The Rudolf Steiner Archive

50. Autobiographical Lecture on His Childhood and Youth Up to the Weimar Era

[ 1 ] My dear Theosophical friends! It is my sincere conviction that, fundamentally speaking, it is a great imposition to present before such an assembly what I am now about to describe. You can truly be assured that, while I am aware of this, I am resorting to this account solely because certain matters have recently come to light that, in a sense, make it our duty—for the sake of our cause—to refute suspicions and misrepresentations.

[ 2 ] I will endeavor to present what needs to be presented as objectively as possible, and I will endeavor—since I obviously cannot cover everything—to influence what I present subjectively only to the extent that the selection of what is to be presented is concerned. In doing so, I shall be guided by the principle of mentioning whatever might be considered to have had some influence on my entire way of thinking. Please do not regard the manner in which I will attempt to present this as mere affectation, but rather as something that, in many respects, must seem to me to be the natural form.

[ 3 ] If someone had wanted to set out on a thoroughly modern life—a life immersed in the most advanced achievements of the present age—and had wanted to choose the corresponding conditions of existence for their current incarnation, it seems to me that, with regard to their present incarnation, they would have had to make the same choice that Rudolf Steiner made. For from the very beginning he was, in fact, surrounded by the most modern cultural achievements; from the very first hour of his physical existence, he was surrounded by the railroads and the telegraph system.

[ 4 ] He was born on February 27, 1861, in Kraljevec, which is now part of Hungary. He spent only the first year and a half of his life in this town, which is located on the so-called Mur Island, then half a year in a town near Vienna, and then a good number of his boyhood years in a town on the border between Lower Austria and Styria, right in the heart of that Austrian-Styrian mountain region, which can make a certain profound impression on the mind of a child who is receptive to such things.

[ 5 ] His father was a low-ranking official with the Austrian Southern Railway. The family, after all, had to contend with circumstances that, given the state of affairs at the time, can only be described as a “struggle against the meager pay of such low-ranking railroad officials.” His parents—and this must be explicitly emphasized to avoid any misunderstanding—always showed a willingness to spend their very last kreuzers on whatever served the well-being of their children; but there were not very many of those last kreuzers to begin with.

[ 6 ] What the boy—one might say—saw every hour were, on the one hand, the Styrian-Austrian mountains visible from his window, often glistening in such beautiful sunshine and often covered by the most magnificent snowfields. On the other hand, there were, to the delight of the soul, the vegetation and other natural features of such a region, which, situated there at the foot of the Austrian Schneeberg and the Sonnwendstein, perhaps ranks among the most beautiful spots in the Austrian countryside. That was, on the one hand, what one could use to determine the impressions that made an impact on the boy. The other factor was that, at any given moment, his gaze could turn to the most modern cultural conditions and achievements: the railroad—which his father was involved in operating—and what telegraphy had already been able to accomplish in modern communications at that time. One might say that what the boy encountered there was by no means a modern urban environment. For the town to which the train station belonged—where he grew up—was a very small town and offered modern impressions only insofar as it was home to a spinning mill, so that a quite modern branch of industry was constantly in view.

[ 7 ] All of these circumstances must be mentioned because they actually had a formative and challenging effect on the boy’s inner strength. They were certainly not urban conditions in the strict sense; yet the shadow of urban life crept into this remote place. For it was not only—with all the effects that such a thing entails—one of the ingeniously designed mountain railroads in the immediate vicinity, the Semmering Railway, but there were also nearby the springs from which, at that very time, the water for Vienna’s Hochquellenwasserleitung was drawn. Moreover, the entire immediate vicinity was frequented by people who wanted to spend their summer vacations in this mountainous region, coming from Vienna and other Austrian towns. But one must have in one's mental image that in the 1860s, such places were not yet as overrun with summer vacationers as they were in later times, and that even as a child one formed certain personal connections with the people who sought out these summer retreats, thereby gaining a kind of intimate relationship with what was happening in the city. Like the shadow of the city, what unfolded there extended into this small village.

[ 8 ] Another possibility—and anyone with even a basic understanding of psychology will see that such a thing is indeed plausible—was certain impressions that can only be described as evidence of the dissolution of time-honored religious traditions within the innermost circle of a small village. There was a pastor in the very town where the boy grew up. I would just like to mention that I am, of course, omitting all names and the like whose mention might cause offense or even just hurt someone’s feelings, since in such an account one often has to deal with people who are still alive—or whose descendants are still alive; so this should be avoided, despite the effort to portray events as accurately as possible. In this town, then, there was a pastor who had no influence on our family other than baptizing my siblings; he did not need to baptize me, since I had already been baptized in Kraljevec. Incidentally, at the train station where the boy I am about to describe grew up, he was regarded as a rather comical figure by the station’s residents and by all those—for example, the workers from the neighboring spinning mill who were present for almost every train—since the arrival of a train was a major event. And the boy, in a manner that was not exactly respectful, heard people refer to the pastor in question as nothing other than “our Pastor Nazl.”

[ 9 ] In contrast, there was another pastor in the neighboring town; he often came to our house. This other pastor, however, was thoroughly at odds, first with Pastor Nazl and second with all the professional relationships in which he was involved. And if anyone, even during Rudolf Steiner’s very earliest childhood, used the most casual language in the boy’s presence about everything that was already being described as “Suitic” at that time—if anyone used the most casual language in the presence of the four- to five-year-old boy about church affairs, it was that very pastor, who considered himself a staunch liberal and whom we loved in our home for his natural free-spiritedness. At the time, the boy took great delight in something he once heard from that pastor. He had been told that the bishop was coming to visit. In such cases, extensive preparations are usually made, even in such small towns. But as it happened to our free-thinking pastor, he had to be roused from bed and told: “You must get up quickly, for the bishop is already in the church.” In short, these were circumstances in which it was impossible for anything other to develop than what perhaps only Austrians know: a certain matter-of-factness toward the circumstances of religious tradition, a natural indifference. People, so to speak, didn’t really care and took a cultural-historical interest in such an original personality as the aforementioned pastor, who arrived late to meet the bishop because he truly presented a peculiar sight. No one really knew why he was a pastor at all. For he never spoke of any of the things that usually interest a pastor; instead, he spoke very often about which dumplings he particularly enjoyed and what else he had experienced. He would sometimes launch into weighty tirades against the authorities and recount all the things he had to endure there. But certainly no call to zealotry could come from this “Mr. Pastor.”

[ 10 ] The boy attended the local school there for only a short time. For reasons—and there’s no need to present anything inaccurately—that simply stemmed from a personal dispute between the boy’s father and the schoolteacher, the boy was taken out of the village school very soon after and then received some instruction from his father in the station office between train schedules.

[ 11 ] Then, when the boy in question was eight or nine years old, his father was transferred to another train station located on the border between—as they say in Austria—“Cisleithania” and “Transleithania,” between the Austrian and Hungarian territories; however, the station was already situated on the Hungarian side. But before we can speak of this transfer, something else must be mentioned that was of extraordinary significance and importance for the life of the boy Rudolf Steiner.

[ 12 ] In a certain sense, the boy was a troublesome child for his family, if only because he had a certain spirit of independence in his blood, and whenever he noticed that something was being demanded of him with which he could not fully agree, he was eager to evade that demand. For example, he would evade the expectation that he greet or speak with people who were his father’s superiors and who were also spending the summer at that particular location. He would then retreat into a corner and refuse to have anything to do with the deference that is, of course, natural and against which no objection should be raised. It should be noted, merely as a peculiarity, that he wanted nothing to do with it and would often retreat to the small waiting room, where he tried to unravel strange mysteries. These were contained in a picture book with movable figures that could be operated by pulling strings at the bottom. It told the story of a figure who held a certain significance for Austria—especially for Vienna: the figure of the “Staberl.” He had become something akin to—albeit with a local flavor—a cross between Kasperl and Eulenspiegel.

