The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter XXX
[ 1 ] The decision to give public expression to the esoteric from my own inner experience impelled me to write for the Magazine for August 28, 1899, on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Goethe's birth, an article on Goethe's fairy-tale of The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, under the title Goethes Geheime Offenbarung.1Goethe's Secret Revelation. This article was, of course, only slightly esoteric. But I could not expect more of my public than I there gave. In my own mind the content of the fairy-tale lived as something wholly esoteric, and it was out of an esoteric mood that the article was written.
[ 2 ] Since the 'eighties I had been occupied with imaginations which were associated in my thought with this fairy-tale. I saw set forth in the fairy-tale Goethe's way from the observation of external nature into the interior of the human mind as he placed this before himself, not in concepts, but in pictures of the spirit. Concepts seemed to Goethe far too poor, too dead, to be capable of representing the living and working forces of the mind.
[ 3 ] Now in Schiller's letters concerning education in aesthetics, Goethe saw an endeavour to grasp this living and working by means of concepts. Schiller sought to show how the life of man is under subjection to natural necessity by reason of his corporeal aspect and to mental necessity through his reason. And he thought the soul must establish an inner equilibrium between the two. Then in this equilibrium man lives in freedom a life really worthy of humanity.
This is clever, but for the real life of the soul it is far too simple. The soul causes its forces, which are rooted in the depths, to shine into consciousness, but to disappear again in the very act of shining forth after they have influenced other forces just as fleeting. These are occurrences which even in arising also pass away; but abstract concepts can be linked only to that which continues for a longer or shorter time.
[ 4 ] All this Goethe knew through experience; he placed his picture-knowledge in a fairy-tale over against Schiller's conceptual knowledge.
[ 5 ] In experiencing this creation of Goethe's, one had entered the outer court of the esoteric.
[ 6] This was the time when I was invited by Count and Countess Brockdorff to deliver a lecture at one of their weekly gatherings. At these meetings there came together seekers from all sorts of circles. The lectures there delivered had to do with all aspects of life and knowledge. I knew nothing of all this until I was invited to deliver a lecture; nor did I know the Brockdorffs, but heard of them then for the first time. The theme proposed was an article about Nietzsche. This lecture I gave. Then I observed that among the hearers there were persons with a great interest in the spiritual world. Therefore, when I was invited to give a second lecture, I proposed the subject “Goethe's Secret Revelation,” and in this lecture I became entirely esoteric in relation to the fairy-tale. It was an important experience for me to be able to speak in words coined from the world of spirit after having been forced by circumstances throughout my Berlin period up to that time only to let the spiritual shine through my presentation.
[ 7 ] The Brockdorffs were leaders of a branch of the Theosophical Society founded by Blavatsky. What I had said in connection with Goethe's fairy-tale led to my being invited by the Brockdorffs to deliver lectures regularly before those members of the Theosophical Society who were associated with them. I explained, however, that I could speak only about that which I vitally experienced within me as spiritual knowledge.
[ 8 ] In truth, I could speak of nothing else. For very little of the literature issued by the Theosophical Society was known to me. I had known theosophists while living in Vienna, and I later became acquainted with others. These acquaintance ships led me to write in the Magazine the adverse review dealing with the theosophists in connection with the appearance of a publication of Franz Hartmann. What I knew otherwise of the literature was for the most part entirely uncongenial to me in method and approach; I could not by any possibility have linked my discussions with this literature.
[ 9 ] So I then gave the lectures in which I established a connection with the mysticism of the Middle Ages. By means of the ideas of the mystics from Master Eckhard to Jakob Böhme, I found expression for the spiritual conceptions which in reality I had determined beforehand to set forth. I published the series of lectures in the book Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens.2Mysticism at the Beginning of the Modern Spiritual Life.
[ 10 ] At these lectures there appeared one day in the audience Marie von Sievers, who was chosen by destiny at that time to take into strong hands the German section of the Theosophical Society, founded soon after the beginning of my lecturing. Within this section I was then able to develop my anthroposophic activity before a constantly increasing audience.
[ 11 ] No one was left in uncertainty of the fact that I would bring forward in the Theosophical Society only the results of my own research through perception. For I stated this on all appropriate occasions. When, in the presence of Annie Besant, the German section of the Theosophical Society was founded in Berlin and I was chosen its General Secretary, I had to leave the foundation sessions because I had to give before a non-theosophical audience one of the lectures in which I dealt with the spiritual evolution of humanity, and to the title of which I expressly united the phrase “Eine Anthroposophie.”3“An anthroposophy.” Annie Besant also knew that I was then giving out in lectures under this title what I had to say about the spiritual world.
[ 12 ] When I went to London to attend a theosophical congress, one of the leading personalities said to me that true theosophy was to be found in my book Mysticism ..., I had reason to be satisfied. For I had given only the results of my spiritual vision, and this was accepted in the Theosophical Society.
There was now no longer any reason why I should not bring forward this spiritual knowledge in my own way before the theosophical public, which was at first the only audience that entered without restriction into a knowledge of the spirit. I subscribed to no sectarian dogmatics; I remained a man who uttered what he believed he was able to utter entirely according to what he himself experienced in the spiritual world.
[ 13 ] Prior to the founding of the section belongs a series of lectures – which I gave before Die Kommenden, entitled Von Buddha zu Christus.4From Buddha to Christ. In these discussions I sought to show what a mighty stride the mystery of Golgotha signifies in comparison with the Buddha event, and how the evolution of humanity, as it strives toward the Christ event, approaches its culmination. [ 14 ] In this circle I spoke also of the nature of the mysteries.
[ 15 ] All this was accepted by my hearers. It was not felt to be contradictory to lectures which I had given earlier. Only after the section was founded – and I then appeared to be stamped as a “theosophist” – did any objection arise. It was really not the thing itself; it was the name and the association with the Society that no one wished to have.
[ 16 ] On the other hand, my non-theosophical hearers would have been inclined to permit themselves merely to be “stimulated” by my discussions, to accept these only in a “literary” way. What lay upon my heart was to introduce into life the impulse from the spiritual world; for this there was no understanding. This understanding, however, I could gradually find among men interested theosophically.
[ 17 ] Before the Brockdorff circle, where I had spoken on Nietzsche and the on Goethe's secret revelation, I gave at this time a lecture on Goethe's Faust, from an esoteric point of view.5This was the lecture which was later published, together with my discussions of Goethe's fairy-tale, by the Philosophische-Anthroposophische Verlag.
[ 18 ] The lectures on mysticism led to an invitation during the winter from the same theosophical circle to speak there again on this subject. I then gave the series of lectures which I later collected into the volume Christianity as Mystical Fact.
[ 19 ] From the very beginning I have let it be known that the choice of the expression “as Mystical Fact” is important. For I did not wish to set forth merely the mystical bearing of Christianity. My object was to set forth the evolution from the ancient mysteries to the mystery of Golgotha in such a way that in this evolution there should be seen to be active, not merely earthly historic forces, but spiritual supramundane influences. And I wished to show that in the ancient mysteries cult-pictures were given of cosmic events, which were then fulfilled in the mystery of Golgotha as facts transferred from the cosmos to the earth of the historic plane.
[ 20 ] This was by no means taught in the Theosophical Society. In this view I was in direct opposition to the theosophical dogmatics of the time, before I was invited to work in the Theosophical Society. For this invitation followed immediately after the cycle of lectures on Christ here described.
[ 21 ] Between the two cycles of lectures that I gave before the Theosophical Society, Marie von Sievers was in Italy, at Bologna, working on behalf of the Theosophical Society in the branch established there.
[ 22 ] Thus the thing evolved up to the time of my first attendance at a theosophical congress, in London, in the year 1902. At this congress, in which Marie von Sievers also took part, it was already a foregone conclusion that a German section of the Society would be founded with myself – shortly before invited to become a member – as the general secretary.
[ 23 ] The visit to London was of great interest to me. I there became acquainted with important leaders of the Theosophical Society. I had the privilege of staying at the home of Mr. Bertram Keightley, one of these leaders. We became great friends. I became acquainted with Mr. Mead, the very diligent secretary of the Theosophical Movement. The most interesting conversations imaginable took place at the home of Mr. Keightley in regard to the forms of spiritual knowledge alive within the Theosophical Society.
