The Anthroposophic Movement
GA 258
Foreword
The lectures here published make in their substance a supplement to what Rudolf Steiner has given us in his book, ‘The Story of My Life’, and may be felt as forming a whole with it. Delivered with all the living flow of spoken word and narrative, they were not designed for a book; but the exceedingly important matter they contain, and the whole historic context, makes them a document of inestimable value, and not only for the Anthroposophist. He indeed learns to see in full light the conditions and circumstances of that movement to which he has attached himself; and so gains firm ground under his feet, through learning to recognize in these events a necessity that supersedes any sort of justificatory argument. But those people too, who otherwise know no more than the shallow judgments they hear uttered, or find printed in some reference book, may also be grateful for this occasion to acquire a real insight into the facts. Surely there must be an ever increasing number of human souls, who will eagerly seize such an opportunity to learn from personal experience that an answer can be found to those questions, which stand like sphinx-riddles before the inner eye, and that the way to the answer can be actually shown them.
No ground any longer exists for the eternal re-iteration in every paper and pamphlet, that the one salvation in mankind's desperate plight would he the appearance of a universal genius, one who should master all the multifarious branches of life and knowledge, co-ordinate and combine them, balance one with another, and thence new-create a civilization;—and that the only escape from uncertainty would be some breaking-through of the boundaries of knowledge,—but that this is impossible!
For this genius has been here amongst us; he has broken through the boundaries of knowledge. His work lies before us, and bears testimony that he has done so. No word of his, however intimately uttered, need shun the light; it can be thrown open to one and all. The moral power, the transcendent altitude of his whole life and. being shine forth from this work as luminously as the calm certainty of his all-embracing knowledge.
Why was it then that they shrank from no means to block and bar his way, to render him impotent by calumny, when mere silence no longer sufficed?
Why?—Because this age will not endure superiority, and hates it. Because it concedes no right of life to any-thing that transcends the common,—and thereby plays into the hands of those powerful organizations, whose interest it is to let nothing come to light which they themselves are not willing to give to mankind. The idol of the present day, materialistic science, is in their eyes more preferable. Those words still keep their truth, which Goethe dedicated to the Masters of Knowledge:
‘... What you call Knowing!’
‘Why, who dare give the child its proper name?
‘The few who had some knowledge of these things,
‘And, fool-like, set no guard on their full hearts,
‘Revealed their feelings, visions, to the herd,
‘—These from of old they crucified and burnt.’
No further explanation is needed for this hatred. It is the hatred that the world turns upon whatever is higher than itself. This hatred displays the face and works the works of the World's Adversary.
But now, when, the excesses of this hatred can scarcely be further surpassed; when the great messenger of human liberation is dead; when the base and selfish motives of the warfare on him have manifested themselves only too plainly,—there must now ever more and more come souls, who will desire to see further, to penetrate through all the rubbish and trace the process of the spiritual events, discover the source whence they emanated, and the first steps on the road. Those who are interested in the historic development of the movement will find in these pages the information they need, and will at the same time learn the self-evident explanation and very simple reason of what arose as a matter of course out of the existing circumstances: namely, the original association with that German society of theosophists who were looking about for a teacher possessed of knowledge. When someone is appealed to, and the accompanying conditions are accepted, why should he not go to the aid of those who call upon him? When he is solicited for guidance on the road, and when he never for a moment hesitates to make plain what this will mean for those who go along with him,—that it will mean completely changing old habits of mind, awaking to the demands of the times, developing a sense for the progress of evolution and for the mission of the Western World;—why then should one, who is secure of his own road, not take compassion on those who are groping leaderless, and point them the way to the Divine Leader and to their own liberation?
If Mrs. Besant, at the most critical moment of her life, when the ground failed beneath her feet, had not been blinded, all might yet have turned to good, and she might have found the missing bridge to the Christ, without needing to manufacture as substitute the little sham god who has now slipped through her hands. And with her, thousands in the Theosophical Society might have trod the road of inner deliverance.
