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Rudolf Steiner (February 27, 1861 – March 30, 1925) was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, architect, playwright, educator, and social thinker. He is the founder of anthroposophy, "a movement based on the notion that there is a spiritual world comprehensible to pure thought but accessible only to the highest faculties of mental knowledge"Encyclopedia Brittanica, Rudolf Steiner and many of its practical applications, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine, and new artistic impulses, especially eurythmy.

Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual component. In his epistemological works, he advocated the Goethean view that thinking itself is a perceptive instrument for ideas, just as the eye is a perceptive instrument for light.

He characterized anthroposophy as follows:

Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts (1924)

Biography

Childhood and education

Steiner's father was a huntsman in the service of Count Hoyos in Geras, and later became a telegraph operator and stationmaster on the Southern Austrian Railway. When he was born, his father was stationed in Murakirály in the Muraköz region, then part of Hungary (present-day Donji Kraljevec, Međimurje region, northernmost Croatia). When he was two years old, the family moved into Burgenland, Austria, in the foothills of the eastern Alps.

In his childhood, Steiner was interested in mathematics and philosophy. From 1879 to 1883 he attended the Technische Hochschule (Technical University) in Vienna, where he studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In 1882, one of Steiner's teachers at the university in Vienna, Karl Julius Schroer, suggested Steiner's name to Professor Joseph Kurschner, editor of a new edition of Goethe's works. Steiner was then asked to become the edition's scientific editor.*

Steiner relates in his autobiography that at 21, on the train between his home village and Vienna, he met a simple herb gatherer, Felix Kogutski, who spoke about the spiritual world "as someone who had his own experiences of it...." This herb gatherer introduced Steiner to a person that Steiner only identified as a "master", and who had a great influence on Steiner's subsequent development; Steiner mentions particularly that this individual directed him to study Fichte's philosophy.Steiner, Rudolf, The Course of My Life, Chapter III and GA 262, pp. 7-21. Fichte is mentioned by Alfred Heidenreich; see this article, but his reference to Steiner's autobiography as the source for this seems to be erroneous.

In 1891 Steiner earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Rostock in Germany with his thesis, later published in expanded form as Truth and Science.

Writer and philosopher

In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kurschner edition, Steiner was invited to come to the Goethe archives in Weimar to become an editor for the official complete edition of Goethe's works. Steiner remained with the archive until 1896. As well as the introductions for and commentaries to the resulting four volumes of Goethe's scientific writings, Steiner wrote two books about Goethe's philosophy: The Theory of Knowledge implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897). During this time he also collaborated in complete editions of Arthur Schopenhauer's work and that of the writer Jean Paul. Steiner also wrote articles for various journals, including a magazine devoted to combatting anti-semitism, during this time.Steiner's early articles are collected in five volumes of the complete edition of his works, GA 29-33. Steiner was one of the defenders (with Emile Zola) of Alfred Dreyfus, a Captain in the French army falsely accused of treason because he was Jewish.

During his time at the archives, Steiner wrote what he considered his most important philosophical work, Die Philosophie der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedom) (1894), an exploration of epistemology and ethics that suggested a path upon which humans can become spiritually free beings (see below). While the first edition was strongly materialistic and supported Darwinist Ernst Haeckel's monism, later editions were re-written in favour of Blavatsky's critiscism of Darwin and Haeckel.

In 1896, Friedrich Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, asked Steiner to set the Nietzsche archive in Naumburg in order. Her brother by that time was no longer compos mentis. Forster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of the catatonic philosopher and Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the book Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom.

In 1897, Steiner left the Weimar archives and moved to Berlin. He became the owner and chief editor of the literary journal Magazin für Literatur, where he hoped to find a readership sympathetic to his spiritual philosophy.

Spiritual research

Beginning around 1900 and until his death in 1925, Steiner articulated an ongoing stream of "experiences of the spiritual world" — experiences he said had touched him from an early age on.Steiner, Rudolf, Autobiography, Chapter One. Steiner aimed to apply his training in mathematics, science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences.

Steiner believed that non-physical beings existed everywhere and that through freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience these beings, as well as the higher nature of oneself and others. Steiner believed that such discipline and training would help a person to become a more creative and loving individual.Steiner, Rudolf, How to Know Higher Worlds, Chapter Six.

