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Liber XXXIII · Theosophy

Liber XXXIII · Theosophy · Chapter I: Anthroposophy

Rudolf Steiner: Life, Death and Legacy of Anthroposophy's Founder

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925): Goethe scholar, Theosophist and founder of Anthroposophy, from Vienna and Weimar to the Goetheanum and his death at Dornach.

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Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) was an Austrian philosopher, Goethe scholar and esoteric teacher who led the German Section of the Theosophical Society from 1902 and then founded his own movement, Anthroposophy, in 1912–13. In the last years of his life he turned his "spiritual science" toward practical fields, giving rise to Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophic medicine and the Christian Community. He died at Dornach in Switzerland on 30 March 1925, leaving the Goetheanum and a vast body of lectures that still shape a worldwide movement.

Childhood and Education in Austria-Hungary§

Steiner was born in February 1861 in Kraljevec, a village on the border of Hungary and Croatia, where his father Johann Steiner worked as a telegraphist for the Southern Railway. The family moved with the father's postings to small stations in Lower Austria and the Burgenland, and Rudolf grew up near Wiener Neustadt, where he attended the technical secondary school. In his autobiography he described a strong inner life in childhood, including what he believed was a perception of the dead, and an early fascination with geometry as proof that the mind can know a reality beyond the senses.

From 1879 he studied mathematics, natural sciences and philosophy at the Technical University in Vienna. There he came under the influence of Karl Julius Schröer, a scholar of German literature and devotee of Goethe, who became his mentor and steered him toward the work that would launch his career.

Goethe Scholar and Philosopher, 1883–1900§

On Schröer's recommendation, the young Steiner was entrusted in 1883 with editing Goethe's scientific writings for a major popular edition of German literature. He argued that Goethe's studies of plants, colour and morphology contained a genuine method of knowledge, a way of thinking that could grasp living wholes rather than dead mechanisms. From 1890 to 1897 he worked at the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar on the great Sophien edition of Goethe's works.

In these years he also built a philosophical reputation. He received a doctorate from the University of Rostock in 1891 with a thesis on Fichte's theory of knowledge, published as Truth and Knowledge, and in 1894 he published The Philosophy of Freedom, which argues that free action springs from thinking that has become fully conscious of itself. He met Nietzsche's sister, briefly helped to arrange the Nietzsche archive and wrote a book on Nietzsche in 1895. In 1897 he moved to Berlin to edit a literary magazine, and from 1899 he taught history and literature at a workers' education school founded by socialists. Nothing in this career yet suggested an occult teacher.

Theosophist: The German Section, 1902–1912§

The turn came around 1900. Invited to lecture to a Theosophical circle in Berlin, Steiner spoke on the German mystics and on Christianity as a mystery religion, and he found an audience eager for the spiritual knowledge he now began to speak of openly. In 1902 he became general secretary of the newly founded German Section of the Theosophical Society, working closely with Marie von Sivers, a Baltic-Russian actress and Theosophist who became his collaborator and, in 1914, his second wife.

Over the next decade he wrote the books that still form the core of his teaching: Theosophy (1904), How to Know Higher Worlds (first serialised in 1904–05) and An Outline of Esoteric Science (1910). He lectured tirelessly, ran an esoteric school for inner students and, between 1910 and 1913, wrote and staged four "mystery dramas" in Munich. Unlike Blavatsky's Indian orientation, his Theosophy was centred on Christ, on the Western esoteric tradition and on a demanding training of thinking.

Tension with the Society's leadership grew as Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater promoted the young Jiddu Krishnamurti as the vehicle of the coming World Teacher, an episode told in our article on Krishnamurti and the Order of the Star. Steiner rejected the claim, and in early 1913 Besant revoked the German Section's charter.

Founding Anthroposophy and Building the Goetheanum§

Most German Theosophists followed Steiner into the Anthroposophical Society, constituted in Cologne at the end of 1912 and holding its first general meeting in Berlin in February 1913. The name, "wisdom of the human being", marked a shift from the divine to the human as the starting point of spiritual knowledge. Its teachings are set out in our guide to Anthroposophy.

