Rudolf Steiner

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Short Biography

Rudolf Steiner (Feb. 27, 1861-Mar. 30, 1925) was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austria (now in Croatia) in 1861 and died in Dornach, Switzerland in 1925. In university, he concentrated on mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Having written his thesis on philosophy, Steiner earned his doctorate and was later drawn into literary and scholarly circles and participated in the rich social and political life of Vienna.

During the 1890s, Steiner worked for seven years in Weimar at the Goethe archive, where he edited Goethe's scientific works and collaborated in a complete edition of Schopenhauer's work. Weimar was a center of European culture at the time, which allowed Steiner to meet many prominent artists and cultural figures. In 1894 Steiner published his first important work, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom, now published as one of the Classics in Anthroposophy.

When Steiner left Weimar, he went to Berlin where he edited an avant-garde literary magazine. Again he involved himself in the rich, rapidly changing culture of a city that had become the focus of many radical groups and movements. Steiner gave courses on history and natural science and offered practical training in public speaking. He refused to adhere to the particular ideology of any political group, which did not endear him to the many activists then in Berlin.

In 1899, Steiner's life quickly began to change. His autobiography provides a personal glimpse of his inner struggles, which matured into an important turning point. In the August 28, 1899 issue of his magazine, Steiner published the article "Goethe's Secret Revelation" on the esoteric nature of Goethe's fairy tale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. Consequently, Steiner was invited to speak to a gathering of Theosophists. This was his first opportunity to act on a decision to speak openly and directly of his spiritual perception, which had quietly matured since childhood through inner development and discipline. Steiner began to speak regularly to theosophical groups, which upset and confused many of his friends. The respectable, if often radical scholar, historian, scientist, writer, and philosopher began to emerge as an "occultist." Steiner's decision to speak directly from his own spiritual research did not reflect any desire to become a spiritual teacher, feed curiosity, or to revive some ancient wisdom. It arose from his perception of what is needed for our time.

Rudolf Steiner considered it his task to survey the spiritual realities at work within the realms of nature and throughout the universe. He explored the inner nature of the human soul and spirit and their potential for further development; he developed new methods of meditation; he investigated the experiences of human souls before birth and after death; he looked back into the spiritual history and evolution of humanity and Earth; he made detailed studies of reincarnation and karma. After several years, Rudolf Steiner became increasingly active in the arts. It is significant that he saw the arts as crucial for translating spiritual science into social and cultural innovation. Today we have seen what happens when natural science bypasses the human heart and translates knowledge into technology without grace, beauty, or compassion. In 1913, the construction of the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland began. This extraordinary wooden building took shape gradually during the First World War. An international group of volunteers collaborated with local builders and artisans to shape the unique carved forms and structures designed by Steiner. Steiner viewed architecture as a servant of human life, and he designed the Goetheanum to support the work of anthroposophy drama and eurythmy in particular. The Goetheanum was burned to the ground on New Year's Eve, 1922 by an arsonist. Rudolf Steiner designed a second building, which was completed after his death. It is now the center for the Anthroposophical Society and its School of Spiritual Science.

After the end of World War I, Europe was in ruins and people were ready for new social forms. Attempts to realize Steiner's ideal of a "threefold social order" as a political and social alternative was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, its conceptual basis is even more relevant today. Steiner's social thinking can be understood only within the context of his view of history. In contrast to Marx, Steiner saw that history is shaped essentially by changes in human consciousness changes in which higher spiritual beings actively participate.

We can build a healthy social order only on the basis of insight into the material, soul, and spiritual needs of human beings. Those needs are characterized by a powerful tension between the search for community and the experience of the human I, or true individuality. Community, in the sense of material interdependence, is the essence of our world economy. Like independent thinking and free speech, the human I, or essential self, is the foundation of every creative endeavor and innovation, and crucial to the realization of human spirit in the arts and sciences.

Without spiritual freedom, culture withers and dies. Individuality and community are lifted beyond conflict only when they are recognized as a creative polarity rooted in basic human nature, not as contradictions. Each aspect must find the appropriate social expression. We need forms that ensure freedom for all expressions of spiritual life and promote community in economic life. The health of this polarity, however, depends on a full recognition of the third human need and function ó the social relationships that relate to our sense of human rights. Here again, Steiner emphasized the need to develop a distinct realm of social organization to support this sphere one inspired by the concern for equality that awakens as we recognize the spiritual essence of every human being. This is the meaning and source of our right to freedom of spirit and to material sustenance.

These insights are the basis of Steiner's responses to the needs of today, and have inspired renewal in many areas of modern life. Doctors, therapists, farmers, business people, academics, scientists, theologians, pastors, and teachers all approached him for ways to bring new life to their endeavors. The Waldorf school movement originated with a school for the children of factory employees at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory. Today, Waldorf schools are all over the world. There are homes, schools, and village communities for children and adults with special needs. Biodynamic agriculture began with a course of lectures requested by a group of farmers concerned about the destructive trend of "scientific" farming. Steiner's work with doctors led to a medical movement that includes clinics, hospitals, and various forms of therapeutic work. As an art of movement, eurythmy also serves educational and therapeutic work.