On the Blavatsky question and its riddles, Rudolf Steiner alone has thrown light. For him, she meant no kind of stumbling block; for he saw the positive element in her work and influence, and knew how to direct this positive element into channels where, freed from all its aberrations, delusions and clogs, it could remain a fruitful factor of knowledge, without working harm. And thus Blavatsky, in her progress as an individuality, received her due meed of thanks, and had her Karma lightened. Her own inner self,—all that she was as honest soul and sturdy force,—will figure greater in history thus, than if she remained involved with the spiritualistic phenomena that represent the heavier weighted side of her Karma. It was difficult to make one's way to what one felt must be the true, inner core of her being, when one heard all the marvellous tales told about her by her intimate, as well as by her distant friends;—and so the present writer found in those days. Yet one received the impression of a quite peculiar power and big-ness from merely reading a few pages of Isis Unveiled or The Secret Doctrine, which were quite of a different calibre from anything in the whole collection of the Theosophical Society's writings. The key to this intricate character was given us by Rudolf Steiner; and although the reports of the year 1915 are very defective (for at that time we possessed no professional stenographer in Dornach), his lectures on this subject—despite their mutilations—will have to be published, in order to throw light on these puzzling phenomena.
H. P. Blavatsky was born in 1881. The centenary of her birthday falls in the present year; and one may imagine that many festivals and celebrations in honour of her memory will -be held by the theosophists in all countries. Blavatsky was a child of nature, with a temperament of great native vigour. She had suffered much under the conventionalisms, so foreign to her nature, of Anglo-American society; and to its representatives in turn she was merely a phenomenon, a semi-barbarian, not under-stood by any, the medium through which the border-world knocked at the door of the fast-closed world of materialism. What is more, she did not understand herself, and suffered horribly each time on awaking from states that eluded her consciousness. Those will do her memory best service, who interpret her in the light and connection of one who was involved with the first attempts of the occultists to break through the enchanted circle of materialism.—Not to let fall whatever has been accomplished, accompanied though it may be by mistakes and errors; but to rescue what is positive, and preserve it for the future;—this is the constant duty of every occultist who is spiritually mature; and this too is the light in which one must always understand that first association on the road, when the Anthroposophical Society kept company for a while with the Theosophical Society,—down to the day when Mrs. Besant would no longer tolerate any thwarting of her own personal aims.
Although Rudolf Steiner tells us in these lectures, that by the end of its second stage the anthroposophical movement had outgrown everything which had come over as a legacy from the Theosophical Society, yet still the fact remains, that the influx of new generations and of many theosophical members into our society has brought a constant recurrence of many previously outgrown and not very pleasing symptoms, which in the past he had applied himself with all severity to cure. It shows that people to-day are of the same make and kind as those who went before them, and that accordingly they must be expected to go through the same mistakes and the same nursery-epidemics,—only, unfortunately, with ever increasing self-assertiveness and greater determination to live-out their own peculiar bent. What, after all, were the faults which Rudolf Steiner so sharply censures in these lectures,—the adulation of Max Seiling (a little local episode), or Bhagavan Das (a mere whim of the hour),—compared to many phenomena that have made their appearance in the last few years? But he picked out such things as symptoms, to point out whither they lead, to lay bare the causes of these ever recurring signs of decay, and to show how societies may be wrecked when such things make their way into the leading circles. Of this last, he thought in those days there could be no question amongst us. But he left us too soon alone; and amongst those who had come too young, too soon to leader-ship, the old faults—humanly all-too-human—flamed up with double force.
It behoves us to come to self-recollection. Let us make ourselves out no better than we are. There is no need for shame-faced concealment of our faults; on the contrary; out of their darkness we must evoke the light that brings self-knowledge. Communal consciousness is hard to be won. The common ‘I’ can only grow up strong and firm amongst us on a soil of vigorous wakefulness, of will to active knowledge, of courage for truth. These things are not to be achieved in solitude and secrecy; they must be fought for and won in community. Honest mutual struggles will do us no harm, will gain us the respect of all well-wishers. And ill-wishers may look back and reflect what the Church went through and displayed in its communal life, notwithstanding all the strict discipline imposed from without; and what imperfections, what contradictions to its own ideals had there to be worked out in life! It will then be seen, that it is not the leader, not he who gives the impulse to a movement, who must be held responsible for the faults in the disciples of his doctrine, but the Species Homo, which needs many round-about roads and much rising and falling and oft-renewed climbing, before it can attain at last to its goal.
Anthroposophy is a way of education. The Anthroposophical Society certainly presents no model institute for the living demonstration of anthroposophic ideals. One might even say that in many respects it is a nursing-home; as is of course very natural in an age of sick and sorry humanity. There flock to it the halt and maimed of life, those crippled under the burden of the age. May we only have nursing-homes for the physically diseased? Is it not right, that there should be places, where human-beings may spiritually get upon their feet again? And this came to pass here in abundance. Letters there were in more than plenty and words of overflowing gratitude from people testifying, that through Anthroposophy and its Teacher they first had learnt to find life again worth living.—For people to find Anthroposophy, however, there had to be a society, where the work was carried on.