[ 24 ] Especially intimate were these conversations with Bertram Keightley himself. H. P. Blavatsky seemed to live again in these conversations. Her whole personality, with its wealth of spiritual content, was described with the utmost vividness before me and Marie von Sievers by my dear host, who had been so long associated with her.
[ 25 ] I became slightly acquainted with Annie Besant and also Sinnett, author of Esoteric Buddhism. Mr. Leadbeater I did not meet, but only heard him speak from the platform. He made no special impression on me.
[ 26 ] All that was interesting in what I heard stirred me deeply, but it had no influence upon the content of my own views.
[ 27 ] The intervals left over between sessions of the congress I sought to employ in hurried visits to the natural-scientific and artistic collections of London. I dare say that many an idea concerning the evolution of nature and of man came to me from the natural-scientific and the historical collections.
[ 28 ] Thus I went through an event very important for me in this visit to London. I went away with the most manifold impressions, which stirred my mind profoundly.
[ 29 ] In the first number of the Magazine for 1899 there appears an article by me entitled Neujahrsbetractung eines Ketzers.6New Year Reflections of a Sceptic. The meaning there is a scepticism, not in reference to religious knowledge, but in reference to the orientation of culture which the time had taken on.
[ 30 ] Men were standing before the portals of a new century. The closing century had brought forth great attainments in the realm of external life and knowledge.
[ 31 ] In reference to this the thought forced itself upon me: “In spite of all this and many other attainments – for example, in the sphere of art – no one with any depth of vision can rejoice greatly over the cultural content of the time. Our highest spiritual needs strive for something which the time affords only in meagre measure.” And reflecting upon the emptiness of contemporary culture, I glanced back to the time of scholasticism in which, at least in concepts, men's minds lived with the spirit. “One need not be surprised if, in the presence of such phenomena, men with deeper intellectual needs find the proud structure of thought of the scholastics more satisfying than the ideal content of our own time. Otto Willmann has written a noteworthy book, his Geschichte des Idealismus7History of Idealism. in which he appears as the eulogist of the world-conception of past centuries. It must be admitted that the human mind craves those proud comprehensive illuminations through thought which human knowledge experienced in the philosophical systems of the scholastics ... Discouragement is a characteristic of the intellectual life at the turn of the century. It disturbs our joy in the attainments of the youngest of the ages now past.”
[ 32 ] And in contrast to those persons who insisted that it was just “true knowledge” itself which showed the impossibility of a philosophy comprising under a single conception the totality of existence, I had to say: “If matters were as they appear to the persons who give currency to such voices, then it would suffice one to measure, weigh, and compare things and phenomena and investigate them by means of the available apparatus, but never would the question be raised as to the higher meaning of things and phenomena.”
[ 33 ] This is the temper of my mind which must furnish an explanation of those facts that brought about my anthroposophic activity within the Theosophical Society. When I had entered into the culture of the time in order to find a spiritual background for the editing of the Magazine, I felt after this a great need to recover my mind in such reading as Willmann's History of Idealism. Even though there was an abyss between my perception of spirit and the form of Willmann's ideas, yet I felt that these ideas were near to the spirit.
[ 34 ] At the end of September 1900, I was able to leave the Magazine in other hands.
[ 35 ] The facts narrated above show that the purpose of imparting the content of the spiritual world had become a necessity growing out of my temper of mind before I gave up the Magazine; that it has no connection with the impossibility of continuing further with the Magazine.
[ 36 ] As into the very element suited to my mind, I entered upon an activity having its impulse in spiritual knowledge.
[ 37 ] But I still have to-day the feeling that, even apart from the hindrance here described, my endeavour to lead through natural-scientific knowledge to the world of spirit would have succeeded in finding an outlet. I look back upon what I expressed from 1897 to 1900 as upon something which at one time or another had to be uttered in opposition to the way of thinking of the time; and on the other hand I look back upon this as upon something in which I passed through my most intense spiritual test. I learned fundamentally to know where lay the forces of the time striving away from the spirit, disintegrating and destructive of culture. And from this knowledge came a great access of the force that I later needed in order to work outward from the spirit.
[ 38 ] It was still before the time of my activity within the Theosophical Society, and before I ceased to edit the Magazine, that I composed my two-volume book Conceptions of the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Century, which from the second edition on was extended to include a survey of the evolution of world-conceptions from the Greek period to the nineteenth century, and then appeared under the title Rätsel der Philosophie.8Riddles of Philosophy.
[ 39 ] The external occasion for the production of this book is to be considered wholly secondary. It grew out of the fact that Cronbach, the publisher of the Magazine, planned a collection of writings which were to deal with the various realms of knowledge and life in their evolution during the nineteenth century. He wished to include in this collection an exposition of the conceptions of the world and of life, and this he entrusted to me.
[ 40 ] I had for a long time held all the substance of this book in my mind. My consideration of the world-conceptions had a personal point of departure in that of Goethe. The opposition which I had to set up between Goethe's way of thinking and that of Kant, the new philosophical beginning at the turning-point between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel – all this was to me the beginning of an epoch in the evolution of world-conceptions. The brilliant books of Richard Wahle, which show the dissolution of all endeavour after a world-conception at the end of the nineteenth century, closed this epoch. Thus the attempt of the nineteenth century after a world-conception rounded itself into a whole which was vitally alive in my view, and I gladly seized the opportunity to set this forth.
[ 41] When I look back to this book the course of my life seems to me symptomatically expressed in it. I did not concern myself, as many suppose, with anticipating contradictions. If this were the case, I should gladly admit it. Only it was not the reality in my spiritual course. I concerned myself in anticipation to find new spheres for what was alive in my mind. And an especially stimulating discovery in the spiritual sphere occurred soon after the composition of the Conceptions of the World and of Life.
[ 42 ] Besides, I never by any means penetrated into the spiritual sphere in a mystical, emotional way, but desired always to go by way of crystal-clear concepts. Experiencing of concepts, of ideas, led me out of the ideal into the spiritual-real.
[ 43 ] The real evolution of the organic from primeval times to the present stood out before my imagination for the first time after the composition of Conceptions of the World and of Life.
[ 44 ] During the writing of this book I had before my eyes only the natural-scientific view which had been derived from the Darwinian mode of thought. But this I considered only as a succession of sensible facts present in nature. Within this succession of facts there were active for me spiritual impulses, as these hovered before Goethe in his idea of metamorphosis.
[ 45 ] Thus the natural-scientific evolutionary succession, as represented by Haeckel, never constituted for me something wherein mechanical or merely organic laws controlled, but as something wherein the spirit led the living being from the simple through the complex up to man. I saw in Darwinism a mode of thinking which is on the way to that of Goethe, but which remains behind this.
[ 46 ] All this was still thought by me in ideal content ; only later did I work through to imaginative perception. This perception first brought me the knowledge that in reality quite other beings than the most simple organisms were present in primeval times. That man as a spiritual being is older than all other living beings, and that in order to assume his present physical form he had to cease to be a member of a world-being which comprised him and the other organisms. These latter are rejected elements in human evolution; not something out of which man has come, but something which he has left behind, from which he severed himself, in order to take on his physical form as the image of one that was spiritual. Man is a microcosmic being who bore within him all the rest of the terrestrial world and who has become a microcosm by separating from all the rest – this for me was a knowledge to which I first attained in the earliest years of the new century.
[ 47 ] And so this knowledge could not be in any way an active impulse in Conceptions of the World and of Life. Indeed, I so conceived the second volume of this book that a point of departure for a deepening knowledge of the world mystery might be found in a spiritualized form of Darwinism and Haeckelism viewed in the light of Goethe's world-conception.
[ 48 ] When I prepared later the second edition of the book, there was already present in my mind a knowledge of the true evolution. All through I held fast to the point of view I had assumed in the first edition as being that which is derived from thinking without spiritual perception, yet I found it necessary to make slight changes in the form of expression. These were necessary, first because the book by undertaking a general survey of the totality of philosophy had become an entirely different composition, and secondly because this second edition appeared after my discussions of the true evolution were already before the world.
