Elisabeth Vreede

As the first leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section at the Goetheanum, Elisabeth Vreede played a decisive role in shaping its development and work. She possessed clarity, warmth, and the rare ability to support others in their research.

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“To understand human life by drawing from the universe through living knowledge—that is what is intended by contemporary spiritual science,” stated Rudolf Steiner,¹ and he gave the responsibility for leading the Mathematical-Astronomical Section of the School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum to Elisabeth Vreede (1879-1943), a mathematician and astronomer from the Netherlands. “Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge that would guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe,” wrote Rudolf Steiner in his first anthroposophical “leading thought” (February 17, 1924).² At the Christmas Conference of 1923–24, Steiner emphasized the need to develop “a Section for mathematical and astronomical perspectives,” since, (as he’d said years earlier) “astronomical science is, indeed, the one that has the best opportunity of being led back to spirituality.”³ He entrusted this Section to the highly gifted specialist Vreede, who had come from The Hague in the Netherlands. Her department was at the heart of what Steiner intended with the founding of the Dornach School of Spiritual Science and was in the best of hands. A tribute to Vreede reads: “Her thinking-force had something Jupiter-like and all-encompassing about it. When she lectured or led the Class, her forehead shone like a star. Her way of thinking enabled her to grasp immediately what Rudolf Steiner had presented and, despite her deepest reverence for him, to form her own independent judgment, just as he had hoped the members would do.”⁴

Unlike other Section leaders, when Steiner introduced Vreede at the Christmas Conference as Section leader and a member of the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society he highlighted not only her outstanding professional expertise, but also her special social skills. From her “advice and help” flowed “everywhere” “whenever one needed to know something in the fields of mathematics and astronomy.”⁵ Vreede truly possessed rare qualities of selfless devotion. Despite her keen intelligence, phenomenal memory, and outstanding expertise, which enabled her to work independently, she took a practical interest in the studies, research, and concerns of others, including her first section colleagues Ernst Bindel, Hermann von Baravalle, Ernst Müller, Willi Sucher, and George Adams. “She welcomed others, accepted them as equals, and would never have made them feel her superiority.”⁶

Vreede possessed an innate clarity, overview, objectivity, warmth, and a great sense of humor, which she once described as “the liberating element in the spiritual life.”⁷ She did not like to be in the spotlight and worked modestly in the background. At the same time, she was able to speak impressively and convincingly on fundamental mathematical and astronomical questions before large audiences, and she authored profound works. Beginning in 1927, many activities took place in the vicinity of her observatory, which were closely coordinated with her like-minded colleague Lili Kolisko (1889–1976)⁸ and, in some cases, carried out jointly with Kolisko. Together, they endeavored, as far as possible, to carry out the research projects announced by Steiner in the 1924 Agricultural Course in Koberwitz. Vreede also traveled with Kolisko. For example, in June 1936, they went to Turkey to study a total solar eclipse from the summit of a high, extinct volcano, Uludağ.⁹

Member Participation

In 1937 Vreede wrote in a retrospective on her work for the School of Spiritual Science which had fallen victim to the destructive events within the Anthroposophical Society in 1935: “[The Section] had to be built up from the very beginning. In this work, I always tried to look everywhere, wherever the seeds of a spiritualized mathematics or astronomy might be found. Together with all those striving in this field, I sought to establish a connection with the Goetheanum and the Mathematical-Astronomical Section. In 1926, I was able to publish [Rudolf Steiner’s] course The Relationship of Astronomy to the Various Natural Scientific Fields.¹⁰ In 1927, I began to disseminate basic astronomical concepts through circular letters.¹¹ Over the course of five years, I worked through the field of astronomy and also provided an overview of astrology in the spiritual-scientific sense, to the best of my ability. These circulars were very well received. Although I advertised them only once in the [members’] News Sheet,¹² and despite the fact that they were completely ignored at every general assembly or on other occasions, they had reached a circulation of over 1,000 subscribers simply through word-of-mouth recommendations from the original recipients, to which must be added approximately 200 more who had subscribed to the English translation. I published astrological letters in 1934–35 together with Willi Sucher.¹³ And many other things as well.” Among these “other things” were her “mathematical shipments,” in which Elisabeth Vreede also published important excerpts from Steiner’s lectures and his answers to questions.¹⁴

