I
have given you some idea of the forces which determined the first
two periods of the anthroposophical movement. But in order to
create a basis on which to deal with what happened in the third
stage, I still wish to deal with a number of phenomena from the
first two.
The
first period, up until approximately 1907, can be described as
being concerned with developing the fundamentals for a science of
the spirit in lectures, lecture cycles and in subsequent work
undertaken by others. This period concludes approximately with
the publication of my Occult
Science.
[ Note
1 ]
Occult
Science
actually appeared in print some one and a half years later, but
the publicizing of its essential content undoubtedly falls into
this first period. Some hope was definitely justified in this
period, up to 1905 or 1906, that the content of anthroposophy
might become the purpose of the Theosophical Society's existence.
During this time it
would have been an illusion not to recognize that leading
personalities in the Theosophical Society, and Annie Besant in
particular, had a very primitive understanding of modern
scientific method. Nevertheless, despite the amateurish stamp
which this gave to all her books, there was a certain sum of
wisdom, mostly unprocessed, in the people who belonged to the
Society. This became more marked as the focus of the Theosophical
Society gradually moved to London and slowly began to feed, in a
manner of speaking, on oriental wisdom. It sometimes led to the
most peculiar ideas. But if we ignore the fact that such ideas
were sometimes stretched so far that they lost all similarity to
their original and true meaning, such books as Annie Besant's
Ancient Wisdom, The Progress of Mankind, and even
Christianity transmit something which, although passed
down by traditional means, originated in ancient sources of
wisdom.
On the other hand
one must always be aware that in the modern world beyond these
circles there was no interest whatsoever in real spiritual
research. The reality was simply that the possibility of kindling
an interest in a truly modern science of the spirit existed only
among those who found their way into this group of people.
Yet within this
first period in particular there was a great deal to overcome.
Many people were working towards something, but it was in part a
very egoistic and shallow striving. But even such superficial
societies frequently called themselves theosophical. One need
only think, for instance, of the theosophical branches spread
widely throughout central Europe — in Germany, Austria and
also Switzerland — which possessed only an exceedingly
anaemic version of Theosophical Society tenets, impregnated with
all kinds of foolish occult views.
One
person who was very active in such societies was Franz Hartmann.
[ Note
2 ]
But the kind of profound spirit and deep seriousness which
existed in these shallow societies will become obvious to you if
I describe the cynical character of this particular leader. The
Theosophical Society was at one time engaged in a dispute in
connection with an American called Judge [ Note
3 ]
about whether or not certain messages which had been distributed
by Judge originated with persons who really had reached a higher
stage of initiation, the so-called Masters. Judge had distributed
these “Mahatma Letters” in America.
While they were
both at the headquarters in India, Judge said he wanted some
letters from the Masters in order to gain credibility in America,
so that he could say he had been given a mission by initiates.
Franz Harmann recounted how he had offered to write some Mahatma
Letters for Judge, and the latter had replied that this would not
permit him to claim their authenticity. They were supposed to fly
towards you through the air; they originated in a magical way and
then landed on your head, and that is what he had to be able to
say. Judge was a very small fellow, Hartmann told us, and so he
said to him “Stand on the floor and I will stand on a chair
and then I will drop the letters on your head.” Then Judge
could say with a clear conscience that he was distributing
letters which had landed on his head clean out of the air!
That is an extreme
example of things which are not at all rare in the world. I do
not really want to waste your time with these shallow societies.
I only want to point out that the close proximity of the
anthroposophical to the theosophical movement made it necessary
for the former to defend itself against modern scientific
thinking during its first period.
I do not know
whether those who joined the anthroposophical movement later as
scientists, and observed anthroposophy during its more developed
third stage, have gained sufficient insight into the fact that a
critical assessment of modern scientific thinking took place in a
very specific way during the first period of the anthroposophical
movement. I only give instances, because this process occurred in
a number of different areas. But these examples will show you how
the theosophical movement was strongly influenced by the
deference to so-called scientific authority which I described as
particularly characteristic of modern education.
Annie
Besant, for instance, tried to use in her books all kinds of
quotes from contemporary science, such as Weismann's theory of
heredity, [ Note
4 ]
which bore no relevance to the science of the spirit. She used
them as if they provided some sort of evidence. If you recall, at
the time when we were in a position to start a centre for the
anthroposophical movement in Munich many homeless souls were
already organized in the sense that they belonged to various
societies. Of course centres for the movement had begun to
develop gradually in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Kassel,
Dusseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, Hanover and Leipzig, and in Vienna
as well as in Prague. When we were establishing the branch in
Munich it became necessary to assess critically the various
larger and smaller groups which were then in existence.