[ 13 ] But something else also presented itself to the boy. One day he was sitting all alone on a bench in that waiting room. In one corner was the stove; on a wall some distance from the stove was a door; the boy was sitting in the corner from which he could see both the door and the stove. He was still very, very young at the time. And as he sat there, the door opened; naturally, he noticed that a person—a woman—entered through the door, someone he had never seen before, but who bore an extraordinary resemblance to a member of his family. The woman stepped through the door, walked to the middle of the room, made gestures, and spoke words that can be rendered roughly as follows: “Try now and later, as much as you can,” she said to the boy, “to do things for me!” Then she remained present for a while longer, making gestures that, once seen, can never be erased from one’s mind; she walked over to the stove and disappeared into it. This event made a very deep impression on the boy. He had no one in his family to whom he could have spoken of such a thing, for if he had reported this incident, he would have had to endure the harshest words about his foolish superstition even back then.

[ 14 ] After this incident, the following happened. The father, who was otherwise a very cheerful man, became quite sad after that day, and the boy could tell that his father was keeping something from him—something he knew. After a few days had passed and another family member had been prepared in the appropriate manner, it finally became clear what had happened. In a place that, according to the way of thinking of the people in question, was quite far from that train station, a very close family member had taken his own life at the very same hour that the figure had appeared to the little boy in the waiting room. The boy had never seen this family member; nor had he ever heard much about him, because—and this must also be emphasized—in a certain sense he was somewhat impervious to the stories circulating among those around him; they went in one ear and out the other, and he hadn’t really heard much of what had been said. Thus, he also knew little about that person who had taken his own life. The event made a profound impression, for there is no doubt whatsoever that it involved a visit from the spirit of the person who had taken his own life, who had approached the boy to entrust him with a task to perform on his behalf in the time immediately following his death. Moreover, as has just been recounted, the connections between this spiritual event and the physical plane became equally evident in the days that followed.

[ 15 ] Now, anyone who experiences something like this in early childhood and must seek to understand it in accordance with the nature of their soul knows, from the moment such an event occurs—provided they experience it consciously—how one lives in the spiritual worlds. And since the revelation of the spiritual worlds is to be discussed only insofar as is immediately necessary, it should be noted here right away that, from that event onward, a life within the soul began for the boy, to whom those worlds were fully revealed—worlds from which not only the outer trees and mountains speak to the human soul, but also those worlds that lie beyond them. And from that point on, the boy lived, as it were, with the spirits of nature—which, after all, are particularly evident in such a region—and with the creative beings behind things, in the same way that he allowed the outer world to influence him.

[ 16 ] After his father’s transfer—as already mentioned—to a town located on the border between Austria and Hungary, though still within Hungary, the boy enrolled in that town’s rural school. It was a rural school of the old style, as they existed at that time, where boys and girls naturally attended classes together. What could be learned at this rural school—though, of course, it was not particularly much—did not even have a full impact on the boy in question, for the simple reason that the excellent teacher at this rural school—excellent in his own way within the limits of what was possible—had a special fondness for drawing. And since the boy showed an aptitude for drawing quite early on, that teacher simply took him out of the classroom during the time when the other students were being taught how to read and write, led him into his little study, and the boy was always made to draw, so that he was able relatively soon to draw—quite nicely, as some people said—one of Hungary’s most prominent political figures, namely Count Széchenyi.

[ 17 ] Of course, there was also a pastor living in that town. But the boy didn’t learn much about religion from the pastor who came to that rural school every week. One can only say that it was because the subject didn’t particularly interest him. Religious matters were not discussed much at home, and there was no particular interest in them. On the other hand, the pastor once came to school with a small drawing he had made; it was the Copernican model of the universe. He explained it to a few boys and girls whom he thought would be particularly receptive to it, so that the boy, who had been unable to learn anything about religion from the pastor, came to understand the Copernican model of the universe quite well through him.

[ 18 ] The place where all this happened was a very peculiar one, because, so to speak, significant political and cultural circumstances were at play there as well. It was precisely the time when the Hungarians were beginning their Magyarization efforts, and especially in such border regions, many events were unfolding that stemmed from the interrelationships between different ethnic groups, particularly between the Magyar and German peoples. One learned an extraordinary amount about significant cultural conditions—without categorizing everything at the time—so that even there, the boy became acquainted with the most modern circumstances.

[ 19 ] What has been misunderstood is that the boy, like the other schoolboys in the village—though this was only the case for a very short time—had to serve as an altar boy in the village church. It was simply stated there: So-and-so are to ring the bells today, put on their altar server robes, and perform their duties as altar servers. This had not been going on for very long when the boy’s father—for very peculiar reasons—insisted that these altar server duties should not be extended for too long. Due to certain circumstances, the boy could not always avoid arriving late from time to time, and his father did not want his son to receive the same beatings as the other boys when they were late for bell-ringing. So he managed to have his son removed from this duty.

[ 20 ] In yet another respect, the circumstances at that time were quite interesting. The pastor, who was not actually particularly devoted to his ministry but did not let this show—unlike that other pastor I mentioned earlier—was an extraordinarily fervent Hungarian patriot, and it seemed wise to him—even the boy could see that—to oppose something that was emerging in that place at the time, which just goes to show how, even as a boy, one could study cultural and historical conditions quite well there. Namely, a fierce struggle had broken out between the pastor and the Masonic lodge located in that town, which, as a border town, was already within Hungary. Such border towns were often chosen by the lodges. The local Freemasons leveled the most unbelievable accusations against the Church, alongside the legitimate ones. And if one wished to become acquainted with what—even justifiably—could be raised against the clerical establishment, one had ample opportunity to do so, even if one had not yet passed a certain age.

[ 21 ] Some things that do not exactly help instill a special respect for the Church in a boy should not really be included in a later publication, but they should be mentioned here nonetheless. For it certainly did not contribute to increasing reverence for ecclesiastical traditions that the boy had to witness the following. There was a farmer’s son from that village who had managed to become a clergyman—something farmers are particularly proud of. He had become a Cistercian monk, which the boy hadn’t witnessed, but he saw what was happening now. At the time, a grand celebration had been organized, for the entire village was proud that a farmer’s son had made it that far. Five or six years had passed; the priest in question had been assigned a parish and would occasionally return to his hometown. There, one could observe how a wagon—pushed by a woman dressed in peasant attire and that priest—was becoming heavier and heavier. It was, in fact, a baby carriage, and with each passing year, there was one more child for that carriage. From his very first visit, one could observe a curious expansion of this clergyman’s family, which, as a “side effect” of his celibacy, seemed increasingly strange with each passing year. Perhaps it is worth noting here that this approach did not ensure that the boy developed as much respect as possible for the traditions of the clergy.

[ 22 ] It should also be mentioned that, at the age of about eight, the boy found a copy of Močnik’s *Geometry*—a text widely used in the Austrian provinces—in the library of the teacher mentioned earlier; he then set about studying geometry on his own with great zeal and immersed himself in this very subject with great enthusiasm.

[ 23 ] Then circumstances—which could be characterized in such a way that it was taken for granted in the boy’s family that he should receive only an education that would qualify him for some modern cultural profession —all efforts were directed toward ensuring he did not end up in anything other than a modern cultural profession—these circumstances, then, meant that the boy was sent not to a Gymnasium but to a Realschule. He therefore did not receive any education at all that could have prepared him for a clerical vocation, for he did not attend a Gymnasium but only a Realschule, which at that time in Austria would not have provided the qualifications necessary for a future clerical vocation. He was quite well prepared for the Realschule thanks to his talent for drawing and his aptitude for geometry.

