One of the mysterious figures who preached occultism at the beginning of the XXI century was the Austrian scientist, spiritualist Rudolf Steiner. Many of his contemporaries seemed more eccentric, for example, the theosophist H.P. Blavatsky, the mystic G.I. Gurdjieff or the scandalous magician Aleister Crowley. Steiner attracted followers by the sobriety and validity of his philosophy. He was respected not only by his followers and disciples, but even by his opponents. It is not for nothing that Rudolf was given the respectful nickname Doctor.
Rudolf Steiner was born on February 27, 1861 in a small! a small town in a rural area” on the territory of present-day Croatia. Rudolf’s father worked at the telegraph office, which was located in the first room of the station of the South Austrian Railway.
The spiritualist wrote: his consciousness was influenced by the fact that his childhood was spent in the area where East and West met. In the book “High Worlds” (1905), Steiner described his first encounter with a creature he called “the guardian of the gate”.
One day Rudolf, who was about twelve years old at the time, was walking in a meadow where sheep were grazing. The boy lay down in the thick grass, and sleep overtook him. Rudy woke up to someone stroking his cheek, opened his eyes and saw that everything around him had changed. More precisely, the colors of the surrounding landscape have changed. The emerald grass turned blue, the blue cornflowers changed color to purple. The sheep turned brown. The mountains on the horizon began to move, continuously changing their shape. A cloud descended over the mountains, then it turned black and heavy, the outlines of a human figure appeared against its background.
It was as if she was floating above the mountain peaks. It was impossible to determine the gender of this creature dressed in long white robes. His face was stern, his thin lips were tightly compressed, and his long hair was flying. They were held by a hoop on their head with a shining stone in their forehead. The “guardian of the gate” stretched out his hands to the boy, and he realized that this creature was trying to tell him. It said that there, in the mountains, there was an entrance to the upper world, and that Rudolf could enter there. Steiner remembers that he was scared then and did not consent to enter the “gate”. Suddenly everything disappeared – the floating figure disappeared into thin air, the cloud over the mountains melted, the surrounding landscape became ordinary. Rudolf shook off the dream and sat in a daze for a long time. Goosebumps ran all over my body, there was a ringing in my ears.
It was then that Steiner realized that in addition to ours, there are other worlds where you can get through a special “gate”. Throughout his life, Steiner had to enter such a “gate” several times.
Rudolf’s father quarreled with a local teacher, and therefore his son did not go to school. Rudy spent a lot of time at the station with his father. He taught the boy spelling and mathematics. But the real discovery for Rudolf was a textbook on geometry. “Space can take different forms, there are special points in space that can serve as “gates” to other worlds,” the philosopher wrote later. For Steiner, geometry served as proof THAT there is a kind of “space for the soul” inside the brain, which is a room for spiritual beings and events.
Once at the railway station, where the teenager spent whole days, he received a supersensible experience that contributed to the early manifestation of his unusual abilities. Rudolf was sitting in the waiting room. A woman in a long dress, a hat with a brim, with a ribbon tied under her chin entered the hall. The woman bore an incredible resemblance to Steiner’s mother. She stopped in front of the boy and said, “Remember me and try to understand. I will help you for the rest of your life.” Then the woman went to the stove, which stood in the corner of the waiting room, and disappeared as if she had disappeared into thin air.
Rudolf decided not to tell his parents about the strange vision, fearing that they would not believe him. Soon his father told him that his mother’s cousin Anna lived in a nearby town. She committed suicide. It turned out that this happened exactly at the hour when Rudolf saw the ghost at the station.
When Steiner was eighteen, his family moved to Ensersdorff, located near Vienna. The young man entered the Vienna Technical School to become a teacher. In Vienna, he met Felix Oguzsky, who had a significant influence on the worldview of the spiritualist. Felix was engaged in collecting medicinal herbs, he was able to treat many diseases with their help. Steiner became friends with him. It turned out that this poorly educated elderly man had experienced the same supernatural experience several times as Rudolf. He traveled to other worlds thanks to his herbal collections, the infusion of which causes an altered state of consciousness.
One day Rudolf came home to Oguzsky. He gave him an infusion of mountain herbs. Felix called this tea “The Drink of the gods.” Rudolf fell asleep and had a strange dream. He dreamed that he was in a huge hall with a mirrored ceiling and floor. There were strange creatures, similar to humans, but disembodied, translucent. Their faces resembled the serene faces of angels. Men and women whirled in the dance and sometimes rose above the mirrored floor, floating in the air. One woman handed Rudolf a flower. When Steiner woke up, he was clutching a dried red rose in his hands…
During the same period of his life, Steiner met another spiritualist. His name has not reached us, in his books Steiner calls this man a Master. He taught Steiner safe ways to enter the “gate” and travel to other worlds. Some followers of Steiner believe that the Master is Kant’s disciple Johann Gottlieb Fichte.
Simultaneously with the improvement of his supernatural abilities, Steiner pursued a scientific career. He got a degree in philosophy. The scientist’s favorite philosopher was Nietzsche with his romantic ideal of the “man of the future”. Steiner claimed that he communicates with Nietzsche’s soul, which hovers over his head. Steiner believed that Nietzsche’s soul was brought to Earth by beings from the higher world. Your views! Steiner expounded in The Philosophy of Freedom, a book that was published in 1894. He gained respect and popularity among theosophists and in 1910 became the head of the German Theosophical Society. However, Rudolf soon decided that his views did not correspond to the doctrine of the theosophists, and in 1913 he founded the Anthroposophical Society.
Unlike theosophy, which talks about the wisdom of the gods, anthroposophy focuses on the wisdom of human beings created in the image of the inhabitants of the higher worlds.
Steiner built for his followers, who at that time numbered about a thousand, the so-called temple. For the temple, the philosopher bought land in Switzerland, in Dornach. In his sermons and lectures, Steiner talked about a perfect society where everyone will find their place and be happy. According to Steiner, such a society will arise not due to economic growth and the production of material goods, but due to the evolution of consciousness and the improvement of people’s supersensible abilities. These abilities are given to every person, you just need to develop them.
In the last years of his life, Steiner told his students about the imminent coming of the Archangel Michael, who contributes to the development of people’s consciousness. He will have to fight with Ahriman, a being who prevents the improvement of the human race and the achievement of the divine level by people. Ahriman is a figure similar to the biblical Antichrist. He will arrive on Earth and demonstrate his power, as a result, a worldwide catastrophe and a “war of all against all” will begin. Ahriman should appear on Earth around the year 3000.
Steiner died in 1925. His Russian follower, symbolist writer Andrei Bely, called the teacher a giant of kindness.
