complied from Ehrenfried Pfeiffer - a pioneer in spiritual research and practice BY ALLA SELAWRY
After the fateful moment with the water glass, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer attended as many of Rudolf Steiner’s lectures as he could. During Christmas in 1919 he traveled to Dornach, Switzerland and experienced the first Goetheanum “as the incarnation of a spirit message.” This structure expressed Rudolf Steiner’s entire life work, his art, philosophy and spiritual science.
Pfeiffer was deeply impressed by the huge, hand carved wooden structure built by human beings from the different nationalities that had been fighting World War II since 1913. Pfeiffer took an immediate interest in the technical aspects of the future stage arrangement, which included lighting and ventilation.
In the spring of 1920, he moved to Dornach. He would work on developing the stage lighting for eurythmy performances and experienced the essence of light; as harmony or dissonance that penetrates human beings. Dr. Steiner was striving for a new art of stage lighting that corresponded to the Goetheanum impulse which Pfeiffer helped to carry out.
He continued studying; he was advised to major in chemistry and was keen on working with various substances and nature forces. Besides major subjects he was also to take up minerology, botany, geography and ecology. When he objected this was too much on top of his other efforts, Dr. Steiner replied, “You will manage. You must become thoroughly acquainted with the modern sciences so you can disprove materialism with its own weapons.”
Besides the natural sciences and spiritual scientific work, young Pfieffer was to cultivate regular and intensive meditation, which would gradually become a natural need and connect his inner life with the spirit realm.
There were two questions: How can we prove the existence of these formative etheric forces? The other was How can we get them into a form that allows us to work with them, right into the realm of technical activities? For it is the nature of these etheric forces that they do not destroy- but build. Therefore, we should be able to use them constructively, even in technology.
Dr. Steiner gave Pfeiffer a few indications that allowed him to work with etheric forces. He was to use organisms in order to experience reactions to certain effects and to investigate the influences of rhythms upon life processes. He was encouraged to make formative forces visible.
Pfeiffer and Gunther Wachsmuth set up a lab in the basement of the Glass House. When asked in 1922 how these experiments could be applied in a practical way in agriculture, Dr. Steiner suggested for the first time to make preparations out of animal and plant substances and to expose them to the forces of the cosmos and the earth in the summer and winter. This is how the making of the biodynamic preparations began.
Steiner said that “while studying the etheric forces we have to move forward and blaze new trails, regardless of our conventional knowledge. We have to cultivate two capacities at the same time: the first is a love for nature, realistic observation and phenomenology; the second is an acquaintance with nature forces that reach beyond this, a true understanding of substances and a fine sensitivity at the altar of nature.”
Our present civilization can disintegrate, and in order to maintain life on earth we have to oppose the degenerative forces with the type of science and technology that will heal and rebuild.
In the night of New Year 1922/23 the Goetheanum was burned down. The fire had broken out in a ventilation shaft that was accessible from the outside. When it was discovered, it was already too late. The flames took hold of the wooden structure and spread rapidly. Through this event Pfeiffer became deeply connected with Rudolf Steiner. Afterwards he was allowed to attend courses that were otherwise restricted to certain groups of professionals. In every new series, Dr. Steiner always asked, “Where is Ehrenfried Pfeiffer?”
Ehrenfried was one of twenty-four students who contributed to the new founding of the Anthroposophical Society at Christmas in 1923. In the fall of 1924 Dr. Steiner fell ill. On March 30, 1925, Pfeiffer arrived at his studio and found the door open. Dr. Steiner had suddenly crossed the threshold. Stunned with pain, he helped others plan the wake and was one of four coffin bearers. Thus ended the light filled period of his life when he had received warm personal interest and help from his great teacher and fatherly friend. The twenty-six-year-old student was lonely once more and his active forces of love urged him to carry out the inner and outer tasks that had been set.