[ 24 ] He struggled only with language-related matters, including German. Until he was fourteen or fifteen, that boy made the most foolish mistakes in German on his school assignments; it was only the content that repeatedly helped him get past the numerous grammatical and spelling errors. Since these are symptoms of a certain disposition of the soul, it is also worth mentioning that the boy in question was led to disregard certain grammatical and orthographic conventions—even in his native language—because he lacked, in a certain sense, a connection to what one might call an “immediate immersion” in the very dry, physical reality of life. This sometimes manifested itself in a grotesque way. Here is one example: At the rural school the boy attended before entering secondary school, the children were always required to write greetings on beautiful, colorful paper for New Year’s and their parents’ name days, and so on. These were then rolled up and, after the content had been memorized, placed by the teacher into a so-called small paper sleeve; these were subsequently handed over to the respective family members to whom they were addressed, while the content was recited aloud. That pastor, who once made an inevitably comical impression on the boy by ranting and raving terribly when the local Masonic lodge was built—and, because, to top it all off—a phrase that lent itself well to a striking turn of phrase —the founder of the Masonic lodge was a Jew—it was inextricably funny—proclaimed from the pulpit that among all the things that make a person bad, one of them was becoming something like a Jew or a Freemason; that pastor had a son—and please do not think anything bad of this—living on his parsonage grounds. He also attended our school and wrote his congratulatory messages there. It so happened one day that the boy Rudolf Steiner glanced at the draft of the congratulatory message written by the boy in question, who lived in the parsonage, and noticed that this boy did not sign his name like the others, but wrote: “Your most devoted nephew.” The boy Rudolf Steiner did not know at the time what a “nephew” was; he did not have much sense of the connection between words and things when the words were rarely spoken. But he had a remarkable sense for the sound of words, for what one can hear through the sound of words. And so the boy heard from the sound of the word “nephew” that it was something particularly heartfelt when one signed off on a greeting to one’s relatives as “Your affectionately devoted nephew,” and he now began to sign off to his father and mother as well: “Your affectionately devoted nephew.” It was only after learning the facts that the boy realized what a nephew actually was. This happened when he was ten years old.

[ 25 ] Then the boy started attending the secondary school in the neighboring town. It wasn’t exactly easy to get to that secondary school. Given his parents’ financial situation, it was out of the question for him to live in the city. But attending the secondary school was made possible by the fact that the city was only an hour’s walk from where he lived. If—which didn’t happen very often—the railroad tracks weren’t snowed in during the winter, the boy could take the train to school in the morning. But especially during times when even the walk wasn’t particularly pleasant—since it led across fields—the railroad tracks were in fact very often snowed in, and then the boy often had to trudge through snow that was truly knee-deep on his way to school between half past six and eight in the morning. And in the evening, there was no way to get home other than on foot. When I look back now on the boy who had to make quite an effort to get to school and back again, I can’t help but say that it is my belief that the degree of good health I myself now enjoy may be attributable to that strenuous wading through knee-deep snow and to the other hardships associated with attending secondary school. It was, after all, thanks to a charitable woman in town who invited the boy to her home for lunch—throughout his first four years of school—and gave him something to eat that, at least to some extent, alleviated the hardship of having nothing to eat. On the other hand, however, this also provided an opportunity to witness the most modern cultural conditions. For that woman’s husband was employed at the local locomotive factory, and there the boy learned a great deal about the conditions of that industrial town, which were extraordinarily important for that time. Thus, the most modern industrial conditions also cast their shadow over the boy’s life.

[ 26 ] There were several things related to school that interested the boy in an extraordinary way. First of all, there was the principal of the secondary school, a very peculiar man. He was at the very center of the scientific world of that time and devoted all his efforts to establishing a kind of worldview based on the concepts and ideas of natural science in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Through his principal’s endeavors, the boy came across a school essay titled “Gravitational Force Considered as an Effect of Motion.” And the text began right away with some very complex integrals. The boy’s greatest ambition was now to immerse himself in what he could not understand, and he read it over and over again, as much as he could grasp. He grasped a certain meaning: that the forces of the world—and even the force of attraction—were to be explained in terms of motion. A desire now arose in the boy to learn as much mathematics as possible as soon as possible so that he could fully grasp these ideas. This was not entirely easy, since one first had to learn a great deal of geometry to understand such matters.

[ 27 ] Now something else came into play. At that secondary school, there was an excellent physics and mathematics teacher who had written a second essay for the curriculum, which the boy happened to see. It was an extraordinarily interesting essay on probability theory and life insurance. And the second inspiration the boy drew from it was precisely this: he wanted to learn how to insure people based on the rules of probability theory, and that was explained very clearly in that essay.

[ 28 ] Then there is a third teacher who must be mentioned: the geometry teacher. The boy was fortunate enough to have this teacher as early as his second year of school and to learn from him what would later lead to descriptive geometry and is connected with geometric drawing, so that on the one hand he had arithmetic and on the other, in addition, freehand drawing. The geometry teacher was someone other than the principal and someone other than the one who wrote the essay on life insurance. The way this teacher presented geometry and provided instruction on how to use a compass and ruler was exceptionally practical, and it can be said that, as a result of this teacher’s guidance, the boy became completely enamored with geometry and also with geometric drawing using a compass and ruler. The clear and practical approach to teaching geometry was further enhanced by the fact that this teacher insisted that the textbooks be used merely as a sort of decoration. He would dictate what he taught to the students and draw it himself on the blackboard; the students would copy it, thereby creating their own workbooks, and really needed to know nothing more than what they had worked out in their own workbooks. It was a good way to work independently. In other subjects, on the other hand, there was often a pretty good guide to simply sleeping through everything that came up.

[ 29 ] It so happened that, as early as his third year of secondary school, the boy had the opportunity to be taught by the very same math and physics teacher who had written the essay on probability theory and life insurance. He turned out to be an absolutely excellent math and physics teacher. And whenever the man—who the boy has become—is struck by a thought as he recalls that teacher, it is this: that he would like, at any time, to lay a wreath in spiritual tribute before that outstanding math and physics teacher. Now he began in earnest to devote himself to mathematics and physics, and so it came to pass that he was able, relatively soon, to gain access to Lübsen’s excellent textbooks for self-study in mathematics—which were far more widespread then than they are today. With the guidance of H. B. Lübsen’s books, the boy also managed relatively quickly to understand what his principal had written about “the force of attraction considered as an effect of motion” and what his teacher had written about probability theory and life insurance. It was a great joy to have gradually come to understand these things.

[ 30 ] Another factor in the boy’s life was that he had no money to have his schoolbooks bound. So he learned bookbinding from one of his father’s assistants and was able to spend his vacations binding his own schoolbooks. It seems important to me to emphasize this, because it meant a great deal for that boy’s development to become familiar with something as practical as bookbinding at a relatively early age.

[ 31 ] But there were other factors at play as well. It was the period we are now discussing—precisely the time when Austria introduced the new metric system of weights and measures, the meter-kilogram system, to replace the old system of customs measures, feet, pounds, and hundredweights. And the boy witnessed all the enthusiasm that unfolded in every aspect of life when people stopped calculating in the old way with feet, pounds, and hundredweights and began to use meters and kilograms instead. And the book he read most often—which he always carried in his pocket—was the one, now long forgotten, about the new system of weights and measures. And the boy could quickly recite how many kilograms a certain number of pounds amounted to and how many meters a certain number of feet amounted to, for the book contained long tables on these subjects.