[ 49 ] In all this the form taken by my Riddles of Philosophy had not only a subjective justification, as the point of view firmly held from the time of a certain phase in my mental evolution, but also a justification entirely objective. This consists in the fact that a thought, when spiritually experienced as thought, can conceive the evolution of living beings only as this is set forth in my book; and that the further step must be made by means of spiritual perception.
[ 50 ] Thus my book represents quite objectively the pre-anthroposophic point of view into which one must submerge oneself, and which one must experience in this submersion, in order to rise to the higher point of view. This point of view, as a stage in the way of knowledge, meets those learners who seek the spiritual world, not in a mystical blurred form, but in a form intellectually clear. In setting forth that which results from this point of view there is also present something which the learner uses as a preliminary stage leading to the higher.
[ 51 ] Then for the first time I saw in Haeckel the person who placed himself courageously at the thinker's point of view in natural science, while all other researchers excluded thought and admitted only the results of sense-observation. The fact that Haeckel placed value upon creative thought in laying the foundation for reality drew me again and again to him. And so I dedicated my book to him, in spite of the fact that its content – even in that form – was not conceived in his sense. But Haeckel was not in the least a philosophical nature. His relation to philosophy was wholly that of a layman. For this very reason I considered the attack of the philosophers that was just then raging around Haeckel as quite undeserved. In opposition to them, I dedicated my book to Haeckel, as I had already written in opposition to them my essay Haeckel und seine Gegner.9Haeckel and His Opponents. Haeckel, in all simplicity as regards philosophy, had employed thought as the means for setting forth biological reality; a philosophical attack was directed against him which rested upon an intellectual sphere quite foreign to him. I believe he never knew what the philosophers wished from him. This was my impression from a conversation I had with him in Leipzig after the appearance of his Riddle of the Universe, on the occasion of a presentation of Borngräber's play Giordano Bruno. He then said: “People say I deny the spirit. I wish they could see how materials shape themselves through their forces; then they would perceive ‘spirit’ in everything that happens in a retort. Everywhere there is spirit.” Haeckel, in fact, knew nothing whatever of the real Spirit. The very forces of nature were for him the “spirit,” and he could rest content with this.
[ 52 ] One must not critically attack such blindness to the spirit with philosophically dead concepts, but must see how far the age is removed from the experience of the spirit, and must seek, on the foundation which the age affords – the natural biological explanation – to strike the spiritual sparks.
[ 53 ] Such was then my opinion. On that basis I wrote my Conceptions of the World and of Life in the Nineteenth Century.
Chapter XXX
[ 1 ] Der Wille, das Esoterische, das in mir lebte, zur öffentlichen Darstellung zu bringen, drängte mich dazu, zum 28. August 1899, als zu Goethes hundertfünfzigstem Geburtstag, im «Magazin» einen Aufsatz über Goethes Märchen von der «grünen Schlange und der schönen Lilie» unter dem Titel «Goethes geheime Offenbarung» zu schreiben. - Dieser Aufsatz ist ja allerdings noch wenig esoterisch. Aber mehr, als ich gab, konnte ich meinem Publikum nicht zumuten. - In meiner Seele lebte der Inhalt des Märchens als ein durchaus esoterischer. Und aus einer esoterischen Stimmung sind die Ausführungen geschrieben.
[ 2 ] Seit den achtziger Jahren beschäftigten mich Imaginationen, die sich bei mir an dieses Märchen geknüpft haben. Goethes Weg von der Betrachtung der äußeren Natur zum Innern der menschlichen Seele, wie er ihn sich nicht in Begriffen, sondern in Bildern vor den Geist stellte, sah ich in dem Märchen dargestellt. Begriffe schienen Goethe viel zu arm, zu tot, um das Leben und Wirken der Seelenkräfte darstellen zu können.
[ 3 ] Nun war ihm in Schillers «Briefen über ästhetische Erziehung» ein Versuch entgegengetreten, dieses Leben und Wirken in Begriffe zu fassen. Schiller versuchte zu zeigen, wie das Leben des Menschen durch seine Leiblichkeit der Naturnotwendigkeit und durch seine Vernunft der Geistnotwendigkeit unterliege. Und er meint, zwischen beiden müsse das Seelische ein inneres Gleichgewicht herstellen. In diesem Gleichgewicht lebe dann der Mensch in Freiheit ein wirklich menschenwürdiges Dasein. Das ist geistvoll; aber für das wirkliche Seelenleben viel zu einfach. Dieses läßt seine Kräfte, die in den Tiefen wurzeln, im Bewußtsein aufleuchten; aber in' Aufleuchten, nachdem sie andere ebenso flüchtige beeinflußt haben, wieder verschwinden. Das sind Vorgänge, die im Entstehen schon vergehen; abstrakte Begriffe aber sind nur an mehr oder weniger lang Bleibendes zu knüpfen.
[ 4 ] Das alles wußte Goethe empfindend; er setzte sein Bildwissen im Märchen dem Schiller'schen Begriffswissen gegenüber.
[ 5 ] Man ist mit einem Erleben dieser Goethe'schen Schöpfung in' Vorhof der Esoterik.
[ 6 ] Es war dies die Zeit, in der ich durch Gräfin und Graf Brockdorff aufgefordert wurde, an einer ihrer allwöchentlichen Veranstaltungen einen Vortrag zu halten. Bei diesen Veranstaltungen kamen Besucher aus allen Kreisen zusammen. Die Vorträge, die gehalten wurden, gehörten allen Gebieten des Lebens und der Erkenntnis an. Ich wußte von alledem nichts, bis ich zu einem Vortrage eingeladen wurde, kannte auch die Brockdorffs nicht, sondern hörte von ihnen zum ersten Male. Als Thema schlug man mir eine Ausführung über Nietzsche vor. Diesen Vortrag hielt ich. Nun bemerkte ich, daß innerhalb der Zuhörerschaft Persönlichkeiten mit großem Interesse für die Geistwelt waren. Ich schlug daher, als man mich aufforderte, einen zweiten Vortrag zu halten, das Thema vor: «Goethes geheime Offenbarung». Und in diesem Vortrag wurde ich in Anknüpfung an das Märchen ganz esoterisch. Es war ein wichtiges Erlebnis für mich, in Worten, die aus der Geistwelt heraus geprägt waren, sprechen zu können, nachdem ich bisher in meiner Berliner Zeit durch die Verhältnisse gezwungen war, das Geistige nur durch meine Darstellungen durchleuchten zu lassen.
[ 7 ] Nun waren Brockdorffs die Leiter eines Zweiges der «Theosophischen Gesellschaft», die von Blavatsky begründet worden war. Was ich in Anknüpfung an das Märchen Goethes gesagt hatte, führte dazu, daß Brockdorffs mich einluden, vor den mit ihnen verbundenen Mitgliedern der «Theosophischen Gesellschaft» regelmäßig Vorträge zu halten. Ich erklärte, daß ich aber nur über dasjenige sprechen könne, was in mir als Geisteswissenschaft lebt.
[ 8 ] Ich konnte auch wirklich von nichts anderem sprechen. Denn von der von der «Theosophischen Gesellschaft» ausgehenden Literatur war mir sehr wenig bekannt. Ich kannte Theosophen schon von Wien her, und lernte später noch andere kennen. Diese Bekanntschaften veranlaßten mich, in' «Magazin» die abfällige Notiz über die Theosophen beim Erscheinen einer Publikation von Franz Hartmann zu schreiben. Und was ich sonst von der Literatur kannte, war mir zumeist in Methode und Haltung ganz unsympathisch; ich hatte nirgends die Möglichkeit, mit meinen Ausführungen daran anzuknüpfen.
[ 9 ] So hielt ich denn meine Vorträge, indem ich an die Mystik des Mittelalters anknüpfte. Durch die Meinungen der Mystiker von Meister Eckhard bis zu Jacob Böhme fand ich die Ausdrucksmittel für die geistigen Anschauungen, die ich eigentlich darzustellen mir vorgenommen hatte. Ich faßte dann die Vorträge in dem Buche zusammen «Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens».
