The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter XXIX
[ 1 ] From the spiritual sphere new light on the evolution of humanity sought to break through in the knowledge acquired during the last third of the nineteenth century. But the spiritual sleep in which this acquired knowledge was given its materialistic interpretation prevented even a notion of the new light, much less any proper attention to it.
[ 2 ] So that time arrived which ought by its own nature to have evolved in the direction of the spirit, but which belied its own being – the time wherein it began to be impossible for life to make itself real.
[ 3 ] I wish to set down here certain sentences taken from articles which I wrote in March 1898 for the Dramaturgische Blätter (which had become a supplement of the Magazine at the beginning of 1898). Referring to the art of lecturing, I said: “In this field more than in any other is the learner left wholly to himself and to chance ... Because of the form which our public life has taken on, almost everybody nowadays has frequent need to speak in public ... The elevation of ordinary speech to a work of art is a rarity. We lack almost wholly the feeling for the beauty of speaking, and still more for speaking that is characteristic ... To no one devoid of all knowledge of correct singing would the right be granted to discuss a singer ... In the case of dramatic art the requirements imposed are far slighter ... Persons who know whether or not a verse is properly spoken become steadily scarcer ... People nowadays often look upon artistic speaking as ineffective idealism. We could never have come to this had we been more aware of the educative possibilities of speech ...”
[ 4 ] What then hovered before me could come to a form of realization only much later, within the Anthroposophical Society. Marie von Sievers (Marie Steiner), who was enthusiastic on behalf of the art of speech, first dedicated herself to genuinely artistic speaking; and then for the first time it became possible with her help to work for the elevation of speech to a true art by means of courses in speaking and dramatic representations.
[ 5 ] I venture to introduce this subject just here in order to show how certain ideals have sought their unfolding all through my life, though many persons have tried to find contradictions in my evolution.
[ 6 ] To this period belongs my friendship with the young poet, now dead, Ludwig Jacobowski. He was a personality whose dominant mood of soul breathed the breath of inner tragedy. It was hard for him to bear the fate that made him a Jew. He represented a bureau which, under the guidance of a liberal deputy, directed the union “Defence against Anti-Semitism” and published its organ. An excessive burden in connection with this work rested upon Ludwig Jacobowski. And a sort of work which renewed every day a burning pain; for it brought home to him daily the realization of the feeling against his people which caused him so much suffering.
[ 7 ] Along with this he developed a fruitful activity in the field of folk-lore. He collected everything obtainable as the basis for a work on the evolution of the peoples from primitive times. Individual papers of his, based upon his rich fund of knowledge in this field, are very interesting. They were at first written in the materialistic spirit of the time; but, had Jacobowski lived longer, he would certainly have been open to a spiritualizing of his research.
[ 8] Out of this activity streamed the poetry of Ludwig Jacobowski. Not wholly original; and yet born of deeply human feeling and filled with an experience of the powers of the soul. Leuchtende Tage1Luminous Days. he called his lyrical poems. These, when the mood bestowed them upon him, were in his life-tragedy really something that affected him like days of spiritual sunlight. Besides, he wrote novels. In Werther der Jude2Werther the Jew. there lived all the inner tragedy of Ludwig Jacobowski. In Loki, Roman eines Gottes,3Philosophy of Freedom through the Pure Means. he produced a work born of German mythology. The soulful quality which speaks from this novel is a beautiful reflection of the poet's love of the mythological element in a folk.
[ 9 ] A survey of what Ludwig Jacobowski achieved leaves one astonished at its fulness in the most divers fields. Yet he associated with many persons and enjoyed social life. More over, he was then editing the monthly Die Gesellschaft,4Society which meant for him an enormous burden of work.
[ 10 ] He had a consuming passion for life, whose essence he craved to know in order that he might mould this into artistic form.
[ 11 ] He founded a society, Die Kommenden,5The Coming Ones consisting of writers, artists, scientists, and persons interested in the arts. The meetings there were weekly. Poets read their poems; lectures were given in the most divers fields of knowledge and life. The evening ended in an informal social gathering. Ludwig Jacobowski was the central point of his ever growing circle. Everybody was attached to the lovable personality, so full of ideas, who, moreover, developed in this club a fine and noble sense of humour.
[ 12 ] Away from all this he was snatched by an early death, when he had just reached thirty years. He was taken off by an inflammation of the brain, caused by his unceasing labours.
[ 13 ] There remained to me only the duty of giving the funeral address for my friend and editing his literary remains.
[ 14 ] A beautiful memorial of him was made by his friend, Marie Stona, in the form of a book consisting of papers by friends of his.
[ 15 ] Everything about Ludwig Jacobowski was lovable: his inner tragedy, his striving outward from this to his “luminous days,” his absorption in the life of movement. I keep always alive in my heart thoughts of our friendship, and look back upon our brief association with an inner devotion to my friend.
[ 16 ] Another friend with whom I came to be associated at that time was Martha Asmers, a woman philosophically thoughtful but strongly inclined to materialism. This tendency, however, was modified through the fact that Martha Asmers kept intensely alive the memory of her brother Paul Asmers, who had died early, and who was a decided idealist.
During the last third of the nineteenth century Paul Asmers had lived, like a philosophical hermit, in the idealism of the time of Hegel. He wrote a paper on the ego, and a similar one on the Indo-Germanic religion – both characteristically Hegelian in form, but both thoroughly independent.