[ 32 ] One figure who played a role in the boy’s life must not go unmentioned: a doctor, a very free-spirited doctor, who—and I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so—had a certain “far-sighted outlook on life.” This did give him his quirks, but in certain respects he was an exceptionally good doctor. Yet things like this would happen to him: The boy had already met the doctor at the first train station, where the occult phenomenon had taken place. At that time, the following had occurred. The switchman at that station was suffering from severe toothache. The doctor in question was also a railroad doctor and, although he did not live there, was responsible for treating the switchman. And lo and behold, the good doctor wanted to get things done quickly and sent a telegram stating that he would arrive on a specific train. However, he intended to get off the train only for as long as it was stopped, to extract the tooth during that time, and then continue on his way immediately. The whole thing was staged: the doctor arrived on the scheduled train, pulled the switchman’s tooth, and continued on his way. But after the doctor had left, the switchman came over and said, “Well, he just pulled out a healthy tooth, but the bad one doesn’t hurt anymore!”

[ 33 ] Then one day the switchman had a stomachache, and the doctor tried to send him away in much the same way. This time, however, the train he had arrived on was an express that didn’t stop at the station. So he ordered the switchman to stand on the platform and stick out his tongue as the train passed by; he would then send word from the next station. And that’s exactly what happened: The switchman had to stand there and stick out his tongue as the train passed by, and the doctor then phoned back the prescription from the next station. These were a few examples of this doctor’s “broad outlook on life.” But he was a subtle, extraordinarily philanthropic person

[ 34 ] The boy had long since studied the new system of weights and measures and had familiarized himself with integral and differential calculus. But he knew nothing of Goethe and Schiller beyond what was in the schoolbooks—a few poems—and nothing else about German literature, or literature in general. Yet the boy had retained a peculiar, natural affection for that doctor, and with genuine reverence he would walk past the doctor’s windows in the part of town where the secondary school was located. There he could see him behind the window with a green screen over his eyes, and unnoticed, he could watch as the doctor sat absorbed in his books, studying. During a visit the doctor made to the village mentioned last, it so happened that he invited the boy to come visit him sometime. The boy then went to see him, and the doctor became a loving mentor, providing the boy with the most important works of German literature—sometimes in annotated editions—and always sending him on his way with a kind word, welcoming him just as warmly when he returned the books. Thus, the doctor, about whom I first told you the other side of the story, was a figure who became one of the most respected in the boy’s life. Much of what entered the boy’s soul in terms of literature and related subjects came from that doctor.

[ 35 ] Now something peculiar turned out to be true for the boy. Thanks to that outstanding geometry teacher, he developed a deep passion for descriptive geometry, and as a result, something happened that is worth mentioning—something that had never happened before at that school or at any other school: the boy in question began, starting in the fourth grade, to receive a grade in “Descriptive Geometry and Drawing” that was not normally awarded at all. The highest grade, which was difficult to obtain, was “excellent”; he had received “outstanding.” He truly understood all these subjects much better than he did literature and similar subjects.

[ 36 ] But there were also some other aspects to school. For example, across a number of classes, the history teacher was a rather boring old man, and it was extremely difficult to pay attention; what he lectured on was exactly what was in the book, and it was easier to understand if you read it in the book afterward. So the boy devised a curious system that was in line with his interests at the time. Although he never had much money, if he set aside the kreuzers he received here and there for weeks on end, he was eventually able to save up a little. Now, as luck would have it, the Reclam Universal Library had just been founded at that time, and among the first works to be published were, for example, Kant’s works. The first thing the boy bought from the Universal Library was Kant’s *Critique of Pure Reason*. He was between fourteen and fifteen years old at the time. His professor’s history lectures bored him terribly. He didn’t have much free time; there were many school assignments that had to be completed between the evening and the next morning. The only time that could be put to good use was the hour during which the history teacher lectured so tediously. So the boy began to think about how he could make use of this time. He was familiar with bookbinding. So he took the history book apart and, using proper bookbinding techniques, neatly pasted the pages of Kant’s *Critique of Pure Reason* between the pages of the history book. And while the teacher up front was recounting what was in the book, the boy read Kant’s *Critique of Pure Reason* with great attention. And he was attentive, for by the age of fifteen he had managed to read Kant’s *Critique of Pure Reason* in depth, and was then able to move on to studying Kant’s other works. It can truly be said, without exaggeration, that by the age of sixteen or seventeen, the boy had managed to absorb Kant’s works—to the extent that they were available in the Reclam Universal Library—for his studies during history class were supplemented by further study during the school breaks. He devoted himself eagerly to Kant, and it was indeed a new world that opened up to the boy at that time through the study of these Kantian works, from a physical perspective.

[ 37 ] His time at the Realschule was now coming to an end. The boy had had a very modern school experience. Two things are worth highlighting. In the upper grades, there was also a very good chemistry teacher who didn’t speak much; he usually said only what was absolutely necessary. But all sorts of apparatus were laid out on a table several meters long, and everything was demonstrated. The most complicated experiments were conducted, accompanied only by the absolute minimum of words. And when another such interesting class was over, the students would ask, “Doctor”—he preferred to be addressed that way rather than “Professor”—“Will we be doing experiments or taking a test next time?” and the answer was usually, “Experiments,” and everyone was happy again. Exams were usually held only during the last two hours before report cards were to be issued. But everyone had always paid close attention and participated actively in his classes, and so it came to pass—because he was also an outstanding man—that the students always knew their stuff. It may also be noted that he was the brother of that figure who has now once again become well-known in Austria—the brother of the Austrian-Tyrolean poet Hermann von Gilm, a significant lyric poet. As an exception, it is permissible here to mention his name, since he is no longer with us and only good things can be said about him.

[ 38 ] Another point worth noting was that near that place there was a castle where a man lived—the Count of Chambord—who was a pretender to a European throne but was never able to ascend to that throne due to political circumstances. He was a great benefactor to the local area, and people heard a great deal about what went on in the pretender’s castle. Of course, the boy never had the opportunity to meet the count himself; but he was the talk of the town throughout the entire region. Even though he was a man of whom one could say that few people shared his views, the shadow of important political circumstances—which one could learn about through him—still spread over the town.

[ 39 ] Now other things came into play. The boy’s interest, which had been sparked by Kant, gradually grew to the point where he also developed a desire to explore other philosophical topics, and he began to acquire works on psychology and logic with his rather limited means. He felt a particular affinity for Lindner’s books, which, as far as psychology was concerned, were quite good textbooks, and, even before he graduated from secondary school, he gained a fairly good understanding of Herbart’s philosophy from the lines of thought presented there. This had, however, caused him some difficulty, for the German language teacher—who, incidentally, was an excellent man and rendered great service to the school system—had not at all approved of the fact that the boy Rudolf Steiner was engrossed in such reading, which led him to write terribly long school essays, sometimes even filling an entire notebook. And after the high school graduation exam, when the students, as was customary, gathered with the teachers one last time before leaving school, he said to the boy: “Yes, you were my greatest wordsmith; I was always afraid when your notebook came around.” Once, for example, after the boy had used the term “psychological freedom,” he had advised him: “You really seem to have a philosophical library at home; I would advise you not to concern yourself too much with it.”

[ 40 ] The boy was also particularly interested in a lecture given by a professor from the small town on “pessimism.” It should also be mentioned that there were later years when history was once again taught exceptionally well at the secondary school. And it was then that the boy truly immersed himself in the history of the Thirty Years’ War, because he was able to get his hands on Rotteck’s *World History*, which made a great impression due to the warmth with which the first volumes of this work were written.

[ 41 ] Another point worth noting—in a sense—is that the boy attended religious instruction only as required during his first four years of school. Once he was exempted from religious instruction by the school curriculum starting in the fourth grade, he no longer attended those classes. Due to his family’s circumstances, he was also never prepared for Confirmation, so he has not been confirmed to this day. You are therefore not dealing with a confirmed person. For in the circles in which the boy grew up, it was taken for granted that one did not participate in such things as clerical institutions. In contrast, it made a deep impression on him that, during his high school graduation exam in physics, he was asked a question so modern that it was likely the first time it had ever been asked in Austrian schools. Specifically, he had to explain the telephone, which had only just become widespread at that time. There really was a connection to the very latest developments. He had to write on the blackboard how to make a phone call from one station to another.

