View source for Rudolf Steiner

{{short description|Austrian esotericist (1861–1925)}} {{other people}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}} {{Infobox person|image=Steiner um 1905.jpg|caption=Steiner {{circa|1905}}|name=Rudolf Steiner|birth_name=Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner|birth_date={{birth date|1861|2|27|df=yes}}<ref name="birth">Steiner'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 Verlag|Rowohlt]] 1992, {{ISBN|3-499-50500-2}}, p. 8. In 2009 new documentation appeared supporting a date of 27 February : see Günter Aschoff, [http://www.dasgoetheanum.ch/fileadmin/wochenschrift/downloads/Forschungsbericht_Aschoff.pdf "Rudolf Steiners Geburtstag am 27. Februar 1861 – Neue Dokumente"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140628170708/http://www.dasgoetheanum.ch/fileadmin/wochenschrift/downloads/Forschungsbericht_Aschoff.pdf |date=28 June 2014 }}, ''Das Goetheanum'' 2009/9, pp. 3ff</ref>|birth_place=[[Donji Kraljevec, Međimurje County|Murakirály]],<ref name=Auto/> [[Kingdom of Hungary]],<ref>"Steiner was born on 25 February 1861 in the village of Kraljevec (in what is today Croatia, but at the time in Hungary)", Heinrich Ullrich, ''Rudolf Steiner''</ref><ref>"Ich bin...in Ungarn geboren", "ich habe...in Ungarn die ersten eineinhalb Jahre meines Lebens verbracht", Rudolf Steiner, GA174, p. 89</ref><ref>Steiner was "born February 27, 1861, in Kraljevec, Hungary". Paul M. Allen, "Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner", in Robert McDermott, ''New Essential Steiner'', SteinerBooks (2009)</ref><ref>Laszlo, Péter (2011), Hungary's Long Nineteenth Century: Constitutional and Democratic Traditions, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, the Netherlands, p. 7</ref><ref>Hungary was officially recognized as "(an independent kingdom) within the Habsburg Monarchy." Orsolya Szakaly, "Opportunity or Threat? Napoleon and the Hungarian Estates", in ''Collaboration and Resistance in Napoleonic Europe'', Michael Rowe (ed.), Palgrave Macmillan 2003 {{ISBN|978-0-333-98454-3}}</ref> [[Austrian Empire]] (now [[Donji Kraljevec]], Croatia)|death_date={{death date and age|1925|3|30|1861|2|27|df=y}}|death_place=[[Dornach]], Switzerland|education=[[TU Wien|Vienna Institute of Technology]]<br />[[University of Rostock]] (PhD, 1891)|spouse={{Plainlist|
* {{marriage|Anna Eunicke|1899|1904|end=div}}{{sfn|Lindenberg|2011|p=356}}{{sfn|Zander|2007|p=241}}
* {{marriage|1=[[Marie Steiner-von Sivers]]|2=1914}}
}}}} {{Anthroposophy}} {{Theosophy}} {{Esotericism}}

'''Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner''' (27 or 25 February 1861<ref name="birth" /> – 30 March 1925) was an [[Austrians|Austrian]] [[Occult|occultist]],{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2008}} [[social reformer]], [[Architecture|architect]], [[Western esotericism|esotericist]],<ref>Some of the literature regarding Steiner's work in these various fields: Goulet, P: "Les Temps Modernes?", ''L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui'', December 1982, pp. 8–17; [http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Rudolf_Steiner.html Architect Rudolf Steiner] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924051601/http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Rudolf_Steiner.html|date=24 September 2015}} at ''GreatBuildings.com''; [http://eng.archinform.net/arch/1118.htm?scrwdt=1024 Rudolf Steiner] ''International Architecture Database''; Brennan, M.: [http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/reviews/brennan/brennan3-18-98.asp Rudolf Steiner] ''ArtNet 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; Ogletree, E.J.: Rudolf Steiner: Unknown Educator, ''Elementary School Journal'', 74(6): 344–352, March 1974; Nilsen, A.:[http://sitemaker.umich.edu/nilsen.356/history__waldorf_education A Comparison of Waldorf & Montessori Education] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131010103402/http://sitemaker.umich.edu/nilsen.356/history__waldorf_education|date=10 October 2013}}, University of Michigan; Rinder, L: [http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/steiner/steineressay.html Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings: An Aesthetic Perspective] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051129022355/http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/steiner/steineressay.html|date=29 November 2005}} and [http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/steiner/ exhibition of Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070202100132/http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/exhibits/steiner/|date=2 February 2007}}, at Berkeley Art Museum, 11 October 1997 – 4 January 1998; 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; and [[Antoine Faivre]], [[Jacob Needleman]], Karen Voss; ''Modern Esoteric Spirituality'', Crossroad Publishing, 1992.</ref><ref name="v651">{{cite web|last=Garner|first=Richard|title=The Big Question: Who was Rudolf Steiner and what were his revolutionary teaching ideas?|website=The Independent|date=24 January 2007|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/the-big-question-who-was-rudolf-steiner-and-what-were-his-revolutionary-teaching-ideas-433407.html|access-date=17 November 2024}}</ref> and claimed [[Clairvoyance|clairvoyant]].<ref name="CorrDoc">Steiner, ''Correspondence and Documents 1901–1925'', 1988, p. 9. {{ISBN|0880102071}}</ref><ref name="Ruse2018">{{Cite book|last=Ruse|first=Michael|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D1RuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97|title=The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict|date=12 November 2018|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-086757-7|page=97}}</ref> Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a [[Literary criticism|literary critic]] and published works including ''[[The Philosophy of Freedom]]''.<ref name="Cees">{{Cite book|last=Leijenhorst|first=Cees|author-link=Cees Leijenhorst|editor-last2=Faivre|editor-first2=Antoine|editor-last3=Broek|editor-first3=Roelof van den|editor-last4=Brach|editor-first4=Jean-Pierre|title=Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism|publisher=Brill|year=2006|editor-last=Hanegraaff|editor-first=Wouter J.|editor-link=Wouter Hanegraaff|location=Leiden / Boston|page=1086|chapter='''Steiner''', Rudolf, * 25.2.1861 Kraljevec (Croatia), † 30.3.1925 Dornach (Switzerland)|quote=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, the ''Philosophie der Freiheit'', did not receive the attention and appreciation he had hoped for.}}</ref> At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, [[anthroposophy]], with roots in [[German idealism|German idealist philosophy]] and [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]]. His teachings are influenced by [[Christianity|Christian]] [[Gnosticism]]{{efn-lr|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."<ref name="McClelland 2018 p. ">{{Cite book |last=McClelland |first=Norman C. |title=Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma |date=15 October 2018 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-5675-8 |page=100 |chapter=Gnosticism |quote=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. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S_Leq4U5ihkC&dq=gnosticism+reincarnation&pg=PA100}}</ref>}} or neognosticism.<ref name="Christian Gnosticism">Sources for 'Christian Gnosticism': {{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Robertson |first=David G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B6s5EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 |title=Gnosticism and the History of Religions |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-350-13770-7 |series=Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation |page=57 |quote=Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress... |ref=none |access-date=3 January 2023}}|{{cite book | last=Gilmer | first=Jane | title=The Alchemical Actor | publisher=Brill | series=Consciousness, Literature and the Arts | year=2021 | isbn=978-90-04-44942-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mUAvEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 | access-date=3 January 2023 | page=41 | quote=Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered. |ref=none}}|{{cite book | last=Quispel | first=Gilles | editor-last=Layton | editor-first=Bentley | title=The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: The school of Valentinus | publisher=E.J. Brill | series=Studies in the history of religions : Supplements to Numen | year=1980 | isbn=978-90-04-06176-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MBTXAAAAMAAJ | access-date=3 January 2023 | page=123 | quote=After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis. |ref=none}}|{{cite book | last1=Quispel | first1=Gilles | last2=Oort | first2=Johannes van | title=Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel | publisher=Brill | series=Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies | year=2008 | isbn=978-90-474-4182-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2u15DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA370 | access-date=3 January 2023 | page=370 |ref=none}}|{{cite book | last=Carlson | first=Maria | editor-last=Livak | editor-first=Leonid | title=A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's "petersburg | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | year=2018 | isbn=978-0-299-31930-4 | chapter=Petersburg and Modern Occultism | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yS93DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA58 | access-date=3 January 2023 | page=58 | quote=Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter. |ref=none}}|{{cite book | last=McL. Wilson | first=Robert | editor-last1=Metzger | editor-first1=Bruce M. | editor-last2=Coogan | editor-first2=Michael D. | title=The Oxford Companion to the Bible | publisher=Oxford University Press | series=Oxford Companions | year=1993 | isbn=978-0-19-974391-9 | chapter=Gnosticism | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y2KGVuym5OUC&pg=PA256 | access-date=3 January 2023 | page=256 | quote=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. |ref=none}}|{{cite book | last=Braune | first=Joan | title=Erich Fromm's Revolutionary Hope: Prophetic Messianism as a Critical Theory of the Future | publisher=SensePublishers | series=Imagination and Praxis: Criticality and Creativity in Education and Educational Research | year=2014 | isbn=978-94-6209-812-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TfibBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA52 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=52}}|{{cite book | last=Carlson | first=Maria | editor-last=Kornblatt | editor-first=Judith Deutsch | editor-last2=Gustafson | editor-first2=Richard F. | title=Russian Religious Thought | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | series=Russian studies: Religion | year=1996 | isbn=978-0-299-15134-8 | chapter=Gnostic Elements in Soloviev's Cosmogony | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AqwGUM4tFoEC&pg=PA53 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=53}}|{{cite book | first=Nicholas | last=Goodrick-Clarke | editor-last=Hammer | editor-first=Olav | editor-last2=Rothstein | editor-first2=Mikael | title=Handbook of the Theosophical Current | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion | year=2013 | isbn=978-90-04-23597-7 | chapter=Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VozAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA301 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=301}}|{{cite book | last=Schnurbein | first=Stefanie von | title=Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism | publisher=BRILL | publication-place=Boston | date=2016 | isbn=978-90-04-30951-7 | pages=34–35 fn. 57 | language=en}}}}</ref><ref name="Diener Hipolito 2013 p. 77">{{Cite book|last1=Diener|first1=Astrid|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2kf7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77|title=The Role of Imagination in Culture and Society: Owen Barfield's Early Work|last2=Hipolito|first2=Jane|publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers|year=2013|isbn=978-1-7252-3320-1|page=77|quote=a neognostic heresy|access-date=6 March 2023|orig-date=2002}}</ref><ref name="Ellwood Partin 2016 p.">{{Cite book|last1=Ellwood|first1=Robert|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oWN4DQAAQBAJ|title=Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America|last2=Partin|first2=Harry|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2016|isbn=978-1-315-50723-1|edition=2nd|page=unpaginated|quote=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.|access-date=6 March 2023|orig-date=1988, 1973}}</ref><!-- This article is under discretionary sanctions! Either abide by [[WP:PSCI]] or you're out.--> Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific.<ref>Sources for 'pseudoscientific':{{Bulleted list|{{cite book | last=Gardner | first=Martin | title=Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science | publisher=Dover Publications | series=Dover Books on the Occult | year=1957 | orig-year=1952 | isbn=978-0-486-20394-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TwP3SGAUsnkC&pg=PA169 | access-date=31 January 2022 | pages=169, 224f | quote=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's ''An 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.}}|{{harvnb|Dugan|2007|pp=74–75}}|{{cite book|last=Ruse|first=Michael|title=The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EQRuAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA128|accessdate=21 June 2015|date=2013-09-25|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226060392|pages=128|quote=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. |ref=none}}|{{cite book | last=Regal | first=Brian | chapter=Astral Projection | title=Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia: A Critical Encyclopedia | publisher=ABC-CLIO | year=2009 | isbn=978-0-313-35508-0 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c6PACQAAQBAJ&pg=PA29 | access-date=31 January 2022 | page=29 | quote=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. |ref=none}}|{{cite book | first=David H. | last=Gorski | editor-last1=Kaufman |editor-first1=Allison B. |editor-last2=Kaufman |editor-first2=James C. | title=Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science | publisher=MIT Press | year=2019 | isbn=978-0-262-53704-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZLT4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA313 | access-date=31 January 2022 | page=313 | quote=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: |ref=none}}|{{cite book | last=Oppenheimer | first=Todd | title=The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology | publisher=Random House Publishing Group | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-307-43221-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WrTQtLgxZeQC&pg=PA384 | access-date=31 January 2022 | page=384 | quote=In Dugan's view, Steiner's theories are simply "cult pseudoscience". |ref=none}}|{{cite book | first=Michael | last=Ruse | editor-last1=Pigliucci | editor-first1=Massimo | editor-last2=Boudry | editor-first2=Maarten | title=Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem | publisher=University of Chicago Press | year=2013 | isbn=978-0-226-05182-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pc4OAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA227 | access-date=31 January 2022 | page=227 | quote=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. |ref=none}}|{{harvnb|Dugan|2002|pp=31–33}}|{{harvnb|Kienle|Kiene|Albonico|2006b|pp=7–18}}|{{harvnb|Treue|2002}}|{{harvnb|Storr|1997|pp=69–70}}|{{cite book | last=Mahner | first=Martin | editor-last1=Gabbay |editor-first1=Dov M. |editor-last2=Thagard |editor-first2=Paul |editor-last3=Woods |editor-first3=John |editor-last4=Kuipers |editor-first4=Theo A.F. | title=General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues | publisher=Elsevier Science | series=Handbook of the Philosophy of Science | year=2007 | isbn=978-0-08-054854-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qUMuFaXjNjEC&pg=PA548 | access-date=3 February 2022 | page=548 | quote=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. |ref=none}}|{{cite book | last=Carlson | first=Maria | title=No Religion Higher Than Truth: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875-1922 | publisher=Princeton University Press | series=Princeton Legacy Library | year=2015 | orig-year=1993 | isbn=978-1-4008-7279-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jrl9BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA136 | access-date=14 August 2024 | page=136 | quote=Both turned out to be "positivistic religions," offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience.}}|See also {{Cite web |last=Hansson |first=Sven Ove |date=20 May 2021 |orig-date=3 September 2008 |title=Science and Pseudo-Science |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ |access-date=15 August 2024 |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |issn=1095-5054}}|{{harvnb|Pattberg|2012|p=125}}|{{cite book | last=Ronchi | first=Claudio | title=The Tree of Knowledge: The Bright and the Dark Sides of Science | publisher=Springer International Publishing | series=SpringerLink : Bücher | year=2013 | isbn=978-3-319-01484-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qRUJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=180 fn. 2 | quote=merely represent, from a scientific point of view, examples of fuzzy reasoning}}}}</ref> He was also prone to [[pseudohistory]].<ref name="Staudenmaier 2014 p.">Sources for 'pseudohistory': {{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Fritze |first=Ronald H. |url=https://archive.org/details/inventedknowledg0000frit |title=Invented Knowledge : false history, fake science and pseudo-religions |publisher=Reaktion Books |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-86189-430-4 |publication-place=London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/inventedknowledg0000frit/page/45 45], [https://archive.org/details/inventedknowledg0000frit/page/60/mode/2up 61] |chapter=Atlantis: Mother of Pseudohistory |quote=For the Theosophists and other occultists Atlantis has a greater importance since it forms an integral part of their religious worldview.}}|{{Cite book |last=Staudenmaier |first=Peter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nDJnAwAAQBAJ |title=Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era |publisher=Brill |year=2014 |isbn=978-90-04-27015-2 |series=Aries Book Series |page=8 |quote=In Steiner’s view, “ordinary history” was “limited to external evidence” and hence no match for “direct spiritual perception.”<sup>22</sup> Indeed for anthroposophists, “conventional history” constitutes “a positive hindrance to occult research.”<sup>23</sup> |access-date=3 February 2022}}|{{harvnb|Gardner|1957|pp=169, 224f}}|{{Cite book |last=Lachman |first=Gary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gsfrzMrkkc8C&pg=PT10 |title=Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-101-15407-6 |pages=xix, 233 |quote=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? |access-date=29 February 2024}}|{{cite journal | last=Staudenmaier | first=Peter | title=Occultism, Race and Politics in German-speaking Europe, 1880—1940: A Survey of the Historical Literature | journal=European History Quarterly | volume=39 | issue=1 | date=2009 | issn=0265-6914 | doi=10.1177/0265691408097366 | pages=47–70}}}}</ref>

In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between [[science]] and [[spirituality]].<ref>R. Bruce Elder, ''Harmony and dissent: film and avant-garde art movements in the early twentieth century'', {{ISBN|978-1-55458-028-6}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=gJ408vKWZ14C&pg=PA32 p. 32]</ref> His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "[[spiritual science]]", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,<ref name="RAMcD">{{Cite book|last=McDermott|first=Robert A.|title=Modern Esoteric Spirituality|date=1995|publisher=Crossroad Publishing|isbn=978-0-8245-1444-0|editor-last=Faivre|editor-first=Antoine|publication-place=New York|pages=299–301; 288ff|chapter=Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy|editor-last2=Needleman|editor-first2=Jacob|editor-last3=Voss|editor-first3=Karen}}</ref>{{rp|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 the [[Goetheanum]], a cultural centre to house [[Gesamtkunstwerk|all the arts]].<ref>Sokolina, Anna, ed. Architecture and Anthroposophy. [Arkhitektura i Antroposofiia.] 2 editions. Moscow: KMK, 2001, 2010. 268p. 348 ills. 2001 {{ISBN|587317-0746}}, 2010 {{ISBN|587317-6604}}.</ref> In the third phase of his work, beginning after [[World War I]], Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied [[Rudolf Steiner#Breadth of activity|projects]], including [[Waldorf education]],<ref name="CL">Christoph Lindenberg, ''Rudolf Steiner'', Rowohlt 1992, {{ISBN|3-499-50500-2}}, pp. 123–6</ref> [[Biodynamic Agriculture|biodynamic agriculture]],<ref name="BD1924">{{Cite journal|last=Paull|first=John|year=2011|title=Attending the First Organic Agriculture Course: Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, 1924|url=http://orgprints.org/18809/1/Paull2011KoberwitzEJSS.pdf|journal=European Journal of Social Sciences|volume=21|issue=1|pages=64–70}}</ref> and [[anthroposophical medicine]].<ref name="CL" />