[ 17 ] This interesting personality, who had then long been dead, was brought really close to me through the sister Martha Asmers. It seemed to me that in him the spirit-tending philosophy of the beginning of the century flamed forth like a meteor toward its end.
[ 18 ] Less intimate, but of constant significance for a long time thereafter, were the relationships which came about between the “Friedrich Hageners” – Bruno Wille and Wilhelm Bölsche – and myself. Bruno Wille is the author of a work entitled Philosophie der Befreiung* durch das reine Mittel.6Philosophy of Freedom through the Pure Means. Only the title coincides with my Philosophie der Freiheit. The content moves in an entirely different sphere. Bruno Wille became very widely known through his important Offenbarungen des Wachholderbaumes,7Revelations of the Juniper Tree. a philosophical book written out of the most beautiful feeling for nature, permeated by the conviction that spirit speaks from every material existence. Wilhelm Bölsche is known through numerous popular writings on the natural sciences which are extraordinarily popular among the widest circles of readers.
[ 19 ] From this side came the founding of a Free Higher Institute, into which I was drawn. I was entrusted with the teaching of history. Bruno Wille took charge of philosophy, Bölsche of natural sciences, and Theodor Kappstein, a liberally minded theologian, the science of religion.
[ 20 ] A second foundation was the Giordano Bruno Union. In this the idea was to bring together such persons as were sympathetic toward a spiritual-monistic philosophy. Emphasis was placed upon the idea that there are not two world-principles – matter and spirit – but that spirit constitutes the sole principle of all existence. Bruno Wille inaugurated the Union with a very brilliant lecture based upon the saying of Goethe: “Never matter without spirit.” Unfortunately a slight misunderstanding arose between Wille and me after this lecture. My words following the lecture – that long after Goethe had coined this beautiful expression, he had supplemented it in impressive fashion, in that he had seen polarity and ascent as the concrete spiritual shapings in the actual spiritual activity in existence, and that in this way the general saying first received its full content – this remark of mine was interpreted as a reflection upon Wille's lecture, which, however, I had fully accepted in the sense he himself intended.
[ 21 ] But I brought upon myself the direct opposition of the leadership of the Giordano Bruno Union when I read a paper on monism. In this I laid stress upon the fact that the crude dualistic conception, “matter and spirit,” is really a creation of the most recent times, and that likewise only during the most recent centuries were spirit and nature brought into the opposition which the Giordano Bruno Union would oppose. Then I indicated how this dualism is opposed by scholastic monism. Even though scholasticism withdrew from human knowledge a part of existence and assigned this part to “faith,” yet scholasticism set up a world-system marked by a unified (monistic) constitution, from the Godhead and the divine all the way to the details of nature. I thus set even scholasticism higher than Kantianism.
[ 22 ] This paper of mine aroused the greatest excitement. It was supposed that I wished to open the road for Catholicism into the Union. Of the leading personalities, only Wolfgang Kirchbach and Martha Asmers stood by me. The rest could form no notion as to what I really meant to do with the “misunderstood scholasticism.” In any case, they were convinced that I was likely to bring the greatest confusion into the Giordano Bruno Union.
[ 23 ] I must call attention to this paper because it belongs to a time during which, according to the later views of many persons, I was a materialist. But at that time this materialist passed with many persons as the one who would swear afresh by medieval scholasticism.
[ 24 ] In spite of all this I was able later to deliver before the Giordano Bruno Union my basic anthroposophic lecture, which became the point of departure for my anthroposophic activity.
[ 25 ] In imparting to the public that which anthroposophy contains as knowledge of the spiritual world, decisions are necessary which are not altogether easy. The character of these decisions can best be understood if one glances at a single historical fact.
[ 26 ] In accordance with the quite differently constituted temper of mind of an earlier humanity, there has always been a knowledge of the spiritual world up to the beginning of the modern age, approximately until the fourteenth century. This knowledge, however, was quite different from anthroposophy, which is adapted to the conditions of cognition characterizing the present day.
[ 27 ] After the period mentioned, humanity could at first bring forth no knowledge of the spiritual world. Men could only confirm the “ancient knowledge,” which the mind had beheld in the form of pictures, and which was also available later only in symbolic-picture form.
[ 28 ] This “ancient knowledge” was practised in remote times only within the “mysteries.” It was imparted to those who had first been made ripe for it, the “initiates.” It was not to reach the public because there the tendency was too strong to use it in an unworthy manner. This practice has been maintained only by those later personalities who received the lore of the “ancient knowledge” and continued to foster it. They did this in the most restricted circles with men whom they had previously prepared.
[ 29 ] And thus it has continued even to the present time.
[ 30 ] Of the persons maintaining such a position in relation to spiritual knowledge whom I have encountered, I may select one who was active within the Viennese circle of Frau Lang to which I have referred but whom I met also in other circles with which I was associated in Vienna. This was Friedrich Eckstein, the distinguished expert in the “ancient knowledge.” While I was associated with Friedrich Eckstein, he had not written much. But what he did write was filled with the spirit. No one, however, sensed from his essays the intimate expert in the “ancient knowledge.” This was active in the background of his spiritual work. Long after life had removed me from this friend also, I read in a collection of his writings a very significant paper on the Bohemian Brothers.
