCroatia
Steiner's father, Johann(es) Steiner (1829–1910), left a position as agamekeeper[54] in the service of CountHoyos inGeras, northeastLower Austria to marry one of the Hoyos family's housemaids, Franziska Blie (1834Horn – 1918, Horn), a marriage for which the Count had refused his permission. Johann became a telegraph operator on the Southern Austrian Railway, and at the time of Rudolf's birth was stationed in Murakirály (Kraljevec) in theMuraköz region of theKingdom of Hungary,Austrian Empire (present-day Donji Kraljevec in theMeđimurje region of northernmostCroatia). In the first two years of Rudolf's life, the family moved twice, first toMödling, nearVienna, and then, through the promotion of his father to stationmaster, toPottschach, located in the foothills of the eastern AustrianAlps inLower Austria.[49]
Steiner entered the village school, but following a disagreement between his father and the schoolmaster, he was briefly educated at home. In 1869, when Steiner was eight years old, the family moved to the village ofNeudörfl and in October 1872 Steiner proceeded from the village school there to therealschule inWiener Neustadt.[2]: Chap. 2
Rudolf Steiner, graduation photo from secondary school
In 1879, the family moved toInzersdorf to enable Steiner to attend theVienna Institute of Technology,[55] where he enrolled in courses inmathematics,physics,chemistry,botany,zoology, andmineralogy and audited courses inliterature andphilosophy, on an academic scholarship from 1879 to 1883, where he completed his studies and the requirements of the Ghega scholarship satisfactorily.[56][57] In 1882, one of Steiner's teachers,Karl Julius Schröer,[2]: Chap. 3 suggested Steiner's name to Joseph Kürschner, chief editor of a new edition of Goethe's works,[58] who asked Steiner to become the edition's natural science editor,[59] a truly astonishing opportunity for a young student without any form of academic credentials or previous publications.[60]: 43
Before attending the Vienna Institute of Technology, Steiner had studiedKant,Fichte andSchelling.[37]
When he was nine years old, Steiner believed that he saw the spirit of an aunt who had died in a far-off town, asking him to help her at a time when neither he nor his family knew of the woman's death.[61] Steiner later related that as a child, he felt "that one must carry the knowledge of the spiritual world within oneself after the fashion of geometry ... [for here] one is permitted to know something which the mind alone, through its own power, experiences. In this feeling I found the justification for the spiritual world that I experienced ... I confirmed for myself by means of geometry the feeling that I must speak of a world 'which is not seen'."[2]
Steiner believed that at the age of 15 he had gained a complete understanding of the concept of time, which he considered to be the precondition of spiritualclairvoyance.[37] At 21, on the train between his home village andVienna, Steiner met a herb gatherer, Felix Kogutzki, who spoke about the spiritual world "as one who had his own experience therein".[2]: 39–40 [62]
The young Steiner emerged as an individualist,positivist and freethinker, who was not afraid to refer to scandalous philosophers such asStirner,Nietzsche andHaeckel. His freethinking culminated in a contempt for religion and faith. He attributed almost pathological traits to Christianity.[63] Steiner "was lecturing at many workers' colleges, and at the Giordano Bruno Union (a rationalist, anti-religious organisation) on the history of philosophy."[64] Indeed, several authors see a change from the early this-worldly Steiner to the later other-worldly Steiner.[65]: 210 fn. 2
In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kürschner edition ofGoethe's works, Steiner was invited to work as an editor at the Goethe archives inWeimar. Steiner remained with the archive until 1896. It was a low-paid and boring job.[39] As well as the introductions for and commentaries to four volumes of Goethe's scientific writings, Steiner wrote two books about Goethe's philosophy:The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886),[66] which Steiner regarded as theepistemological foundation and justification for his later work,[67] andGoethe's Conception of the World (1897).[68] During this time he also collaborated in complete editions of the works ofArthur Schopenhauer and the writerJean Paul and wrote numerous articles for various journals.
Rudolf Steiner around 1891–92, etching by Otto Fröhlich
In 1891, Steiner received a doctorate in philosophy at theUniversity of Rostock, for his dissertation discussingFichte's concept of the ego,[47][69] submitted toHeinrich von Stein [de], whoseSeven Books of Platonism Steiner esteemed.[2]: Chap. 14 Steiner's dissertation was later published in expanded form asTruth and Knowledge: Prelude to a Philosophy of Freedom, with a dedication toEduard von Hartmann.[70] Two years later, in 1894, he publishedDie Philosophie der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedomor The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, the latter being Steiner's preferred English title), an exploration ofepistemology and ethics that suggested a way for humans to become spiritually free beings. Steiner hoped that the book "would gain him a professorship", but the book was not well received.[39] Steiner later spoke of this book as containing implicitly, in philosophical form, the entire content of what he later developed explicitly asanthroposophy.[71]
Steiner, c.1900
In 1896, Steiner declined an offer fromElisabeth Förster-Nietzsche to help organize the Nietzsche archive inNaumburg. Her brother,Friedrich Nietzsche, was by that timenon compos mentis. "Hoping for a job (which, in fact, he did not get), Steiner accepted the invitation immediately."[72] Förster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of thecatatonic philosopher; Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the bookFriedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom.[73] Steiner later related that:
My first acquaintance with Nietzsche's writings belongs to the year 1889. Previous to that I had never read a line of his. Upon the substance of my ideas as these find expression inThe Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Nietzsche's thought had not the least influence....Nietzsche's ideas of the 'eternal recurrence' and of 'Übermensch' remained long in my mind. For in these was reflected that which a personality must feel concerning the evolution and essential being of humanity when this personality is kept back from grasping the spiritual world by the restricted thought in the philosophy of nature characterizing the end of the 19th century....What attracted me particularly was that one could read Nietzsche without coming upon anything which strove to make the reader a 'dependent' of Nietzsche's.[2]: Chap. 18
In 1897, Steiner left theWeimar archives and moved to Berlin. He became part owner of, chief editor of, and an active contributor to the literary journalMagazin für Literatur, where he hoped to find a readership sympathetic to his philosophy. Many subscribers were alienated by Steiner's unpopular support ofÉmile Zola in theDreyfus Affair[54] and the journal lost more subscribers when Steiner published extracts from his correspondence with anarchistJohn Henry Mackay.[54] Dissatisfaction with his editorial style eventually led to his departure from the magazine. In 1899, Steiner married Anna Eunicke; the couple separated several years later. Anna died in 1911.[49] Steiner's marriage to Anna "was clearly a marriage of convenience".[74]
Despite his fame as a teacher of esotericism, Steiner was culturally and academically isolated.[75] About his work,The Philosophy of Freedom, Lachman wrote, "It's also a work of genius, and one suspects that Steiner's later occult reputation has prevented the book from receiving the kind of attention it deserves."[76] He also wrote "Mainstream philosophy has as much use for Steiner today as it did a century ago, but his work has been picked up by more alternative thinkers, likeWilliam Irwin Thompson andRichard Tarnas."[77]
Worse, he couldn't be a realphilosopher either; his theosophy and anthroposophy and the Waldorf humanism in particular were considered pseudoscience or at best pedagogy, not a philosophical system. Steiner's credentials were not university-level professional work. [...] German mainstream scholarship called him an 'autodidact, with a poor teacher' and 'gypsy-intellectual.'144 Not uncommon for practitioners at the fringes of society, he was accused of class treason.[78]
— Thorsten J. Pattberg (2012)
An Anthroposophist stated "However, knowing that the academic establishment would shun him, he nevertheless decided in 1902 to begin speaking openly about his spiritual observations."[79]
Rudolf Steiner in Munich with Annie Besant, leader of the Theosophical Society. Photo from 1907Marie Steiner, 1903
In 1899, Steiner published an article, "Goethe's Secret Revelation", discussing the esoteric nature of Goethe's fairy taleThe Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. This article led to an invitation by the Count and Countess Brockdorff to speak to a gathering ofTheosophists on the subject of Nietzsche. Steiner continued speaking regularly to the members of theTheosophical Society, becoming the head of its newly constituted German section in 1902 without ever formally joining the society.[47][80] It was also in connection with this society that Steiner met and worked withMarie von Sivers, who became his second wife in 1914. By 1904, Steiner was appointed byAnnie Besant to be leader of the TheosophicalEsoteric Society for Germany and Austria. In 1904, Eliza, the wife ofHelmuth von Moltke the Younger, became one of his favourite scholars.[81] Through Eliza, Steiner met Helmuth, who served as theChief of the German General Staff from 1906 to 1914.[82]
Anna Eunicke was not pleased that her husband, having previously the reputation of a liberal academic, now joined the cult of a charlatan.[83]
In contrast to mainstream Theosophy, Steiner sought to build a Western approach to spirituality based on the philosophical and mystical traditions of European culture. The German Section of the Theosophical Society grew rapidly under Steiner's leadership as he lectured throughout much of Europe on hisspiritual science. During this period, Steiner maintained an original approach, replacingMadame Blavatsky's terminology with his own, and basing his spiritual research and teachings upon the Western esoteric and philosophical tradition. This and other differences, in particular Steiner's vocal rejection ofLeadbeater andBesant's claim thatJiddu Krishnamurti was the vehicle of a newMaitreya, or world teacher,[84] led to a formal split in 1912–13,[47] when Steiner and the majority of members of the German section of the Theosophical Society broke off to form a new group, theAnthroposophical Society. Steiner took the name "Anthroposophy" from the title of a work of the Austrian philosopherRobert von Zimmermann, published in Vienna in 1856.[85] Despite his departure from the Theosophical Society, Steiner maintained his interest in Theosophy throughout his life.[86]
According to Helmut Zander, Steiner's clairvoyant insights always developed according to the same pattern. He took revised texts from theosophical literature and then passed them off as his own higher insights. Because he did not want to be an occult storyteller, but a (spiritual) scientist, he adapted his reading, which he had seen supernaturally in the world's memory, to the current state of technology. When, for example, theWright brothers began flying with gliders and eventually with motorized aircraft in 1903, Steiner transformed the ponderous gondola airships of his Atlantis story into airplanes with elevators and rudders in 1904.[87] Mainstream historians have lambasted Steiner's accounts about Lemuria and Atlantis as pseudohistory.[45] Zaleski and Zaleski wrote: "Steiner rewrote the history of the world, describing lost ages and unknown civilizations....He filled in this historical framework with teachings about reincarnation, karma, the astral planes, the Akashic Record, and other familiar elements in the European occultist's kit."[88][89]
Anthroposophical Society and its cultural activities
TheAnthroposophical Society grew rapidly. Fueled by a need to find an artistic home for their yearly conferences, which included performances of plays written byEdouard Schuré and Steiner, the decision was made to build a theater and organizational center. In 1913, construction began on the firstGoetheanum building, inDornach, Switzerland. The building, designed by Steiner, was built to a significant part by volunteers. Steiner moved from Berlin[90] toDornach in 1913 and lived there to the end of his life.[91]
Steiner's lecture activity expanded enormously with the end of the war. Most importantly, from 1919 on Steiner began to work with other members of the society to found numerouspractical institutions and activities, including the firstWaldorf school, founded that year inStuttgart, Germany. On New Year's Eve, 1922–1923, the Goetheanum burned to the ground; contemporary police reports indicate arson as the probable cause.[49]: 752 [92]: 796 Steiner immediately began work designing asecond Goetheanum building - this time made of concrete instead of wood - which was completed in 1928, three years after his death.
At a "Foundation Meeting" for members held at the Dornach center during Christmas 1923, Steiner founded the School of Spiritual Science.[93] This school, which was led by Steiner, initially had sections for general anthroposophy,education,medicine, performing arts (eurythmy, speech, drama and music), the literary arts and humanities, mathematics, astronomy, science, and visual arts. Later sections were added for the social sciences, youth and agriculture.[94][95][96] The School of Spiritual Science includedmeditative exercises given by Steiner.
Steiner became a well-known and controversial public figure during and after World War I. In response to the catastrophic situation in post-war Germany, he proposed extensive social reforms through the establishment of aThreefold Social Order in which the cultural, political and economic realms would be largely independent. Steiner argued that a fusion of the three realms had created the inflexibility that had led to catastrophes such asWorld War I. In connection with this, he promoted a radical solution in the disputed area ofUpper Silesia, claimed by both Poland and Germany. His suggestion that this area be granted at least provisional independence led to his being publicly accused of being a traitor to Germany.[97]
Steiner opposedWilson's proposal to create new European nations based around ethnic groups, which he saw as opening the door to rampant nationalism. Steiner proposed, as an alternative:
'social territories' with democratic institutions that were accessible to all inhabitants of a territory whatever their origin while the needs of the various ethnicities would be met by independent cultural institutions.[98]
Two Socialist German scholars say Steiner was racist and reactionary.[99]
TheNational Socialist German Workers Party gained strength in Germany after the First World War. In 1919, a political theorist of this movement,Dietrich Eckart, attacked Steiner and suggested that he was a Jew.[100] In 1921,Adolf Hitler attacked Steiner on many fronts, including accusations that he was a tool of the Jews.[101] That same year, Steiner warned against the disastrous effects it would have for Central Europe if the National Socialists came to power.[100]: 8 In 1922 a lecture Steiner was giving in Munich was disrupted whenstink bombs were let off and the lights switched out, while people rushed the stage apparently attempting to attack Steiner, who exited safely through a back door.[102][103] Unable to guarantee his safety, Steiner's agents cancelled his next lecture tour.[54]: 193 [104] The 1923Beer Hall Putsch in Munich led Steiner to give up his residence in Berlin, saying that if those responsible for the attempted coup (Hitler'sNazi party) came to power in Germany, it would no longer be possible for him to enter the country.[105]
From 1923 on, Steiner showed signs of increasing frailness and illness. He nonetheless 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. Many of these lectures focused on practical areas of life such as education.[106]
Steiner's gravestone at the Goetheanum
Increasingly ill, he held his last lecture in late September, 1924. He continued work on his autobiography during the last months of his life; he died at Dornach on 30 March 1925.
