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"The Ego can rise." - Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner Biography and Timeline
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| Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) - from a portrait (below). |
- Rudolf Steiner in his lecture "Spiritual Emptiness and Social Life".
Contents
Supporting "well medleys" are presupposed
throughout:Rudolf Steiner Biography
Who says what to whom along what channel and to what purposes and with what probable effects? Maybe you can find it out?
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| Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) - drawing from a portrait. |
The sickly child was taken at once for an emergency baptism in the neighbouring village of Draskovec, and the entry still can be read as of one Rudolfus Josephus Laurentius Steiner. "Thus it happened," Rudolf Steiner writes in his autobiography, "that the place of my birth is far removed from the region where I come from."
In later life Steiner frequently made the point that the most prodigious feat any man achieves at any time is accomplished by him in the first two or three years of his life, when he lifts his body into the upright position and learns to move it in perfect balance through space, when he forms a vital part of his organism into an instrument of speech and when he begins to handle and indeed to fashion his brain as a vehicle for thought. In other words, when the child asserts his human qualities.
This initial achievement the boy Rudolf took place on the outskirts of a vast plain, the Puszta, where fields of maize and potatoes extend in every direction interspersed by lines of tall poplars flanking straight roads domed over by the high and blue Puszta sky. That's where the boy Rudolf learned to stand, to walk, to speak and to think, "in the simplest circumstances in order that nothing should impede his perfect unfolding."
When the boy was two years old the family moved into "the Burgenland" that comprises the foothills of the eastern Alps. It is one of the most idyllic parts of Austria. It takes its name from many Burgen, castles, which had been built on nearly every hill thoroughout history.
Father Steiner was moved as stationmaster to several small stations south of Vienna, so that the eldest son was able to attend good schools as a day student, and finally in 1879 could matriculate at the Technical University of Vienna. It was one of the most advanced scientific institutions of the world at the time. Steiner had to support himself by means of scholarships and tutoring.
In his first year at the University, while Rudolf Steiner still was an undergraduate, he often met a curious personality on the train. It was a herb-gatherer who was filled with nature lore. He understood the language of plants, which told him what sicknesses they could heal; he was able to listen to the speech of the minerals, which told him of the natural history of our planet and of the Universe. Later Steiner immortalized the herb-gatherer in his Mystery Dramas, in the figure of "Father Felix." But "Father Felix" was instrumental in bringing Steiner together with a still more important and mysterious personality.
"Felix was only the intermediary for another personality," Steiner tells us in his autobiography. "This personality used the works of Fichte in order to develop certain observations from which results ensued which provided the seeds for my (later) work ... This excellent man was as undistinguished in his daily job as was Felix."
At the same time another very consequential relationship developed too. The Technical University of Vienna provided a chair for German literature, which was held by Karl Julius Schröer, a great Goethe enthusiast. Schröer anticipated that Rudolf Steiner might be capable of doing some original research in Goethe's scientific writings. Steiner was then twenty-one years of age.
The young Steiner wrote introductions and explanatory notes to the many volumes of Goethe's scientific works while he was poor. The family lived in two rooms. In a part of one of them the young Steiner worked as in a monk's cell. A Viennese celebrity of the time refers to as one "who looked like a half-starved student of theology."
But this first literary success led to Steiner's call to the central Goethe Archives at Weimar, where despite his youth he now became one of the editors of the great Standard Edition (Sophien Ausgabe) of Goethe's Complete Works. His occupation with Goethe lasted for seven years in Weimar, from 1889 to 1896, and had a profound effect on Steiner's philosophical awareness.
During these years Steiner's fundamental philosophical works were conceived and written. In 1886 he published An Epistemology of Goethe's World Conception. In 1891 his small concentrated thesis on Truth and Science earned him his Ph.D. During this period Steiner also carried many ideas into the field of ethics. His book The Philosophy of Freedom summed up the ideas he had formed to deal with the riddles of existence that had so far dominated his life.
In the 1890s Steiner began to be looked upon in Germany as "the coming philosopher", But in 1897 Steiner moved to Berlin to serve as editor of the weekly, Das Magazin für Litteratur, founded in 1832. He wrote the leading article and the dramatic reviews, occupying in Berlin a position somewhat similar to that of Bernard Shaw (who was five years his senior). This assignment brought Steiner into contact with the intellectual and artistic élite of Berlin at the time, in an exciting and often amusing period.
Steiner also became personally attracted to the camp of Haeckel. For Steiner it was more than an interesting experience; he refers to his experience as a "Soul's Probation" that he had to undergo. At the end of those four years Steiner had come to an experience of Christ and His active presence.
In Rudolf Steiner spiritual wisdom assumed a new shape. He began to operate from pure thought, and detected living thoughts filling the Universe. As a result of his discoveries, Steiner was bent on putting force and life into thinking, through thinking, within thinking. His basic philosophic works, especially the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, and many exercises he devised, are directed to this end, to strengthen the thinking faculties in man till thinking works itself on and up and gets free from the brain system. [!] This is called a most disturbing experience. Its consequence is a condition which Steiner describes thus: "Thinking itself becomes a body which draws into itself as its soul the Spirit of the Universe."
After reaching this stage of "independent thinking", Steiner discovered that this "living thinking" could awaken parts of him from "above". Thought that had risen into subtility, could even impart life to a dormant spiritual perception in Steiner. From about 1900 Steiner began to pursue this path with determination, and gradually came to discern three forms of higher knowledge:
- Imagination: a higher seeing of the spiritual world in revealing images;
- Inspiration: a higher hearing of the spiritual world, through which it reveals its creative forces and its creative order;
- Intuition: the stage at which an intuitive penetration into the sphere of Spiritual Beings becomes possible.
