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Rudolf Steiner (b. Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner, 1861-1925) was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Croatia), where he grew up. As a young man, he lived in Weimar and Berlin, where he became a well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, known especially for his work with Goethe's scientific writings. Steiner termed his spiritual philosophy anthroposophy, meaning "wisdom of the human being." As an exceptionally developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern, universal "spiritual science" that is accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unbiased thinking. From his spiritual investigations, Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of numerous activities, including education (general and for special needs), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, Christianity, and the arts. There are currently thousands of schools, clinics, farms, and initiatives in other fields that involve practical work based on the principles Steiner developed. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of human beings, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods for personal development. He wrote some thirty books and delivered more than six thousand lectures throughout much of Europe. In 1924, Steiner founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches around the world. Karl Ernst Zimmer (1927--2019) immegrated to the United States in 1946, having lived in Germany, Switzerland, and Turkey as a youth, and already fluent in German, Turkish, and French, and having a background in Greek, Latin, and English. He studied at the University of Chicago as an undergraduate in 1947 and became a U.S. citizen in 1953. He did graduate studies at Columbia, where he received a PhD in 1963. Karl's long career was centered at U.C. Berkeley, where he was appointed in 1965 as an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics, rising to the rank of professor and remaining there until his retirement in 1991. Karl was also a witty poet of short, pithy poems in both German and English. Karl was married to Suzanne Clements, with whom he had two children. Thomas O'Keefe discovered Anthroposophy while studying philosophy at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2007. He founded the newsletter Deepening Anthroposophy in 2012, has been a student at the Seminary of the Christian Community in North America, has done editing and translating work for SteinerBooks, Temple Lodge Publishing, Wynstones Press, Occident Verlag, and Inner Work Books, and has been a coworker at the Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Research into Anthroposophy in Arlesheim, Switzerland. He currently works as the editorial director of Chadwick Library Edition, a project that aims to publish new or revised translations of twelve of Rudolf Steiner's core written works in special hardcover editions. Jon McAlice is a freelance designer and consultant, focusing on the creative use of time and space. A co-founder of the Center for Contextual Studies, his research in contemporary education (contextualization, the experience of meaning, the role of self-directed activity in learning) has born fruit throughout the Waldorf educational movement in the growing recognition of the signi ficance of direct experience in the learning process. |