[ 42 ] The fact was that, after his school years, a whole host of philosophical longings had been stirred within the boy. His high school graduation exams were over, and his father had himself transferred to a train station near Vienna so that the boy could now attend college. It was during the vacation period following the high school graduation exams, and a deep longing to resolve philosophical questions truly took hold. There was only one way to satisfy this longing. Over the years, a number of school textbooks had been piled up; these were now taken to a used bookstore, where they were exchanged for a nice little sum. That was immediately spent on philosophical books. And now the boy read what he hadn’t yet read by Kant—for example, his 1763 treatise on the “Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Quantities into World Wisdom” or Kant’s “Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics,” which refers to Swedenborg. But it wasn’t just Kant; the entire body of literature could be traced through individual representative works by Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, and their students—such as Karl Leonhard Reinhold—as well as Darwin and so on. This led to a philosopher who no longer enjoys much prestige today: Traugott Krug, the Kantian.

[ 43 ] Now the boy was to go to college. Of course, he could only attend a technical university, since he had no prior training in the humanities or classical studies. He did, in fact, enroll at the Technical University in Vienna and, during his first few years, took courses in chemistry, physics, zoology, botany, biology, mineralogy, geology, mathematics, geometry, and pure mechanics. In addition, he took a course in German literary history with the man who, incidentally, was quite deeply connected to the boy’s life—the lecturer on German literature at the Technical University, Karl Julius Schröer.

[ 44 ] Something very special happened as early as the boy’s first year of college. Through a unique chain of circumstances, a remarkable figure entered the boy’s life—a figure who possessed no formal education but had extensive, profound knowledge and comprehensive, deep wisdom. Let us call this individual by his first name, Felix—his real name—who lived with his farming family in a remote, isolated mountain village, whose room was filled with mystical and occult literature, who had delved deeply into mystical and occult wisdom himself, and who spent most of his time collecting plants. He collected the most diverse plants throughout the surrounding areas, and—as one could perceive when, on the rare occasions when one was permitted to accompany him on his solitary walks—he knew how to explain every single plant based on its essence and its occult underpinnings. There were truly immense occult depths within that man. It was significant what could be discussed with him when, with a bundle on his back containing a large number of plants he had gathered and dried, he would travel to the capital—where the boy was also bound. There were very important conversations with this man, whom in Austria they call a “Dürrkräutler”—one who gathers and dries herbs and then delivers them to pharmacies. That was the man’s outward profession; his inner one, of course, was quite different. It should not go unmentioned that he loved everything in the world and only became bitter—though this should be noted merely from a cultural-historical perspective—when he spoke of clerical conditions and of what he, too, had to endure because of them; he was not fond of them.

[ 45 ] But something else followed soon after. My Felix was, in a sense, merely the harbinger of another personality who employed a means to stimulate, within the soul of the boy—who was, after all, already in the spiritual world—the regular, systematic things with which one must be familiar in the spiritual world. That personality—who was, once again, as far removed as possible from all forms of clericalism and, of course, had nothing to do with it—actually made use of Fichte’s works to develop certain reflections from which emerged ideas in which one might indeed find the seeds of the “Secret Science” that the man—who had grown from the boy—later wrote. And much of what became “The Secret Science” was discussed at that time in connection with Fichte’s propositions. That outstanding man was just as unassuming in his outward profession as Felix was. It was a book that he used, as it were, as a point of reference—a book that has become little known in the outer world and that was often suppressed in Austria because of its anticlerical orientation, but through which one can be inspired to follow very special spiritual paths and ways. Those peculiar currents that flow through the occult world—which can only be recognized by considering a dual current, one ascending and one descending—came vividly before the boy’s soul at that time. It was during the period when the boy had not yet read the second part of *Faust* that he was introduced to the occult in this way. There is no need to speak further about this aspect of the occult training of the young man—the boy had now grown into—for everything that presented itself to him remained within his soul; he experienced it within himself and continued on his outer path of life.

[ 46 ] He was initially inspired by Karl Julius Schröer’s lectures on literary history, titled “German Literature Since Goethe’s First Appearance,” particularly by what Goethe had written—especially his “Theory of Colors” and the second part of “Faust,” which he studied as an eighteen- to nineteen-year-old youth. At the same time, he studied Herbart’s philosophy, specifically his “Metaphysics.” The young man, who was already quite familiar with philosophy, had experienced a strange disappointment, yet for certain personal reasons, he came to appreciate Herbart’s philosophy. A joyful longing had taken root within him to meet one of the most prominent lecturers on Herbart’s philosophy, namely Robert Zimmermann. This turned out to be a disappointment, because one’s appreciation of Herbart’s philosophy was greatly dampened upon hearing Robert Zimmermann, who was otherwise witty but unbearable at the lectern.

[ 47 ] In contrast, there was a suggestion that was very uplifting, coming from a man who later became involved in the life of the person in question here—the historian Ottokar Lorenz. The young man, in fact, had little inclination to attend the lectures at the Technical University with pedantic regularity, although he did participate in everything. In the meantime, as a visiting student at the university, he had also attended lectures by Robert Zimmermann on “Practical Philosophy” as well as Franz Brentano’s lectures on “Psychology,” which at the time—though this was less due to the nature of the subject matter—did not make as strong an impression on the young man as Brentano’s books did later, and which the man who had grown from that young man then came to know thoroughly. Ottokar Lorenz made a certain impression with his spirit of freedom, for he gave quite free-thinking lectures at that time—during the so-called “Austrian liberal era.” And Ottokar Lorenz was precisely the kind of person who could make an impression on very young people. He really did speak in the harshest terms at the college; as a historian, he would launch into a discussion—backed by ample evidence—of whatever needed to be addressed, and in doing so was a completely honest man who, for example, after having analyzed some “touchy” situations, could say: “I had to sugarcoat it a bit; because, gentlemen, if I had said everything there is to say about it, the district attorney would be sitting here next time.”

[ 48 ] It was the same Ottokar Lorenz about whom—according to the anecdote (insofar as anecdotes are true: namely, truer than true)—the following is told. A colleague of his, who was particularly interested in the auxiliary sciences of history, had a favorite student whom Lorenz had to help examine when the student came to defend his dissertation. For example, the candidate was immediately able to provide detailed information on which papal documents first contained the dot over the “i.” And since the candidate was able to provide such precise answers to everything, Ottokar Lorenz could not resist asking: “I’d also like to ask the candidate a question. Can you tell me when that pope, in whose documents the dot over the ‘i’ first appears, was born?” The candidate did not know. Then he asked him further if he could tell him when that pope had died. He didn’t know that either. Then he asked what else he knew about this pope. But the candidate couldn’t say anything about that either. Then the teacher, whose favorite student the young man was, remarked: “But Mr. Candidate, you’re acting today as if you had a board nailed to your forehead!” Then Lorenz said, “Well, colleague, he is your favorite student after all—who nailed that board to his head?” Things like that used to happen.

