His rural commune Himmelhof, in Ober Sankt Veit near Vienna (1897–1899), was the model for the reform settlement Monte Verità near Ascona,[2] founded by his student Gustav Gräser, who is also known as the "Grail of Modernity."

[3] Diefenbach received attention and recognition early on, but his endeavours were temporarily cut short; his right arm was crippled as a result of severe typhoid fever and a botched operation.

[3] Immediately after the wedding, Diefenbach withdrew to Hohenpeißenberg in the Bavarian Alpine Foreland, where his first revelation allegedly happened to him on 10 February 1882 during the sunrise: his transformation and calling to become a prophetic reformer.

"Natural living" in food, clothing, dwelling, in everything - that is his case; He walked around the city of Munich barefoot in shirt-like robes, he let his children run around naked in his secluded corner of the country.

[3] In 1885, after the authorities had suppressed Diefenbach's public lectures, he withdrew from the conservative Munich to an abandoned quarry near Höllriegelskreuth in the Bavarian countryside.

The authorities observed suspiciously that the offspring played naked in the garden and that Diefenbach gave his third child only a vegetarian diet, not even dairy milk.

[1] In the Höllriegelskreuth "Humanitas" commune, the young academic painter from Lübeck, Hugo Höppener, became Diefenbach's disciple and assistant.

Diefenbach's works had garnered the attention of Moritz Terke, director of the near-bankrupt Austrian Art Association (Österreichischen Kunstvereins).

[1][3] Before the exhibition, Diefenbach had commissioned his former student Fidus (Hugo Höppener) to complete the larger version of the silhouette Per aspera ad astra or music children and send it to him in Vienna.

"[4] Diefenbach's colossal 68-metre long silhouette wall frieze artwork "Per aspera ad astra" or "Music Children" was completed in 1892 and consisted of 43 panels.

[3] The exhibit did not come about until 1893 in Baden and, despite the great surge of celebrities at the opening, was a total failure financially, and new debts drove Diefenbach into homelessness.

[3] He travelled with his disciples across the alps before touring towards Egypt, where, in the land of the Pharaohs, Diefenbach designed and sketched ambitious plans for huge temples.

This circle included the pacifist and later Nobel laureate Bertha von Suttner, whom Diefenbach met for the first time at a peace congress in Vienna in 1891, and the publicist Michael Georg Conrad.

[3] An honorary association was founded to celebrate Diefenbach "as a tremendous pioneer of a higher cultural epoch",[1] and an exhibition was planned to travel through Europe to finally help the man from Hadamar to fame.

In 1897, Diefenbach founded a new artists' "Humanitas" commune in the former guesthouse "Auf dem Himmeln"[3] on Himmelhof in Ober Sankt Veit (Vienna), which became the nucleus of the early alternative movement or Lebensreform (life-reform).

At times, it included the artists František Kupka, Konstantinos Parthenis, Paul von Spaun [de] and Gustav Gräser, as well as the later animal rights activist Magnus Schwantje.

Diefenbach's authoritarian style could not prevent unrest; there were quarrels and love dramas, most of which revolved around his daughter Stella (married von Spaun) (1882–1971).

[1] In 1898, Diefenbach met Wilhelmine (Mina) Vogler, whom he married, but primarily lived with her sister Marie (Hilaris) Orborny, in a kind of marriage of three.

[3] Diefenbach continued to paint, especially landscapes, received visitors like the art journalist Emil Szittya,[5] and hoped to the end for a breakthrough.