The Story of My Life
GA 28
Chapter XXXI
[ 1 ] Another collective work which represented the cultural attainments of the nineteenth century was published at that time by Hans Kraemer. It consisted of rather long treatises on the individual branches of knowledge, technical production, and social evolution.
[ 2 ] I was invited to give a description of the literary aspect of life. So the evolution of fantasy during the nineteenth century passed through my mind. I did not describe things like a philologist, who develops such things “from their sources”; I described what I had inwardly experienced of the unfolding of the life of fantasy.
[ 3 ] This exposition also was important for me in that I had to speak of phenomena of the spiritual life without having recourse to the experience of the spiritual world. The real spiritual impulses from this world that manifest themselves in the phenomena of poetry were left unmentioned.
[ 4 ] In this case likewise what was present to my mind was that which the mental life has to say of a phenomenon of existence when the mind is at the point of view of the ordinary consciousness without bringing the content of the consciousness into such activity that it rises up in experience into the world of spirit.
[ 5 ] Still more significant for me was this experience of standing before the doorway of the spiritual world in the case of a treatise which I had to write for another work. This was not a centennial work, but a collection of papers which were to characterize the various spheres of knowledge and life in so far as human egoism is a motor force in each sphere. Arthur Dix published this work. It was entitled Der Egoismus1Egoism. and was throughout applicable to the time – the turning-point between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
[ 6 ] The impulses of intellectualism, which had been effective in all spheres of life since the fifteenth century, have their roots in the “life of the individual soul” when these impulses are really genuine expressions of their own nature. When man reveals himself intellectually on the basis of the social life, this is not a genuine intellectual expression, but an imitation.
[ 7 ] One of the reasons why the demand for a social feeling has become so intense in this age lies in the fact that this feeling is not experienced with original inwardness in intellectualism. Humanity in these things craves most of all that which it has not.
[ 8 ] To my lot fell the setting forth for this book of Egoismus in der Philosophie.2Egoism in Philosophy. My paper bears this title only because the general title of the book required this. The title ought really to have been Individualismus in der Philosophie.3Individualism in Philosophy. I sought to give in very brief form a survey of occidental philosophy since Thales, and to show how the goal of its evolution has been to bring the human individual to experience the world in ideal images, just as it is the purpose of my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity to set this forth with reference to knowledge and the moral life.
[ 9 ] Again in this paper I stand before the “gateway of the spiritual world.” In the human individual were pointed out the ideal images which reveal the world-content. They appear so that they may wait for the experience whereby the mind may step through them into the world of spirit. In my description I held to this position. There is an inner world in this article which shows how far mere thinking comes in its grasp of the world.
[ 10 ] It is evident that I described the pre-anthroposophic life of the mind from the most varied points of view before devoting myself to the anthroposophic setting forth of the spiritual world. In this there can be found nothing contradictory of my coming forward on behalf of anthroposophy; for the world-picture which arises will not be contradicted by anthroposophy, but extended and continued further.
[ 11 ] If one begins to represent the spiritual world as a mystic, any one has a right to say: “You speak from your personal experiences. What you are describing is subjective.” To travel such a spiritual road was not given me as my task from the spiritual world.
[ 12 ] This task consisted in laying a foundation for anthroposophy just as objective as that of scientific thinking when this does not restrict itself to sensible facts but reaches out for comprehensive concepts. All that I set forth in scientific-philosophic manner, and in connection with Goethe's ideas is subject to discussion. It may be considered more or less correct or incorrect; but it strives after the character of the objective-scientific in the fullest sense.
[ 13 ] And it is out of this knowledge, free of the emotional-mystical, that I have brought the experience of the spiritual world. It can be seen how in my Mysticism and Christianity as Mystical Fact the conception of mysticism is carried in the direction of this objective knowledge. And let it be noted also how my Theosophy is constructed. At every step taken in this book, spiritual perception stands as the background. Nothing is said which is not derived from this spiritual perception; but, while the steps are being made, the perception is clothed at first in the beginning of the book in scientific ideas until, in rising to the higher worlds, it must occupy itself more and more in freely picturing the spiritual world. But this picturing grows out of the natural-scientific as the blossoms of a plant from the stem and leaves. As the plant is not seen in its entirety, if one fixes one's eye upon it only up to the blossom, so nature is not experienced in her entirety if one does not rise from the sensible to the spiritual.
