As the science of the anthroposophical spirit teaches, man’s life is articulated in a series of archetypes that are unfolded in a completely individual way in biography, on the one hand according to individual destiny (karma) and then according to Free Will. The biography can therefore be divided into a succession of seven years, nine, which represent the echo of the rhythm of the planetary spheres in their Harmony of Spheres in human life. The seventenni are not only the deployment of human forces through the sequence of planets in the Cosmos, but they are also the recapitulation of the remote epochs of evolution until reaching the mature age in which the creative principle of the Ego is expressed, according to the Law of Recapitulation.
The more the human soul draws from its source, the Ego, the more its life takes on an archetypal significance, albeit in its peculiar form adapted to the time, place and nationality in which the incarnation takes place. By placing the ideal development of human development and that of Rudolf Steiner’s life in parallel, it is possible to see the spiritual forces of which he became a conscious bearer in his spiritual life.
☽ Moon – 1st Seven-year Cycle: Childhood
the physical body is developed in the first seven years (0-7), which recapitulates the Atlantis Era. Before birth, the human ego assumes upon itself its own destiny (karma) necessary for its future evolution. At physical birth onwards, the physical body develops. At the age of three, the child perceives himself as an “I” distinct from the others. In this seven-year-old child is in the Age of Imitation, in which the child’s being tends to become a reflection of the environment around him, just as the Moon reflects all the cosmic impulses of the planets. The moral impulses that are received in Reverence are imparted. Goodness is experienced within the family so that the child says to himself, “I feel loved and people are good. At the beginning of his existence man is the Son of Mother Nature.
1861-1867: On February 25th he began his descent into the earthly plane, the one who would be called Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner in Kraljevec, Croatia, near the border with Hungary, and then part of the Austrian Empire. Rudolf is baptized only on February 27, sometimes referred to as the date of his birth. His father works as a telegraph operator for the Austrian railways, so the family moves to different places in Austria, depending on the demand for work.
☿ Mercury – 2nd Seven-year Cycle: Youth
The etheric body is developed in the second seven-year period (7-14), which recapitulates the Paleo-Indian Era. The etheric body develops and with them the fundamental physiological processes, the change of teeth is the main event that determines the detachment from the etheric aura of the mother. It is the Age of Identification, in which the boy’s being tends to seek authority in adults who give an example. Faith develops as a Life Force that moves the young person to believe in himself, in others and in the world. Beauty is fully enjoyed as the foundation of life. From the unconscious, the forces of nature make way for the child to share in the world so that “Everything is wonderful!
1868: Steiner sees the disembodied being of his aunt, of whose passing no one in the family was aware. The aunt asks for help from little Rudolf, whose astral vision from that moment on unfolds throughout Nature, living in communion with the elemental beings.
1869-1870: A child of unusual intelligence needs support lessons in order to be included in the school system of the time. His guardian makes him discover, on the one hand, a love of geometry and, on the other, a love of drawing, so that the pure form and the representation of form itself.
1871-1872: Although his parents were not religious, Rudolf became an altar boy. The church priest introduced him to the difference between heliocentric and geocentric cosmology. The cosmic element comes in communion with the ritual element when Rudolf serves at Mass, Funerals and the Corpus Christi procession.
1873-1875: During this period he learnt on his own, outside of school, the advanced elements of mathematics and geometry, experimenting with the pure ideas represented by mathematical symbols.
♀︎ Venus – 3rd Seven-year Cycle: Adolescence
The astral body is developed in the third seven-year period (14-21), which recapitulates the Epica Paleo-Persian. The astral body develops and with them the fundamental soul processes. The sentient soul is born and thus puberty occurs, which determines the detachment from the astral aura of the mother. The Age of Independence begins, as an autonomous inner life is forming in the adolescent. The Rebellion serves to seek its own identity with new values compared to those received by the family: the Personal Judgement develops, and the desire to acquire knowledge of the world is born. Thus the Truth is received in the form of concepts and ideas, thus saying “I judge for myself!
1877-1878: Rudolf discovers Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which becomes his most cherished book. From this book, he studied psychology and philosophy, which he was finally able to fully cultivate with the transfer of his family to Vienna. His aim therefore became to find a way to unite the human ego with the being of Nature.
