Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)
Born on February 27 1861, at Kraljevec in Hungary, to Austrian parents he spent much of his childhood in Pottschach, Southern Austria. It was at an early age that he discovered a book on geometry and with it a greater understanding of the world around him and the
path that he would take.
“In this early relation to geometry I recognized the first beginning of the view of the world and of life that gradually took shape within me.”
The ability of geometry to create a worldview is not a concept unique to Rudolf Steiner. The renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1506) felt that someone who did not master algebra and geometry, and who did not fully understand astronomy and the natural sciences, was not a complete painter. It was also a widely held belief amongst renaissance architects that geometrically precise churches acted as a door to the metaphysical world.
In 1879 Rudolf Steiner entered the polytechnic college in Vienna to study mathematics, chemistry and natural history, during this time he attended many philosophical lectures by Karl Julius Schrober. During this time he became interested in the work of Johann Von Goethe. Goethe was an important element in Steiner’s early attempts to gain insight into the world.
In 1883 Rudolf Steiner, through his friendship with Professor Karl Julius Schrober and his knowledge and interest in Goethe, was asked to edit Goethe’s Natural Scientific Writings. He wrote introductions to Goethe’s Botany, Zoology, Geology and Theory of Colour.
During 1886 at the age of 25 Rudolf Steiner became a friend of the Specht family and undertook the role of tutor for the autistic son, it was during this period of his life that he started the foundations of his theories regarding education and psychology. At this time he also wrote his “Theory of Knowledge Implicit In Goethe’s World Conception ” which Steiner regarded as “a philosophic rounding” of Goethe’s writings.
Within “Theory of Knowledge” Steiner noted, “In philosophical observation of the world, and in artistic feeling and production, the subjective experiences permeate the objective perceptions”.
In November 1888 Rudolf Steiner read a paper before the Goethe society of Vienna, entitled: “The Aesthetics of Goethe’s Worldview”. In which he states: “The basis of artistic creation is not what is, but what might be; not the real, but the possible. Artists create according to the same principles as nature, but they apply them to individual entities, while nature, to use a Goethean expression, thinks nothing of individual things. She is always building and destroying, because she wants to achieve perfection, not in the individual thing, but in the whole.”
By 1891 Rudolf Steiner had received his Ph.D. from the University of Rostock. His thesis was titled, “The Fundamentals of a theory of Cognition.”
It was in 1902 that Steiner founded the German theosophical society. The teachings of Theosophy (GK theosphia, “divine wisdom”) are concerned with religion, philosophy and science. The word theosophy has been used for about two thousand years to indicate knowledge of the divine things or knowledge derived from insight and experience. Key elements of Theosophy would prove to be the foundations of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy, which he developed in later years.
Echoing the ancient Greek axiom, Man, Know thyself,” Rudolf Steiner described Anthroposophy as an “awareness of ones humanity.”
