Rudolf Steiner

For other people named Rudolf Steiner, see Rudolf Steiner (disambiguation).

Rudolf Steiner
Steiner c. 1905
Born
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

(1861-02-27)27 February 1861[1]
Murakirály,[2] Kingdom of Hungary,[3][4][5][6][7] Austrian Empire (now Donji Kraljevec, Croatia)
Died30 March 1925(1925-03-30) (aged 64)
Dornach, Switzerland
EducationVienna Institute of Technology
University of Rostock (PhD, 1891)
Spouses
Anna Eunicke
​
​
(m. 1899; div. 1904)​
[8][9]
​
​
(m. 1914)​
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Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861[1] – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist,[10] social reformer, architect, esotericist,[11][12] and claimed clairvoyant.[13][14] Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom.[15] At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism[i] or neognosticism.[17][18][19] Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific.[20] He was also prone to pseudohistory.[21]

In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality.[22] 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,[23]: 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 all the arts.[24] In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education,[25] biodynamic agriculture,[26] and anthroposophical medicine.[25]

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."[27] A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.[28]

  1. ^ a b 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 1992, ISBN 3-499-50500-2, p. 8. In 2009 new documentation appeared supporting a date of 27 February : see Günter Aschoff, "Rudolf Steiners Geburtstag am 27. Februar 1861 – Neue Dokumente" Archived 28 June 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Das Goetheanum 2009/9, pp. 3ff
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Auto was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "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
  4. ^ "Ich bin...in Ungarn geboren", "ich habe...in Ungarn die ersten eineinhalb Jahre meines Lebens verbracht", Rudolf Steiner, GA174, p. 89
  5. ^ 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)
  6. ^ Laszlo, Péter (2011), Hungary's Long Nineteenth Century: Constitutional and Democratic Traditions, Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, the Netherlands, p. 7
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ Lindenberg 2011, p. 356.
  9. ^ Zander 2007, p. 241.
  10. ^ Staudenmaier 2008.
  11. ^ 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; Architect Rudolf Steiner Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine at GreatBuildings.com; Rudolf Steiner International Architecture Database; Brennan, M.: 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.:A Comparison of Waldorf & Montessori Education Archived 10 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine, University of Michigan; Rinder, L: Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings: An Aesthetic Perspective Archived 29 November 2005 at the Wayback Machine and exhibition of Rudolf Steiner's Blackboard Drawings Archived 2 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine, 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.
  12. ^ Garner, Richard (24 January 2007). "The Big Question: Who was Rudolf Steiner and what were his revolutionary teaching ideas?". The Independent. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference CorrDoc was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Ruse, Michael (12 November 2018). The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict. Oxford University Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-19-086757-7.
  15. ^ Leijenhorst, Cees (2006). "Steiner, Rudolf, * 25.2.1861 Kraljevec (Croatia), † 30.3.1925 Dornach (Switzerland)". In Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (ed.). Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden / Boston: Brill. p. 1086. Steiner moved to Weimar in 1890 and stayed there until 1897. He complained bitterly about the bad salary and the boring philological work, but found the time to write his main philosophical works during his Weimar period. ... Steiner's high hopes that his philosophical work would gain him a professorship at one of the universities in the German-speaking world were never fulfilled. Especially his main philosophical work, the Philosophie der Freiheit, did not receive the attention and appreciation he had hoped for.
  16. ^ McClelland, Norman C. (15 October 2018). "Gnosticism". Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-7864-5675-8. In the broadest sense of the term this is any spiritual teaching that says that spiritual knowledge (Greek: gnosis) or wisdom (sophia) rather than doctrinal faith (pistis) or some ritual practice is the main route to supreme spiritual attainment.
  17. ^ Sources for 'Christian Gnosticism':
    • Robertson, David G. (2021). Gnosticism and the History of Religions. Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-350-13770-7. Retrieved 3 January 2023. Theosophy, together with its continental sister, Anthroposophy... are pure Gnosticism in Hindu dress...
    • Gilmer, Jane (2021). The Alchemical Actor. Consciousness, Literature and the Arts. Brill. p. 41. ISBN 978-90-04-44942-8. Retrieved 3 January 2023. Jung and Steiner were both versed in ancient gnosis and both envisioned a paradigmatic shift in the way it was delivered.