1879: He enrolled at the Technical University of Vienna on a scholarship, at the time at the centre of the positivist movement in the sciences. Here he could learn mathematics, physics, geology, mineralogy, botany, zoology. In the meantime he also studied humanities: history, literature, philosophy. His professors are Karl Julius Schröer (German and literature) who became his mentor, Edmund Reitlinger (physics), Robert Zimmerman (aesthetics) and Franz Brentano (philosophy).
1880: He met the Paracelsian herbalist Felix Koguzki, whose esoteric knowledge of Nature would enable him to acquire knowledge about natural cures and the relationship between elemental beings and man. A little later Steiner will discover the truth behind his identity.
1881: During a sleepless night, a single phrase from Schelling whispered in his mind: “Within each one harbors a secret, the marvelous ability to go up the current of time – from what is clothed with the self in all that comes to us from outside – to peer into ourselves in our innermost being, into the immutable form of the Eternal One. Rudolf understands that that phrase describes his occult ability to draw on the ideas that German idealist philosophy gave shape to in concepts. From that moment on, Rudolf came into contact with various personalities on the philosophical scene who began to send him their books, which Rudolf studied ardently.
1882-1883: Koguzki reveals himself as an emissary of a high initiate, Master Christian Rosenkreutz, who could be identified with Alois Mailänder. It is revealed to him that time has two currents, an evolutionary descendant, which goes from the spirit toward matter, and an involutionary one, which goes up again from matter toward the spirit, passing through a central turning point. He is entrusted with the task of mastering the knowledge of the natural sciences of time and thus the philosophy of Fichte, in order to penetrate into the spirit.
☉ Sun – 4th Seven-year Cycle: Young adult
The sentient soul is developed in the fourth septennium (21-28), which recapitulates the Egyptian Epoch. The ego is incarnated in the human soul and through feeling the sentient soul is formed. Once the ego is born in the soul, the young man enters the Age of Adventure in search of personal experience. It is at this age that the Discovery of the World takes place, saying to himself, “I experience.
1884-1887: Through Schröer, Steiner is entrusted with the task of editing Goethe’s scientific writings for a new edition. Afterwards he was also entrusted with the task of collaborating on the edition of Goethe’s writings on colour. His comments on Goethe’s writings were praised and made known to other scholars. Progressively Rudolf combined his knowledge of the natural sciences with that of the humanities, a union which he would experience through the process of healing from an illness which had struck him at the beginning of 1887.
1888-1890: Rudolf is now a member of Austrian cultural life. He met Friedrich Eckstein, a symbolist philosopher, alchemist and musician, who had already adopted a vegetarian lifestyle. He introduced Rudolf to the alchemical and esoteric texts, whose interpretations he commented on together, as well as the different spiritual currents of the time, including Theosophy and Freemasonry of the Rite of Kerning. In Marie Lang’s theosophical circle he personally knows the Rosicrucian Franz Hartmann, and deepens the theosophical works inspired by the various Masters of Wisdom: the work of Madame Blavatsky (Masters Saint-Germaine, Kuthumi and Morya), the Esoteric Buddhism of A.P. Sinnett (Master Kuthumi), as well as The Light on the Path of Mabel Collins (Master Hilarion).
☉ Sun – 5th Seven-year Cycle: Young adult
The rational soul is developed in the fifth seven-year period (28-35), which recapitulates the Greek-Roman era. The ego forms through thinking the rational soul. This is the Age of Work on Experience, in which the young adult finds himself having to understand the experiences accumulated up to that moment by exclusively taking into account the forces of nature that worked in him to produce his physical, etheric and astral body. The Ego that is born within the rational soul generates a watershed so that it can recognize its mission of life for the first time. The energies are now dedicated to Organizing Knowledge, so much so that the phrase is “I think”. Around the age of 33 the young adult can fall into a deep crisis of depression in which all ancient values die, the so-called Mystical Death whose phrase is “I Die and I Become”. This is the total change in the course of one’s life, first oriented by the ancient forces of Nature and now oriented by the new forces of the human spirit. From this moment the descending phase of life towards the incarnation ends and the ascending phase of life towards the spirit begins.