[ 10 ] Bei diesen Vorträgen erschien eines Tages als Zuhörerin Marie von Sivers, die dann durch das Schicksal ausersehen ward, die Leitung der bald nach Beginn meiner Vorträge gegründeten «Deutschen Sektion der Theosophischen Gesellschaft» mit fester Hand zu übernehmen. Innerhalb dieser Sektion konnte ich nun vor einer sich immer vergrößernden Zuhörerschaft meine anthroposophische Tätigkeit entfalten.
[ 11 ] Niemand blieb im Unklaren darüber, daß ich in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft nur die Ergebnisse meines eigenen forschenden Schauens vorbringen werde. Denn ich sprach es bei jeder in Betracht kommenden Gelegenheit aus. Und als in Berlin im Beisein von Annie Besant die «Deutsche Sektion der Theosophischen Gesellschaft» begründet und ich zu deren General-Sekretär gewählt wurde, da mußte ich von den Gründungssitzungen weggehen, weil ich einen der Vorträge vor einem nicht-theosophischen Publikum zu halten hatte, in denen ich den geistigen Werdegang der Menschheit behandelte, und bei denen ich im Titel: «Eine Anthroposophie» ausdrücklich hinzugefügt hatte. Auch Annie Besant wußte, daß ich, was ich über Geistwelt zu sagen hatte, damals unter diesem Titel in Vorträgen vorbrachte.
[ 12 ] Als ich dann nach London zu einem theosophischen Kongreß kam, da sagte mir eine der leitenden Persönlichkeiten, in meinem Buche «Die Mystik . . . » stünde die wahre Theosophie. Ich konnte damit zufrieden sein Denn ich hatte nur die Ergebnisse meiner Geistesschau gegeben; und in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft wurden diese angenommen. Es gab nun für mich keinen Grund mehr, vor dem theosophischen Publikum, das damals das einzige war, das restlos auf Geist-Erkenntnis einging, nicht in meiner Art, diese Geist-Erkenntnis vorzubringen. Ich verschrieb mich keiner Sektendogmatik; ich blieb ein Mensch, der aussprach, was er glaubte aussprechen zu können ganz nach dem, was er selbst als Geistwelt erlebte.
[ 13 ] Vor die Zeit der Sektionsgründung fiel noch eine Vortragsreihe, die ich vor dem Kreise der «Kommenden» hielt, «Von Buddha zu Christus». Ich habe in diesen Ausführungen zu zeigen versucht, welch einen gewaltigen Fortschritt das Mysterium von Golgatha gegenüber dem Buddhaereignis bedeutet und wie die Entwickelung der Menschheit, indem sie dem Christusereignis entgegenstrebt, zu ihrer Kulmination kommt.
[ 14 ] Auch sprach ich in demselben Kreise über das Wesen der Mysterien.
[ 15 ] Das alles wurde von meinen Zuhörern hingenommen. Es wurde nicht in Widerspruch befunden mit früheren Vorträgen, die ich gehalten habe. Erst als die Sektion begründet wurde und ich damit als «Theosoph» abgestempelt erschien, fing die Ablehnung an. Es war wirklich nicht die Sache; es war der Name und der Zusammenhang mit einer Gesellschaft, die niemand haben wollte.
[ 16 ] Aber andrerseits wären meine nicht-theosophischen Zuhörer nur geneigt gewesen, sich von meinen Ausführungen «anregen» zu lassen, sie «literarisch» aufzunehmen. Was mir auf dem Herzen lag, dem Leben die Impulse der Geistwelt einzufügen, dafür gab es kein Verständnis. Dieses Verständnis konnte ich aber allmählich in theosophisch interessierten Menschen finden.
[ 17 ] Vor dem Brockdorff-Kreise, vor dem ich über Nietzsche und dann über Goethes geheime Offenbarung gesprochen hatte, hielt ich in dieser Zeit einen Vortrag über Goethes « Faust» vom esoterischen Gesichtspunkte. (Es ist derselbe, der dann später mit meinen Ausführungen über Goethes Märchen zusammen im philosophisch. anthroposophischen Verlag erschienen ist)
[ 18 ] Die Vorträge über «Mystik ...» haben dazu geführt, daß derselbe theosophische Kreis mich bat, im Winter darauf wieder zu ihm zu sprechen. Ich hielt dann die Vortragsreihe, die ich in dem Buche «Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache» zusammengefaßt habe.
[ 19 ] Ich habe vom Anfange an erkennen lassen, daß die Wahl des Titels «als mystische Tatsache» wichtig ist. Denn ich habe nicht einfach den mystischen Gehalt des Christentums darstellen wollen. Ich hatte zum Ziel, die Entwickelung von den alten Mysterien zum Mysterium von Golgatha hin so darzustellen, daß in dieser Entwickelung nicht bloß die irdischen geschichtlichen Kräfte wirken, sondern geistige außerirdische Impulse. Und ich wollte zeigen, daß in den alten Mysterien Kultbilder kosmischer Vorgänge gegeben waren, die dann in dem Mysterium von Golgatha als aus dem Kosmos auf die Erde versetzte Tatsache auf dem Plane der Geschichte sich vollzogen.
[ 20 ] Das wurde in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft nirgends gelehrt Ich stand mit dieser Anschauung in vollem Gegensatz zur damaligen theosophischen Dogmatik, bevor man mich aufforderte, in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft zu wirken.
[ 21 ] Denn diese Aufforderung erfolgte gerade nach dem hier beschriebenen Vortragszyklus über Christus. Marie von Sivers war zwischen den beiden Vortragszyklen, die ich für die Theosophische Gesellschaft hielt, in Italien (Bologna), um dort in dem theosophischen Zweige für die Theosophische Gesellschaft zu wirken.
[ 22] So entwickelten sich die Tatsachen bis zu meinem ersten Besuch eines theosophischen Kongresses in London im Jahre 1902. Auf diesem Kongreß, an dem auch Marie von Sivers teilnahm, war es schon als fertige Tatsache angesehen, daß nun eine deutsche Sektion der Gesellschaft mit mir, der kurz vorher eingeladen war, Mitglied der Gesellschaft zu werden, als Generalsekretär begründet werden sollte.
[ 23 ] Der Besuch in London war von großem Interesse für mich. Ich lernte da wichtige Führer der Theosophischen Gesellschaft kennen. Im Hause Mr. Bertram Keightleys, eines dieser Führer, durfte ich wohnen. Ich wurde sehr befreundet mit ihm. Ich lernte Mr. Mead, den so verdienstvollen Schriftsteller der theosophischen Bewegung, kennen. Da wurden im Hause Bertram Keightleys die denkbar interessantesten Gespräche über die GeistErkenntnisse geführt, die in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft lebten.
[ 24 ] Besonders mit Bertram Keightley selbst wurden diese Gespräche intim. H.P. Blavatsky lebte auf in diesen Gesprächen. Ihre ganze Persönlichkeit mit dem reichen Geist-Inhalte schilderte mein lieber Gastgeber, der so vieles durch sie erlebt hatte, mit größter Anschaulichkeit vor mir und Marie von Sivers.
[ 25 ] Flüchtiger lernte ich Annie Besant kennen, ebenso Sinnett, den Verfasser des «Esoterischen Buddhismus». Nicht kennen lernte ich Mr. Leadbeater, den ich nur vom Podium herunter sprechen hörte. Er machte auf mich keinen besonderen Eindruck.
[ 26 ] All das Interessante, das ich hörte, bewegte mich tief; auf den Inhalt meiner Anschauungen hatte es aber keinen Einfluß.
[ 27 ] Ich versuchte die Zwischenzeiten, die mir von den Besuchen der Kongreßversammlungen blieben, zu benützen, fleißig die naturwissenschaftlichen und Kunstsammlungen Londons zu besuchen. Ich darf sagen, daß mir an den naturwissenschaftlichen und historischen Sammlungen manche Idee über Natur- und Menschheitsentwickelung aufgegangen ist
[ 28 ] So hatte ich in diesem Londoner Besuch ein für mich bedeutsames Ereignis durchgemacht. Ich reiste mit den allermannigfaltigsten, meine Seele tief bewegenden Eindrücken ab.