Steiner first began speaking publicly about spiritual experiences and phenomena in his 1899 lectures to the Theosophical Society. By 1901 he had begun to write about spiritual topics, initially in the form of discussions of historical figures such as themystics of theMiddle Ages. By 1904 he was expressing his own understanding of these themes in his essays and books, while continuing to refer to a wide variety of historical sources.
A world of spiritual perception is discussed in a number of writings which I have published since this book appeared.The Philosophy of Freedom forms the philosophical basis for these later writings. For it tries to show that the experience of thinking, rightly understood, is in fact an experience of spirit. (Steiner,Philosophy of Freedom,Consequences of Monism)
Steiner aimed to apply his training inmathematics, science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences.[107] He believed that through freely chosenethical disciplines andmeditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience the spiritual world, including the higher nature of oneself and others.[54] Steiner believed that suchdiscipline and training would help a person to become a moremoral,creative andfreeindividual – free in the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love.[108] His philosophical ideas were affected byFranz Brentano,[54] with whom he had studied,[109] as well as by Fichte,Hegel, Schelling, and Goethe'sphenomenological approach to science.[54][110][111]
Steiner used the wordGeisteswissenschaft (from Geist = mind or spirit, Wissenschaft = science), a term originally coined byWilhelm Dilthey as a descriptor of thehumanities, in a novel way, to describe a systematic ("scientific") approach to spirituality.[112] Steiner used the termGeisteswissenschaft, generally translated into English as "spiritual science," to describe a discipline treating the spirit as something actual and real, starting from the premise that it is possible for human beings to penetrate behind what is sense-perceptible.[113] He proposed that psychology, history, and the humanities generally were based on the direct grasp of an ideal reality,[114] and required close attention to the particular period and culture which provided the distinctive character of religious qualities in the course of the evolution of consciousness. In contrast to William James' pragmatic approach to religious and psychic experience, which emphasized its idiosyncratic character, Steiner focused on ways such experience can be rendered more intelligible and integrated into human life.[115]
Steiner proposed that an understanding of reincarnation and karma was necessary to understand psychology[116] and that the form of external nature would be more comprehensible as a result of insight into the course of karma in the evolution of humanity.[117] Beginning in 1910, he described aspects of karma relating to health, natural phenomena and free will, taking the position that a person is not bound by his or her karma, but can transcend this through actively taking hold of one's own nature and destiny.[118] In an extensive series of lectures from February to September 1924, Steiner presented further research on successive reincarnations of various individuals and described the techniques he used for karma research.[106][119]
An author stated that Steiner was aguru.[18] A psychiatrist agrees.[19][120] Other authors agree.[121] Moffitt called Steiner a "greatmitteleuropäische occultist guru".[22] Two authors stated "Rudolf Steiner—guru only insofar as that was one of the duties he imposed on himself as a universal genius and world redeemer".[122] While Colin Wilson dismissed Steiner as a "Charlatan Messiah/demented messiah".[31] Wilson stated "Steiner was one of the most successful 'messiahs' that Europe had seen since Sabbatai Zevi."[123]
After the First World War, Steiner became active in a wide variety of cultural contexts. He founded a number of schools, the first of which was known as theWaldorf school,[124] which later evolved into a worldwide school network. He also founded a system of organic agriculture, now known asbiodynamic agriculture, which was one of the first forms of modernorganic farming.[125] Hiswork in medicine is based inpseudoscience and occult ideas. Even though his medical ideas led to the development of a broad range of complementary medications and supportive artistic and biographic therapies,[126] they are considered ineffective by the medical community.[127] Numerous homes for children and adults withdevelopmental disabilities based on his work (including those of theCamphill movement) are found in Africa, Europe, and North America.[128] His paintings and drawings influencedJoseph Beuys and other modern artists. His twoGoetheanum buildings are considered significant examples ofmodern architecture,[129][130][131][132][133] and other anthroposophical architects have contributed thousands of buildings to the modern scene.[134]
Steiner'sliterary estate is broad. Steiner's writings, published in about forty volumes, include books, essays,four plays ('mystery dramas'), mantric verse, and an autobiography. His collected lectures, making up another approximately 300 volumes, discuss a wide range of themes. Steiner's drawings, chiefly illustrations done on blackboards during his lectures, are collected in a separate series of 28 volumes. Many publications have covered his architectural legacy and sculptural work.[135][136]
Steiner has speculated about creating artificial life (and maybe aboutartificial intelligence), but such speculations were by no means a novelty.[137]
As a young man, Steiner was a private tutor and a lecturer on history for the BerlinArbeiterbildungsschule,[138] an educational initiative for working class adults.[139] Soon thereafter, he began to articulate his ideas on education in public lectures,[140] culminating in a 1907 essay onThe Education of the Child in which he described the major phases of child development which formed the foundation of his approach to education.[141] Hisconception of education was influenced by theHerbartian pedagogy prominent in Europe during the late nineteenth century,[138]: 1362, 1390ff [140] though Steiner criticized Herbart for not sufficiently recognizing the importance of educating the will and feelings as well as the intellect.[142]
In 1919,Emil Molt invited him to lecture to his workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart. Out of these lectures came the first Waldorf School. In 1922, Steiner presented these ideas at a conference called for this purpose inOxford by ProfessorMillicent Mackenzie. He subsequently presented a teacher training course atTorquay in 1924 at anAnthroposophy Summer School organised byEleanor Merry.[143] The Oxford Conference and the Torquay teacher training led to the founding of the first Waldorf schools in Britain.[144] During Steiner's lifetime, schools based on his educational principles were also founded inHamburg,Essen,The Hague and London; there are now more than 1000Waldorf schools worldwide.
Benjamin Lazier calls Steiner a "maverick educator".[145]
In 1924, a group of farmers concerned about the future of agriculture requested Steiner's help. Steiner responded with a lecture series on anecological andsustainable approach to agriculture that increased soil fertility without the use ofchemical fertilizers andpesticides.[50] Steiner's agricultural ideas promptly spread and were put into practice internationally[146] andbiodynamic agriculture is now practiced in Europe,[147] North America, South America,[148] Africa,[149] Asia[147] andAustralasia.[150][151][152]
"Steiner's 'biodynamic agriculture' based on 'restoring the quasi-mystical relationship between earth and the cosmos' was widely accepted in the Third Reich (28)."[153]
A central aspect of biodynamics is that the farm as a whole is seen as an organism, and therefore should be a largely self-sustaining system, producing its ownmanure andanimal feed. Plant or animal disease is seen as a symptom of problems in the whole organism. Steiner also suggested timing such agricultural activities as sowing, weeding, and harvesting to utilize the influences on plant growth of themoon andplanets; and the application of natural materials prepared in specific ways to thesoil,compost, and crops, with the intention of engaging non-physical beings and elemental forces.[citation needed] He encouraged his listeners to verify such suggestionsempirically, as he had not yet done.[150]
In a 2002 newspaper editorial, Peter Treue, agricultural researcher at theUniversity of Kiel, characterized biodynamics aspseudoscience and argued that similar or equal results can be obtained using standard organic farming principles. He wrote that some biodynamic preparations more resemblealchemy ormagic akin togeomancy.[154]
From the late 1910s, Steiner was working with doctors to create anew approach to medicine. In 1921,pharmacists and physicians gathered under Steiner's guidance to create a pharmaceutical company calledWeleda which now distributes naturopathic medical and beauty products worldwide. At around the same time, Dr.Ita Wegman founded a first anthroposophic medical clinic (now the Ita Wegman Clinic) inArlesheim. Anthroposophic medicine is practiced in some 80 countries.[155] It is a form ofalternative medicine based onpseudoscientific andoccult notions.[156]
For a period after World War I, Steiner was active as a lecturer on social reform. A petition expressing his basic social ideas was widely circulated and signed by many cultural figures of the day, includingHermann Hesse.
In Steiner's chief book onsocial reform,Toward Social Renewal, he suggested that the cultural, political and economic spheres of society need to work together as consciously cooperating yet independent entities, each with a particular task: political institutions should be democratic, establishpolitical equality and protecthuman rights; cultural institutions should nurture the free and unhindered development of science, art, education and religion; and economic institutions should enable producers, distributors, and consumers to cooperate voluntarily to provide efficiently for society's needs.[159] He saw this division of responsibility as a vital task which would take up consciously the historical trend toward the mutual independence of these three realms. Steiner also gave suggestions for many specific social reforms.
Steiner proposed that societal well-being fundamentally depends upon a relationship of mutuality between the individuals and the community as a whole:
The well-being of a community of people working together will be the greater, the less the individual claims for himself the proceeds of his work, i.e. the more of these proceeds he makes over to his fellow-workers, the more his own needs are satisfied, not out of his own work but out of the work done by others.
He expressed another aspect of this in the following motto:
The healthy social life is found When in the mirror of each human soul The whole community finds its reflection, And when in the community The virtue of each one is living.
According to Cees Leijenhorst, "Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism."[161]
According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner's teachings had a clear authoritarian ring, and developed a rather crass polemic against 'materialism', 'liberalism', and cultural 'degeneration'. [...] For example, anthroposophical medicine was developed to contrast with the 'materialistic' (and hence 'degenerate') medicine of the establishment."[162]
The Social Threefolding has been called a "nebulous scheme".[163] Steiner pleaded for a hegemonic spiritual elite.[164] "Steiner's political suggestions seems hopelessly unrealistic... moonshine..."[165]
English sculptorEdith Maryon belonged to the innermost circle of founders of anthroposophy and was appointed to head the Section of Sculptural Arts at the Goetheanum.
Steiner designed 17 buildings, including theFirst and Second Goetheanums.[166] These two buildings, built in Dornach, Switzerland, were intended to house significant theater spaces as well as a "school for spiritual science".[167] Three of Steiner's buildings have been listed amongst the most significant works of modern architecture.[168][169]
His primary sculptural work isThe Representative of Humanity (1922), a nine-meter high wood sculpture executed as a joint project with the sculptorEdith Maryon.[170] This was intended to be placed in the first Goetheanum. It shows a central human figure, the "Representative of Humanity," holding a balance between opposing tendencies of expansion and contraction personified as the beings ofLucifer andAhriman.[171][172][173] It was intended to show, in conscious contrast to Michelangelo'sLast Judgment, Christ as mute and impersonal such that the beings that approach him must judge themselves.[174] The sculpture is now on permanent display at the Goetheanum.
Steiner's blackboard drawings were unique at the time and almost certainly not originally intended as art works.[175]Joseph Beuys' work, itself heavily influenced by Steiner, has led to the modern understanding of Steiner's drawings as artistic objects.[176]
Steiner wrote fourmystery plays between 1909 and 1913:The Portal of Initiation,The Souls' Probation,The Guardian of the Threshold andThe Soul's Awakening, modeled on the esoteric dramas ofEdouard Schuré,Maurice Maeterlinck, andJohann Wolfgang von Goethe.[177] Steiner's plays continue to be performed by anthroposophical groups in various countries, most notably (in the original German) in Dornach, Switzerland and (in English translation) in Spring Valley, New York and in Stroud and Stourbridge in the U.K.
In collaboration with Marie von Sivers, Steiner also founded a new approach to acting, storytelling, and the recitation of poetry. His last public lecture course, given in 1924, was on speech and drama. The Russian actor, director, and acting coachMichael Chekhov based significant aspects of his method of acting on Steiner's work.[178][179]
Together withMarie von Sivers, Rudolf Steiner also developed the art ofeurythmy, sometimes referred to as "visible speech and song". According to the principles of eurythmy, there are archetypal movements or gestures that correspond to every aspect of speech – the sounds (orphonemes), the rhythms, and the grammatical function – to every "soul quality" – joy, despair, tenderness, etc. – and to every aspect of music – tones, intervals, rhythms, and harmonies.
His independentEsoteric School of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1904. This school continued after the break withTheosophy but was disbanded at the start of World War I.
A lodge calledMystica Aeterna within theMasonic Order of Memphis and Mizraim, which Steiner led from 1906 until around 1914. Steiner added to the Masonic rite a number of Rosicrucian references.[180]
The School of Spiritual Science of the Anthroposophical Society, founded in 1923 as a further development of his earlier Esoteric School. This was originally constituted with a general section and seven specialized sections for education, literature, performing arts, natural sciences, medicine, visual arts, and astronomy.[94][96][181] Steiner gave members of the School the first Lesson for guidance into the esoteric work in February 1924.[182] Though Steiner intended to develop three "classes" of this school, only the first of these was developed in his lifetime (and continues today). An authentic text of the written records on which the teaching of the First Class was based was published in 1992.[183]
The Esoteric School of the Anthroposophical Society originated, directly and indirectly, from "the many pansophical and occult groups belonging to high-grade Masonry", going through theTheosophical Society andOrdo Templi Orientis.[184] Steiner had the Masonic degrees 33 and 95.[185] Besides being a member of the OTO,[186][187][188] Steiner was the German Deputy Grand Master of theRite of Memphis-Misraim.[189][190] Steiner quickly distanced himself fromTheodor Reuss, OTO leader who had allowed him access to Freemasonry, and such association was unfortunate due to public disclosures that the OTO practiced sexual magic.[191] Steiner's lodge taughtKama Sutra andThe Perfumed Garden.[192]
In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884 and 1897, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as essentiallyphenomenological 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) andGoethe'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 both accurate perception and imagination were required to find the biological archetypes (Urpflanze). He 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.[193] Steiner emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of theintermaxillary bone in human beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy.[193] Steiner defendedGoethe's qualitative description of color as arising synthetically from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast toNewton's particle-based and analytic conception.
