Culture stylist Rudolf Steiner wrote of recurrent organic shapes as ‘forms’, the same label that Plato used to explain how archetype manifests in culture, using the example of chairs. ‘Form’ was also at the core of biology science in Steiner’s time: “Forms… in higher worlds, cast their shadow pictures to the physical plane.” He also recognised cultural crafts as subconscious behaviour that could be known: “Development of clairvoyance leads humans to the realm behind the senses… Art is the divine child of clairvoyant vision, which lives as unconscious feeling in the soul.” But our conscious logic struggles to grasp archetype: “Salient feelings [from] no conscious reason or cause… are ignored, or attributed to some physical thing.” Yet we could have conscious access to archetype: “We must learn to sense how the spiritual world speaks to us… to find those regions from where gods speak, we turn our eyes to… windows. There we would be shown what lives in people who… tread the path from physical to spiritual world.”
Steiner saw culture as a hidden reality, not a set of correspondences: “We interpret spiritual meanings symbolically, as indirectly representing something physical, but it speaks directly in living emotions… forms are alive, as organs for what the spiritual world speaks.” This view is close to the philosophy of archetype. But Steiner was an artist, architect, mythographer, esotericist, and educator, thus a culture crafter, not a scientist or researcher.
His expressionism aimed to directly represent “primordial forms… sprung from the soul, not from imitation or resemblance’. Steiner’s intuition on the source of art is also confirmed by the ‘trance vision’ hypothesis (Lewis-Williams 1990s) that recognises ‘visionary’ content in art. But the current work contradicts the supposed cultural ‘framing’ and individual ‘idiosyncrasy’ of the trance vision hypothesis (Lewis-Williams et al., 2012), and its view of formal academic art as ‘different’ from rock art. Steiner’s view that formal art is based on ‘resemblance,’ was mere recognition of our fascination with likeness.
He saw culture as democratic: “Capacities by which we can gain insights into the higher worlds, lie dormant in each one of us.” (Steiner 1904). This view is now confirmed.
Definition of archetypal structure
Artworks, built sites, and other cultural media are testable for the five known layers of structure. In any artwork or built site of eleven or more characters or forms, at least twelve eyes or focal points are attached to certain recurrent features (listed on p22); And are on an axial grid (p23); AND in the standard peripheral sequence, clockwise or anti-clockwise; AND axially opposite their usual counterparts; AND some limb-joints or junctures are on one of the two implied ‘galactic’ poles, or implied seasonal (midsummer v midwinter) poles; AND the polar triangles express the precessional Age of the local culture, usually prior to the work; AND one of the polar axles may be parallel to the vertical or horizontal or ground-line or cardinal direction; AND each recurrent feature occurs at a different fixed frequency in random samples of about 50 or more works or sites; AND recurrent features together express about 60% of the known optional typological features (Furter 2014). This structure of five layers indicates that nature and culture always express archetype, and are not cumulative constructs. Every expression is partial, revealing optional versions of the underlying blueprint (Furter 2019). Some media, such as myth cycles, lack the spatial layer.
Recurrent features of typological characters in cultural media are optional, but each occur at a specific average frequency (also listed in the paper Blueprint on www.edmondfurter.wordpress.com). The features are:
1 /2 Builder; (twist, cluster, bovid, bird, tower, build, ruin, hero, book, spring, maze, pit, spiral,)
2c Basket; (weave, arm-link, tool, container, hat, weapon, throne, snake, secret,).
3 Queen; (neck long/bent, dragon, sacrifice, queen, spring, school, horse, fish, ram, pool, moon,)
4 King; (squat, king, twins, rectangle, sun, bird, horse, fish, furnace, field, wall,)
5a/b Priest; (colours, priest, hyperactive, tailcoat head, assembly, horizontal, water, heart, large, reptile, winged, sash, judge, equid,)
5c BasketTail; (weave, tail, container, tree/herb, reveal, maze, disc, fire,)
6 Exile; (ingress/egress, horned, sacrifice, small, U-shape, double-head, caprid, reptile, tree, fire,)
7 Child; (bag, rope, juvenile, unfold, formling, beheaded, chariot, mace, blind,)
7g Gal.Centre; (limb-joint/juncture, path, gate, water, vortex,)
8/9 Healer; (bent forward, strong, pillar, heal, disc, smelt, trance, canid,)
9c BasketLid; (disc, hat, lid, tool, reveal, weave, enforce, pillar, snake,)
10 Teacher; (arms up, staff, hunt-master, guard, metal, market, disc, council, snake, ecology, school, carousel, canid,)
11 Womb; (midriff/womb, wheat, water, law, felid, tomb, interior, library,)
12/13 Heart; (heart, felid, death, round, invert, weapon, war, fort, water-work,)
13c BasketHead; (oracle, head, hat, lid, weave, tree, tail,). C-types are between axes.