[ 29 ] In der ersten «Magazin»-Nummer des Jahres 1899 findet man einen Artikel von mir mit der Überschrift «Neujahrsbetrachtung eines Ketzers». Gemeint ist da nicht eine Ketzerei gegenüber einem Religionsbekenntnis, sondern gegenüber der Kulturorientierung, welche die Zeit angenommen hatte.
[ 30 ] Man stand vor den Toren eines neuen Jahrhunderts. Das ablaufende hatte große Errungenschaften auf den Gebieten des äußeren Lebens und Wissens gebracht
[ 31 ] Dem gegenüber entrang sich mir der Gedanke: «Trotz aller dieser und manch anderer Errungenschaften z. B. auf dem Gebiete der Kunst, kann aber der tiefer blickende Mensch gegenwärtig doch nicht recht froh über den Bildungsinhalt der Zeit werden. Unsere höchsten geistigen Bedürfnisse verlangen nach etwas, was die Zeit nur in spärlichem Maße gibt» Und im Hinblick auf die Leerheit der damaligen Gegenwartskultur blickte ich zurück zur Zeit der Scholastik, in der die Geister wenigstens noch begrifflich mit dem Geiste lebten. «Man darf sich nicht wundern, wenn gegenüber solchen Erscheinungen Geister mit tieferen geistigen Bedürfnissen die stolzen Gedankengebäude der Scholastik befriedigender finden als den Ideengehalt unserer eigenen Zeit. Otto Willmann hat ein hervorragendes Buch geschrieben, seine «Geschichte des Idealismus», in dem er sich zum Lobredner der Weltanschauung vergangener Jahrhunderte aufwirft. Man muß zugeben: der Geist des Menschen sehnt sich nach jener stolzen, umfassenden Gedankendurchleuchtung, welche das menschliche Wissen in den philosophischen Systemen der Scholastiker erfahren hat.» Die «Mutlosigkeit ist ein charakteristisches Merkmal des geistigen Lebens an der Jahrhundertwende. Sie trübt uns die Freude an den Errungenschaften der jüngst vergangenen Zeiten.»
[ 32 ] Und gegenüber den Persönlichkeiten, die geltend machten, daß gerade das «wahre Wissen» die Unmöglichkeit eines Gesamtbildes des Daseins in einer Weltanschauung beweise, mußte ich sagen: «Ginge es nach der Meinung der Leute, die solche Stimmen vernehmen lassen, so würde man sich begnügen, die Dinge und Erscheinungen zu messen, zu wägen, zu vergleichen, sie mit den vorhandenen Apparaten zu untersuchen; niemals aber würde die Frage erhoben nach dem höheren Sinn der Dinge und Erscheinungen.»
[ 33 ] Das ist meine Seelenstimmung, aus der heraus die Tatsachen verstanden werden müssen, die meine anthroposophische Tätigkeit innerhalb der Theosophischen Gesellschaft herbeiführten. Wenn ich damals aufgegangen war in der Zeitkultur, um für die Redaktion des « Magazins» den geistigen Hintergrund zu haben, so war es mir nachher ein tiefes Bedürfnis, die Seele an einer solchen Lektüre wie Willmanns «Geschichte des Idealismus» zu «erholen». Wenn auch ein Abgrund zwischen meiner Geistanschauung und der Ideengestaltung Otto Willmanns war: ich fühlte doch diese Ideengestaltung geistnahe.
[ 34 ] Mit Ende September 1900 konnte ich das «Magazin» in andere Hände übergehen lassen.
[ 35 ] Die mitgeteilten Tatsachen zeigen, daß mein Ziel nach einem Mitteilen des Inhaltes der Geistwelt schon vor dem Aufgeben des «Magazins» aus meiner Seelenverfassung heraus eine Notwendigkeit geworden war, daß es nicht etwa mit der Unmöglichkeit, das «Magazin» weiterzuführen, zusammenhängt.
[ 36 ] Wie in das meiner Seele vorbestimmte Element, ging ich in eine Betätigung, die ihre Impulse in der Geist-Erkenntnis hatte, hinein.
[ 37 ] Aber ich habe auch heute noch das Gefühl, daß, wenn nicht die hier geschilderten Hemmnisse vorhanden gewesen wären, auch mein Versuch, durch das naturwissenschaftliche Denken hindurch zur Geist-Welt zu führen, ein aussichtsvoller hätte werden können. Ich schaue zurück auf das, was ich von 1897 bis 1900 ausgesprochen habe, als auf etwas, das gegenüber der Denkweise der Zeit hat einmal ausgesprochen werden müssen; und ich schaue andrerseits zurück als auf etwas, in dem ich meine intensivste geistige Prüfung durchgemacht habe. Ich habe gründlich kennen gelernt, wo die vom Geiste wegstrebenden Kultur-auflösenden, Kultur-zerstörenden Kräfte der Zeit liegen. Und aus dieser Erkenntnis hat sich mir vieles zu der Kraft hinzugesetzt, die ich weiterhin brauchte, um aus dem Geiste heraus zu wirken.
[ 38 ] Noch vor der Zeit der Betätigung innerhalb der Theosophischen Gesellschaft, noch in der letzten Zeit der Redaktion des «Magazin» liegt die Ausarbeitung meines zweibändigen Buches «Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert», das dann von der zweiten Auflage ab erweitert um einen Überblick über die Entwickelung der Weltanschauungen von der Griechenzeit bis zum neunzehnten Jahrhundert als «Rätsel der Philosophie» erschienen ist.
[ 39 ] Der äußere Anlaß zur Entstehung dieses Buches ist als völlige Nebensache zu betrachten. Er war dadurch gegeben, daß Cronbach, der Verleger des «Magazin», eine Sammlung von Schriften veranstaltete, die die verschiedenen Gebiete des Wissens und Lebens in ihrer Entwickelung im neunzehnten Jahrhundert behandeln sollten. Er wollte in dieser Sammlung auch eine Darstellung der Welt- und Lebensanschauungen haben und übertrug mir diese.
[ 40 ] Ich hatte den ganzen Stoff des Buches seit lange in meiner Seele. Meine Betrachtungen der Weltanschauungen hatten in derjenigen Goethes einen persönlichen Ausgangspunkt. Der Gegensatz, in den ich Goethes Denkungsart zum Kantianismus bringen mußte, die neuen philosophischen Ansätze an der Wende des achtzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhunderts in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel: das alles war für mich der Anfang einer Epoche der Weltanschauungs-entwickelung. Die geistvollen Bücher Richard Wahles, die die Auflösung alles philosophischen Weltanschauungsstrebens am Ende des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts darstellten, schlossen diese Epoche. So rundete sich das Weltanschauungsstreben des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts zu einem Ganzen, das in meiner Anschauung lebte und das darzustellen ich die Gelegenheit gerne ergriff.
[ 41 ] Wenn ich auf dieses Buch zurückblicke, so scheint mir mein Lebensgang gerade an ihm sich symptomatisch auszudrücken. Ich bewegte mich nicht, wie viele glauben, in Widersprüchen vorwärts. Wäre das der Fall, ich würde es gerne zugeben. Allein es wäre nicht die Wirklichkeit in meinem geistigen Fortgang. Ich bewegte mich so vorwärts, daß ich zu dem, was in meiner Seele lebte, neue Gebiete hinzufand. Und ein besonders regsames Hinzufinden auf geistigem Gebiete fand bald nach der Bearbeitung der «Welt- und Lebensanschauungen» statt
[ 42 ] Dazu kam, daß ich nirgends in das Geistgebiet auf einem mystisch-gefühlsmäßigen Wege vordrang, sondern überall über kristaliklare Begriffe gehen wollte. Das Erleben der Begriffe, der Ideen führte mich aus dem Ideellen in das Geistig-Reale.
[ 43 ] Die wirkliche Entwickelung des Organischen von Urzeiten bis zur Gegenwart stand vor meiner Imagination erst nach der Ausarbeitung der «Welt- und Lebensanschauungen».