Particular organic forms can be evolved only from universal types, and every organic entity we experience must coincide with some one of these derivative forms of the type. Here the evolutionary method must replace the method of proof. We aim not to show that external conditions act upon one another in a certain way and thereby bring about a definite result, but that a particular form has developed under definite external conditions out of the type. This is the radical difference between inorganic and organic science.
— Rudolf Steiner,The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, Chapter XVI, "Organic Nature"
As noted by Hammer, this means that anthroposophy harbors extensive empirical claims on "the most diverse subjects: matters normally defined as belonging to the domain of science, yet made immune to scientific critique because of Steiner's radical dichotomy—agronomy, chemistry, pharmacology, physiology, anatomy, developmental psychology, astronomy, physics etc." (Hammer 2004, 227).
A variety of authors have termed Goethean sciencepseudoscience.[194][195][196] According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims:
non-standard approach to physiological systems, including claiming that the heart is not a pump.[195][198]
According to Rudolf Steiner, mainstream science isAhrimanic.[199] Steiner lambasted especially sociology and economics.[200]
Steiner is turning the argument of 'pseudo-science' around and criticizes those systems of knowledge that do not open themselves to the existence of spiritual and supernatural dimensions of reality as "alleged science" ("vermeintliche Wissenschaft").[201]
Steiner approached the philosophical questions ofknowledge andfreedom in two stages. In his dissertation, published in expanded form in 1892 asTruth and Knowledge, Steiner suggests that there is an inconsistency between Kant's philosophy, which posits that all knowledge is a representation of an essential verity inaccessible to human consciousness, and modern science, which assumes that all influences can be found in the sensory and mental world to which we have access. Steiner considered Kant's philosophy of an inaccessible beyond ("Jenseits-Philosophy") a stumbling block in achieving a satisfying philosophical viewpoint.[202]
Steiner postulates that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that ourconsciousness divides it into thesense-perceptible appearance, on the one hand, and the formal nature accessible to ourthinking, 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 considered what appears to human experience as a division between the spiritual and natural worlds to be a conditioned result of the structure of our consciousness, which separatesperception and thinking. These two faculties give us not two worlds, but 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 aboutperception (the path of natural science) and perceiving the process of thinking (the path ofspiritual training), it is possible to discover a hidden inner unity between the two poles of our experience.[108]: Chapter 4 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."[203]
InThe Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner further explores potentials within thinking: freedom, he suggests, can only be approached gradually 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 ourinstincts anddrives. 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,[204] and the real activity of acting in full consciousness.[108]: 133–4 This includes overcoming influences of both heredity and environment: "To be free is to be capable of thinking one's own thoughts – not the thoughts merely of the body, or of society, but thoughts generated by one's deepest, most original, most essential and spiritual self, one's individuality."[47]
Steiner affirmsDarwin's andHaeckel'sevolutionary perspectives but extended this beyond itsmaterialistic consequences; he sees humanconsciousness, indeed, all human culture, as a product of natural evolution that transcends itself. For Steiner, nature becomes self-conscious in the human being. Steiner's description of the nature of human consciousness thus closely parallels that ofSolovyov.[205]
In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity.[54] From 1900 on, he began lecturing about concrete details of the spiritual world(s), culminating in the publication in 1904 of the first of several systematic presentations, hisTheosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos. As a starting point for the book Steiner took a quotation from Goethe, describing the method of natural scientific observation,[207] while in the Preface he made clear that the line of thought taken in this book led to the same goal as that in his earlier work,The Philosophy of Freedom.[208]
In the years 1903–1908 Steiner maintained the magazineLucifer-Gnosis and published in it essays on topics such as initiation, reincarnation and karma, and knowledge of the supernatural world.[209] Some of these were later collected and published as books, such asHow to Know Higher Worlds (1904–5) andCosmic Memory. The bookAn Outline of Esoteric Science was published in 1910. Important themes include:
Steiner emphasized that there is an objective natural and spiritual world that can be known, and that perceptions of the spiritual world and incorporeal beings are, under conditions of training comparable to that required for the natural sciences, including self-discipline, replicable by multiple observers. It is on this basis thatspiritual science is possible, with radically different epistemological foundations than those of natural science. He believed that natural science was correct in its methods but one-sided for exclusively focusing on sensory phenomena, while mysticism was vague in its methods, though seeking to explore the inner and spiritual life. Anthroposophy was meant to apply the systematic methods of the former to the content of the latter[210][211]
For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective spiritual knowledge always entails creative inner activity.[54] Steiner articulated three stages of any creative deed:[108]: Pt II, Chapter 1
Moral intuition: the ability to discover or, preferably, develop valid ethical principles;
Moral imagination: the imaginative transformation of such principles into a concrete intention applicable to the particular situation (situational ethics); and
Moral technique: the realization of the intended transformation, depending on a mastery of practical skills.
Steiner termed his work from this period onwardsAnthroposophy. He emphasized that the spiritual path he articulated builds upon and supports individual freedom and independentjudgment; for the results of spiritual research to be appropriately presented in a modern context they must be in a form accessible tological understanding, so that those who do not have access to the spiritual experiences underlying anthroposophical research can make independent evaluations of the latter's results.[108] Spiritual training is to support what Steiner considered the overall purpose of human evolution, the development of the mutually interdependent qualities of love andfreedom.[47]
The epistemology offered by anthroposophy represents a regression to pre-scientific modes of thought.[212] Ullrich stated that Steiner's epistemology is "rationalized mysticism".[213] Others stated that anthroposophy is "an arcane pseudoscience based on medieval mysticism".[214] Another author stated that it is "Rudolf Steiner's innovative doctrine that combined fashionable mysticism with no less fashionable pseudoscience."[215] A French author wrote that Anthroposophy "is a clever mix of pseudoscience, esotericism and mysticism".[216]
Steiner appreciated the ritual of the mass he experienced while serving as an altar boy from school age until he was ten years old, and this experience remained memorable for him as a genuinely spiritual one, contrasting with his irreligious family life.[217] As a young adult, Steiner had no formal connection to organized religion. In 1899, he experienced what he described as a life-transforming inner encounter with the being of Christ. Steiner was then 38, and the experience of meeting Christ occurred after a tremendous inner struggle. To use Steiner's own words, the "experience culminated in my standing in the spiritual presence of the Mystery ofGolgotha in a most profound and solemn festival of knowledge."[218] His relationship to Christianity thereafter remained entirely founded upon personal experience, and thus both non-denominational and strikingly different from conventional religious forms.[47]
Steiner describes Christ as the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and human history, redeemingthe Fall fromParadise.[220] He understood the Christ as a being that unifies and inspires all religions, not belonging to a particular religious faith. To be "Christian" is, for Steiner, a search for balance between polarizing extremes[220]: 102–3 and the ability to manifest love in freedom.[47]
Central principles of his understanding include:
The being of Christ is central toall religions, though called by different names by each.
Every religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born.
Historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed in our times in order to meet the ongoing evolution of humanity.
In Steiner'sesoteric cosmology, the spiritual development of humanity is interwoven in and inseparable from the cosmological development of the universe. Continuing the evolution that led to humanity being born out of the natural world, the Christ being brings an impulse enabling human consciousness of the forces that act creatively, but unconsciously, in nature.[221]
James A. Santucci says Anthroposophy is based upon esoteric Christianity.[222]
Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and includegnostic elements.[193] However, unlike many gnostics, Steiner affirms the unique and actual physical Incarnation of Christ in Jesus at the beginning of the Christian era.
Steiner also posited two different Jesus children involved in the Incarnation of the Christ: one child descended fromSolomon, as described in theGospel of Matthew; the other child fromNathan, as described in theGospel of Luke.[159][223][224] He references in this regard the fact that thegenealogies in these two gospels list twenty-six (Luke) to forty-one (Matthew) completely different ancestors for the generations fromDavid to Jesus.
Monty Waldin notes that the two Jesus children sound heretical to mainstream Christians.[225] According to Steiner, Christ will never again have a physical body.[226]
Steiner's view of thesecond coming of Christ is also unusual. He suggested that this would not be a physical reappearance, but rather, meant that the Christ being would become manifest in non-physical form, in the "etheric realm" – i.e. visible to spiritual vision and apparent in community life – for increasing numbers of people, beginning around the year 1933. He emphasized that the future would require humanity to recognize this Spirit of Love in all its genuine forms, regardless of how this is named. He also warned that the traditional name, "Christ", might be used, yet the true essence of this Being of Love be ignored.[193]
The teachings of Anthroposophy got calledChristianGnosticism.[41] Indeed, according to the official stance of the Catholic Church, Anthroposophy is "a neognostic heresy".[42][227][228] Other heresiologists agree.[43] The Lutheran (Missouri Sinod) apologist and heresiologist Eldon K. Winker quoted Ron Rhodes that Steiner had the same Christology asCerinthus.[229] Indeed, Steiner thought that Jesus and Christ were two separated beings, who got fused at a certain point in time,[230] which can be construed as Gnostic but not asDocetic,[230] since "they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion".[229] "Steiner's Christology is discussed as a central element of his thought in Johannes Hemleben,Rudolf Steiner: A Documentary Biography, trans. Leo Twyman (East Grinstead, Sussex: Henry Goulden, 1975), pp. 96-100. From the perspective of orthodox Christianity, it may be said that Steiner combined a docetic understanding of Christ's nature with the Adoptionist heresy."[231] Older scholarship says Steiner's Christology isNestorian.[232] According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner's Christology was, however, quite heterodox, and hardly compatible with official church doctrine."[223]
Anthony Mellors states that Steiner's interpretation of the Bible is heretical.[233]
Two German scholars have called Anthroposophy "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century."[234] Other scholars stated that Anthroposophy is "aspiring to the status of religious dogma".[235] According to Maria Carlson, anthroposophy is a "positivistic religion" "offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience."[236]
According to Swartz, Brandt, Hammer, Hansson, and others Anthroposophyis a religion.[237] They also call it "settled new religious movement",[238] whileMartin Gardner and others called it acult.[239] Another scholar also calls it a new religious movement or a new spiritual movement.[240] Already in 1924 Anthroposophy got labeled "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".[241] Other scholars agree it is a new religious movement.[242] According toHelmut Zander [de], both the theory and practice of Anthroposophy display characteristics of religion, and, according to Zander, Rudolf Steiner would plead no contest.[243] According to Zander, Steiner's bookGeheimwissenschaft [Occult Science] contains Steiner'smythology aboutcosmogenesis.[244] Hammer notices that Anthroposophy is a synthesis which does include occultism.[245] Hammer also notices that Steiner's occult doctrines bear a strong resemblance to post-Blavatskyan Theosophy (e.g.Annie Besant andCharles Webster Leadbeater).[246]
Another author states that the question whether Anthroposophy is a religion cannot be answered by "Yes" or "No".[247] Somebody else called it "a form of 'Christian occultism'".[248] The Anthroposophist N.C. Thomas denies that Anthroposophy is a religion.[79] Joel Beversluis recognizes that is what Anthroposophists claim.[249] Two Socialist German scholars say Anthroposophy is semi-religious.[99]
Robert A. McDermott says Anthroposophy belongs to ChristianRosicrucianism.[250] According toNicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Rudolf Steiner "blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie".[251] He also described Anthroposophy as a [modern] offshoot of Ancient Gnosticism, especially of "the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma".[252]
According to McDermott, "Rudolf Steiner was an esoteric teacher in the Rosicrucian-Christian tradition [...]".[253]
Geoffrey Ahern states that Anthroposophy belongs to neo-gnosticism broadly conceived, which he identifies withWestern esotericism andoccultism.[254]
Was Steiner a Gnostic? Yes and no. Yes, from the point of view that he offered insights and methods for a personal experience of Christ. I have formulated this aspect of his work as his hermeneutical key: 'not I, but Christ in me'. No, from the point of view that he was not trying to reestablish Gnosticism's practices into a neo-gnostic tradition. Steiner was, in his times, well aware of concerns articulated more recently by Pope Francis about the two subtle enemies of holiness, contemporary Gnosticism and contemporary Pelagianism.[255]
Granted that Steiner included Gnostic elements in his cosmological reinterpretation of Christianity, many of them from thePistis Sophia, Steiner was not a Gnostic in the sense of someone who held that the world was ruled by a demiurge, that matter was evil, or that it was possible to escape from this fallen universe by acquiring secret spiritual knowledge. To characterize the structure of his thought as derived from Syrio-Egyptian gnosis (Ahern 2010) may be too strong and plays down the fact that he was critical of early Gnostic Christianity as having no adequate idea of Jesus as a man of flesh and blood.[256]
According to Steiner, "Christ's role is to ease the transition to the Age of Aquarius, while for Gnostics, his task was to save humanity from God".[257]
Between 1903 and 1910 Steiner published multiple Gnostic texts, while that publishing house was having intention of subverting orthodox Christianity.[258]
Elizabeth Dipple stated that Rudolf Steiner's system was a "neo-Platonic, semi-Gnostic, occult anthroposophical system [...] with its allegiance to mystical Christianity, Rosicrucianism and certain versions of spiritualism [...]".[259]
According to Heiner Ullrich, Steiner's point of view was that of a "neo-Platonic gnostic".[260]Gareth Knight agrees that Steiner was neo-Platonic.[261] Brandt and Hammer describe Steiner's anthropology (spirit, soul, and body) as neo-Platonic.[262]
Carl Abrahamsson stated that Steiner posited a gnostic Christ.[263]
Steiner's theology is "redemption through sin", he accuses good Christians of killing the spirit of Christianity.[264]
According to Catholic scholars Anthroposophy belongs to theNew Age.[11][12]George D. Chryssides also considers Steiner to be New Age, or at least a forerunner of the New Age.[13] John Paull considers him a New Age philosopher.[10]Nicholas Campion says Steiner was a New Age Christian.[14] Campion stated that "Anthroposophy is perhaps the most vibrant of New Age movements".[265]
Even allowing that Steiner himself was not New Age, an author wrote "anthroposophy—a spiritual movement that is the basis for much of the New Age thinking in Europe and North America today."[15]
In the 1920s, Steiner was approached byFriedrich Rittelmeyer, aLutheran pastor with a congregation in Berlin, who asked if it was possible to create a more modern form of Christianity. Soon others joined Rittelmeyer – mostly Protestant pastors and theology students, but including several Roman Catholic priests. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the spiritual potency of the sacraments while emphasizingfreedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life. He envisioned a new synthesis of Catholic and Protestant approaches to religious life, terming this "modern,Johannine Christianity".[159]
The resulting movement for religious renewal became known as "The Christian Community". Its work is based on a free relationship to Christ without dogma or policies. Its priesthood, which is open to both men and women, is free to preach out of their own spiritual insights and creativity.