14 Mixer; (ingress/egress, time, transform, tree/herb, bird, angel, cervid, reptile, fish, canid, brew, dance,)
15 Maker; (churn, rope, rising, order, bag, mace, weapon, doubled, smite, sceptre, face, canid, reptile, winged, hell,)
15g Gal.Gate;(juncture /joint /churn /risk)
Axial centre /4p,11pGal.Poles /Summer,Winter; (unmarked, juncture, limb-joint, path, year, hemispheres, trio,)
Age; Polar marker/s and/or the horizontal/vertical plane, mark a time-frame.
Two kinds of axial grid
In Steiner’s first Goetheanum, a conscious axial grid around the speaker’s rostrum in front of the stage, determined the positions of hall pillars and stage pillars. But the usual subconscious axial grid lay around a point in the aisle, between the engraved windows, two hall pillars near the stage, the foyer red window, and the stage sculpture. In the current Goetheanum, there are no conscious axes, and the subconscious axial grid lies near the centre of the auditorium, between the new engraved windows, the two edges of the stage, and again the stage sculpture (see floor plan).
Conscious and subconscious axial grids never coincide (Furter 2016). Conscious, abstracted, or ‘sacred’ geometry is used in crafts such as astrology, which arises from synchronous space and time around the daily earth rotation celestial polar axle (Furter 2016). Subconscious geometry is irregular, invisible unless identified among the eyes of typological characters, and arises from archetypal features around the yearly earth orbit polar axle (see the structuralist diagram).
Steiner saw sun and earth as one focal point, as in astrological horoscopes, where these two axial centres are combined due to their relative proximity against the near infinity of the stellar backdrop. Astrology enables conscious insight into tendencies in space and time, due to celestial plane synchronicities, as Jung (1950) had theorised. The popular assumption made after Faraday’s motor, Edison’s direct current generator, and Tesla’s alternating current generator, remains that electromagnetic, gravity or other force lines between the sun and earth’s molten metal core, physically influence events. But solar system forces are all curved and swirled beyond trace. The influences of subtle changes in solar wind during the year (Cotterell 1994) has not been confirmed in science. Archetypal axial grids in cultural media requires no forces or causes, just perception and expression embedded in nature and culture. One of the most remarkable features of subconscious expression, is that any 50 or more artworks express about 100 recurrent features, each feature at a different average percentage. Artists, builders, mythographers, ritualists and iconographers worldwide have no direct contact, and do not collude to decide who would use which features, or how often. Only archetype projected via the collective subconscious, could explain the statistics that Zipf (1949) and others found in our economic works and cities.
Type 3 Queen window as the Christian sacrifice
Characters in the Goetheanum north peach window sketch are (noting archetypal features):
1 Builder; Crucifix right (twisted, hero) central in a group (cluster).
2c Basket; Crucifix right (instrument, ‘throne’ in irony, ‘snake’ as healer, link to arm posture).
3 Queen; Crucifix left (bent neck, sacrifice).
4 King; Ruler? (king) with rays (sun).
5a and 5b Priest; Lion face (felid, a feature of 12/13 opposite, often transferred here), wrapped in rays (hyperactive, tailcoat head, sash).
5c BasketTail; Bush (weave, tree, revelation).
6 Exile; Tree spirit (tree), near the centre (ingress).
7 Child; Healer (more typical of 8), with wand? (mace).
9 Healer; Crucifix left central (bent forward, strength, pillar, healer).
9c BasketLid; Crucifix group (instrument, pillar, ‘snake’, link to arm posture, enforcement as it was in the Roman empire).