[ 49 ] Lorenz was the darling of the student body at the University of Vienna, and he also served as rector there for one year. It was customary there for someone who had been rector to become vice-rector the following year. After him, a radical of the most extreme sort—who was immensely unpopular—was elected rector. The students took great delight in playing all sorts of pranks on him. Now, Lorenz was the fiercest opponent of that clericalist, who was a proponent of canon law. That rector could no longer even enter the university, for as soon as he made a move to do so, the commotion would begin immediately. Then the vice-rector had to come and restore order. As soon as Lorenz appeared, the student body cheered him on. But Ottokar Lorenz stood there and said: “Your applause leaves me completely cold. If you—no matter how differently the two of us may think—treat my colleague the way you do and cheer for me, then I tell you that I, who am not worthy of the scholarship required to untie my opponent’s shoelaces, care nothing for your applause and reject it!” - “Pereat! Pereat!” the crowd chanted, and that was the end of his popularity. Lorenz then went to Jena, and the one speaking here met with him on several more occasions. Now he is no longer on the physical plane. He was an outstanding personality. Every detail is still vivid in my mind of how he once gave a lecture on the relationship between Carl August’s activities and the rest of German politics. When, the following year, once again at the meeting of the Goethe Society, Ottokar Lorenz was sitting there and we were talking about that lecture he had given back then, these words came from his deep sincerity: “Yes, as far as that goes—when I spoke back then about Carl August’s relationship to German politics, I really put my foot in it!” He was always ready to admit when he was wrong.

[ 50 ] In addition to various other figures who made an impression on the young man at that time, mention should be made of an outstanding man—who, however, died soon afterward—from whom the young man took courses on the “History of Physics” at the Vienna University of Technology. It was Edmund Reitlinger, who also contributed to the “Life of Kepler” and was able to present the development of physics through the ages in an outstanding manner.

[ 51 ] In many respects, Karl Julius Schröer provided significant inspiration; he made an impact not only through his lectures but also by establishing “Exercises in Oral Presentation and Written Expression.” In these sessions, students were required to give presentations, and there they learned how to properly structure a speech. In the process, they were also able to make up for some of what they had previously failed to learn regarding sentence structure; in short, they received thorough instruction in oral presentation and written composition. And I can vividly recall what the young man in question presented at that time. The first presentation was on the significance of Lessing, particularly on *Laocoon*; the second was on Kant, focusing primarily on the problem of freedom. Then he gave a lecture on Herbart, focusing particularly on Herbart’s ethics; the fourth lecture, which was delivered on a trial basis at the time, dealt with pessimism. At that time, a fellow student in this seminar on “Oral Presentation and Written Expression” had sparked a discussion about Schopenhauer, and the young man in question said during the debate: “I hold Schopenhauer in the highest regard, but if what emerges as the conclusion of Schopenhauer’s worldview is true, then I would rather be the wooden post on which my foot now stands than a living being.” Such was his state of mind; the young man wanted to defend himself against an enraged Schopenhauerian. That he would no longer oppose him is evident from the fact that he himself published an edition of Schopenhauer’s works in which he attempted to do justice to Schopenhauer’s views.

[ 52 ] At that time, there was also a student association at the Vienna University of Technology, and the young man in question was appointed treasurer of that association. But he only dealt with the finances at certain times; he was more concerned with the library—firstly because he was interested in philosophy, but also because he longed to become more familiar with intellectual life. This longing had grown very strong, but he lacked the means to buy books, for he had little money. And so it came to pass that, after some time, he naturally became the librarian of that student association. And whenever books were needed, he would write, on behalf of the student association, a so-called “borrowing letter” to the author of a work they wished to obtain, informing the author that the students would be exceedingly pleased if he would send his book. And these “Pump letters” were usually answered in an exceptionally kind manner—the books actually arrived. Back then, the most significant books ever written in the field of philosophy indeed found their way into the student association in this manner and were read—at least by the one who had written the “Pump letters.” As a result, the student in question was able not only to familiarize himself with Johannes Volkelt’s *Theory of Knowledge* and the works of Richard Falckenberg, but also with the works of Helmholtz and works on the systematic history of philosophy. Many sent their books; even Kuno Fischer once donated a volume of his *History of Modern Philosophy*. In this way, the library also acquired the complete works of Baron Hellenbach, who sent all his works immediately after receiving a request letter. Thus, there was ample opportunity to familiarize oneself with works in philosophy, cultural studies, and literary history. But one could also sufficiently deepen one’s understanding in other fields as well.

[ 53 ] But then, through his personal and increasingly close relationship with Karl Julius Schröer—who was not only a connoisseur but also a profoundly significant commentator on Goethe—the young man began to take an interest in Goethe’s ideas, and especially in his ideas about the natural sciences. After making a wide variety of efforts, Schröer succeeded in having certain of the young man’s physics-oriented essays on “Theory of Colors” published.

[ 54 ] He was then offered the opportunity to contribute to the major edition of Goethe’s works, which was being organized at the time by Joseph Kürschner as part of the “Kürschner’s National Literature” series, and to be assigned the task of editing Goethe’s scientific writings, as well as the commission to write the introduction to them. When the first volume of “Goethe’s Scientific Writings, with Introductions by Rudolf Steiner” was published, he felt the need to present, from the very foundations, the intellectual sources from which the entire worldview—as set forth here for an understanding of Goethe—had emerged. Therefore, between the publication of the first and second volumes, he wrote *The Epistemology of Goethe’s Worldview*.

[ 55 ] From earlier, in the early 1980s, only a few essays come to mind: one published under the title “Auf der Höhe,” one on Hermann Hettner, one on Lessing, and one on “Parallels between Shakespeare and Goethe.” These are, in essence, all the essays that were written at that time.

[ 56 ] Rudolf Steiner soon became deeply involved in writing when he joined the editorial staff of *Kürschner’s German National Literature* and was tasked with editing Goethe’s scientific writings, complete with detailed introductions. It should also be emphasized that, just as the student association had previously served as a kind of support for him, the Vienna “Goethe Society”—whose vice-chairman was Karl Julius Schröer—now took on that role. It was also a source of inspiration for Rudolf Steiner that Schröer invited him, after the first volumes of Goethe’s works had been published, to give a lecture before an audience such as the members of the Vienna “Goethe Society.” And there Rudolf Steiner delivered his lecture on “Goethe as the Father of a New Aesthetics.”

[ 57 ] At that time, the man whose life story is to be recounted here had, after completing his university studies, become a tutor. After all, he had been giving private lessons since the age of fourteen, had to teach other boys, and had to continue these lessons later on to earn a living; while he was attending college, he had quite a few students. One might say: He was fortunate to have quite a few students whom he tutored or whom he even raised from childhood. This coincided with his admission to the Goethe Society.

[ 58 ] He then became a tutor in a Viennese household. With regard to this household, it must be said once again that there was something about it that radiated the most modern conditions. For the master of the house, whose sons were to be educated by Rudolf Steiner, was one of the most respected figures in the cotton trade between Europe and America—a trade that can indeed provide the deepest insight into modern commercial problems. He was a decidedly liberal man. And the two women, two sisters—two families, as it were, lived together in close harmony in this household—were truly outstanding women who possessed the deepest understanding, on the one hand, of childrearing and, on the other, of the idealism expressed in Rudolf Steiner’s *Introductions to Goethe’s Scientific Writings* and in *The Theory of Knowledge*. Now it became possible, so to speak, to learn practical psychology through the education of a number of boys. Practical psychology also in that one was allowed to take the initiative in all matters concerning education, because one could encounter such a deep understanding, particularly in the mother of these boys. What Rudolf Steiner undertook there was a role as an educator that he was to carry out over the course of many years. And he spent these years in such a way that, in addition to the teaching duties he had to perform as an educator, he was also able to devote himself to the elaboration of his treatise as an introduction to Goethe’s scientific works.

[ 59 ] By this time, Rudolf Steiner had completed his studies at a Realschule, had spent time at the Vienna University of Technology, and was now working as a teacher of boys who were themselves Realschule students, only one of whom attended a college. Because one of them attended a gymnasium, Rudolf Steiner was now compelled to make up for his lack of gymnasium education. Thus, driven by this necessity, after reaching the ages of twenty and twenty-one, he was able to study the gymnasium curriculum alongside the boy, and it was only this that later enabled him to earn his doctorate.

