Western Philosophy
20th-century philosophy |
Rudolf Steiner
|
|
Name
|
|
|
Birth
|
February 25, 1861 (Donji
Kraljevec), Croatia)
|
|
Death
|
March 30, 1925 (Dornach,
Switzerland)
|
|
School/tradition
|
Phenomenology, Holism, Monism
|
|
Main interests
|
Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of science, Esotericism, Christianity, Theosophy, Freemasonry
|
|
Notable ideas
|
Anthroposophy, Anthroposophical
Medicine, Biodynamic Agriculture, Eurythmy, Spiritual Science, Waldorf
Education
|
|
Influences
|
Aristotle, Aquinas, Jacob Boehme, Franz Brentano, Meister Eckhart, Fichte, Hegel, Goethe, Nietzsche, Schiller
|
|
Influenced
|
Owen Barfield, Josef Beuys, Wassily Kandinsky, Albert Schweitzer, Richard Tarnas, Ken Wilber
|
Rudolf Steiner (25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925), born in Donji Kraljevec,
Croatia, was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar,
educator, artist, playwright, social thinker, and esotericist.[1][2][3] He was the founder of Anthroposophy, Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical
medicine,[4] and the new artistic form of
Eurythmy.
He characterized anthroposophy as follows:
| “ |
Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual in the human being to the
spiritual in the universe…. Anthroposophists are those who experience, as an essential need of life, certain questions on the
nature of the human being and the universe, just as one experiences hunger and thirst.[5] |
” |
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more
explicitly spiritual component. He derived his epistemology from Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view, where “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.”[6]
Biography
Childhood and education
Steiner's father, Johann, had left his position as huntsman in the service of Count Hoyos in Geras to marry (the Count had refused his permission). He became a telegraph operator on the Southern
Austrian Railway, at the time of Rudolf's birth stationed in Murakirály in the Muraköz
region, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Donji Kraljevec, Međimurje region, northernmost
Croatia). Steiner's mother's maternal name was Franziska Blie. In the first two years of his
life the family moved twice, first to Mödling, near Vienna, and
then, through the promotion of his father to stationmaster, to Pottschach, located in the
foothills of the eastern Austrian Alps in present-day Burgenland.[4]
The young Rudolf was interested in mathematics and philosophy. From 1879 to 1883 he attended the Technische Hochschule (Technical University) in Vienna, where he
studied mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In 1882, one of Steiner's teachers at the university in Vienna, Karl
Julius Schröer, suggested Steiner's name to Professor Joseph Kürschner, editor of a new edition of Goethe's works. Steiner
was then asked to become the edition's scientific editor.[9]
In his autobiography, Steiner related that at 21, on the train between his home village and Vienna, he met a simple herb gatherer, Felix Kogutski, who spoke about the spiritual world "as someone who had
his own experiences of it...." This herb gatherer introduced Steiner to a person that Steiner only identified as a "master", and
who had a great influence on Steiner's subsequent development, in particular directing him to study Fichte's philosophy.[7]
In 1891 Steiner earned a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Rostock
in Germany with his thesis, later published in expanded form as Truth and
Knowledge.[10]
Writer and philosopher
In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kurschner 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. 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) and Goethe's Conception of the World (1897). During this time he also collaborated in complete editions of
Arthur Schopenhauer's work and that of the writer Jean
Paul and wrote articles for various journals.
During his time at the archives, Steiner wrote what he considered his most important philosophical work, Die Philosophie
der Freiheit (The Philosophy of Freedom) (1894), an exploration of
epistemology and ethics that suggested a path upon which
humans can become spiritually free beings (see below).
In 1896 Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche asked Steiner to set the Nietzsche
archive in Naumburg in order. Her brother by that time was no longer compos mentis. Förster-Nietzsche introduced Steiner into the presence of the catatonic philosopher
and Steiner, deeply moved, subsequently wrote the book Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom. Of Nietzsche, Steiner
says in his autobiography, "Nietzsche's ideas of the 'eternal repetition' and of 'supermen' 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 nineteenth century."[8]
"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'."[8].
In 1897, Steiner left the Weimar archives and moved to Berlin.