And so the Anthroposophical Society was a workshop; and a vast amount of work was done in it. Anthroposophy found means to bring fruit into all the branches of life, artistic, scientific, and practical, too. During the worst times of economic crisis, anthroposophists were very largely unsuccessful in carrying out what they had as an ideal in sight; but they had doubly strong obstacles to contend with. One must remember, that the people who flocked into the Society, and started working outwardly when the Society already had a name and stood for some-thing in the world, were people as the modern age has made them, not as the ideal of Anthroposophy would have them be; and so there were many, unquestionably, who succumbed again to the temptations and the practices of the day.
The young people who had been disappointed with their experiences in the organized ‘Youth-Movements’ and by what they failed to find there, not Only found here an answer to the problems that perplexed them, and not only sought to satisfy their aspirations in this new community Anthroposophy, but they also brought their own habits into the Society,—including much that they might have left behind them, to start in Anthroposophy afresh.
And so the Anthroposophical Society cannot yet be a model institute; it remains a place of education.—But does not mankind need places of education too, in the wider human sense, if it is to move onwards to a better future?
Turn the question then which way we will, the Society is a necessity. It must educate itself; and it must afford the possibility of being a place of education for mankind. The life-forces that have been laid in it, have strength to per-form this work, if people come together in it who are strong and capable and devoted,—people who know, that they must join together to work as a community for mankind in a larger sense, not to shut themselves off and indulge only in self-culture,—who know, that it would be but a thankless return to take what is given as a saving anchor for oneself alone; who know, that one takes with it also the obligation to pass this anchor on to others whose life's ship is in distress.
(1931.)
Vorwort zur ersten Buchausgabe 1931
Marie Steiner
Wie eine Ergänzung zu demjenigen, was Rudolf Steiner uns in seinem Buche «Mein Lebensgang» gibt, kann der Inhalt der hier herausgegebenen Vorträge wirken, die durchaus im lebendigen Gesprächs- und Mitteilungston gehalten, nicht als Buch gedacht waren. Wegen ihres außerordentlich wichtigen Inhaltes aber und der historischen Zusammenhänge wegen sind sie ein Dokument von unschätzbarer Bedeutung, nicht nur für den Anthroposophen, der in lichtvoller Weise die Zusammenhänge jener Bewegung sehen kann, der er sich angeschlossen hat, und so einen festen Boden unter den Füßen gewinnt durch die Einsicht in die über jede Berechtigung hinausgehende Notwendigkeit jener Geschehnisse; auch diejenigen, die sonst nur oberflächlichste Urteile hören oder im Lexikon abgedruckt finden, dürften der Gelegenheit dankbar sein, einen realen Einblick in die Tatsachen zu erhalten. Dürfte es doch immer mehr Seelen geben, die solche Gelegenheit werden ergreifen wollen, um zu erleben, daß jene Fragen beantwortet werden können, die als Rätselfragen vor ihrem inneren Auge sich auftun, und daß ihnen Wege dazu gewiesen werden können. Nicht hat man mehr das Recht, in Schriften und Feuilletons zu wiederholen, daß Rettung aus der Not der Menschheit nur möglich wäre, wenn ein UniversalGenie erschiene, das die mannigfaltigen Gebiete des Lebens und Wissens beherrschen, zusammenhalten, aneinander abwägen, und dann neuschöpferisch wirken könnte, und daß es ein Entrinnen aus der Unsicherheit nur gäbe, wenn die Schranken der Erkenntnisgrenzen durchbrochen würden, dieses aber doch nicht möglich sei... Denn dieses Genie ist dagewesen, und es hat die Grenzen der Erkenntnis durchbrochen. Sein Werk liegt vor uns, das Zeugnis dafür abgelegt. Sein Wort, auch das intimste, braucht kein Licht zu scheuen, kann jedem zugänglich gemacht werden. Die moralische Kraft und überragende Höhe seines Wesens leuchtet aus diesem Werk ebenso stark hervor wie die Sicherheit des umfassenden Wissens. Warum hat man kein Mittel gescheut, um sich dem entgegenzustemmen, um ihn unschädlich zu machen durch Verleumdung, als das Schweigen allein nicht mehr genügte? Weil unsere Zeit das Überragende nicht verträgt, es haßt; seine Daseinsberechtigung nicht zugeben will, und dadurch entgegenkommt den mächtigen Organisationen, die ein Interesse daran haben, nicht aufkommen zu lassen dasjenige, was sie selbst der Menschheit nicht gewähren wollen. Der Götze der Gegenwart, die materalistische Wissenschaft, ist ihnen immerhin noch lieber. Noch bleibt es wahr, jenes Wort Goethes, das er dem Erkennenden gewidmet hat:
«Wer darf das Kind beim rechten Namen nennen?