[ 31 ] Friedrich Eckstein represented the earnest conviction that esoteric spiritual knowledge should not be publicly propagated like ordinary knowledge. He was not alone in this conviction; it was and is that of almost all experts in the “ancient wisdom.” To what extent this conviction of the guardians of the “ancient wisdom,” strongly enforced as a rule, was broken through in the Theosophical Society founded by H. P. Blavatsky – of this I shall have occasion to speak later.
[ 32 ] Friedrich Eckstein wished that, as “initiate in the ancient knowledge,” one should clothe what one treats publicly in the force which comes from this “initiation,” but that one should separate the exoteric strictly from the esoteric, which should remain within the most restricted circles of those who fully understood how to honour it.
[ 33 ] If I was to develop a public activity on behalf of spiritual knowledge, I had to determine to break with this tradition. I found myself faced by the requirements of the contemporary intellectual life. In the presence of these the preservation of mysteries such as were inevitable in ancient times was an impossibility. We live in the time which demands publicity wherever any sort of knowledge appears. The point of view favouring the preservation of mysteries is an anachronism. The sole and only possibility is that persons should be taught spiritual knowledge by stages, and that no one should be admitted to a stage at which the higher portions of this knowledge are to be imparted until he knows the lower. This, indeed, corresponds with the practice in lower and higher schools even of an ordinary sort.
[ 34 ] Moreover, I was under no obligation to anyone to guard mysteries, for I received nothing from the “ancient wisdom”; what I possess of spiritual knowledge is entirely the result of my own researches. When any knowledge has come to me, only then I set beside it whatever of the “ancient knowledge” has already been made public from any side, in order to point out the harmony in mood and, at the same time, the advance which is possible to contemporary research.
[ 35 ] So, after a certain point of time, it was quite clear to me that in coming before the public with spiritual knowledge I should be doing the right thing.
Chapter XXIX
[ 1 ] Auf geistigem Gebiete wollte in die Erkenntniserrungenschaften des letzten Drittels des Jahrhunderts ein neues Licht in das Werden der Menschheit hereinbrechen. Aber der geistige Schlaf, in den die materialistische Ausdeutung dieser Errungenschaften versetzte, verhinderte, dieses auch nur zu ahnen, geschweige denn zu bemerken.
[ 2 ] So kam die Zeit herauf, die sich in geistiger Richtung durch ihr eigenes Wesen hätte entwickeln müssen, die aber ihr eigenes Wesen verleugnete. Die Zeit, die die Unmöglichkeit des Lebens zu verwirklichen begann.
[ 3 ] Einige Sätze aus Ausführungen möchte ich hierhersetzen, die ich im März 1898 in den «Dramaturgischen Blättern» (die seit Beginn 1898 dem «Magazin» als Beiblatt angeschlossen waren) schrieb. Von der «Vortragskunst» sage ich: «Mehr als auf irgend einem andern Gebiete ist auf diesem der Lernende ganz sich selber und dem Zufall überlassen ... Bei der Gestalt, welche unser öffentliches Leben angenommen hat, kommt gegenwärtig fast jeder in die Lage, öfter öffentlich sprechen zu müssen... Die Erhebung der gewöhnlichen Rede zum Kunstwerk ist eine Seltenheit... Es fehlt uns fast ganz das Gefühl für die Schönheit des Sprechens und noch mehr für charakteristisches Sprechen... Niemandem wird man das Recht zugestehen, über einen Sänger zu schreiben, der keine Kenntnis des richtigen Singens hat... In bezug auf die Schauspielkunst stellt man weit geringere Anforderungen... Die Leute, die verstehen, ob ein Vers richtig gesprochen wird oder nicht, werden immer seltener... Man hält künstlerisches Sprechen heute vielfach für verfehlten Idealismus... Dazu hätte man nie kommen können, wenn man sich der künstlerischen Ausbildungsfähigkeit der Sprache besser bewußt wäre...»
[ 4 ] Was mir da vorschwebte, konnte erst viel später in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft eine Art Verwirklichung finden. Marie v. Sivers (Marie Steiner), die für Sprachkunst Begeisterte, widmete sich zunächst selbst einem echt künstlerischen Sprechen; und mit ihrer Hilfe wurde es dann möglich, in Kursen für Sprachgestaltung und dramatische Darstellung für Erhebung dieses Gebietes zur wahren Kunst zu wirken.
[ 5 ] Ich durfte dieses hier anführen, um zu zeigen, wie gewisse Ideale sich durch mein ganzes Leben hindurch ihre Entfaltung suchen, weil doch viele Menschen in meiner Entwickelung Widersprechendes finden wollen.
[ 6 ] In diese Zeit fällt meine Freundschaft mit dem jung verstorbenen Dichter Ludwig Jacobowski. Er war eine Persönlichkeit, deren seelische Grundstimmung in innerer Tragik atmete. Er trug schwer an dem Schicksal, daß er Jude war. Er stand einem Bureau vor, das, unter der Direktion eines freisinnigen Abgeordneten, den Verein zur «Abwehr des Antisemitismus» leitete und dessen Zeitschrift herausgab. Eine Überlast von Arbeit lag auf Ludwig Jacobowski nach dieser Richtung. Und eine Arbeit, die täglich einen brennenden Schmerz erneuerte. Denn sie stellte täglich vor seine Seele die Vorstellung von der Stimmung gegen sein Volk, an der er doch so sehr litt.