Steiner emphasized that the resulting movement for the renewal of Christianity was a personal gesture of help to a movement founded by Rittelmeyer and others independently of his anthroposophical work.[159] The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with Anthroposophy to create a scientific, notfaith-based, spirituality.[220] He recognized that for those who wished to find more traditional forms, however, a renewal of the traditional religions was also a vital need of the times.
Olav Hammer, though sharply critical of esoteric movements generally, terms Steiner "arguably the most historically and philosophically sophisticated spokesperson of theEsoteric Tradition."[288]
Albert Schweitzer wrote that he and Steiner had in common that they had "taken on the life mission of working for the emergence of a true culture enlivened by the ideal of humanity and to encourage people to become truly thinking beings".[289] However, Schweitzer was not an adept of mysticism or occultism, but ofAge of Enlightenment rationalism.[290]
Anthony Storr stated about Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy: "His belief system is so eccentric, so unsupported by evidence, so manifestly bizarre, that rational skeptics are bound to consider it delusional.... But, whereas Einstein's way of perceiving the world by thought became confirmed by experiment and mathematical proof, Steiner's remained intensely subjective and insusceptible of objective confirmation."[194]
Robert Todd Carroll has said of Steiner that "Some of his ideas on education – such as educating the handicapped in the mainstream – are worth considering, although his overall plan for developing the spirit and the soul rather than the intellect cannot be admired".[291] Translators have pointed out that the German termGeist can be translated equally properly as either mind or spirit, however,[292] and that Steiner's usage of this term encompassed both meanings.[293]
The 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner's birth was marked by the first major retrospective exhibition of his art and work, 'Kosmos - Alchemy of the everyday'. Organized byVitra Design Museum, the traveling exhibition presented many facets of Steiner's life and achievements, including his influence on architecture, furniture design, dance (Eurythmy),education, and agriculture (Biodynamic agriculture).[294] The exhibition opened in 2011 at theKunstmuseum inStuttgart, Germany,[295]
Solothurn Police file on Steiner
The German psychiatrist Wolfgang Treher diagnosed Rudolf Steiner with schizophrenia, in a book from 1966.[296] The Swiss psychiatristC.G. Jung was of the same opinion.[297]Colin Wilson admitted that such a diagnosis makes some sense.[298]Francis X. King recognizes that other have stated that about Steiner, but King disagrees with the claim that Steiner was a charlatan.[299] John Francis Moffitt speaks of "Steiner's typically schizoid verbiage", considering it a symptom of schizophrenia.[300] The Canadian psychiatrist Lawrie Reznek agrees with the diagnostic.[301] The following psychiatrists disagree with the diagnosis: Anthony Storr,[31][301] John S. Price, and Anthony Stevens.[302] Storr did not deny that Steiner held bizarre beliefs, but Storr only diagnosed schizophrenia when people had an occupational impairment.[301] While for Price and Stevens, Steiner's ethics made the difference.[302]
Steiner was investigated by the Swiss Police, which stated he was not psychologically normal, but they decided that he was harmless.[303]
Steiner's critics, on the other hand, past and present, see him at best as a pseudo-scientist who was delusional and possibly mentally unstable in believing that he had accessed Kant's realm of thenoumenon, or at worst as someone who laid the groundwork for Hitler and National Socialism.[304]
— Aaron French (2025)
Libération described Steiner's claims as fantasist theories; it also notes that this did not prevent him from getting traction.[305][306]
Olav Hammer has criticized asscientism Steiner's claim to use scientific methodology to investigate spiritual phenomena that were based upon his claims ofclairvoyant experience.[288] Steiner regarded the observations of spiritual research as more dependable (and above all, consistent) than observations of physical reality. However, he did consider spiritual research to be fallible,[307]: p. 618 and held the view that anyone capable of thinking logically was in a position to correct errors by spiritual researchers.[308]
Rudolf Steiner was an extreme pan-German nationalist and never disavowed such a stance.[309]
"Steiner was a member of avölkisch Wagner club, and anthroposophist authors endorsed Wagner's views on race."[310]
Steiner's work includes both universalist, humanist elements and racial assumptions.[34] Due to the contrast and even contradictions between these elements, one commentator argues: "whether a given reader interprets Anthroposophy as racist or not depends upon that reader's concerns".[311] Steiner considered that by dint of its shared language and culture, each people has a unique essence, which he called its soul or spirit.[288] He saw race as a physical manifestation of humanity's spiritual evolution, and at times discussed race in terms of complex hierarchies that were largely derived from 19th centurybiology,anthropology, philosophy andtheosophy. However, he consistently and explicitly subordinated race, ethnicity, gender, and indeed all hereditary factors, to individual factors in development.[311] For Steiner, human individuality is centered in a person's unique biography, and he believed that an individual's experiences and development are not bound by a single lifetime or the qualities of the physical body.[80]
Steiner occasionally characterized specificraces, nations andethnicities in ways that have been deemedracist by critics.[312] This includes descriptions by him of certain races and ethnic groups as flowering, others as backward, or destined to degenerate or disappear.[311] He presented explicitly hierarchical views of the spiritual evolution of different races,[313] including—at times, and inconsistently—portraying thewhite race,European culture or Germanic culture as representing the high point of humanevolution as of the early 20th century, although he did describe them as destined to be superseded by future cultures.[311]
Throughout his life Steiner consistently emphasized the core spiritual unity of all the world's peoples and sharply criticized racial prejudice. He articulated beliefs that the individual nature of any person stands higher than any racial, ethnic, national or religious affiliation.[49][159] His belief that race andethnicity are transient and superficial, and not essential aspects of the individual,[311] was partly rooted in his conviction that each individualreincarnates in a variety of different peoples and races over successive lives, and that each of us thus bears within him or herself the heritage of many races and peoples.[311][314] Toward the end of his life, Steiner predicted that race will rapidly lose any remaining significance for future generations.[311] In Steiner's view, culture is universal, and explicitly not ethnically based, and he vehemently criticized imperialism.[315]
In the context of his ethical individualism, Steiner considered "race, folk, ethnicity and gender" to be general, describable categories into which individuals may choose to fit, but from which free human beings can and will liberate themselves.[80]
Martins and Vukadinović describe the racism of Anthroposophy as spiritual and paternalistic (i.e. benevolent), in contrast to the materialistic and often malign racism of fascism.[316]Olav Hammer, university professor expert innew religious movements andWestern esotericism, confirms that now the racist and anti-Semitic character of Steiner's teachings can no longer be denied, even if that is "spiritual racism".[317]
Steiner did influence Italian Fascism, which exploited "his racial and anti-democratic dogma."[318] The fascist ministersGiovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò (nicknamed "the Anthroposophist duke"; he became antifascist after taking part inBenito Mussolini's government[319]) and Ettore Martinoli have openly expressed their sympathy for Rudolf Steiner.[318] Most from the occult pro-fascistUR Group were Anthroposophists.[320][321][322]
"Steiner's collected works, moreover, totalling more than 350 volumes, contain pervasive internal contradictions and inconsistencies on racial and national questions."[323][324] Cristina Burack also notes Steiner's contradictions on racial issues.[325]
According to Munoz, in the materialist perspective (i.e. no reincarnations), Anthroposophy is racist, but in the spiritual perspective (i.e. reincarnations mandatory) it is not racist.[326]
During the years when Steiner was best known as a literary critic, he published a series of articles attacking various manifestations ofantisemitism and criticizing some of the most prominent anti-Semites of the time as "barbaric" and "enemies of culture".[327][328] In contrast, however, Steiner also promoted fullassimilation of the Jewish people into the nations in which they lived, suggesting that Jewish cultural and social life had lost its contemporary relevance[329] and "that Judaism still exists is an error of history".[330] Steiner was a critic of his contemporaryTheodor Herzl's goal of aZionist state, and indeed of any ethnically determined state, as he considered ethnicity to be an outmoded basis for social life and civic identity.[331]
"Steiner, along with Hübbe-Schleiden and Hartmann, was affiliated with the racist and anti-Semitic Guido von List Society. For many anthroposophists in fact, 'Jewishness signified the very antithesis of spiritual progress and the epitome of modern debasement.'"[332] The theories of theosophy and anthroposophy were "later co-opted by National Socialism".[333]
Steiner financed the publication of and wrote a foreword for the bookDie Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg (1919) byKarl Heise [de], partly based upon his own ideas,[334] a book which has been called "a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism."[335] The publication comprised aconspiracy theory according to which World War I was a consequence of a collusion ofFreemasons andJews their purpose being the destruction of Germany. The writing was later enthusiastically received by the Nazi Party.[336][337]
That was not the only conspiracy theory promoted by Steiner: he accused Freemasons of collusion with the Jesuits, in order to hide the truth aboutKaspar Hauser.[338]
According to Staudenmaier, Steiner "sometimes held antisemitic views and philosemitic views at the same time".[325]
One crucial stumbling block for English language readers is the anthroposophical tendency to delete racist and antisemitic passages from translated editions of Steiner's publications.[339][340]
Rudolf Steiner's personallibrary (of approximately 10,000 items) has survived the century since his passing. The items were classified into 19 categories during [WWII] and more recently into 25 categories. The library is shelved inDornach,Switzerland. Most of the items (>85%) are in German, although 23 languages are represented with about 500 items in English.[10][341]
The standard edition of Steiner's Collected Works constitutes about 422 volumes. This includes 44 volumes of his writings (books, essay, plays, and correspondence), over 6000 lectures, and some 80 volumes (some still in production) documenting his artistic work (architecture, drawings, paintings, graphic design, furniture design, choreography, etc.).[342] His architectural work, particularly, has also been documented extensively outside of the Collected Works.[136][135]
^Gnosticism meaning "In the broadest sense of the term this is any spiritual teaching that says that spiritual knowledge (Greek:gnosis) or wisdom (sophia) rather than doctrinal faith (pistis) or some ritual practice is the main route to supreme spiritual attainment."[40]
^Ethical individualism is the opposite of ethical collectivism (meaning a moral code which is good for everyone).
^abSteiner's autobiography gives his date of birth as 27 February 1861. However, there is an undated autobiographical fragment written by Steiner, referred to in a footnote in his autobiography in German (GA 28), that says, "My birth fell on 25 February 1861. Two days later I was baptized." See Christoph Lindenberg,Rudolf Steiner,Rowohlt 1992,ISBN3-499-50500-2, p. 8. In 2009 new documentation appeared supporting a date of 27 February: see Günter Aschoff,"Rudolf Steiners Geburtstag am 27. Februar 1861 – Neue Dokumente"Archived 28 June 2014 at theWayback Machine,Das Goetheanum 2009/9, pp. 3ff
^Ullrich 2014, p. 1: "Steiner was born on 25 February 1861 in the village of Kraljevec (in what is today Croatia, but at the time in Hungary)"
^"Ich bin...in Ungarn geboren", "ich habe...in Ungarn die ersten eineinhalb Jahre meines Lebens verbracht", Rudolf Steiner, GA174, p. 89
^Steiner was "born February 27, 1861, in Kraljevec, Hungary".Allen, Paul M. (2009). "Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner". In Steiner, Rudolf; McDermott, Robert (eds.).New Essential Steiner. Great Barrington: Lindisfarne.ISBN978-1-58420-056-7.OCLC1466300377.
^Péter, Laszlo; Lojkó, Miklós (2012).Hungary's long nineteenth century : constitutional and democratic traditions in a European perspective : collected studies. Leiden: Brill. p. 7.ISBN978-90-04-22212-0.OCLC766608797.
^Hungary was officially recognized as "(an independent kingdom) within the Habsburg Monarchy."Szakaly, Orsolya (2003). "Opportunity or Threat? Napoleon and the Hungarian Estates". In Rowe, Michael (ed.).Collaboration and Resistance in Napoleonic Europe. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-0-333-98454-3.
