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 About Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) founded the Science of the Spirit known as
Anthroposophy. At its basis was an application of Goethe's Natural Scientific
approach to the phenomenon of Steiner's own perception of the spiritual
world. Since childhood, he had been gifted with the power to perceive
happenings in the spiritual world.
He received a thorough contemporary scientific education during his youth
at the Vienna Technische Hochschule. He formed the epistomological basis
for his work in his Philosophy of Freedom and further explored
the foundations of the Goethean approach in A Theory of Knowledge Implict
in Goethe's World-View. He worked at the Goethe-Schiller archives
in Weimar, where he edited the definitive edition of Goethe's Scientific
papers. His commentary in that edition has been published seperately in
English as Goethe the Scientist.
These activities were preparatory to his career as the leading force
in the spiritual movement that became known as anthroposophy. He gave
over 6000 lectures and authored a number of written works on broad themes
of human and cosmic spiritual evolution. Active in many areas - Agriculture
(Bio-Dynamic farming), Medicine, Ecomonics; he is perhaps best known as
the founder of the educational movement known today as the Waldorf Schools,
of which there are hundreds world-wide.
As part of his training of the first teachers of the Waldorf Schools,
he gave a series of the three lecture cycles specifically on the sciences.
They are of particular interest in that they show how his spiritual science,
rooted in the Goethean approach,
feeds back again into the study of Natural Science.
For more links and background on Steiner, see the Anthroposophical
Society in America's site.
The first two courses, The Light Course and the Warmth Course, are in
print; the third has never been published other than in the form of mimeographed
study notes. For this reason, they are being made available here.
Figures have been included only through Lecture Nine at present; additionally,
numerous errors remain; work continues on providing a complete and clean
version.
The Relationship of the Diverse Branches of Natural Science to Astronomy:
(Third Science Course)
Rudolf Steiner
Translator Unknown
English Translation available as study notes only
Stuttgart 1921
Special thanks to Steve Bennett.
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