Steiner advocated a form of [[ethical individualism]], to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his [[epistemology]] on [[Johann Wolfgang 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."<ref>{{Citation|last=Steiner|first=Rudolf|title=Goethean Science|year=1883|id=GA1}}.</ref> A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Zander|first1=Helmut|title=Sternstunden Philosophie: Die Anthroposophie Rudolf Steiners|date=15 February 2009|type=program|language=de|last2=Fernsehen|first2=Schweizer}}.</ref>

== Biography ==

=== Childhood and education ===
[[File:Rudolf_Steiner_Geburtshaus,Donji_Kraljevec,_Croatia.JPG|left|thumb|The house where Rudolf Steiner was born, in present-day [[Croatia]]]]
Steiner's father, Johann(es) Steiner (1829–1910), left a position as a [[gamekeeper]]<ref name="GL">{{harvnb|Lachman|2007}}</ref> in the service of Count [[House of Hoyos|Hoyos]] in [[Geras, Austria|Geras]], northeast [[Lower Austria]] to marry one of the Hoyos family's housemaids, Franziska Blie (1834 [[Horn, Austria|Horn]] – 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 ([[Donji Kraljevec|Kraljevec]]) in the [[Međimurje (region)|Muraköz]] region of the [[Kingdom of Hungary (1526–1867)|Kingdom of Hungary]], [[Austrian Empire]] (present-day Donji Kraljevec in the [[Medjimurje|Međimurje]] region of northernmost [[Croatia]]). In the first two years of Rudolf's life, the family moved twice, first to [[Mödling]], near [[Vienna]], and then, through the promotion of his father to stationmaster, to [[De:Pottschach|Pottschach]], located in the foothills of the eastern Austrian [[Alps]] in [[Lower Austria]].<ref name="CL" />

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 of [[Neudörfl]] and in October 1872 Steiner proceeded from the village school there to the [[realschule]] in [[Wiener Neustadt]].<ref name="Auto">Rudolf Steiner [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA028/English/APC1928/GA028_index.html Autobiography: Chapters in the Course of My Life: 1861–1907], Lantern Books, 2006</ref>{{rp|Chap. 2}}
[[File:Rudolf_Steiner_als_Abiturient.jpg|right|thumb|Rudolf Steiner, graduation photo from secondary school]]
In 1879, the family moved to [[Inzersdorf (Vienna)|Inzersdorf]] to enable Steiner to attend the [[TU Wien|Vienna Institute of Technology]],<ref>In Austria passing the ''[[matura]]'' examination at a [[Gymnasium (school)]] was required for entry to the University.[http://www.superfarm.net/pedagogika/images/stories/2007-5-eng/2007_05_eng_07-dr_tadej_vidmar-the_gymnasium_as_a_general.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806191217/http://www.superfarm.net/pedagogika/images/stories/2007-5-eng/2007_05_eng_07-dr_tadej_vidmar-the_gymnasium_as_a_general.pdf|date=6 August 2020}}</ref> where he enrolled in courses in [[mathematics]], [[physics]], [[chemistry]], [[botany]], [[zoology]], and [[mineralogy]] and audited courses in [[literature]] and [[philosophy]], on an academic scholarship from 1879 to 1883, where he completed his studies and the requirements of the Ghega scholarship satisfactorily.<ref name="Final exams at the Technical University">{{Cite journal|last=Sam|first=Martina Maria|date=2020|title=Warum machte Rudolf Steiner keine Abschlussprüfung an der Technischen Hochschule?|url=https://dasgoetheanum.com/warum-machte-rudolf-steiner-keine-abschlusspruefung-an-der-technischen-hochschule/|journal=Das Goetheanum|volume=Marginalien zu Rudolf Steiner's Leben und Werk|access-date=2020-11-14}}</ref><ref>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.</ref> In 1882, one of Steiner's teachers, [[Karl Julius Schröer]],<ref name="Auto" />{{rp|[http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA028/TSoML/GA028_c03.html Chap. 3]}} suggested Steiner's name to Joseph Kürschner, chief editor of a new edition of Goethe's works,{{sfn|Ahern|2009}} who asked Steiner to become the edition's natural science editor,<ref>[[Alfred Heidenreich]], [http://southerncrossreview.org/36/heidenreich.htm Rudolf Steiner – A Biographical Sketch]</ref> a truly astonishing opportunity for a young student without any form of academic credentials or previous publications.<ref name="ZanderBio">{{Cite book|last=Zander|first=Helmut|title=Rudolf Steiner: Die Biografie|date=2011|publisher=Piper|isbn=978-3-492-05448-5|publication-place=München Zürich|language=de}}</ref>{{rp|43}}

Before attending the Vienna Institute of Technology, Steiner had studied [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[Fichte]] and [[F. W. J. Schelling|Schelling]].<ref name="CorrDoc" />

=== Early spiritual experiences ===
[[File:Steiner_als_Student.jpg|thumb|Rudolf Steiner as 21-year-old student (1882)]]
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.<ref>The Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner. ''Esoteric Lessons 1904–1909''. SteinerBooks, 2007.</ref> 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'."<ref name="Auto" />

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 spiritual [[clairvoyance]].<ref name="CorrDoc" /> At 21, on the train between his home village and [[Vienna]], Steiner met a herb gatherer, Felix Kogutzki, who spoke about the spiritual world "as one who had his own experience therein".<ref name="Auto" />{{rp|39–40}}<ref>Steiner, GA 262, pp. 7–21.</ref>

=== Writer and philosopher ===
The young Steiner emerged as an individualist, [[Positivism|positivist]] and freethinker, who was not afraid to refer to scandalous philosophers such as Stirner, Nietzsche and Haeckel. His freethinking culminated in a contempt for religion and faith. He attributed almost pathological traits to Christianity.<ref>So Gerhard Wehr: ''Rudolf Steiner. Leben, Erkenntnis, Kulturimpuls. Eine Biographie''. Diogenes, Zürich 1993, p. 132.</ref>

In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kürschner edition of [[Goethe]]'s works, Steiner was invited to work as an editor at the Goethe archives in [[Weimar]]. Steiner remained with the archive until 1896. It was a low-paid and boring job.<ref name="Cees" /> 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),<ref>[http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA002/ "Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception"], also translated as ''Goethe's Theory of Knowledge, An Outline of the Epistemology of His Worldview''</ref> which Steiner regarded as the [[epistemological]] foundation and justification for his later work,<ref>Preface to 1924 edition of [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA002/English/AP1985/GA002_pre1924.html ''The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception, with Specific Reference to Schiller''], in which Steiner also wrote that the way of knowing he presented in this work opened the way from the sensory world to the spiritual one.</ref> and ''Goethe's Conception of the World'' (1897).<ref>Rudolf Steiner, ''Goethean Science'', Mercury Press, 1988 {{ISBN|0-936132-92-2}}, {{ISBN|978-0-936132-92-1}}, [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA001/English/MP1988/GA001_index.html link]</ref> During this time he also collaborated in complete editions of the works of [[Arthur Schopenhauer]] and the writer [[Jean Paul]] and wrote numerous articles for various journals.
[[File:Rudolf_Steiner_um_1891.jpg|left|thumb|Rudolf Steiner around 1891–92, etching by Otto Fröhlich]]
In 1891, Steiner received a doctorate in philosophy at the [[University of Rostock]], for his dissertation discussing [[Johann Gottlieb Fichte|Fichte]]'s concept of the ego,<ref name="RAMcD" /><ref>His thesis title was ''Die Grundfrage der Erkenntnistheorie mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Fichte's [[Wissenschaftslehre (Fichte)|Wissenschaftslehre]] – Prolegomena zur Verständigung des philosophierenden Bewusstseins mit sich selbst''.</ref> submitted to {{ill|Heinrich von Stein|de}}, whose ''Seven Books of Platonism'' Steiner esteemed.<ref name="Auto" />{{rp|[http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA028/TSoML/GA028_c14.html Chap. 14]}} Steiner's dissertation was later published in expanded form as ''Truth and Knowledge: Prelude to a Philosophy of Freedom'', with a dedication to [[Eduard von Hartmann]].<ref>[http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA003/index.php ''Truth and Knowledge'' (full text)]. {{langx|de|Wahrheit und Wissenschaft – Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Freiheit}}</ref> Two years later, in 1894, he published ''Die Philosophie der Freiheit'' ([[The Philosophy of Freedom|The Philosophy of Freedom ''or'' The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity]], the latter being Steiner's preferred English title), an exploration of [[epistemology]] 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.<ref name="Cees" /> Steiner later spoke of this book as containing implicitly, in philosophical form, the entire content of what he later developed explicitly as [[anthroposophy]].<ref>Sergei Prokofieff, ''May Human Beings Hear It!'', Temple Lodge, 2004. p. 460</ref>
[[File:RudolfSteiner.jpeg|right|thumb|Steiner, c.1900]]
In 1896, Steiner declined an offer from [[Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche]] to help organize the Nietzsche archive in [[Naumburg]]. Her brother, [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], was by that time ''[[non compos mentis]]''. "Hoping for a job (which, in fact, he did not get), Steiner accepted the invitation immediately."<ref name="o046">{{Cite book|last=Steiner|first=Rudolf|title=Rethinking Economics|date=2013-06-01|publisher=SteinerBooks|isbn=978-1-62148-050-1|publication-place=Great Barrington, Mass|page=unpaginated|quote=Hoping for a job (which, in fact, he did not get), Steiner accepted the invitation immediately.}}</ref> Förster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of the [[catatonic]] philosopher; Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the book ''Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom''.<ref>Rudolf Steiner, ''Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom'' Garber Communications; 2nd revised edition (July 1985) {{ISBN|978-0893450335}}. Online [https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA005/English/GC1985/GA005_index.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002010010/https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA005/English/GC1985/GA005_index.html|date=2 October 2022}}</ref> Steiner later related that:<blockquote>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 in ''The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity'', Nietzsche's thought had not the least influence....Nietzsche's ideas of the '[[Ewige Wiederkunft|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.<ref name="Auto" />{{rp|[http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA028/TSoML/GA028_c18.html Chap. 18]}}</blockquote>In 1897, Steiner left the [[Weimar]] archives and moved to Berlin. He became part owner of, chief editor of, and an active contributor to the literary journal ''Magazin für Literatur'', where he hoped to find a readership sympathetic to his philosophy. Many subscribers were alienated by Steiner's unpopular support of [[Émile Zola]] in the [[Dreyfus Affair]]<ref name="GL" /> and the journal lost more subscribers when Steiner published extracts from his correspondence with anarchist [[John Henry Mackay]].<ref name="GL" /> 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.<ref name="CL" />

Despite his fame as a teacher of esotericism, Steiner was culturally and academically isolated.{{sfn|Leijenhorst|2006|p=1088|ps=: "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."}}

{{blockquote|Worse, he couldn't be a real ''philosopher'' 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.'{{sup|144}} Not uncommon for practitioners at the fringes of society, he was accused of class treason.<ref name="t111">{{Cite book |last=Pattberg |first=Thorsten J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nbh_EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA125 |title=Shengren: Above Philosophy and Beyond Religion |publisher=LoD Press, New York |year=2012 |page=125 |quote=Worse, he couldn't be a real ''philosopher'' 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.'{{sup|144}} Not uncommon for practitioners at the fringes of society, he was accused of class treason. |access-date=15 August 2024}}</ref>|Thorsten J. Pattberg}}

=== Theosophical Society ===
{{Main|Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical Society}}
[[File:Steiner_mit_Annie_Besant.jpg|right|thumb|Rudolf Steiner in Munich with Annie Besant, leader of the Theosophical Society. Photo from 1907]]
[[File:Marie_Steiner.jpg|thumb|Marie Steiner, 1903]]
In 1899, Steiner published an article, "Goethe's Secret Revelation", discussing 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 [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|Theosophists]] on the subject of Nietzsche. Steiner continued speaking regularly to the members of the [[Theosophical Society Adyar|Theosophical Society]], becoming the head of its newly constituted German section in 1902 without ever formally joining the society.<ref name="RAMcD" /><ref name="Ravagli">Lorenzo Ravagli, ''Zanders Erzählungen'', Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag 2009, {{ISBN|978-3-8305-1613-2}}, pp. 184f</ref> It was also in connection with this society that Steiner met and worked with [[Marie von Sivers]], who became his second wife in 1914. By 1904, Steiner was appointed by [[Annie Besant]] to be leader of the Theosophical ''Esoteric Society'' for Germany and Austria. In 1904, Eliza, the wife of [[Helmuth von Moltke the Younger]], became one of his favourite scholars.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Meyer|first=Thomas|title=Helmuth von Moltke, Light for the new millennium: Rudolf Steiner's association with Helmuth and Eliza von Moltke: letters, documents and after-death communications|publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press|year=1997|isbn=1-85584-051-0|location=London|language=en}}</ref> Through Eliza, Steiner met Helmuth, who served as the [[German General Staff|Chief of the German General Staff]] from 1906 to 1914.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Mombauer|first=Annika|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0521791014|title=Helmuth Von Moltke and the Origins of the First World War|date=19 April 2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9780521019569|language=en|access-date=1 June 2018}}</ref>

Anna Eunicke was not pleased that her husband, having previously the reputation of a liberal academic, now joined the cult of a charlatan.{{sfn|Lachman|2007|p=135}}

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 his [[spiritual science]]. During this period, Steiner maintained an original approach, replacing [[H. P. Blavatsky|Madame 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 of [[C. W. Leadbeater|Leadbeater]] and [[Annie Besant|Besant]]'s claim that [[Jiddu Krishnamurti]] was the vehicle of a new ''Maitreya'', or world teacher,<ref>See Lutyens, Mary (2005). J. Krishnamurti: A Life. New Delhi: Penguin Books India. {{ISBN|0-14-400006-7}}</ref> led to a formal split in 1912–13,<ref name="RAMcD" /> when Steiner and the majority of members of the German section of the Theosophical Society broke off to form a new group, the [[Anthroposophical Society]]. Steiner took the name "Anthroposophy" from the title of a work of the Austrian philosopher [[Robert von Zimmermann]], published in Vienna in 1856.<ref>Zimmermann's ''Geschichte 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.[http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA258/English/RSP1993/19230611p01.html]. 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" [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA018/English/AP1973/GA018_p02c06.html]</ref> Despite his departure from the Theosophical Society, Steiner maintained his interest in Theosophy throughout his life.<ref name="RSLib">{{Cite journal|last=Paull|first=John|year=2018|title=The Library of Rudolf Steiner: The Books in English|journal=Journal of Social and Development Sciences|volume=9|issue=3|pages=21–46|doi=10.22610/jsds.v9i3.2475|doi-access=free}}</ref>

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, the [[Wright 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.{{sfn|Zander|2011|pages=191ff}}

=== Anthroposophical Society and its cultural activities ===
The [[Anthroposophical Society]] grew rapidly. Fueled by a need to find an artistic home for their yearly conferences, which included performances of plays written by [[Edouard Schuré]] and Steiner, 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 a significant part by volunteers. Steiner moved from [[Berlin]]<ref name="Berlin">Paull, John (2019) [https://www.academia.edu/41657072/Rudolf_Steiner_At_Home_in_Berlin Rudolf Steiner: At Home in Berlin], Journal of Biodynamics Tasmania. 132: 26-29.</ref> to [[Dornach]] in 1913 and lived there to the end of his life.<ref name="HausHansi">Paull, John (2018) [https://www.academia.edu/36947843/The_Home_of_Rudolf_Steiner_Haus_Hansi The Home of Rudolf Steiner: Haus Hansi], Journal of Biodynamics Tasmania, 126:19-23.</ref>

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 numerous [[Rudolf Steiner#Breadth of activity|practical institutions and activities]], including the first [[Waldorf schools|Waldorf school]], founded that year in [[Stuttgart]], Germany. On New Year's Eve, 1922–1923, the Goetheanum burned to the ground; contemporary police reports indicate arson as the probable cause.<ref name="CL" />{{rp|752}}<ref name="GA259">{{Cite book|last=Rudolf Steiner|title=Das Schicksalsjahr 1923 in der Geschichte der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft: vom Goethanumbrand zur Weihnachtstagung: Ansprachen, Versammlungen, Dokumente, Januar bis Dezember 1923|publisher=Rudolf Steiner Verlag|year=1991|isbn=978-3-7274-2590-5|pages=750–790 (esp. 787)}}</ref>{{rp|796}} Steiner immediately began work designing a [[Goetheanum|second 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.<ref>Johannes Kiersch, ''A History of the School of Spiritual Science''. Publ. Temple Lodge 2006. p.xiii, {{ISBN|1902636805}}</ref> This school, which was led by Steiner, initially had sections for general anthroposophy, [[Waldorf education|education]], [[Anthroposophical medicine|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.<ref name="GoethRestruct">[https://www.goetheanum.org/Overview.481.0.html?&L=1 1923/1924 Restructuring and deepening. Refounding of the Anthroposophical Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151121021155/http://www.goetheanum.org/Overview.481.0.html?&L=1|date=21 November 2015}}, Goetheanum website</ref><ref>Rudolf Steiner, ''Constitution of the School of Spiritual Science: Its arrangement in Sections'' 1964 {{ISBN|9781855843820}}</ref><ref name="wn.rsarchive.org">{{Cite web|date=19 November 1990|title=Christmas Conference: Lecture 9: Continuation of the Foundation Meeting, 28 December, 10 a.m.|url=https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA260/English/AP1990/19231228a01.html|website=wn.rsarchive.org}}</ref> The School of Spiritual Science included [[Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development|meditative exercises given by Steiner]].

