Rudolf Steiner, Life and Work (Vol. 1) (Pbk)

Rudolf Steiner, Life and Work – 1861–1890: Childhood, Youth, and Study Years

“I have never in my life pursued personal ambitions, nor will I in future.” — Rudolf Steiner

To acknowledge and understand Rudolf Steiner’s unique achievement and life’s work, one must be able to accept that the founder and spiritual researcher of Anthroposophy was “a citizen of two worlds”—both the spiritual and the physical. Anthroposophy teaches that this duality, rather than being a quality reserved for special individualities, is inherent to human nature. According to Rudolf Steiner, it is a central aspect of being human, even in times when the suprasensory aspect of humanity is eclipsed (for ordinary day consciousness) and almost eliminated by certain civilizations.

The interest in Rudolf Steiner’s person and essence, in his attitude toward life and work, will continue to grow in the decades and centuries that lie ahead, both within and outside the anthroposophical movement. It will take hold of entirely different groups of people, including those who come with spiritual questions or discover them in times of need. Rudolf Steiner’s work grew to be “one unique effort of bringing courage to human beings” (Michael Bauer).

This is the first of seven comprehensive volumes on Rudolf Steiner’s “being, intentions, and journey.” It presents Rudolf Steiner from childhood and youth through his doctorate degree and up to the time of his work for the Goethe Archives as editor of Goethe’s scientific writings. By considering his formative years in depth, we come to understand better the roots and development of Rudolf Steiner’s later spiritual research and teachings.

“In the night of January 10 [1880], I did not sleep a wink. I studied certain philosophical problems until half past twelve, when I finally lay down. In the year before I had tried to find out whether Schelling was right in saying, ‘We all have a secret and wondrous capacity of withdrawing from temporal change into our innermost self, which we divest of everything external. And there, in the form of immutability, we behold the eternal.’ I believe that I have found this innermost capacity within me. I have had an intuition for some time. I now see the whole idealistic philosophy in a new way. What is a sleepless night compared to such a discovery!” — Rudolf Steiner (letter to a friend, Jan. 1881)

C O N T E N T S:

Introduction

1. Childhood and Youth (1861–1879)
2. Meeting Felix Koguzki and Karl Julius Schröer
3. Vienna (1879–1890)

Notes

About the Author

Peter Selg was born in 1963 in Stuttgart and studied medicine in Witten-Herdecke, Zurich, and Berlin. Until 2000, he worked as the head physician of the juvenile psychiatry department of Herdecke hospital in Germany. Dr. Selg is now director of the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Research into Anthroposophy (Arlesheim, Switzerland) and professor of medicine at the Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences (Germany). He lectures extensively and is the author of numerous books, many of which have been published in English.

Margot M. Saar studied at the Universität des Saarlandes, at Open University, UK, and at Institut für Waldorfpädagogik Witten Annen, Germany. She is an experienced translator and interpreter in specialty fields (education, medicine, philosophy, anthroposophy, homeopathy, anthroposophic medicine, general science). She has been a foreign language teacher at Michael House School Derbyshire, UK, a teacher of foreign languages and philosophy, exam officer, and upper school mentor at Michael Hall School, East Sussex, and translator of technical manuals and legal contracts, international correspondence, office management at Hüls Troisdorf AG Witten Germany. Margot has translated numerous books for SteinerBooks, including Peter Selg’s 7-volume biography of Rudolf Steiner.

Rudolf Steiner, Life and Work, Seven Volumes

Vol. 1. (1861–1890): Childhood, Youth, and Study Years
Vol. 2. (1890–1900): Weimar and Berlin
Vol. 3. (1900–1914): Spiritual Science and Spiritual Community
Vol. 4. (1914–1918): The Years of World War I
Vol. 5. (1919–1922): Social Threefolding and the Waldorf School
Vol. 6. (1923): The Burning of the Goetheanum
Vol. 7. (1924–1925): The Anthroposophical Society and the School for Spiritual Science