1891-1983: He concludes his doctoral thesis, in which he sets out the basis of his epistemology and which will later form the basis for his Philosophy of Freedom (1983). He got to know the feminist movement through Rosa Mayreder (1858-1938), who became a close friend of his. She later moved to Weimar to work on the Goethe-Schiller Archive, where she continued her work on Goethe’s texts. In Weimar he also met Anna Eunike, who later became his first wife.
1894-1987: Steiner meets the sister of the philosopher Nietzsche, whose works he begins to study, having access to the unpublished manuscript of the Antichrist. He met him only once in the bed of the clinic where he was hospitalized, with the philosopher’s mother who looked after him like a child. Steiner will understand Nietzsche as an ancient initiate embodied in a materialistic world, who has clothed his mysterious knowledge in the guise of positivist philosophy, thus leading him to madness. He also met the evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), although he was considered the proponent of Darwinian ideas on the Continent, his aim was more ambitious: to find scientific proof of German idealism in the theory of evolution. He thus became the founder of monist philosophy and proponent of the theory of recapitulation which, understood in its spiritual dimension, would be the cornerstone of all of Steiner’s esoteric cosmogony. Although Steiner did not espouse the philosophy of materialistic monism, he defended the interpretation of Haeckel’s evolutionary principles because, if brought to their logical consequences, they overcame materialism and reached the Threshold of the Spiritual World.
☉ Sun – 6th Seven-year Cycle: Maturity
The conscious soul is developed in the sixth septennium (35-42), which is equivalent to the current Fifth Post-Atlantic Era. The ego forms through the will of the conscious soul. In this Dark Age of Loneliness, the adult is reconstructing his world on the foundation of new individual values. Something totally new is finally being brought into the world through this impulse of Resurrection. The adult needs to take action and take responsibility, and it is repeated, “I will do it! Both work and responsibility allow the adult to meet himself through his neighbor who stands before him with a question that corresponds to the answer in his conscious soul.
1898: He moved to Berlin where he became active in literary, philosophical and political circles. He sided with Dreyfus in the Affair of the same name. It was during this period that he wrote an article on the fairy tale of Goethe The Green Serpent and the beautiful Lilia, which attracted the interest of the members of the Theosophical Society.
1899-1900: Steiner begins to approach Christianity in a completely different way from the past: he understands its spiritual development in the course of human history, in a conscious cognitive form. Shortly before his entry into the 20th century, Steiner was spiritually challenged so that he was able to become a part of the Mystery of Golgotha “in a profound and solemn celebration of knowledge”. This moment in which the Eternal Present will live will be fundamental in the expression of all the following work, since it will identify it as that Turning-point of Times at which the current of evolution from spirit to matter has reversed its course, from matter to spirit. Thus experience that separation between the powers of the human soul, thinking, feeling and wanting, such as to bring the human soul to the abyss of materialism. At this point Steiner is invited to give a lecture on Goethe’s esotericism at the Theosophical Library in Berlin. Shortly afterwards, he met Marie von Sievers in the series of lectures The Mystics at the dawn of the spiritual life of the new times, who was to become his future wife.
1901: Marie von Sievers from the audience asks Steiner whether theosophy does not need to be flanked by Western esotericism, centered on Christ. Having asked this question, the possibility of undertaking this mission opens before Steiner, so that when he enters the Theosophical Society as head of the German Section, he will do so on condition that Marie von Sievers can work with him. His becomes a mission of redemption of theosophy from Eastern esotericism. He began to hold the cycle of conferences on Christianity as a mystical fact, then published as a book the following year, reconnecting the Ancient Mysteries and their initiates to esoteric Christianity.
1902-1903: Steiner joins the Theosophical Society at the invitation of Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden as Secretary of the German Section. At the Theosophical Congress in London, and at other international events, he met with Marie von Sievers and various personalities of the movement: G.R.S. Mead, A.P. Sinnett, Colonel Olcott and Annie Besant and it was the latter who invited Steiner to the Esoteric School of the Theosophical Society. She begins her intense activity as a lecturer.
1904: Steiner began to write articles for the magazine Luzifer-Gnosis which would later be brought together in the texts The Initiation and the Chronicle of the Akasha. He gave his first lectures on Freemasonry, in particular on the High Degrees derived from John Yarker and represented by Theodor Reuss and Karl Kellner, who in his vision possessed a solid structure in which it was possible to insert an evolutionary impulse in tune with his Western esoteric activity.