One group called
the Ketterl, consisting of extremely scholarly people, was very
much concerned with providing proofs from natural science for the
claims which were made on behalf of the spiritual science. If
anthroposophy spoke about the etheric body, they would say that
science has recognized this or that structure for atoms and
molecules. Their formulae and definitions and so on were applied
not to processes of the spectrum or electro-magnetism but to
processes in the etheric or astral field. There was nothing we
could do about that. The whole thing dissolved more or less
amicably. In the end we no longer had any links with these
investigations.
Not
so very different were the efforts of a Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden,
[ Note
5 ]
who played an important role in the Theosophical Society. He was
a close friend of Madame Blavatsky, and was the editor of Sphinx
for a long time. He, too, was obsessed with proving what he felt
was theosophical subject matter by means of natural-scientific
thinking. He took me to his home, a little way outside Hanover.
It was perhaps half an hour by tram. He spent the entire
half-hour describing the motion of atoms with his index fingers:
Yes, it has to happen in this way and that way and then we have
the answer. The atoms move in one incarnation and then the wave
motion continues through the spiritual worlds; then it changes
and that is the next incarnation. In the same way as modern
physicists calculate light in terms of wave lengths, he
calculated the passage of souls through various incarnations.
A special version
of this way of thinking was evident in the debate about the
permanent atom, which took place in the Theosophical Society over
a long period. This permanent atom was something awful, but was
taken incredibly seriously. For the people who felt the full
weight of modern science postulated that while of course the
physical body decomposes, a single atom remains, passes through
the time between death and a new birth, and appears in the new
incarnation. That is the permanent atom which passes through
incarnations.
This may appear
funny to you today, but you simply cannot understand the
seriousness with which these things were pursued, specifically in
the first period, and the difficulty which existed in responding
to the challenge: What is the point of theosophy if it cannot be
proved scientifically! During that conversation in the tram the
point was forcefully made that things have to be presented in a
manner which will allow a matriculated schoolboy to understand
theosophy in the same way that he understands logic. That was the
thrust of my companion's argument. Then we arrived at his home
and he took me into the loft, and up there — I have to
repeat that he was an exceedingly kind, pleasant and intelligent
man; in other words, a sympathetic old gentleman — were
very complicated wire constructions. One of the models would
represent the atom of a physical entity; the next model, which
was even more complex, would represent the atom of something
etheric; the third model, still more complex, was an astral atom.
If
you pick up certain books by Leadbeater, [ Note
6 ]
a leading figure in the Theosophical Society, you will find such
models in grandiose form. Atomism flourished nowhere as greatly
as among those who joined our ranks from the Theosophical
Society. And when younger members such as Dr. Kolisko [ Note
7 ]
and others are engaged in the fight against the atom in our
research institute in Stuttgart, [ Note
8 ]
we might well recall that certain people at that time would not
have known how to get from one incarnation to the next without at
least one permanent atom.
That is something
of an image of the way in which the strong authority of so-called
natural-scientific thinking exerted its influence in these
circles. They were unable to conceive of any other valid way of
thinking than the natural-scientific one. So there was no real
understanding in this quarter either. Only as the
anthroposophical movement entered its second stage did these
atomistic endeavours gradually subside, and there was a gradual
transition to the subject matter which continued to be cultivated
in the anthroposophical movement. Every time I was in Munich, for
instance, it was possible to give a lecture designed more for the
group which gathered round a great friend of Blavatsky's. Things
were easier there because a genuine inner striving existed.
Within
our own ranks, too, there was a call at that time to justify the
content of anthroposophy using the current natural-scientific
approach. It was less radical, nevertheless, than the demands
made by external critics today. A large number of you heard Dr.
Blümel's [ Note
9 ]
lecture today. Imagine if someone had responded by saying that
everything Dr. Blümel spoke about was of no personal
concern; that he did not believe it, did not recognize it and did
not want to test it. Someone else might say: See whether it is
accurate, examine it with your reason and your soul faculties.
The first person says: It is no business of mine be it right or
wrong, I do not want to become involved with that. But I call on
Dr. Blümel to go to a psychological laboratory and there,
using my psychological methods, I will examine whether or not he
is a mathematician. That is, of course, piffle of the first
order. But it is exactly the demand made today by outside
critics.
Sadly, it is quite
possible today to talk pure nonsense that goes undetected. Even
those who are upset by it fail to notice that it is pure
nonsense. They believe that it is only maliciousness or something
similar, because they cannot imagine the possibility of someone
who talks pure nonsense acquiring the role of a scientific
spokesman simply as a result of their social standing. That is
the extent to which our spiritual life has become confused. The
kind of things which I am explaining here must be understood by
anyone who wants to grasp the position of the anthroposophical
movement.