He became owner, chief editor, and active contributor to the literary journal Magazin für Literatur, where he hoped to
find a readership sympathetic to his philosophy. His work in the magazine was not well received by its readership, including the
alienation of subscribers following Steiner's unpopular support of Émile Zola in the
Dreyfus Affair.[9] The Magazin für Literatur lost more subscribers after Steiner's close friendship with
anarchist writer John Henry Mackay was revealed
when Steiner published extracts from their correspondence.[10][9] Dissatisfaction with
his editorial style eventually led to his departure from the magazine.
In 1899, Steiner married Anna Eunicke. They were later separated; Anna died in 1911.
Steiner and the Theosophical Society
-
A turning point came in 1899, when Steiner decided to publish an article in the Magazin für Literatur, titled "Goethe's
Secret Revelation", on the esoteric nature of Goethe's fairy tale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. This article led to an invitation by
the Count and Countess Brockdorff to speak to a gathering of Theosophists on the subject of
Nietzsche. Steiner continued speaking regularly to the members of the Theosophical
Society, becoming the head of its newly constituted German section in 1902. It was within this society that Steiner met
and worked with Marie von Sievers, who eventually became his second wife (1914).
By 1904, Steiner was appointed by Annie Besant to be leader of the Esoteric Society for
Germany and Austria. 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 developed an original approach, replacing Madame
Blavatsky's terminology with his own, and performing spiritual research with results different from those achieved by
Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater. Steiner ends his autobiography ruing
the reception of the "artistic innovations offered" at the Theosophical Congress of 1907 in Munich. These, and other differences
led to a formal split in 1912.
Spiritual research
From his decision to "go public" in 1899 until his death in 1925, Steiner articulated an ongoing stream of experiences of the
spiritual world — experiences he said had touched him from an early age on.[9] Steiner aimed to apply his training in mathematics,
science, and philosophy to produce rigorous, verifiable
presentations of those experiences. [11]
Steiner believed that through freely chosen ethical disciplines and meditative training, anyone could develop the ability to experience the spiritual
world, including the higher nature of oneself and others.[9] Steiner believed that such discipline and training would help a
person to become a more moral, creative and
free individual - free in the sense of being
capable of actions motivated solely by love.[12]
Steiner's ideas about the inner life were influenced by Franz Brentano[9] - with whom he had studied - and Wilhelm Dilthey, founders of the phenomenological movement in
European philosophy. Steiner was also influenced by Goethe's phenomenological approach
to science.[9][13][14]
Steiner set forth his spiritual research in a vast number of texts and lectures; notable are:
- Theosophy: An Introduction (1904), in which he sets forth his ideas of the body-soul-spirit constitution of the human
being, reincarnation, and the unity of the spiritual and sense-perceptible ("as two sides of a single coin").
- Knowledge of Higher Worlds (1904/5), in which he describes his conception of a path of spiritual development,
detailing many principles of life (openness, positivity, respect for others), spiritual exercises (control of thought and will,
directed imaginations) and experiences likely to arise on this path (trials and spiritual perceptions).
- An Outline of Esoteric Science (1910), in which he describes a vast panorama of cosmic evolution, the spiritual
hierarchies that guide this evolution, and the path of spiritual development that leads to such perceptions.
Steiner led the following esoteric schools:
- His independent Esoteric School of the Theosophical Society, founded in 1904. This school continued after the break
with Theosophy (see below) and eventually led into the
- School of Spiritual Science of the Anthroposophical Society, founded in 1923. This was intended to have three
"classes", but Steiner only developed the first one of these. Unlike most esoteric schools, all of the texts relating to the
"School of Spiritual Science" have been published (in the full edition of Steiner's works).
- In 1906 Steiner became leader of a lodge called Mystica Aeterna within the Masonic Order of Memphis and Mizraim, an affiliation that ended around 1914. Steiner added to the
Masonic rite a number of Rosicrucian references.[15] The
figure of Christian Rosenkreutz also plays an important role in several of his
later lectures.
The Anthroposophical Society and its cultural activities
The Anthroposophical Society grew rapidly. Fueled by a need to find a home for their yearly conferences, which included
performances of plays written by Eduard Schuré as well as Steiner himself, the decision was made to build a theater and
organizational center. In 1913, construction began on the first Goetheanum building, in
Dornach, Switzerland. The building, designed by Steiner,
was built to significant part by volunteers who offered craftsmanship or simply a will to learn new skills. Once World War I started in 1914, the Goetheanum volunteers could hear the sound of cannon fire beyond the Swiss
border, but despite the war, people from all over Europe worked peaceably side by side on the building's construction. In 1919,
the Goetheanum staged the world premiere of a complete production of Goethe's
Faust. In this same year, the first Waldorf school was founded in Stuttgart, Germany.