♂︎ Mars – 7th Seven-year Cycle: Full maturity.
The primordium of the Spiritual Self was developed in the seventh seven-year period (42-49), prefiguring the Sixth Post-Atlantic Era. In this seven-year period the ego begins to work through the astral body to form what in the distant future will be the first of the three aspects of the spirit, the Spiritual Self. It is the conscious recapitulation of the Settennium of Venus (14-21 years), in which the Truth is lived in things and events, the Judgement is concretized as practical knowledge in action. The Truth is manifested through human individuality, which therefore can go out into the world and become publicly known for its original work. To do this, it is necessary to develop the Imaginative Consciousness, that is, thinking through symbolic images that presupposes the recognition of archetypes in images, dreams, symbols and so on.
1905: Steiner focused only on his theosophical activity, introducing more and more Western esotericism in his lectures as well as in the Esoteric School, where a parallelism with Eastern esotericism is made in order to reach a synthesis. Steiner wants to establish continuity between the Ancient Mysteries and the new theosophical form, so together with Marie von Sievers he participates in a ceremony in the Memphis-Misraim Rite and becomes a member. Steiner immediately realizes that although there is a valid symbolic structure, the occult powers have completely retreated from its forms, which must therefore be renewed from within through a new form of the original impulse.
1906: The activity of lecturer becomes more and more intense, as does esoteric work. In January, Steiner receives a license from the Memphis-Misraim Rite to lead a Chapter and Grand Council under the name of “Mystica Aeterna”. Steiner receives the highest operational degrees 33°, 90°, 96°. This will correspond to the “Section of Cognitive Worship” or “Service of Misraim” of the Esoteric School directed by him within the German Section of the Theosophical Society. During this period he met several personalities who would be admitted to the Misraim Service: among them Eduard Schuré. Around this time he reformulated the 90 degree scale of the Misraim into the 9 + 1 degree scale of the Misraim Service, then transferred to the O.T.O. of Reuss.
1907: In February Annie Besant succeeds Olcott at the head of the Theosophical Society of Adyar, as indicated by the Masters: many members disagree, but Steiner supports Besant. In the meantime Steiner organized the Munich Pentecost Conference, which brought together all the European Sections of the Theosophical Society. The Conference is of epochal importance: here the separation between the Eastern esotericism, of Adyar Theosophy, and the Western, Christian-Rusicrucian esotericism of the German Section led by Steiner took place. The Esoteric School with the Misraim Service therefore left the direction of Adyar. However, in this phase Annie Besant agrees with Steiner because it is assumed that in the Theosophical Society Eastern and Western esotericism can coexist, in maximum independence but in continuity. In the Munich Conference Steiner proclaims “the unity of art, science and religion” in the sign of a renewed Rosicrucianism, capable of “infusing the spirit into the world”: education, society, art, science. Steiner’s Western impulse assumes more and more importance both esoterically and essoterically. Heindel (1865-1919) met Steiner in Berlin and was admitted to the Misraim Service, as well as to the first Circle of the Twelve, the so-called “Epopts of the Illuminati”.
1908: The expansion of the theosophical movement in Germany is remarkable, together with Steiner’s activity as a lecturer. During this period he focused on esoteric Christianity in the impulse of John the Evangelist, with his Gospel and Revelation. Heindel returns to America. Steiner ceased his collaboration with Theodor Reuss, who therefore sought his collaborators elsewhere for O.T.O. In this period Steiner began his active collaboration with Felkin’s Stella Matutina.
1909: The cosmogonic summa, The Occult Science, was published, which was already in nuce in the fundamental conference cycle Theosophy (Wisdom) of the Rosicrucians: this is the fundamental text that frames the rituals and esoteric content of the Misraim Service. At this point Steiner investigates by scientific-spiritual means the Bodhisattvas and the question of the Maitreya Buddha, the principle of spiritual economy, the work of hierarchies in the Cosmos and on Earth. He also expands his conception of the duality of Evil, according to Lucifer and Ahriman, with the cycle of conferences on the Gospel of Luke, in which the occult truth of the two children Jesus is communicated. In April, the Foundation Stone of the Malsch Temple, the model for the First Goetheanum, is laid. In the meantime in Adyar, Leadbeater discovers through his clairvoyance Jiddu Krishamurti (1895-1986) declaring him together with Besant the so-called “Master of the World”, the promised Maitreya Buddha identified with the returned Christ in his Second Coming. In October Steiner associates the word “anthroposophy” with his Western movement which includes the gnawing impulse.