[ 60 ] The situation is thus that, before the age of twenty, Rudolf Steiner had nothing to do with anything other than a secondary school, which in Austria never prepares students for a spiritual vocation but, on the contrary, actively steers them away from it. He then attended a technical university, which likewise does not prepare one for a spiritual vocation, since the curriculum there included chemistry, physics, zoology, botany, mechanics (as it relates to mechanical engineering), geology, and so on, as well as modern geometry, such as “solid geometry.” Parallel to this, during his time at the university, he delved deeply into a wide variety of philosophical works; then, as he became more familiar with Schröer, he began studying the editions of Goethe’s works; and then came what one might call his “professional” work: his work as an educator, which—because he had to develop a psychological perspective, given that the circumstances were difficult due to one boy’s abnormality— could be considered “practical psychology.” This period, therefore, did not—as some people claim—take place at the Jesuit seminary in Kalksburg—now yet another location is being mentioned—but rather was spent working as a tutor in a Jewish household in Vienna, where the person in question certainly had not the slightest guidance to develop a Jesuit way of life. For the understanding that the two women developed regarding the idealism of the time or the educational principles for the children was in no way conducive to bringing Jesuitism into the picture.

[ 61 ] There was, however, something that peered in, as it were, like a shadow from the world of Jesuitism. And this is how it came about. Schröer became acquainted with the Austrian poet Marie Eugenie delle Grazie, who lived in the home of a Catholic priest, Laurenz Müllner, who later transferred to the philosophy department. And one need only read the writings of Marie Eugenie delle Grazie to see immediately that Müllner had by no means intended to bring her under Jesuit influence. But one also came into contact with all sorts of university professors there. Among them was one who was deeply learned in Semitology—the Semitic languages—and who was a profound expert on the Old Testament. He was a highly erudite gentleman of whom it was said that he knew “the whole world and three villages beyond.” But the conversations I had with him that were significant to me were those that related to Christianity. What this scholar said about Christianity at that time related, for one thing, to the question of the “Conceptio immaculata,” the Immaculate Conception. I tried to prove to him that there is a complete inconsistency in this dogma, which, after all, concerns not only the Immaculate Conception of Mary but also that of Mary’s mother, Saint Anne; in which case one would have to keep going further and further back. Now, however, he was one of those theologians who was not at all constrained by the “theologian” label—a thoroughly liberal theologian—and he added: “We cannot do that; for then we would gradually end up with David, and that’s where things would get bad.”

[ 62 ] This was generally the tone of the conversations at Professor Müllner’s home during delle Grazie’s “Jour.” Müllner had a sarcastic wit, and the professors were also liberal-minded men. The only dissenting voice actually came from a man who had something of the Jesuit spirit about him, a man who later met a tragic end. He drowned in a shipwreck in the Adriatic Sea. This man was a church historian at the University of Vienna. He spoke little, but what he did say did not serve to present the other side in a favorable light. For there was a rumor circulating about him that in the evening, once it had grown dark, he would no longer venture out onto the street out of fear, because that was when the Freemasons were on the prowl. He could not, therefore, arouse any particular interest in Jesuitism—first, because he was not a good church historian, and second, because of such gossip. He did, in fact, always disappear before dusk.

[ 63 ] At that time, I also had the opportunity to gain a somewhat deeper understanding of the political situation in Austria, and this came about because I was able to serve as editor of the *Deutsche Wochenschrift*, a journal founded by Heinrich Friedjung. This publication took a decidedly liberal stance on Austrian affairs, which anyone can study by familiarizing themselves with Friedjung’s writings. This period also brought Rudolf Steiner into contact with the broader political landscape and its key figures. Although that editorial work was very brief, it took place during a very important period: after Battenberg had been expelled from Bulgaria and the new Prince of Bulgaria had assumed office. This set the stage for how one was to form an accurate picture of the cultural and political conditions.

[ 64 ] At that time, a work appeared that is quite significant, even if some may consider it one-sided: namely, *The Homunculus* by Robert Hamerling. The *Homunkulus* was particularly significant for the person whose life circumstances are to be described here because Rudolf Steiner had already become acquainted with Hamerling earlier. For although Rudolf Steiner was born in Kraljevec, his family actually came from Lower Austria—specifically from the so-called “Bandlkramerlandl,” where one sees people carrying bundles of ribbons produced there on their backs. That is where the family came from. And as is often the case, families in such occupations end up scattered far and wide, and the boy never returned to Lower Austria. But in a certain sense, he was nevertheless a native of the same “Bandlkramerlandl” from which Hamerling also hailed.

[ 65 ] Hamerling was certainly not treated with any particular understanding. But in his case, one could say that he received, if not a Jesuit education, then at least a monastic one. That is not the case, however, with the man standing before you here. Robert Hamerling wasn’t exactly recognized either, because when he later visited his hometown again and told the innkeeper at the local inn that he was Hamerling, the innkeeper replied: “Well, you… you Hamerling, you Schwammerling…”

[ 66 ] The decision had been made to send “The Epistemology of Goethe’s Worldview” to Hamerling. How Hamerling received it can be gauged from *The Atomism of the Will*, where it was used—precisely in one of the most important chapters, the chapter on the nature of mathematical judgments—in a way that, even today, strikes me as entirely original. There was—albeit not for very long—an exchange of letters with Robert Hamerling that was important to Rudolf Steiner in a certain respect, because, following a letter he had written to Hamerling, this fine stylist told him that he wrote in an exceptionally appealing, beautiful style, and that he possessed a certain talent for powerfully conveying what he wished to express. This was extraordinarily important for Rudolf Steiner, because during those years he still did not have much confidence in himself, but now, thanks to Robert Hamerling’s assessment of his writing style, he had more confidence in this regard than before. It must, of course, be mentioned first that until the age of thirteen or fourteen, the boy had been able to write with very little grammatical and orthographic accuracy, and that only the content of his essays had helped him overcome his errors in grammar and spelling.

[ 67 ] As the Goethe edition neared completion and Rudolf Steiner had caught up on and assimilated classical humanistic culture through his lessons with the boys in his care, the time came for him to earn his doctorate. He had also been able to develop a truly artistic and architectural perspective due to the fact that the great architects of the time were living in Vienna, with whom he had established relationships after getting to know them personally at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. It suffices to mention that the Votivkirche, City Hall, the Parliament Building, and other structures were being built in Vienna at that time. This allowed him to draw much inspiration from his connections to the arts. It is also worth noting that during those times there were heated debates with the fervent Wagnerians, for the person in question here could and had to bring himself—with great effort—to acknowledge Richard Wagner, an acknowledgment that is, of course, well known from other accounts.

[ 68 ] That period was also marked by an encounter with a spiritual movement which, although it had actually begun earlier, was only just emerging in Europe at that time. It was an encounter with what H. P. Blavatsky had popularized as the theosophical movement. And the person in question here may point out that he was likely one of the first buyers of A. P. Sinnett’s *Esoteric Buddhism* as well as Mabel Collins’s book *Light on the Path*. He brought this book to the sickbed of a well-known lady, who was very seriously ill at the time, immediately after its publication and gave her various instructions on how to understand the book from her perspective. He also gave it to a man whom he was preparing for the Austrian officer’s examination in integral calculus and mathematics. The man was staying at the family’s home, where the very seriously ill lady was staying.