Beginning in 1919, Steiner was called upon to assist with numerous practical activities (see below). His lecture activity
expanded enormously. At the same time, the Goetheanum developed as a wide-ranging cultural centre. On New Year's Eve, 1922/1923,
it was burned down by arson; only his massive sculpture depicting the spiritual forces active in the world and the human being,
the Representative of Humanity, was saved.
Steiner immediately began work designing a second Goetheanum building – made of concrete
instead of wood – which was completed in 1928, three years after his death.
During the Anthroposophical Society's Christmas conference in 1923, Steiner
founded the School of Spiritual Science, intended as an open university for research and study.
This university, which has various sections or faculties, has grown steadily; it is particularly active today in the fields of
education, medicine,
agriculture, art, natural science, literature, philosophy, sociology and
economics. Steiner spoke of laying the foundation stone of the new society in the hearts of his listeners, while the First
Goetheanum's foundation stone had been laid in the earth. He gave a Foundation Stone meditation to
anchor this.
Attacks, illness and death
The arson had a context. Threats had been made publicly against the Goetheanum [16], and against Steiner himself. [17]
Reacting to the catastrophic situation in post-war Germany, Steiner had gone on extensive lecture tours promoting his social
ideas of the Threefold Social Order, entailing a fundamentally different political
structure; he suggested that only through independence of the cultural, political and economic realms could such catastrophes as
the World War be avoided. He also 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.[18]
In 1919, the political theorist of the National Socialist movement in Germany,
Dietrich Eckart, attacked Steiner and suggested that he was a Jew.[19] In 1921, Adolf Hitler attacked
Steiner in an article in the right-wing "Völkischen Beobachter" newspaper[20] and other nationalist extremists in Germany were calling up a "war against Steiner". 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 and others] came to power in Germany, it would no longer be possible for him
to enter the country; [21] he also warned against the
disastrous effects it would have for Central Europe if the National Socialists came to power.[22]
The loss of the Goetheanum affected Steiner's health seriously. From 1923 on, he showed signs of increasing frailness and
illness. He 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. On the one hand, many of these were for practical areas
of life: education, curative eurythmy, speech and drama. On the other hand, Steiner began a new, extensive series of lectures
presenting his research on the successive lives of various individuals, and on the technique of karma research generally.[23]
By autumn, 1924, however, he was too weak to continue; his last lecture was held in September of that year. He died on March
30, 1925.
Philosophical development
Goethean science
In his commentaries on Goethe's scientific works, written between 1884-97, Steiner presented Goethe's approach to science as
essentially phenomenological in nature, rather than theory- or model-based. He developed
this conception further in several books, The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World-Conception (1886) and
Goethe's Conception of the World (1897), particularly emphasizing the transformation in Goethe's approach from the
physical sciences, where experiment played the primary role, to plant biology, where imagination was required to find the
biological archetypes (Urpflanze), and postulated that Goethe had sought but been unable to fully find the further
transformation in scientific thinking necessary to properly interpret and understand the animal kingdom.[24]
Steiner defended Goethe's qualitative description of color as arising synthetically
from the polarity of light and darkness, in contrast to Newton's particle-based and
analytic conception. He emphasized the role of evolutionary thinking in Goethe's discovery of the intermaxillary bone in human
beings; Goethe expected human anatomy to be an evolutionary transformation of animal anatomy.[24]
Knowledge and freedom
Steiner approached the philosophical questions of knowledge and freedom in two stages. The first was his dissertation, published in expanded form in 1892 as
Truth and Knowledge. Here Steiner suggests that there is an inconsistency between Kant's philosophy, which postulated that the essential verity of the
world was inaccessible to human consciousness, and modern science, which assumes that all influences can be found in what Steiner
termed the "sinnlichen und geistlichen" (sensory and mental/spiritual) world to which we have access. Steiner terms Kant's
"Jenseits-Philosophie" (philosophy of an inaccessible beyond) a stumbling block in achieving a satisfying philosophical
viewpoint.[25]
Steiner postulates that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that our consciousness divides it into the sense-perceptible appearance, on the one
hand, and the formal nature accessible to our thinking, on the other. He sees in thinking itself
an element that can be strengthened and deepened sufficiently to penetrate all that our senses do not reveal to us. Steiner thus