Rudolf Steiner spoke very little of his life in personal terms. In his autobiography, however, he stated that, from his early childhood, he was fully conscious of the invisible reality within our everyday world. He struggled inwardly for the first forty years of his life not to achieve spiritual experience but to unite his spiritual experiences with ordinary reality through the methods of natural science. Steiner saw this scientific era, even in its most materialistic aspects, as an essential phase in the spiritual education of humanity. Only by forgetting the spiritual world for a time and attending to the material world can new and essential faculties be kindled, especially the experience of true individual inner freedom.

During his thirties, Steiner awakened to an inner recognition of what he termed "the turning point in time" in human spiritual history. That event was brought about by the incarnation of the Christ. Steiner recognized that the meaning of that turning point in time transcends all differences of religion, race, or nation and has consequences for all of humanity. Rudolf Steiner was also led to recognize the new presence and activity of the Christ. It began in the twentieth century, not in the physical world, but in the etheric realm of the invisible realm of life forces of the Earth and humanity. Steiner wanted to nurture a path of knowledge to meet today's deep and urgent needs. Those ideals, though imperfectly realized, may guide people to find a continuing inspiration in anthroposophy for their lives and work. Rudolf Steiner left us the fruits of careful spiritual observation and perception (or, as he preferred to call it, spiritual research), a vision that is free and thoroughly conscious of the integrity of thinking and understanding inherent in natural science.

Index

Articles/Lectures

Books

The Spiritual Guidance of Mankind
Christianity As Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity
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Day of Week Exercises

Everyday - Right Examination

To turn one's gaze inwards from time to time, even if only for five minutes daily at the same time. In so doing one should sink down into oneself, carefully take counsel with oneself, test and form one's principles of life, run through in thought one's knowledge — or lack of it — weigh up one's duties, think over the contents and true purpose of life, feel genuinely pained by one's own errors and imperfections. In a word: labour to discover the essential, the enduring, and earnestly aim at goals in accord with it: for instance, virtues to be acquired. (Not to fall into the mistake of thinking that one has done something well, but to strive ever further towards the highest standards.)

Sunday - Right Judgment

To determine on even the most insignificant matter only after fully reasoned deliberation. All unthinking behaviour, all meaningless actions, should be kept far away from the soul. One should always have well-weighed reasons for everything. And one should definitely abstain from doing anything for which there is no significant reason.

Once one is convinced of the rightness of a decision, one must hold fast to it, with inner steadfastness.

This may be called "Right Judgment", having been formed independently of sympathies and antipathies.

Monday - Right Word

Talking. Only what has sense and meaning should come from the lips of one striving for higher development. All talking for the sake of talking — to kill time — is in this sense harmful.

The usual kind of conversation, a disjointed medley of remarks, should be avoided. This does not mean shutting oneself off from intercourse with one's fellows; it is precisely then that talk should gradually be led to significance. One adopts a thoughtful attitude to every speech and answer taking all aspects into account. Never talk without cause — be gladly silent. One tries not to talk too much or too little. First listen quietly; then reflect on what has been said.

Tuesday - Right Deed

External actions. These should not be disturbing for our fellow-men. Where an occasion calls for action out of one's inner being, deliberate carefully how one can best meet the occasion — for the good of the whole, the lasting happiness of man, the eternal.

Where one does things of one's own accord, out of one's own initiative: consider most thoroughly beforehand the effect of one's actions.

Wednesday - Right Standpoint

The ordering of life. To live in accordance with Nature and Spirit. Not to be swamped by the external trivialities of life. To avoid all that brings unrest and haste into life. To hurry over nothing, but also not to be indolent. To look on life as a means for working towards higher development and to behave accordingly.

Thursday - To Let All The Foregoing Exercises Become A Habit

Human Endeavour. One should take care to do nothing that lies beyond one's powers — but also to leave nothing undone which lies within them.

To look beyond the everyday, the momentary, and to set oneself aims and ideals connected with the highest duties of a human being. For instance, in the sense of the prescribed exercises, to try to develop oneself so that afterwards one may be able all the more to help and advise one's fellow- men — though perhaps not in the immediate future.

Friday - Right Memory

The endeavour to learn as much as possible from life.

Nothing goes by us without giving us a chance to gain experiences that are useful for life. If one has done something wrongly or imperfectly, that becomes a motive for doing it rightly or more perfectly, later on.

If one sees others doing something, one observes them with the like end in view (yet not coldly or heartlessly). And one does nothing without looking back to past experiences which can be of assistance in one's decisions and achievements.

One can learn from everyone — even from children if one is attentive.

Saturday - Right Opinion

To pay attention to one's ideas.

To think only significant thoughts. To learn little by little to separate in one's thoughts the essential from the nonessential, the eternal from the transitory, truth from mere opinion.