1910: Steiner deepens his scientific-spiritual research on the Gospels, in tune with the growing ability to think in the etheric. During a trip to Rome he met Giovanni Colazza, who was admitted to the service of Misraim and the first Circle of the Twelve, as an Italian representative. In 1910 Steiner wrote the first Mystery Drama, The Door of Initiation.
♃ Jupiter – 8th Seven-year Cycle: Advanced Maturity
The primordium of the Vital Spirit is developed in the eighth septennium (49-56), which prefigures the Seventh Post-Atlantic Era. the Ego begins to work through the etheric body to form what in the distant future will be the second of the three aspects of the spirit, the Vital Spirit. It is the conscious recapitulation of the Settennium of Mercury (7-14 years), in which Beauty is lived through creative action, the Vital Forces come to materialize in this Creative Age. The adult can inspire others in the Art of Living, through what he has realized as a conscious spiritual impulse. To do this, it is necessary to develop Inspirational Consciousness, that is, thinking in words that have their own living quality, which presupposes the recognition of archetypes in the expressions of sound, music and speech.
1911: It is in 1911 that he begins to work on the Calendar of the Soul. The more deeply it penetrates the sources of Western esotericism, the deeper the crisis with the Theosophical Society becomes. In January 1911 the Order of the Star of the East was founded, which was to gather the members gathered around the supposed new Master of Humanity. In March Steiner’s wife died, and he met Franz Kafka (1883-1924). He wrote the second Mystery Drama: The Soul Trial. In September he met Friedrich Rittelmeyer, the pastor who was to found the Community of Christians. On the model of Malsch and Stuttgart, a group is brought together for the construction of what will later become the First Goetheanum, initially planned in Munich. The Stuttgart Temple was also built, as a metamorphosis of the Malsch Temple, right under the seat of the Theosophical Society, and was later destroyed during the Nazi period. At the same time, a group was founded which would be the nucleus of the next Anthroposophical Society.
1912: Steiner writes the third Mystery Drama: The Guardian of the Threshold. In this year he will celebrate for the last time the White Lotus Day, the anniversary of the death of H.P. Blavatsky. Steiner suggests the name of the new independent association of the Theosophical Society, the Anthroposophical Society. In September the first course of Eurythmy begins. In October, Steiner denies recognition of a Theosophical lodge belonging to the Order of the Star of the East and expels all members belonging to the order, the lodge will therefore be opened directly by Annie Besant. Steiner visits Dornach Hill with Marie von Sievers, and meditates on the place where the Goetheanum will later be built. In December Steiner declares to the Order of the Star of the East incompatible with the Theosophical Society directed by him. On December 28, the Anthroposophical Society was founded informally in Berlin, in conjunction with the Misraim Service. The Misraim Service was oriented entirely according to the direction of the Western Masters and Michael, thus becoming Michael’s Service. Baron Arild Rosenkrantz (1870-1964), a painter trained in Italy, who had already joined the Anthroposophical Society in London, met Steiner personally.
1913-1914: The German Section is expelled en bloc from the Theosophical Society. In February the Anthroposophical Society is officially founded. The Eastern Masters (Kuthumi and Morya), who had already retired at the time in Adyar promulgated the reincarnation of Christ and identification with the Maitreya (in 1909), pass the baton to the Western Masters (Christian Rosenkreutz and Zarathustra-Jesus) through Steiner. At the beginning of May 1913 Steiner met A.E. Waite in London. In September the Founding Stone of the first Goetheanum was laid and immediately its construction began. The fourth Mystery Drama: The Awakening of Souls is completed. Although seven of them were conceived, only four will see the light of day because of the fire at the First Goetheanum in 1922. The scientific-spiritual research on the Gospels culminates with the cycle known as the Fifth Gospel. In 1914 Steiner foretold the imminent World War. He marries Marie von Sievers. He interrupts the Misraim Service because the conditions of war did not allow the meetings of the “secret societies” as well as the collaboration with Felkin’s Matutina Star. The first Circle of the Twelve is dissolved also after the detachment of Heindel and the foundation of his Rosicrucian Fellowship in Oceanside (1911). In 1914, when he was only seven years old, little Theo Faiss, the “solar child”, died at the foot of Dornach Hill: with his etheric body he protected the Goetheanum in its physical development for seven years, until 1922, when it was set on fire.