explicitly denies all justification to a division between faith and knowledge; otherwise expressed, between the spiritual and natural worlds. Their apparent duality is conditioned by the structure of our consciousness, which separates perception and thinking, but these two faculties give us two complementary
views of the same world; neither has primacy and the two together are necessary and sufficient to arrive at a complete
understanding of the world. In thinking about perception (the path of natural
science) and perceiving the process of thinking (the path of spiritual training), it is possible to discover a hidden inner unity between the two poles of our
experience. [12]
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."[26]
A new stage of Steiner's philosophical development is expressed in his Philosophy
of Freedom. Here, he further explores potentials within thinking: freedom, he suggests, can only be approached
asymptotically and with the aid of the "creative activity" of thinking. Thinking can be a free
deed; in addition, it can liberate our will from its subservience to our instincts and
drives. Free deeds, he suggests, are those for which we are fully conscious of the motive for
our action; freedom is the spiritual activity of penetrating with consciousness our own nature and that of the world,[27] and the real activity of acting in full
consciousness.[12] (See the main article
on the book Philosophy of Freedom for a fuller exposition.)
Steiner affirms Darwin's and Haeckel's
evolutionary perspectives but extends this beyond its 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 Solovyov:[28]
- 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.[29]
Spiritual science
-
- See also: Rudolf
Steiner's exercises for spiritual development
In his earliest works, Steiner already spoke of the "natural and spiritual worlds" as a unity.[9] 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, followed by How to Know Higher Worlds
(1904/5), Cosmic Memory (a collection of articles written between 1904 and 1908), and An Outline of Esoteric
Science (1910). Important themes include:
- the human being as body, soul and spirit;
- the path of spiritual development;
- spiritual influences on world-evolution and history; and
- reincarnation and karma, which he considered to be his
own central theme.
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,
but including extraordinary 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.
For Steiner, the cosmos is permeated and continually transformed by the creative activity of non-physical processes and
spiritual beings. For the human being to become conscious of the objective reality of these processes and beings, it is necessary
to creatively enact and reenact, within, their creative activity. Thus objective knowledge always entails creative inner
activity.[9] Steiner articulated three stages of any
creative deed:[12]
- Moral intuition: the ability to discover ethical principles appropropriate to the circumstances at hand: situational ethics
- Moral imagination: the imaginative transformation of an ethical principle into a concrete intention for the future evolution
of the particular situation
- Moral technique: the realization of the intended transformation, depending on a mastery of practical skills.
Steiner termed his work from this period on Anthroposophy. He emphasized that
the spiritual path he represented builds upon and supports individual freedom and independent judgment, whereby for the results of spiritual research to be appropriately presented in a modern context they
must be in a form accessible to 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.[12]
Breadth of activity
Steiner had a wide breadth of activities. He founded the Waldorf education school
movement,[30] and the Biodynamic agriculture he founded has contributed significantly to the modern organic farming movement.[31]
Anthroposophic medicine has created a broad range of anthroposophical
medicines; in addition, a wide range of supportive therapies — both artistic and biographical — have arisen out of Steiner's
work.[32] The homes for the handicapped based on his work
(the Camphill movement) are widely spread.[33] His paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries, and
the list of people influenced by him includes Joseph Beuys and other significant modern
artists. His two Goetheanum buildings are generally accepted to be masterpieces of modern
architecture,[34] and other anthroposophical
architects have contributed thousands of buildings to the modern scene. One of first institutions to practice ethical banking was an anthroposophical bank working out of Steiner's
ideas.
Steiner's literary estate is correspondingly broad. Steiner's writings are
published in about forty volumes, including books, essays, plays ('mystery dramas'), mantric verse and an autobiography. His collected lectures make up another approximately 300 volumes, and
nearly every imaginable theme is covered somewhere here. (Much of Steiner's work is available on-line at the Rudolf Steiner archive, and Steiner's complete works are
searchable at the German language archive).
Steiner's drawings are collected in a separate series of 28 volumes. Many publications have covered his architectural legacy and
sculptural work.
