Swiss novelist and dramatist, one of the leading writers of the anthroposophical movement founded by Rudolf Steiner (Steiner, Rudolf) (q.v.).

Steffen's early works were compassionate messages of alarm at the disastrous effects of modern technological civilization and secularized thought in human relations. Moved by these problems, he joined the anthroposophical movement in 1907, settling at its centre in Dornach, near Basel. (Steffen was later president of the Anthroposophical Society and was editor of its review, Das Goetheanum.) From that time his numerous writings became visions of a world permeated by metaphysical powers of good and evil, as revealed in old and esoteric European and Asiatic traditions. His novels include Die Erneuerung des Bundes (1913) and Aus Georg Archibalds Lebenslauf (1950); his plays, Hieram und Salomo (1927), Das Todeserlebnis des Manes (1934), and Barrabas (1949; Christ or Barrabas?, 1950); and his essays, Der Künstler zwischen Westen und Osten (1925; The Artist Between West and East, 1946). Buch der Rückschau (1939) is autobiographical.