    • Quispel, Gilles (1980). Layton, Bentley (ed.). The Rediscovery of Gnosticism: The school of Valentinus. Studies in the history of religions : Supplements to Numen. E.J. Brill. p. 123. ISBN 978-90-04-06176-7. Retrieved 3 January 2023. After all, Theosophy is a pagan, Anthroposophy a Christian form of modern Gnosis.
    • Quispel, Gilles; Oort, Johannes van (2008). Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies. Brill. p. 370. ISBN 978-90-474-4182-3. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
    • Carlson, Maria (2018). "Petersburg and Modern Occultism". In Livak, Leonid (ed.). A Reader's Guide to Andrei Bely's "petersburg. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-299-31930-4. Retrieved 3 January 2023. Theosophy and Anthroposophy are fundamentally Gnostic systems in that they posit the dualism of Spirit and Matter.
    • McL. Wilson, Robert (1993). "Gnosticism". In Metzger, Bruce M.; Coogan, Michael D. (eds.). The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford Companions. Oxford University Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-19-974391-9. Retrieved 3 January 2023. Gnosticism has often been regarded as bizarre and outlandish, and certainly it is not easily understood until it is examined in its contemporary setting. It was, however, no mere playing with words and ideas, but a serious attempt to resolve real problems: the nature and destiny of the human race, the problem of *evil, the human predicament. To a gnostic it brought a release and joy and hope, as if awakening from a nightmare. One later offshoot, Manicheism, became for a time a world religion, reaching as far as China, and there are at least elements of gnosticism in such medieval movements as those of the Bogomiles and the Cathari. Gnostic influence has been seen in various works of modern literature, such as those of William Blake and W. B. Yeats, and is also to be found in the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky and the Anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner. Gnosticism was of lifelong interest to the psychologist C. G. *Jung, and one of the Nag Hammadi codices (the Jung Codex) was for a time in the Jung Institute in Zurich.
    • Braune, Joan (2014). Erich Fromm’s Revolutionary Hope: Prophetic Messianism as a Critical Theory of the Future. Imagination and Praxis: Criticality and Creativity in Education and Educational Research. SensePublishers. p. 52. ISBN 978-94-6209-812-1. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
    • Carlson, Maria (1996). "Gnostic Elements in Soloviev's Cosmogony". In Kornblatt, Judith Deutsch; Gustafson, Richard F. (eds.). Russian Religious Thought. Russian studies: Religion. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-299-15134-8. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
    • Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas (2013). "Western Esoteric Traditions and Theosophy". In Hammer, Olav; Rothstein, Mikael (eds.). Handbook of the Theosophical Current. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Brill. p. 301. ISBN 978-90-04-23597-7. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
  18. ^ Diener, Astrid; Hipolito, Jane (2013) [2002]. The Role of Imagination in Culture and Society: Owen Barfield's Early Work. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-7252-3320-1. Retrieved 6 March 2023. a neognostic heresy
  19. ^ Ellwood, Robert; Partin, Harry (2016) [1988, 1973]. Religious and Spiritual Groups in Modern America (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. unpaginated. ISBN 978-1-315-50723-1. Retrieved 6 March 2023. On the one hand, there are what might be called the Western groups, which reject the alleged extravagance and orientalism of evolved Theosophy, in favor of a serious emphasis on its metaphysics and especially its recovery of the Gnostic and Hermetic heritage. These groups feel that the love of India and its mysteries which grew up after Isis Unveiled was unfortunate for a Western group. In this category there are several Neo-Gnostic and Neo-Rosicrucian groups. The Anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner is also in this category. On the other hand, there are what may be termed "new revelation" Theosophical schisms, generally based on new revelations from the Masters not accepted by the main traditions. In this set would be Alice Bailey's groups, "I Am," and in a sense Max Heindel's Rosicrucianism.
  20. ^ Sources for 'pseudoscientific':
    • Gardner, Martin (1957) [1952]. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. Dover Books on the Occult. Dover Publications. pp. 169, 224f. ISBN 978-0-486-20394-2. Retrieved 31 January 2022. The late Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Anthroposophical Society, the fastest growing cult in post-war Germany... Closely related to the organic farming movement is the German anthroposophical cult founded by Rudolf Steiner, whom we met earlier in connection with his writings on Atlantis and Lemuria. ... In essence, the anthroposophists' approach to the soil is like their approach to the human body—a variation of homeopathy. (See Steiner'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.
    • Dugan 2007, pp. 74–75
    • Ruse, Michael (25 September 2013). The Gaia Hypothesis: Science on a Pagan Planet. University of Chicago Press. p. 128. ISBN 9780226060392. Retrieved 21 June 2015. We have rather a mishmash of religion on the one hand and pseudoscience on the other, as critics have pointed out (e.g., Shermer 2002, 32). It is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, but for our purposes it is not really important.