[ 44 ] Während dieser hatte ich noch die naturwissenschaftliche Anschauung vor dem Seelenauge, die aus der Darwin'schen Denkart hervorgegangen war. Aber diese galt mir nur als eine in der Natur vorhandene sinnenfällige Tatsachenreihe. Innerhalb dieser Tatsachenreihe waren für mich geistige Impulse tätig, wie sie Goethe in seiner Metamorphosenidee vorschwebten.
[ 45 ] So stand die naturwissenschaftliche Entwickelungsreihe, wie sie Haeckel vertrat, niemals vor mir als etwas, worin mechanische oder bloß organische Gesetze walteten, sondern als etwas, worin der Geist die Lebewesen von den einfachen durch die komplizierten bis herauf zum Menschen fährt. Ich sah in dem Darwinismus eine Denkart, die auf dem Wege zu der Goethe'schen ist, aber hinter dieser zurückbleibt
[ 46 ] Das alles war von mir in ideellem Inhalte noch gedacht; zur imaginativen Anschauung arbeitete ich mich erst später durch. Erst diese Anschauung brachte mir die Erkenntnis, daß in Urzeiten in geistiger Realität ganz anderes Wesenhaftes vorhanden war als die einfachsten Organismen. Daß der Mensch als Geist-Wesen älter ist als alle andern Lebewesen, und daß er, um seine gegenwärtige physische Gestaltung anzunehmen, sich aus einem Weltenwesen herausgliedern mußte, das ihn und die andern Organismen enthielt Diese sind somit Abfälle der menschlichen Entwickelung; nicht etwas, aus dem er hervorgegangen ist, sondern etwas, das er zurückgelassen, von sich abgesondert hat, um seine physische Gestaltung als Bild seines Geistigen anzunehmen. Der Mensch als makrokosmisches Wesen, das alle übrige irdische Welt in sich trug, und das zum Mikrokosmos durch Absonderung des übrigen gekommen ist, das war für mich eine Erkenntnis, die ich erst in den ersten Jahren des neuen Jahrhunderts erlangte.
[ 47 ] Und so konnte diese Erkenntnis in den Ausführungen der «Welt- und Lebensanschauungen» nirgends impulsierend wirken. Ich verfaßte gerade den zweiten Band dieses Buches so, daß in einer vergeistigten Gestalt des im Lichte der Goethe'schen Weltanschauung gesehenen Darwinismus und Haeckelismus der Ausgangspunkt einer geistigen Vertiefung in die Weltgeheimnisse gegeben sein sollte.
[ 48 ] Als ich dann später die zweite Auflage des Buches bearbeitete, da war in meiner Seele schon die Erkenntnis von der wahren Entwickelung. Ich fand nötig, obwohl ich den Gesichtspunkt, den ich in der ersten Auflage eingenommen hatte, als das festhielt, was Denken ohne geistige Anschauung geben kann, kleine Änderungen in der Ausdrucksform vorzunehmen. Sie waren nötig, erstens weil doch das Buch durch die Aufnahme des Überblicks über die Gesamtphilosophie eine ganz andere Komposition hatte, und zweitens, weil diese zweite Auflage erschien, als schon meine Ausführungen über die wahre Entwickelung des Lebendigen der Welt vorlagen.
[ 49 ] Bei alledem hat die Gestalt, die meine «Rätsel der Philosophie» bekommen haben, nicht nur eine subjektive Berechtigung als festgehaltener Gesichtspunkt aus einem gewissen Abschnitte meines geistigen Werdeganges, sondern eine ganz objektive. Diese besteht darin, daß ein Denken, wenn es auch geistig erlebt wird, als Denken, die Entwickelung der Lebewesen nur so vorstellen kann, wie das in meinem Buche dargestellt wird. Und daß der weitere Schritt durch die geistige Anschauung geschehen muß.
[ 50 ] So stellt mein Buch ganz objektiv den voranthroposophischen Gesichtspunkt dar, in den man untertauchen muß, den man im Untertauchen erleben muß, um zu dem höheren aufzusteigen. Dieser Gesichtspunkt tritt bei demjenigen Erkennenden auf als eine Etappe des Erkenntnisweges, der nicht in mystisch-verschwommener, sondern in geistig-klarer Art die Geistwelt sucht. In der Darstellung dessen, was sich von diesem Gesichtspunkt aus ergibt, liegt also etwas, das der Erkennende als Vorstufe des Höheren braucht.
[ 51 ] In Haeckel sah ich nun einmal damals die Persönlichkeit, die mutvoll auf den denkerischen Standpunkt in der Naturwissenschaft sich stellte, während die andere Forscherwelt das Denken ausschloß und nur die sinnenfälligen Beobachtungsergebnisse gelten lassen wollte. Daß Haeckel auf das schaffende Denken bei Ergründung der Wirklichkeit Wert legte: das zog mich immer wieder zu ihm hin. Und so widmete ich ihm mein Buch, trotzdem dessen Inhalt - auch in der damaligen Gestalt - durchaus nicht in seinem Sinne verfaßt war. Aber Haeckel war eben so gar nicht philosophischer Natur. Er stand der Philosophie ganz als Laie gegenüber. Und deshalb erschienen mir die Angriffe der Philosophen, die gerade damals auf Haeckel nur so niederhagelten, als ganz unangebracht. In Opposition zu ihnen widmete ich Haeckel das Buch, wie ich in Opposition zu ihnen auch schon meine Schrift «Haeckel und seine Gegner» verfaßt hatte. Haeckel hatte in voller Naivität gegenüber aller Philosophie das Denken zu einem Mittel gemacht, die biologische Wirklichkeit darzustellen; man richtete gegen ihn philosophische Angriffe, die auf einem geistigen Gebiet lagen, das ihm fremd war. Ich glaube, er hat nie gewußt, was die Philosophen von ihm wollten. Es ergab sich mir dieses aus einem Gespräch, das ich nach dem Erscheinen der «Welträtsel» in Leipzig gelegentlich einer Aufführung des Borngräber'schen Stückes «Giordano Bruno» mit ihm hatte. Da sagte er: «Die Leute sagen, ich leugne den Geist. Ich möchte, daß sie sehen, wie die Stoffe durch ihre Kräfte sich gestalten, sie würden da ‹Geist› in jedem Retortenvorgang wahrnehmen. Überall ist Geist.» Haeckel wußte eben überhaupt nichts vom wirklichen Geist. Er sah in den Kräften der Natur schon «Geist».
[ 52 ] Man mußte damals nicht gegen solche Blindheit für den Geist mit philosophisch toten Begriffen kritisch vorgehen, sondern sehen, wie weit das Zeitalter von Geist-Erleben entfernt ist, und versuchen, aus den Grundlagen, die sich boten, der biologischen Naturerklärung, den Geistesfunken zu schlagen.
[ 53 ] Das war damals meine Meinung. Aus ihr heraus schrieb ich auch meine «Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert».
Chapter XXX
[ 1 ] The will to bring the esoteric that lived in me to public display urged me to write an essay on Goethe's fairy tale of the "green snake and the beautiful lily" in "Magazin" on August 28, 1899, Goethe's hundred and fiftieth birthday, under the title "Goethe's Secret Revelation". - This essay is still not very esoteric. But I couldn't expect more from my audience than I gave. - The content of the fairy tale lived in my soul as a thoroughly esoteric one. And the explanations are written from an esoteric mood.
[ 2 ] Since the 1980s, I have been preoccupied with imaginations that have been linked to this fairy tale. I saw Goethe's path from the contemplation of external nature to the interior of the human soul, as he presented it to his mind not in concepts but in images, depicted in the fairy tale. Goethe found concepts far too poor, too dead, to be able to depict the life and workings of the soul's forces.
[ 3 ] Now, in Schiller's "Letters on Aesthetic Education", he was confronted with an attempt to capture this life and work in concepts. Schiller tried to show how man's life is subject to the necessity of nature through his physicality and to the necessity of the spirit through his reason. And he believes that the soul must establish an inner balance between the two. In this equilibrium, man then lives a truly humane existence in freedom. This is spiritual, but far too simple for the real life of the soul. The latter allows its forces, which are rooted in the depths, to light up in consciousness; but in' lighting up, after they have influenced other equally fleeting forces, they disappear again. These are processes that already pass away in their emergence; abstract concepts, however, can only be linked to something more or less permanent.
