On Sunday February 19, 1899 Ehrenfried Pfeiffer was born in Munich two months earlier than expected. Growing up he was prone to illness and played by himself, preferring to live in a world of dreams. His father died when he was five. Shortly after that he moved with his mother to Nuremberg to live with his grandparents.
His grandmother Babette was a wise and warm woman. Ehrenfried was a melancholic-choleric boy who needed much love and harmonizing. She enjoyed telling fairy tales and stories and was fascinated by mathematics. Grandfather Emil took him on many walks in nature and began to get him interested in medicinal plants and healing substances.
As a student he preferred to be by himself in nature. He walked through fields and forests, listened to the rushing stream or studied plants and animals. He tried to spend as much time as he could outside.
His acute nearsightedness prevented him from learning to read in grade one and from recognizing acquaintances in the street. He was scolded without reason until people discovered the cause of his problems and gave him glasses. He was prone to many illnesses and at the age of eight was treated by Dr. Steiner who indicated a prayer which helped the boy overcome fear of the environment.
At this time he lived intensively in music. His experience of music included inner qualities that conveyed inspiration to him, revealing the soul qualities of those who produced them. He continued music studies until the age of sixteen. He developed a mastery of piano and violin.
From the age of fourteen to twenty one, holidays by the sea and in the mountains strengthened his body and he began to swim, sail and go for long hikes. He moved to Stuttgart and studied alchemist books about nature beings and forces which complemented his own experiences. “When I was fourteen or fifteen, I wanted to take hold of the ideal of the power at work in the natural phenomena, namely the forces that make plants grow, bestow movement into animals, produce thunder and lightning and express themselves in the functions of my body. Such longing caused me to become acquainted with the world around me and to study plants, animals and nature forces. These impulses of my youth formed the entire richness of my research activities.”
When World War I began he had the opportunity to leave school in order to help in a factory. He enlisted in the Army Corps of Engineers, having come to understand the commandment “thou shalt not kill” after needlessly crushing a toad in his youth. He built bridges, blew up buildings and roads. He experienced the unchecked passions of war; cruelty, fear, feelings of hatred; he looked after injured men and those who were dying. He met someone called the “Carter” a person that reminds us of the Herb Gatherer in Dr. Steiner’s biography. This man shared his experiences of nature all the way into the reality of the elemental beings.
The War was lost; he returned home to Stuttgart and heard a lecture inspired by Rudolf Steiner. In 1919 he sat in on a lecture on threefold social order and discovered ways which Spiritual Science could enliven his daily existence. It was a hot day. The speaker looked exhausted; Pfeiffer thought the least he could do was get this man a glass of water. Dr. Steiner drank it thirstily. At that moment the working student realized it would be his task to serve this man and his mission as well as he could. The impulse stayed with him throughout his entire life.
complied from Ehrenfried Pfeiffer : a pioneer in spiritual research and practice : a contribution to his biography by Alla Selawry