[ 7 ] Daneben entfaltete er eine reiche Tätigkeit auf dem Gebiete der Volkskunde. Er sammelte alles, dessen er habhaft werden konnte, als Grundlage für ein Werk über das Werden der Volkstümer seit Urzeiten. Einzelne Aufsätze, die er aus seinem reichen Wissen auf diesem Gebiete schrieb, sind sehr interessant. Sie sind zunächst im materialistischen Sinne der Zeit geschrieben; aber Jacobowski wäre, hätte er länger gelebt, sicher einer Vergeistigung seines Forschens zugänglich gewesen.
[ 8 ] Aus diesen Betätigungen strahlt heraus Ludwig Jacobowskis Dichtung. Nicht ganz ursprünglich; aber doch von tief menschlicher Empfindung und voll eines seelenkräftigen Erlebens. «Leuchtende Tage» nannte er seine lyrischen Dichtungen. Sie waren, wenn die Stimmung sie ihm schenkte, in seiner Lebenstragik wirklich das, was wie geistige Sonnentage für ihn wirkte. Daneben schrieb er Romane. In «Werther der Jude» lebt alle innere Tragik Ludwig Jacobowskis. In «Loki, Roman eines Gottes» schuf er ein Werk, das aus deutscher Mythologie heraus geboren ist. Das Seelenvolle, das aus diesem Roman spricht, ist ein schöner Abglanz von des Dichters Liebe zum Mythologischen im Volkstum.
[ 9 ] Überschaut man, was Ludwig Jacobowski leistete, so ist man erstaunt über die Fülle auf den verschiedensten Gebieten. Trotzdem pflegte er Verkehr mit vielen Menschen und fühlte sich wohl im geselligen Leben. Dazu gab er damals noch die Monatsschrift «Die Gesellschaft» heraus, die eine ungeheure Überbürdung für ihn bedeutete.
[ 10 ] Er verzehrte sich am Leben, nach dessen Inhalt er sehnsüchtig begehrte, um künstlerisch dessen Gestaltung zu bewirken.
[ 11 ] Er gründete eine Gesellschaft «Die Kommenden», die aus Literaten, Künstlern, Wissenschaftern und künstlerisch interessierten Persönlichkeiten bestand. Da versammelte man sich jede Woche einmal. Dichter brachten ihre Dichtungen vor. Vorträge über die mannigfaltigsten Gebiete des Erkennens und Lebens wurden gehalten. Ein zwangloses Zusammensein schloß den Abend. Ludwig Jacobowski war der Mittelpunkt des sich immer mehr vergrößernden Kreises. Jeder liebte die liebenswürdige, ideenerfüllte Persönlichkeit, die in dieser Gemeinschaft sogar feinen, edlen Humor entfaltete.
[ 12] Aus all dem riß ein jäher Tod den erst Dreißigjährigen. An einer Hirnhautentzündung, der Folge seiner unausgesetzten Anstrengungen, ging er zugrunde.
[ 13 ] Mir blieb nur die Aufgabe, für den Freund die Begräbnisrede zu halten und seinen Nachlaß zu redigieren.
[ 14 ] Ein schönes Denkmal in einem Buche mit Beiträgen seiner Freunde setzte ihm die Dichterin Marie Stona, mit der er befreundet war.
[ 15 ] Alles an Ludwig Jacobowski war liebewert; seine innere Tragik, sein Herausstreben aus dieser zu seinen «leuchtenden Tagen», seine Hingabe an das bewegte Leben. Ich habe das Andenken an unsere Freundschaft stets lebendig im Herzen bewahrt und sehe auf die kurze Zeit unseres Zusammenlebens mit inniger Hingabe an den Freund zurück.
[ 16 ] Eine andere freundschaftliche Beziehung entstand dazumal zu Martha Asmus; eine philosophisch denkende aber stark zum Materialismus neigende Dame. Diese Neigung wurde allerdings dadurch gemildert, daß Martha Asmus intensiv in den Erinnerungen an ihren früh verstorbenen Bruder Paul Asmus lebte, der ein entschiedener Idealist war. Paul Asmus erlebt wie ein philosophischer Eremit den philosophischen Idealismus der Hegelzeit noch einmal im letzten Drittel des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Er schreibt eine Schrift über das «Ich» und eine solche über die indogermanischen Religionen. Beide in der Form des Hegelstiles, aber im Inhalte durchaus selbständig.
[ 17 ] Diese interessante Persönlichkeit, die damals schon lange nicht mehr lebte, wurde mir durch die Schwester Martha Asmus recht nahe gebracht. Wie ein neues meteorartiges Aufblitzen der geistgeneigten Philosophie des Jahrhundertbeginnes gegen das Jahrhundertende erschien sie mir.