^abG.K. Chesterton Society; G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture (February–May 2000)."A conference onNew Age and Christian spirituality"(PDF).The Chesterton Review.XXVI (1&2). Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; South Orange, New Jersey: G.K. Chesterton Society, 1974- G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture.ISSN0317-0500.OCLC2247651.One needs to recognise several things in New Age in order not to over-react: it is not monolithic; it is not a den of demons; nor is it a den of fools. Three main currents need to be taken very seriously, even if they reject being included in the broad term New Age. They are René Guénon's tariqa or school of intellectual Sufism, Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy and 'the Work', devised by Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff.
^abPontifical Council for Culture; Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue."Jesus Christ the bearer of the water of life. A Christian reflection on the "New Age"".vatican.va. The State of Vatican: The Catholic Church. Retrieved18 May 2024.The Age of Aquarius has such a high profile in theNew Age movement largely because of the influence of theosophy, spiritualism and anthroposophy, and their esoteric antecedents.
^abCampion, Nicholas (2012).Astrology and cosmology in the world's religions. New York: New York University Press. p. 164.ISBN978-0-8147-4445-1.
^abWilliams, William F. (2000). "STEINER, RUDOLF (1861-1925)".Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. New York, NY: Facts on File. p. 330.ISBN978-0-8160-3351-5.anthroposophy—a spiritual movement that is the basis for much of the New Age thinking in Europe and North America today.
^abLivak, Leonid (2018)."Introduction".A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's "petersburg. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 8.ISBN978-0-299-31930-4. Retrieved3 January 2023.
Brennan, M.:Rudolf SteinerArtNet Magazine, 18 March 1998
Blunt, R.: Waldorf Education: Theory and Practice – A Background to the Educational Thought of Rudolf Steiner. Master Thesis, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 1995
Aurélie Choné, "Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Plays: Literary Transcripts of an Esoteric Gnosis and/or Esoteric Attempt at Reconciliation between Art and Science?", Aries, Volume 6, Number 1, 2006, pp. 27–58(32), Brill publishing
Christopher Schaefer, "Rudolf Steiner as a Social Thinker", Re-vision Vol 15, 1992
^abcLeijenhorst, Cees (2006). "Steiner, Rudolf, * 25.2.1861 Kraljevec (Croatia), † 30.3.1925 Dornach (Switzerland)". InHanegraaff, Wouter J.; Faivre, Antoine; Broek, Roelof van den; Brach, Jean-Pierre (eds.).Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden / Boston: Brill. p. 1086.Steiner moved to Weimar in 1890 and stayed there until 1897. He complained bitterly about the bad salary and the boring philological work, but found the time to write his main philosophical works during his Weimar period. ... Steiner's high hopes that his philosophical work would gain him a professorship at one of the universities in the German-speaking world were never fulfilled. Especially his main philosophical work, thePhilosophie der Freiheit, did not receive the attention and appreciation he had hoped for.
^McClelland, Norman C. (2018)."Gnosticism".Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland. p. 100.ISBN978-0-7864-5675-8.In the broadest sense of the term this is any spiritual teaching that says that spiritual knowledge (Greek:gnosis) or wisdom (sophia) rather than doctrinal faith (pistis) or some ritual practice is the main route to supreme spiritual attainment.
^abSources for 'Christian Gnosticism' or simply 'Gnosticism':
Robertson, David G. (2021).Gnosticism and the History of Religions. Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 57.ISBN978-1-350-13770-7. Retrieved3 January 2023.Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress...
Gilmer, Jane (2021).The Alchemical Actor. Consciousness, Literature and the Arts. Brill. p. 41.ISBN978-90-04-44942-8. Retrieved3 January 2023.Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered.
Quispel, Gilles (1980). Layton, Bentley (ed.).The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: The school of Valentinus. Studies in the history of religions: Supplements to Numen. E.J. Brill. p. 123.ISBN978-90-04-06176-7. Retrieved3 January 2023.After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis.
Carlson, Maria (2018)."Petersburg and Modern Occultism". In Livak, Leonid (ed.).A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's "petersburg. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 58.ISBN978-0-299-31930-4. Retrieved3 January 2023.Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter.
McL. Wilson, Robert (1993)."Gnosticism". In Metzger, Bruce M.; Coogan, Michael D. (eds.).The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford Companions. Oxford University Press. p. 256.ISBN978-0-19-974391-9. Retrieved3 January 2023.Gnosticism has often been regarded as bizarre and outlandish, and certainly it is not easily understood until it is examined in its contemporary setting. It was, however, no mere playing with words and ideas, but a serious attempt to resolve real problems: the nature and destiny of the human race, the problem of *evil, the human predicament. To a gnostic it brought a release and joy and hope, as if awakening from a nightmare. One later offshoot, Manicheism, became for a time a world religion, reaching as far as China, and there are at least elements of gnosticism in such medieval movements as those of the Bogomiles and the Cathari. Gnostic influence has been seen in various works of modern literature, such as those of William Blake and W. B. Yeats, and is also to be found in the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and the Anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner. Gnosticism was of lifelong interest to the psychologist C. G. *Jung, and one of the Nag Hammadi codices (the Jung Codex) was for a time in the Jung Institute in Zurich.
Braune, Joan (2014).Erich Fromm's Revolutionary Hope: Prophetic Messianism as a Critical Theory of the Future. Imagination and Praxis: Criticality and Creativity in Education and Educational Research. SensePublishers. p. 52.ISBN978-94-6209-812-1. Retrieved17 November 2024.Although generally "Gnosticism" refers to an early Christian heresy combated by neo-Platonists like Plotinus and Church fathers like Irenaeus and Tertullian, in 1920s Germany it described a cultural phenomenon ranging in influence from Theosophist educator Rudolf Steiner (Steiner's "Lucifer-Gnosis") and Stefan George to Walter Benjamin and (to a more limited extent) Ernst Bloch (Lazier 28, 29, 32).
Carlson, Maria (1996)."Gnostic Elements in Soloviev's Cosmogony". In Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch; Gustafson, Richard F. (eds.).Russian Religious Thought. Russian studies: Religion. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 53.ISBN978-0-299-15134-8. Retrieved17 November 2024.During their lifetime Soloviev's contemporaries not only saw the publication of many studies of gnosticism and the enthusiastic activity of archaeologists and historians of comparative religions, but also witnessed the creation of entire systems of modern gnosis, both pagan and Christian. Here one might mention that the neo-Buddhist Theosophy of Mme. Blavatsky, mentioned above, and the "Christian Theosophy" (upper-case T) of Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), are both modern gnostic doctrines; Dr. Steiner would later speak in his lectures of Soloviev as a mediator between East and West and a true clairvoyant who anticipated Steiner's own vision of the coming of the Christ in the etheric world, while Western Anthroposophists would write books about Soloviev (Allen 341–43).3
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2013)."Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy". In Hammer, Olav; Rothstein, Mikael (eds.).Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 301.ISBN978-90-04-23597-7. Retrieved17 November 2024.Steiner's teaching continued to reflect a form of Gnostic Christianity, where the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma reappeared both in ninefold Dionysian hierarchies and the septenary scheme of Oriental Theosophy (Ahern 2009: 168–180; Reaugh Smith 2001, vol. I: 550-677).
Schnurbein, Stefanie von (2016).Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism. Boston: Brill. pp. 34–35 fn. 57.ISBN978-90-04-30951-7.Anthroposophy shifted the emphasis from Eastern to Gnostic-Christian spirituality and was to bring forth a number of alternative reform efforts
Steiner, Rudolf; Seddon, Richard; Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2004).Rudolf Steiner. Western Esoteric Masters. North Atlantic Books. p. 7.ISBN978-1-55643-490-7. Retrieved2 January 2024.blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie
Dipple, Elizabeth (2019).The Unresolvable Plot: Reading Contemporary Fiction. Routledge Library Editions: Modern Fiction. Taylor & Francis. p. unpaginated.ISBN978-1-000-63913-1. Retrieved17 November 2024.neo-Platonic, semi-Gnostic, occult anthroposophical system [...] with its allegiance to mystical Christianity, Rosicrucianism and certain versions of spiritualism [...]
Ullrich 2014, pp. 137–138: "In anthroposophical gnosis this sort of knowledge is predicated upon the certainty of belief in the interlinked natures of the human and the cosmic spirits, much as Christian gnosis and mysticism advance an essential relatedness between the soul and God."
^abEllwood, Robert; Partin, Harry (2016) [1988, 1973].Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. unpaginated.ISBN978-1-315-50723-1. Retrieved6 March 2023.On the one hand, there are what might be called the Western groups, which reject the alleged extravagance and orientalism of evolved Theosophy, in favor of a serious emphasis on its metaphysics and especially its recovery of the Gnostic and Hermetic heritage. These groups feel that the love of India and its mysteries which grew up after Isis Unveiled was unfortunate for a Western group. In this category there are several Neo-Gnostic and Neo-Rosicrucian groups. The Anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner is also in this category. On the other hand, there are what may be termed "new revelation" Theosophical schisms, generally based on new revelations from the Masters not accepted by the main traditions. In this set would be Alice Bailey's groups, "I Am," and in a sense Max Heindel's Rosicrucianism.
Gardner, Martin (1957) [1952].Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Dover Books on the Occult. Dover Publications. pp. 169,224–225.ISBN978-0-486-20394-2. Retrieved31 January 2022.The late Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Anthroposophical Society, the fastest growing cult in post-war Germany... Closely related to the organic farming movement is the German anthroposophical cult founded by Rudolf Steiner, whom we met earlier in connection with his writings on Atlantis and Lemuria. ... In essence, the anthroposophists' approach to the soil is like their approach to the human body—a variation of homeopathy. (See Steiner'sAn Outline of Anthroposophical Medical Research, English translation, 1939, for an explanation of how mistletoe, when properly prepared, will cure cancer by absorbing "etheric forces" and strengthening the "astral body.") They believe the soil can be made more "dynamic" by adding to it certain mysterious preparations which, like the medicines of homeopathic "purists," are so diluted that nothing material of the compound remains.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Ruse, Michael (2013).The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet. University of Chicago Press. p. 128.ISBN9780226060392. Retrieved21 June 2015.We have rather a mishmash of religion on the one hand and pseudoscience on the other, as critics have pointed out (e.g., Shermer 2002, 32). It is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, but for our purposes it is not really important.
Regal, Brian (2009)."Astral Projection".Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 29.ISBN978-0-313-35508-0. Retrieved31 January 2022.The Austrian philosopher and occultist Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925) claimed that, by astral projection, he could read the Akashic Record. ... Other than anecdotal eyewitness accounts, there is no evidence of the ability to astral project, the existence of other planes, or of the Akashic Record.
Gorski, David H. (2019). Kaufman, Allison B.; Kaufman, James C. (eds.).Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science. MIT Press. p. 313.ISBN978-0-262-53704-9. Retrieved31 January 2022.To get an idea of what mystical nonsense anthroposophic medicine is, I like to quote straight from the horse's mouth, namely Physician's Association for Anthroposophic Medicine, in its pamphlet for patients:
Ruse, Michael (2013). Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (eds.).Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. University of Chicago Press. p. 227.ISBN978-0-226-05182-6. Retrieved31 January 2022.It is not so much that they have a persecution or martyr complex, but that they do revel in having esoteric knowledge unknown to or rejected by others, and they have the sorts of personalities that rather enjoy being on the fringe or outside. Followers of Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic agriculture are particularly prone to this syndrome. They just know they are right and get a big kick out of their opposition to genetically modified foods and so forth.
Mahner, Martin (2007). Gabbay, Dov M.; Thagard, Paul; Woods, John; Kuipers, Theo A.F. (eds.).General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues. Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Elsevier Science. p. 548.ISBN978-0-08-054854-8. Retrieved3 February 2022.Examples of such fields are various forms of "alternative healing" such as shamanism, or esoteric world views like anthroposophy ... For this reason, we must suspect that the "alternative knowledge" produced in such fields is just as illusory as that of the standard pseudosciences.
Staudenmaier, Peter (2014).Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era. Aries Book Series. Brill. p. 8.ISBN978-90-04-27015-2. Retrieved3 February 2022.In Steiner's view, "ordinary history" was "limited to external evidence" and hence no match for "direct spiritual perception."22 Indeed for anthroposophists, "conventional history" constitutes "a positive hindrance to occult research."23
Lachman, Gary (2007).Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Penguin Publishing Group. pp. xix, 233.ISBN978-1-101-15407-6. Retrieved29 February 2024.I formulated the cognitive challenge I was presenting myself with in this way: How can I account for the fact that, on one page, Steiner can make a powerful and original critique of Kantian epistemology—basically, the idea that there are limits to knowledge—yet on another make, with all due respect, absolutely outlandish and, more to the point, seemingly unverifiable statements about life in ancient Atlantis?
Staudenmaier, Peter (2009). "Occultism, Race and Politics in German-speaking Europe, 1880—1940: A Survey of the Historical Literature".European History Quarterly.39 (1):47–70.doi:10.1177/0265691408097366.ISSN0265-6914. p. 50
Beres, Derek; Remski, Matthew; Walker, Julian (2023)."9. Evolving the Souls of Children".Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat. PublicAffairs. p. unpaginated.ISBN978-1-5417-0300-1. Retrieved18 April 2025.For Steiner, it wasn't enough to just overshare his spiritual nerdery. He was also keen to undermine the basics of evidentiary research and the scientific method. His 1911 pseudohistory ofThe Submerged Continents of Atlantis and Lemuria, Their History and Civilization, opens with a self-serving attack on the legit discipline of history. He derides the idea that scholarly opinions can change when confronted with new evidence, and argues that the eternal truth of what happened can only be accessed through meditation.