Die Wenigen, die was davon erkannt,
Die töricht gnug ihr volles Herz nicht wahrten,
Dem Pöbel ihr Gefühl, ihr Schauen offenbarten,
Hat man von je gekreuzigt und verbrannt.»
Und einer anderen Begründung für diesen Haß und diese Vernichtungswut bedarf es nicht. Es ist der Haß der Welt, der sich auf das sie Überragende richtet. Durch diesen Haß blickt und wirkt der Widersacher der Welt.
Doch jetzt, wo die Exzesse des Hasses sich kaum noch überbieten können, wo der große Träger der Menschenbefreiung tot ist, wo die eigensüchtigen und niedrigen Motive der Bekämpfung schon allzu deutlich zutage getreten sind, jetzt wird es immer mehr Seelen geben, die durch diesen Wust werden hindurchblicken wollen, und dem Werdegang des geistigen Geschehens werden folgen, seinen Ausstrahlungspunkt und seine ersten Schritte werden entdecken wollen. Den Interessenten für die historische Entwickelung der Bewegung wird dieses Buch die nötige Auskunft geben und zugleich die notwendige Erklärung und so einfache Begründung dessen, was als eine den vorhandenen Tatsachen entspringende Selbstverständlichkeit sich ergab: des ursprünglichen Zusammengehens mit der nach einem wissenden Lehrer sich umschauenden Theosophischen Gesellschaft. - Wenn man gerufen wird und die gestellten Bedingungen akzeptiert werden, warum soll der Gerufene nicht hingehen und helfen? Wenn man umworben wird und keinen Augenblick sich scheut, auf die Folgen des Zusammengehens aufmerksam zu machen: dem Umlernen, dem Wachwerden gegenüber den Forderungen der Zeit, dem zu entwickelnden Sinn für das fortschrittliche Geschehen und für die Aufgabe des Abendlandes, warum sollte der seines Weges Sichere sich nicht der führerlosen suchenden Menschen annehmen und ihnen den Weg zeigen zum göttlichen Führer und zur eigenen Freiheit? Wäre Annie Besant nicht in dem folgenschwersten Augenblicke ihres Lebens, da ihr jede Sicherheit fehlte, verblendet gewesen, es hätte noch alles zum Guten sich wenden können, und sie hätte die verlorene Brücke zum Christus finden können, ohne den kleinen Ersatz-Götzen zu fabrizieren, der ihr jetzt entglitten ist. Mit ihr hätten Tausende in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft den Weg der inneren Befreiung beschritten.
In das Rätsel Blavatsky hat Rudolf Steiner allein Licht hineingebracht; sie brauchte ihm kein Hemmnis zu bedeuten, denn er sah das Positive in ihrem Wirken und vermochte dieses Positive in Bahnen zu lenken, wo es, befreit von den anhaftenden Verirrungen, Blendungen und Ketten, weiter als Erkenntnispotenz fruchtbar sein konnte, ohne zu schaden. Der fortschreitenden Individualität der Blavatsky war dadurch der ihr gebührende Dank erwiesen, ihr Karma erleichtert. Ihr inneres Wesen, was sie war als ehrliche Haut und starke Kraft, würde auf diese Weise größer in der Geschichte dastehen, als wenn sie verflochten bliebe mit den spintistischen Phänomenen, welche die schwere Seite ihres Karma bedeuten. Man hatte Mühe, sich zu dem geahnten Kern ihres Wesens durchzuringen, wenn man die unzähligen Wundergeschichten hörte, welche ihre intimen oder entfernteren Freunde von ihr erzählten, wie es noch Schreiberin dieser Zeilen ergangen ist. Man spürte aber eine ganz bedeutende Kraft und Größe schon aus einigen wenigen gelesenen Seiten der «Isis unveiled» oder «Secret doctrine», die von ganz anderem Kaliber waren, als was in den gesamten Büchern der Theosophical Society enthalten war. Den Schlüssel zu ihrem komplizierten Wesen gab uns Rudolf Steiner, und trotz der sehr mangelhaften Nachschriften vom Jahre 1915, da wir noch keinen Berufsstenographen in Dornach hatten, wird es wohl nötig sein, zur volleren Beleuchtung jener rätselhaften Erscheinungen die diesbezüglichen, wenn auch stark verstümmelten Vorträge Rudolf Steiners herauszugeben.
