Peter Selg’s Rudolf Steiner

A review by Bruce Donehower

Rudolf Steiner 1861–1925; Lebens und Werkgeshichte, by Peter Selg; Verlag des Ita Wegman Institut, 2012; three volumes, 2,148 pages.

By the time this particular book review appears, most anthroposophists already will be aware of the publication of Peter Selg’s monumental biography of Rudolf Steiner. The book appeared in 2012, published by Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts. Written in German, of course, the three-volume hardcover edition of slightly more than 2000 pages has been discussed and reviewed in several publications, and an English language summary of the existing reviews has appeared on the Internet (follow this shortened URL: goo.gl/5pZxH). Understandably, readers in the English-speaking world are confronted here with the odd situation of reading another review of a book written in a foreign language. I have been told that a translation of the work is planned or is in process; however, even assuming that funds are available to pay for translation and publication of a work of this heft and magnitude, it will no doubt be some little time before a full community of English readers can independently assess the work.

Thus having noted the Quixotic nature of this assignment, I feel that it is important nonetheless to shine the spotlight of attention brightly on Peter Selg’s work, for this is a biography I would hand to any person who approached me with the question: “Who was Rudolf Steiner?” The comprehensiveness of the biography (its scope and attention to detail, its inclusion of relevant and illuminating texts from Steiner’s autobiography and Gesamtausgabe (Collected Works, or GA), the specificity with which it details the chronology of Steiner’s development) makes it an important touchstone for anyone who desires a thorough overview of Steiner’s life and accomplishment. I am grateful that Peter Selg assumed the challenge of this project and that he has risen to that challenge with such devoted attention and intelligence. In addition to offering a comprehensive overview of Steiner’s life, the book also sheds light on many details of biography that are not so readily accessible in one location: events during the years leading up to the beginning of Steiner’s work with the Theosophical Society, for example, and the conflicts and forces of opposition that beset Steiner and anthroposophy after World War One, among others. I have devoted a considerable portion of my time and scholarly energy over the years to an attempt to understand the karma of the Society—and I mean this in a specific historical/social context: that is, to better understand the events that led to the Christmas Foundation Conference and from there to the sundering of the Society in the 1930s. For those readers with similar interest, Peter Selg’s edition makes available within the sweep of one compelling narrative many of the facts, anecdotes, and historical aperçus that formerly lay scattered and which will help a student better understand the background and dynamics of the forces and personalities at play. This is excellent. In addition, the frequent inclusion of relevant lecture passages from the Gesamtausgabe, keyed to particular historical moments and audiences, is a most helpful guide and resource.

The text is clearly written and readable. German prose style can often be, as Mark Twain once put it, daunting. I’m happy to say that I found Selg’s German prose quite accessible. The book’s division into three volumes is helpful. Volume One covers the years 1861—1914, 1914 being, of course, the year of a defining catastrophe in European history, the beginning of World War One. Volume Two spans the years 1914—1922, which leads us through the time of the building of the First Goetheanum and into the volatile social/cultural/political situation in Europe (and most especially Germany) following World War One. Volume Three surveys the concluding years of Steiner’s life, 1923—1925. These years are in many respects the most awe-inspiring in terms of sheer creativity and output. Readers may be tempted to dip into the book according to their thematic interests. If this is the case, I suspect that many readers will find the third volume especially compelling, with its narrative of the events and conflicts that led to the decision to re-found the Society in 1923, and the subsequent annus mirabilis, culminating with a full rendering of Steiner’s last months on earth. As an anthroposophist familiar with other biographies, anecdotal collections, reminiscences, and essays concerning Steiner’s life, I would unhesitatingly place Selg’s biography at the top of the reading list for anyone who desired immersion into this literature. Of course, as Selg points out, such a study should always occur with Steiner’s uncompleted autobiography, The Course of My Life, at one’s side.

As noted, I found Volumes Two and Three to be especially compelling, particularly in regard to the conflicts and oppositions that beset Rudolf Steiner. It is enlightening to read about the strenuous criticism and outright hostility that confronted anthroposophy after World War One. Selg’s account of this time is detailed and inclusive, and it gives one a stronger appreciation for the dedication and commitment with which Steiner attempted time and again to meet the often mean-spirited and distorted criticisms of his opponents with an unflagging dedication to his mission. Another important point that emerges from the narrative, at least for this reader, is the extent to which Rudolf Steiner felt the need for students of anthroposophy to rise to the challenge of collaboration, to take the step to spiritual maturity and responsibility. For example, on page 1790 Selg cites, following Willem Zeylmans von Emmichoven, Steiner’s reported misgivings spoken in Den Haag on the evening of November 17, 1923, only a few weeks prior to the Christmas Conference, regarding the conditions prevalent within the individual national societies: “whether further work with the Society was in any way possible.” Steiner complained that “there appeared to be nowhere the slightest understanding for what he desired to accomplish and that it might perhaps be necessary to continue work in alliance with only a very few individuals.”