=== Political engagement and social agenda ===
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 a [[Threefold 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 as [[First World War|World War I]]. In connection with this, he promoted a radical solution in the disputed area of [[Upper 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.<ref>''Frankfurter Zeitung'', 4 March 1921</ref>

Steiner opposed [[Woodrow Wilson|Wilson]]'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:

{{blockquote|'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.<ref>Uwe Werner (2011), "Rudolf Steiner zu Individuum und Rasse: Sein Engagement gegen Rassismus und Nationalismus", in ''Anthroposophie in Geschichte und Gegenwart''. trans. Margot M. Saar</ref>}}

=== Attacks, illness, and death ===
The [[National 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.<ref name="Werner">{{cite book|last=Werner|first=Uwe|title=Anthroposophen in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (1933-1945)|publisher=De Gruyter Oldenbourg|publication-place=München|date=1999|isbn=978-3-486-56362-7|oclc=41300713|language=de|page=7}}</ref> In 1921, [[Adolf Hitler]] attacked Steiner on many fronts, including accusations that he was a tool of the Jews.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Hitler Attacks Rudolf Steiner|url=http://www.defendingsteiner.com/sources/hitler-steiner.php|website=www.defendingsteiner.com}}</ref> That same year, Steiner warned against the disastrous effects it would have for Central Europe if the National Socialists came to power.<ref name="Werner" />{{rp|8}} In 1922 a lecture Steiner was giving in Munich was disrupted when stink 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.<ref>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</ref><ref>"Riot at Munich Lecture", New York Times, 17 May 1922.</ref> Unable to guarantee his safety, Steiner's agents cancelled his next lecture tour.<ref name="GL" />{{rp|193}}<ref>Marie Steiner, Introduction, in Rudolf Steiner, ''Turning Points in Spiritual History'', Dornach, September 1926.</ref> The 1923 [[Beer Hall Putsch]] in Munich led Steiner to give up his residence in Berlin, saying that if those responsible for the attempted coup ([[Hitler]]'s [[Nazi]] party) came to power in Germany, it would no longer be possible for him to enter the country.<ref>Wiesberger, [http://www.anthroposophy.com/aktuelles/wiesberger.html Die Krise der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft 1923] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090606014838/http://www.anthroposophy.com/aktuelles/wiesberger.html|date=6 June 2009}}</ref>

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.<ref name="ReferenceA">Lindenberg, Christoph, ''Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie'' Vol. II, Chapter 52. {{ISBN|3-7725-1551-7}}</ref>
[[File:Rudolf_Steiner_Grabmal_Dornach.jpg|right|thumb|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.

=== Spiritual research ===
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 the [[Mysticism|mystics]] of the [[Middle 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. {{blockquote|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.<br />
(Steiner, ''Philosophy of Freedom'', ''Consequences of Monism'')}}

Steiner aimed to apply his training in [[mathematics]], science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable presentations of those experiences.<ref>Lindenberg, "Schritte auf dem Weg zur Erweiterung der Erkenntnis", pp. 77ff</ref> He believed that through freely chosen [[Ethics|ethical]] disciplines and [[Meditation|meditative training]], anyone could develop the ability to experience the spiritual world, including the higher nature of oneself and others.<ref name="GL" /> Steiner believed that such [[discipline]] and training would help a person to become a more [[Morality|moral]], [[Creativity|creative]] and [[Freedom (philosophy)|free]] [[Individuality|individual]] – free in the sense of being capable of actions motivated solely by love.<ref name="Schneider">Peter Schneider, ''Einführung in die Waldorfpädagogik'', {{ISBN|3-608-93006-X}}</ref> His philosophical ideas were affected by [[Franz Brentano]],<ref name="GL" /> with whom he had studied,<ref>Steiner described Brentano's ''Psychology 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" [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA018/English/AP1973/GA018_p02c06.html]</ref> as well as by Fichte, [[Hegel]], Schelling, and Goethe's [[Goethean science|phenomenological approach to science]].<ref name="GL" /><ref>Bockemühl, J., ''Toward a Phenomenology of the Etheric World'' {{ISBN|0-88010-115-6}}</ref><ref>Edelglass, S. et al., ''The Marriage of Sense and Thought'', {{ISBN|0-940262-82-7}}</ref>

Steiner used the word ''[[Geisteswissenschaft]]'' (from Geist = mind or spirit, Wissenschaft = science), a term originally coined by [[Wilhelm Dilthey]] as a descriptor of the [[humanities]], in a novel way, to describe a systematic ("scientific") approach to spirituality.<ref>Dilthey had used this term in the title of one of the works listed in the Introduction to Steiner's ''Truth 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.{{Cite web|title=Archived copy|url=http://sigbus.pvtridvs.net/pool/miscbooks/Rudolf_Steiner_-_Truth_and_Knowledge_v1.5.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140417102908/http://sigbus.pvtridvs.net/pool/miscbooks/Rudolf_Steiner_-_Truth_and_Knowledge_v1.5.pdf|archive-date=17 April 2014|access-date=2014-04-16}}.</ref> Steiner used the term ''Geisteswissenschaft'', 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.<ref>Steiner, [http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0058/19091014p01.html "The Mission of Spiritual Science"], lecture 1 of ''Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience'', Vol. 1</ref> He proposed that psychology, history, and the humanities generally were based on the direct grasp of an ideal reality,<ref>''The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception'', ch XIX</ref> 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.<ref>''William James and Rudolf Steiner'', Robert A. McDermott, 1991, in ReVision, vol.13 no.4 [http://www.ciis.edu/Documents/Academic%20Departments/PCC/McDermott_William%20James%20and%20Rudolf%20Steiner.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923203445/http://www.ciis.edu/Documents/Academic%20Departments/PCC/McDermott_William%20James%20and%20Rudolf%20Steiner.pdf|date=23 September 2015}}</ref>

Steiner proposed that an understanding of reincarnation and karma was necessary to understand psychology<ref>Rudolf Steiner, ''Reincarnation and Karma: Concepts Compelled by the Modern Scientific Point of view'', in ''Lucifer Gnosis'' 1903.[https://rsarchive.org/Articles/GA034/English/AP1962/ReKarm_e01.html]</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA235/English/RSP1972/Karm01_intro.html|title=Introductory Note - Vol. 235. Karmic Relationships I (1972) - Rudolf Steiner Archive|website=rsarchive.org}}</ref> 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.<ref>Rudolf Steiner ''Manifestations of Karma'' 4th edition 2000 {{ISBN|1855840588}}. Online [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/ManfKarma/ManKar_index.html]</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceA" /><ref>These lectures were published as [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA235/English/RSP1972/Karm01_index.html Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies]</ref>

== Breadth of activity ==
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 the [[Waldorf education|Waldorf school]],<ref>IN CONTEXT No. 6, Summer 1984</ref> which later evolved into a worldwide school network. He also founded a system of organic agriculture, now known as [[biodynamic agriculture]], which was one of the first forms of modern [[organic farming]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=ATTRA – National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service|url=http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/biodynamic.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526054008/http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/biodynamic.html|archive-date=26 May 2011|access-date=23 May 2006}}</ref> His [[Anthroposophic medicine|work in medicine]] is based in [[pseudoscience]] 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,<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Kienle|first1=Gunver Sophia|title=Anthroposophic Medicine Effectiveness, Utility, Costs, Safety|last2=Kiene|first2=Helmut|last3=Albonico|first3=Hans Ulrich|date=2006a|publisher=Schattauer|isbn=9783794524952}}</ref> they are considered ineffective by the medical community.<ref name="krit">{{Cite journal|last=Ernst|first=Edzard|year=2008|title=Anthroposophic medicine: A critical analysis|journal=MMW Fortschritte der Medizin|volume=150|issue=Suppl 1|pages=1–6|pmid=18540325}}</ref> Numerous homes for children and adults with [[developmental disabilities]] based on his work (including those of the [[Camphill movement]]) are found in Africa, Europe, and North America.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Camphill list of communities|url=https://camphillfoundation.org/communities/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106192501/https://camphillfoundation.org/communities/|archive-date=6 January 2022|access-date=6 January 2022}}</ref> His paintings and drawings influenced [[Joseph Beuys]] and other modern artists. His two [[Goetheanum]] buildings are considered significant examples of [[modern architecture]],<ref>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</ref><ref>[http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Rudolf_Steiner.html Rudolf Steiner] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924051601/http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Rudolf_Steiner.html|date=24 September 2015}}, Great Buildings Online</ref><ref>Michael Brennan, [http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/reviews/brennan/brennan3-18-98.asp rudolf steiner], ''Artnet''</ref><ref>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</ref><ref>[http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/feuilleton/kunst_architektur/spirituelles-gemeinschaftswerk-1.16824897 Spirituelles Gemeinschaftswerk Das Erste Goetheanum in Dornach – eine Ausstellung im Schweizerischen Architekturmuseum Basel], ''Neue Zurcher Zeitung'' 10.5.2012</ref> and other anthroposophical architects have contributed thousands of buildings to the modern scene.<ref name="Verlag Freies Geistesleben 1982 p.">{{Cite book|last1=Raab|first1=Rex|title=Die Waldorfschule baut: sechzig Jahre Architektur der Waldorfschulen: Schule als Entwicklungsraum menschengemässer Baugestaltung|last2=Klingborg|first2=Arne|date=1982|publisher=Verlag Freies Geistesleben|isbn=978-3-7725-0240-8|publication-place=Stuttgart|language=de}}</ref>

Steiner's [[literary estate]] is broad. Steiner's writings, published in about forty volumes, include books, essays, [[Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas|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.<ref name="Biesantz">{{Cite book|last1=Biesantz|first1=Hagen|title=The Goetheanum : Rudolf Steiner's architectural impulse|last2=Klingborg|first2=Arne|publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press|year=1979|isbn=9780854403554}}</ref><ref name="Kugler">{{Cite book|last1=Kugler|first1=Walter|title=Rudolf Steiner in Kunst und Architektur|last2=Baur|first2=Simon|publisher=DuMont|year=2007|isbn=9783832190125}}</ref>

Steiner has speculated about creating artificial life (and maybe about [[artificial intelligence]]), but such speculations were by no means a novelty.<ref name="p243">{{cite book|first=Anna|last=Cappellotto|editor-last=Calzoni|editor-first=Raul|title=Monstrous Anatomies|publisher=V&R unipress|publication-place=Göttingen|date=16 September 2015|isbn=978-3-8471-0469-8|doi=10.14220/9783737004695.95|page=95|chapter=Creating Life Artificially : Robert Hamerling’s ''Homunculus''}}</ref>

=== Education ===
[[File:Ecole_Steiner-Waldorf_Verrieres2.jpg|thumb|The Waldorf school in [[Verrières-le-Buisson]] (France)]]
{{main|Waldorf education}} As a young man, Steiner was a private tutor and a lecturer on history for the Berlin ''Arbeiterbildungsschule'',<ref name="zander2007">{{Cite book|last=Zander|first=Helmut|title=Anthroposophie in Deutschland: Theosophische Weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Praxis 1884–1945|publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht|year=2007|isbn=978-3-525-55452-4|location=Göttingen|language=de}}</ref> an educational initiative for working class adults.<ref name="njacobs">{{Cite journal|last=Jacobs|first=Nicholas|date=Spring 1978|title=The German Social Democratic Party School in Berlin, 1906–1914|journal=History Workshop|volume=5|pages=179–187|doi=10.1093/hwj/5.1.179}}</ref> Soon thereafter, he began to articulate his ideas on education in public lectures,<ref name="Ullrich">{{Cite book|last=Ullrich|first=Heiner|url=https://archive.org/details/rudolfsteinercon00ullr|title=Rudolf Steiner|publisher=Continuum International Pub. Group|year=2008|isbn=9780826484192|location=London|pages=[https://archive.org/details/rudolfsteinercon00ullr/page/n168 152]–154|url-access=limited}}</ref> culminating in a 1907 essay on ''The Education of the Child'' in which he described the major phases of child development which formed the foundation of his approach to education.<ref>The original essay was published in the journal ''Lucifer-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 a [https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Articles/EduChild/EduChi_note.html Prefatory note to this edition]{{Dead link|date=November 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}, Steiner refers to recent lectures on the subject. An English translation can be found in [http://waldorfcurriculum.com/FREE/THE%20EDUCATION%20of%20the%20child.pdf ''The Education of the Child: And Early Lectures on Education''] (first English edition 1927, Second English edition 1981, London and New York, 1996 edition {{ISBN|978-0-88010-414-2}})</ref> His [[Definitions of education|conception of education]] was influenced by the [[Johann Friedrich Herbart|Herbartian]] pedagogy prominent in Europe during the late nineteenth century,<ref name="zander2007" />{{rp|1362, 1390ff}}<ref name="Ullrich" /> though Steiner criticized Herbart for not sufficiently recognizing the importance of educating the will and feelings as well as the intellect.<ref>Steiner, [http://steiner.presswarehouse.com/sites/steiner/research/archive/spirit_of_the_waldorf_school/spirit_of_the_waldorf_school.pdf ''The Spirit of the Waldorf School''], {{ISBN|9780880103947}}. pp. 15-23</ref>

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 in [[Oxford]] by Professor [[Millicent Mackenzie]]. He subsequently presented a teacher training course at [[Torquay]] in 1924 at an [[Anthroposophy]] Summer School organised by [[Eleanor Merry]].<ref name="Torquay">Paull, John (2018) [https://www.academia.edu/36404489/Torquay_In_the_Footsteps_of_Rudolf_Steiner Torquay: In the Footsteps of Rudolf Steiner], Journal of Biodynamics Tasmania. 125 (Mar): 26–31.</ref> The Oxford Conference and the Torquay teacher training led to the founding of the first Waldorf schools in Britain.<ref>Stewart Easton (1980), ''Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch'', Anthroposophic Press. {{ISBN|0910142939}}. p. 267</ref> During Steiner's lifetime, schools based on his educational principles were also founded in [[Hamburg]], [[Essen]], [[The Hague]] and London; there are now more than 1000 [[Waldorf education|Waldorf schools]] worldwide.

Benjamin Lazier calls Steiner a "maverick educator".<ref name="r012">{{cite book|last=Lazier|first=Benjamin|title=God Interrupted|publisher=Princeton University Press|publication-place=Princeton (N.J.)|date=2008|isbn=978-0-691-13670-7|page=29|quote=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.}}</ref>

=== Biodynamic agriculture ===
{{Main|Biodynamic agriculture}} In 1924, a group of farmers concerned about the future of agriculture requested Steiner's help. Steiner responded with a lecture series on an [[Ecological agriculture|ecological]] and [[Sustainable agriculture|sustainable]] approach to agriculture that increased soil fertility without the use of [[Chemical fertilizer|chemical fertilizers]] and [[Pesticide|pesticides]].<ref name="BD1924" /> Steiner's agricultural ideas promptly spread and were put into practice internationally<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Paull|first=John|date=July 2015|title=The Secrets of Koberwitz: The Diffusion of Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course and the Founding of Biodynamic Agriculture|url=http://www.jsrp.ro/content/JSRP-Nr3_PAULL/JSRPNr.3_PAUL.pdf?attredirects=0|url-status=live|journal=Journal of Social Research & Policy|volume=2|issue=1|pages=19–29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191125072532/https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxqcnNwb25lfGd4OjIyNjY1MWZiZGViOWFlMg|archive-date=2019-11-25|access-date=2019-11-25}}</ref> and [[biodynamic agriculture]] is now practiced in Europe,<ref name="olympiad">{{Cite journal|last=Paull|first=John|year=2011|title=Organics Olympiad 2011: Global Indices of Leadership in Organic Agriculture|url=http://orgprints.org/18860/1/Paull2011OlympiadJSDS.pdf|journal=Journal of Social and Development Sciences|volume=1|issue=4|pages=144–150|doi=10.22610/jsds.v1i4.638|doi-access=free}}</ref> North America, South America,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Purvis|first=Andrew|date=2009-12-06|title=Biodynamic coffee farming in Brazil|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/06/biodynamic-coffee-in-brazil|access-date=2018-03-25|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> Africa,<ref>{{Cite news|title=Biodynamic Agricultural Association of Southern Africa - Green Africa Directory|url=http://www.greenafricadirectory.org/listing/biodynamic-agricultural-association-of-southern-africa/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180326064109/http://www.greenafricadirectory.org/listing/biodynamic-agricultural-association-of-southern-africa/|archive-date=26 March 2018|access-date=2018-03-25|work=Green Africa Directory|language=en-US}}</ref> Asia<ref name="olympiad" /> and [[Australasia]].<ref name="Koberwitz">Paull, John (2011) [http://www.organic-systems.org/journal/Vol_6(1)/pdf/6(1)-Paull-pp27-41.pdf "Biodynamic Agriculture: The Journey from Koberwitz to the World, 1924–1938"], ''Journal of Organic Systems'', 2011, 6(1):27–41.</ref><ref>[http://www.biodynamics.com/regional.html Groups in N. America], [http://demeter.net/certification/ List of Demeter certifying organizations], [http://demeter.net/certification/ Other biodynamic certifying organization], [http://demeter.net/certification/ce_presentation.php?languagechoice=en&languageadmin=0 Some farms in the world]</ref><ref>How to Save the World: One Man, One Cow, One Planet; Thomas Burstyn</ref>

"Steiner’s 'biodynamic agriculture' based on 'restoring the quasi-mystical relationship between earth and the cosmos' was widely accepted in the Third Reich (28)."<ref name="Purcell 2018 t965">{{Cite web|last=Purcell|first=Brendan|date=24 June 2018|title=Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich|url=https://voegelinview.com/9101-2/|access-date=28 February 2024|website=VoegelinView}}</ref>

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 own [[manure]] and [[Fodder|animal 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 the [[moon]] and [[planets]]; and the application of natural materials prepared in specific ways to the [[soil]], [[Composting|compost]], and crops, with the intention of engaging non-physical beings and elemental forces.{{citation needed|date=January 2022}} He encouraged his listeners to verify such suggestions [[Scientific method|empirically]], as he had not yet done.<ref name="Koberwitz" />