1831 ist H.P. Blavatsky geboren. In diesem Jahre wird die Jahrhundertwende ihres Geburtstages stattfinden. Man muß annehmen, daß manches Fest, manche Gedächtnisfeier von den Theosophen in allen Ländern veranstaltet sein werden. Blavatsky war ein urwüchsiges Temperament und ein Naturmensch, sie hat viel gelitten innerhalb der ihrem Wesen fremden anglo-amerikanischen gesellschaftlichen Konvention; sie war ja auch deren Vertretern nur Phänomen, halbe Barbarin, blieb unverstanden; durch sie klopfte die Grenzwelt an das Tor der materialistisch verschlossenen Welt. Mehr noch, sie verstand sich selbst nicht und litt entsetzlich beim Aufwachen aus den Zuständen, die sich ihrer Bewußtheit entzogen. Diejenigen, die sie verstehen werden in dem Lichte und Zusammenhang des Hineingestelltseins in die ersten Versuche der Okkultisten, den materialistischen Bann zu brechen, werden ihrem Gedächtnis den besten Dienst erweisen. Nicht fallen lassen das Geleistete, auch wenn es mit Irrungen verknüpft ist, sondern das Positive davon hinüberretten in die Zukunft, ist die Pflicht des geistig gereiften Okkultisten. Auch in diesem Lichte muß immer wieder verstanden werden das frühere Zusammengehen der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft mit der Theosophischen bis zu dem Tage, wo Annie Besant die Durchkreuzung ihrer eigenen Absichten nicht mehr duldete.
Wenn uns auch Rudolf Steiner in diesen Vorträgen sagt, daß gegen Ende der zweiten Epoche der anthroposophischen Bewegung überwunden war dasjenige, was als Erbe aus der Theosophischen Gesellschaft zu uns hinübergekommen ist, so besteht doch die Tatsache, daß durch den Zustrom neuer Generationen und vieler theosophischer Mitglieder in unserer Gesellschaft manche schon überwunden gewesene, wenig erfreuliche Symptome immer wieder auftreten, deren Gesundung er sich mit aller Strenge hatte angelegen sein lassen. Es ergibt sich daraus, daß, da die Menschen ja auch heute der gleichen Art und Gattung sind wie die ihnen vorangegangenen, sie auch dieselben Fehler und Kinderkrankheiten immer wieder durchzumachen haben, nur leider mit immer größerem Selbstgefühl und immer stärkerem Willen zum Ausleben der Eigenheit. Was sind gewisse Fehler, die Rudolf Steiner in den hier gedruckten Vorträgen rügt, zum Beispiel die Verhimmelung von Max Seiling (eine kleine Lokal- Angelegenheit) oder Bhagavân Dâs (eine vorübergehende flache Modesache) gegenüber manchen Erscheinungen, die in den letzten Jahren aufgetreten sind? Aber er wies auf solche Symptome hin, um deren Konsequenzen zu zeigen; um die . Ursachen aufzudecken der immer wiederkehrenden Zerfall-Erscheinungen, um zu zeigen, wie Gesellschaften scheitern können, wenn solches Gebaren in die führenden Kreise gerät. Damals hielt er letzteres bei uns für ausgeschlossen. Doch ging er zu früh von uns weg; und in den jungen, zu früh zur Führung gekommenen Menschen flammten — menschlich-allzumenschlich — die alten Fehler mit doppelter Kraft auf.