Education
As a young man, Steiner already supported the independence of educational institutions from governmental control. In 1907, he
wrote a long essay, entitled "Education in the Light of Spiritual Science", in which he described the major phases of child
development and suggested that these would be the basis of a healthy approach to education.
In 1919, Emil Molt invited him to lecture on the topic of education to the workers at
Molt's factory in Stuttgart. Out of this came a new school, the Waldorf school, and Waldorf
education — sometimes known as Steiner Education. 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 900 independent
Waldorf schools world-wide.
Social activism
For a period after World War I, Steiner was extremely active as a lecturer on social questions. A petition expressing his
basic social ideas (signed by Herman Hesse, among others) was very widely circulated. His
main book on social questions, Toward Social Renewal, sold tens of thousands of copies. Today around the world there are a
number of innovative banks, companies, charitable institutions, and schools for developing new cooperative forms of business, all
working partly out of Steiner’s social ideas. One example is The Rudolf Steiner Foundation (RSF), incorporated in 1984, and as of
2004 with estimated assets of $70 million. RSF provides "charitable innovative financial services". According to the independent
organizations Co-op America and the Social Investment Forum Foundation, RSF is "one of the top 10 best organizations exemplifying
the building of economic opportunity and hope for individuals through community investing." [35]
Steiner suggested that the cultural, political and economic spheres of society needed to be sufficiently independent of one
another to be able to mutually correct each other in an ongoing way. He suggested that human society had been moving slowly, over
thousands of years, toward articulation of society into three independent yet mutually corrective realms, and that a
Threefold Social Order was not some utopia that could be implemented in a day or
even a century. It was a gradual process that he expected would continue to develop for thousands of years. Nevertheless, he gave
many specific suggestions for social reforms that he thought would increase the threefold articulation of society. He believed in
equality of human rights for political
life, liberty in cultural life, and voluntary, uncoerced fraternal cooperation in
economic life.[36]
Architecture and sculpture
Steiner designed 17 buildings, including the First and Second Goetheanums. These two
buildings, built in Dornach, Switzerland, were intended to house a University for Spiritual Science. Three of Steiner's
buildings, including both Goetheanum buildings, have been listed amongst the most significant works of modern
architecture.[37]
As a sculptor, his works include The Representative of Humanity (1922). This nine-meter high wood sculpture was a joint
project with the sculptor Edith Maryon; it is on permanent display at the Goetheanum in
Dornach.
The Representative of Humanity (detail).
Performing arts
Together with Marie Steiner-von Sievers, Rudolf Steiner developed the art of Eurythmy, sometimes referred to as "visible speech and visible song". According to the principles of Eurythmy,
there are archetypal movements or gestures that correspond to every aspect of speech - the sounds, or phonemes, the rhythms, the grammatical function, and so on - to every "soul quality" - laughing, despair,
intimacy, etc. - and to every aspect of music - tones, intervals, rhythms, harmonies, etc.
As a playwright, Steiner wrote four "Mystery Dramas" between 1909 and 1913, including The Portal of Initiation and
The Soul's Awakening. They are still performed today by Anthroposophical groups.
Steiner also founded a new approach to artistic speech and drama; see his Speech and Drama Course. Various ensembles
work with this approach, called "speech formation" (Ger.:Sprachgestaltung), and trainings exist in various countries,
including England, the United States, Switzerland, and Germany; see a list of trainings. The actor
Michael Chekhov extended this approach in what is now known as the Chekhov method
[38]
Anthroposophical Medicine
-
From the late 1910s, Steiner was working with doctors to create a new approach to medicine. In 1921, pharmacists and physicians gathered under Steiner's guidance to create a
pharmaceutical company called Weleda, which now distributes natural medical products worldwide. At around the same time, Dr.
Ita Wegman founded a first anthroposophic medical clinic in Arlesheim, Switzerland (now
called the Wegman Clinic).