10 Teacher; Crucifix left (W-posture, ‘staff’, ‘snake’).
11 Womb; Midriff (womb) of Lion or Furrow person (wheat, water).
12 Heart; Reaper (death, weapon).
13 Heart; Lion (felid) person, or Wheat person (crops, typical of 11).
13c BasketHead; Moon (oracle).
14 Mixer; Star (time).
15 Maker; Star (decan Sirius).
15g Gal.Gate; Sunset (juncture).
Axial centre; Unmarked as usual.
4p Gal.S.Pole; Sun ray near knot (juncture).
11p Gal.Pole; Lion person’s elbow (limb-joint).
Celestial poles; Unmarked.
Age; The vertical plane placed ‘summer’ between axes 13-14 or Leo-Cancer, thus ‘spring’ and the cultural time-frame in Age2-3 Taurus-Aries, before the work as usual, confirmed by the crucifixion group on the top right.
The five structuralist layers of expression are subconscious to artists, architects, builders and members of all cultures.
- This post is an extract from Stoneprint Journal 9; Subconscious archetypes in Steiner’s Goetheanum, August 2023. The Journals are supplements to the book Stoneprint, the human code in art, buildings and cities. Order the book, or journal editions, or contribute articles, on edmondfurter at gmail dot com, or +27 (0)11 955 6732
Back editions:
1 Pictish Beasts are not a ‘zodiac’
2 Crop circles are natural artworks
3 The Stoneprint tour of Paris
4 The Stoneprint tour of London
5 Culture code in seals and ring stamps
6 Rennes le Chateau stoneprint tour
7 Hercules, Arcadia, Greece myth maps
8 NASA and SETI space cosmograms
9 Archetypes in Steiner’s Goetheanum
Some sources for Stoneprint Journal 9
Adams, D.J. 1992. Rudolf Steiner’s First Goetheanum as an Illustration of Organic Functionalism. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 51:2, 182-204
Blaser, W. 2002. Nature in Building: Rudolf Steiner in Dornach. Basel: Birkhauser
Boos-Hamburger, Hilde. 1910. Experiences in painting cupolas of first Goetheanum. Anthroposophic Press
Burki, Karin. 1923. Goetheanum. Heartbrut
Fant, Å., Kingborg, A. and Wilkes, A. J. 1975. Rudolf Steiner’s sculpture in Dornach. London: Rudolf Steiner Press
Furter, E. 2014. Mindprint, the subconscious art code. Lulu.com
Furter, E. 2016. Stoneprint, the human code in art, buildings and cities. Four Equators Media, Johannesburg
Furter, E. 2017a. Stoneprint Journal 2; Crop circles are natural artworks. Four Equators Media, Johannesburg
Furter, E. 2017b. Recurrent characters in rock art reveal objective meaning. Expression 16, June, p54-62. Atelier Etno, Italy /Also in book form
Furter, E. 2018a. Stoneprint Journal 3; Paris stoneprint tour. Four Equators Media, Johannesburg
Furter, E. 2018b. Stoneprint Journal 4; London stoneprint tour. Lulu.com
Furter, E. 2018c. Stoneprint Journal 5; Culture code in seals and ring stamps. Lulu.com
Furter, E. 2019. Blueprint, cultural structure in four media. Researchgate /Academia /Edmondfurter.wordpress.com
Furter, E. 2019a. Stoneprint Journal 6; Rennes le Chateau stoneprint tour. Lulu.com
Furter, E. 2021. Stoneprint Journal 7; Hercules, Arcadia, and Greece myth maps. Four Equators Media, Johannesburg
Furter, E. 2023. Stoneprint Journal 8; NASA and SETI space cosmograms. Four Equators Media
Goetheanum Archive, Dornach; Rudolf Steiner Archive, Dornach; Verlag am Goetheanum
Kasser, R., Meyer, & Wurst 2006. Gospel of Judas. National Geographic
Paull, J. 2020. First Goetheanum: A Centenary for Organic Architecture. Journal of Fine Arts Vol.3, Iss.2
Steiner, R. 1925c. Goetheanum windows. Rudolf Steiner Press, UK
EdmondFurter.wordpress.com 
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