In a 2002 newspaper editorial, Peter Treue, agricultural researcher at the [[University of Kiel]], characterized biodynamics as [[pseudoscience]] and argued that similar or equal results can be obtained using standard organic farming principles. He wrote that some biodynamic preparations more resemble [[alchemy]] or [[Magic (paranormal)|magic]] akin to [[geomancy]].<ref name="treue">{{Cite web|last=Treue|first=Peter|date=13 March 2002|title=Blut und Bohnen: Der Paradigmenwechsel im Künast-Ministerium ersetzt Wissenschaft durch Okkultismus|url=http://www.nitrogen.de/bub/faz.htm#plan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030417075038/http://www.nitrogen.de/bub/faz.htm|archive-date=17 April 2003|access-date=15 November 2011|website=Die Gegenwart|publisher=Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung|language=de}} (Translation: "Blood and Beans: The paradigm shift in the Ministry of [[Renate Künast]] replaces science with occultism")</ref>

=== Anthroposophical medicine ===
{{Main|Anthroposophical medicine}} From the late 1910s, Steiner was working with doctors to create a [[Alternative medicine|new approach to medicine]]. In 1921, [[Pharmacist|pharmacists]] and physicians gathered under Steiner's guidance to create a pharmaceutical company called ''[[Weleda]]'' 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) in [[Arlesheim]]. Anthroposophic medicine is practiced in some 80 countries.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Kienle|first1=Gunver S.|last2=Albonico|first2=Hans-Ulrich|last3=Baars|first3=Erik|last4=Hamre|first4=Harald J.|last5=Zimmermann|first5=Peter|last6=Kiene|first6=Helmut|date=November 2013|title=Anthroposophic Medicine: An Integrative Medical System Originating in Europe|journal=Global Advances in Health and Medicine|volume=2|issue=6|pages=20–31|doi=10.7453/gahmj.2012.087|pmc=3865373|pmid=24416705}}</ref> It is a form of [[alternative medicine]] based on [[Pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] and [[occult]] notions.<ref name="teils">{{Cite journal|last1=Kienle|first1=Gunver S.|last2=Kiene|first2=Helmut|last3=Albonico|first3=Hans Ulrich|year=2006b|title=Anthroposophische Medizin: Health Technology Assessment Bericht – Kurzfassung|journal=Forschende Komplementärmedizin|volume=13|issue=2|pages=7–18|doi=10.1159/000093481|pmid=16883076|s2cid=72253140|quote=teils ergänzend und teils ersetzend zur konventionellen Medizin}} ''Cited in'' {{cite journal|pmid=18540325|year=2008|last1=Ernst|first1=Edzard|title=Anthroposophic medicine: A critical analysis|volume=150|pages=1–6|journal=MMW Fortschritte der Medizin|issue=Suppl 1}}</ref>

=== Social reform ===
{{main|Threefold Social Order}} 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, including [[Hermann Hesse]].

In Steiner's chief book on [[social 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, establish [[Equality before the law|political equality]] and protect [[human 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.<ref name="Essential">{{Cite book|last=Steiner|first=Rudolf|title=The essential Steiner : basic writings of Rudolf Steiner|date=1984|publisher=Harper & Row|isbn=0-06-065345-0|editor-last=McDermott|editor-first=Robert|edition=1st|location=San Francisco}}</ref> 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:

{{Blockquote|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.|Steiner|The Fundamental Social Law<ref name="Fundamental" />}}

He expressed another aspect of this in the following motto: {{Blockquote|The healthy social life is found <br />When in the mirror of each human soul <br />The whole community finds its reflection, <br />And when in the community <br /> The virtue of each one is living.|Steiner|The Fundamental Social Law<ref name="Fundamental">Steiner (1917), [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Articles/FuSoLa_index.html "The Fundamental Social Law"], translated in ''Selected writings of Rudolf Steiner'' (1993), Richard Seddon (Ed.), Rudolf Steiner Press, Bristol. {{ISBN|1 85584 005 7}}</ref>}}

According to Cees Leijenhorst, "Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism."<ref name="Hanegraaff Faivre van den Broek Brach 2005 p. 1090">{{Cite book|last=Leijenhorst|first=Cees|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HCUOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1090|title=Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism: I|publisher=Brill|year=2005|isbn=978-90-04-14187-2|editor-last=Hanegraaff|editor-first=Wouter J.|page=1090|quote=Steiner outlined his vision of a new political and social philosophy that avoids the two extremes of capitalism and socialism.|access-date=2 January 2024|editor-last2=Faivre|editor-first2=Antoine|editor-last3=Broek|editor-first3=Roelof van den|editor-last4=Brach|editor-first4=Jean-Pierre}}</ref>

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."{{sfn|Asprem|2018|p=494}}

=== Architecture and visual arts ===
{{gallery|File:First Goetheanum.jpg|[[First Goetheanum]]|File:Dornach - Goetheanum1a.jpg|[[Second Goetheanum]]|File:Representative of humanity.gif|Detail of ''The Representative of Humanity''|align=right}}
[[File:Edith_Maryon.jpg|left|thumb|English sculptor [[Edith 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 the [[Goetheanum|First and Second Goetheanums]].<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Terranova|first1=Charissa N.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=klPUDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT144|title=The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture|last2=Tromble|first2=Meredith|date=2016-08-12|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-41950-1|language=en}}</ref> These two buildings, built in Dornach, Switzerland, were intended to house significant theater spaces as well as a "school for spiritual science".<ref>Sokolina, Anna. Architecture and Anthroposophy. [Arkhitektura i Antroposofiia.] Editor, co-author, transl., photogr. 2 editions. 268p. 348 ills. Moscow: KMK, 2001 {{ISBN|5873170746}}; 2010 {{ISBN|5873176604}}. (In Russian with the summary in English) [www.iartforum.com]</ref> Three of Steiner's buildings have been listed amongst the most significant works of modern architecture.<ref>Goulet, P: "Les Temps Modernes?", ''L'Architecture D'Aujourd'hui'', December 1982, pp. 8–17.</ref><ref>Sokolina, Anna. "Modernist Topologies: The Goetheanum in Building." In ''Modernity 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.</ref>

His primary sculptural work is ''The Representative of Humanity'' (1922), a nine-meter high wood sculpture executed as a joint project with the sculptor [[Edith Maryon]]. 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 of [[Lucifer]] and [[Ahriman]].<ref>''Art as Spiritual Activity: Rudolf Steiner's Contribution to the Visual Arts''. (1998) Intro. Michael Howard, p.50. {{ISBN|0 88010 396 5}}</ref><ref>''The Representative of Humanity Between Lucifer and Ahriman, The Wooden Model at the Goetheanum'', Judith von Halle, John Wilkes (2010) {{ISBN|9781855842397}} from the German ''Die Holzplastik des Goetheanum'' (2008) [http://www.rudolfsteinerpress.com/pages/viewbook.php?isbn_in=9781855842397] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502235547/http://www.rudolfsteinerpress.com/pages/viewbook.php?isbn_in=9781855842397|date=2 May 2014}}</ref><ref>Rudolf Steiner ''Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman'', lecture May,1915 [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19150518p01.html]</ref> It was intended to show, in conscious contrast to Michelangelo's ''[[The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)|Last Judgment]]'', Christ as mute and impersonal such that the beings that approach him must judge themselves.<ref>Rudolf Steiner, ''The Etheric Body as a Reflexion of the Universe'' lecture, June 1915 [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19150613p01.html]</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Thought-Pictures - Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings|url=http://www.anthromedia.net/en/themes/anthroposophy/rudolf-steiner-life-and-work/black-board-drawings/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140504002748/http://www.anthromedia.net/en/themes/anthroposophy/rudolf-steiner-life-and-work/black-board-drawings/|archive-date=4 May 2014}}</ref> [[Joseph Beuys]]' work, itself heavily influenced by Steiner, has led to the modern understanding of Steiner's drawings as artistic objects.<ref>Lawrence Rinder, [http://antroposofi.org/blackboard/steineressay.html Rudolf Steiner: An Aesthetic Perspective] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828133012/http://antroposofi.org/blackboard/steineressay.html|date=28 August 2008}}</ref>

=== Performing arts ===
{{See also|Eurythmy}} Steiner wrote four [[mystery plays]] between 1909 and 1913: ''The Portal of Initiation'', ''The Souls' Probation'', ''The Guardian of the Threshold'' and ''The Soul's Awakening'', modeled on the esoteric dramas of [[Edouard Schuré]], [[Maurice Maeterlinck]], and [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]].<ref>[[Ehrenfried Pfeiffer]] 'On Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas, Four Lectures Given in Spring Valley, 1948' {{ISBN|0-936132-93-0}}</ref> 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 coach [[Michael Chekhov]] based significant aspects of his method of acting on Steiner's work.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Anderson, Neil|date=June 2011|title=On Rudolf Steiner's Impact on the Training of the Actor|url=http://ojs-prod.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/LA/article/viewFile/5054/5759|journal=Literature & Aesthetics|volume=21|number=1}}{{Dead link|date=November 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}</ref><ref>Richard Solomon, [http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/solomonr2002.pdf Michael Chekhov and His Approach to Acting in Contemporary Performance Training] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160803154254/http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/solomonr2002.pdf|date=3 August 2016}}, MA thesis University of Maine, 2002</ref>

Together with [[Marie von Sivers]], Rudolf Steiner also developed the art of [[eurythmy]], 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 (or [[phonemes]]), 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.

=== Esoteric schools ===
{{see also|Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development}}

Steiner was founder and leader of the following:

* His independent ''Esoteric School'' of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1904. This school continued after the break with [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|Theosophy]] but was disbanded at the start of World War I.
* A lodge called ''Mystica Aeterna'' within the [[Ancient and Primitive Rite|Masonic Order of Memphis and Mizraim]], which Steiner led from 1906 until around 1914. Steiner added to the Masonic rite a number of Rosicrucian references.<ref>Ellic Howe: ''The Magicians of the Golden Dawn'' London 1985, Routledge, pp 262 ff</ref>
* 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.<ref name="GoethRestruct" /><ref name="wn.rsarchive.org" /><ref>[[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 title ''The Relationship of the various Natural-Scientific Subjects to Astronomy'', [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA323/English/LR81/AstCrs_foreword.html]</ref> Steiner gave members of the School the first Lesson for guidance into the esoteric work in February 1924.{{sfn|Wachsmuth|Garber|Wannamaker|Raab|1995|p=53}} 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.<ref>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</ref>

== Philosophical ideas ==

=== Goethean science<!--linked from 'Goethean science'--> ===
{{See also|Goethean science}} In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884 and 1897, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as essentially [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|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 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.<ref name="Hemleben">Johannes Hemleben, ''Rudolf Steiner: A documentary biography'', Henry Goulden Ltd, 1975, {{ISBN|0-904822-02-8}}, pp. 37–49 and pp. 96–100 (German edition: Rowohlt Verlag, 1990, {{ISBN|3-499-50079-5}})</ref> Steiner emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of the [[Intermaxillary segment|intermaxillary bone]] in human beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy.<ref name="Hemleben" /> Steiner defended [[Goethe's theory of color|Goethe's qualitative description of color]] as arising synthetically from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast to [[Isaac Newton|Newton]]'s particle-based and analytic conception.

{{blockquote|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.|author=Rudolf Steiner|source=''The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception'', Chapter XVI, "Organic Nature"}}

{{block quote|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).|{{harvnb|Hansson|2022}}}}

A variety of authors have termed Goethean science [[pseudoscience]].<ref name="Storr-Einstein">{{Cite book|last=Storr|first=Anthony|author-link=Anthony Storr|title=Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus|publisher=Free Press Paperbacks, Simon & Schuster|year=1997|isbn=0-684-83495-2|location=New York|pages=69–70|language=en|chapter=IV. Rudolf Steiner|quote=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.|orig-year=1996}}</ref><ref name="FlynnDawkins2007">{{Cite book|last=Dugan|first=Dan|url=http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/Anthroposophy.html|title=The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief|publisher=Prometheus Books, Publishers|year=2007|isbn=9781615922802|editor-last=Flynn|editor-first=Tom|pages=74–75|quote=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).|editor-last2=Dawkins|editor-first2=Richard|accessdate=21 June 2015}}</ref><ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32">{{Cite book|last=Dugan|first=Dan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Gr4snwg7iaEC&pg=PA32|title=The Skeptic Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2002|isbn=978-1-57607-653-8|editor-last=Shermer|editor-first=Michael|pages=31–33|quote=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.|editor-last2=Linse|editor-first2=Pat|issue=v. 1}}</ref> According to Dan Dugan, Steiner was a champion of the following pseudoscientific claims:

# Goethe's [[Theory of Colours]];<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
# "he called [[Theory of relativity|relativity]] 'brilliant nonsense'";<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" /><ref name="Sven Ove">{{Cite journal|last=Hansson|first=Sven Ove|year=1991|title=Is Anthroposophy Science?|trans-title=Ist die Anthroposophie eine Wissenschaft?|url=http://www.waldorfcritics.org/articles/Hansson.html|journal=Conceptus: Zeitschrift für Philosophie|volume=XXV|issue=64|pages=37–49|issn=0010-5155}}</ref>
# "he taught that the [[Celestial mechanics|motions of the planets]] were caused by the relationships of the spiritual beings that inhabited them";<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
# [[vitalism]];<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
# doubting [[germ theory]];<ref name="Shermer Linse 2002 p. 32" />
# non-standard approach to physiological systems, including claiming that the heart is not a pump.<ref name="FlynnDawkins2007" />{{sfn|Hammer|2021|p=228 fn. 102}}

According to Rudolf Steiner, mainstream science is [[Ahriman|Ahrimanic]].<ref name="Ahrimanic">Sources for 'Ahrimanic':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Steiner |first=Rudolf |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tfOUcjMD-WUC&pg=PT34 |title=Karma of Materialism: 9 Lectures, Berlin, July 31–Sept. 25, 1917 (CW 176) |publisher=SteinerBooks |year=1985 |isbn=978-1-62151-025-3 |page=unpaginated |chapter=1. Forgotten Aspects of Cultural Life |quote=The whole content of natural science is ahrimanic and will only lose its ahrimanic nature when it becomes imbued with life. |access-date=15 March 2024 |chapter-url=https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA176/English/AP1985/19170731p01.html}}|{{cite book | last1=Steiner | first1=Rudolf | last2=Meuss | first2=Anna R. | title=The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=1993 | isbn=978-1-85584-010-2 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wgc6fjIeFVUC&pg=PA161 | access-date=16 March 2024 | pages=160–161}}|{{cite book | last1=Steiner | first1=Rudolf | last2=Barton | first2=Matthew | title=The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=2013 | isbn=978-1-85584-278-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qR9FDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA54 | access-date=16 March 2024 | pages=53–54}}|{{cite book | last1=Wachsmuth | first1=Guenther | last2=Garber | first2=Bernard J. | last3=Wannamaker | first3=Olin D. | last4=Raab | first4=Reginald E. | title=The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner: From the Turn of the Century to His Death | publisher=SteinerBooks | year=1995 | isbn=978-1-62151-053-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UE_Dfrpi4-wC&pg=PT445 | access-date=15 March 2024 | page=unpaginated | quote=and all external science, to the extent that it is not spiritual science, is Ahrimanic.}}|{{cite journal | last=Al-Faruqi | first=Ismail Il Raji | journal=Biosciences Communications | publisher=S. Karger | volume=3 | issue=1 | year=1977 | title=Moral values in medicine and science | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=09hEAAAAYAAJ | access-date=15 March 2024 | pages=56–58 | issn=0302-2781 | quote=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.}}|{{cite book | last=Prokofieff | first=Sergei O. | title=The Case of Valentin Tomberg: Anthroposophy Or Jesuitism? | publisher=Temple Lodge | year=1998 | isbn=978-0-904693-85-0 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-9Rq81-xGwC&pg=PA118 | access-date=15 March 2024 | page=118}}|{{cite book | last=Younis | first=Andrei | title=Islam in Relation to the Christ Impulse: A Search for Reconciliation between Christianity and Islam | publisher=SteinerBooks | year=2015 | isbn=978-1-58420-185-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5X95CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT57 | access-date=16 March 2024 | page=unpaginated | quote=Steiner emphasized that, when this deadened wisdom of Gondishapur began to spread in Europe, an ahrimanic, or ahrimanically inspired, natural science began to emerge.}}|{{cite book | last=Selg | first=Peter | title=The Future of Ahriman and the Awakening of Souls: The Spirit-Presence of the Mystery Dramas | publisher=Rudolf Steiner Press | year=2022 | isbn=978-1-912230-92-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ei1qEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA12 | access-date=16 March 2024 | page=12}}|{{cite journal |last1=Beck |first1=John H. |date=February 2007 |editor1-last=Spiegler |editor1-first=Mado |title=Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse by Valentin Tomberg SteinerBooks, 2006, 432 pgs. Review by John H. Beck |url=https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/api/collection/nyrud/id/387/download |journal=Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter |pages=7–12 |quote=Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective.}}}}</ref>

=== Knowledge and freedom ===
{{See also|The Philosophy of Freedom}} Steiner approached the philosophical questions of [[Epistemology|knowledge]] and [[Free will|freedom]] in two stages. In his dissertation, published in expanded form in 1892 as ''Truth 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.{{sfn|Storr|1997|p=72|ps=: "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."}}

Steiner postulates that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that our [[consciousness]] divides it into the [[Senses|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 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 separates [[perception]] 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 about [[perception]] (the path of natural science) and perceiving the process of thinking (the path of [[Spirituality|spiritual]] training), it is possible to discover a hidden inner unity between the two poles of our experience.<ref name="Schneider" />{{rp|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."<ref>Steiner, Rudolf, ''Truth and Science'', Preface.</ref>

In ''[[The 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 our [[Instinct|instincts]] and [[Motivation|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,<ref>"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</ref> and the real activity of acting in full consciousness.<ref name="Schneider" />{{rp|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."<ref name="RAMcD" />

Steiner affirms [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s and [[Haeckel]]'s [[Evolution|evolutionary]] perspectives but extended this beyond its [[Materialism|materialistic]] consequences; he sees human [[consciousness]], 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 of [[Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)|Solovyov]].<ref name="Tarnas">{{Cite book|last=Tarnas|first=Richard|title=The Passion of the Western Mind|date=1996|publisher=Random House|isbn=0-7126-7332-6|publication-place=London}} Cf. Solovyov: "In human beings, the absolute subject-object appears ''as 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)</ref>

"Steiner was a moral individualist".{{efn-lr|Ethical individualism is the opposite of ethical collectivism (meaning a moral code which is good for everyone).}}<ref name="t661">{{Cite book|last=Ryan|first=Alexandra E.|chapter=Anthroposophy|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DouBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA34|title=Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2004|isbn=978-1-134-49970-0|editor-last=Clarke|editor-first=Peter|page=34|access-date=2024-07-19}}</ref>

=== Spiritual science ===
{{See also|Anthroposophy|Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development}}
[[File:Steiner_Berlin_1900_big.jpg|thumb|Rudolf Steiner 1900]]
In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity.<ref name="GL" /> 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, his ''Theosophy: 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,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Theosophy: Chapter I: The Nature of Man|url=https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/RSP1965/GA009_c01.html|website=wn.rsarchive.org}}</ref> 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''.<ref>''Theosophy'', from the Prefaces to the First, Second, and Third Editions [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/AP1971/GA009_c01.html]</ref>

In the years 1903–1908 Steiner maintained the magazine ''Lucifer-Gnosis'' and published in it essays on topics such as initiation, reincarnation and karma, and knowledge of the supernatural world.<ref>{{Cite web|last=e.Librarian|first=The|title=Rudolf Steiner Archive: Steiner Articles Bn/GA 34|url=https://www.rsarchive.org/Articles/GA034/|website=www.rsarchive.org}}</ref> Some of these were later collected and published as books, such as ''How to Know Higher Worlds'' (1904–5) and ''Cosmic Memory''. The book ''An Outline of Esoteric Science'' was published in 1910. Important themes include:

* the human being as body, [[Soul (spirit)|soul]] and [[Vitalism|spirit]];
* the path of spiritual development;
* spiritual influences on world-evolution and history; and
* [[reincarnation]] and [[karma]].