1915-1916: Construction of the Goetheanum continues. Steiner focuses his scientific and spiritual research on the relationship between the living and the dead. In 1916 he began his collaboration with the English sculptress Edith Maryon (1872-1924), member of Felkin’s Matutina Star, to sculpt the Representative of Humanity, the Christ between Lucifer and Ahriman. During this collaboration, Steiner fell from a ladder and Maryon saved his life by stopping the fall. Steiner also collaborated with the alchemist Alexander von Bernus, in order to interpret Christian Rosenkreutz’s Chemical Marriage in a modern sense.
♄ Saturn – 9th Seven-year Cycle: Senility
The primordium of the Man-Spirit is developed in the ninth septennium (56-63), which prefigures the Sixth Age or the 7 Seals. The ego begins to work through the physical body to form what in the distant future will be the third of the three aspects of the spirit, the Man-Spirit. It is the conscious recapitulation of the Moon’s Settennium (0-7 years), in which Goodness is lived through the relationship with one’s neighbor. Reverence for cosmic and divine forces acquires a practical dimension, thus realizing the Brotherhood of the Spirit which translates into Community of Spirit. To do this it is necessary to develop Intuitive Consciousness, that is, thinking for living beings, which presupposes the recognition of ideas as living beings with whom a human relationship is established. Love thus becomes a cognitive force.
1917-1918: The Russian Revolution breaks out and the United States enters the war. Steiner responds to the growing disintegration of European society with the idea of the Social Organism Tripartition, which in turn is the social projection of the Human Organism Tripartition. Just as man possesses a system of the head, one of the trunk and one of the members, so society possesses a cultural, economic and legal system that must be free in their functions and yet interdependent in their mutual relations. The idea of the Tripartition is spread to various heads of state by Otto von Lerchenfeld and Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz in a document called Memoranda. In 1918 Steiner declared that the solution to the European problem was complete cultural renewal in the gnawing sense, as already stated at the Munich Congress of 1907. Emil Molt, head of Waldorf-Astoria, a cigarette brand, asked Steiner to work together to create a school that could give such a new basis to society. The First World War ended, so the conditions were created to restore the Misraim Service and the second Circle of Twelve.
1919-1920: Steiner concentrates on spreading the Tripartition of the Social Organism through travel and conferences. Anthroposophy becomes increasingly a social and cultural force through which a cultural renewal becomes possible, through the multiplicity of its initiatives: art (with the first performance of Eurythmy in Zurich), science, medicine and agriculture. The basis of everything becomes pedagogy. Three new Waldorf schools were opened in 1920. The anthroposophical impulse also came in the economic sphere. Johannes Werner, the founder of the Christian Community together with Rittelmeyer, asked Steiner to renew the religious sphere according to the Church of John. The ritual work that had been carried out in the Misraim Service on the one hand is poured into eurythmy (art) and on the other into the Christian Community (religion).
1921: Steiner tries to involve the universities in this renewal, with university courses on different branches: astronomy, mathematics, physics, medicine. He also gave the first courses to the theologians of the future Community of Christians. A “youth movement” is formed within the Anthroposophical Society, which therefore has new animic demands on the members of the old guard. In June he opened the first anthroposophical medicine clinic in Arlesheim, adjacent to Dornach, under the direction of Ita Wegman. In August he opened a laboratory for anthroposophical remedies. The painter Herman Linde works on the pictorial motifs of the two domes of the Goetheanum. Between November and December, he saw Oslo where he declared Cognitive Worship dissolved, but despite this several members were accepted in the spirit of the old organization, the Misraim Service. Several loggias in Northern Europe, as well as a number of selected members, will continue to work with the Misraim Service at least until the 1960s, even at the Goetheanum, initially under the direction of Marie Steiner, who died in 1948.