[ 14 ] Therefore that for which I strove was to set forth in anthroposophy the objective continuation of science, not to set by the side of science something subjective. It was inevitable that this very effort would not at first be understood. Science was supposed to end with that which antedates anthroposophy, and there was no inclination so to put life into the ideas of science as to lead to one's laying hold upon the spiritual. Men ran the risk of being excommunicated by the habit of thought built up during the second half of the nineteenth century.
They could not muster the courage to break the fetters of mere sense-observation; they feared that they might arrive at a region where each would insist upon his own fantasy.
[ 15 ] Such was my orientation of mind when, in 1902, Marie von Sievers and I entered upon the leadership of the German section of the Theosophical Society. It was Marie von Sievers who, by reason of her whole being, made it possible to keep what came about through us far removed from anything sectarian, and to give to the thing such a character as won for it a place within the general spiritual and educational life. She was deeply interested in the art of the drama and of declamation and recitation, and had completed courses of study in these art forms, especially in the best institutions in Paris, which had given to her talent a beautiful development. When I became acquainted with her in Berlin she was still continuing her studies in order to learn the various methods of artistic speech.
[ 16 ] Marie von Sievers and I soon became great friends, and on the basis of this friendship there developed an united work in the most varied intellectual spheres and over a very wide area. Anthroposophy, but also the arts of poetry and of recitation, to cultivate these in common became for us the very essence of life.
Only in this unitedly cultivated spiritual life could the central point be found from which at first anthroposophy would be carried into the world through the local branches of the Theosophical Society.
[ 17 ] During our first visit to London together, Marie von Sievers had heard from Countess Wachtmeister, an intimate friend of H. P. Blavatsky, much about the latter and about the tendencies and the evolution of the Theosophical Society. She was entrusted in the highest measure with that which was once revealed as a spiritual content to the Society and the story of how this content had been further fostered.
[ 18 ] When I say that it was possible to find in the branches of the Theosophical Society those persons who desired to have knowledge imparted to them from the spiritual world, I do not mean that those persons enrolled in the Theosophical Society could be considered before all others as being of such a character. Many of these, however, proved very soon to have a high degree of understanding in reference to my form of spiritual knowledge.
[ 19 ] But a large part of the members were fanatical followers of individual heads of the Theosophical Society. They swore by the dogmas given out by these heads, who acted in a strongly sectarian spirit.
[ 20 ] This action of the Theosophical Society repelled me by the triviality and dilettantism inherent in it. Only among the English theosophists did I find an inner content, which also, however, rested upon Blavatsky, and which was then fostered by Annie Besant and others in a literal fashion. I could never have worked in the manner in which these theosophists worked. But I considered what lived among them as a spiritual centre with which one could worthily unite when one earnestly desired the spread of spiritual knowledge.
[ 21 ] So it was not the united membership in the Theosophical Society upon which Marie von Sievers and I counted, but chiefly those persons who were present with heart and mind whenever spiritual knowledge in an earnest sense was being cultivated.
[ 22 ] This working within the existing branches of the Theosophical Society, which was necessary as a starting-point, comprised only a part of our activity. The chief thing was the arrangement for public lectures in which I spoke to a public not belonging to the Theosophical Society that came to my lectures only because of their content.
[ 23 ] Of persons who learned in this manner what I had to say about the spiritual world and of those who through the activity in one or another theosophical tendency found their way to this mode of learning – of these persons there was comprised within the branches of the Theosophical Society that which later became the Anthroposophical Society.
[ 24 ] Among the various charges that have been directed against me in reference to my work in the Theosophical Society – even from the side of the Society itself – this also has been raised: that to a certain extent I used this Society, which already had a standing in the world, as a spring-board in order to render easier the way for my own spiritual knowledge.
[ 25 ] There is not the slightest ground for such a statement. When I accepted the invitation into the Society, this was the sole institution worthy of serious consideration in which there was present a real spiritual life. Had the mood, bearing, and work of the Society remained as they then were, the withdrawal of my friend and myself need never have occurred. The Anthroposophical Society might only have been formed officially within the Theosophical Society as a special section.
[ 26 ] But even as early as 1906 things were already beginning to be manifest and effective in the Theosophical Society which indicated in a terrible measure its deterioration.
[ 27 ] If earlier still, in the time of H. P. Blavatsky, such incidents were asserted by the outer world to have occurred, yet at the beginning of the century it was clearly true that the earnestness of spiritual work on the part of the Society constituted a compensation for whatever wrong thing had taken place. Moreover, the occurrences had been left behind.
