FWIW...
When I was working at Half Price Books in the Religion & Philosophy department, one day an older gentleman arrived with several boxes of Rudolf Steiner books and pamphlets which were quite old and in excellent condition.
I confess I knew nothing of the author. However, another employee was apparently deeply into the "fringe" of certain philosophical schools and he bought everything for an offer of $200.
I said to myself, "We'll never sell this crap."
I made room for everything and shelved the entire caboodle.
Within less than a week we'd sold everything at a collector's selling price of nearly $700. Even that price was (they told me) quite the bargain!
That made me want to delve and discover what the attraction was.
Long story short, the man's life is as colorful, interesting, and fraught with drama as any figure of his time.
Adolf Hitler hounded him erroneously as a "tool of the Jews" inasmuch as Steiner warned Germany that the embrace of the Nazis would prove disastrous for one and all.
Stop and think about it just for a moment.
How many great and famous men actually found Adolf Hitler to be admirable and how few (like Steiner) put themselves in harm's way to speak out and oppose the National Socialist movement.
His main aim was to (somehow) harmonize man's knowledge of Science with that of the separate realm of spiritual matters. For Steiner, it all starts with a basic understanding of Karma and Reincarnation. If you can swallow that large pill--well, you're on your way!
The trick is to avoid the notion of Destiny by exercising one's "free will" through enlightenment and education in all intellectual pursuits.
In my opinion, not that anybody cares, is that Science is objective and stems from non-contradictory descriptions of actual phenomena while Mysticism is subjective and impossible to measure, quantify, or make falsifiable.
In this regard, Jehovah's Witnesses are pretty much closer to Rudolf Steiner in mindset than to Isaac Newton.
A great many otherwise intelligent individuals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries earnestly sought to make discoveries as essential to everyday life (in the Spirit World) as technology in the everyday pragmatic world.
Those who (IMHO) squandered their intellectual gifts on Mysticism may have attracted vast hordes of followers and movements, but the general benefits aren't at all apparent in the long run. In fact, disciples of Pastor Russell and Rudolf Steiner (each in their own narrow category) probably wasted more people's time and money and energy than generated any positive outcome.