The Stars

From 1929 until her death, she also published the Sternenkalender [Star calendar], which was intended especially for farmers. At the end of her introduction to the first edition she wrote, “Whoever has studied Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific cosmology, as set forth, for example, in his Occult Science, will know how the Earth, with everything on it, arose from the ‘Heavens,’ and how stars and planets are not distant worlds far removed from human perception but are directly connected to us and the other kingdoms of nature. It is not only warmth and light that the sun bestows upon the Earth; rather, from the entire periphery, all the way up to the stars, those forces flow to the Earth that bring about growth and flourishing, formation and blooming, sprouting and budding. Etheric formative forces, astral rhythms of movement, and spiritual impulses stream down from the universe to the Earth. When the Moon shines over the quiet fields, when Venus glows as the evening star, or when Saturn radiates its pale red light, they point to forces at work between heaven and Earth, forces whose specific details human beings must know and experience. Agriculturists in particular, who follow the tracks laid out by Rudolf Steiner, can develop a sense for these effects. For the great teacher of humanity has pointed them to the cosmic source that pours forth fruitfully over the Earth, without which not a single seed could germinate nor a single stalk sprout. And he related this source to the being of Christ. Christ descended from the heavens to the Earth; during the holy days of Holy Week, he poured his essence into the Earth, and since that Easter, the Earth has been his body, from which the grain sprouts to become bread for humankind.”¹⁵

Vreede’s Star Calendar year ran from Easter to Easter and linked the natural cycle of renewal throughout the year with the spiritual reality of Christ’s Resurrection, just as did Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul 1912/13. In her foreword to the 1930/31 Star Calendar, she wrote, “Easter should be for us the true feast of the Resurrection, from which new forces are drawn into the old world, a turning point in the course of the year whose significance can be compared only to that of Christmas.” The Star Calendar was published with a beautiful, colorful cover; Vreede also published a rotating star chart. She moved into the Section room in early 1928 (in the nearly completed Second Goetheanum), inaugurated it at Easter, and had it painted etheric pink.

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Translation Joshua Kelberman

1. Rudolf Steiner, The Riddle of Humanity: The Spiritual Background to Human History, CW 170 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2025), Sept. 3, 1916.
2. Rudolf Steiner, Leitsätze—Leading Thoughts. Bilingual Edition, CW 26, translated by George and Mary Adams, rev. Thomas O’Keefe (Arlesheim, Switzerland: Ita Wegman Institute, 2024).
3. Rudolf Steiner, The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society 1923/24, CW 260 (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1990), Dec. 27, 1923, 10:00 a.m.; Background to the Gospel of St. Mark, CW 124 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1968), lecture in Berlin, Oct. 1910.
4. In: Madeleine P. van Deventer/Elisabeth Knottenbelt (Ed.): Elisabeth Vreede (Arlesheim 1976), p. 37f.
5. Rudolf Steiner, The Christmas Conference for the Foundation of the General Anthroposophical Society 1923/24, CW 260 (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1990), Dec. 28, 1923, 10:00 a.m.
6. Peter Selg, Elisabeth Vreede. 1879–1943 (Arlesheim: Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts, 2009), p. 113; cf. Selg, Elisabeth Vreede: Adversity, Resilience, and Spiritual Science (Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2017).
7. Ibid.
8. See also Soili Turunen: Lilly Kolisko. Vom Mysterium der Materie. Eine dokumentarische Biografie [On the mystery of matter. A documentary biography] (Arlesheim 2024).
9. For Vreedes’ experiences there, see Peter Selg, op. cit., pp. 208 ff.; for Lilly Kolisko’s studies in Turkey, see Soili Turunen, op. cit., pp. 283 ff.
10. Rudolf Steiner, Interdisciplinary Astronomy: Third Scientific Course, CW 323 (Hudson, NY: SteinerBooks, 2020). German title: Das Verhältnis der verschiedenen naturwissenschaftlichen Gebiete zur Astronomie.
11. Elisabeth Vreede, Astronomy and Spiritual Science: The Astronomical Letters of Elisabeth Vreede (Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2007).
12. Elisabeth Vreede, “Mitteilung der mathematisch-astronomischen Sektion” [Communications from the Mathematics and Astronomy Section] Nachrichtenblatt 4, no. 27 (July 3, 1927). [She did actually advertise them a second time; see “Mathematisch-astronomischen Sektion,” Nachrichtenblatt 5, no. 38 (Sept. 16, 1928) — Trans. note.]
13. Elisabeth Vreede, Astronomische Rundschreiben, nos. 1–6 (Dornach: Mathematisch-Astronomische Sektion am Goetheanum, 1934–35).
14. Elisabeth Vreede, Mathematische Sendungen, nos. 1–14 (Dornach: Mathematisch-Astronomische Sektion am Goetheanum, 1929–32).
15. Elisabeth Vreede, Kalender, nos. 1–7 (Dornach: Mathematisch-Astronomische Sektion am Goetheanum, 1929–1936); Kalender, nos. 8–15 (self-pub., 1936–1944).