Williams, Lee (9 November 2016)."steiner schools".The Independent. Retrieved18 April 2025.
^R. Bruce Elder,Harmony and dissent: film and avant-garde art movements in the early twentieth century,ISBN978-1-55458-028-6,p. 32
^abcdefghMcDermott, Robert A. (1995). "Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy". In Faivre, Antoine; Needleman, Jacob; Voss, Karen (eds.).Modern Esoteric Spirituality. New York: Crossroad Publishing. pp. 299–301, 288ff.ISBN978-0-8245-1444-0.
^Sokolina, Anna, ed. Architecture and Anthroposophy. [Arkhitektura i Antroposofiia.] 2 editions. Moscow: KMK, 2001, 2010. 268p. 348 ills. 2001ISBN587317-0746, 2010ISBN587317-6604.
^There was some controversy over this matter as researchers failed to note that at the time no "degrees" in the modern manner were awarded in Germany and Austria except doctorates. The research by Dr Sam confirms the details. Rudolf Steiner studied for eight semesters at the Technical University in Vienna - as a student in the General Department, which was there in addition to the engineering, construction, mechanical engineering and chemical schools. The general department comprised all subjects that could not be clearly assigned to one of these four existing technical schools. Around 1880 this included mathematics, descriptive geometry, physics, as well as general and supplementary subjects such as German language and literature, history, art history, economics, legal subjects, languages, The students in the General Department - unlike their fellow students in the specialist departments - neither had to complete a fixed curriculum nor take a final or state examination. They did not have to and could not - because that was not intended for this department, nor was the "Absolutorium". Final state examinations at the Vienna University of Technology only began in the academic year 1878/79. The paper reports how at that time, the so-called 'individual examinations' in the subjects studied seemed to be of greater importance and were reported first in the 'Annual Report of the Technical University 1879/80' - sorted according to the faculties of the Technical University. Steiner was in fact amongst the best student on these grounds and was cited by the University as one of its distinguished alumni. The records for the examinations he sat are on record as is the scholarship record.
^So Gerhard Wehr:Rudolf Steiner. Leben, Erkenntnis, Kulturimpuls. Eine Biographie. Diogenes, Zürich 1993, p. 132.
^Wilson, Colin (2001).The Devil's Party. Virgin Books Limited. p. 200.ISBN0-7535-0502-9.he was lecturing at many workers' colleges, and at the Giordano Bruno Union (a rationalist, anti-religious organisation) on the history of philosophy.
^His thesis title wasDie Grundfrage der Erkenntnistheorie mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Fichte'sWissenschaftslehre – Prolegomena zur Verständigung des philosophierenden Bewusstseins mit sich selbst.
^Sergei Prokofieff,May Human Beings Hear It!, Temple Lodge, 2004. p. 460
^Steiner, Rudolf (2013).Rethinking Economics. Great Barrington, Mass: SteinerBooks. p. unpaginated.ISBN978-1-62148-050-1.Hoping for a job (which, in fact, he did not get), Steiner accepted the invitation immediately.
^Rudolf Steiner,Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom Garber Communications; 2nd revised edition (July 1985)ISBN978-0893450335. Online[2]Archived 2 October 2022 at theWayback Machine
^Leijenhorst 2006, p. 1088: "Despite his success as an esoteric teacher, Steiner seems to have suffered from being shut off from academic and general cultural life, given his continued attempts at getting academic positions or jobs as a journalist."
^Pattberg, Thorsten J. (2012).Shengren: Above Philosophy and Beyond Religion. LoD Press, New York. p. 125. Retrieved15 August 2024.Worse, he couldn't be a realphilosopher either; his theosophy and anthroposophy and the Waldorf humanism in particular were considered pseudoscience or at best pedagogy, not a philosophical system. Steiner's credentials were not university-level professional work. [...] German mainstream scholarship called him an 'autodidact, with a poor teacher' and 'gypsy-intellectual.'144 Not uncommon for practitioners at the fringes of society, he was accused of class treason.
^abThomas, N.C. (2005). "Steiner, Rudolf (1861–1925) – and Anthroposophy". In Taylor, Bron Raymond; Kaplan, Jeffrey; Hobgood-Oster, Laura (eds.).The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature: K-Z. London: A&C Black. p. 1597.ISBN1-84371-138-9.However, knowing that the academic establishment would shun him, he nevertheless decided in 1902 to begin speaking openly about his spiritual observations.
^abcLorenzo Ravagli,Zanders Erzählungen, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag 2009,ISBN978-3-8305-1613-2, pp. 184f
^Meyer, Thomas (1997).Helmuth von Moltke, Light for the new millennium: Rudolf Steiner's association with Helmuth and Eliza von Moltke: letters, documents and after-death communications. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.ISBN1-85584-051-0.
^See Lutyens, Mary (2005). J. Krishnamurti: A Life. New Delhi: Penguin Books India.ISBN0-14-400006-7
^Zimmermann'sGeschichte der Aesthetik als philosophische Wissenschaft.: Anthroposophie im Umriss-Entwurf eines Systems idealer Weltansicht auf realistischer Grundlage: Steiner,Anthroposophic Movement: Lecture Two:The Unveiling of Spiritual Truths, 11 June 1923.[3]. Steiner took the name but not the limitations on knowledge which Zimmerman proposed. Steiner,The Riddles of Philosophy (1914), Chapter VI, "Modern Idealistic World Conceptions"[4]
^Rudolf Steiner (1991).Das Schicksalsjahr 1923 in der Geschichte der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft: vom Goethanumbrand zur Weihnachtstagung: Ansprachen, Versammlungen, Dokumente, Januar bis Dezember 1923. Rudolf Steiner Verlag. pp. 750–790 (esp. 787).ISBN978-3-7274-2590-5.
^Johannes Kiersch,A History of the School of Spiritual Science. Publ. Temple Lodge 2006. p.xiii,ISBN1902636805
^Uwe Werner (2011), "Rudolf Steiner zu Individuum und Rasse: Sein Engagement gegen Rassismus und Nationalismus", inAnthroposophie in Geschichte und Gegenwart. trans. Margot M. Saar
^abWerner, Uwe (1999).Anthroposophen in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (1933-1945) (in German). München: De Gruyter Oldenbourg. p. 7.ISBN978-3-486-56362-7.OCLC41300713.
^Rudolf Steiner,The Esoteric Aspect of the Social Question: The Individual and Society, Steinerbooks, p xiv and see also Lindenberg,Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie, pp. 769–70
^"Riot at Munich Lecture", New York Times, 17 May 1922.
^Marie Steiner, Introduction, in Rudolf Steiner,Turning Points in Spiritual History, Dornach, September 1926.
^Steiner described Brentano'sPsychology from the Empirical Standpoint (1870) as symptomatic of the weakness of a psychology that intended to follow the method of natural science but lacked the strength and elasticity of mind to do justice to the demand of modern times: Steiner,The Riddles of Philosophy (1914), Chapter VI, "Modern Idealistic World Conceptions"[5]
^Bockemühl, J.,Toward a Phenomenology of the Etheric WorldISBN0-88010-115-6
^Edelglass, S. et al.,The Marriage of Sense and Thought,ISBN0-940262-82-7
^Dilthey had used this term in the title of one of the works listed in the Introduction to Steiner'sTruth and Science (his doctoral dissertation) as concerned with the theory of cognition in general:Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften, usw., (Introduction to the Spiritual Sciences, etc.) published in 1883."Archived copy"(PDF). Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 17 April 2014. Retrieved16 April 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link).
^Disch, Thomas M.; Washington, Peter (1995)."The Evidence of Things Not Seen".The Hudson Review.48 (3): 522.doi:10.2307/3851861.JSTOR3851861. Retrieved23 November 2025.Rudolf Steiner—guru only insofar as that was one of the duties he imposed on himself as a universal genius and world redeemer—
^Both Goetheanum buildings are listed as among the most significant 100 buildings of modern architecture by Goulet, Patrice,Les Temps Modernes?, L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, December 1982
^Hortola, Policarp. "The Aesthetics of haemotaphonomy: A study of the stylistic parallels between a science and literature and the visual arts".Eidos 2009, n.10, pp. 162-193
^Raab, Rex; Klingborg, Arne (1982).Die Waldorfschule baut: sechzig Jahre Architektur der Waldorfschulen: Schule als Entwicklungsraum menschengemässer Baugestaltung (in German). Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben.ISBN978-3-7725-0240-8.
^abBiesantz, Hagen; Klingborg, Arne (1979).The Goetheanum: Rudolf Steiner's architectural impulse. Rudolf Steiner Press.ISBN9780854403554.
^abKugler, Walter; Baur, Simon (2007).Rudolf Steiner in Kunst und Architektur. DuMont.ISBN9783832190125.
^Cappellotto, Anna (2015). "Creating Life Artificially: Robert Hamerling'sHomunculus". In Calzoni, Raul (ed.).Monstrous Anatomies. Göttingen: V&R unipress. p. 95.doi:10.14220/9783737004695.95.ISBN978-3-8471-0469-8.
^abZander, Helmut (2007).Anthroposophie in Deutschland: Theosophische Weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Praxis 1884–1945 (in German). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.ISBN978-3-525-55452-4.
^Jacobs, Nicholas (Spring 1978). "The German Social Democratic Party School in Berlin, 1906–1914".History Workshop.5:179–187.doi:10.1093/hwj/5.1.179.
^The original essay was published in the journalLucifer-Gnosis in 1907 and can be found in Steiner's collected essays,Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908,GA34. This essay was republished as an independent brochure in 1909; in aPrefatory note to this edition[permanent dead link], Steiner refers to recent lectures on the subject. An English translation can be found inThe Education of the Child: And Early Lectures on Education (first English edition 1927, Second English edition 1981, London and New York, 1996 editionISBN978-0-88010-414-2)
^Stewart Easton (1980),Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch, Anthroposophic Press.ISBN0910142939. p. 267
^Lazier, Benjamin (2008).God Interrupted. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press. p. 29.ISBN978-0-691-13670-7.By the 1920s gnosticism (the term) had hardly a vestige of an agreed-upon meaning. That gnosticism had returned in some form was a sentiment shared by many, but what that meant was up for debate. Some, notably those on the occult scene inspired by the maverick educator Rudolf Steiner, greeted the new age with enthusiasm.
^Kienle, Gunver S.; Kiene, Helmut; Albonico, Hans Ulrich (2006b). "Anthroposophische Medizin: Health Technology Assessment Bericht – Kurzfassung".Forschende Komplementärmedizin.13 (2):7–18.doi:10.1159/000093481.PMID16883076.S2CID72253140.teils ergänzend und teils ersetzend zur konventionellen MedizinCited inErnst, Edzard (2008). "Anthroposophic medicine: A critical analysis".MMW Fortschritte der Medizin.150 (Suppl 1):1–6.PMID18540325.
^Schwarcz 2022, pp. 52–54: "To a scientist, this of course is silly stuff. Even Steiner admitted this. 'I know perfectly well that all of this may seem utterly mad,' he once said. 'I only ask that you remember how many things have seemed utterly mad which have nonetheless been introduced a few years later.' An interesting notion, but quite misleading. The fact is that most ideas that seem utterly mad, are utterly mad."
^abcdeSteiner, Rudolf (1984). McDermott, Robert (ed.).The essential Steiner: basic writings of Rudolf Steiner (1st ed.). San Francisco: Harper & Row.ISBN0-06-065345-0.
^Leijenhorst, Cees (2005). Hanegraaff, Wouter J.; Faivre, Antoine; Broek, Roelof van den; Brach, Jean-Pierre (eds.).Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism: I. Brill. p. 1090.ISBN978-90-04-14187-2. Retrieved2 January 2024.Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism.
^Sokolina, Anna. Architecture and Anthroposophy. [Arkhitektura i Antroposofiia.] Editor, co-author, transl., photogr. 2 editions. 268p. 348 ills. Moscow: KMK, 2001ISBN5873170746; 2010ISBN5873176604. (In Russian with the summary in English) [www.iartforum.com]
^Goulet, P: "Les Temps Modernes?",L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, December 1982, pp. 8–17.
^Sokolina, Anna. "Modernist Topologies: The Goetheanum in Building." InModernity and Construction of Sacred Space, edited by Aaron French and Katharina Waldner, 149–168. Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2024. ISBN 9783111061382 and 9783111062624.https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111062624-008.
^Art as Spiritual Activity: Rudolf Steiner's Contribution to the Visual Arts. (1998) Intro. Michael Howard, p.50.ISBN0 88010 396 5
^The Representative of Humanity Between Lucifer and Ahriman, The Wooden Model at the Goetheanum, Judith von Halle, John Wilkes (2010)ISBN9781855842397 from the GermanDie Holzplastik des Goetheanum (2008)[9]Archived 2 May 2014 at theWayback Machine
^Rudolf SteinerChrist in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman, lecture May, 1915[10]
^Rudolf Steiner,The Etheric Body as a Reflexion of the Universe lecture, June 1915[11]
^Ellic Howe:The Magicians of the Golden Dawn London 1985, Routledge, pp 262 ff
^Elisabeth Vreede, who Steiner had nominated as the first leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section, was responsible for the posthumous 1926 edition of Steiner's astronomy course, concerning this branch of natural science from the point of view of Anthroposophy and spiritual science, under the titleThe Relationship of the various Natural-Scientific Subjects to Astronomy,[12]
^Johannes Kiersch,A History of the School of Spiritual Science: The First Class, Temple Lodge Publishing, 2006, p.xii. The detailed account is given in chapter 8
^Egmond, Daniël van (1998). Broek, Roelof van den; Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (eds.).Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times. Albany: SUNY Press. pp. 313, 338.ISBN978-0-7914-3612-7.the many pansophical and occult groups belonging to high-grade Masonry.