Steiner's goal for his work was for it to be a development of the philosophical work of Franz Brentano - with whom he had studied - and Wilhelm Dilthey, founders of the phenomenological movement in European philosophy.Steiner, Rudolf, Autobiography, Chapter Three and Riddles of the Soul (see footnote below). Brentano was also an important influence on Edmund Husserl and Jose Ortega y Gasset. Steiner was also influenced by Goethe's phenomenological approach to science.Steiner, Rudolf, Goethean Science and Goethe's Conception of the World.*Bockemühl, J., Toward a Phenomenology of the Etheric World ISBN 0880101156

  • Edelglass, S. et al., The Marriage of Sense and Thought, ISBN 0940262827.

Steiner and the Theosophical Society

A turning point in Steiner's life came when, in the August 28, 1899 issue of this magazine, he published an article entitled "Goethe's Secret Revelation" on the esoteric nature of Goethe's fairy tale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. This article led to an invitation by the Count and Countess Brockdorff to speak to a gathering of Theosophists on the subject of Nietzsche. Steiner continued speaking regularly to the members of the Theosophical Society, eventually becoming the head of its German section. It was also within this society that Steiner met Marie von Sievers, who was to become his second wife.

Steiner had never considered himself to be part of the Theosophical movement. In 1901, asked by Marie von Sivers why he didn’t join the Theosophical Society, Steiner answered that "there were more significant spiritual influences than oriental mysticism," and "it is certainly necessary to call into life a movement for spiritual science, but I will only be part of a movement that connects to and develops Western esotericism, and exclusively to this." When the leader of the German theosophical branch, Countess Brockdorff, asked if he would not work with them, Steiner agreed under unusual terms: "Steiner evidently avoided requesting membership in the Theosophical Society, and made the condition that he would be released from all membership contributions. ‘Then I was sent a complementary “diploma” from England and became at the same time General Secretary of the German Theosophical Society.’"Lindenberg, Christoph, Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart: 1997, p. 326. Steiner made a great point of his complete independence of thought and teaching from all of the Theosophical Society's work, setting out a distinctive philosophy and esoteric training.Steiner, Rudolf, The Course of My Life, Chapters 31-33.

"He commenced giving lectures in Winter 1900/01 and 1901/02 which led to the constitution of the German section of the Theosophical Society (Adyar) on 20 October 1902, with approx. 100 members and Rudolf Steiner as its General Secretary.

In 1904 Steiner starts to build up his own Esoteric School. On 10 May 1904 the then leader of the Esoteric School of Theosophy, Annie Besant, makes him National Leader of the E.S. for Germany and Austria. This E.S. was constituted in 1888 by Blavatsky independently from the T.S. "http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/steiner.htm Anthroposophy: Ordo Templi Orientis ? by Peter R Koenig

The relationship became increasingly strained as Steiner's popularity rose. Annie Besant tried unsuccessfully to prevent him lecturing outside of German-speaking areas, indeed, even in Switzerland, but protests came from the Society branches involved, and Steiner pointed out that the Society's statutes explicitly allowed him free reign.Lindenberg, pp. 487-8

The breaking point came when the leaders of the Theosophical Society declared that Krishnamurti was the new World Teacher, a Bodhisattva, and a reincarnation or second coming of the Christ. Steiner quickly denied this attribution of messianic status to Krishnamurti, claiming that Christ's earthly incarnation in Jesus was a unique event. Steiner held that what trained spiritual vision could discover about most of the rest of humanity — namely that the human being goes through a series of repeated earth lives — did not apply to the spiritual being Christ. Christ, he said, would reappear in "the etheric" — the realm that lives between people and in community life — not as a physical individual. This and other doctrinal differences fuelled a confrontation between Steiner and the Theosophical leader Annie Besant which eventually led Steiner and most of the German branch of theosophists to separate from this group, and found the Anthroposophical Society in 1912. (Krishnamurti himself repudiated the attempt to make him into a messiah in 1929, shocking many Theosophists.)