After many years of intense activity, finally as the leader of a world-wide movement, he died on March 30, 1925.
Rudolf Steiner Timeline
"What was Rudolf Steiner like? - In the first place there was nothing in the least pompous about him. He never made one feel that he was in any sense extraordinary." - Alfred Heidenreich
| Years | Happenings |
| 1861 | Born on February 27 in Kraljevec, Austria-Hungary, today Croatia, son of a railroad stationmaster. Parents came from Austria. Childhood and youth in various Austrian towns. |
| 1872-1879 | Junior and Senior high school in Wiener-Neustadt, which is close to Vienna. |
| 1875-1889 | Worked as a private teacher, many times to his own classmates, particularly in math and sciences. |
| 1879-1883 | Undergraduate studies at the Vienna Institute of Technology (Wiener Technische Hoschschule). Deep studies of Goethe. |
| 1882-1897 | Editor of the scientific works of Goethe for the J.Kürschner's "Deutsche National Literatur" edition (five volumes). |
| 1884-1890 | Private teacher/tutor of 4 children of a Vienna family, mainly of one who was hydrocephalic and unable to learn. Succeeds in helping him to finish school and enter the Faculty of Medicine; he died during World War 1. |
| 1886 | Worked in the "Duchess Sophia" complete edition of Goethe's writings. |
| 1888 | Editor of the "Weekly German Magazine" (Deutsche Wochenschrift). |
| 1890-1897 | Worked at the Schiller-Goethe Archives in Weimar. Edition of Goethe's scientific writings. |
| 1891 | Doctorate in Philosophy at the University of Rostock, Germany. Publication of the dissertation too. |
| 1894 | Meeting with Haeckel; beginning of correspondence with him. |
| 1897 | Moved to Berlin, where he was the editor (up to 1900) of the "Literature Magazine" (Magazin für Literatur), shows up against antisemitism, and editor of the "Drama Journal" (Dramaturgische Blätter) with O.E.Hartleben. Activities at the "Free Drama Society" (Freien dramatischen Gesellschaft), at the Giordano Bruno League, etc. |
| 1899-1904 | Instructor at the Berlin "Workers' School of Education" (Arbeiter-Bildungsschule). |
| 1900 | Beginning of activities as a lecturer on various Anthroposophic themes under the invitation of the Berlin Theosophic Society, transmitting results of his own original esoteric sights. |
| 1902 | Nominated General Secretary of the German Theosophic Society. The same day he gives a lecture titled "Anthroposophy". |
| 1902-1912 | Works hard as a lecturer in Berlin and elsewhere in Europe. Marie von Sievers becomes his constant co-operator. |
| 1903 | Founding of the Luzifer journal, later Luzifer-Gnosis. |
| 1905 | First writings on 'the threefold social organization'. |
| 1906 | Meets Edouard Schuré; Marie von Sievers had translated some of his works. |
| 1907 | Organises the world conference of the Theosophic Society in Munich and introduces artistic activities for the first time there. |
| 1910-1913 | Writes and directs the representation of his four Mystery Dramas, one each year, in Munich. |
| 1912 | Introduction of the new arts Eurythmy and Speech Formation. |
| 1913 | Separates from the Theosophic Society and founds the Anthroposophical Society. |
| 1913-1923 | Construction of the first Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, a work of art in wood. |
| 1914 | Marries Marie von Sievers (Marie Steiner). |
| 1914-1924 | Lectures in Dornach, Berlin and many other cities in Europe, indicates renewals in art, education, sciences, social life, medicine, pharmacology, therapies, agriculture, architecture and theology. |
| 1919 | Works as a writer and lecturer on his ideas on social renewal, the Threefold Commonwealth, mainly in Southern Germany. In the autumn: foundation of the Free Waldorf School (Freie Waldorfschule) in Stuttgart, headed by him till his death. |
| 1920 | First course for physicians, beginning what is now called Anthroposophic Medicine. |
| 1921 | Foundation of the "Das Goetheanum" weekly, with his regular contributions; this journal continues to be edited. Foundation of the first Anthroposophic Clinic, in Arlesheim, next to Dornach, by Ita Wegman; this clinic continues as the Ita Wegman Klinik. |
| 1922 | "The religious movement Christian Community" is founded by clergymen believing as he says. On New Year's Eve the Goetheanum is criminally is burnt down by someone. Next day Steiner continues his lecture cycle in the nearby cabinetmaking workshop. |
| 1923 | Beginning of the design and gypsum modeling of the second Goetheanum. It is built in 1925-28 after his death, in reinforced concrete. During the Christmas Conference, founding of the new General Anthroposophical Society (Allgemeine Anthroposophische Gesellschaft). |
| 1923-1925 | Publishes every week in Das Goetheanum his (incomplete) autobiography; which covers his life till 1907. With Dr. Ita Wegman he writes the book on Anthroposophic Medicine (Links: A B). |
| 1924 | Course on agriculture in Koberwitz, originating bio-dynamic farming. Course on Curative Education, originating this field of application of Anthroposophy. Intensive lecturing and many courses in the last months. His last lecture on September 9 to members of the Society. Rudolf Steiner's fatal disease (cancer) recognised. |
| 1925 | Dies in Dornach on March 30. |
| Click on "The Set" for more articles on and by Rudolf Steiner here. |
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