[ 4 ] Goethe knew all of this in a perceptive way; he contrasted his pictorial knowledge in the fairy tale with Schiller's conceptual knowledge.
[ 5 ] With an experience of this Goethean creation, one is in the forecourt of esotericism.
[ 6 ] It was at this time that Countess and Count Brockdorff invited me to give a lecture at one of their weekly events. These events brought together visitors from all walks of life. The lectures that were given covered all areas of life and knowledge. I knew nothing about any of this until I was invited to give a lecture, nor did I know the Brockdorffs, but was hearing about them for the first time. They suggested a lecture on Nietzsche as my topic. I gave this lecture. Now I noticed that the audience included people with a great interest in the spiritual world. So when I was asked to give a second lecture, I suggested the topic: "Goethe's secret revelation". And in this lecture, I became quite esoteric in connection with the fairy tale. It was an important experience for me to be able to speak in words that were shaped by the spiritual world, after I had previously been forced by circumstances in my time in Berlin to only allow the spiritual to shine through my representations.
[ 7 ] Now the Brockdorffs were the leaders of a branch of the "Theosophical Society", which had been founded by Blavatsky. What I had said in reference to Goethe's fairy tale led to the Brockdorffs inviting me to give regular lectures to the members of the "Theosophical Society" associated with them. I explained, however, that I could only speak about what lived in me as spiritual science.
[ 8 ] I really couldn't talk about anything else. For I knew very little of the literature emanating from the "Theosophical Society". I already knew Theosophists from Vienna, and later got to know others. These acquaintances prompted me to write the derogatory note about the Theosophists in "Magazin" when a publication by Franz Hartmann appeared. And most of the other literature I knew was completely unsympathetic to me in terms of method and attitude; I had nowhere to tie in with my comments.
[ 9 ] So I gave my lectures by drawing on the mysticism of the Middle Ages. Through the opinions of the mystics from Meister Eckhard to Jacob Böhme, I found the means of expression for the spiritual views that I had actually set out to present. I then summarized the lectures in the book "Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens".
[ 10 ] One day Marie von Sivers appeared as an audience member at these lectures, who was then chosen by fate to take over the leadership of the "German Section of the Theosophical Society", which was founded soon after my lectures began. Within this section, I was now able to develop my anthroposophical activities in front of an ever-growing audience.
[ 11 ] No one was left in the dark about the fact that I would only present the results of my own exploratory vision in the Theosophical Society. For I said so at every possible opportunity. And when the "German Section of the Theosophical Society" was founded in Berlin in the presence of Annie Besant and I was elected its General Secretary, I had to leave the founding meetings because I had to give one of the lectures to a non-Theosophical audience, in which I dealt with the spiritual development of humanity, and in which I had expressly added "An Anthroposophy" to the title. Annie Besant also knew that I presented what I had to say about the spiritual world in lectures under this title at that time.
[ 12 ] When I came to London for a Theosophical congress, one of the leading personalities told me that in my book "The Mysticism . . " contained the true Theosophy. I could be satisfied with this because I had only given the results of my spiritual vision; and these were accepted in the Theosophical Society. There was now no longer any reason for me not to present this spirit-knowledge in my own way before the Theosophical public, which at that time was the only one that was completely receptive to spirit-knowledge. I did not subscribe to any sectarian dogmatics; I remained a person who expressed what he believed he could express entirely according to what he himself experienced as the spirit world.
[ 13 ] At the time of the founding of the Section, I gave a series of lectures entitled "From Buddha to Christ" to the circle of "comers". In these lectures I tried to show what a tremendous advance the Mystery of Golgotha represents compared to the Buddha event and how the development of humanity, by striving towards the Christ event, comes to its culmination.
[ 14 ] I also spoke in the same circle about the nature of the Mysteries.
[ 15 ] All this was accepted by my listeners. It was not found to contradict earlier lectures I had given. It was only when the section was justified and I appeared to be labeled a "theosophist" that the rejection began. It really wasn't the thing; it was the name and the association with a society that nobody wanted.
[ 16 ] But on the other hand, my non-theosophical listeners would only have been inclined to be "stimulated" by my remarks, to take them up "literarily". There was no understanding for what was on my mind, to insert the impulses of the spirit world into life. However, I was gradually able to find this understanding in people interested in theosophy.
[ 17 ] At the Brockdorff circle, to whom I had spoken about Nietzsche and then about Goethe's secret revelation, I gave a lecture at this time on Goethe's "Faust" from an esoteric point of view. (It is the same one that was later published together with my remarks on Goethe's fairy tales by the philosophical anthroposophical publishing house)
[ 18 ] The lectures on "Mysticism ..." led to the same theosophical circle asking me to speak to them again the following winter. I then gave the series of lectures which I summarized in the book "Christianity as a Mystical Fact".
[ 19 ] I made it clear from the outset that the choice of the title "as a mystical fact" was important. For I did not simply want to present the mystical content of Christianity. My aim was to show the development from the ancient Mysteries to the Mystery of Golgotha in such a way that in this development it is not merely earthly historical forces that are at work, but spiritual extraterrestrial impulses. And I wanted to show that in the ancient Mysteries cult images of cosmic processes were given, which then took place in the Mystery of Golgotha as a fact transferred from the cosmos to the earth on the plane of history.
[ 20 ] This was not taught anywhere in the Theosophical Society I stood with this view in complete opposition to the Theosophical dogmatics of the time, before I was asked to work in the Theosophical Society.
[ 21 ] Because this invitation came just after the lecture cycle on Christ described here. Marie von Sivers was in Italy (Bologna) between the two lecture cycles that I gave for the Theosophical Society, in order to work there in the Theosophical branch of the Theosophical Society.
[ 22] So the facts developed until my first visit to a Theosophical congress in London in 1902. At this congress, which was also attended by Marie von Sivers, it was already regarded as a finished fact that a German section of the Society was now to be founded with me, who had shortly before been invited to become a member of the Society, as General Secretary.
[ 23 ] The visit to London was of great interest to me. I met important leaders of the Theosophical Society. I was allowed to stay at the home of Mr. Bertram Keightley, one of these leaders. I became very friendly with him. I got to know Mr. Mead, the writer of such merit in the Theosophical movement. It was at Bertram Keightley's house that the most interesting conversations imaginable were held about the spiritual insights that lived in the Theosophical Society.
[ 24 ] These conversations became particularly intimate with Bertram Keightley himself. H.P. Blavatsky came alive in these conversations. Her whole personality with its rich spiritual content was described to me and Marie von Sivers with the greatest vividness by my dear host, who had experienced so much through her.
[ 25 ] I got to know Annie Besant more fleetingly, as well as Sinnett, the author of "Esoteric Buddhism". I did not meet Mr. Leadbeater, whom I only heard speak from the podium. He made no particular impression on me.
[ 26 ] All the interesting things I heard moved me deeply; but they had no influence on the content of my views.
[ 27 ] I tried to use the time I had left over from attending the congress meetings to visit London's natural science and art collections diligently. I may say that the scientific and historical collections gave me many an idea about the development of nature and mankind
[ 28 ] So I had experienced a significant event for me during this visit to London. I left with the most varied impressions that deeply moved my soul.
[ 29 ] In the first "Magazin" issue of 1899, you will find an article of mine entitled "New Year's reflection of a heretic". What is meant here is not a heresy towards a religious creed, but towards the cultural orientation that the time had adopted.
[ 30 ] We were standing at the gates of a new century. The previous one had brought great achievements in the fields of external life and knowledge.
[ 31 ] The following thought occurred to me: "Despite all these and many other achievements, e.g. in the field of art, the person who looks deeper cannot be quite happy about the educational content of the time. Our highest spiritual needs demand something that time provides only to a meagre degree." And with regard to the emptiness of contemporary culture at that time, I looked back to the time of scholasticism, when spirits at least still lived conceptually with the spirit. "One should not be surprised if, in the face of such phenomena, spirits with deeper spiritual needs find the proud thought structures of scholasticism more satisfying than the idea content of our own time. Otto Willmann has written an excellent book, his "History of Idealism", in which he pontificates in praise of the world view of past centuries. It must be admitted: the human spirit longs for that proud, comprehensive illumination of thought which human knowledge experienced in the philosophical systems of the scholastics." "Despondency is a characteristic feature of intellectual life at the turn of the century. It clouds our enjoyment of the achievements of the recent past."