Cultural activities

The society grew rapidly. Fueled by a need to find a home for their yearly conferences, which regularly included performances of plays written by Eduard Schuré and Steiner himself, the decision was made to build a theater and organizational center. In 1913, construction began on the first Goetheanum building, in Dornach, Switzerland. The building, designed by Steiner, was built to significant part by volunteers who offered craftsmanship or simply a will to learn new skills. Once World War I started in 1914, the Goetheanum volunteers could hear the sound of cannon fire beyond the Swiss border, but despite the war, people from all over Europe worked peaceably side by side on the building's construction. In 1919, the Goetheanum staged the world premiere of a complete production of Goethe's Faust. In this same year, the first Waldorf school was founded in Stuttgart, Germany.

The Goetheanum developed as a wide-ranging cultural centre. On New Year's Eve, 1922, the first Goetheanum building was burned down by arsonists. Steiner immediately began work on a second Goetheanum building — this was to be finished in 1928, three years after Steiner's death.

During the Anthroposophical Society's Christmas conference in 1923, he founded the School of Spiritual Science, intended as an open university for research and study. This university, which has various sections or faculties, has grown steadily; it is particularly active today in the fields of education, medicine, agriculture, art, natural science, literature, philosophy, sociology and economics.

Philosophical Development

Goetheanistic Science

In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884-97, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as essentially phenomenological in nature, rather than theory- or model-based. He developed this conception further in several books, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), particularly emphasizing the transformation in Goethe's approach from the physical sciences, where experiment played the primary role, to plant biology, where imagination was required to find the biological archetypes (Urplanze), and postulated that Goethe had sought but been unable to fully find the further transformation in scientific thinking necessary to properly interpret and understand the animal kingdom.

Steiner defended Goethe's qualitative description of color as arising synthetically from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast to Newton's particle-based and analytic conception. He emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy.

Knowledge and freedom

Steiner approached the philosophical questions of epistemology and freedom in two stages. The first was his dissertation, published in expanded form in 1892 as Truth and Knowledge. Here Steiner suggests that there is an inconsistency between Kant's philosophy, which postulated that the essential verity of the world was inaccessible to human consciousness, and modern science, which assumes that all influences can be found in what Steiner termed the "sinnlichen und geistlichen" (sensory and mental/spiritual) world to which we have access. Steiner terms Kant's "Jenseits-Philosophie" (philosophy of a beyond) a stumbling block in achieving a satisfying philosophical viewpoint.Steiner, Rudolf, Truth and Knowledge, introduction

Steiner postulates that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that our consciousness divides it into the sense-perceptible appearance, on the one hand, and the formal nature accessible to our thinking, on the other. He sees in thinking itself an element that can be strengthened and deepened sufficiently to penetrate all that our senses do not reveal to us. Steiner thus explicitly denies all justification to a division between faith and knowledge; otherwise expressed, between the spiritual and natural worlds. Their apparent duality is conditioned by the structure of our consciousness, which separates perception and thinking, but these two faculties give us two complementary views of the same world; neither has primacy and the two together are necessary and sufficient to arrive at a complete understanding of the world. In thinking about perception (the path of natural science) and perceiving the process of thinking (the path of spiritual training), it is possible to discover a hidden inner unity between the two poles of our experience.

Truth, for Steiner, is paradoxically both an objective discovery and yet:

"a free creation of the human spirit, that never would exist at all if we did not generate it ourselves. The task of understanding is not to replicate in conceptual form something that already exists, but rather to create a wholly new realm, that together with the world given to our senses constitutes the fullness of reality." Steiner, Rudolf, Truth and Science, Preface.

A new stage of Steiner's philosophical development is expressed in his Philosophy of Freedom. Here, he further explores potentials within thinking: freedom, he suggests, can only be approached asymptotically and with the aid of the "creative activity" of thinking. Thinking can be a free deed; in addition, it can liberate our will from its subservience to our instincts and drives. Free deeds, he suggests, are those for which we are fully conscious of the motive for our action; freedom is the spiritual activity of penetrating with consciousness our own nature and that of the world, and the real activity of acting in full consciousness. (See the main article on the Philosophy of Freedom for a fuller exposition.)

