The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner
1908
The ever-growing ramifications of Rudolf Steiner’s activities in every sphere of life brought about as a natural consequence also a change in the central organization. For his writings, a new mold had to be cast having relation both to the outer and to the inner circle of readers and, at the same time, corresponding with his enormously increased work brought about by his many lecture tours. The change made itself perceptible in the first instance in two events in the year 1908: the discontinuance of the magazine “Lucifer Gnosis” in May and the founding of a private publishing office in August. Whereas the magazine had hitherto attempted to communicate in short articles a part of the material which had been developed, the increased volume of spiritual material now burst the confines of this narrow framework and created for itself a new form. Even during 1907, the individual issues of the magazine had already been appearing at increasingly long intervals and very irregularly; and, in the last number, which appeared in May 1908, Dr. Steiner apologized for this with the statement: “The spiritual Movement represented by the magazine requires of the editor, besides the actual work of publication, a broad expanse of other activities (lectures, lecture cycles, etc.). It is, after all, of far greater importance that our spiritual Movement should be served in the best possible way than that, through a pedantic punctuality in the dates of publication of the magazine, harm should be done in another direction.” Dr. Steiner still hoped at that time to be able to continue the magazine, but other considerations proved weightier; and his writings henceforth found their outlet in larger, more comprehensive works and publications, whose distribution from August 1908 onward was taken care of by the Philosophisch-Theosophischer Verlag (later called PhilosophischAnthroposophischer Verlag), founded and managed by Frl. von Sivers. Her loyal and energetic co-worker, Frl. Johanna Mücke, reports that the launching of the publishing enterprise in the midst of Rudolf Steiner’s continuous journeys was no light task. Just when the publishing concern was about to enter upon its activities on August 1, he was preparing for a visit to Stuttgart in connection with a lecture cycle. The legal inauguration and registration had to be postponed until August 1909. Its first enterprise was the publication, in 1908, of Philosophy and Theosophy; and in 1909 it was possible to issue the fundamental work Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment in book form. From other publishing houses were then taken over Rudolf Steiner’s works The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity; Goethe’s Conception of the World; Goethe’s Hidden Revelation; and Schiller and Our Age. To illustrate the growth of this first beginning, it may be mentioned that, to date, about 600 works in book form and other items have been issued and that new publications have been made available from year to year.
This brought about a very special problem through the fact that the members desired the opportunity to study thoroughly the cycles of lectures, intended by Dr. Steiner only for oral presentation. Many very imperfect reports of these came into circulation. It became necessary to watch over this practice. Thus arose gradually improving stenographically recorded copies of the lectures, which the speaker was never able to edit and correct. Later these were reproduced for members. Because of the use of excerpts taken out of their context by hostile critics as the basis for attacks upon Dr. Steiner, it is necessary here to quote a statement from his autobiography regarding these privately reproduced oral presentations:
“These were really reports on lectures, more or less accurate, which I could not correct for lack of time. It would have pleased me best if spoken words had remained spoken words. But the members wished the courses privately printed, so this came about. If I had then had time to correct the reports, the restriction for members only would from the beginning have been unnecessary.
“Whoever wishes to trace my own inner struggle and labor to place Anthroposophy before the consciousness of the present age must do this on the basis of the writings published for general circulation. Moreover, in these writings, I make my position clear with respect to everything in the nature of a striving for knowledge in the present age. Here is presented that which took form for me more or less in ‘spiritual beholding,’ which became the edifice of Anthroposophy—in a form incomplete, to be sure, from many points of view.
“Along with this requirement, however, of building up Anthroposophy and thereby meeting only the situation resulting from the need to impart information from the world of Spirit to the contemporary cultural world in general, the other requirement now appeared—to meet fully whatever became manifest in the membership as the needs of their minds and the cravings of their spirits.
“Strongest of all was the inclination to hear the Gospels and the content of the Biblical writings in general placed in what had appeared as the Anthroposophical light. The desire existed to attend lectures on these revelations given to mankind.
“While internal lecture cycles were delivered in accordance with this requirement, something else came about in addition. Only members could attend these courses. They were acquainted with the elementary communications out of Anthroposophy. It was possible to speak to them as to persons advanced in the realm of Anthroposophy. These internal lectures were conducted as they could not have been if they had been writings for the general public.
“I could rightly speak in a form which I should have been obliged to modify for a public presentation if from the first these things had been intended for such an audience.