[ 32 ] And to the personalities who argued that "true knowledge" in particular proves the impossibility of an overall picture of existence in a world view, I had to say: "If it were up to the opinion of the people who allow such voices to be heard, one would be content to measure, weigh and compare things and phenomena, to examine them with the available apparatus; but never would the question be raised as to the higher sense of things and phenomena. "
[ 33 ] This is the mood of my soul from which the facts that brought about my anthroposophical activity within the Theosophical Society must be understood. If at that time I was absorbed in the culture of the time in order to have the spiritual background for the editorship of the "Magazin", then afterwards I felt a deep need to "recover" my soul by reading something like Willmann's "History of Idealism". Even if there was an abyss between my spiritual outlook and Otto Willmann's ideas, I still felt that these ideas were close to the spirit.
[ 34 ] At the end of September 1900, I was able to let the "Magazin" pass into other hands.
[ 35 ] The facts reported show that my aim of communicating the contents of the spirit world had already become a necessity before I gave up the "Magazine" because of the state of my soul, that it was not connected with the impossibility of continuing the "Magazine".
[ 36 ] As if into the predestined element of my soul, I entered into an activity that had its impulses in the knowledge of the spirit.
[ 37 ] But even today I still have the feeling that, if the obstacles described here had not been present, my attempt to lead through scientific thinking to the spiritual world could have been a promising one. I look back on what I expressed from 1897 to 1900 as something that had to be expressed to the way of thinking of the time; and on the other hand I look back as something in which I went through my most intensive spiritual test. I have become thoroughly acquainted with where the forces of the times lie that dissolve and destroy culture and strive away from the spirit. And from this realization, much has been added to the strength that I still needed in order to work out of the spirit.
[ 38 ] Even before the period of activity within the Theosophical Society, still in the last period of editing the "Magazin", lies the elaboration of my two-volume book "Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert", which was then expanded from the second edition onwards to include an overview of the development of world views from Greek times to the nineteenth century as "Rätsel der Philosophie".
[ 39 ] The external occasion for the creation of this book is to be regarded as a completely secondary matter. It was given by the fact that Cronbach, the publisher of the "Magazin", was organizing a collection of writings which were to deal with the various fields of knowledge and life as they developed in the nineteenth century. He also wanted this collection to include a presentation of world and life views and entrusted me with this task.
[ 40 ] I had all the material of the book in my soul for a long time. My reflections on world views had a personal starting point in that of Goethe. The contrast into which I had to bring Goethe's way of thinking to Kantianism, the new philosophical approaches at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Fichte, Schelling, Hegel: all this was for me the beginning of an epoch of worldview development. The spiritual books of Richard Wahles, which represented the dissolution of all philosophical worldview striving at the end of the nineteenth century, closed this epoch. In this way, the nineteenth century's striving for a world view rounded itself off into a whole that lived in my view and which I gladly seized the opportunity to portray.
[ 41 ] When I look back on this book, it seems to me that the course of my life is symptomatically expressed in it. I did not, as many believe, move forward in contradictions. If that were the case, I would gladly admit it. But it would not be the reality of my spiritual progress. I moved forward in such a way that I added new areas to what lived in my soul. And a particularly lively exploration in the spiritual field took place soon after I had finished working on the "World and Life Views"
[ 42 ] In addition, I did not penetrate anywhere into the spiritual realm on a mystical-emotional path, but wanted to go everywhere through crystal-clear concepts. The experience of concepts, of ideas, led me from the ideal into the spiritually real.
[ 43 ] The real development of the organic from primeval times to the present stood before my imagination only after the elaboration of the "world and life views".
[ 44 ] During this time I still had the scientific view before my soul's eye, which had emerged from Darwin's way of thinking. But this was regarded by me only as a sensory series of facts existing in nature. Within this series of facts, spiritual impulses were active for me, as Goethe had in mind in his idea of metamorphosis.
[ 45 ] So the scientific series of development, as represented by Haeckel, never stood before me as something in which mechanical or merely organic laws prevailed, but as something in which the spirit drives the living beings from the simple through the complicated up to man. I saw in Darwinism a way of thinking that is on the way to Goethe's, but lags behind it
[ 46 ] This was all still thought by me in ideal content; I only worked my way through to an imaginative view later. Only this view brought me the realization that in primeval times there was a completely different beingness in spiritual reality than the simplest organisms. That man as a spiritual being is older than all other living beings, and that in order to take on his present physical form, he had to separate himself from a world being that contained him and the other organisms. These are thus waste products of human development; not something from which he emerged, but something that he left behind, separated from himself, in order to take on his physical form as an image of his spiritual being. Man as a macrocosmic being who carried all the rest of the earthly world within himself and who came to the microcosm by separating the rest, that was a realization for me that I only gained in the first years of the new century.
[ 47 ] And so this realization could not have an impulsive effect anywhere in the explanations of the "Welt- und Lebensanschauungen". I wrote the second volume of this book in such a way that in a spiritualized form of Darwinism and Haeckelism seen in the light of Goethe's world view, the starting point of a spiritual immersion in the mysteries of the world should be given.
[ 48 ] When I later worked on the second edition of the book, the realization of the true development was already in my soul. I found it necessary, although I held to the point of view I had adopted in the first edition as that which thinking without spiritual perception can give, to make small changes in the form of expression. They were necessary, firstly, because the book had a completely different composition due to the inclusion of the overview of philosophy as a whole, and secondly, because this second edition appeared when my explanations on the true development of the living of the world were already available.
[ 49 ] In all of this, the form that my "Riddles of Philosophy" have taken has not only a subjective justification as a recorded point of view from a certain stage of my intellectual development, but a completely objective one. This consists in the fact that thinking, even if it is experienced spiritually, as thinking, can only imagine the development of living beings as it is presented in my book. And that the next step must take place through spiritual contemplation.
[ 50 ] So my book represents quite objectively the pre-anthroposophical point of view into which one must immerse oneself, which one must experience in immersion in order to ascend to the higher one. This point of view emerges as a stage on the path of knowledge for those who seek the spiritual world not in a mystical, hazy way, but in a spiritually clear way. In the representation of what emerges from this point of view, there is something that the cognizer needs as a preliminary stage of the higher.
[ 51 ] In Haeckel I saw the personality who courageously took the intellectual standpoint in natural science, while the other world of researchers excluded thinking and only wanted to accept the sensory results of observation. The fact that Haeckel placed value on creative thinking in the exploration of reality: that is what drew me to him again and again. And so I dedicated my book to him, even though its content - even in the form it took at the time - was not at all written in his spirit. But Haeckel was not at all philosophical in nature. He approached philosophy entirely as a layman. And that is why the attacks of the philosophers, who were hailing Haeckel at the time, seemed to me to be completely inappropriate. In opposition to them, I dedicated the book to Haeckel, just as I had already written my book "Haeckel and his opponents" in opposition to them. Haeckel, in complete naivety towards all philosophy, had turned thinking into a means of representing biological reality; philosophical attacks were directed against him in an intellectual field that was alien to him. I don't think he ever knew what the philosophers wanted from him. This came to me from a conversation I had with him after the publication of "Welträtsel" in Leipzig on the occasion of a performance of Borngräber's play "Giordano Bruno". He said: "People say I deny the spirit. I would like them to see how the materials are shaped by their forces, they would perceive 'spirit' in every retort process. There is spirit everywhere." Haeckel knew nothing at all of the real spirit. He already saw "spirit" in the forces of nature.
[ 52 ] At that time, it was not necessary to take a critical approach against such blindness to the spirit with philosophically dead concepts, but to see how far removed the age is from experiencing the spirit and to try to strike the spark of the spirit from the foundations that were offered, the biological explanation of nature.
[ 53 ] That was my opinion at the time. I also wrote my "Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert" based on this opinion.