Well,
undeterred by all that, the most important human truths, the most
important cosmic truths, had to be made public during the first
stage. My Occult
Science
represents a sort of compendium of everything which had been put
forward in the anthroposophical movement until that point. Our
intention was always a concrete and never an abstract one,
because we never attempted to do more than could be achieved in
the given circumstances.
Let
me quote the following as evidence. We established a journal,
Luzifer-Gnosis,
[ Note
10 ]
right at the outset of the anthroposophical movement. At first it
was called Luzifer.
Then a Viennese journal called Gnosis
wanted to amalgamate with it. My sole intention in calling it
Luzifer with Gnosis was to express the practical union of the two
journals. Of course that was completely unacceptable to
Hübbe-Schleiden, for instance, who thought that this would
indicate an unnatural union. Well, I was not particularly
bothered, so we called it Luzifer-Gnosis
with a hyphen. People were very sharp-witted and they were
keeping a close eye on us at that time!
Of
course we started with a very small number of subscribers, but it
began to grow at a very fast pace, relatively speaking, and we
never really ran at a deficit because we only ever printed
approximately as many copies as we were able to sell. Once an
issue had been printed the copies were sent to my house in large
parcels. Then my wife and I put the wrappers around them. I
addressed them and then each of us took a washing basket and
carried the whole lot to the post office. We found that this
worked quite well. I wrote and held lectures while my wife
organized the whole Anthroposophical Society, [ Note
11 ]
but without a secretary. So we did that all on our own and never
attempted more than could be managed on a practical level. We did
not even, for example, take larger washing baskets than we could
just manage. When the number of subscribers grew we simply made
an extra journey.
When we had been
engaged in this interesting activity for some time,
Luzifer-Gnosis ceased publication — not because it
had to, for it had many more subscribers than it needed, but
because I no longer had the time to write. The demands of my
lecturing activity and of the spiritual administration of the
society in general began to take up a lot of time.
To cease
publication was a natural consequence of never attempting more
than could be managed on a practical level, one step at a time.
This belongs to the conditions which govern the existence of a
spiritual society. To build far-reaching ideals on phrases,
setting up programmes, is the worst thing which can happen to a
spiritual society. The work in this first period was such that
between 1907 and 1909 the foundations of a science of the spirit
appropriate to the modern age were put in place.
Then we come to the
second phase, which essentially concluded our attempt to come to
grips with natural science. The theologians had not yet made
their presence felt. They were still seated so firmly in the
saddle everywhere that they were simply not bothered.
When the issue of
the natural sciences had been dealt with, we were able to
approach our other task. This was the debate over the Gospels,
over Genesis, the Christian tradition as a whole, Christianity as
such.
The
thread had already been laid out in Christianity
As Mystical Fact,
which appeared in 1902. But the elaboration, as it were, of an
anthroposophical understanding of Christianity was essentially
the task of the second stage up to approximately 1914. As a
consequence I gave lecture cycles on the various parts of the
Christian tradition in Hamburg, Kassel, Berlin, Basle, Berne,
Munich and Stuttgart.
That
was also when, for instance, The
Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity
[ Note
12 ]
was drawn up. It was, then, essentially the time in which the
Christian side of anthroposophy was worked out, following on from
the historical tradition of Christianity.
This
period also included what I might call the first expansion of
anthroposophy into the artistic field, with performances of the
mystery dramas in Munich. [ Note
13 ]
That, too, took place against the background of never wanting to
achieve more than circumstances allowed.
Also during this
time those events occurred which led to the exclusion of
anthroposophy from the Theosophical Society, a fact which was
actually of no great significance to the former, given that it
had followed its own path from the beginning. Those who wanted to
come along were free to do so. From the outset anthroposophy did
not concern itself with the spiritual content which came from the
Theososphical Society. But practical co-existence became
increasingly difficult as well.
At the beginning
there was a definite hope that circumstances, some of which at
least I have described, would allow the real theosophical
movement which had come together in the Theosophical Society to
become truly anthroposophical. The circumstances which made such
a hope appear justified included the serious disappointment about
the particular methods of investigation pursued by the
Theosophical Society, specifically among those people who
possessed a higher level of discrimination. And I have to say
that when I arrived in London on both the first and second times,
I experienced how its leaders were basically people who adopted a
very skeptical attitude towards one another, who felt themselves
to be on very insecure ground which, however, they did not want
to leave because they did not know where to look for security.
There were many
disappointed people who had great reservations, particularly
among the leaders of the Theosophical Society. The peculiar
change which took place in Annie Besant from, say, 1900 to 1907
is an important factor in the subsequent course of events in the
Theosophical Society. She possessed a certain tolerance to begin
with. I believe she never really understood the phenomenon of
anthroposophy, but she accepted it and at the beginning
even defended against the rigid dogmatists its right to exist.
