Rudolf Steiner - Reception

Reception

Steiner's work has influenced a broad range of noted personalities. These include philosophers Albert Schweitzer, Owen Barfield and Richard Tarnas; writers Saul Bellow, Michael Ende, Selma Lagerlöf, Andrej Belyj, David Spangler, and William Irwin Thompson; artists Josef Beuys, Wassily Kandinsky, and Murray Griffin; esotericist and educationalist George Trevelyan; actor and acting teacher Michael Chekhov; cinema director Andrei Tarkovsky; composers Jonathan Harvey and Viktor Ullmann; and conductor Bruno Walter. Olav Hammer, though sharply critical of esoteric movements generally, terms Steiner "arguably the most historically and philosophically sophisticated spokesperson of the Esoteric Tradition."

Albert Schweitzer wrote that he and Steiner had in common that they had "taken on the life mission of working for the emergence of a true culture enlivened by the ideal of humanity and to encourage people to become truly thinking beings".

Robert Todd Carroll has said of Steiner that "Some of his ideas on education – such as educating the handicapped in the mainstream – are worth considering, although his overall plan for developing the spirit and the soul rather than the intellect cannot be admired".