[ 18 ] Weniger enge, aber immerhin eine Zeitlang bedeutsame Beziehungen bildeten sich zu den «Friedrichhagenern» heraus, zu Bruno Wille und Wilhelm Bölsche. Bruno Wille ist ja der Verfasser einer Schrift über «Philosophie der Befreiung durch das reine Mittel.» Nur der Titel hat den Anklang an meine «Philosophie der Freiheit». Der Inhalt bewegt sich auf einem ganz anderen Gebiete. In weitesten Kreisen bekannt wurde Bruno Wille durch seine sehr bedeutenden «Offenbarungen des Wachholderbaumes». Ein Weltanschauungsbuch aus dem schönsten Natursinn heraus geschrieben, durchdrungen von der Überzeugung, daß Geist aus allem materiellen Dasein spricht. Wilhelm Bölsche ist ja bekannt durch zahlreiche populär-naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, die in weitesten Kreisen ganz außerordentlich beliebt sind.
[ 19 ] Von dieser Seite ging die Begründung einer «Freien Hochschule» aus, zu der ich zugezogen wurde. Es wurde mir der Unterricht in der Geschichte zugeteilt. Bruno Wille besorgte das Philosophische, Bölsche das Naturwissenschaftliche, Theodor Kappstein, ein freigeistig gesinnter Theologe, die Erkenntnis des Religiösen.
[ 20 ] Eine zweite Begründung war der «Giordano-Bruno-Bund». Es sollten sich in demselben solche Persönlichkeiten zusammenfinden, die einer geistig-monistischen Weltanschauung sympathisch gegenüberstanden. Es kam dabei auf die Betonung dessen an, daß es nicht zwei Weltprinzipien, Stoff und Geist gebe, sondern daß der Geist als Einheitsprinzip alles Sein bilde. Bruno Wille leitete diesen Bund mit einem sehr geistvollen Vortrage ein, dem er das Goethe'sche Wort zugrunde legte: «Materie nie ohne Geist». Leider ergab sich zwischen Wille und mir nach diesem Vortrage ein kleines Mißverständnis. Meine an den Vortrag angeschlossenen Worte, daß Goethe, lange nachdem er dies schöne Wort geprägt hatte, es in gewichtiger Weise dadurch ergänzt habe, daß er in der wirksamen Geisttätigkeit des Daseins Polarität und Steigerung als die konkreten Geistgestaltungen gesehen habe, und daß dadurch das allgemeine Wort erst vollen Inhalt bekomme, wurde wie ein Einwand gegen Willes Vortrag genommen, den ich doch voll in seiner Bedeutung anerkannte.
[ 21 ] Aber vollends in einen Gegensatz zu der Leitung des Giordano-Bruno-Bundes kam ich, als ich einen Vortrag über den Monismus selbst hielt. Ich betonte in demselben, daß die schroffe dualistische Fassung «Stoff und Geist» eigentlich eine Schöpfung der neuesten Zeit ist. Daß auch Geist und Natur in den Gegensatz, den der GiordanoBruno-Bund bekämpfen will, erst in den allerletzten Jahrhunderten zu einander gebracht worden sind. Dann machte ich darauf aufmerksam, wie diesem Dualismus gegenüber die Scholastik Monismus sei. Wenn sie auch einen Teil des Seins der menschlichen Erkenntnis entzogen und dem «Glauben» zuerteilt habe, so stelle die Scholastik doch ein Weltsystem dar, das von der Gottheit, der Geistwelt bis in die Einzelheiten der Natur hinein eine einheitliche (monistische) Konstitution zeige. Damit stellte ich auch die Scholastik höher als den Kantianismus.
[ 22 ] Mit diesem Vortrage entfesselte ich die größte Aufregung. Man dachte, ich wolle dem Katholizismus in den Bund hinein die Wege öffnen. Nur Wolfgang Kirchbach und Martha Asmus standen von den leitenden Persönlichkeiten auf meiner Seite. Die andern konnten sich keine Vorstellung davon machen, was ich mit der «verkannten Scholastik» eigentlich wolle. Jedenfalls waren sie davon überzeugt, daß ich geeignet sei, in den Giordano-Bruno-Bund die größte Verwirrung hineinzubringen.
[ 23 ] Ich muß dieses Vortrages gedenken, weil er in die Zeit fällt, in der später Viele mich als Materialisten sehen. Dieser «Materialist» galt damals zahlreichen Personen als der, der die mittelalterliche Scholastik neuerdings heraufbeschwören möchte.
[ 24 ] Trotz alledem konnte ich später im Giordano-Bruno-Bund meinen grundlegenden anthroposophischen Vortrag halten, der der Ausgangspunkt meiner anthroposophischen Tätigkeit geworden ist.
[ 25 ] Mit dem öffentlichen Mitteilen dessen, was Anthroposophie als Wissen von der geistigen Welt enthält, sind Entschlüsse notwendig, die nicht ganz leicht werden.
[ 26] Es werden sich diese Entschlüsse am besten charakterisieren lassen, wenn man auf einiges Historische blickt. Entsprechend den ganz anders gearteten Seelenverfassungen einer älteren Menschheit hat es ein Wissen von der geistigen Welt immer, bis zum Beginne der neueren Zeit, etwa bis zum vierzehnten Jahrhundert, gegeben. Es war nur eben ganz anders als das den Erkenntnisbedingungen der Gegenwart angemessene Anthroposophische.
[ 27 ] Von dem genannten Zeitpunkte an konnte die Menschheit zunächst keine Geist-Erkenntnis hervorbringen. Sie bewahrte das «alte Wissen», das die Seelen in bildhafter Form geschaut haben, und das auch nur in symbolischbildlicher Form vorhanden war.
