In the second half of the 19th century, the religious and mystical doctrine of Theosophy arose, from which many outstanding personalities emerged. Their ideas and concepts were knocked out of the framework of this trend. The teaching of Rudolf Steiner was largely based on personal spiritual experience and to a small extent depended on the theosophical tradition. The creator of the unique Goetheanum and commentator for Goethe and Nietzsche, developed his own doctrine - anthroposophy.
The beginning of the biography of the founder of anthroposophy, Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner, is striking from the very beginning. The reputable and authoritative Great Soviet Encyclopedia writes about him as a "German mystic philosopher." Undoubtedly, Rudolf Steiner is an ethnic German, but born in the territory of Austria-Hungary and therefore is rightfully considered an Austrian.
The second "snag" in the biography of the esotericist and philosopher is the date of his birth. As a rule, the date of baptism was indicated in official documents, while Steiner wrote it on February 27. Steiner wrote in his own hand in a notebook: “My date of birth fell on February 25, 1861. I was baptized two days later. " But in 2009, a document was discovered from which it followed that Rudolf Steiner was born on February 27 and on the same day a baptismal certificate was issued in his name.
The future mystic came from a simple family of a railway employee. His father Johann (1829-1910) and his mother Francis née Blie (1834-1918) were from the Waldviertel region of Lower Austria. After Rudolph, they had a daughter, Leopoldina (1864-1927), who worked as a seamstress and lived with them until the death of her parents. His son Gustav (1866-1941) was born deaf and received disability benefits all his life.
Until 1860, Steiner's father served as a forester and gamekeeper for an imperial count in the Horn district, but after he refused to give his consent to the wedding, Johann Steiner resigned from the service and took a job as a railway telegraph operator. In 1879 the family moved to the commune of Inzersdorf, which is now one of the districts of the Austrian capital Vienna. Prior to this, the family moved from place to place three times, but in the biographies of Steiner written in German, we did not find a mention given in the Russian encyclopedia Mystics of the 20th Century, which says that Steiner "lived in a remote region of the Carpathian Mountains."
While still in elementary school, Rudolph, in addition to the subjects taught at school, diligently engaged in his self-education. He was especially fond of geometry, and at the age of 16, on his own initiative, he read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Already in childhood, the boy had a visionary experience of communicating with spiritual beings who revealed to him the secrets of the universe, despite the fact that then he still did not know anything about Theosophy. Recalling his childhood, Steiner argued that in geometry he first experienced a conscious satisfaction from spiritual life, considering, in addition to visual impressions, also questions.
After graduating from a real school, Steiner from 1879 to 1883 studied on a scholarship at the Technical Institute in Vienna. Along with mathematics and natural sciences, he attended optional classes in philosophy, literature and history at the University of Vienna. Shortly before the final exams, Rudolph was forced to interrupt his studies due to financial difficulties. And only a few years later, in 1891, at the University of Rostock, Steiner defended his Ph. D. on the main issue of the theory of knowledge (later included in his book under the title "Truth and Science").
In the period from 1884 to 1897, Rudolf Steiner worked on the publication of works on natural history by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Steiner's comments and introductory articles to the scientific works of the great German poet and scientist receive the highest praise from Germanists and Goethean heritage specialists.
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Along with this, Steiner also published works of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and the German writer Jean Paul. His own works are also published - "Goethe's Worldview" and "Friedrich Nietzsche, a fighter against his time." For several dictionaries, he has written articles on natural science topics. He was temporarily editor of the Vienna-based Deutschen Wochenschrift, the German Weekly. Despite different sources of income, Steiner earned money as a tutor and home teacher for the four sons of a Jewish businessman. It was only in 1890, after his appointment to the Weimar archive of Goethe, that Steiner finally had a modest income. At this time, Steiner meets many interesting people, among whom is Elena Petrovna Blavatskaya.
Steiner is not only an outstanding goethe scholar and expert on Nietzsche, he is also the author of original concepts. In 1900 he was admitted to the Theosophical Society, and two years later he already became the head of its German branch. Within its framework, he worked for 12 years. Sincerely considering himself a Christian, Rudolf Steiner develops a set of practical exercises that contribute to the development of personality (later they are all combined in his book "The Secret Science"), which are based on the Eightfold Path of the Buddha.
While still a theosophist, Steiner simultaneously enters the esoteric society Ordo Templi Orientis - the Order of the Eastern Temple, in which ritual magic is intensively practiced and even heads one of its lodges, Mysteria Mistica Aeterna. More is known about this society in connection with the sexual scandals of Aleister Crowley, and Steiner himself until the end of his days denied any connection with this Templar of the East.
A scientist and a mystic, he writes about the disappeared continents of Atlantis and Lemuria and at the same time, especially before and during the First World War, he is not only interested, but also actively engaged in politics. Despite political differences from 1899 to 1905, Steiner actively participated in the Marxist school for the education of the workers of Rosa Luxemburg.
Before the outbreak of the First World War, Steiner, who broke with the Theosophists, designs the center of the Anthroposophical movement - the Goetheanum (the Goetheanum is named after Goethe). The architecture of the center was intended to symbolize the Universe, and the types of wood were selected according to the principle of the structure of the violin, which absorbs the vibrations of all arts. Representatives of the Russian intelligentsia took part in the construction of the Goetheanum: Andrei Bely, Maximilian Voloshin, Asya Turgeneva.
Steiner was greatly influenced by his second wife, the Baltic German woman Marie von Sivers (Sievers), who met him in the German Theosophical Society. On January 24, 1905, she and her husband joined the Ordo Templi Orientis. This "irregular" Masonic order of the Ancient and Primordial Rite of Memphis-Misraim, which is also called "Egyptian Freemasonry," accepted persons of both sexes. It was Maria who gave Steiner the idea to present her teaching in a dramatic form.
Rudolf Steiner died after a serious illness on March 30, 1925 in the Swiss city of Dornach.
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