Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner: A Biography

“I don’t want to be revered! I want to be understood.” —Rudolf Steiner, 1915

Whoever follows Rudolf Steiner’s life will gain the impression that, from a certain point on, his constant attempt was to awake, in numerous ways, an active, working understanding for Anthroposophy. He used creative imagination to treat particular themes and tasks, ever anew, and in many forms. If we observe the variations of those presentations, we see in them the intentions that guided his whole life. A biography that shows Steiner’s intentions and efforts in the context of the times and his life circumstances will not only relate what happened, but also why. His work does not, as in many modern biographies, disappear behind the life story.

A student of Rudolf Steiner during the late 1890s observed:

“I never again had a teacher like him. He was gaunt, shabbily dressed. He always wore an old coat; his trousers looked like corkscrews, much too short and worn out. At first he sported a van Dyke, then a mustache, then he was clean shaven…. Everyone loved him dearly, and I would have, as would most of the others, gone through fire for him…. He was loving and concerned in a way that I have never again discovered in another person. Funny—I often asked my fiancée whether he was really as poor as he seemed to be; during breaks he always took a dry roll out of his pocket and ate it with visible enjoyment. But if you think that they left him in peace during the break, you are way off base. The whole group gathered around him and the questions were endless.”

This is one of the most researched and comprehensive biographies of Rudolf Steiner available today in English, tracing his life and development through an in-depth look at his life and work, which encompassed numerous areas, including his Goethean research, philosophy, esoteric work, pedagogy, medicine, sociology, agriculture, architecture, painting, movement arts, and poetry. This biography, which tracks his divergent activities, shows how Rudolf Steiner was most concerned with bringing a new approach to knowledge through Spiritual Science and to revitalizing the most important areas of human culture and society.

This volume is a translation of Rudolf Steiner – eine Biographie, 2 vols., Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart (1997).

About the Author

Christoph Lindenberg (1930–1999) completed an internship in an institution for juvenile delinquents. He studied history and English philology, as well as philosophy and education in Göttingen and Freiburg before attending the Waldorf teacher training seminar. In 1955, he worked as a teacher at the Free Georgenschule in Reutlingen, and from 1960 at the Tübingen Free Waldorf School, where he taught history, English, art, and social studies. From 1967 to 1970 Lindenberg was an assistant at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Tübingen. Since 1980 he has worked as a freelance lecturer and writer. He lived near Freiburg. Lindenberg was a member of the board of directors of the Association of Independent Waldorf Schools and a permanent member of the anthroposophical monthly magazine Die Drei. He wrote two different biographies of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy.

Jon McAlice is a freelance designer and consultant, focusing on the creative use of time and space. A co-founder of the Center for Contextual Studies, his research in contemporary education (contextualization, the experience of meaning, the role of self-directed activity in learning) has born fruit throughout the Waldorf educational movement in the growing recognition of the significance of direct experience in the learning process.