1922: Steiner’s lecture activity intensifies, as does that of Eurythmy’s performances. He continues to give lectures in the different branches and applications of anthroposophical spirit science. On 31 December the First Goetheanum is set on fire at the hands of a Jesuit and thus passes on to the etheric plane. The event makes it impossible to complete the arc of the seven Mystery Dramas and the contact of Christian Rosenkreutz by the Circle of Twelve. On 31 December 1922 the First Goetheanum was set on fire.
1923: The Holocaust of the First Goetheanum threw the anthroposophical movement into the depression, which resulted in the dispersion of some of its members. Herman Linde was unable to overcome the trauma, “consuming” his own ethereal body linked to the pictorial motifs of the First Goetheanum. In May 1923 Edith Maryon also passed the Threshold, of whose work only the Representative of Humanity miraculously survived. Despite the fire, Steiner continued his tireless work. He had to bring together two currents that flowed in the Anthroposophical Society: the Platonic and the Aristotelian, in turn a reflection of that of Abel and Cain respectively. Steiner therefore infuses a new impulse through his work on rhythmicity throughout the year, the foundation and the life of the communities. He also devoted himself to painting, the foundations of which he outlined for a renewal according to Goethe’s theory of Colours. Following the failed Putsch in Munich by Hitler, Steiner moved permanently to Dornach. In December he began writing his autobiography, published in chapters in the official journal of the Society, Das Goetheanum. Between December and January, Rudolf Steiner organized the Christmas Convention where he refounded the Anthroposophical Society, at this point with 12,000 members, and finally took the lead, together with the Vorstand consisting of: Marie Steiner, Ita Wegman (Medical Section), Albert Steffen (Fine Arts Section), Elizabeth Vreede (Mathematics and Astronomy Section) and Günther Wachsmuth (Section of . With this initiative Steiner links his own etheric body to that of the Society. On December 25, the Foundation Stone is placed in the hearts of the members themselves through the Foundation Stone Meditation ritual.
♅ Uranus – 10th Seven-year Cycle: Son of the Gods
Man has completed the development of the first nine seven years and is therefore freed from the karma of that incarnation, he becomes a “Son of the Gods”: we therefore fully enter the rhythm of the Service of Misraim, the 9 + 1 (Degrees I°-IX° + X°). The following seven years, from the age of 63 onwards, take place in a completely different way compared to the previous ones. At 63 years of age, the destiny (karma) that the soul has taken charge of is completely exhausted. The vital forces of Nature as well as those of human desire have been completely transmuted and dominated by the cosmic forces of which man has become the spokesman. Thus, after the age of 63, man becomes the Son of the Gods. Thus Cosmos decrees that “Man is free” of the bonds of the destiny of that incarnation. Thus he prepares himself for the passage through the Death Threshold, in which he will return to live in the spiritual world.
1924: Steiner now has the task of reforming the Anthroposophical Society. He therefore creates a new Esoteric School, the so-called First Class of the School (or University) of Spiritual Science, organized according to a cycle of 19 esoteric lessons. This was to have two other classes, the Second and Third Classes of ritual nature, i.e. the renewed Misraim Service, now cultivated only by a select number of members in the world, at the head of which would be Marie von Sievers Steiner and Rudolf Steiner. However, Steiner’s illness and death prevented this process of restoration of the Misraim Service (however, ceremonies were conducted regularly both in the lodges of Northern Europe and until the 1960s at the Goetheanum itself). Steiner also chose a new language for anthroposophy that could be direct, practical and phenomenological. He creates the model for the Second Goetheanum which is conceived in concrete, as if it were the hard shell of the etheric kernel of the First Goetheanum which still lives on the etheric plane. He focuses on the search for karmic links, founds biodynamic agriculture and curative pedagogy. In the summer, through a ritual, he transferred to Ita Wegman the guide of the Michael School as well as his Rosicrucian medallion. Towards the middle of the year Steiner falls ill and for the first time, on 26 September, Steiner has to cancel a conference. On 28 September, he gives his last lecture on the physical plane. On September 29, he retires to his studio in the carpentry shop and is personally looked after and cared for there by Ita Wegman. In the meantime he continues to write his autobiography and letters to members.
1925: Steiner finishes his cycle on anthroposophical medicine in collaboration with Ita Wegman and on March 30 at about 10:00 a.m., he passes the Threshold.