[ 28 ] But after 1906 there began in the Society, upon whose general direction I had not the least influence, practices reminiscent of the growth of spiritualism, which made it necessary for me to warn members again and again that the part of the Society which was under my direction should have absolutely nothing to do with these things. The climax in these practices was reached when it was asserted of a Hindu boy that he was the person in whom Christ would appear in a new earthly life. For the propagation of this absurdity there was formed in the Theosophical Society a special society, that of “The Star of the East.” It was utterly impossible for my friend and me to include the membership of this “Star of the East” as a branch of the German section, as they desired and as Annie Besant, president of the Theosophical Society, especially intended. We were forced to found the Anthroposophical Society independently.
[ 29 ] I have in this matter departed far from the narration of events in the course of my life; but this was necessary, for only these later facts can throw the right light on the purposes to which I bound myself in entering the Society at the beginning of the century.
[ 30 ] When I first spoke at the congress of the Theosophical Society in London in 1902, I said that the unity into which the individual sections would combine should consist in the fact that each one should bring to the centre what it held within itself; and I gave sharp warning that I should expect this most especially of the German section. I made it clear that this section would never conduct itself as the representative of set dogmas but as composed of places independent of one another in spiritual research, which desired to reach mutual understandings in the conferences of the whole Society in regard to the fostering of genuine spiritual life.
Chapter XXXI
[ 1 ] Ein anderes Sammelwerk, das die Kulturerrungenschaften des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts darstellte, wurde damals von Hans Kraemer herausgegeben. Es bestand aus längeren Abhandlungen über die einzelnen Zweige des Erkenntnislebens, des technischen Schaffens, der sozialen Entwickelung.
[ 2 ] Ich wurde eingeladen, eine Schilderung des literarischen Lebens zu geben. Und so zog denn damals auch die Entwickelung des Phantasielebens im neunzehnten Jahrhundert durch meine Seele hindurch. Ich schilderte nicht wie ein Philologe, der solche Dinge «aus den Quellen heraus» arbeitet; ich schilderte, was ich an der Entfaltung des Phantasielebens innerlich durchgemacht hatte.
[ 3 ] Auch diese Darstellung war für mich dadurch von Bedeutung, daß ich über Erscheinungen des geistigen Lebens zu sprechen hatte, ohne daß ich auf das Erleben der Geistwelt eingehen konnte. Das, was an eigentlichen geistigen Impulsen aus dieser Welt sich in den dichterischen Erscheinungen auslebt, blieb unerwähnt.
[ 4 ] Auch in diesem Falle stellte sich vor mich hin, was das Seelenleben über eine Daseinserscheinung zu sagen hat, wenn es sich auf den Gesichtspunkt des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins stellt, ohne den Inhalt dieses Bewußtseins so in Aktivität zu bringen, daß er erlebend in die Geist-Welt aufsteigt.
[ 5 ] Noch bedeutungsvoller erlebte ich dieses «Stehen vor dem Tore» der Geistwelt in einer Abhandlung, die ich für ein anderes Werk zu schreiben hatte. Es war dies kein Jahrhundertwerk, sondern eine Sammlung von Aufsätzen, die die verschiedenen Erkenntnis- und Lebensgebiete charakterisieren sollten, insofern in der Entfaltung dieser Gebiete der menschliche «Egoismus» eine treibende Kraft ist. Arthur Dix gab dieses Werk heraus. Es hieß «Der Egoismus» und war durchaus der Zeit - Wende des neunzehnten und zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts - entsprechend.
[ 6 ] Die Impulse des Intellektualismus, die sich seit dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert auf allen Gebieten des Lebens geltend gemacht hatten, wurzeln im «einzelnen Seelenleben», wenn sie wirklich echte Äußerungen ihres Wesens sind. Wenn der Mensch intellektuell sich aus dem sozialen Leben heraus offenbart, so ist das eben nicht eine echte intellektuelle Äußerung, sondern die Nachahmung einer solchen.
[ 7 ] Es ist einer der Gründe, warum der Ruf nach sozialem Empfinden in diesem Zeitalter so intensiv hervorgetreten ist, der, daß in der Intellektualität dieses Empfinden nicht ursprünglich innerlich erlebt wird. Die Menschheit begehrt auch in diesen Dingen am meisten nach dem, was sie nicht hat.
[ 8 ] Mir fiel für dieses Buch die Darstellung des «Egoismus in der Philosophie» zu. Nun trägt mein Aufsatz diese Überschrift nur deshalb, weil der Gesamttitel des Buches das forderte. Diese Überschrift müßte eigentlich sein: «Der Individualismus in der Philosophie». Ich versuchte, in ganz kurzer Form einen Überblick über die abendländische Philosophie seit Thales zu geben, und zu zeigen, wie deren Entwickelung darauf zielt, die menschliche Individualität zum Erleben der Welt in Ideenbildern zu bringen, so, wie dies versucht ist, in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» für die Erkenntnis und das sittliche Leben darzustellen.