^abcdJohannes Hemleben,Rudolf Steiner: A documentary biography, Henry Goulden Ltd, 1975,ISBN0-904822-02-8, pp. 37–49 and pp. 96–100 (German edition: Rowohlt Verlag, 1990,ISBN3-499-50079-5)
^abStorr, Anthony (1997) [1996]. "IV. Rudolf Steiner".Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus. New York: Free Press Paperbacks, Simon & Schuster. pp. 69–70.ISBN0-684-83495-2.His belief system is so eccentric, so unsupported by evidence, so manifestly bizarre, that rational skeptics are bound to consider it delusional.... But, whereas Einstein's way of perceiving the world by thought became confirmed by experiment and mathematical proof, Steiner's remained intensely subjective and insusceptible of objective confirmation.
^abDugan, Dan (2007). Flynn, Tom; Dawkins, Richard (eds.).The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief. Prometheus Books, Publishers. pp. 74–75.ISBN9781615922802. Retrieved21 June 2015.Anthroposophical pseudoscience is easy to find in Waldorf schools. "Goethean science" is supposed to be based only on observation, without "dogmatic" theory. Because observations make no sense without a relationship to some hypothesis, students are subtly nudged in the direction of Steiner's explanations of the world. Typical departures from accepted science include the claim that Goethe refuted Newton's theory of color, Steiner's unique "threefold" systems in physiology, and the oft-repeated doctrine that "the heart is not a pump" (blood is said to move itself).
^abcdefDugan, Dan (2002). Shermer, Michael; Linse, Pat (eds.).The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. pp. 31–33.ISBN978-1-57607-653-8.In physics, Steiner championed Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's color theory over Isaac Newton, and he called relativity "brilliant nonsense." In astronomy, he taught that the motions of the planets were caused by the relationships of the spiritual beings that inhabited them. In biology, he preached vitalism and doubted germ theory.
^Hansson, Sven Ove (1991)."Is Anthroposophy Science?" [Ist die Anthroposophie eine Wissenschaft?].Conceptus: Zeitschrift für Philosophie.XXV (64):37–49.ISSN0010-5155.
Al-Faruqi, Ismail Il Raji (1977)."Moral values in medicine and science".Biosciences Communications.3 (1). S. Karger:56–58.ISSN0302-2781. Retrieved15 March 2024.Medical science is Ahrimanic in that it treats the body solely as a mechanism, having no knowledge of or concern with the etheric structure, that invisible field of force and energy which all too often is found to be the seat of disease.
^Tucker, S.D. (2018).False Economies: The Strangest, Least Successful and Most Audacious Financial Follies, Plans and Crazes of All Time. Amberley Publishing. p. unpaginated.ISBN978-1-4456-7235-9. Retrieved3 October 2022.Even worse, Ahrimanic forces had now managed to convince Western man to create the nonsensical field of 'social science' as yet another means through which the 'scientific superstition' of the future Anti-Christ could spread. The chief agent behind the promotion of such evil Positivist claptrap as sociology, Steiner said, was the figure of the economist, a fairly recent arrival upon the world scene:
^Storr 1997, p. 72: "If, however, we regard the sum of all percepts as the one part and contrast with this a second part, namely the things-in-themselves, then we are philosophising into the blue. We are merely playing with concepts."
^"To be conscious of the laws underlying one's actions is to be conscious of one's freedom. The process of knowing ... is the process of development towards freedom." Steiner, GA3, pp. 91f, quoted in Rist and Schneider, p. 134
^Tarnas, Richard (1996).The Passion of the Western Mind. London: Random House.ISBN0-7126-7332-6. Cf. Solovyov: "In human beings, the absolute subject-object appearsas such, i.e. as pure spiritual activity, containing all of its own objectivity, the whole process of its natural manifestation, but containing it totally ideally – in consciousness....The subject knows here only its own activity as an objective activity (sub specie object). Thus, the original identity of subject and object is restored in philosophical knowledge." (The Crisis of Western Philosophy, Lindisfarne 1996 pp. 42–3)
^Ryan, Alexandra E. (2004)."Anthroposophy". In Clarke, Peter (ed.).Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements. Taylor & Francis. p. 34.ISBN978-1-134-49970-0. Retrieved19 July 2024.
^Steiner,Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity, Anthroposophic Press 2006ISBN0880104368
^One of Steiner's teachers, Franz Brentano, had famously declared that "The true method of philosophy can only be the method of natural science" (Walach, Harald, "Criticism of Transpersonal Psychology and Beyond", in The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Transpersonal Psychology, ed. H. L. Friedman and G. Hartelius. P. 45.)
^Johnson, Marshall D. (1969). Black, Matthew (ed.).The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies with Special Reference to the Setting of the Genealogies of Jesus. London: Cambridge University Press. p. 144.ISBN978-0-521-07317-2.
^See alsoDWB (2022) [2005]."anthroposophy". In Louth, Andrew (ed.).The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4th ed.). OUP Oxford. pp. 76–77.ISBN978-0-19-263815-1. Retrieved18 May 2024.It was condemned by the Catholic Church in 1919.
Winker, Eldon K. (1994).The New Age is Lying to You. Concordia scholarship today. Concordia Publishing House. p. 34.ISBN978-0-570-04637-0. Retrieved6 March 2023.The Christology of Cerinthus is notably similar to that of Rudolf Steiner (who founded the Anthroposophical Society in 1912) and contemporary New Age writers such as David Spangler and George Trevelyan. These individuals all say the Christ descended on the human Jesus at his baptism. But they differ with Cerinthus in that they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion.12
^abLeijenhorst, Cees (2006b). "Anthroposophy". InHanegraaff, Wouter J.; Faivre, Antoine; Broek, Roelof van den; Brach, Jean-Pierre (eds.).Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden / Boston: Brill. p. 84.Nevertheless, he made a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos.
^Etter, Brian K. (2019) [2001]. "Chapter Six The New Music and the Influence of Theosophy".From Classicism to Modernism: Western Musical Culture and the Metaphysics of Order. Routledge. p. unpaginated. fn. 80.ISBN978-1-315-18576-7.
^Sanders, John Oswald (1962) [1948]."Anthroposophy".Cults and Isms: Ancient and Modern. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. p. 165.ISBN978-0-551-00458-0.OCLC3910997.To Steiner, Christ is not one of many Saviours, nor the product of many reincarnations, but he reproduces the Nestorian error of differentiating between the Christ and Jesus. At the baptism, the Son of God descended on the Son of Man.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Swartz, Karen; Hammer, Olav (14 June 2022)."Soft charisma as an impediment to fundamentalist discourse: The case of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden".Approaching Religion.12 (2):18–37.doi:10.30664/ar.113383.ISSN1799-3121.2. It can be noted that insiders routinely deny that Anthroposophy is a religion and prefer to characterise it as, for example, a philosophical perspective or a form of science. From a scholarly perspective, however, Anthroposophy has all the elements that one typically associates with a religion, for example, a charismatic founder whose status is based on claims of having direct insight into a normally invisible spiritual dimension of existence, a plethora of culturally postulated suprahuman beings that are said to influence our lives, concepts of an afterlife, canonical texts and rituals. Religions whose members deny that the movement they belong to has anything to do with religion are not uncommon in the modern age, but the reason for this is a matter that goes beyond the confines of this article.
Hammer, Olav; Swartz-Hammer, Karen (2024)."NRMs in Comparative Perspective".New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion. Elements in New Religious Movements. Cambridge University Press. p. 62.ISBN978-1-009-03402-9. Retrieved19 July 2024.Being scientific is so important in the eyes of the adherents of some NRMs they vehemently reject the label religion. Anthroposophy, for instance, was founded by a charismatic leader whose status is based on claims of having direct insight into a normally invisible, spiritual dimension of existence, a plethora of culturally postulated suprahuman beings that are said to influence our lives, concepts of an afterlife, canonical texts, and a gamut of rituals. Many Anthroposophists nevertheless describe their movement as a science or a path toward knowledge and, when asked, deny that Anthroposophy is a religious movement.
Brandt, Katharina; Hammer, Olav (2013)."Rudolf Steiner and Theosophy". In Hammer, Olav; Rothstein, Mikael (eds.).Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 113 fn. 1.ISBN978-90-04-23597-7. Retrieved23 January 2024.From a scholar's point of view, Anthroposophy presents characteristics typically associated with religion, and in particular concepts of suprahuman agents (such as angels), a charismatic founder with postulated insight into the suprahuman realm (Steiner himself), rituals (for instance, eurythmy), and canonical texts (Steiner's writings). From an insider's perspective, however, "anthroposophy is not a religion, nor is it meant to be a substitute for religion. While its insights may support, illuminate or complement religious practice, it provides no belief system" (from the Waldorf school website www.waldorfanswers.com/NotReligion1.htm, accessed 9 October 2011). The contrast between a scholarly and an insiders' perspective on what constitutes religion is highlighted by the clinching warrant for this assertion. Although the website argues that Anthroposophy is not a religion by stating that there are no spiritual teachers and no beliefs, it does so by adding a reference to a text by Steiner, who thus functions as an unquestioned authority figure.
Hammer, Olav (2008). Geertz, Armin; Warburg, Margit (eds.).New Religions and Globalization. Renner Studies On New Religions. Aarhus University Press. p. 69.ISBN978-87-7934-681-9. Retrieved23 January 2024.Anthroposophy is thus from an emic point of view emphatically not a religion.
Hansson, Sven Ove (1 July 2022)."Anthroposophical Climate Science Denial".Critical Research on Religion.10 (3). SAGE Publications:281–297.doi:10.1177/20503032221075382.ISSN2050-3032.Anthroposophy has characteristics usually associated with religions, not least a belief in a large number of spiritual beings (Toncheva 2015, 73–81, 134–135). However, its adherents emphatically reject that it is a religion, claiming instead that it is a spiritual science, Geisteswissenschaft (Zander 2007, 1:867).
Zander, Helmut (2002)."Die Anthroposophie — Eine Religion?". In Hoheisel, Karl; Hutter, Manfred; Klein, Wolfgang Wassilios; Vollmer, Ulrich (eds.).Hairesis: Festschrift für Karl Hoheisel zum 65. Geburtstag. Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum (in German). Aschendorff. p. 537.ISBN978-3-402-08120-4. Retrieved2 January 2024.
Gallagher, Eugene V.; Willsky-Ciollo, Lydia (2021)."Anthroposophy".New Religions: Emerging Faiths and Religious Cultures in the Modern World [2 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 20.ISBN978-1-4408-6236-6. Retrieved24 August 2025.
Hoffmann, Ann-Kathrin; Buck, Marc Fabian (2024).Critically Assessing the Reputation of Waldorf Education in Academia and the Public: Recent Developments the World Over, 1987–2004. Taylor & Francis. p. unpaginated.ISBN978-1-04-009332-0. Retrieved24 August 2025.Some "secularists" are further drawn to New Age types of Western spirituality and their cultural and practical aspects - including holistic and communal education.21 Like anthroposophy, the New Age movement is an "alternative religion" or "religion after religion." Steiner's views on education and other matters can readily be incorporated into New Age cultural and spiritual pluralism.
Schwarcz, Joe (2022). "Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy".Quack Quack: The Threat of Pseudoscience. Toronto, Ontario: ECW Press. pp. 52–54.ISBN978-1-77852-023-5.only to found his own peculiar religion, which he called anthroposophy.
McDermott, Robert (18 April 2016). "Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy".The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism. Cambridge University Press. pp. 260–271.doi:10.1017/cbo9781139027649.023.ISBN978-0-521-50983-1.Anthroposophy overlaps with religion and mysticism in that it is focused on the human experience of the divine, but its emphasis is on a spiritual knowledge that is in principle difficult to attain.
Britt, Brian (2022).Religion Around Walter Benjamin. Penn State Press. p. 46.ISBN978-0-271-09357-4. Retrieved27 October 2025.Steiner may be best remembered today as the thinker who inspired Waldorf schools, but his speculative religious thought influenced a wide range of artists, thinkers, and religious leaders. Embracing theosophy in 1900, he developed his own system of thought, anthroposophy, and founded a society around it in 1912, advancing bold ideas involving education, medicine, health, and religion until his death in 1925. Steiner gave Goethe a central place in his work, and he named his headquarters in Switzerland, a masterpiece of modern architecture he designed, the Goetheanum.88 Like Mazdaznan, Steiner's thought combined elements of nineteenth-century spiritualism, race theory, spirituality, and speculative cosmology. Steiner also consulted with Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a popular Berlin pastor who had denounced the war in 1917 and established a new Christian church that echoed some of Steiner's ideas of personal belief and freedom, the Christian Community (Christengemeinschaft).89
Norman, Alex (2012). Cusack, Carole M.; Norman, Alex (eds.).Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 213.ISBN978-90-04-22187-1. Retrieved1 January 2024.[...] continue to have influence beyond the institutional reach of Anthropospophy, the new religious movement he founded.
Frisk, Liselotte (2012). Cusack, Carole M.; Norman, Alex (eds.).Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 204 fn. 10, 208.ISBN978-90-04-22187-1. Retrieved1 January 2024.Thus my conclusion is that it is quite uncontroversial to see Anthroposophy as a whole as a religious movement, in the conventional use of the term, although it is not an emic term used by Anthroposophists themselves.