Es obliegt uns, zur Selbstbesinnung zu kommen. Machen wir uns nicht besser, als wir sind. Wir brauchen unsere Fehler nicht scheu zu verbergen, sondern müssen aus ihrem Dunkel das Licht herauskraften lassen, das uns Selbst-Erkenntnis bringt. Gemeinschaftsbewußtsein ist schwer; die Bildung eines starken Gemeinschafts-Ich ist für uns nur möglich auf der Grundlage der Aufwachekraft, des Willens zur Erkenntnis, des Mutes zur Wahrheit. Dies läßt sich nicht in der Verborgenheit erringen; es muß in Gemeinsamkeit erkämpft werden. Ehrliches Ringen wird uns nicht schaden, wird uns die Achtung der Gutgewillten bringen. Die Bösgewillten mögen aber zurückdenken an dasjenige, was die Kirche in ihrem Gemeinschaftswesen durchgemacht und dargelebt hat, trotz stärkster von außen her auferlegter Disziplin; was sie an Unvollkommenheiten und Gegensätzlichkeit zu ihrem Ideal auszuleben gehabt hat. Sie werden dann sehen, daß nicht der die Bewegung impulsierende Führer für die Fehler der Anhänger seiner Lehre verantwortlich zu machen ist, sondern die Spezies Mensch, die viele Umwege und vieles Steigen und Fallen und erneutes Klimmen braucht, um zu ihrem Ziele zu gelangen.
Anthroposophie ist ein Erziehungsweg. Die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft ist gewiß keine Musteranstalt für das Darleben anthroposophischer Ideale. Man könnte sogar sagen, daß sie nach mancher Richtung hin ein Siechenheim ist, wie es ja selbstverständlich ist in einer Zeit menschheitlicher Erkrankung. Es strömen zu ihr hin die Hilfsbedürftigen, die Gebrochenen an der Not der Zeit. Darf es aber nur Siechenheime für physisch Erkrankte geben? Ist es nicht eine Pflicht, Stätten zu haben, in denen sich die Menschen geistig wieder aufrichten können? Und das ist in weitgehendstem Maße hier geschehen. Der Briefe und dankerfüllten Worte gab es im Übermaß, in denen Menschen bezeugten, daß sie erst durch Anthroposophie und ihren Verkünder das Leben wieder lebenswert gefunden haben. Um die Anthroposophie zu finden, mußte es aber eine Gesellschaft geben, in der gearbeitet wurde.
So war die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft eine Arbeitsstätte, und es ist ungeheuer viel in ihr gearbeitet worden. Anthroposophie konnte befruchtend hineinwirken in alle Gebiete des Lebens, die künstlerischen, die wissenschaftlichen, auch in die praktischen. In der schwersten Zeit wirtschaftlicher Krisen haben Anthroposophen vielfach nicht durchführen können, was ihnen als Ideal vorschwebte; sie hatten aber gegen doppelt starke Widerstände zu kämpfen. Die Menschen aber, die in die Gesellschaft hineingeströmt sind und nach außen zu wirken begannen, als diese schon etwas in der Welt bedeutete und äußerlich darstellte, waren Menschen, wie die heutige Zeit sie geschaffen hat, nicht wie das Ideal der Anthroposophie sie will, und so sind gewiß viele den Versuchungen und den Usancen der Zeit wieder erlegen. Die jungen Menschen, die enttäuscht worden waren durch das, was sie in den organisierten Jugendbewegungen erlebt und nicht gefunden hatten, fanden hier nicht nur eine Antwort auf ihre Rätselfragen, suchten nicht nur nach Erfüllung ihres Strebens in der neuen Gemeinschaft Anthroposophie, sondern brachten ihre Gewohnheiten in die Gesellschaft hinein, auch manches von dem, was von ihnen hätte überwunden sein sollen, um in der Anthroposophie neu zu beginnen. So kann die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft noch nicht eine Musterinstitution sein, sie bleibt eine Erziehungsstätte. Aber braucht man nicht Erziehungsstätten auch im Menschheitssinne, um weiterzuschreiten in eine bessere Zukunft hinein?
So können wir die Frage wenden, wie wir wollen, die Gesellschaft ist eine Notwendigkeit. Sie muß sich erziehen, und sie muß die Möglichkeit hergeben, für die Menschheit eine Erziehungsstätte zu sein. Die Lebenskräfte, die in sie hineingesenkt worden sind, können das bewirken, wenn sich starke, fähige, hingebungsvolle Menschen in ihr zusammenfinden, die da wissen, daß man zusammenkommen muß, um als Gemeinschaft für die Menschheit in weiterem Sinne zu wirken, nicht sich abschließend nur der eigenen Selbstheit zu frönen; die da wissen, daß es ein Undank wäre, nur hinzunehmen das, was einem selbst zum Rettungsanker wird; die da wissen, daß.man damit die Verpflichtung übernimmt, ihn jenen anderen zu reichen, deren Lebensschiff in Not ist.