[ 9 ] Wieder stehe ich mit diesem Aufsatz vor dem «Tore der Geistwelt». In der menschlichen Individualität werden die Ideenbilder gezeigt, die den Welt-Inhalt offenbaren. Sie treten auf, so daß sie auf das Erleben warten, durch das in ihnen die Seele in die Geistwelt schreiten kann. Ich hielt in der Schilderung an dieser Stelle ein. Es steht eine Innenwelt da, die zeigt, wie weit das bloße Denken im Weltbegreifen kommt.
[ 10 ] Man sieht, ich habe das voranthroposophische Seelenleben vor meiner Hingabe an die öffentliche anthroposophische Darstellung der Geistwelt von den verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten aus geschildert. Darinnen kann kein Widerspruch mit dem Auftreten für die Anthroposophie gefunden werden. Denn das Weltbild, das entsteht, wird durch die Anthroposophie nicht widerlegt, sondern erweitert und fortgeführt.
[ 11 ] Beginnt man die Geist-Welt als Mystiker darzustellen, so ist jedermann voll berechtigt, zu sagen: du sprichst von deinen persönlichen Erlebnissen. Es ist subjektiv, was du schilderst. Einen solchen Geistesweg zu gehen, ergab sich mir aus der geistigen Welt heraus nicht als meine Aufgabe.
[ 12 ] Diese Aufgabe bestand darin, eine Grundlage für die Anthroposophie zu schaffen, die so objektiv war wie das wissenschaftliche Denken, wenn dieses nicht beim Verzeichnen sinnenfälliger Tatsachen stehen bleibt, sondern zum zusammenfassenden Begreifen vorrückt. Was ich wissenschaftlich-philosophisch, was ich in Anknüpfung an Goethes Ideen naturwissenschaftlich darstellte, darüber ließ sich diskutieren. Man konnte es für mehr oder weniger richtig oder unrichtig halten; es strebte aber den Charakter des Objektiv-Wissenschaftlichen in vollstem Sinne an.
[ 13 ] Und aus diesem von Gefühlsmäßig-Mystischem freien Erkennen heraus holte ich dann das Erleben der Geistwelt. Man sehe, wie in meiner «Mystik», im «Christentum als mystische Tatsache» der Begriff der Mystik nach der Richtung dieses objektiven Erkennens geführt ist. Und man sehe insbesondere, wie meine «Theosophie» aufgebaut ist. Bei jedem Schritte, der in diesem Buche gemacht wird, steht das geistige Schauen im Hintergrunde. Es wird nichts gesagt, das nicht aus diesem geistigen Schauen stammt. Aber indem die Schritte getan werden, sind es zunächst im Anfange des Buches naturwissenschaftliche Ideen, in die das Schauen sich hüllt, bis es sich in dem Aufsteigen in die höheren Welten immer mehr im freien Erbilden der geistigen Welt betätigen muß. Aber dieses Erbilden wächst aus dem Naturwissenschaftlichen wie die Blüte einer Pflanze aus dem Stengel und den Blättern. - Wie die Pflanze nicht in ihrer Vollständigkeit angeschaut wird, wenn man sie nur bis zur Blüte ins Auge faßt, so wird die Natur nicht in ihrer Vollständigkeit erlebt, wenn man von dem Sinnenfälligen nicht zum Geiste aufsteigt.
[ 14 ] So strebte ich darnach, in der Anthroposophie die objektive Fortsetzung der Wissenschaft zur Darstellung zu bringen, nicht etwas Subjektives neben diese Wissenschaft hinzustellen. - Daß gerade dieses Streben zunächst nicht verstanden wurde, ist ganz selbstverständlich. Man hielt eben Wissenschaft mit dem abgeschlossen, was vor der Anthroposophie liegt, und hatte gar keine Neigung dazu, die Ideen der Wissenschaft so zu beleben, daß das zur Erfassung des Geistigen führt. Man stand im Banne der in der zweiten Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts ausgebildeten Denkgewohnheiten. Man fand nicht den Mut, die Fesseln der bloß sinnenfälligen Beobachtung zu durchbrechen; man fürchtete, in Gebiete zu kommen, wo jeder seine Phantasie geltend macht.