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 that [[spiritual 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<ref>Steiner, ''Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity'', Anthroposophic Press 2006 {{ISBN|0880104368}}</ref><ref>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.)</ref>

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.<ref name="GL" /> Steiner articulated three stages of any creative deed:<ref name="Schneider" />{{rp|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 onwards ''[[Anthroposophy]]''. He emphasized that the spiritual path he articulated builds upon and supports individual freedom and independent [[judgment]]; for the results of spiritual research to be appropriately presented in a modern context they must be in a form accessible to [[Logic|logical]] 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.<ref name="Schneider" /> Spiritual training is to support what Steiner considered the overall purpose of human evolution, the development of the mutually interdependent qualities of love and [[Free will|freedom]].<ref name="RAMcD" />

=== Steiner and Christianity ===
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.<ref name="Steiner 1982 pp. 31-32">{{Cite book|last1=Steiner|first1=Rudolf|url=https://archive.org/details/rudolf-steiner-ga-028/page/n30/mode/1up|title=Mein Lebensgang : eine nicht vollendete autobiographie, mit einem nachwort|last2=Steiner|first2=Marie|publisher=Rudolf Steiner|year=1982|isbn=9783727402807|location=Dornach, Schweiz|pages=31–32|language=de|oclc=11145259|orig-year=1925}}</ref> 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 of [[Calvary|Golgotha]] in a most profound and solemn festival of knowledge."<ref>Autobiography, Chapters in the Course of My Life: 18611907, Rudolf Steiner, SteinerBooks, 2006</ref> His relationship to Christianity thereafter remained entirely founded upon personal experience, and thus both non-denominational and strikingly different from conventional religious forms.<ref name="RAMcD" />

==== Christ and human evolution ====
Steiner describes Christ as the unique pivot and meaning of earth's evolutionary processes and human history, redeeming [[The Fall of Man|the Fall]] from [[Paradise]].<ref name="Willmann">{{Cite journal|last=Willmann|first=Carlo|year=2001|title=Waldorfpädagogik: Theologische und religionspädagogische Befunde|journal=Kölner Veröffentlichungen zur Religionsgeschichte|language=de|publisher=Böhlau|publication-place=Köln Weimar Wien|volume=27|isbn=978-3-412-16700-4|issn=0030-9230|postscript=Especially chapters 1.3, 1.4.}}</ref> 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<ref name="Willmann" />{{rp|102–3}} and the ability to manifest love in freedom.<ref name="RAMcD" />

Central principles of his understanding include:

* The being of Christ is central to ''all'' 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's [[esoteric 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.<ref>An Outline of Esoteric Science, Anthroposophic, SteinerBooks, 1997</ref>

==== Divergence from conventional Christian thought ====
Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include [[gnostic]] elements.<ref name="Hemleben" /> However, unlike many gnostics, Steiner affirms the unique and actual physical Incarnation of Christ in Jesus at the beginning of the Christian era.

One of the central points of divergence with conventional Christian thought is found in [[Anthroposophy#Nature of the human being|Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma]].

Steiner also posited two different Jesus children involved in the Incarnation of the Christ: one child descended from [[Solomon]], as described in the [[Gospel of Matthew]]; the other child from [[Nathan (son of David)|Nathan]], as described in the [[Gospel of Luke]].<ref name="Essential" /><ref name="aspremthesis">{{Bulleted list|{{Cite thesis |last=Asprem |first=Egil |title=The problem of disenchantment: scientific naturalism and esoteric discourse, 1900-1939. |date=2013 |degree=dr. |publisher=University of Amsterdam |url=https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/2010817/117215_thesis.pdf |page=507}}|{{Cite book |last=Asprem |first=Egil |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2e9dDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA493 |title=The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900-1939 |publisher=State University of New York Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4384-6992-8 |editor-last=Appelbaum |editor-first=David |series=SUNY series in Western Esoteric Traditions |page=493 |access-date=18 May 2024 |orig-year=2014}}}}</ref><ref name="x337">{{Cite book|last=Johnson|first=Marshall D.|title=The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies with Special Reference to the Setting of the Genealogies of Jesus|date=1969|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-07317-2|editor-last=Black|editor-first=Matthew|publication-place=London|page=144}}</ref> He references in this regard the fact that the [[Genealogy|genealogies]] in these two gospels list twenty-six (Luke) to forty-one (Matthew) completely different ancestors for the generations from [[King David|David]] to Jesus.

Steiner's view of the [[second 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 plane|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.<ref name="Hemleben" />

The teachings of Anthroposophy got called [[Christianity|Christian]] [[Gnosticism]].<ref name="Christian Gnosticism" /> Indeed, according to the official stance of the Catholic Church, Anthroposophy is "a neognostic heresy".<ref name="Diener Hipolito 2013 p. 77" /><ref name="k531">See also {{Cite book|last=DWB|title=The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church|publisher=OUP Oxford|year=2022|isbn=978-0-19-263815-1|editor-last=Louth|editor-first=Andrew|edition=4th|pages=76–77|chapter=anthroposophy|access-date=18 May 2024|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3CNeEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT591|orig-year=2005}}</ref> Other heresiologists agree.<ref name="Ellwood Partin 2016 p." /> The Lutheran (Missouri Sinod) apologist and heresiologist Eldon K. Winker quoted Ron Rhodes that Steiner had the same Christology as [[Cerinthus]].<ref name="Winker 1994 p.">Sources for 'Christology':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Winker |first=Eldon K. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W90QAQAAIAAJ |title=The New Age is Lying to You |publisher=Concordia Publishing House |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-570-04637-0 |series=Concordia scholarship today |page=34 |quote=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.{{sup|12}} |access-date=6 March 2023}}|{{cite book | last=Rhodes | first=Ron | title=The Counterfeit Christ of the New Age Movement | publisher=Baker Book House | series=Christian Research Institute Series | year=1990 | isbn=978-0-8010-7757-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QwtBPQAACAAJ | access-date=26 October 2023 | page=19}}}}</ref> Indeed, Steiner thought that Jesus and Christ were two separated beings, who got fused at a certain point in time,<ref name="Cees Christ">{{Cite book|last=Leijenhorst|first=Cees|author-link=Cees Leijenhorst|title=Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism|publisher=Brill|year=2006b|editor-last=Hanegraaff|editor-first=Wouter J.|editor-link=Wouter Hanegraaff|location=Leiden / Boston|page=84|chapter=Antroposophy|quote=Nevertheless, he made a distinction between the human person Jesus, and Christ as the divine Logos.|editor-last2=Faivre|editor-first2=Antoine|editor-last3=Broek|editor-first3=Roelof van den|editor-last4=Brach|editor-first4=Jean-Pierre}}</ref> which can be construed as Gnostic but not as [[Docetism|Docetic]],<ref name="Cees Christ" /> since "they do not believe the Christ departed from Jesus prior to the crucfixion".<ref name="Winker 1994 p." /> "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."<ref name="g483">{{Cite book|last=Etter|first=Brian K.|title=From Classicism to Modernism: Western Musical Culture and the Metaphysics of Order|publisher=Routledge|year=2019|isbn=978-1-315-18576-7|page=unpaginated. fn. 80|chapter=Chapter Six The New Music and the Influence of Theosophy|orig-year=2001}}</ref> Older scholarship says Steiner's Christology is [[Nestorianism|Nestorian]].<ref name="k343">{{Cite book|last=Sanders|first=John Oswald|title=Cults and isms: Ancient and Modern|publisher=Zondervan|year=1962|isbn=978-0-551-00458-0|publication-place=Grand Rapids, Michigan|page=165|chapter=Anthroposophy|oclc=3910997|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XPZOAQAAMAAJ|orig-year=1948}}</ref> According to Egil Asprem, "Steiner’s Christology was, however, quite heterodox, and hardly compatible with official church doctrine."<ref name="aspremthesis" />

Two German scholars have called Anthroposophy "the most successful form of 'alternative' religion in the [twentieth] century."{{sfn|Schnurbein|Ulbricht|2001|p=38}} Other scholars stated that Anthroposophy is "aspiring to the status of religious dogma".{{sfn|Diener|Hipolito|2013|p=78}} According to Maria Carlson, anthroposophy is a "positivistic religion" "offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience."{{sfn|Carlson|2015|p=136}}

According to Swartz, Brandt, Hammer, and Hansson, Anthroposophy ''is'' a religion.<ref name="religion">Sources for 'religion':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last1=Schnurbein |first1=Stefanie von |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xHNhQgAACAAJ |title=Völkische Religion und Krisen der Moderne: Entwürfe "arteigener" Glaubenssysteme seit der Jahrhundertwende |last2=Ulbricht |first2=Justus H. |publisher=Königshausen & Neumann |year=2001 |isbn=978-3-8260-2160-2 |page=38 |language=de |access-date=8 February 2024}} apud {{cite journal | last=Staudenmaier | first=Peter | title=Race and Redemption: Racial and Ethnic Evolution in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy | journal=Nova Religio | publisher=University of California Press | volume=11 | issue=3 | date=1 February 2008 | issn=1092-6690 | doi=10.1525/nr.2008.11.3.4 | pages=4–36| url=https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=hist_fac }}|{{cite journal | last1=Swartz | first1=Karen | last2=Hammer | first2=Olav | title=Soft charisma as an impediment to fundamentalist discourse: The case of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden | journal=Approaching Religion | volume=12 | issue=2 | date=14 June 2022 | issn=1799-3121 | doi=10.30664/ar.113383 | pages=18–37 | quote=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.| doi-access=free }}|{{cite book | last1=Hammer | first1=Olav | last2=Swartz-Hammer | first2=Karen | title=New Religious Movements and Comparative Religion | publisher=Cambridge University Press | series=Elements in New Religious Movements | year=2024 | isbn=978-1-009-03402-9 | chapter=NRMs in Comparative Perspective | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lkn8EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA62 | access-date=2024-07-19 | page=62}}|{{cite book | last1=Brandt | first1=Katharina | last2=Hammer | first2=Olav | editor-last1=Hammer | editor-first1=Olav | editor-last2=Rothstein | editor-first2=Mikael | title=Handbook of the Theosophical Current | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion | year=2013 | isbn=978-90-04-23597-7 | chapter=Rudolf Steiner and Theosophy| chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VozAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA113 | access-date=23 January 2024 | page=113 fn. 1 | quote=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.}}|{{cite book | last1=Hammer | first1=Olav | editor-last1=Geertz | editor-first1=Armin | editor-last2=Warburg | editor-first2=Margit | title=New Religions and Globalization | publisher=Aarhus University Press | series=Renner Studies On New Religions | year=2008 | isbn=978-87-7934-681-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XdsKEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 | access-date=23 January 2024 | page=69 | quote=Anthroposophy is thus from an emic point of view emphatically not a religion. }}|{{cite journal | last=Hansson | first=Sven Ove | title=Anthroposophical Climate Science Denial | journal=Critical Research on Religion | publisher=SAGE Publications | volume=10 | issue=3 | date=1 July 2022 | issn=2050-3032 | doi=10.1177/20503032221075382 | pages=281–297| doi-access=free | quote=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).}}|{{cite book | last1=Zander | first1=Helmut | editor-last1=Hoheisel | editor-first1=Karl | editor-last2=Hutter | editor-first2=Manfred | editor-last3=Klein | editor-first3=Wolfgang Wassilios | editor-last4=Vollmer | editor-first4=Ulrich | title=Hairesis: Festschrift für Karl Hoheisel zum 65. Geburtstag | publisher=Aschendorff | series=Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum | year=2002 | isbn=978-3-402-08120-4 | chapter=Die Anthroposophie &mdash; Eine Religion? | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ZrYAAAAMAAJ | language=de | access-date=2 January 2024 | page=537}}|See also {{cite book | author=International Bureau of Education | title=Organization of Special Education for Mentally Deficient Children: A Study in Comparative Education | publisher=UNESCO | issue=v. 214-220 | year=1960 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c8MpAQAAMAAJ | access-date=9 February 2024 | page=15 | quote=anthroposophy - a religion based upon the philosophical and scientific knowledge of man}}|See also {{cite book | author=International Bureau of Education | title=Bulletin of the International Bureau of Education | publisher=International Bureau of Education | issue=v. 31, nr. 122 -v. 34, nr. 137 | year=1957 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IM6uEoh_XpcC | access-date=9 February 2024 | page=36 | quote=anthroposophy - a religion based upon the philosophical and scientific knowledge of man}}}}</ref> They also call it "settled new religious movement",{{sfn|Swartz|Hammer|2022|pp=18–37}} while [[Martin Gardner]] called it a [[cult]].<ref>Sources for 'cult' or 'sect':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Gardner|1957|pp=169, 224f}}|{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Candy Gunther |title=Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools |date=6 May 2019 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-1-4696-4848-4 |pages=229–254 |chapter=Waldorf Methods |doi=10.5149/northcarolina/9781469648484.003.0012 |quote=premised on anthroposophy, a religious sect founded by Steiner; |s2cid=241945146}}}}</ref> Another scholar also calls it a new religious movement or a new spiritual movement.{{sfn|Toncheva|2013|pp=81–89}} Already in 1924 Anthroposophy got labeled "new religious movement" and "occultist movement".{{sfn|Clemen|1924|pp=281–292}} Other scholars agree it is a new religious movement.<ref name="newreli">Sources for 'new religious movement':{{Bulleted list|{{Cite book |last=Norman |first=Alex |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5aRyJ-vbrJsC&pg=PA213 |title=Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production |publisher=Brill |year=2012 |isbn=978-90-04-22187-1 |editor-last=Cusack |editor-first=Carole M. |series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion |page=213 |quote=[...] continue to have influence beyond the institutional reach of Anthropospophy, the new religious movement he founded. |access-date=1 January 2024 |editor-last2=Norman |editor-first2=Alex}}|{{cite book | first1=Liselotte | last1=Frisk | editor-last1=Cusack | editor-first1=Carole M. | editor-last2=Norman | editor-first2=Alex | title=Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion | year=2012 | isbn=978-90-04-22187-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5aRyJ-vbrJsC&pg=PA204 | access-date=1 January 2024 | page=204 fn. 10, 208 | quote=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.}}|{{cite book | first1=Carole M. | last1=Cusack | editor-last1=Cusack | editor-first1=Carole M. | editor-last2=Norman | editor-first2=Alex | title=Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion | year=2012 | isbn=978-90-04-22187-1 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5aRyJ-vbrJsC&pg=PA190 | access-date=1 January 2024 | page=190 | quote=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.}}|{{cite book | first1=Sælid | last1=Gilhus | editor-last1=Bogdan | editor-first1=Henrik | editor-last2=Hammer | editor-first2=Olav | title=Western Esotericism in Scandinavia | publisher=Brill | series=Brill Esotericism Reference Library | year=2016 | isbn=978-90-04-32596-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rGpyDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA56 | access-date=6 February 2024 | page=56}}|{{cite journal | last=Ahlbäck | first=Tore | title=Rudolf Steiner as a religious authority | journal=Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis | volume=20 | year=2008 | issn=2343-4937 | doi=10.30674/scripta.67323 | page=| doi-access=free }}|{{cite journal | last=Toncheva | first=Svetoslava | title=Anthroposophy as religious syncretism | journal=SOTER: Journal of Religious Science | volume=48 | issue=48 | date=2013 | doi=10.7220/1392-7450.48(76).5 | pages=81–89| url=http://vddb.library.lt/fedora/get/LT-eLABa-0001:J.04~2013~ISSN_1392-7450.N_48_76.PG_81-89/DS.002.1.01.ARTIC | issn = 1392-7450 }}|{{cite book | last=Toncheva | first=Svetoslava | title=Out of the New Spirituality of the Twentieth Century: The Dawn of Anthroposophy, the White Brotherhood and the Unified Teaching | publisher=Frank & Timme GmbH | publication-place=Berlin | year=2015 | isbn=978-3-7329-0132-6 | pages=13, 17 | issn=2196-3312 | url=https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9783732998463_A34278232/preview-9783732998463_A34278232.pdf}}|{{cite journal | last=Clemen | first=Carl | title=Anthroposophy | journal=The Journal of Religion | volume=4 | issue=3 | date=1924 | issn=0022-4189 | doi=10.1086/480431 | pages=281–292| s2cid=222446655 }}}}</ref> According to {{ill|Helmut Zander|de}}, both the theory and practice of Anthroposophy display characteristics of religion, and, according to Zander, Rudolf Steiner would plead no contest.{{sfn|Zander|2002|p=537}} According to Zander, Steiner's book ''Geheimwissenschaft'' [''Occult Science''] contains Steiner's [[mythology]] about [[cosmogenesis]].{{sfn|Zander|2002|p=528}} Hammer notices that Anthroposophy is a synthesis which does include occultism.<ref name="Lewis Tøllefsen 2015 p. 57">{{Cite book|last=Hammer|first=Olav|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3tfaCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA57|title=Handbook of Nordic New Religions|publisher=Brill|year=2015|isbn=978-90-04-29246-8|editor-last=Lewis|editor-first=James R.|series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion|pages=56–57|access-date=6 February 2024|editor-last2=Tøllefsen|editor-first2=Inga Bårdsen}}</ref> Hammer also notices that Steiner's occult doctrines bear a strong resemblance to post-Blavatskyan Theosophy (e.g. [[Annie Besant]] and [[Charles Webster Leadbeater]]).<ref name="Partridge 2014 p. 350">{{Cite book|last=Hammer|first=Olav|title=The Occult World|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2014|isbn=978-1-317-59676-9|editor-last=Partridge|editor-first=Christopher|series=Routledge Worlds|page=350|chapter=The Theosophical Current in the Twentieth Century|access-date=6 February 2024|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_E-2BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA350}}</ref>