Spiritual science

In his earliest works, Steiner already speaks of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity. From 1900 on, he begins lecturing about concrete details of the spiritual world(s), culminating in the publication in 1904 of the first of several systematic presentations, his Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos, followed by How to Know Higher Worlds (1904/5), Cosmic Memory (a collection of articles written between 1904 and 1908), and An Outline of Esoteric Science (1910). Important themes include:

Steiner emphasizes that there is an objective natural and spiritual world that can be known, and that perceptions of the spiritual world and incorporeal beings are, under conditions of training comparable to that required for the natural sciences, but including extraordinary self-discipline, replicable by multiple observers. Thus for Steiner, a spiritual science of a sort is a real possibility, though with radically different epistemological foundations than those of natural science.

For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective knowledge always entails inner creativity.

Steiner termed his work from this period on, Anthroposophy.

Practical initiatives

Education

As a young man, Steiner already supported the independence of educational institutions from governmental control. In 1907, he wrote a long essay, entitled "Education in the Light of Spiritual Science", in which he described the major phases of child development and suggested that these would be the basis of a healthy approach to education.

In 1919, Emil Molt invited him to lecture on the topic of education to the workers at Molt's factory in Stuttgart. Out of this came a new school, the Waldorf school, and Waldorf Education — sometimes known as Steiner Education — which has grown to be one of the largest independent schooling systems in the world. There are now nearly 1,000 Waldorf/Steiner schools worldwide; see the List of Waldorf Schools.

Social activism

For a period after World War I, Steiner was extremely active as a lecturer on social questions. A petition expressing his basic social ideas (signed by Herman Hesse, among others) was very widely circulated. His main book on social questions, Toward Social Renewal, sold tens of thousands of copies. Today around the world there are a number of innovative banks, companies, charitable institutions, and schools for developing new cooperative forms of business, all working partly out of Steiner’s social ideas. One example is The Rudolf Steiner Foundation (RSF), incorporated in 1984, and as of 2004 with estimated assets of $70 million. RSF provides "charitable innovative financial services". According to the independent organizations Co-op America and the Social Investment Forum Foundation, RSF is "one of the top 10 best organizations exemplifying the building of economic opportunity and hope for individuals through community investing."

Steiner suggested that the cultural, political and economic spheres of society needed to be sufficiently independent of one another to be able to mutually correct each other in an ongoing way. He suggested that human society had been moving slowly, over thousands of years, toward articulation of society into three independent yet mutually corrective realms, and that a Threefold Social Order was not some utopia that could be implemented in a day or even a century. It was a gradual process that he expected would continue to develop for thousands of years. Nevertheless, he gave many specific suggestions for social reforms that he thought would increase the threefold articulation of society. He believed in democracy for political life, liberty in cultural life, and voluntary, uncoerced cooperation in economic life.

Architecture and sculpture

Steiner designed 17 buildings, including the First and Second Goetheanums. These two buildings, built in Dornach, Switzerland, were intended to house a University for Spiritual Science. Three of Steiner's buildings, including both Goetheanum buildings, have been listed amongst the most significant works of modern architecture.Goulet, Patrice, "Les Temps Modernes?", L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui, Dec. 1982, pp. 8-17.

As a sculptor, his works include The Representative of Humanity (1922). This nine-meter high wood sculpture was a joint project with the sculptor Edith Maryon; it is on permanent display at the Goetheanum in Dornach.

Performing arts

Together with Marie von Sievers-Steiner, Rudolf Steiner developed the art of Eurythmy, sometimes referred to as "visible speech and visible song". According to the principles of Eurythmy, there are archetypal movements or gestures that correspond to every aspect of speech - the sounds, or phonemes, the rhythms, the grammatical function, and so on - to every "soul quality" - laughing, despair, intimacy, etc. - and to every aspect of music - tones, intervals, rhythms, harmonies, etc.

Eurythmy performances are held at the Goetheanum in Dornach, and theatres throughout the world. Eurythmy schools in many countries offer trainings.See this list of fully accredited training programs.

As a playwright, Steiner wrote four "Mystery Dramas" between 1909 and 1913, including The Portal of Initiation and The Soul's Awakening. They are still performed today.

Steiner also founded a new approach to artistic speech and drama; see his Speech and Drama Course. Various ensembles work with this approach, called "speech formation" (Ger.:Sprachgestaltung), and trainings exist in various countries, including England, the United States, Switzerland, and Germany. The actor Michael Chekhov extended this approach in what is now known as the Chekhov method.