In listening to the talk of one's fellow-men, to try and become quite still inwardly, foregoing all assent, and still more all unfavourable judgments (criticism, rejection), even in one's thoughts and feelings.

Rudolf Steiner's Six Exercises

The following was pulled from this website.

You can print the booklet of the full content here.

Rudolf Steiner has given six simple exercises to develop and purify thinking, feeling and willing. They are called basic exercises or additional exercises ((German: Nebenübungen) because you can do them in addition to meditation. Even if you do not want to meditate, these exercises are good to do. You get to know yourself better and life becomes more interesting.

Thinking, feeling and willing are parts of the soul. By practising them - first separately (thinking, feeling, willing) and then in combinations - you develop your soul.

There are several reasons to do these exercises:

In meditation thinking, feeling and willing become detached from each other and can go their own way.
In ordinary life, too, one may observe disconnection between thinking, feeling and willing. You feel something and you think something that has no connection with that feeling. E.g. you may feel pity, but you think: 'that's not my problem'. Or you do something, which you did not think about and with which you are not satisfied. E.g. you watch television and see someone eating peanuts, you go to the kitchen and take some and eat them, and then you think: 'why am I eating peanuts, did I want to do that?'. With these exercises you will strengthen integration of the three.
Sometimes you may find that thinking, feeling and willing happen automatically and that some thoughts, feelings and actions are not so pretty. By doing the basic exercises, you can purify them.

The six exercises

Control of thought aims to gain control over what you think.
Control of will aims to gain control over your actions.
Equanimity - the exercise of feeling - aims to be aware of your feelings, to weaken strong feelings and strengthen weak ones and to balance them.
Positivity aims to see the positive in addition to the bad and the ugly. In this exercise thinking and feeling are combined.
Open-mindedness aims to be always open to new experiences. In this exercise feeling and willing are combined.
Inner harmony: the sixth, in which the previous exercises need to be practiced in order to create harmony between thinking, feeling and willing.

The goals of the exercises

To be more aware of how you think, feel and act.
To gain more control over thoughts, feelings and actions.
To think, feel and act more clearly.
To make a harmonious whole of thinking, feeling and willing.

Read the full article.

Meditations / Calendar of Virtues

as put forth by Rudolf Steiner in his book, "Guidance in Esoteric Training."
The Twelve Virtues: Monthly virtues to be meditated upon and observed in one's life.
These exercises should always be begun on the 21st of the preceding month, in other words, for the month of April, start on the 21st of March and continue until the 20th of April.

APRIL: March 21st through April 20th (Aries)

Devotion becomes the power of sacrifice.

Opposite: No concern.

MAY: April 21st through May 20th (Taurus)

Equilibrium (inner balance) becomes progress.

Opposite: Externals take over. Too busy.

JUNE: May 21st through June 20th (Gemini)

Perseverance becomes faithfulness.

Opposite: Giving up, loss of grip.

JULY: June 21st through July 20th (Cancer)

Unselfishness becomes catharsis.

Opposite: Self-absorption, willfulness.

AUGUST: July 21st through August 20th (Leo)

Compassion becomes freedom.

Opposite: Heartlessness

SEPTEMBER: August 21st through September 20th (Virgo)

Courtesy becomes steadiness of feeling.

Opposite: Inconsiderateness.

OCTOBER: September 21st through October 20th (Libra)

Contentment becomes self-composure (equanimity).

Opposite: Dissatisfaction.

NOVEMBER: October 21st through November 20th (Scorpio)

Patience becomes understanding.

Opposite: Loss of temper.

DECEMBER: November 21st through December 20th (Sagittarius)

Control of speech and thinking (minding one's tongue) becomes a feeling for the truth.

Opposite: Gossip over externals, talkativeness.

JANUARY: December 21st through January 20th (Capricorn)

Courage becomes the power of redemption.

Opposite: Anxiety, timidity.

FEBRUARY: January 21st through February 20th (Aquarius)

Discretion becomes the power of meditation.

Opposite: Criticism, comment.

MARCH: February 21st through March 20th (Pisces)

Magnanimity (noble in character; forgiving) becomes love.

Opposite: Pettiness.

Other Resources

The Rudolf Steiner Archive
"Who am I?", "Why am I here?", "What do I want?" - Building-up a Rose Cross Meditation
Phenomenology - Tom van Gelder: information on Observing, Phenomenology (Goethean science), the Twelve senses, Rudolf Steiners Basic exercises, Threefoldness of man and animals and Embryology from an anthroposophical point of view. Here's an excerpt from the homepage:

Dog and cat

A cat can be compared with a point, a dog with a circle. The cat is the point because it lies next to the stove, in the centre. That is how it behaves: keeping to itself, keeping control. What it does, comes from within. It is an obstinate, individual animal. In the point is rest, everything comes to a halt and it is closed, we have no access.
The dog is the circle, guarding the boundaries. In the circle is movement and activity. It is open, we have access to it. The dog learns easily and can be educated and trained. What the dog does, is a reaction to what comes from outside.