[[Robert A. McDermott]] says Anthroposophy belongs to Christian [[Rosicrucianism]].<ref name="Eliade 1987 p.">{{Cite book|last=McDermott|first=Robert A.|title=The Encyclopedia of Religion|date=1987|publisher=Macmillan Reference USA|isbn=0-02-909700-2|editor-last=Eliade|editor-first=Mircea|publication-place=New York|page=320|chapter=Anthroposophy}}</ref> According to [[Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke]], Rudolf Steiner "blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie".<ref name="Steiner Seddon Goodrick-Clarke 2004 p. 7">{{Cite book|last1=Steiner|first1=Rudolf|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dkw96EUVPfwC&pg=PA7|title=Rudolf Steiner|last2=Seddon|first2=Richard|last3=Goodrick-Clarke|first3=Nicholas|publisher=North Atlantic Books|year=2004|isbn=978-1-55643-490-7|series=Western Esoteric Masters|page=7|language=en|quote="blended modern Theosophy with a Gnostic form of Christianity, Rosicrucianism, and German Naturphilosophie"|access-date=2 January 2024}}</ref> He also described Anthroposophy as a [modern] offshoot of Ancient Gnosticism, especially of "the aeons of the Valentinian pleroma".<ref name="b670">{{cite book|first=Nicholas|last=Goodrick-Clarke|editor-last=Hammer|editor-first=Olav|editor-last2=Rothstein|editor-first2=Mikael|title=Handbook of the Theosophical Current|publisher=Brill|series=Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion|year=2013|isbn=978-90-04-23597-7|chapter=Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0VozAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA301|access-date=17 November 2024|page=301}}</ref>

Geoffrey Ahern states that Anthroposophy belongs to neo-gnosticism broadly conceived, which he identifies with [[Western esotericism]] and [[occultism]].<ref name="Ahern 2009 p. 11">{{Cite book|last=Ahern|first=Geoffrey|title=Sun at Midnight|publisher=James Clarke Company|year=2009|isbn=978-0-227-17293-3|publication-place=Cambridge|page=11|orig-year=1984}}</ref>

{{blockquote|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.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Samson |first=Martin |title=The Christology of Rudolf Steiner |date=2023 |degree=PhD |publisher=Flinders University |url=https://flex.flinders.edu.au/items/4cb1a804-963e-4a75-8b02-69bcfaa63110/1/?.vi=file&attachment.uuid=c450e767-a595-4981-a4b7-546ae735f46b |page=180}}</ref>|{{harvnb|Samson|2023|p=180}}}}

{{blockquote|Granted that Steiner included Gnostic elements in his cosmological reinterpretation of Christianity, many of them from the ''Pistis 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.<ref name="v029">{{Cite book |last=Hudson |first=Wayne |title=The gnostic world |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group |isbn=978-1-315-56160-8 |editor-last=Trompf |editor-first=Garry W. |publication-place=London; New York |page=510 |chapter=Rudolf Steiner: Multiple bodies |editor-last2=Mikkelsen |editor-first2=Gunner B. |editor-last3=Johnston |editor-first3=Jay}} apud {{harvnb|Samson|2023|p=56}}</ref>|{{harvnb|Hudson|2019|p=510}}}}

According to Catholic scholars Anthroposophy belongs to the [[New Age]].<ref name="q189">{{Cite journal|last1=G.K. Chesterton Society|last2=G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture|date=February–May 2000|title=A conference on ''New Age'' and Christian spirituality|url=http://www.cultura.va/content/dam/cultura/docs/pdf/Rivista/2001-2.pdf|journal=The Chesterton Review|publisher=G.K. Chesterton Society, 1974- G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture|publication-place=Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; South Orange, New Jersey|volume=XXVI|issue=1&2|issn=0317-0500|oclc=2247651|quote=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.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last1=Pontifical Council for Culture|last2=Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue|title=Jesus Christ the bearer of the water of life. A Christian reflection on the "New Age"|url=https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/interelg/documents/rc_pc_interelg_doc_20030203_new-age_en.html|access-date=18 May 2024|website=vatican.va|publisher=The Catholic Church|quote=The Age of Aquarius has such a high profile in the ''New Age'' movement largely because of the influence of theosophy, spiritualism and anthroposophy, and their esoteric antecedents.|location=The State of Vatican}}</ref>

Between 1903 and 1910 Steiner published multiple Gnostic texts, while that publishing house was having intention of subverting orthodox Christianity.<ref name="u610">{{cite book|last=Grimstad|first=Kirsten J.|title=The Modern Revival of Gnosticism and Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus|publisher=Camden House|series=Studies in German Literature L|year=2002|isbn=978-1-57113-193-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lo8NqC8HBvoC&pg=PA21|access-date=17 November 2024|page=21}}</ref>

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 [...]".<ref name="y640">{{cite book|last=Dipple|first=Elizabeth|title=The Unresolvable Plot: Reading Contemporary Fiction|publisher=Taylor & Francis|series=Routledge Library Editions: Modern Fiction|year=2019|isbn=978-1-000-63913-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MyGzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT328|access-date=17 November 2024|page=unpaginated}}</ref>

Carl Abrahamsson stated that Steiner posited a gnostic Christ.<ref name="a836">{{cite book|last1=Abrahamsson|first1=Carl|last2=Lachman|first2=Gary|title=Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward|publisher=Inner Traditions/Bear|year=2018|isbn=978-1-62055-704-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dt0zDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT82|access-date=17 November 2024|page=unpaginated|quote=This gnostic Christ principle balances the ungrounded [...]}}</ref>

Steiner's theology is "redemption through sin", he accuses good Christians of killing the spirit of Christianity.{{sfn|Lazier|2008|p=208 fn. 6}}

==== The Christian Community ====
In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by [[Friedrich Rittelmeyer]], a [[Lutheran]] 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 emphasizing [[freedom 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]]".<ref name="Essential" />

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.<ref name="Essential" /> The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with Anthroposophy to create a scientific, not [[faith]]-based, spirituality.<ref name="Willmann" /> 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.

== Reception ==
{{see also|Anthroposophy#Reception}}
[[File:Wien_-_Schweizergarten,_Rudolf-Steiner-Denkmal.JPG|thumb|Memorial for Rudolf Steiner in Vienna]]
Steiner's work has influenced a broad range of notable personalities. These include:

* philosophers [[Albert Schweitzer]], [[Owen Barfield]] and [[Richard Tarnas]];<ref name="GL" />
* writers [[Saul Bellow]],<ref>{{Cite news|last=Fulford|first=Robert|date=23 October 2000|title=Bellow: the novelist as homespun philosopher|url=http://www.robertfulford.com/SaulBellow.html|access-date=16 March 2024|work=The National Post}}</ref> [[Andrej Belyj]],<ref>{{Cite web|last=Liukkonen|first=Petri|title=Andrey Bely|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bely.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020610132804/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/bely.htm|archive-date=10 June 2002|website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi)|publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library|location=Finland}}</ref><ref>Judith Wermuth-Atkinson, ''The Red Jester: Andrei Bely's Petersburg as a Novel of the European Modern'' (2012). {{ISBN|3643901542}}</ref><ref>J.D. Elsworth, ''Andrej Bely:A Critical Study of the Novels'', Cambridge:1983, cf. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/129408]</ref> [[Michael Ende]],<ref>[http://www.michaelende.com/bio.php?id=10&lang=de Michael Ende biographical notes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208162305/http://www.michaelende.com/bio.php?id=10&lang=de|date=8 December 2008}}, "Michael Ende und die magischen Weltbilder"</ref> [[Selma Lagerlöf]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1909|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1909/lagerlof/biographical/|website=NobelPrize.org}}</ref> [[Edouard Schuré]], [[David Spangler]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Christ of the New Age Movement|url=https://www.ronrhodes.org/the-christ-of-the-new-age-movement|access-date=2025-04-03|website=Reasoning From The S|language=en}}</ref> and [[William Irwin Thompson]];<ref name="GL" />
* child psychiatrist [[Eva Frommer]];<ref>{{Cite book|last=Frommer|first=Eva A.|title=Voyage Through Childhood Into the Adult World – A Guide to Child Development|publisher=Rudolph Steiner Press|year=1995|isbn=978-1-869890-59-9}}</ref>
* music therapist [[Maria Schüppel]]<ref>{{Cite web|title=Musiktherapie|url=http://www.musiktherapeutische-arbeitsstaette.de/index.php?open=Maria_Schuppel/maria_schuppel|access-date=2022-11-27|website=www.musiktherapeutische-arbeitsstaette.de}}</ref>
* economist [[Leonard Read]];<ref>{{Cite web|last=Shearmur|first=Jeremy|date=2015-09-01|title=The Birth of Leonard Read's "I, Pencil" {{!}} Jeremy Shearmur|url=https://fee.org/articles/leonard-read-the-spiritual-economist/|access-date=2016-06-06|website=fee.org}}</ref>
* ecologist [[Rachel Carson]];<ref name="Rachel Carson Letters">{{Cite journal|last=Paull|first=John|date=July–September 2013|title=The Rachel Carson Letters and the making of Silent Spring|journal=SAGE Open|volume=3|issue=3|pages=1–12|doi=10.1177/2158244013494861|doi-access=free}}</ref>
* artists [[Joseph Beuys]],<ref>John F. Moffitt, "Occultism in Avant-Garde Art: The Case of Joseph Beuys", ''Art Journal'', Vol. 50, No. 1, (Spring, 1991), pp. 96–98</ref> [[Wassily Kandinsky]],<ref>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</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction 1908 - 1922.|url=http://www.artsablaze.co.uk/News/kandinsky.htm|website=www.artsablaze.co.uk}}</ref> and [[Murray Griffin]];<ref>Alana O'Brien, In Search of the Spiritual: Murray Griffin's View of the Supersensible World, La Trobe University Museum of Art, 2009</ref>
* esotericist and educationalist [[George Trevelyan (New Age spiritualist)|George Trevelyan]];<ref>Michael Barker, [http://www.swans.com/library/art18/barker118.html Sir George Trevelyan's Life Of Magic], ''Swans Commentary'', 5 November 2012</ref>
* actor and acting teacher [[Michael Chekhov]];<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Daboo|first=Jerri|date=September 2007|title=Michael Chekhov and the embodied imagination: Higher self and non-self|journal=Studies in Theatre & Performance|volume=27|issue=3|pages=261–273|doi=10.1386/stap.27.3.261_1|doi-broken-date=16 November 2024|s2cid=145199571}}</ref>
* cinema director [[Andrei Tarkovsky]];<ref name="Tarkovsky">[http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Layla.html Layla Alexander Garrett on Tarkovsky] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090927213535/http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Layla.html|date=27 September 2009}}, Nostalgia.com</ref>
* composers [[Jonathan Harvey (composer)|Jonathan Harvey]]<ref>Alexandra Coghlan [http://www.theartsdesk.com/classical-music/weltethos-cbso-gardner-royal-festival-hall "Weltethos: CBSO, Gardner, Royal Festival Hall"] ''ArtsDesk'' 08/10/2012</ref> and [[Viktor Ullmann]];<ref>Gwyneth Bravo, [http://orelfoundation.org/index.php/composers/article/viktor_ullmann/ Viktor Ullmann]</ref> and
* conductor [[Bruno Walter]].<ref>Bruno Walter, "Mein Weg zur Anthroposophie". In: ''Das Goetheanum'' 52 (1961), 418–2</ref>

[[Olav Hammer]], though sharply critical of esoteric movements generally, terms Steiner "arguably the most historically and philosophically sophisticated spokesperson of the [[Esoteric]] Tradition."<ref name="Hammer">{{Cite book|last=Hammer|first=Olav|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zpJOEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA153|title=Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age|publisher=Brill|year=2021|isbn=978-90-04-49399-5|series=Numen Book Series|page=329; 64f; 225–8; 176|access-date=21 January 2022|orig-date=2004}} 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.</ref>

[[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".<ref>{{Cite web|title=Albert Schweitzer's Friendship with Rudolf Steiner|url=https://www.theosophyforward.com/theosophy-and-the-society-in-the-public-eye/181-albert-schweitzers-friendship-with-rudolf-steiner|website=www.theosophyforward.com|date=17 April 2010}}</ref> However, Schweitzer was not an adept of mysticism or occultism, but of [[Age of Enlightenment]] rationalism.<ref name="Oermann 2016 p. 150">{{Cite book|last=Oermann|first=Nils Ole|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=egiDDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT150|title=Albert Schweitzer: A Biography|publisher=OUP Oxford|year=2016|isbn=978-0-19-108704-2|page=114|language=en|quote=Schweitzer felt closest intellectually to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment|access-date=10 June 2022}}</ref>

[[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."<ref name="Storr-Einstein" />

[[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".<ref name="Carroll">{{Cite web|last=Robert Todd Carroll|author-link=Robert Todd Carroll|date=12 September 2004|title=The Skeptic's Dictionary: Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925)|url=http://www.skepdic.com/steiner.html|access-date=15 December 2010|website=[[The Skeptic's Dictionary]]}}</ref> Translators have pointed out that the German term ''Geist'' can be translated equally properly as either mind or spirit, however,<ref>J. B. Baillie (trans.), in Hegel, ''The Phenomenology of Mind'', v. 2, London: Swan Sonnenschein. p. 429</ref> and that Steiner's usage of this term encompassed both meanings.<ref>Frederick Amrine and Konrad Oberhuber (trans.), in Rudolf Steiner, ''The Boundaries of Natural Science'', Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press. {{ISBN|0-88010-018-4}}. p. 125, fn. 1</ref>

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 by [[Vitra Design Museum]], the traveling exhibition presented many facets of Steiner's life and achievements, including his influence on architecture, furniture design, dance ([[Eurythmy]]), [[Waldorf education|education]], and agriculture ([[Biodynamic agriculture]]).<ref name="SteinerExhibition">Paull, John (2011) [http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code//32607416 Rudolf Steiner - Alchemy of the Everyday - Kosmos - A photographic review of the exhibition]</ref> The exhibition opened in 2011 at the [[Kunstmuseum Stuttgart|Kunstmuseum]] in [[Stuttgart]], Germany,<ref name="Kosmos">Paull, John (2011) [http://orgprints.org/19512/1/Paull2011KosmosJBDT.pdf "A Postcard from Stuttgart: Rudolf Steiner's 150th anniversary exhibition 'Kosmos'"], Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania, 103 (September), pp. 8–11.</ref>

The German psychiatrist Wolfgang Treher diagnosed Rudolf Steiner with schizophrenia, in a book from 1966.<ref>Sources for 'Treher':{{Bulleted list|Treher, Wolfgang. ''Hitler, Steiner, Schreber – Gäste aus einer anderen Welt. Die seelischen Strukturen des schizophrenen Prophetenwahns'', Oknos: Emmendingen, 1966 (newer edition: Oknos, 1990). {{ISBN|3-921031-00-1}}; [http://www.oknos.de/german/frameger3.html Wolfgang Treher] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050212185015/http://oknos.de/german/frameger3.html |date=2005-02-12 }}.|{{Cite web |title=Hitler, Steiner, Schreber |url=https://www.treher.de/die-b%C3%BCcher/hitler-steiner-schreber/#cc-m-product-8953877886 |access-date=30 December 2023 |website=trehers Webseite! |language=de |quote=Eingeordnet in eine psychiatrische Krankenvorstellung lassen sich Hitler und Steiner als sozial scheinangepasste Schizophrene klassifizieren.}}|{{cite journal | last=Westphal | first=Jonathan | journal=Theoria to Theory| publisher=Gordon and Breach Science Publishers | year=1977 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qJlUK0iSCpwC | access-date=16 November 2024 | page=120 fn. 11 | title=Comment. The philosophical interpretation of Steiner | issn=0049-3686 | volume=11-12 | quote=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.}}|{{cite book | last=Martin | first=Stoddard | title=Orthodox Heresy : The Rise of 'Magic' as Religion and its Relation to Literature | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK | publication-place=London | date=1989 | isbn=978-1-349-19671-5 | doi=10.1007/978-1-349-19669-2 | page=277 fn. 21 | doi-broken-date=16 November 2024 | quote=Comparisons and contrasts between Steiner and Hitler may be found throughout Trevor Ravenscroft's compulsive but undependable ''Spear 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. In ''Urania's Children'' (p. 209), Howe also recommends Wolfgang Treher's psychiatric pathology ''Hitler, 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 | last=Howe | first=Ellic | title=Astrology: a Recent History Including the Untold Story of Its Role in World War II. | publisher=Walker | year=1968 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sDVDAAAAIAAJ | access-date=17 November 2024 | page=247}}}}</ref> The Swiss psychiatrist [[C.G. Jung]] was of the same opinion.<ref name="a600">{{Cite book|last=Black|first=Jonathan|title=The Secret History of the World|date=2007|publisher=Quercus Books|isbn=978-1-84724-167-2|pages=157, 388|quote=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.}}</ref> [[Colin Wilson]] admitted that such a diagnosis makes some sense.<ref name="b917">{{cite book|last=Wilson|first=Colin|title=Rudolf Steiner: The Man and His Vision|publisher=Aeon Books|year=2019|isbn=978-1-912807-56-7|chapter=Four. The Long Apprenticeship|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kOvyDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA61|access-date=16 November 2024|page=61}}</ref> [[Francis X. King]] recognizes that other have stated that about Steiner, but King disagrees with the claim that Steiner was a charlatan.<ref name="u297">{{cite book|last=King|first=Francis X.|title=Mind and Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Mysterious and Unexplained|publisher=Random House Value Publishing|year=1991|isbn=978-0-517-06036-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eJ_N3BvchKwC|access-date=17 November 2024|page=96|quote=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.}}</ref>