Of course, Rudolf Steiner chose a different path, and Selg’s narrative helps us better to understand this fateful decision.

In his preface to the biography, Selg makes the following comment: “Rudolf Steiner gave decisive forces of his life to the Anthroposophical Society as a spiritual community, and much in the future will depend upon whether this community carries the true picture of his being in its heart, and from that picture undertakes initiatives.” I feel that this comment deserves emphasis in respect to the nature and purpose of Peter Selg’s project. Students of anthroposophy, and those who are involved in the various enterprises of the movement, need to occupy themselves with the question “Who was Rudolf Steiner?” and create for themselves a “true picture,” such as Selg suggests in the above cited words from his preface. Through contemplation of Steiner’s biography, we are led to many of the central problems and crises that continue to define our world and spiritual destinies. Steiner lived during years of shattering transformation and upheaval. When we view the course of Steiner’s life, we see him moving decisively toward the center of the defining controversies of his time. We also see an impressive flexibility as he attempted to span the gulf between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, an appreciation of the significance of World War One and its aftermath adds much to an understanding of the conflicts leading up to the Christmas Foundation Conference in respect to the tensions between the older and younger generations of anthroposophists. Selg’s narrative helps us to understand the challenges that beset Rudolf Steiner as he met the new century—and the defining catastrophe of his life, the burning of the First Goetheanum, emerges with dramatic intensity against this background.

One of the benefits of Selg’s narrative, in its entirety, is the help that it gives to readers who are interested in seeing the moments of Steiner’s life in historical context. It is sometimes a temptation to read anthroposophy outside its historical location, but to appreciate it within that particular historical moment empowers our understanding of Steiner and anthroposophy. The question “Who was Rudolf Steiner?” then becomes, for a student of anthroposophy, a central meditation on one’s own destiny and one’s placement in respect to the karma of European civilization. A challenge may be to hold that question clearly in view while at the same time fully engaging with the vicissitudes of one’s world and one’s current historical/cultural moment. This is something Steiner himself practiced. Even during the weeks of his final sickness he was engaged with the world in which he had incarnated; he did not retreat. Selg mentions, for example, how during the six months of his terminal illness, Steiner read “innumerable books” in an effort to remain engaged and conversant with the spirit of his time. “Steiner’s world horizon was as always wide and encompassing, and his interests were manifold. [Gunther] Wachsmuth brought to him in his studio [where he lay ill] new editions concerning a variety of themes: arts, science, philosophy, and history.” Selg reports Wachsmuth saying that it was always an absorbing moment to behold how Steiner sifted through those offerings and sorted them on his sick bed into two piles: on the right, those he wanted to read closely, on the left, those for which he had little interest. Selg further includes Wachsmuth’s comment that Wachsmuth felt proud when the pile of books on the right stood higher than the pile on the left, since it meant that Wachsmuth had hit the mark with his selections. This inclusion, for example, of materials from Gunther Wachsmuth’s book Rudolf Steiners Erdenleben und Wirken is again, as I have noted, symptomatic of Selg’s attempt to make accessible within a single encompassing narrative sources that readers otherwise might not have had opportunity to appreciate. Selg’s project also goes far to answer objections that Steiner merely synthesized anthroposophy from an eclectic assortment of readings, tuning his message to the shifting requirements of particular audiences. Instead, Selg in his preface dedicates his opus to the opposite conclusion: that in the life work of Rudolf Steiner we find “a monumental work of research, which arises completely from Steiner himself, from the powers of his being.”

Dr. Selg has received criticism in other reviews in regard to his work’s lack of index, lack of adequate scholarly apparatus, over-reliance on citations from the Gesamtausgabe, and lack of professional placement of the work in respect to the norms of scholarship and biographical editions. He has been faulted for placing Steiner on a pedestal. This may be placing emphasis on features that the book is not meant to present. The world may benefit from a close and in-depth scholarly attempt to contextualize Steiner and his life with the full rigor that professional scholars trained in a variety of literary or historical methods can bring to such a task; however, this is work for the future. The book by Peter Selg, as it is written, is an invaluable addition to the literature and an important foundation for inspiration and research. We will need more biographies—and perhaps novels and dramas! The appearance of Selg’s impressive biography of Rudolf Steiner in addition to other works that have examined Steiner’s biography in recent years is for me a sign of health at the present time. Selg’s volumes will certainly inspire many readers and will contribute to the enhancement of those capacities of heartfelt-thinking and critical inquiry, which, if I am not mistaken, was one important element of Rudolf Steiner’s Michaelic mission.

Bruce Donehower (bdonehower@yahoo.com) is Lecturer in the University Writing Program, University of California at Davis, as well as a novelist (SancXtuary: A Novel; Ice: A Novel of Initiation; Miko, Little Hunter of the North), editor and translator (The Birth of Novalis, The Consolations of Philosophy and Other Tales). He is a member of the collegium of the Section for the Literary Arts & Humanities of the School for Spiritual Science in North America.