In September 1913 the foundation stone of a new centre was laid at Dornach, near Basel in neutral Switzerland. The first Goetheanum, designed by Steiner, was a building of two interlocking wooden domes with carved columns and coloured glass windows, built during the First World War by volunteers from many nations. It also housed the new art of eurythmy, a form of movement Steiner developed from 1912. On New Year's Eve 1922 the building burned to the ground; arson was suspected but never proven. Steiner at once designed a replacement in reinforced concrete, the sculptural second Goetheanum, completed only after his death.

Steiner and the artists§

His circle attracted writers and painters. The Russian novelist Andrei Bely lived in Dornach and worked on the building, and the Swedish painter Hilma af Klint showed him her esoteric paintings in 1908 and later joined the Anthroposophical Society, as described in our article on Hilma af Klint.

The Practical Turn after 1919§

The collapse of Central Europe in 1918–19 drew Steiner into public life. He proposed a "threefold social order" separating economic, political and cultural life, and although the campaign failed, it led directly to the first Waldorf school, opened in Stuttgart in September 1919 for the children of workers at Emil Molt's Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory. A rapid series of further initiatives followed. With the physician Ita Wegman he developed anthroposophic medicine and founded a clinic at Arlesheim; in 1922 he helped a group of Protestant clergy led by Friedrich Rittelmeyer found the Christian Community, a church for the renewal of Christian sacraments.

At the Christmas Conference of 1923–24 he refounded the movement as the General Anthroposophical Society, with himself as president and the School of Spiritual Science at its heart. In June 1924, at Koberwitz near Breslau, he gave the course of lectures on agriculture from which biodynamic farming developed.

Illness and Death at Dornach, 1925§

The pace of 1924 was punishing: Steiner gave hundreds of lectures that year, including long cycles on karma and reincarnation. In the autumn his health collapsed. He gave his last address on 28 September 1924, the eve of Michaelmas, and spent the following six months confined to a bed in his studio at Dornach, beside the large carved wooden sculpture of the Representative of Humanity, a figure of Christ between Lucifer and Ahriman, on which he had worked for years. From his sickbed he continued to write instalments of his autobiography, The Course of My Life, and short letters to members.

He died there on 30 March 1925, aged 64. The exact nature of his illness, which affected his digestion and left him emaciated, has never been clearly established. Rumours among some followers that he had been poisoned have no supporting evidence. His death left the Society without an agreed successor and was followed by bitter disputes within its leadership, notably between Marie Steiner and Ita Wegman, which split the movement for decades.

Steiner's Legacy and Its Critics§

Steiner's Collected Works run to more than three hundred volumes, most of them transcripts of lectures. His most visible legacy is practical: Waldorf or Steiner schools now number well over a thousand worldwide, biodynamic farming has its own certification, and anthroposophic medicine, the Christian Community and the Camphill communities for people with disabilities continue in many countries. In Germany the Nazi regime banned the Anthroposophical Society in 1935, although some anthroposophists cooperated with parts of the regime.

Scholarly assessment is divided. Historians such as Helmut Zander place Steiner firmly within the Theosophical and German esoteric milieu from which he emerged, rather than accepting his claim to an independent spiritual science. Critics point to the lack of scientific evidence for anthroposophic medicine and biodynamic preparations, and Peter Staudenmaier and others have examined the racial and national hierarchies in his lectures. Admirers emphasise his philosophy of freedom, his artistic vision and the humane schools and farms his ideas inspired. For the broader movement from which he came, see our overview of Theosophy.

Frequently asked questions§

When and where did Rudolf Steiner die?§

He died on 30 March 1925 at Dornach, near Basel in Switzerland, in his studio beside the Goetheanum. He had been ill since the autumn of 1924 and gave his last lecture on 28 September that year.

Why did Rudolf Steiner leave the Theosophical Society?§

He disagreed with the Society's leaders, Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, over their proclamation of Jiddu Krishnamurti as the vehicle of a coming World Teacher, and over the Society's Eastern orientation. In 1913 Besant expelled the German Section, which became the Anthroposophical Society.

What happened to the first Goetheanum?§

The first Goetheanum, a wooden double-domed building designed by Steiner, was destroyed by fire on the night of 31 December 1922. It was replaced by a concrete building, also designed by Steiner, which was completed in 1928.

What is Rudolf Steiner best known for today?§

He is best known as the founder of Anthroposophy and of the practical movements that grew from it, above all Waldorf education and biodynamic agriculture, as well as anthroposophic medicine.

Sources and further reading§