[ 28 ] Dieses «alte Wissen» wurde in alten Zeiten nur innerhalb der «Mysterien» gepflegt. Es wurde denen mitgeteilt, die man erst reif dazu gemacht hatte, den «Eingeweihten». Es sollte nicht an die Öffentlichkeit gelangen, weil da die Tendenz zu leicht vorhanden ist, es unwürdig zu behandeln. Diese Gepflogenheit haben nun diejenigen spätern Persönlichkeiten beibehalten, die Kunde von dem «alten Wissen» erlangten und es weiterpflegten. Sie taten es in engsten Kreisen mit Menschen, die sie dazu vorbereiteten.
[ 29 ] Und so blieb es bis in die Gegenwart.
[ 30 ] Von den Persönlichkeiten, die mir mit einer solchen Forderung bezüglich der Geist-Erkenntnis entgegentraten, will ich eine nennen, die innerhalb des Wiener Kreises der Frau Lang, den ich gekennzeichnet habe, sich bewegte, die ich aber auch in andern Kreisen, in denen ich in Wien verkehrte, traf. Es ist Friedrich Eckstein, der ausgezeichnete Kenner jenes «alten Wissens». Friedrich Eckstein hat, solange ich mit ihm verkehrte, nicht viel geschrieben. Was er aber schrieb, war voll Geist. Aber niemand ahnt aus seinen Ausführungen zunächst den intimen Kenner alter Geist-Erkenntnis. Die wirkt im Hintergrunde seines geistigen Arbeitens. Eine sehr bedeutende Abhandlung habe ich, lange nachdem das Leben auch von diesem Freunde mich entfernt hatte, in einer Schriftensammlung gelesen über die böhmischen Brüder.
[ 31 ] Friedrich Eckstein vertrat nun energisch die Meinung, man dürfe die esoterische Geist-Erkenntnis nicht wie das gewöhnliche Wissen öffentlich verbreiten. Er stand mit dieser Meinung nicht allein; sie war und ist die fast aller Kenner der «alten Weisheit». Inwiefern in der von H.P. Blavatsky begründeten «Theosophischen Gesellschaft» die als Regel von den Bewahrern «alter Weisheit» streng geltend gemachte Meinung durchbrochen wurde, davon werde ich später zu sprechen haben.
[ 32 ] Friedrich Eckstein wollte, daß man als «Eingeweihter in altes Wissen» das, was man öffentlich vertritt, einkleidet mit der Kraft, die aus dieser «Einweihung» kommt, daß man aber dieses Exoterische streng scheide von dem Esoterischen, das im engsten Kreise bleiben solle, der es voll zu würdigen versteht.
[ 33 ] Ich mußte mich, sollte ich eine öffentliche Tätigkeit für Geist-Erkenntnis entfalten, entschließen, mit dieser Tradition zu brechen. Ich sah mich vor die Bedingungen des geistigen Lebens der Gegenwart gestellt. Denen gegenüber sind Geheimhaltungen, wie sie in älteren Zeiten selbstverständlich waren, eine Unmöglichkeit. Wir leben in der Zeit, die Öffentlichkeit will, wo irgend ein Wissen auftritt. Und die Anschauung von der Geheimhaltung ist ein Anachronismus. Einzig und allein möglich ist, daß man Persönlichkeiten stufenweise mit der Geist-Erkenntnis bekannt macht und niemand zuläßt zu einer Stufe, auf der die höhern Teile des Wissens mitgeteilt werden, wenn er die niedrigeren noch nicht kennt. Das entspricht ja auch den Einrichtungen der niedern und höhern Schulen.
[ 34 ] Ich hatte auch niemand gegenüber eine Verpflichtung zur Geheimhaltung. Denn ich nahm von «alter Weisheit» nichts an; was ich an Geist-Erkenntnis habe, ist durchaus Ergebnis meiner eigenen Forschung. Nur, wenn sich mir eine Erkenntnis ergeben hat, so ziehe ich dasjenige heran, was von irgend einer Seite an «altem Wissen» schon veröffentlicht ist, um die Übereinstimmung und zugleich den Fortschritt zu zeigen, der der gegenwärtigen Forschung möglich ist.
[ 35 ] So war ich mir denn von einem gewissen Zeitpunkte an ganz klar darüber, daß ich mit einem öffentlichen Auftreten mit der Geist-Erkenntnis das Rechte tue.
Chapter XXIX
[ 1 ] In the spiritual field, a new light was about to dawn on the development of humanity in the cognitive achievements of the last third of the century. But the spiritual sleep into which the materialistic interpretation of these achievements plunged prevented us from even suspecting this, let alone noticing it.
[ 2 ] So the time came up, which should have developed in a spiritual direction through its own nature, but which denied its own nature. The time that began to realize the impossibility of life.
[ 3 ] I would like to reproduce here a few sentences from remarks I wrote in March 1898 in the "Dramaturgische Blätter" (which had been attached to the "Magazin" as a supplement since the beginning of 1898). Of the "art of performance" I say: "In this field more than in any other, the learner is left entirely to himself and to chance ... With the form that our public life has taken, almost everyone is now in the position of having to speak in public more often ... The elevation of ordinary speech to a work of art is a rarity... We almost entirely lack the feeling for the beauty of speech and even more for characteristic speech... No one will be given the right to write about a singer who has no knowledge of correct singing... With regard to the art of acting, far lower demands are made... People who understand whether a verse is spoken correctly or not are becoming increasingly rare... Today, artistic speaking is often regarded as misguided idealism... We could never have come to this if we had been more aware of the artistic training capacity of language..."
