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Rudolf Steiner Enters My Life
Paperback
March 2013
9780863159589
More details
- Publisher
Floris Books - Published
4th March 2013 - ISBN 9780863159589
- Language English
- Pages 152 pp.
$19.95
“Am I going too far if I declare that not a single one of the opponents took a tenth of the pains I took with anthroposophy before I joined the movement?” —Friedrich Rittelmeyer
Born in southern Germany in 1872, Friedrich Rittelmeyer was a leading figure in the Lutheran church and a pioneer of a new meditative approach, seeking to reestablish the relevance of the Gospels.
In 1911, he met Rudolf Steiner and spent the next ten years critically appraising and investigating Steiner’s ideas. This book is a fascinating and insightful autobiographical account of those years, as well a rigorous scrutiny of Anthroposophy. In 1922, he left the Lutheran church to lead The Christian Community, a new movement for religious renewal in association with Steiner. Rittelmeyer’s final conviction was that Steiner’s ideas were truly inspired.
First published in English in 1929, this record of Rittelmeyer’s honest struggle with key anthroposophic concepts has been influential for generations of people.
C O N T E N T S:
Foreword by Tom Ravetz
Introduction
Meeting with Michael Bauer
Struggles with Reading Steiner’s Books
First Meeting with Steiner
Spiritual Exercises
The Aura and the Life Body
Reincarnation
Insights into the Life of Jesus
Tentative Spiritual Experiences
The First World War
Relation to the Academic World
The Appearance of Christ
Rittelmeyer’s Call to Berlin
Considerations before Joining the Anthroposophical Society
Berlin
Public Support of Steiner
The Postwar Situation
Contact with the Dead
Science and Religion
Martin Luther
The Renewal of Christianity
Steiner’s Reserve
The Christian Community
Last Meetings with Steiner
Friedrich Rittelmeyer
Friedrich Rittelmeyer (1872–1938) was a Lutheran German minister, theologian, and the principal founder and first leader of The Christian Community. He came to prominence in the early 20th century as a leading academic liberal theologian and priest in Germany and wrote several books that advocated for a socially engaged "Christianity of deeds" (Tatchristentum). During World War I, he became one of the most high-profile clergy in Germany to publicly oppose the war. From the 1910s, his thinking was gradually influenced by Rudolf Steiner, and in 1922 a group of mainly Lutheran priests and theology students led by Rittelmeyer founded The Christian Community as an ecumenically oriented Christian community inspired by Steiner's writings. The Christian Community is primarily a liturgical community with a loose creed that rejects Christian dogmas. Rittelmeyer saw it as a continuation of the liberal Christian tradition of which he was the foremost representative in Germany in the early 20th century.