[ 15 ] So war meine innere Orientierung, als 1902 Marie von Sivers und ich an die Führung der deutschen Sektion der Theosophischen Gesellschaft herantraten. Marie von Sivers war die Persönlichkeit, die durch ihr ganzes Wesen die Möglichkeit brachte, dem, was durch uns entstand, jeden sektiererischen Charakter fernzuhalten und der Sache einen Charakter zu geben, der sie in das allgemeine Geistes- und Bildungsleben hineinstellt. Sie war tief interessiert für dramatische und deklamatorisch-rezitatorische Kunst und hatte nach dieser Richtung eine Schulung, namentlich an den besten Lehrstätten in Paris, durchgemacht, die ihrem Können eine schöne Vollendung gegeben hatte. Sie setzte die Schulung noch zu der Zeit fort, als ich sie in Berlin kennen lernte, um die verschiedenen Methoden des künstlerischen Sprechens kennen zu lernen.
[ 16 ] Marie von Sivers und ich wurden bald tief befreundet. Und auf der Grundlage dieser Freundschaft entfaltete sich ein Zusammenarbeiten auf den verschiedensten geistigen Gebieten im weitesten Umkreis. Anthroposophie, aber auch dichterische und rezitatorische Kunst gemeinsam zu pflegen, war uns bald Lebensinhalt geworden. In diesem gemeinsam gepflegten geistigen Leben konnte allein der Mittelpunkt liegen, von dem aus Anthroposophie zunächst im Ralimen der Theosophischen Gesellschaft in die Welt getragen wurde.
[ 17 ] Marie von Sivers hatte bei unserem ersten gemeinsamen Londoner Besuche durch Gräfin Wachtmeister, die intime Freundin H. P. Blavatskys, viel über diese und über die Einrichtungen und die Entwickelung der Theosophischen Gesellschaft gehört. Sie war in hohem Grade mit dem vertraut, was als geistiger Inhalt einstmals der Gesellschaft geoffenbart worden ist und wie dieser Inhalt weiter gepflegt worden war.
[ 18 ] Wenn ich davon gesprochen habe, daß es möglich war, im Rahmen der Theosophischen Gesellschaft die Menschen zu finden, die auf Mitteilungen aus der Geist-Welt hören wollten, so ist damit nicht gemeint, daß als solche Persönlichkeiten vor allem in Betracht kamen die damals als Mitglieder in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft eingeschriebenen. Viele von diesen erwiesen sich allerdings bald als verständnisvoll gegenüber meiner Art der Geist-Erkenntnis.
[ 19 ] Aber ein großer Teil der Mitglieder waren fanatische Anhänger einzelner Häupter der Theosophischen Gesellschaft. Sie schworen auf die Dogmen, die von diesen stark im sektiererischen Sinn wirkenden Häuptern ausgegeben waren.
[ 20 ] Mich stieß dieses Wirken der Theosophischen Gesellschaft durch die Trivialität und den Dilettantismus, die darinnen steckten, ab. Nur innerhalb der englischen Theosophen fand ich inneren Gehalt, der noch von Blavatsky herrührte und der damals von Annie Besant und anderen sachgemäß gepflegt wurde. Ich hätte nie in dem Stile, in dem diese Theosophen wirkten, selber wirken können. Aber ich betrachtete, was unter ihnen lebte, als ein geistiges Zentrum, an das man würdig anknüpfen durfte, wenn man die Verbreitung der Geist-Erkenntnis im tiefsten Sinne ernst nahm.
[ 21 ] So war es nicht etwa die in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft vereinigte Mirgliederschaft, auf die Marie von Sivers und ich zählten, sondern diejenigen Menschen überhaupt, die sich mit Herz und Sinn einfanden, wenn ernst zu nehmende Geist-Erkenntnis gepflegt wurde.
[ 22 ] Das Wirken innerhalb der damals bestehenden Zweige der Theosophischen Gesellschaft, das notwendig als Ausgangspunkt war, bildete daher nur einen Teil unserer Tätigkeit. Die Hauptsache war die Einrichtung von öffentlichen Vorträgen, in denen ich zu einem Publikum sprach, das außerhalb der Theosophischen Gesellschaft stand und das zu meinen Vorträgen nur wegen deren Inhalt kam.
[ 23 ] Aus denjenigen Persönlichkeiten, die auf diese Art kennen lernten, was ich über die Geist-Welt zu sagen hatte, und aus denen, die aus der Betätigung mit irgend einer «theosophischen Richtung» den Weg zu dieser Art fanden, bildete sich im Rahmen der Theosophischen Gesellschaft dasjenige heraus, was später Anthroposophische Gesellschaft wurde.