[ 4 ] What I had in mind could only find a kind of realization much later in the Anthroposophical Society. Marie v. Sivers (Marie Steiner), who was enthusiastic about the art of speech, initially devoted herself to genuinely artistic speech; and with her help it then became possible to work towards elevating this field to a true art in courses for speech formation and dramatic presentation.
[ 5 ] I was allowed to cite this here to show how certain ideals have sought their development throughout my life, because many people want to find contradictions in my development.
[ 6 ] During this time, I became friends with the poet Ludwig Jacobowski, who died young. He was a personality whose emotional mood breathed inner tragedy. He bore the burden of his fate because he was Jewish. He headed a bureau which, under the direction of a liberal member of parliament, managed the association for the "defense against anti-Semitism" and published its journal. An overload of work lay on Ludwig Jacobowski in this direction. And work that renewed a burning pain every day. For it placed before his soul every day the idea of the sentiment against his people, from which he suffered so much.
[ 7 ] In addition, he developed a rich activity in the field of folklore. He collected everything he could get hold of as the basis for a work on the development of folklore since time immemorial. Some of the essays he wrote from his rich knowledge in this field are very interesting. They are initially written in the materialistic sense of the time; but Jacobowski, had he lived longer, would certainly have been accessible to a spiritualization of his research.
[ 8 ] Ludwig Jacobowski's poetry radiates from these activities. Not entirely original, but nevertheless full of deep human feeling and soulful experience. He called his lyrical poems "shining days". When the mood struck him, they were really what worked for him like spiritual sunny days in the tragedy of his life. He also wrote novels. All of Ludwig Jacobowski's inner tragedy lives in "Werther the Jew". In "Loki, Roman eines Gottes" he created a work born out of German mythology. The soulfulness that speaks from this novel is a beautiful reflection of the poet's love of the mythological in folklore.
[ 9 ] Overlooking Ludwig Jacobowski's achievements, one is amazed at the abundance in the most diverse areas. Nevertheless, he cultivated contacts with many people and enjoyed social life. At the time, he also published the monthly magazine "Die Gesellschaft", which meant an enormous overload for him.
[ 10 ] He was consumed by life, the content of which he longed for in order to shape it artistically.
[ 11 ] He founded a society called "Die Kommenden", which consisted of writers, artists, scientists and people interested in the arts. They met there once a week. Poets recited their poetry. Lectures were given on the most diverse areas of knowledge and life. An informal get-together concluded the evening. Ludwig Jacobowski was the center of the ever-growing circle. Everyone loved the amiable, idea-filled personality, who even developed a fine, noble sense of humor in this community.
[ 12 ] A sudden death tore the thirty-year-old out of all this. He perished from meningitis, the result of his incessant exertions.
[ 13 ] I was left with the task of delivering the funeral speech for my friend and editing his estate.
[ 14 ] The poet Marie Stona, with whom he was friends, set him a beautiful memorial in a book with contributions from his friends.
[ 15 ] Everything about Ludwig Jacobowski was worthy of love; his inner tragedy, his striving to emerge from it in his "shining days", his devotion to his eventful life. I have always kept the memory of our friendship alive in my heart and look back on the short time we lived together with heartfelt devotion to my friend.
[ 16 ] Another friendly relationship arose at that time with Martha Asmus; a philosophically-minded lady with a strong tendency towards materialism. However, this inclination was tempered by the fact that Martha Asmus lived intensely in the memories of her brother Paul Asmus, who had died young and was a staunch idealist. Like a philosophical hermit, Paul Asmus experienced the philosophical idealism of Hegel's time once again in the last third of the nineteenth century. He wrote a treatise on the "I" and one on the Indo-European religions. Both in the form of Hegel's style, but quite independent in content.
[ 17 ] This interesting personality, who had not been alive for a long time at the time, was brought very close to me by my sister Martha Asmus. She seemed to me like a new meteoric flash of the intellectual philosophy of the beginning of the century towards the end of the century.
[ 18 ] Less close, but nevertheless for a time significant relationships developed with the "Friedrichhageners", with Bruno Wille and Wilhelm Bölsche. Bruno Wille is the author of a book on the "Philosophy of Liberation through the Pure Means." Only the title is reminiscent of my "Philosophy of Freedom". The content is in a completely different field. Bruno Wille became known in the widest circles through his very important "Revelations of the Juniper Tree". A book on worldview written from the most beautiful sense of nature, imbued with the conviction that spirit speaks from all material existence. Wilhelm Bölsche is known for his numerous popular scientific writings, which are extremely popular in the widest circles.
[ 19 ] This was the source of the foundation of a "free university" to which I was drawn. I was assigned to teach history. Bruno Wille took care of the philosophy, Bölsche the natural sciences and Theodor Kappstein, a free-spirited theologian, the knowledge of religion.
