Steiner Rudolf (1861–1925), Austrian spiritualist and founder of anthroposophy. Trained as a scientist, he edited Goethe’s scientific writings and prepared the standard edition of his complete works from 1889 to 1896. Steiner’s major work, Die Philosophie der Freiheit, was published in 1894. His Friedrich Nietzsche: Ein Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit (1895) was translated in 1960 by Margaret deRis as Friedrich Nietzsche: Fighter for Freedom.
Steiner taught at a workingmen’s college and edited a literary journal, Magazin für Literatur, in Berlin. In 1901 he embraced a spiritualism which emphasized a form of knowledge that transcended sensory experience and was attained by the ‘higher self.’ He held that man had previously been attuned to spiritual processes by virtue of a dreamlike state of consciousness, but was diverted from this consciousness by preoccupation with material entities. Through training, individuals could retrieve their innate capacity to perceive a spiritual realm. Steiner’s writings on this theme are The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1894), Occult Science: An Outline (1913), On the Riddle of Man (1916), and On the Riddles of the Soul (1917). His last work was his autobiography (1924).
To advance his teachings, he founded the Anthroposophical Society (1912) and a school of ‘spiritual science’ called the Goetheanum near Basel, Switzerland. His work inspired the Waldorf School movement, which comprises some eighty schools for children. The anthroposophy movement he established remains active in Europe and the United States. G.J.S.