    • Regal, Brian (2009). "Astral Projection". Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia: A Critical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-313-35508-0. Retrieved 31 January 2022. The Austrian philosopher and occultist Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925) claimed that, by astral projection, he could read the Akashic Record. ... Other than anecdotal eyewitness accounts, there is no evidence of the ability to astral project, the existence of other planes, or of the Akashic Record.
    • Gorski, David H. (2019). Kaufman, Allison B.; Kaufman, James C. (eds.). Pseudoscience: The Conspiracy Against Science. MIT Press. p. 313. ISBN 978-0-262-53704-9. Retrieved 31 January 2022. To get an idea of what mystical nonsense anthroposophic medicine is, I like to quote straight from the horse's mouth, namely Physician's Association for Anthroposophic Medicine, in its pamphlet for patients:
    • Oppenheimer, Todd (2007). The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology. Random House Publishing Group. p. 384. ISBN 978-0-307-43221-6. Retrieved 31 January 2022. In Dugan's view, Steiner's theories are simply "cult pseudoscience".
    • Ruse, Michael (2013). Pigliucci, Massimo; Boudry, Maarten (eds.). Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. University of Chicago Press. p. 227. ISBN 978-0-226-05182-6. Retrieved 31 January 2022. It is not so much that they have a persecution or martyr complex, but that they do revel in having esoteric knowledge unknown to or rejected by others, and they have the sorts of personalities that rather enjoy being on the fringe or outside. Followers of Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic agriculture are particularly prone to this syndrome. They just know they are right and get a big kick out of their opposition to genetically modified foods and so forth.
    • Dugan 2002, pp. 31–33
    • Kienle, Kiene & Albonico 2006b, pp. 7–18
    • Treue 2002
    • Storr 1997, pp. 69–70
    • Mahner, Martin (2007). Gabbay, Dov M.; Thagard, Paul; Woods, John; Kuipers, Theo A.F. (eds.). General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues. Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Elsevier Science. p. 548. ISBN 978-0-08-054854-8. Retrieved 3 February 2022. Examples of such fields are various forms of "alternative healing" such as shamanism, or esoteric world views like anthroposophy ... For this reason, we must suspect that the "alternative knowledge" produced in such fields is just as illusory as that of the standard pseudosciences.
    • Carlson, Maria (2015) [1993]. No Religion Higher Than Truth: A History of the Theosophical Movement in Russia, 1875-1922. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton University Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-1-4008-7279-4. Retrieved 14 August 2024. Both turned out to be "positivistic religions," offering a seemingly logical theology based on pseudoscience.
    • See also Hansson, Sven Ove (20 May 2021) [3 September 2008]. "Science and Pseudo-Science". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 1095-5054. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
    • Pattberg 2012, p. 125
    • Ronchi, Claudio (2013). The Tree of Knowledge: The Bright and the Dark Sides of Science. SpringerLink : Bücher. Springer International Publishing. p. 180 fn. 2. ISBN 978-3-319-01484-5. Retrieved 17 November 2024. merely represent, from a scientific point of view, examples of fuzzy reasoning
  21. ^ Sources for 'pseudohistory':
    • Fritze, Ronald H. (2009). "Atlantis: Mother of Pseudohistory". Invented Knowledge. London: Reaktion Books. pp. 45, 61. ISBN 978-1-86189-430-4. For the Theosophists and other occultists Atlantis has a greater importance since it forms an integral part of their religious worldview.
    • Staudenmaier, Peter (2014). Between Occultism and Nazism: Anthroposophy and the Politics of Race in the Fascist Era. Aries Book Series. Brill. p. 8. ISBN 978-90-04-27015-2. Retrieved 3 February 2022. In Steiner's view, "ordinary history" was "limited to external evidence" and hence no match for "direct spiritual perception."22 Indeed for anthroposophists, "conventional history" constitutes "a positive hindrance to occult research."23
    • Gardner 1957, pp. 169, 224f
    • Lachman, Gary (2007). Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Penguin Publishing Group. pp. xix, 233. ISBN 978-1-101-15407-6. Retrieved 29 February 2024. I formulated the cognitive challenge I was presenting myself with in this way: How can I account for the fact that, on one page, Steiner can make a powerful and original critique of Kantian epistemology—basically, the idea that there are limits to knowledge—yet on another make, with all due respect, absolutely outlandish and, more to the point, seemingly unverifiable statements about life in ancient Atlantis?
  22. ^ R. Bruce Elder, Harmony and dissent: film and avant-garde art movements in the early twentieth century, ISBN 978-1-55458-028-6, p. 32
  23. ^ Cite error: The named reference RAMcD was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  24. ^ 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.
  25. ^ a b Christoph Lindenberg, Rudolf Steiner, Rowohlt 1992, ISBN 3-499-50500-2, pp. 123–6
  26. ^ Paull, John (2011). "Attending the First Organic Agriculture Course: Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, 1924" (PDF). European Journal of Social Sciences. 21 (1): 64–70.
  27. ^ Steiner, Rudolf (1883), Goethean Science, GA1.
  28. ^ Zander, Helmut; Fernsehen, Schweizer (15 February 2009), Sternstunden Philosophie: Die Anthroposophie Rudolf Steiners (program) (in German).


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