Rudolf Steiner was a German-speaking spiritual philosopher. Born on February 25, 1861, in Kraljevec, Croatia, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time, he was Austrian and his father was employed by the railway. During his four years as a science student (mathematics, chemistry, natural history …) at the Technical University of Vienna, he became interested in philosophy, first with Kant, then Goethe, at a very early stage. He then interrupted his science studies to devote himself fully to philosophy. His first job was to carry out the publication and commentary of scientific works by Goethe. Rudolf Steiner later moved to Germany, first to Weimar, then to Berlin, and eventually obtained his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Rostock. After 1900, he joined the Theosophical Society where he met the Society’s President, Annie Besant, as well as Marie von Sievers whom he eventually married. He served as general secretary of the German Theosophical Society from 1902 until 1913. At that time he founded his own movement, the Anthroposophic Society, in Dornach, Switzerland, near Basel, to develop and spread his spiritual philosophy: anthroposophy.
He devoted the rest of his life to applying this philosophy to various practical areas of human life in order to inspire them with new ideas: art, architecture, education, medicine, religion, politics, economics, and … agriculture. He gave courses and over six thousand lectures. This spirit of reform is particularly recognised in the education sector. Heiner Ullrich of UNESCO writes:
The revolutionary mood in a defeated Germany in 1918 and 1919 brought Steiner the opportunity to try out his ideas on education in a new school. On September 7, 1919, he ceremonially opened the first Independent Waldorf School as a combined co-educational primary and secondary school for 256 children drawn mainly from families of workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Germany. (UNESCO International Bureau of Education, 2000)
In June 1924, Steiner gave a series of eight lectures in Koberwitz known as the Agriculture Course. It is precisely this Agriculture Course which is the foundation of biodynamic agriculture. He died the following year on March 30, 1925.