Medicine and biodynamic farming

From the late 1910s, Steiner was working with doctors to create a new approach to medicine. In 1921, pharmacists and physicians gathered under Steiner's guidance to create a pharmaceutical company called Weleda, which now distributes natural medical products worldwide. At around the same time, Dr. Ita Wegman founded a first anthroposophic medical clinic in Arlesheim, Switzerland (now called the Wegman Clinic).

In 1924, a group of farmers concerned about the future of agriculture requested Steiner's help; Steiner responded with a lecture series on agriculture. This was the origin of biodynamic agriculture, which is now practiced throughout much of Europe, North America, and Australasia. A central concept of these lectures was to "individualize" the farm by not bringing outside materials onto the farm, but producing all needed materials such as manure and animal feed from within what he called the "farm organism". Other aspects of Biodynamic farming inspired by Steiner's lectures include timing activities such as planting in relation to the movement patterns of the moon and planets and applying "preparations", which consist of natural materials which have been processed in specific ways, to soil, compost piles, and plants with the intention of engaging non-physical beings and elemental forces. Steiner, in his lectures, encouraged his listeners to verify his suggestions scientifically, as he had not yet done.

The renewal of religious life

In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, an eminent Lutheran pastor with a congregation in Berlin. Rittelmeyer asked if it was possible to create a more modern form of Christianity. Soon others joined Rittelmeyer - mostly Protestant pastors, but including at least one Catholic priest. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the sacraments of their various services, combining Catholicism's emphasis on a sacred tradition with the Protestant emphasis on freedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life. Steiner made it clear, however, that the resulting movement for the renewal of Christianity, which became known as The Christian Community, was a personal gesture of help to a deserving cause. It was not, he emphasized, founded by the movement known as "Spiritual Science" or "Anthroposophy," but by Rittelmeyer and the other founding personalities with Steiner's help and advice. The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with anthroposophy to create a scientific, not faith-based, spirituality. For those who wished to find more traditional forms, however, a renewal of the traditional religions was also a vital need of the times.

Breadth of activity

Steiner is certainly remarkable for the breadth of his achievements. The school movement he founded has become as successful as those of Maria MontessoriIN CONTEXT #6, Summer 1984. Biodynamic agriculture is one of the two pillars of the modern organic farming movement, and is as important today as the ideas of the other founder of modern organic agriculture, Albert Howard.ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service Anthroposophic medicine has achieved as broad a range of medicinal remedies as Hahnemann's homeopathy; in addition, a broad range of supportive therapies — both artistic and biographical — have arisen out of Steiner's work.Evans, M. and Rodger, I. Anthroposophical Medicine: Treating Body, Soul and Spirit The homes for the handicapped based on his work are as successful as those of L'Arche.Camphill list of communities His paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries, and his pupils include Joseph Beuys and other significant modern artists. His two Goetheanum buildings are generally accepted to be amongst the masterpieces of modern architecture,*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.
  • See also Great Buildings Online and other anthroposophical architects have contributed thousands of innovative buildings to the modern scene. The first institution to practice ethical banking was an anthroposophical bank working out of Steiner's ideas (GMB-Bochum, Germany). This list could be extended considerably.

Steiner's literary estate is correspondingly broad. Steiner's writings are published in about forty volumes, including books, essays, plays ('mystery dramas'), mantric verse and an autobiography. His collected lectures make up another approximately 300 volumes, and nearly every imaginable theme is covered somewhere here. (Much of Steiner's work is available on-line at the Rudolf Steiner archive, and Steiner's complete works are searchable at the German language archive). Steiner's drawings are collected in a separate series of 28 volumes. Many publications have covered his architectural legacy and sculptural work.