Biodynamic Farming
Biodynamic agriculture, or biodynamics comprises an ecological and sustainable
farming system, that includes many of the ideas of organic farming (but predates the term). In 1924, a group of farmers concerned
about the future of agriculture requested Steiner's help; Steiner responded with a lecture series on agriculture. This was the
origin of biodynamic agriculture, which is now practiced throughout much of Europe, North America, and Australasia.[39] A central concept of these lectures was to "individualize"
the farm by bringing no or few outside materials onto the farm, but producing all needed materials such as manure and animal feed from within what he called the "farm organism". Other
aspects of Biodynamic farming inspired by Steiner's lectures include timing activities such as planting in relation to the
movement patterns of the moon and planets and applying
"preparations", which consist of natural materials which have been processed in specific ways, to soil, compost piles, and plants with the intention of engaging non-physical
beings and elemental forces. Steiner, in his lectures, encouraged his listeners to verify his suggestions scientifically, as he had not yet done.
The early decades of the twentieth-century saw new methods of agriculture being proposed and used Steiner believed that the
introduction of chemical farming was a major problem. Steiner was convinced that the quality of food in his time was degraded,
and he believed the source of the problem were artificial fertilizers and pesticides, however he did not believe this was only
because of the chemical or biological properties relating to the substances involved, but also due to spiritual shortcomings in
the whole chemical approach to farming. Steiner considered the world and everything in it as simultaneously spiritual and
material in nature, an approach termed monism. He also believed that living matter was different from dead matter. In other
words, Steiner believed synthetic nutrients were not the same as their more living counterparts.[40]
The name "biologically dynamic" or "biodynamic" was coined by Steiner's adherents. A central aspect of biodynamics is that the
farm as a whole is seen as an organism, and therefore should be a closed self-nourishing system, which the preparations nourish.
Disease of organisms is not to be tackled in isolation but is a symptom of problems in the whole organism.
Steiner and Christianity
Christ as the center of earthly evolution
Steiner describes Christ's being and mission on earth as having a central place in human evolution, emphasizing that,
according his understanding:[41]
- The being of Christ is central to all religions, though called by different names by each.
- Each religion is valid and true for the time and cultural context in which it was born.
- The historical forms of Christianity need to be transformed considerably to meet the on-going evolution of humanity.
It is the being that unifies all religions — and not a particular religious faith — that Steiner saw as the central force in
human evolution. He understood Christ's incarnation as a historical reality, and a pivotal point in human history. The "Christ
Being" is for Steiner, however, not only the Redeemer of the Fall from Paradise, but also the unique pivot and meaning of earth's "evolutionary" processes and of all
human history, manifesting in all religions and cultures. [41] The essence of being "Christian" is, for Steiner, a search
for balance between polarizing extremes.[42]
Divergence from conventional Christian thought
Steiner's views of Christianity diverge from conventional Christian thought in key places, and include gnostic
elements.[43] Only a very simplified
account of those views can be given here, because, although they amount to only about 4% of his total works, that 4% still
amounts to some 15 volumes of books and lectures — and many of the other 335 or more volumes contain additional scattered
comments on Christianity. [citation needed]
One of the central points of divergence is found in Steiner's views on reincarnation and karma; these are explicated in the
article on Anthroposophy (see sub-section titled "Anthroposophy in Brief/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, as described in the Gospel of Luke.[36] (The genealogies given in the two gospels diverge some
thirty generations before Jesus' birth.)
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 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
ignored.[43]
The Christian Community
In the 1920s, Steiner was approached by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Lutheran pastor with a congregation in Berlin. Rittelmeyer asked if it was
possible to create a more modern form of Christianity. Soon others joined Rittelmeyer — mostly Protestant pastors, but including several Roman Catholic
priests. Steiner offered counsel on renewing the sacraments of their various services,
combining Catholicism's emphasis on the rites of a sacred tradition with the emphasis on freedom of thought and a personal relationship to religious life characteristic of modern, Johannine
Christianity.[36]
Steiner made it clear, however, that the resulting movement for the renewal of Christianity, which became known as "The Christian
Community", was a personal gesture of help to a movement founded by Rittelmeyer and others independently of the
Anthroposophical Society.[36] The distinction was important to Steiner because he sought with
Anthroposophy to create a scientific, not faith-based, spirituality.[41] 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 of Steiner
Olav Hammer, though sharply critical of esoteric movements generally, terms Steiner "arguably the most historically and
philosophically sophisticated spokesperson of the Esoteric Tradition."[44]
Steiner's work has influenced a broad range of noted personalities. Among these have been many writers, artists and musicians;
these include Inkling and philosopher Owen Barfield, Pulitzer Prize-winning and Nobel
Laureate Saul Bellow,[45] Andrej Belyj,[46][47]