That is how we must describe it, for that is how it was.
But there is
something I must say which I would also urge members of the
Anthroposophical Society to consider very seriously. Certain
personal aspirations, purely personal sympathies and antipathies,
are absolutely irreconcilable with a spiritual society of this
kind. Someone, for instance, begins to idolize someone else, for
whatever underlying reasons within himself. He will not
acknowledge whatever compulsion it is, and sometimes it can be an
intellectual compulsion that drives him to do it. But he begins
to weave an artificial astral aura around the individual whom he
wants to idolize. The latter then becomes advanced. If he wants
to make an especially telling remark he will say: “Oh, that
individual is aware of three or four previous lives on earth and
even spoke to me about my earlier earth lives. That person knows
a lot!” And this is precisely what leads to a spiritual
interpretation of something which is human, all too human, to use
an expression of Nietzsche's.
It
would be sufficient to say: “I will not deny that I like
him.” Then everything would be fine, even in esoteric
societies. Max Seiling, [ Note
14 ]
for instance, was very amusing in certain ways, particularly when
he played the piano in that effervescent way of his, and he was
amusing to have tea with and so on. All would have been well if
people had admitted: We like that. That would have been more
sensible than idolizing him in the way the Munich group did.
You
see, all these things are in direct contradiction to the
conditions under which such a society should exist. And the prime
example of someone who fell prey to this kind of thing is Annie
Besant. For example — and I prefer to speak about these
things by quoting facts — a name cropped up on one
occasion. I did not bother much with the literature produced by
the Theosophical Society, and so I became acquainted with
Bhagavan Das's [ Note
15 ]
name only when a thick typewritten manuscript arrived one day.
The manuscript was arranged in two columns, with text on the left
side and a blank on the right. A covering letter from Bhagavan
Das said that he wanted to discuss with various people the
subject matter which he intended to reveal to the world through
the manuscript.
Well, the
anthroposophical movement was already so widespread at that time
that I did not manage to read the manuscript immediately. That
Bhagavan Das was a very esoteric man, a person who drew his
inspiration from profound spiritual sources — that was
approximately the view which people associated with Annie Besant
— spread about him. His name was on everyone's lips. So I
decided to have a look at the thing. I was presented with a
horrendously amateurish confusion of Fichtean philosophy,
Hegelian philosophy, and Schopenhauer's philosophy; everything
mixed up together without the slightest understanding. And the
whole thing was held together by “self” and “not
self”, like an endlessly repeated tune. The idolization of
Bhagavan Das was based purely on personal considerations. Such
things demonstrate how the personal element is introduced into
impulses which should be objective. The first step on the
slippery slope was taken with the appearance of this phenomenon,
which became increasingly strong from about 1905 onwards.
Everything else was basically a consequence of that.
Spiritual
societies must avoid such courses of action, particularly by
their leaders — otherwise they will, of necessity, slide
down the slippery slope. That is, indeed, what happened. Then
there was the absurd tale connected with Olcott's death, [ Note
16 ]
referred to as the Masters' nomination, which really represented
the beginning of the end for the Theosophical Society. That could
still be smoothed over, at least, by saying that such foolishness
was introduced into the Society by particular people, even if
they were acting on the basis of certain principles. It was,
however, followed by the Leadbeater affair, [ Note
17 ]
the details of which I do not want to discuss just now. And then
came the discovery of the boy who was to be brought up as Christ,
or to become Christ, and so on. And when people who did not want
to be involved in these absurd matters refused to accept them,
they were simply expelled.
Well, the
anthroposophical movement followed its set course throughout the
whole of this business and our inner development was not affected
by these events in any way. That has to be made absolutely clear.
It was really a matter of supreme indifference — just as I
was not especially surprised to hear recently that Leadbeater has
become an Old Catholic bishop in his old age. There was no sense
of direction and everything was going topsy turvy.
Indeed,
there is no particular need to change one's personal relationship
with these people. Two years ago a gentleman who had delivered a
lecture at the Munich congress in 1907 [ Note
18 ]
approached me with the old cordial spirit. He still looked the
same, but in the meantime he had become an Old Catholic
archbishop. He was not wearing the garments, but that is what he
was!
It must not be
forgotten that the stream which we have been describing also
contained precisely those souls who were searching most
intensively for a link between the human soul and the spiritual
world. We are not being honest about the course of modern culture
if these contrasts are not made absolutely clear. That is why I
had to make these additional points today before going on to the
actual conditions which underlie the existence of the
Anthroposophical Society.
Continued in the
next issue of SCR.
Thanks to the
Rudolf Steiner Archive.
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