Scientists, scholars and artists influenced by Steiner

Steiner's work has influenced a number of physicists, biologists, medical doctors, architects, philosophers, and artists. Research centers staffed by trained professionals in various fields of study do research along lines suggested or inspired by Steiner's ideas. Some works of some of the better known scientists and scholars who have been deeply influenced by Steiner are listed below.
  • Physics
    • Henri Bortoft, The Wholeness of Nature
    • Arthur Zajonc, Catching the Light
    • Georg Unger, Forming Concepts in Physics
    • Stephen Edelglas, The Marriage of Sense and Thought
  • Mathematics
    • Hermann von Baravalle
    • Lawrence Edwards
  • Biology
    • Craig Holdrege Genetics and the Manipulation of Life
    • Wolfgang Schad, Man and Mammals: Toward a Biology of Form
    • Jos Verhulst, Developmental Dynamics in Humans and Other Primates
  • Medicine
    • Eugene Kolisko
    • Dr. Robert Zieve, Healthy Medicine
    • Victor Bott, Introduction to Anthroposophical Medicine
  • Phenomenological science
    • Zajonc and Seamon, Goethe's Way of Science, A Phenomenology of Nature
  • Philosophy
  • Literature and literary criticism
  • History
  • Art
  • Architecture

Reception of Steiner

The high regard in which Steiner and Steiner's work are held within the Anthroposophical movement has been criticized by some critics as devotion to the point of uncritical belief. They have suggested that the fact that Dr. Steiner said something, rather than the verifiability of the statement, has been decisive.

Steiner himself seems to have noted this tendency, as he frequently asked his students to test everything he said, and not to take his statements on authority or faith. He also said that if it had been practicable, he would have changed the name of his teachings every day, to keep people from hanging on to the literal meaning of those teachings, and to stay true to their character as something intended to be alive and metamorphic. Nor was Steiner shy about saying that his works would gradually become obsolete, and that each generation should rewrite them. Individual freedom and spiritual independence are among the values Steiner most emphasized in his books and lectures.

Many anthroposophical writers emphasize the importance of individual freedom and thought, and there is considerable diversity within anthroposophical thought. Nevertheless, a critical approach to the works of Steiner is not as common as some would like and not always welcomed within some Anthroposophic circles.

Given Steiner's clear statements about political democracy being the proper kind of State for humanity, his consistent and emphatic support for liberty and pluralism in education, religion, scientific opinion, the arts, and in the press, not to mention his rejection of the idea that the State should take over economic life - one cannot justly link Steiner or his movement with a totalitarian intent; rather the reverse, for his whole philosophy is based upon individual freedom.

Steiner and Christianity

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

Steiner and racism

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

References

Bibliography

The style and content of Steiner's works can vary greatly. Therefore, while it might be stimulating to read a single lecture or book by Steiner, it would probably be a mistake, having read even four or five of his books, to suppose one has a representative picture of the whole body of his work. Many works are available in web versions through the Rudolf Steiner Archive. The full German texts of all of Steiner's published works is searchable at the Rudolf Steiner Archiv. A list of all English translations of all works by Steiner is available at this site.

Out of the 350 volumes of his collected works (including more than forty volumes containing his writings, and over 6000 published lectures), some of the more significant works include

Steiner's writings

Books

Articles about social renewal

Steiner's lectures

The subjects of the over 6,000 published lectures by Steiner are classified by the publisher as follows (see complete catalog in pdf format):
General anthroposophy

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

Education and science

religion

Works about Steiner by other authors

  • Davy, Adams and Merry, A Man Before Others: Rudolf Steiner Remembered. Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993.
  • Hemleben, Johannes and Twyman,Leo, Rudolf Steiner: An Illustrated Biography. Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001.
  • Lindenberg, Christoph Andreas, Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie (2 vols.). Stuttgart, 1997. ISBN 3-7725-1551-7
  • Lissau, Rudi, Rudolf Steiner: Life, Work, Inner Path and Social Initiatives. Hawthorne Press, 2000.
  • McDermott, Robert, The Essential Steiner. Harper Press, 1984
  • Seddon, Richard, Rudolf Steiner. North Atlantic Books, 2004.
  • Shepherd, A.P., Rudolf Steiner: Scientist of the Invisible. Inner Traditions, 1990.
  • Schiller, Paul, Rudolf Steiner and Initiation. Steiner Books, 1990.
  • Tummer, Lia and Lato, Horacio, Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy for Beginners. Writers & Readers Publishing, 2001.

External links

General

Writings

Practical activities

Further interest

1861 births | 1925 deaths | Alternative education | Anthroposophy | Anthroposophists | Austrian dramatists and playwrights | Austrian philosophers | Austrian architects | Educationists | Esoteric Christianity | Expressionist architects | German philosophers | Modernist architects | Spirituality | Theosophists

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