[ 69 ] At that time, I also became close to the Viennese representatives of the Theosophical Movement. The person in question developed quite a friendly and intimate relationship with everyone associated with Franz Hartmann—who had recently passed away—as well as with other Theosophists. This was in the years 1884 through 1885, when the Theosophical Movement was just beginning to gain recognition. However, at that time, the person in question was unable to join this movement, even though he knew it very well, because the entire demeanor and conduct of those people—that certain insincerity, so to speak—which is to be used here merely as a technical term—was simply incompatible with what had ultimately developed in the person described here: a scientific precision, accuracy, and authenticity rooted in the life of the spirit. This is not meant to be self-praise; rather, I attribute it more to what results from the scholarship of our time. Whatever other objections one may have against this scholarship, one cannot argue that the greatest, most refined logic could not emerge precisely from it.

[ 70 ] And so it came to pass that the person in question here personally came to know valuable individuals within the Theosophical Society, such as Rosa Mayreder, who later turned her back entirely on the Theosophical movement. There he also gained a thorough, objective, historical understanding of the entire movement, but he could not bring himself to have anything to do with it and only came to apply what he had to say—theosophically, so to speak—in practice when he was prompted to delve deeply into Goethe’s “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” In order to comment on this fairy tale, he first put into practice what had always lived within his soul since the aforementioned first occult experience. This was in 1888, after he had thoroughly familiarized himself with the Theosophical movement but had been unable to join it outwardly, even though he had met valuable people there.

[ 71 ] One profound impression deserves special mention: an impression from an art exhibition in Vienna, where, in 1888, works by Böcklin—the artist whose life is described here—were seen for the first time, namely “Pietà,” “In the Play of the Waves,” “Spring Mood,” and “The Spring Nymph.” These were works that gave him reason to engage more deeply and permanently with ideas about painting, because he naturally wanted to get to the bottom of the matter—much as he had with Richard Wagner, where the starting point was the aforementioned debates—and then to immerse himself particularly in this field of art, a process that later continued in Weimar.

[ 72 ] Once the subject of this biography was ready, it turned out that the work on the major Weimar edition of Goethe’s works was assigned to individual scholars. Those who, at that time, were responsible for assigning the individual tasks on behalf of Grand Duchess Sophie of Weimar initially decided to entrust him solely with Goethe’s *Theory of Colors*. Later, however, when Rudolf Steiner came to Weimar to work on the “Theory of Colors,” he was then entrusted—particularly because he developed a warm and close relationship with Bernhard Suphan, whose life ended so tragically—with the task of editing Goethe’s scientific works. Thus began that Weimar period during which a scientific and philological approach to the subject matter was developed. However, the individual in question was never particularly proud of the actual philological work; he himself could point out many errors in this regard and does not wish to gloss over some of the blunders he made.

[ 73 ] Now that Rudolf Steiner had moved into the old Goethe-Schiller Archive—which was still housed in the castle—he had other important experiences. Scholars from Germany and abroad—including some from America—kept coming, so that this Goethe-Schiller Archive became a gathering place for the most diverse scholarly interests. Furthermore, there was the opportunity to witness the creation of a wonderfully ideal institution; for this was the time when the new Goethe-Schiller Archive was being built across the Ilm. At the same time, there was a unique opportunity to immerse oneself in old memories still tied to the Goethe-Schiller era. And because Weimar was truly a hub for a wide range of artistic interests—Richard Strauss, too, began his career there—it was also an opportunity to become fully immersed in the most diverse artistic pursuits.

[ 74 ] After Rudolf Steiner had interpreted the “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” intensive work on Goethe came strongly to the forefront of his interest. But in addition to delving deeper into Goethe, he was also developing the “Philosophy of Freedom” at that time; he had already brought the essay on “Truth and Science” with him to Weimar. He traveled to Vienna a few more times: once to give a lecture at the Goethe Society on the “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”; and a second time to give a lecture at a scientific club on the relationship between monism and a more spiritual, more real direction. That was in 1893. The lecture can be found in the *Monatsblätter des Wissenschaftlichen Clubs in Wien* (Monthly Journal of the Scientific Club in Vienna). In this lecture, Rudolf Steiner dealt in detail with the relationship between philosophy and the natural sciences. The lecture then concluded with a clear description of his relationship to Ernst Haeckel and highlighted everything Steiner had to say in criticism of Haeckel.

[ 75 ] It is now quite late, so it is not possible to discuss what follows in as much detail as what has gone before. Nor is that necessary. But if you were to investigate much more deeply what took place up to the Weimar era and examine the circumstances—aside from the fact that the facts speak for themselves— find the clearest evidence everywhere of what a tremendous distortion of the truth it is when that strange accusation is made—an accusation that has now been raised once again by the President of the Theosophical Society on a special occasion—namely, that I was “raised by the Jesuits.” I have just been handed an issue of *Stimmen aus Maria-Laach*—which, as is well known, is published by Jesuits—containing a review of a book on theosophy that includes a curious statement. A book has in fact been published that opposes theosophy, written by a Jesuit priest. At the end of the review, it states: “The first part deals with the movement in general, its esotericism, and false mysticism. The second part goes into detail, refuting the theosophical fantasies about Christ. [...] The works to which the critic mostly refers are those of Rudolf Steiner—the (reportedly) apostate priest and current Secretary-General of the German Section of the Theosophical Society—*Christianity as a Mystical Fact*, and those of Miss Besant, the President of the Theosophical Society (headquarters in Adyar), *Esoteric Christianity*; both books have already been translated into Italian.”

[ 76 ] The fact that Rudolf Steiner is a “fallen priest” is even stated in the Jesuit journal itself, *Stimmen aus Maria-Laach*, so that the Jesuits can claim credit for spreading this assertion. But just as age does not protect against folly, neither does Jesuitism protect anyone from unjustly elevating an objective untruth to the status of a claim. And if such a distortion of the facts is even spread by the Jesuits themselves, that should be all the more reason for Miss Besant—one might think—to be suspicious of it. But Miss Besant takes these matters even further, and they are carried on. I even had to refute these claims myself from the podium once, when I was in Graz. It is also claimed that I received a Jesuit education in Kalksburg, near Vienna. I have never seen Kalksburg Abbey, even though my relatives lived only three to four hours away from it. And as for the other place—Bojkowitz—which is mentioned in the same context, I only learned of it by name just a few days ago.

[ 77 ] All these details—which I consider it somewhat unreasonable to have to recount to you—will likely explain to you just how right one is to regret the time one must waste refuting such foolish accusations. That is why not much fuss was made about the accusation. But when this accusation is now raised by the President of the Theosophical Society, it is necessary to counter that assertion by presenting the actual course of my upbringing in my youth and to describe how it really unfolded—namely, as a kind of self-education. Everything I have told you—about the boy, the young man, and the later adult Rudolf Steiner—can be substantiated by documentary evidence, and the facts will demonstrate in every detail just how foolish and nonsensical those fabricated allegations are. We need not dwell on their moral evaluation. What has been said—and what may yet be said about later events—are facts that can be verified at any time; I stand by them. But the question may be raised: By what right, and based on what sources, does Misses Besant speak of what she says about my “upbringing,” from which I was “unable to free myself sufficiently”? And by what right, and based on what sources, will her followers—since they pay no heed to the objections raised here—continue to assert these things? Perhaps some people will even go so far as to say: “But Miss Besant is clairvoyant and may therefore have seen everything she summarizes in these grandiose words: ‘He was unable to free himself sufficiently from his upbringing.’” —It would certainly be better to correct what stems from Miss Besant’s clairvoyance and to test that very clairvoyance against such a factor. There is no other way to counter that “clairvoyance” than to cite the facts. And I have already had to bore those who wish to stand with us at the starting point of our anthroposophical movement by presenting them with the following alternative: either to examine the facts—all of which can be substantiated in detail and verified—or to accept the remarks, which need no further characterization, that Mrs. Besant made at the last Adyar meeting of the Theosophical Society—probably based on the voices of her followers as perceived through her clairvoyance.