Ehrenfried Pfeiffer: The Goetheanum Years
At Christmas in 1919 Ehrenfried travelled to the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland at the invitation of his teacher. He experienced the first Goetheanum as the incarnation of a spirit message. Pfeiffer was impressed by the huge, carved wooden structure as well as the masterfully cut colored glass windows. He took an immediate interest in the technical aspects of the future stage arrangement, which included lighting and ventilation. In the Spring of 1920 on his 21st birthday he moved to Dornach.
He spent the following years (1920 to 1925) in the company of Dr. Steiner, setting up lighting for a simple board stage in the Carpentry shop, to create a constant interchange of colors, based on the contents of the poems and backdrops. The actors were to be surrounded by colored light that corresponded to the inner action as expressed by their words and gestures. During these trials he experienced the essence of light as harmony or dissonance that penetrates human beings.
Ehrenfried continued his studying at the Technical College in Stuttgart. Dr. Steiner advised him to take chemistry and other courses so he could “thoroughly become acquainted with the modern sciences so he could disprove materialism with its own weapons.”
Pfeiffer asked Dr. Steiner How can we prove the existence of formative forces? How do 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 forces that they do not destroy but build. He was told to use organisms to experience reactions to certain effects and to investigate the influences of rhythms upon the life processes. He was encouraged to make formative forces visible.
Besides the natural science and spiritual scientific work, young Pfeiffer was to cultivate regular and intensive meditation, which would gradually become a natural need and connect his inner life with the spirit realm. A personal relationship developed between the two men. In the chaotic post war years Pfieffer and Gunther Wachsmuth belonged to a group of young people that became Steiner’s bodyguards.
Above all Pfeiffer was interested in the forces that affect our physical world, the life of our earth and our social structure. There are the supersensible etheric formative forces that structure our lives and work, even into our social relationships, ; but they are also the opposing, subnatural forces (electricity, magnetism, and atomic energy), which destroy life.
Gunther Wachsmuth remembers the following: “ We made a significant beginning in the summer of 1921, when the research laboratory was established at the Goetheanum in Dornach. Rudolf Steiner gave us permission to move into the basement of the Glass House. Right from the start we received indications for research work and experimentation in the field of biological phenomena.
We asked in 1922 how experiments could be applied in a practical way to agriculture. Dr. Steiner suggested for the first time to make preparations out of plant and animal substances and to expose them to the forces of the cosmos and the earth in summer and winter. This is how the making of the biodynamic preparations began. The first indications referred to cow horns.
Dr Steiner repeatedly pointed out the fact that our present day civilization could disintegrate, and that, 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. This impulse formed the basis of Pfeiffer’s work. He developed the crystallization method, wanting to demonstrate the effects of the etheric forces upon matter.
After the Goetheanum burned down on New Years Eve 1922, Pfeiffer gave up his private life in order to serve Steiner’s mission. He was allowed to attend lecture cycles that were only given to a specific profession. Usually he would not be invited and Dr. Steiner would say, “Where is Ehrenfried Pfeiffer?” Thus he was subsequently asked to attend. Above all he worked for the spiritual impulses of Anthroposophy. As a disciple he strove to develop spirit organs.
In the fall of 1924 Dr. Steiner became seriously ill. When Pfeiffer arrived at the studio on March 30, 1925, he found the door open. Dr. Steiner had passed in the night while working on rejuvenating medicine in a spiritual way. Pfeiffer was one of the four coffin bearers.
Thus ends a great light period of his life in which 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 dependent on his own resources. His active forces of love urged him to carry out the inner and outer tasks that he had been set.