Preface to the first edition of the book in 1931
Marie Steiner
The content of the lectures published here, which are written in a lively conversational and communicative tone and were not intended to be a book, can serve as a supplement to what Rudolf Steiner gives us in his book “My Life.” However, because of their extraordinarily important content and historical context, they are a document of inestimable significance, not only for anthroposophists, who can see the connections of the movement they have joined in a clear light and thus gain a firm footing through insight into the necessity of those events, which goes beyond any justification; even those who otherwise only hear the most superficial judgments or find them printed in encyclopedias should be grateful for the opportunity to gain a real insight into the facts. May there be more and more souls who want to seize such an opportunity to experience that those questions that arise as riddles before their inner eye can be answered, and that ways can be shown to them to do so. One no longer has the right to repeat in writings and feature articles that salvation from the plight of humanity would only be possible if a universal genius appeared who could master the manifold areas of life and knowledge, hold them together, weigh them against each other, and then work creatively, and that there would only be an escape from uncertainty if the barriers of the limits of knowledge were broken through, but that this was not possible... For this genius has been here, and he has broken through the limits of knowledge. His work lies before us, bearing witness to this. His words, even the most intimate ones, need not shy away from the light and can be made accessible to everyone. The moral strength and towering stature of his being shine through this work just as strongly as the certainty of his comprehensive knowledge. Why was no means spared to oppose him, to render him harmless through slander, when silence alone was no longer enough? Because our age cannot tolerate the sublime, hates it; does not want to admit its right to exist, and thus accommodates the powerful organizations that have an interest in not allowing the emergence of that which they themselves do not want to grant to humanity. They still prefer the idol of the present, materialistic science. Goethe's words, which he dedicated to those who recognize the truth, remain true:
"Who may call the child by its right name?
The few who have recognized it,
Foolish enough not to guard their hearts,
Revealed their feelings and their vision to the mob,
Have always been crucified and burned."
And no other reason for this hatred and this rage for destruction is needed. It is the hatred of the world directed at that which towers above it. Through this hatred, the adversary of the world sees and acts.
But now, when the excesses of hatred can hardly be surpassed, when the great bearer of human liberation is dead, when the selfish and base motives of the struggle have become all too clear, now there will be more and more souls who will want to see through this confusion and follow the course of spiritual events, who will want to discover its point of origin and its first steps. This book will provide those interested in the historical development of the movement with the necessary information and, at the same time, the necessary explanation and simple justification of what resulted as a matter of course from the existing facts: the original association with the Theosophical Society, which was looking for a knowledgeable teacher. If one is called and accepts the conditions set, why should the one called not go and help? If one is courted and does not hesitate for a moment to point out the consequences of joining forces: relearning, awakening to the demands of the times, developing a sense for progressive events and for the task of the West, why should those who are sure of their path not take care of the leaderless seekers and show them the way to the divine leader and to their own freedom? If Annie Besant had not been blinded at the most momentous moment of her life, when she lacked any certainty, everything could still have turned out for the best, and she could have found the lost bridge to Christ without fabricating the little substitute idol that has now slipped away from her. With her, thousands in the Theosophical Society would have embarked on the path of inner liberation.
Rudolf Steiner alone shed light on the mystery of Blavatsky; she did not need to be an obstacle to him, for he saw the positive in her work and was able to channel this positive energy into paths where, freed from the clinging aberrations, delusions, and chains, it could continue to be fruitful as a potential for knowledge without causing harm. Blavatsky's progressive individuality was thus given the thanks it deserved, and her karma was lightened. Her inner being, what she was as an honest soul and a strong force, would thus stand greater in history than if she remained entangled with the spintistic phenomena that represent the heavy side of her karma. It was difficult to penetrate to the perceived core of her being when one heard the countless miracle stories that her close and distant friends told about her, as was still the case for the writer of these lines. However, one could sense a very significant power and greatness even from the few pages read of Isis Unveiled or The Secret Doctrine, which were of a completely different caliber than what was contained in the entire books of the Theosophical Society. Rudolf Steiner gave us the key to her complex nature, and despite the very poor transcripts from 1915, when we did not yet have a professional stenographer in Dornach, it will probably be necessary to publish Rudolf Steiner's relevant, albeit heavily mutilated, lectures in order to shed more light on those mysterious phenomena.