Cusack, Carole M. (2012). Cusack, Carole M.; Norman, Alex (eds.).Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 190.ISBN978-90-04-22187-1. Retrieved1 January 2024.Steiner, of all esoteric and new religious teachers of the early twentieth century, was acutely aware of the peculiar value of cultural production, an activity with which he engaged with tireless energy, and considerable (amateur and professional) skill and achievement.
Gilhus, Sælid (2016). Bogdan, Henrik; Hammer, Olav (eds.).Western Esotericism in Scandinavia. Brill Esotericism Reference Library. Brill. p. 56.ISBN978-90-04-32596-8. Retrieved6 February 2024.the most successful New Religious Movement in Norway in the twentieth century
Ahlbäck, Tore (2008)."Rudolf Steiner as a religious authority".Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis.20: 15.doi:10.30674/scripta.67323.ISSN2343-4937.Based on my analysis of the source material, I regard the pair of terms 'founder of a religion-teacher' as the concept expressing the most essential elements of Steiner's religious authority.
^Chryssides, George D. (2011)."Anthroposophy".Historical Dictionary of New Religious Movements. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 32.ISBN978-0-8108-7967-6. Retrieved24 August 2025.
^McDermott, Robert A. (1987). "Anthroposophy". In Eliade, Mircea (ed.).The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan Reference USA. p. 320.ISBN0-02-909700-2.
^McDermott, Robert A. (1992). "Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy". In Faivre, Antoine; Needleman, Jacob; Voss, Karen (eds.).Modern Esoteric Spirituality. New York: Crossroad Publishing. p. 288.ISBN0-8245-1145-X.Rudolf Steiner was an esoteric teacher in the Rosicrucian-Christian tradition who delineated a comprehensive and detailed account of the evolution of consciousness as a background to his plea for the transformation of thinking, feeling, and willing in the present century.
^Ahern, Geoffrey (2009) [1984].Sun at midnight: the Rudolf Steiner movement and gnosis in the West (Rev. and expanded ed.). Cambridge: James Clarke Company. p. 11.ISBN978-0-227-17293-3.OCLC429428500.
^Hudson, Wayne (2019). "Rudolf Steiner: Multiple bodies". In Trompf, Garry W.; Mikkelsen, Gunner B.; Johnston, Jay (eds.).The gnostic world. London; New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. p. 510.ISBN978-1-315-56160-8. apudSamson 2023, p. 56
^John F. Moffitt, "Occultism in Avant-Garde Art: The Case of Joseph Beuys",Art Journal, Vol. 50, No. 1, (Spring, 1991), pp. 96–98
^Peg Weiss, "Kandinsky and Old Russia: The Artist as Ethnographer and Shaman",The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 371–373
^Daboo, Jerri (September 2007). "Michael Chekhov and the embodied imagination: Higher self and non-self".Studies in Theatre & Performance.27 (3):261–273.doi:10.1386/stap.27.3.261_1 (inactive 2 July 2025).S2CID145199571.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
^abcHammer, Olav (2021) [2004].Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. Numen Book Series. Brill. p. 329; 64f; 225–8; 176.ISBN978-90-04-49399-5. Retrieved21 January 2022. See also p. 98, where Hammer states that – unusually for founders of esoteric movements – Steiner's self-descriptions of the origins of his thought and work correspond to the view of external historians.
^J. B. Baillie (trans.), in Hegel,The Phenomenology of Mind, v. 2, London: Swan Sonnenschein. p. 429
^Frederick Amrine and Konrad Oberhuber (trans.), in Rudolf Steiner,The Boundaries of Natural Science, Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press.ISBN0-88010-018-4. p. 125, fn. 1
Treher, Wolfgang.Hitler, Steiner, Schreber – Gäste aus einer anderen Welt. Die seelischen Strukturen des schizophrenen Prophetenwahns, Oknos: Emmendingen, 1966 (newer edition: Oknos, 1990).ISBN3-921031-00-1;Wolfgang TreherArchived 2005-02-12 at theWayback Machine.
"Hitler, Steiner, Schreber".trehers Webseite! (in German). Retrieved30 December 2023.Eingeordnet in eine psychiatrische Krankenvorstellung lassen sich Hitler und Steiner als sozial scheinangepasste Schizophrene klassifizieren.
Westphal, Jonathan (1977)."Comment. The philosophical interpretation of Steiner".Theoria to Theory.11–12. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers: 120 fn. 11.ISSN0049-3686. Retrieved16 November 2024.If Steiner was sick only in the same sense as Hegel, and no doubt Christ and Plato as well, (delusions of grandeur, raging hallucinations, etc. etc.) then sickness is surely to be encouraged and cultivated.
Martin, Stoddard (1989).Orthodox Heresy: The Rise of 'Magic' as Religion and its Relation to Literature. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 277 fn. 21.doi:10.1007/978-1-349-19669-2 (inactive 2 July 2025).ISBN978-1-349-19671-5.Comparisons and contrasts between Steiner and Hitler may be found throughout Trevor Ravenscroft's compulsive but undependableSpear of Destiny (London: Neville Spearman, 1972), especially the later chapters, where Steiner is portrayed as a 'white magician' hated and attacked by Hitler's 'black' cadres. InUrania's Children (p. 209), Howe also recommends Wolfgang Treher's psychiatric pathologyHitler, Steiner, Schreber: Ein Beitrag zur Phänomenologie des kranken Geistes (1966), which explores 'delusions of grandeur frequently demonstrated by schizophrenics and the tendency of those suffering from mental illness to assume a prophetic mantle'. Treher concludes, 'Many astrologers and occultists are undiagnosed schizophrenics .... Symptoms include persistent and obsessive belief that they have made outstandingly important scientific, philosophical and cultural discoveries . . . compulsive desire for an audience and for opportunities to communicate their "message" . . . brutality (to their "patients") ... creation of personal "sects" ... disproprotionate belief in their own geniuses.'{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
Webb, James (1976).The Occult Establishment. La Salle, Ill: Open Court Pub. Co. p. 493.ISBN0-912050-56-X.
^Black, Jonathan (2007).The Secret History of the World. Quercus Books. pp. 157, 388.ISBN978-1-84724-167-2.Yet when Jung met Rudolf Steiner, who believed in disembodied spirits, including the planetary gods, Jung dismissed Steiner as a schizophrenic. [...] Indeed, when Jung met Rudolf Steiner he dismissed him as a schizophrenic.
^King, Francis X. (1991).Mind and Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Mysterious and Unexplained. Random House Value Publishing. p. 96.ISBN978-0-517-06036-0. Retrieved17 November 2024.Others believe that Steiner was no more than a schizophrenic — the originator of a delusional system that has deceived many — or a charlatan. I find the last view untenable: Steiner's work and life indicate that he wholly believed in all that he taught.
^Helmut Zander,Anthroposophie in Deutschland, Göttingen, 2007,ISBN3-525-55452-4.
^Steiner: "It may even happen that a researcher who has the power of perception in supersensible realms may fall into error in his logical presentation, and that someone who has no supersensible perception, but who has the capacity for sound thinking, may correct him."Occult Science, Chapter IV
^Zegers, Peter; Staudenmaier, Peter (9 January 2009) [2000]."Anthroposophy and its Defenders".Humanist (4). Institute for Social Ecology.
^abcdefg"Es hängt dabei von den Interessen der Leser ab, ob die Anthroposophie rassistisch interpretiert wird oder nicht." Helmut Zander, "Sozialdarwinistische Rassentheorien aus dem okkulten Untergrund des Kaiserreichs", in Puschner et al., Handbuch zur "Völkischen Bewegung" 1871–1918: 1996.
^Arno Frank, "Einschüchterung auf Waldorf-Art",Die Tageszeitung 4 August 2000.
^Treitel, Corinna (2004).A Science for the Soul. Baltimore: JHU Press. p. 103.ISBN0-8018-7812-8.
^Blume, Eugen (2007). "Joseph Beuys". In Kugler, Walter; Baur, Simon (eds.).Rudolf Steiner in Kunst und Architektur (in German). Köln: DuMont. p. 186.ISBN978-3-8321-9012-5.OCLC183256999.
^Myers, Perry. "Colonial consciousness: Rudolf Steiner's Orientalism and German Cultural Identity".Journal of European Studies.36 (4):387–417.
^Martins, Ansgar (2022). Vukadinović, Vojin Saša (ed.).Rassismus: Von der frühen Bundesrepublik bis zur Gegenwart (in German). De Gruyter. p. unpaginated.ISBN978-3-11-070278-1. Retrieved24 February 2023.Und genau diese komfortable Situation macht es möglich, dass Anthroposophie bis heute eine ganz erstaunliche Auswahl von rassischen und Völker-Stereotypen tradiert, die in ihrer Gründerzeit anscheinend kaum als skandalös auffielen, aber heute den politischen Status des Ganzen verändern. Steiners nationalistische, antijüdische und rassistische Vorstellungen notierten um 1920 nicht einmal linke Kritiker wie Ernst Bloch Oder Siegfried Kracauer, aber sie sickern zum Beispiel auch noch in die jüngere Waldorf-Literatur ein und führen seit den 1990er Jahren periodisch zu erbitterten wissenschaftlichen, journalistischen und juristischen Auseinandersetzungen. Die Argumente Sind seit Jahrzehnten ausgetauscht, das Andauern der Debatte gleicht einem Sich wahnsinnig weiterdrehenden Hamsterrad. Anthroposophen reagieren dabei stets reaktiv auf externe Kritik. Dass Steiner Sich von den wilden Rassisten des 19. Jahrhunderts distanzierte, wird manchen seiner heutigen Anhänger zur Ausrede, um seinen eigenen, spirituell-paternalistischen Rassismus in der Gegenwart schönzureden.4 Einer überschaubaren Anzahl kritischer Aufsätze5 stehen monographische Hetzschriften gegenüber, die Kritiker des „gezielten, vorsätzlich unternommenen Rufmords"6 bezichtigen. Derweil sprechen Sich die anthroposophischen Dachverbände, wenn die Kritik allzu laut wird, in formelhaften Allgemeinplätzen gegen Rassismus aus und gestehen vage, zeitbedingte' Formulierungen Steiners zu.7 Überhaupt dreht Sich die Diskussion zu oft um Steiner. Es Sind jüngere Beiträge, die seine Stereotype in die Gegenwart transportieren.
^Staudenmaier, Peter (2012). "Anthroposophy in Fascist Italy". In Versluis, Arthur; Irwin, Lee; Phillips, Melinda (eds.).Esotericism, Religion, and Politics. Minneapolis, MN: New Cultures Press. pp. 83–84.ISBN978-1596500136.
^Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus,11(37):307-8, 11 September 1901.Article.Mitteilungen,11(38):316, 18 September 1901.Article. Cf. GA31 for a complete list and text of articles.
^"The need to overcome nationalism was one of the central themes of [Steiner's] social agenda": Hans-Jürgen Bracker, "The individual and the unity of humankind". inJudaism and Anthroposophy, ed. Fred Paddock and Mado Spiegler. Anthroposophic Press, 2003,ISBN0880105100. p. 100. See also "Humanistischer Zionismus", in Novalis 5 (1997): "Steiner generell die allmähliche Überwindung und Auflösung von Stammes-, Volks-, Nationen- und »Rasse«-grenzen vertrat"
Staudenmaier 2014, p. 96: "The foremost example of a full-fledged antisemitic conspiracy theory based squarely on anthroposophist premises was Karl Heise's 1919 tome blaming the World War on a cabal of freemasons and Jews. Heise wrote the book with Steiner's encouragement and founded its argument on Steiner's own teachings, while Steiner himself wrote the foreword and contributed a substantial sum toward publication costs.101"
French, Aaron (2022)."Esoteric Nationalism and Conspiracism in WWI". In Piraino, Francesco; Pasi, Marco; Asprem, Egil (eds.).Religious Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories: Comparing and Connecting Old and New Trends. London: Routledge. pp. 107–123.doi:10.4324/9781003120940-8.ISBN978-1-000-78268-4. Retrieved1 March 2024.One man inspired by Steiner's lectures during World War I was the enigmatic Karl Heise, who, in 1918, published a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism entitledDie Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg, which was partially backed by Steiner, who wrote a cagey introduction to the first edition, very cautiously choosing his words and not signing his name (Zander, 2007, p. 991).
Zander 2007, pp. 991–992: "Ein weiteres Motiv könnte in der Kollision von Steiners Freimaureraktivitäten mit seinem deutschen Patriotismus liegen (s. 14.3.1). Nach dem Krieg nannte Steiner diesen Punkt sehr deutlich, als er in Karl Heises »Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg«, in der es um die Kriegsschuldfrage ging178, ein nicht gezeichnetes, auf den 10. Oktober 1918 datiertes Vorwort verfaßte, sich also einen Monat vor dem Waffenstillstand und inmitten des Zusammenbruchs des Deutschen Reiches äußerte. »Die Geheimgesellschaften der Entente-Länder«, hieß es dort, hätten eine »die Weltkatastrophe vorbereitende politische Gesinnung und Beeinflussung der Weltereignisse« an den Tag gelegt. Bei der Suche nach der »Schuld am Weltkriege« habe man auch an die Freimaurer zu denken. Dies war nicht nur eine reduktive Lösung der »Kriegsschuldfrage« im Jahr 1918, sondern möglicherweise auch ein Hinweis auf seine Motivlage im Jahr 1914: Steiner hätte sich dann aus Solidarität mit Deutschland aus dem Internationalismus der Freimaurerei verabschiedet179. Andere theosophische Gesellschaften haben diesen Schnitt übrigens nicht so deutlich vollzogen180."
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