[ 24 ] Man hat unter den mancherlei Anklagen, die man wegen meines Wirkens in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft gegen mich gerichtet hat - auch von seiten dieser Gesellschaft selbst - auch die erhoben, daß ich gewissermaßen diese Gesellschaft, die Geltung hatte in der Welt, als Sprungbrett benutzt hätte, um der eigenen Geist-Erkenntnis die Wege zu ebnen.
[ 25 ] Davon kann nicht im entferntesten die Rede sein. Als ich der Einladung in die Gesellschaft folgte, war diese die einzige ernst zu nehmende Institution, in der reales Geistesleben vorhanden war. Und wären Gesinnung, Haltung und Wirken der Gesellschaft so geblieben, wie sie damals waren, mein und meiner Freunde Austritt hätte nie zu erfolgen gebraucht. Es hätte nur innerhalb der Theosophischen Gesellschaft die besondere Abteilung «Anthroposophische Gesellschaft» offiziell gebildet werden können.
[ 26 ] Aber schon von 1906 ab machten sich in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft Erscheinungen geltend, die deren Verfall in erschreckendem Maße zeigten.
[ 27 ] Wenn auch schon früher, zur Zeit von H.P. Blavatsky, solche Erscheinungen von der Außenwelt behauptet wurden, so lag dafür im Beginne des Jahrhunderts die Tatsache vor, daß im Ernst der geistigen Arbeit von seiten der Gesellschaft gut gemacht war, was an Unrichtigkeiten vorgekommen ist. Diese Vorkommnisse waren ja auch umstritten.
[ 28 ] Aber seit 1906 kamen in der Gesellschaft, auf deren Führung ich nicht den geringsten Einfluß hatte, Betätigungen vor, die an die Auswüchse des Spiritismus erinnerten und die nötig machten, daß ich immer mehr betonte, daß der Teil dieser Gesellschaft, der unter meiner Führung stand, mit diesen Dingen absolut nichts zu tun habe. Den Gipfel erreichten diese Betätigungen, als dann von einem Hinduknaben behauptet wurde, er sei die Persönlichkeit, in der Christus in neuem Erdenleben auftreten werde. Für die Verbreitung dieser Absurdität wurde eine besondere Gesellschaft in der Theosophischen gebildet, diejenige vom «Stern des Ostens». Es war für mich und meine Freunde ganz unmöglich, die Mitglieder dieses «Sternes des Ostens» so als Glied in die deutsche Sektion hereinzunehmen, wie diese es wollten und wie vor allem Annie Besant als Präsidentin der Theosophischen Gesellschaft das beabsichtigte. Und weil wir das nicht tun konnten, schloß man uns 1913 von der Theosophischen Gesellschaft aus. Wir waren genötigt, die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft als selbständige zu begründen.
[ 29 ] Ich bin damit der Schilderung der Ereignisse in meinem Lebensgang weit vorausgeeilt; allein das war notwendig, weil nur diese späteren Tatsachen das richtige Licht werfen können auf die Absichten, die ich mit dem Eintritte in die Gesellschaft im Beginne des Jahrhunderts verband.
[ 30 ] Ich habe, als ich 1902 zum ersten Male in London auf dem Kongresse der Theosophischen Gesellschaft sprach, gesagt: Die Vereinigung, die die einzelnen Sektionen bilden, soll darin bestehen, daß eine jede nach dem Zentrum bringt, was sie in sich birgt; und ich betonte scharf, daß ich für die deutsche Sektion dies vor allem beabsichtige. Ich machte deutlich, daß diese Sektion niemals sich als Trägerin festgesetzter Dogmen, sondern als Stätte selbständiger geistiger Forschung betätigen werde, die sich bei den gemeinsamen Zusammenkünften der ganzen Gesellschaft über die Pflege echten Geisteslebens verständigen möchte.
Chapter XXXI
[ 1 ] Another anthology, which presented the cultural achievements of the nineteenth century, was published by Hans Kraemer. It consisted of longer treatises on the individual branches of cognitive life, technical creation and social development.
[ 2 ] I was invited to give an account of literary life. And so the development of fantasy life in the nineteenth century ran through my soul. I did not describe it like a philologist who works such things "from the sources"; I described what I had experienced inwardly in the development of fantasy life.
[ 3 ] This presentation was also significant for me because I had to talk about phenomena of spiritual life without being able to go into the experience of the spirit world. The actual spiritual impulses from this world that are expressed in the poetic phenomena remained unmentioned.
