Famous Austrians XIII: Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner, the esoteric writer, philosopher and founder of the Waldorf educational method (known as Steiner schools in German-speaking regions), was born in Murakirály, Austria-Hungary, now part of Croatia, in 1861 to a telegraph operator and a housemaid. The family moved to Lower Austria when Rudolf was a young child. He studied at the Vienna Institute of Technology and in 1891 he earned his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Rostock in Germany.

Steiner had a number of spiritual experiences as a boy, including premonitions of the spirits of dead relatives. He became a Goethe scholar as a young man, accepting a position as editor at the Goethe archives in Weimar. He also worked on the Nietsche archives with Friedrich Nietsche's sister Elisabeth from 1896 (Friedrich Neitsche being at the time non compos mentis).

In 1902, Steiner founded the German-speaking branch of the Theosophical Society, whose aims were to investigate the divine mysteries of the world, including esoteric branches of extant religions, and to promote Eastern spirituality (i.e. Hindu teachings) in the West.  Steiner later broke with the Theosophists and formed his own group, the Anthroposophical Society.

Steiner had quite radical leftist political and social views which made him an outsider in Germany at the end of World War I. For example, he proposed Silesian independence, which greatly angered right-wing politicians, including Hitler. After having lived in Berlin for much of his adult life, he moved to Switzerland to continue his spiritual research out of reach of his prime opponents - the National Socialists.

Along with social activism, Steiner worked on educational reform (resulting in his theory of Waldorf education), and religious and spiritual reform, which included  the incorporation of reincarnation and karma into Christian philosophy (beliefs later adopted by the Rosicrucian Fellowship). 

Though he was considered kind of a kook during his lifetime, Rudolf Steiner's reforms are far-reaching in a number of different fields, making him a true Renaissance man, and giving an Austrian example of a liberal thinker.