H.P. Blavatsky was born in 1831. This year marks the centenary of her birth. It is to be expected that many celebrations and commemorations will be organized by theosophists in all countries. Blavatsky was a natural person with an earthy temperament. She suffered greatly within the Anglo-American social conventions that were alien to her nature. To their representatives, she was merely a phenomenon, a semi-barbarian, and remained misunderstood. Through her, the border world knocked on the door of the materialistically closed world. Moreover, she did not understand herself and suffered terribly when she awoke from states that were beyond her consciousness. Those who understand her in the light and context of her involvement in the first attempts of occultists to break the materialistic spell will do her memory the greatest service. It is the duty of the spiritually mature occultist not to abandon what has been achieved, even if it is linked to errors, but to carry the positive aspects of it into the future. In this light, too, we must understand again and again the earlier cooperation between the Anthroposophical Society and the Theosophical Society until the day when Annie Besant no longer tolerated the thwarting of her own intentions.Even though Rudolf Steiner tells us in these lectures that by the end of the second epoch of the anthroposophical movement, what had come to us as a legacy from the Theosophical Society had been overcome, the fact remains that, due to the influx of new generations and many Theosophical members into our Society, some unpleasant symptoms that had already been overcome keep reappearing, the healing of which he had taken upon himself with all severity. It follows from this that, since people today are of the same kind and species as those who preceded them, they also have to go through the same mistakes and teething troubles again and again, only unfortunately with ever greater self-confidence and an ever stronger will to live out their individuality. What are some of the mistakes that Rudolf Steiner criticizes in the lectures printed here, for example, the glorification of Max Seiling (a minor local matter) or Bhagavân Dâs (a temporary, shallow fad) in contrast to some of the phenomena that have occurred in recent years? But he pointed out such symptoms in order to show their consequences; to uncover the causes of the recurring phenomena of decay, to show how societies can fail when such behavior enters the leading circles. At that time, he considered the latter impossible in our case. But he left us too soon; and in the young people who came to leadership too early, the old mistakes flared up with double force—humanly, all too humanly.
It is up to us to come to our senses. Let us not make ourselves better than we are. We need not shy away from hiding our mistakes, but must let the light shine out of their darkness, bringing us self-knowledge. Community consciousness is difficult; the formation of a strong community ego is only possible for us on the basis of the power of awakening, the will to knowledge, the courage to face the truth. This cannot be achieved in secret; it must be fought for in community. Honest struggle will not harm us; it will earn us the respect of those who are well-disposed. But those who are ill-disposed may think back to what the Church has gone through and experienced in its community, despite the strongest discipline imposed from outside; what it has had to live out in terms of imperfections and contradictions to its ideal. They will then see that it is not the leader who impels the movement who is to blame for the mistakes of the followers of his teaching, but the human species, which needs many detours and much rising and falling and renewed climbing to reach its goal.
Anthroposophy is a path of education. The Anthroposophical Society is certainly not a model institution for the living out of anthroposophical ideals. One could even say that in some respects it is a convalescent home, as is natural in a time of human illness. Those in need of help, those broken by the hardships of the times, flock to it. But should there only be infirmaries for the physically ill? Is it not a duty to have places where people can rebuild themselves spiritually? And that has happened here to a very large extent. There were countless letters and words of gratitude in which people testified that it was only through anthroposophy and its proclaimer that they had found life worth living again. But in order to find anthroposophy, there had to be a society in which people worked.
Thus, the Anthroposophical Society was a place of work, and an enormous amount of work was done within it. Anthroposophy was able to have a fruitful influence on all areas of life, the artistic, the scientific, and also the practical. During the most difficult times of economic crisis, anthroposophists were often unable to realize their ideals; they had to struggle against twice as much resistance. However, the people who joined the Society and began to work externally when it already had some significance and external representation in the world were people created by the present age, not people who corresponded to the ideal of anthroposophy, and so many of them certainly succumbed to the temptations and customs of the time. The young people who had been disappointed by what they had experienced and not found in the organized youth movements not only found answers to their questions here, not only sought fulfillment of their aspirations in the new community of anthroposophy, but also brought their habits into the society, including some of what they should have overcome in order to make a new start in anthroposophy. Thus, the Anthroposophical Society cannot yet be a model institution; it remains a place of education. But do we not also need places of education in the human sense in order to move forward into a better future?
However we look at the question, the Society is a necessity. It must educate itself, and it must offer the possibility of being a place of education for humanity. The life forces that have been poured into it can bring this about if strong, capable, devoted people come together in it, people who know that they must come together in order to work as a community for humanity in a broader sense, not just to indulge in their own selfhood; who know that it would be ungrateful to accept only that which becomes one's own lifeline; who know that in doing so, one takes on the obligation to extend it to those others whose ship of life is in distress.