[ 20 ] A second reason was the "Giordano Bruno Association". It was intended to bring together personalities who were sympathetic to a spiritual-monistic world view. The aim was to emphasize that there were not two world principles, matter and spirit, but that spirit was the unifying principle of all existence. Bruno Wille introduced this alliance with a very spiritual lecture, which he based on Goethe's words: "Matter never without spirit". Unfortunately, there was a slight misunderstanding between Wille and myself after this lecture. My words following the lecture, that Goethe, long after he had coined this beautiful word, had supplemented it in an important way by seeing polarity and intensification as the concrete spiritual formations in the effective spiritual activity of existence, and that this was what gave the general word its full content, were taken as an objection to Wille's lecture, which I nevertheless fully recognized in its meaning.
[ 21 ] But I came into complete opposition to the leadership of the Giordano Bruno Bund when I gave a lecture on monism itself. In it I emphasized that the harsh dualistic version of "substance and spirit" is actually a creation of the latest times. That spirit and nature, too, in the opposition that the Giordano Bruno League wants to combat, have only been brought together in the very last centuries. Then I drew attention to the fact that scholasticism is monism in contrast to this dualism. Even if it had withdrawn a part of existence from human knowledge and assigned it to "faith", scholasticism nevertheless represented a world system that showed a unified (monistic) constitution from the Godhead and the spiritual world right down to the details of nature. I thus also placed scholasticism higher than Kantianism.
[ 22 ] With this lecture I unleashed the greatest excitement. People thought I wanted to open the way for Catholicism to enter the Bund. Only Wolfgang Kirchbach and Martha Asmus were on my side among the leading personalities. The others had no idea what I actually wanted with "misjudged scholasticism". In any case, they were convinced that I was capable of bringing the greatest confusion to the Giordano Bruno Association.
[ 23] I must remember this lecture because it took place at a time when many later came to see me as a materialist. This "materialist" was regarded by many people at the time as someone who wanted to evoke medieval scholasticism again.
[ 24 ] Despite all this, I was later able to give my fundamental anthroposophical lecture in the Giordano Bruno Association, which became the starting point of my anthroposophical work.
[ 25 ] With the public communication of what anthroposophy contains as knowledge of the spiritual world, decisions are necessary that do not come easily.
[ 26 ] These decisions can best be characterized by looking at some historical facts. In accordance with the quite different constitutions of soul of an older humanity, there has always been a knowledge of the spiritual world until the beginning of modern times, until about the fourteenth century. It was just quite different from the anthroposophical knowledge appropriate to the cognitive conditions of the present.
[ 27 ] From this point in time, humanity was initially unable to produce any knowledge of the spirit. It preserved the "old knowledge", which the souls had seen in pictorial form, and which was also only available in symbolic-pictorial form.
[ 28 ] In ancient times, this "ancient knowledge" was only cultivated within the "Mysteries". It was communicated to those who had first been made ready for it, the "initiates". It was not supposed to reach the public, because there was too easy a tendency to treat it unworthily. This custom was maintained by those later personalities who became aware of the "old knowledge" and continued to cultivate it. They did so in the closest of circles with people who prepared them for it.
[ 29 ] And so it has remained to the present day.
[ 30 ] Of the personalities who confronted me with such a claim regarding the knowledge of the spirit, I will mention one who moved within the Viennese circle of Mrs. Lang, which I have characterized, but whom I also met in other circles in which I moved in Vienna. It is Friedrich Eckstein, the excellent connoisseur of that "old knowledge". Friedrich Eckstein did not write much while I was in contact with him. But what he did write was full of spirit. But no one could have guessed from his remarks that he was an intimate connoisseur of ancient spiritual knowledge. This works in the background of his spiritual work. Long after life had taken me away from this friend, I read a very important treatise in a collection of writings on the Bohemian Brethren.
[ 31 ] Friedrich Eckstein now vigorously advocated the opinion that esoteric spiritual knowledge should not be disseminated publicly like ordinary knowledge. He was not alone in this opinion; it was and is that of almost all connoisseurs of "ancient wisdom". The extent to which the "Theosophical Society", founded by H.P. Blavatsky, broke with the opinion strictly asserted as a rule by the keepers of "ancient wisdom" is something I will have to talk about later.
[ 32 ] Friedrich Eckstein wanted that, as an "initiate into ancient knowledge", one should clothe what one publicly represents with the power that comes from this "initiation", but that one should strictly separate this exoteric from the esoteric, which should remain in the narrowest circle that knows how to fully appreciate it.
[ 33 ] I had to decide to break with this tradition if I were to develop a public activity for spiritual knowledge. I saw myself confronted with the conditions of contemporary spiritual life. In the face of these conditions, secrecy, as it was taken for granted in older times, is an impossibility. We live in an age that wants publicity wherever any knowledge appears. And the idea of secrecy is an anachronism. The only possible way is to make personalities gradually acquainted with the knowledge of the spirit and not to admit anyone to a stage at which the higher parts of knowledge are communicated if he does not yet know the lower ones. This also corresponds to the institutions of the lower and higher schools.
[ 34 ] I also had no obligation of secrecy towards anyone. For I did not accept anything from "ancient wisdom"; whatever spiritual knowledge I have is definitely the result of my own research. Only when an insight has come to me do I draw on that which has already been published by some source of "ancient knowledge" in order to show the agreement and at the same time the progress that is possible in current research.
[ 35 ] So from a certain point in time I was quite clear about the fact that I was doing the right thing with a public appearance with the knowledge of the spirit.