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RUDOLF STEINER
Name: Rudolf
Steiner
Birth Date:
February 27 1861
Death Date: March
30, 1925
Place of Birth:
Kraljevi, Austria
BEST KNOWN FOR:
Rudolf Steiner was Austrian-born lecturer and founder of
anthroposophy. His works attempted to find a synthesis between
science and mysticism.
Synopsis
Rudolf Steiner was
Austrian-born lecturer and founder of anthroposophy, a philosophy
which attempts to synthesize science and mysticism. The Waldorf
School movement was inspired by his works, and by 1969 had some 80
schools attended by more than 25,000 children in Europe and the
U.S. Steiner's writings include The Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity, Occult Science: An Outline and Story of My
Life.
Profile
(born Feb. 27, 1861, Kraljevi,
Austria—died March 30, 1925, Dornach, Switz.) Austrian-born
spiritualist, lecturer, and founder of anthroposophy, a movement
based on the notion that there is a spiritual world comprehensible
to pure thought but accessible only to the highest faculties of
mental knowledge.
Attracted in his youth to the
works of Goethe, Steiner edited that poet's scientific works and
from 1889 to 1896 worked on the standard edition of his complete
works at Weimar. During this period he wrote his Die Philosophie
der Freiheit (1894; “The Philosophy of Freedom”), then moved
to Berlin to edit the literary journal Magazin fr Literatur and to
lecture. Coming gradually to believe in spiritual perception
independent of the senses, he called the result of his research
“anthroposophy,” centring on “knowledge produced by the higher self
in man.” In 1912 he founded the Anthroposophical
Society.
Steiner believed that man once
participated more fully in spiritual processes of the world through
a dreamlike consciousness but had since become restricted by his
attachment to material things. The renewed perception of spiritual
things required training the human consciousness to rise above
attention to matter. The ability to achieve this goal by an
exercise of the intellect is theoretically innate in
everyone.
In 1913 at Dornach, near
Basel, Switz., Steiner built his first Goetheanum, which he
characterized as a “school of spiritual science.” After a fire in
1922, it was replaced by another building. The Waldorf School
movement, derived from his experiments with the Goetheanum, by 1969
had some 80 schools attended by more than 25,000 children in Europe
and the United States. Other projects that have grown out of
Steiner's work include schools for challenged children; a
therapeutic clinical centre at Arlesheim, Switz.; scientific and
mathematical research centres; and schools of drama, speech,
painting, and sculpture. Among Steiner's varied writings are The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1894), Occult Science: An Outline
(1913), and Story of My Life (1924).
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