Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner — educator, architect, artist, philosopher and agriculturalist — ranks amongst the most creative and prolific figures of the early twentieth century. Yet he remains a mystery to most people. This is the first truly popular biography of the man behind the ideas, written by a sympathetic but critical outsider.

Steiner is widely known for what he left behind: a network of Waldorf schools, biodynamic farming, Camphill schools and villages and pioneering work in holistic health and environmental research. Although his achievements are felt all over the world, few people understand this unusual figure. Steiner’s own writings fill several bookcases, but are often dense and ‘insider’ in tone.

Gary Lachman tells Steiner’s story lucidly and with great insight. He presents Steiner’s key ideas in a readable, accessible way, tracing his beginning as a young intellectual in the ferment of fin de siècle culture to the founding of his own metaphysical teaching, called anthroposophy.

This book is a full-bodied portrait of one of the most original philosophical and spiritual luminaries of the last two centuries.

Author Biography

Gary Lachman is the former bass player and composer for Blondie, the guitarist for Iggy Pop, and leader of his own groups The Know and Fire Escape. He has written for the Times Literary Supplement, Literary Review and Mojo. He is the author of Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius, New York Rocker, A Secret History of Consciousness and In Search of P. D. Ouspensky. He lives in London.