=== Scientism ===
{{see also|Anthroposophy#Scientific_basis|l1=Anthroposophy: Scientific basis}}

[[Olav Hammer]] has criticized as [[scientism]] Steiner's claim to use scientific methodology to investigate spiritual phenomena that were based upon his claims of [[clairvoyant]] experience.<ref name="Hammer" /> 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,<ref name="Zander2">Helmut Zander, ''Anthroposophie in Deutschland'', Göttingen, 2007, {{ISBN|3-525-55452-4}}.</ref>{{rp|p. 618}} and held the view that anyone capable of thinking logically was in a position to correct errors by spiritual researchers.<ref>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."[http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA013/English/AP1972/GA013_c04-01.html Occult Science, Chapter IV]</ref>

=== Race and ethnicity ===<!-- this section is linked from [[Waldorf education]]-->
Rudolf Steiner was an extreme pan-German nationalist and never disavowed such a stance.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Zegers|first1=Peter|last2=Staudenmaier|first2=Peter|date=9 January 2009|orig-date=2000|title=Anthroposophy and its Defenders|url=https://social-ecology.org/wp/2009/01/anthroposophy-and-its-defenders-2/|journal=Humanist|publisher=Institute for Social Ecology|issue=4}}</ref>

Steiner's work includes both universalist, humanist elements and racial assumptions.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2008}} 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".<ref name="Zander">"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.</ref> Steiner considered that by dint of its shared language and culture, each people has a unique essence, which he called its soul or spirit.<ref name="Hammer" /> 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 century [[Scientific racism|biology]], [[Historical race concepts|anthropology]], philosophy and [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]]. However, he consistently and explicitly subordinated race, ethnicity, gender, and indeed all hereditary factors, to individual factors in development.<ref name="Zander" /> 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.<ref name="Ravagli" />

Steiner occasionally characterized specific [[Race (classification of human beings)|races]], nations and [[Ethnicity|ethnicities]] in ways that have been deemed [[racist]] by critics.<ref>Arno Frank, "Einschüchterung auf Waldorf-Art", ''Die Tageszeitung'' 4 August 2000.</ref> This includes descriptions by him of certain races and ethnic groups as flowering, others as backward, or destined to degenerate or disappear.<ref name="Zander" /> He presented explicitly hierarchical views of the spiritual evolution of different races,<ref name="Treitel 2004 p.">{{Cite book|last=Treitel|first=Corinna|title=A Science for the Soul|date=2004-04-20|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=0-8018-7812-8|publication-place=Baltimore|page=103}}</ref> including—at times, and inconsistently—portraying the [[white race]], [[European culture]] or Germanic culture as representing the high point of human [[evolution]] as of the early 20th century, although he did describe them as destined to be superseded by future cultures.<ref name="Zander" />

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.<ref name="CL" /><ref name="Essential" /><!--CL, p.55--> His belief that race and [[ethnicity]] are transient and superficial, and not essential aspects of the individual,<ref name="Zander" /> was partly rooted in his conviction that each individual [[Reincarnation|reincarnates]] 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.<ref name="Zander" /><ref name="Kugler Baur 2007 p.">{{Cite book|last=Blume|first=Eugen|title=Rudolf Steiner in Kunst und Architektur|date=2007|publisher=DuMont|isbn=978-3-8321-9012-5|editor-last=Kugler|editor-first=Walter|publication-place=Köln|page=186|language=de|chapter=Joseph Beuys|oclc=183256999|editor-last2=Baur|editor-first2=Simon}}</ref> Toward the end of his life, Steiner predicted that race will rapidly lose any remaining significance for future generations.<ref name="Zander" /> In Steiner's view, culture is universal, and explicitly not ethnically based, and he vehemently criticized imperialism.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Myers|first=Perry|title=Colonial consciousness: Rudolf Steiner's Orientalism and German Cultural Identity|journal=Journal of European Studies|volume=36|issue=4|pages=387–417}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Ravagli" />

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.<ref name="Vukadinović 2022 p. 582">{{Cite book|last=Martins|first=Ansgar|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B7efEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT582|title=Rassismus: Von der frühen Bundesrepublik bis zur Gegenwart|publisher=De Gruyter|year=2022|isbn=978-3-11-070278-1|editor-last=Vukadinović|editor-first=Vojin Saša|page=unpaginated|language=de|quote=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.{{sup|4}} Einer überschaubaren Anzahl kritischer Aufsätze{{sup|5}} stehen monographische Hetzschriften gegenüber, die Kritiker des „gezielten, vorsätzlich unternommenen Rufmords"{{sup|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.{{sup|7}} Überhaupt dreht Sich die Diskussion zu oft um Steiner. Es Sind jüngere Beiträge, die seine Stereotype in die Gegenwart transportieren.|access-date=24 February 2023}}</ref> [[Olav Hammer]], university professor expert in [[new religious movements]] and [[Western 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".<ref name="confirm">{{Cite journal|last=Hammer|first=Olav|date=2016|title=Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era, written by Peter Staudenmaier|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/24644844|journal=Numen|publisher=Brill|volume=63|issue=1|pages=118–121|doi=10.1163/15685276-12341412|issn=0029-5973|jstor=24644844|quote=their founder or their movement has been tainted with racism or anti-Semitism. [...] Denial, it would seem, is no longer an option.}}</ref>

Steiner did influence Italian Fascism, which exploited "his racial and anti-democratic dogma."<ref name="Pilkington Sutcliffe 2023 p. 194">{{Cite book|last=Hill|first=Chris|title=Strange Attractor Journal Five|publisher=MIT Press|year=2023|isbn=978-1-907222-52-8|editor-last=Pilkington|editor-first=Mark|page=194|chapter='Gustavo Who?' &mdash; Notes Towards the Life and Times of Gustavo Rol; Putative Mage and Cosmic 'Drainpipe'|access-date=1 November 2023|editor-last2=Sutcliffe|editor-first2=Jamie|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YMFNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA194}}</ref> The fascist ministers [[Giovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò]] (nicknamed "the Anthroposophist duke"; he became antifascist after taking part in [[Benito Mussolini]]'s government<ref name="peter">{{Cite book|last=Staudenmaier|first=Peter|title=Esotericism, Religion, and Politics|publisher=New Cultures Press|year=2012|isbn=978-1596500136|editor-last=Versluis|editor-first=Arthur|location=Minneapolis, MN|pages=83–84|chapter=Anthroposophy in Fascist Italy|editor-last2=Irwin|editor-first2=Lee|editor-last3=Phillips|editor-first3=Melinda}}</ref>) and Ettore Martinoli have openly expressed their sympathy for Rudolf Steiner.<ref name="Pilkington Sutcliffe 2023 p. 194" /> Most from the occult pro-fascist [[UR Group]] were Anthroposophists.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=271}}<ref name="turris">{{Cite magazine|last=Turris|first=Gianfranco de|title=L'Esoterismo Italiano degli anni Venti: il Gruppo di Ur, tra Magia e Super Fascismo|url=https://zdocs.mx/doc/abstracta-de-turris-le1225kj971v|magazine=Abstracta|publication-date=June 1987|authorlink=Gianfranco de Turris|number=16|series=II|lang=it}}</ref><ref name="beraldo">{{Cite book|last=Beraldo|first=Michele|title=Esoterismo e fascismo: storia, interpretazioni, documenti|publisher=Edizioni mediterranee|year=2006|isbn=978-88-272-1831-0|editor-last=Turris|editor-first=Gianfranco de|page=83|language=it|chapter=L'Antroposofia e il suo rapporto con il Regime Fascista|access-date=11 December 2023|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3pgrCbVilI8C}}</ref>

In fact, "Steiner's collected works, moreover, totalling more than 350 volumes, contain pervasive internal contradictions and inconsistencies on racial and national questions."<ref name="Peter">{{cite journal|first=Peter|last=Staudenmaier|url=https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=hist_fac|title=Rudolf Steiner and the Jewish Question|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170916050406/http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=hist_fac|archive-date=2017-09-16|journal=Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook|volume=50|issue=1|year=2005|pages=127–147|doi=10.1093/leobaeck/50.1.127|issn=0075-8744}}</ref><ref>See also {{Cite thesis|last=Munoz|first=Joaquin|title=The Circle of Mind and Heart: Integrating Waldorf Education, Indigenous Epistemologies, and Critical Pedagogy|date=23 March 2016|access-date=8 February 2024|degree=PhD|publisher=The University of Arizona|url=https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/621063/azu_etd_14891_sip1_m.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y|pages=189–190|chapter=CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: THE CHALLENGE OF WALDORF EDUCATION FOR ALL YOUTH. Waldorf Education and Racism}}</ref>

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.{{sfn|Munoz|2016|pp=189-190}}

==== Judaism ====
During the years when Steiner was best known as a literary critic, he published a series of articles attacking various manifestations of [[antisemitism]] and criticizing some of the most prominent anti-Semites of the time as "barbaric" and "enemies of culture".<ref>''Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus'', '''11'''(37):307-8, 11 September 1901. [http://periodika.digitale-sammlungen.de/abwehr/Blatt_bsb00000905,00315.html Article]. ''Mitteilungen'', '''11'''(38):316, 18 September 1901. [http://periodika.digitale-sammlungen.de/abwehr/Blatt_bsb00000905,00324.html Article]. Cf. GA31 for a complete list and text of articles.</ref><ref name="HuH">[http://db.swr.de/upload/manuskriptdienst/wissen/wi20041122_2812.rtf "Hammer und Hakenkreuz – Anthroposophie im Visier der völkischen Bewegung"]{{Dead link|date=November 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}, ''Südwestrundfunk'', 26 November 2004</ref> In contrast, however, Steiner also promoted full [[Jewish assimilation|assimilation]] of the Jewish people into the nations in which they lived, suggesting that Jewish cultural and social life had lost its contemporary relevance<ref>Thesenpapier von Dr. Jan Badewien zur Veranstaltung: Antijudaismus bei Rudolf Steiner?, [http://groups.uni-paderborn.de/berufspaedagogik/lehrstuhl/forum-thesen-badewien.html Universität Paderborn] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130227074919/http://groups.uni-paderborn.de/berufspaedagogik/lehrstuhl/forum-thesen-badewien.html|date=27 February 2013}}, 23.01.02.</ref> and "that Judaism still exists is an error of history".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Koren|first=Israel|date=November 2012|title=Rudolf Steiner and the Jews: &quot; That Judaism Still Exists is an Error of History &quot;|url=https://www.academia.edu/33413211|journal=Makor Rishon}}</ref> Steiner was a critic of his contemporary [[Theodor Herzl]]'s goal of a [[Zionism|Zionist]] state, and indeed of any ethnically determined state, as he considered ethnicity to be an outmoded basis for social life and civic identity.<ref>"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". in ''Judaism and Anthroposophy'', ed. Fred Paddock and Mado Spiegler. Anthroposophic Press, 2003, {{ISBN|0880105100}}. 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"</ref>

Steiner financed the publication of and wrote a foreword for the book ''Die Entente-Freimaurerei und der Weltkrieg'' (1919) by {{ill|Karl Heise|de}}, partly based upon his own ideas,<ref>Sources for 'Heise':{{Bulleted list|{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2014|p=96|ps=: "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.{{sup|101}}"}}|{{Cite book |last=French |first=Aaron |title=Religious Dimensions of Conspiracy Theories: Comparing and Connecting Old and New Trends |publisher=Routledge |year=2022 |isbn=978-1-000-78268-4 |editor-last=Piraino |editor-first=Francesco |publication-place=London |pages=107–123 |chapter=Esoteric Nationalism and Conspiracism in WWI |doi=10.4324/9781003120940-8 |quote=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 entitled ''Die 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). |access-date=2024-03-01 |editor-last2=Pasi |editor-first2=Marco |editor-last3=Asprem |editor-first3=Egil |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ksKZEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT126}}|{{harvnb|Zander|2007|pp=991–992|ps=: "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 ging{{sup|178}}, 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 verabschiedet{{sup|179}}. Andere theosophische Gesellschaften haben diesen Schnitt übrigens nicht so deutlich vollzogen{{sup|180}}."}}|{{harvnb|Staudenmaier|2014|p=96|ps=: "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.{{sup|101}}"}}}}</ref> a book which has been called "a now classic work of anti-Masonry and anti-Judaism."{{sfn|French|2022|p=126}} The publication comprised a [[conspiracy theory]] according to which World War I was a consequence of a collusion of [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]] and [[Jews]] their purpose being the destruction of Germany. The writing was later enthusiastically received by the Nazi Party.{{sfn|Zander|2007|pp=306, 991-992}}{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=96–97}}<!--Towards the end of Steiner's life and after his death, there were massive defamatory press attacks mounted on him by early [[National Socialist German Workers Party|Nazi Party]] leaders (including [[Adolf Hitler]]) and other right-wing nationalists. These criticized Steiner's thought and anthroposophy as being incompatible with Nazi racial ideology, and charged him with being influenced by his close connections with Jews and even (falsely) that he himself was Jewish.<ref name=Werner/><ref name=HuH/> After Steiner's death, anthroposophy had both enemies and loyal supporters in the upper echelons of the Nazi regime.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=118-119}} Staudenmaier speaks of the "polycratic party-state apparatus", so Nazism's approach to Anthroposophy was not characterized by monolithic ideological unity.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=104}} [[Rudolf Hess]], the adjunct Führer, was a patron of Anthroposophy{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=214}}<ref name="Rieppel 2016 p. 246" /> and of Waldorf schools<ref name="Rieppel 2016 p. 246">{{Cite book |last=Rieppel |first=Olivier |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vgN-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA246 |title=Phylogenetic Systematics: Haeckel to Hennig |publisher=CRC Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-4987-5489-7 |page=246 |quote=Although in his reply, Himmler pretended to share Astel's assessment of anthroposophy as a dangerous movement, he admitted to be unable to do anything about the school of Rudolf Steiner because Rudolf Hess supported and protected it. |access-date=3 October 2022}}</ref><ref name="Douglas-Hamilton 2012 p. 106">{{Cite book |last=Douglas-Hamilton |first=James |title=The Truth About Rudolf Hess |publisher=Mainstream Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-78057-791-3 |page=unpaginated |chapter=1 Turmoil at the Dictator’s Court: 11 May 1941 |quote=Organisations which Hess had supported, such as the Rudolf Steiner schools, were closed down. |access-date=2 October 2022 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J5SyahCctVsC&pg=PT106}}</ref> and a staunch defender of Steiner's [[biodynamic agriculture]].<ref name="Tucker 2018 p. 165">{{Cite book |last=Tucker |first=S.D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2K6IDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT165 |title=False Economies: The Strangest, Least Successful and Most Audacious Financial Follies, Plans and Crazes of All Time |publisher=Amberley Publishing |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-4456-7235-9 |page=unpaginated |quote=according to Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess (1894-1987), those sceptics who criticised biodynamic methods on scientific grounds were just 'carrying out a kind of witch-trial' against Steiner's followers. |access-date=3 October 2022}}</ref> When Hess defected to UK, their most powerful protector was gone,<ref name="Rieppel 2016 p. 246" /><ref name="Douglas-Hamilton 2012 p. 106" /><ref name="Tucker 2018 p. 165" /> but Anthroposophists were still not left without supporters among higher-placed Nazis.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=103-106}} According to [[Tommy Wieringa]], a Dutch writer who grew among Anthroposophists, commenting upon an essay by the Anthroposophist {{ill|Désanne van Brederode|nl}}, Hess and [[Heinrich Himmler]] saw Steiner as their kindred spirit.<ref name="NRC 2021">{{Cite web |last=Wieringa |first=Tommy |date=8 May 2021 |title=Groene vingers |url=https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/05/08/groene-vingers-a4042900 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210507202917/https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2021/05/08/groene-vingers-a4042900 |archive-date=7 May 2021 |access-date=7 February 2023 |website=NRC |language=nl |quote=Het was een ontmoeting van oude bekenden: nazi-kopstukken als Rudolf Hess en Heinrich Himmler herkenden in Rudolf Steiner al een geestverwant, met zijn theorieën over raszuiverheid, esoterische geneeskunst en biologisch-dynamische landbouw. &mdash; It was a meeting of old acquaintances: Nazi leaders such as Rudolf Hess and Heinrich Himmler already recognized a kindred spirit in Rudolf Steiner, with his theories about racial purity, esoteric medicine and biodynamic agriculture.}}</ref><ref name="Brederode 2021">{{Cite web |last=Brederode |first=Désanne van |date=27 February 2021 |title=Désanne van Brederode is verbijsterd: corona drijft antroposofen in extreemrechtse armen |url=https://www.trouw.nl/religie-filosofie/desanne-van-brederode-is-verbijsterd-corona-drijft-antroposofen-in-extreemrechtse-armen~bb13d660/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419072542/https://www.trouw.nl/religie-filosofie/desanne-van-brederode-is-verbijsterd-corona-drijft-antroposofen-in-extreemrechtse-armen~bb13d660/ |archive-date=19 April 2021 |access-date=7 February 2023 |website=Trouw |language=nl}}</ref>

"Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darré (the future Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Höss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, [...]"<ref name="Kurlander 2015 pp. 498–522">{{Cite journal |last=Kurlander |first=Eric |year=2015 |title=The Nazi Magicians' Controversy: Enlightenment, "Border Science," and Occultism in the Third Reich |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/43965203 |journal=Central European History |publisher=[Cambridge University Press, Central European History Society] |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=498–522 |issn=15691616 |jstor=43965203 |access-date=19 February 2024 |quote=Before 1933, Himmler, Walther Darré (the future Reich Agriculture Minister), and Rudolf Höss (the future commandant of Auschwitz) had studied ariosophy and anthroposophy, belonged to the occult-inspired Artamanen movement, [...]}}</ref> "And Himmler, Hess, and Darré all promoted biodynamic (anthroposophic) approaches to farming as an alternative to industrial agriculture."<ref name="Kurlander 2015 pp. 498–522" /> "'[...] with the active cooperation of the Reich League for Biodynamic Agriculture' [...] Pancke, Pohl, and Hans Merkel established additional biodynamic plantations across the eastern territories as well as Dachau, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz concentration camps. Many were staffed by anthroposophists."<ref name="Kurlander 2017 pp. 231–262">{{Cite book |last=Kurlander |first=Eric |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q31shs.13 |title=Hitler's Monsters |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2017 |isbn=978-0-300-18945-2 |pages=239–240 |chapter=MONSTROUS SCIENCE: Racial Resettlement, Human Experiments, and the Holocaust |jstor=j.ctt1q31shs.13 |quote='[...] with the active cooperation of the Reich League for Biodynamic Agriculture' [...] Pancke, Pohl, and Hans Merkel established additional biodynamic plantations across the eastern territories as well as Dachau, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz concentration camps. Many were staffed by anthroposophists. |access-date=19 February 2024}}</ref>

The Third Reich had banned almost all esoteric organizations, pretending that these are controlled by Jews.<ref name="Sutin 2014 p. 506">{{Cite book |last=Sutin |first=Lawrence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p9iZAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT506 |title=Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley |publisher=St. Martin's Publishing Group |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4668-7526-5 |page=unpaginated |quote=for the Third Reich had outlawed virtually all esoteric groups (alleged to be under covert Jewish control) in Germany |access-date=9 February 2023}}</ref> The truth was that while Anthroposophists complained of bad press, they were to a surprising extent let be by the Nazi regime, "including outspokenly supportive pieces in the ''Völkischer Beobachter''".{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=174|ps=: "Though anthroposophists complained regularly about negative publicity, Steiner’s movement received remarkably positive press coverage in the Nazi era, including outspokenly supportive pieces in the ''Völkischer Beobachter''.<sup>108</sup> Anthroposophist authors generally encountered few difficulties in publishing their work,<sup>109</sup> SD specialists on occult groups made suppression of anthroposophist publications a priority, but met with relatively little success. They argued that misuse of terms such as “race, nation, community, Germanness” by non-Nazi authors, even if sincere and well-meaning, “must be regarded as an attack on the National Socialist worldview.”<sup>110</sup> Criticizing “materialist misinterpretations” of Nazi racial theory, they contended that the Nazi conception of race united the biological with the spiritual, the physical with the soul, into one comprehensive synthesis. The SD was especially wary of spiritual groups claiming that Nazism had “adopted” some of their own ideas or that their teachings had all along been in concert with National Socialist precepts. Movements like anthroposophy, from this point of view, represented unwelcome competition."}} Ideological purists from [[Sicherheitsdienst]] argued largely in vain against Anthroposophy.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=174|ps=: "Though anthroposophists complained regularly about negative publicity, Steiner’s movement received remarkably positive press coverage in the Nazi era, including outspokenly supportive pieces in the ''Völkischer Beobachter''.<sup>108</sup> Anthroposophist authors generally encountered few difficulties in publishing their work,<sup>109</sup> SD specialists on occult groups made suppression of anthroposophist publications a priority, but met with relatively little success. They argued that misuse of terms such as “race, nation, community, Germanness” by non-Nazi authors, even if sincere and well-meaning, “must be regarded as an attack on the National Socialist worldview.”<sup>110</sup> Criticizing “materialist misinterpretations” of Nazi racial theory, they contended that the Nazi conception of race united the biological with the spiritual, the physical with the soul, into one comprehensive synthesis. The SD was especially wary of spiritual groups claiming that Nazism had “adopted” some of their own ideas or that their teachings had all along been in concert with National Socialist precepts. Movements like anthroposophy, from this point of view, represented unwelcome competition."}} According to Staudenmaier, "The prospect of unmitigated persecution was held at bay for years in a tenuous truce between pro-anthroposophical and anti-anthroposophical Nazi factions."{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=118-119}}

{{blockquote|The anti-esoteric faction ensconced in the SD and Gestapo recognized that they faced influential adversaries in other sectors of the Nazi hierarchy. They knew that Hess and his staff, Baeumler in the ''Amt Rosenberg,'' and Ohlendorf in the SD itself were willing to intervene on behalf of anthroposophical endeavors. Minister of Agriculture Darré and Lotar Eickhoff in the Interior Ministry were also seen as sympathizers of anthroposophy, and the SD considered the head of the party’s “Examination Commission for Safeguarding National Socialist Writings,” Karl Heinz Hederich, a supporter of occultists and astrologers.{{sup|52}}|Staudenmaier (2014: 228)}}

{{blockquote|While anthroposophists were in the center of the SD’s sights, they were supposed to receive relatively mild treatment compared to other occultists.|Staudenmaier (2014: 236)}}

{{blockquote|Despite these measures, anthroposophist authors were able to write long after June 1941. Franz Dreidax, Max Karl Schwarz, Elisabeth Klein, Johannes Bertram-Pingel, Georg Halbe, Otto Julius Hartmann, Rudolf Hauschka, Jürgen von Grone, Wolfgang Schuchhardt and others continued to publish throughout the war. But serious disruptions were common.|Staudenmaier (2014: 238)}}

Morals: Anthroposophy was not the stake of that dispute, but merely powerful Nazis wanting to get rid of other powerful Nazis.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|p=215}} E.g. [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] were treated much more aggressively than Anthroposophists.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=173-174}}

{{blockquote|Yet, the relative moderation of Heydrich's action, which paled in comparison to measures taken against communists and socialists, Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, as well as the mentally and physically disabled, continued to reflect the Third Reich's underlying ambivalence toward policing the occult.|Kurlander (2015: 514)}}

Staudenmaier's overall argument is that "there were often no clear-cut lines between theosophy, anthroposophy, ariosophy, astrology and the ''völkisch'' movement from which the Nazi Party arose."<ref name="Koehne 2016 pp. 281–283">{{Cite journal |last=Koehne |first=Samuel |date=2016 |title=Revisiting the "Nazi Occult": Histories, Realities, Legacies. Edited by Monica Black and Eric Kurlander. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2015. Pp. 306. Cloth $90.00. ISBN 978-1571139061. |journal=Central European History |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=281–283 |doi=10.1017/S0008938916000492 |issn=0008-9389 |s2cid=148281372 |quote=there were often no clear-cut lines between theosophy, anthroposophy, ariosophy, astrology and the ''völkisch'' movement from which the Nazi Party arose.}}</ref>

Marie Steiner-von Sivers, Guenther Wachsmuth, and Albert Steffen, had publicly expressed sympathy for the Nazi regime since its beginnings; led by such sympathies of their leadership, the Swiss and German Anthroposophical organizations chose for a path conflating accommodation with collaboration, which in the end ensured that while the Nazi regime hunted the esoteric organizations, Gentile Anthroposophists from Nazi Germany and countries occupied by it were let be to a surprising extent.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=103-106}} Of course they had some setbacks from the enemies of Anthroposophy among the upper echelons of the Nazi regime, but Anthroposophists also had loyal supporters among them, so overall Gentile Anthroposophists were not badly hit by the Nazi regime.{{sfn|Staudenmaier|2014|pp=103-106}}
-->

== Writings (selection) ==

: ''See also [[De:Rudolf Steiner#Werke|Works in German]]''

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.).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rudolf-steiner.com/wp-content/uploads/Gesamtverzeichnis.pdf|title=catalog of the Rudolf Steiner Archiv}}</ref> His architectural work, particularly, has also been documented extensively outside of the Collected Works.<ref name="Kugler" /><ref name="Biesantz" />

* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA001/ ''Goethean Science''] (1883–1897)
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA002/ ''Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception''] (1886)
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA003/ ''Truth and Knowledge''], doctoral thesis, (1892)
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/POSA/ ''Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path''], also published as the ''Philosophy of Spiritual Activity'' and the ''[[Free will|Philosophy of Freedom]]'' (1894) {{ISBN|0-88010-385-X}}
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA007/ ''Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Age''] ({{not a typo|1901/1925}})
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA008/ ''Christianity as Mystical Fact''] (1902)
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/ ''Theosophy: An Introduction to the Spiritual Processes in Human Life and in the Cosmos''] (1904) {{ISBN|0-88010-373-6}}
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/ ''How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation''] (1904–5) {{ISBN|0-88010-508-9}}
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA011/ ''Cosmic Memory: Prehistory of Earth and Man''] (1904) (Also published as ''The Submerged Continents of Atlantis and Lemuria'')
* [https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Articles/EduChild/EduChi_index.html ''The Education of the Child'']{{Dead link|date=November 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}, (1907) {{ISBN|0-85440-620-4}}
* [https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA010/English/HR1960/GA010a_index.html ''The Way of Initiation''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002005120/https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA010/English/HR1960/GA010a_index.html|date=2 October 2022}}, (1908) (English edition trans. by Max Gysi)
* [https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA010/English/MAC1909/GA010b_index.html ''Initiation and Its Results''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002005127/https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA010/English/MAC1909/GA010b_index.html|date=2 October 2022}}, (1909) (English edition trans. by Max Gysi)
* [http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA013/ ''An Outline of Esoteric Science''] (1910) {{ISBN|0-88010-409-0}}
* [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA014/English/APC1925/GA014_index.html ''Four Mystery Dramas''] (1913)
* [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA024/English/AP1985/GA024_index.html ''The Renewal of the Social Organism''] (1919)
* [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA027/English/RSP1983/GA027_index.html ''Fundamentals of Therapy: An Extension of the Art of Healing Through Spiritual Knowledge''] (1925)
* ''Reincarnation and Immortality'', Rudolf Steiner Publications. (1970) {{LCCN|77130817}}
* [http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA028/TSoML/GA028_index.html ''Rudolf Steiner: An Autobiography''], Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1977, {{ISBN|0-8334-0757-0}} (Originally, ''The Story of my Life'')
* Rudolf Steiner, ''[https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA005/English/GC1985/GA005_index.html Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221002010010/https://wn.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Books/GA005/English/GC1985/GA005_index.html|date=2 October 2022}}'' Garber Communications; 2nd revised edition (July 1985) {{ISBN|978-0893450335}}

== See also ==

* [[Western esotericism|Esotericism]]
* [[Guardian of the Threshold]]
* [[Theosophy and visual arts#Theosophical colour mysticism|Rudolf Steiner and colour mysticism]]
* [[Martinus Thomsen|Martinus]]

== References ==

=== Notes ===
{{notelist-lr}}

=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==

* Almon, Joan (ed.) ''Meeting Rudolf Steiner'', firsthand experiences compiled from the ''Journal for Anthroposophy'' since 1960, {{ISBN|0-9674562-8-2}}
* Anderson, Adrian: ''Rudolf Steiner Handbook'', Port Campbell Press, 2014, {{ISBN|978-0-9581341-2-5}}
* Childs, Gilbert, ''Rudolf Steiner: His Life and Work'', {{ISBN|0-88010-391-4}}
* Davy, Adams and Merry, ''A Man before Others: Rudolf Steiner Remembered''. Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993.
* Easton, Stewart, ''Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch'', {{ISBN|0-910142-93-9}}
* Hemleben, Johannes and Twyman, Leo, ''Rudolf Steiner: An Illustrated Biography''. Rudolf Steiner Press, 2001.
* Kries, Mateo and Vegesack, Alexander von, ''Rudolf Steiner: Alchemy of the Everyday'', Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, 2010. {{ISBN|3-931936-86-4}}
* [[Gary Lachman|Lachman, Gary]], ''Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work'', 2007, {{ISBN|1-58542-543-5}}
* Lindenberg, Christoph, ''Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie'' (2 vols.). Stuttgart, 1997, {{ISBN|3-7725-1551-7}}
* {{Cite book|last=Lindenberg|first=Christophe|title=Rudolf Steiner – Eine Biographie. 1861-1925|publisher=Verlag Freies Geistesleben|year=2011|isbn=978-3-7725-4000-4|language=de}}
* [[Rudi Lissau|Lissau, Rudi]], ''Rudolf Steiner: Life, Work, Inner Path and Social Initiatives''. Hawthorne Press, 2000.
* [[Robert A. McDermott|McDermott, Robert]], ''The Essential Steiner''. Harper Press, 1984
* [[Sergei O. Prokofieff|Prokofieff, Sergei O.]], ''Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries''. Temple Lodge Publishing, 1994.
* 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''. SteinerBooks, 1990.
* [[Peter Selg|Selg, Peter]], ''Rudolf Steiner as a Spiritual Teacher. From Recollections of Those Who Knew Him'', SteinerBooks Publishing, 2010.
* Sokolina, Anna, ed. ''Architecture and Anthroposophy''. 2 editions. 268p. 348 ills. (In Russian with the Summary in English.) Moscow: KMK, 2001 {{ISBN|5873170746}}; 2010 {{ISBN|5873176604}}
* Tummer, Lia and Lato, Horacio, ''Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy for Beginners''. Writers & Readers Publishing, 2001.
* Turgeniev, Assya, ''Reminiscences of Rudolf Steiner and Work on the First Goetheanum'', {{ISBN|1-902636-40-6}}
* Villeneuve, Crispian, ''Rudolf Steiner: The British Connection, Elements from his Early Life and Cultural Development'', {{ISBN|978-1-906999-29-2}}
* Wachsmuth, Guenther, ''The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner: From the Turn of the Century to his Death'', Whittier Books 1955.
* Welburn, Andrew, ''Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy and the Crisis of Contemporary Thought'', {{ISBN|0-86315-436-0}}
* Wilkinson, Roy, ''Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to his Spiritual World-View'', {{ISBN|1-902636-28-7}}
* Wilson, Colin, ''Rudolf Steiner: The Man and His Vision. An Introduction to the Life and Ideas of the Founder of Anthroposophy'', The Aquarian Press, 1985, {{ISBN|0-85030-398-2}}

== External links ==
{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=no|about=yes|wikititle=Rudolf Steiner}} {{sister project links|Rudolf Steiner|wikt=no}}

; General

* [https://www.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Biogs.php Rudolf Steiner Biographies]
* [http://www.RudolfSteinerWeb.com/ Rudolf Steiner Overview]
* [https://www.goetheanum.org/en/ The Goetheanum]

; Writings

* [https://www.rsarchive.org/ The Rudolf Steiner Archive] with English translations of thousands of Steiner's works: books, lectures, articles, essays, verses, etc.
* [https://www.rudolfsteiner.org/rsl/ Rudolf Steiner Library, USA]
* [http://rudolfsteineraudio.com/ Rudolf Steiner Audio]
* [https://www.rudolfsteinerelib.org/CV/LectureList.php An index of ALL lectures given by Rudolf Steiner], searchable and sort-able by title, keyword, date, place, and GA or Schmidt number
* [https://www.rudolfsteinerelib.org/Archiv/TransSchmidt.php An index of lectures in English translation]{{Dead link|date=November 2023|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}, sort-able by title, date, place, and GA or Schmidt number
* [http://www.rudolfsteinerweb.com/Rudolf_Steiner_Works.php A list of all known English translations]
* {{Gutenberg author|id=26537|name=Rudolf Steiner}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=Rudolf Steiner}}
* {{Librivox author|id=12736}}
* [http://www.rudolfsteinerpress.com/pages/collected_works.php Collected works in English] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014065246/http://rudolfsteinerpress.com/pages/collected_works.php|date=14 October 2017}}
* German/English list of [http://www.rudolfsteinerweb.com/Rudolf_Steiner_Complete_Works.php collected works]

; Articles and broadcasts about Steiner

* [https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA010/GA010a/English/HR1960/personality.html ''The Personality of Rudolf Steiner and his Development'', Edouard Schuré, Macoy Publishing (1910), from French, Paris (1908)]
* [http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/steinere.pdf Heiner Ullrich, "Rudolf Steiner"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924041958/http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/steinere.pdf|date=24 September 2015}}, ''Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education'' (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol.XXIV, no. 3/4, 1994, p.&nbsp;555–572
* [http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i37/37b01601.htm Rudolf Steiner: 'Scientist of the Invisible'] ([[Carlin Romano]], The Chronicle of Higher Education, Volume 53, Issue 37, 2007, p. B16)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110228212625/http://mediacenter.dw-world.de/english/audio/#!/85865/Living_in_Germany "From schools to business – Rudolf Steiner's legacy lives on"], ''Deutsche Welle'' broadcast (in English), 28.02.2011
* [http://antroposofi.org/blackboard/index.html Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings, Berkeley Art Museum] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140706103704/http://antroposofi.org/blackboard/index.html|date=6 July 2014}}
* [http://skepdic.com/steiner.html Skeptics Dictionary]
* {{PM20|FID=pe/017078}}

{{Anthroposophy series}} {{Philosophy of education}} {{Authority control}}