[ 4 ] In this case, too, I was confronted with what the life of the soul has to say about a phenomenon of existence when it places itself on the standpoint of ordinary consciousness without bringing the content of this consciousness into activity in such a way that it rises experiencing into the spirit world.
[ 5 ] I experienced this "standing at the gate" of the spirit world even more meaningfully in a treatise I had to write for another work. It was not a work of the century, but a collection of essays intended to characterize the various areas of knowledge and life, insofar as human "egoism" is a driving force in the development of these areas. Arthur Dix published this work. It was called "Egoism" and was very much in keeping with the times - the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
[ 6 ] The impulses of intellectualism, which had asserted themselves in all areas of life since the fifteenth century, are rooted in the "individual life of the soul", if they really are genuine expressions of its essence. When man reveals himself intellectually out of social life, it is not a genuine intellectual expression, but the imitation of such an expression.
[ 7 ] One of the reasons why the call for social feeling has emerged so intensely in this age is that this feeling is not originally experienced inwardly in intellectuality. Even in these things, humanity desires most what it does not have.
[ 8 ] I was given the task of presenting "Egoism in Philosophy" for this book. Now my essay only bears this heading because the overall title of the book demanded it. This heading should actually be: "Individualism in Philosophy". I tried to give a very brief overview of Western philosophy since Thales and to show how its development aims to bring human individuality to experience the world in images of ideas, just as my "Philosophy of Freedom" attempts to do for knowledge and the moral life.
[ 9 ] With this essay I again stand before the "Gates of the Spiritual World". The images of ideas that reveal the content of the world are shown in human individuality. They appear so that they await the experience through which the soul can step into the spirit world. I paused in the description at this point. There is an inner world that shows how far mere thinking can go in understanding the world.
[ 10 ] You can see that I have described the pre-anthroposophical life of the soul from the most diverse points of view before my dedication to the public anthroposophical presentation of the spirit world. There can be no contradiction between this and my advocacy of anthroposophy. For the world view that emerges is not refuted by anthroposophy, but rather expanded and continued.
[ 11 ] If you begin to present the spirit world as a mystic, everyone is fully entitled to say: you are talking about your personal experiences. What you describe is subjective. To follow such a spiritual path did not arise from the spiritual world as my task.
[ 12 ] This task consisted of creating a foundation for anthroposophy that was as objective as scientific thinking when it does not stop at the recording of sensory facts, but advances to a summarizing understanding. What I presented in scientific-philosophical terms and what I presented in scientific terms, following on from Goethe's ideas, was open to debate. It could be considered more or less correct or incorrect; but it aspired to the character of the objective-scientific in the fullest sense.
[ 13 ] And from this cognition, free of the emotional and mystical, I then drew the experience of the spirit world. You can see how in my "Mysticism", in "Christianity as a Mystical Fact", the concept of mysticism is guided in the direction of this objective cognition. And you can see in particular how my "Theosophy" is structured. In every step that is taken in this book, spiritual vision is in the background. Nothing is said that does not originate from this spiritual vision. But as the steps are taken, at the beginning of the book it is natural-scientific ideas in which the vision envelops itself, until, in the ascent into the higher worlds, it has to become more and more active in the free formation of the spiritual world. But this formation grows out of the natural science like the blossom of a plant out of the stem and the leaves. - Just as the plant is not seen in its completeness if one only looks at it up to the blossom, so nature is not experienced in its completeness if one does not ascend from the sensual to the spiritual.
[ 14 ] So I strove to present the objective continuation of science in anthroposophy, not to place something subjective alongside this science. - It goes without saying that this endeavor was not understood at first. Science was held to be closed to that which precedes anthroposophy, and there was no inclination at all to animate the ideas of science in such a way as to lead to a grasp of the spiritual. They were under the spell of the habits of thought formed in the second half of the nineteenth century. They did not have the courage to break through the shackles of mere sensory observation; they feared entering areas where everyone would use their imagination.
[ 15 ] This was my inner orientation when Marie von Sivers and I approached the leadership of the German section of the Theosophical Society in 1902. Marie von Sivers was the personality who, through her whole being, made it possible to keep any sectarian character away from what came about through us and to give the cause a character that placed it in the general intellectual and educational life. She was deeply interested in dramatic and declamatory-recitative art and had undergone training in this direction, especially at the best teaching establishments in Paris, which had given her skills a beautiful perfection. She was still continuing her training at the time when I met her in Berlin to learn about the various methods of artistic speaking.
[ 16 ] Marie von Sivers and I soon became deep friends. And on the basis of this friendship, a collaboration developed in the widest possible range of spiritual fields. Cultivating anthroposophy together, as well as poetry and recitation, soon became our purpose in life. In this jointly cultivated spiritual life alone could lie the center from which anthroposophy was initially carried into the world in the rhymes of the Theosophical Society.
[ 17 ] Marie von Sivers had heard much about H. P. Blavatsky and the institutions and development of the Theosophical Society from Countess Wachtmeister, H. P. Blavatsky's intimate friend, during our first joint visit to London. She was highly familiar with what had once been revealed to the Society as spiritual content and how this content had been further cultivated.
[ 18 ] When I have spoken of the fact that it was possible to find within the framework of the Theosophical Society those people who wished to listen to communications from the spirit world, I do not mean that such personalities were primarily those who were then enrolled as members of the Theosophical Society. Many of these, however, soon proved to be understanding towards my way of spirit-knowledge.
[ 19 ] But a large proportion of the members were fanatical followers of individual heads of the Theosophical Society. They swore by the dogmas issued by these strongly sectarian leaders.
[ 20 ] I was repelled by the triviality and dilettantism of the work of the Theosophical Society. Only within the English Theosophists did I find an inner content that still came from Blavatsky and which was properly cultivated by Annie Besant and others at the time. I could never have worked myself in the style in which these Theosophists worked. But I regarded what lived among them as a spiritual center to which one could worthily connect if one took the spread of spiritual knowledge in the deepest sense seriously.
[ 21 ] So it was not the members united in the Theosophical Society that Marie von Sivers and I counted on, but those people in general who joined in with heart and mind when spiritual knowledge was taken seriously.
[ 22 ] The work within the then existing branches of the Theosophical Society, which was necessary as a starting point, was therefore only one part of our activity. The main thing was the organization of public lectures, in which I spoke to an audience that was outside the Theosophical Society and that came to my lectures only because of their content.
[ 23 ] From those personalities who became acquainted in this way with what I had to say about the spirit world, and from those who found their way to this kind of activity from their involvement with some "theosophical direction", what later became the Anthroposophical Society was formed within the framework of the Theosophical Society.
[ 24 ] Among the various accusations that have been leveled against me because of my work in the Theosophical Society - also on the part of this Society itself - is the accusation that I used this Society, which was respected in the world, as a springboard to pave the way for my own spiritual knowledge.
[ 25 ] There can be no question of that. When I accepted the invitation to join the Society, it was the only serious institution in which there was any real intellectual life. And if the Society's attitude and work had remained as they were then, I and my friends would never have had to leave. Only within the Theosophical Society could the special section "Anthroposophical Society" have been officially formed.
[ 26 ] But as early as 1906, phenomena began to make themselves felt in the Theosophical Society which showed its decline to an alarming degree.
[ 27 ] If even earlier, at the time of H.P. Blavatsky, such phenomena were claimed by the outside world, then at the beginning of the century there was the fact that in the seriousness of the spiritual work on the part of the Society, whatever inaccuracies had occurred had been made good. These incidents were also controversial.
[ 28 ] But since 1906, activities reminiscent of the excesses of spiritualism occurred in the Society, over whose leadership I had not the slightest influence, and which made it necessary for me to emphasize more and more that the part of this Society that was under my leadership had absolutely nothing to do with these things. These activities reached their peak when a Hindu boy claimed that he was the personality in whom Christ would appear in a new life on earth. A special society was formed in the Theosophical movement to spread this absurdity, the "Star of the East". It was quite impossible for me and my friends to accept the members of this "Star of the East" as members of the German Section, as they wanted and as Annie Besant, in particular, as President of the Theosophical Society, intended. And because we could not do this, we were excluded from the Theosophical Society in 1913. We were forced to found the Anthroposophical Society as an independent one.
[ 29 ] I have thus rushed far ahead of the description of the events in my life; this alone was necessary, because only these later facts can shed the right light on the intentions I had when I joined the Society at the beginning of the century.
[ 30 ] I said, when I spoke for the first time in London in 1902 at the Congress of the Theosophical Society, that the union which the individual Sections form should consist in each one bringing to the center what it holds within itself; and I emphasized sharply that I intended this above all for the German Section. I made it clear that this section would never act as a bearer of fixed dogmas, but as a place of independent spiritual research, which would like to come to an understanding about the cultivation of genuine spiritual life at the joint meetings of the whole society.