“Thus in the two things, the public and the private publications, something really exists which springs out of two different backgrounds. The entirely public writings are the result of what struggled and labored in me; in the privately printed material, the Society itself shares in this struggle and labor. I listen to the pulsations in the soul-life of the membership, and out of my sharing in what I thus hear the form of the lecture course is determined.”
Thus it is clear that Rudolf Steiner gave in the lecture form the findings of his spiritual research to the members of the Society as their teacher, determining the form of this oral communication according to the needs of the Society. To just this form of communication he devoted the greater part of his life and work.
The year 1908 was characterized also by the fact that, with the approach of the second seven-year epoch in this work, together with the progress of spiritual-scientific knowledge, the artistic activity of Rudolf Steiner and of the Movement entered a broader phase of development. This activity had a significant sphere of action in Munich, where the first dramatic production had been given in the previous year. The leaders of the group there, Sophie Stinde and Countess Pauline von Kalkreuth, opened on March 1, 1908, a “Hall of Art and Music,” which made freely available to the public, with the help of donations from friends, valuable collections of works of art and literature. On certain days of the week lectures with lantern slides, recitations, and musical recitals were given, and there were study evenings devoted to mythology and legendary lore, and introductory courses in spiritual science. On Sundays, the arrangements were adapted for creating artistic impressions upon children.
Similar art centers were then opened in the east quarter of Berlin and at 17 Motzstrasse. This last became at the beginning of the first World War a much frequented refuge for children. In the Berlin group, which had to enlarge its quarters owing to the growing membership, Frl. von Sivers directed the Society’s work, with the help of many active friends, including especially Kurt and Clara Walther. During the coming winter the Dutch artist Mieta Waller settled there, to become a creative helper in her own area of activity. Under such influences, the group blossomed forth gradually into a living center of worthy creative work.
During 1908 the lecture trips of Rudolf Steiner took him into seven countries of Europe. During January and February, numerous cities of Germany were visited, for lectures dealing primarily with the ruling influence of creative Spiritual Beings in the process of evolution. During these years the knowledge was presented more and more before audiences that the Upper and the Under World, of which ancient cultures possessed a wealth of knowledge, actually meet in the evolution of the earth and of man. With reference to the ancient myths and mythologies, but primarily out of spiritual research, the work of Higher Worlds upon the being of man was disclosed (Munich, January 15); the differentiated actions of the zodiac and the planetary forces; how the whole cosmos, with all its Beings, forces, and substances, is to be understood as a living organism in the process of evolution.
Here a word must be interpolated regarding the difference between the misuse of a misunderstood kind of “Astrology,” on the one hand, and the organic kind of cosmology to which Rudolf Steiner gave particular attention. Already in 1905 he had made reference to this subject and stressed, above all, that the chief requirement for this field of knowledge is the power of Intuition, which modem man has for the most part lost and must acquire anew. That which appears today as Astrology employs ancient residues of wisdom which are no longer understood, instead of initiating new efforts toward acquiring cosmology as an organic science. On account of his having spoken of the activities of Beings and forces in the cosmos and their influence upon the earth and man, Rudolf Steiner was, without the least justification, associated with that type of modern Astrology by persons of superficial judgment, lacking accurate information regarding the actual content of his world conception. The purpose of his teaching, however, was of quite a different character, since the essence of his teaching was that man, in spite of the cosmic forces under whose influence he undoubtedly stands, can win full freedom for himself through his own ego forces. He stressed, therefore, how false and how unjustified from a spiritual-scientific point of view is the modem method of casting horoscopes for the future, since such supposed influences can affect only man’s physical organization and structure of forces, whereas his higher members, particularly the strengthened ego-consciousness, emancipate themselves from such ties. He once remarked to the author that, if one wishes at all to cast horoscopes in a logical and adequate way, it would be necessary to consider all the four members of man’s being, but that this would be impossible in regard to the higher members.
Neither can the division of the universe into zodiac and planetary' spheres be adopted in the usual fashion simply from ancient patterns, but this requires first to be subjected to the new knowledge from spiritual-scientific research, taking account of the activity of formative forces which operate in cosmos, earth, and man. With the greatest precision, Rudolf Steiner stated his argument for the right method in the following words: “True spiritual science does not look for human laws in constellations of the stars, but seeks human laws as well as natural laws in the spiritual sphere.” One who had written such a work as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity as a basis for a theory of knowledge must also, of necessity, arrive at other forms of knowledge in questions of destiny and free will, even while affirming in a new way the activity of cosmic Beings and forces as real phenomena in evolution.
The first lecture trip abroad took Dr. Steiner again to Switzerland, where he spoke in St. Gallen on January 13, 14 on The Course of Human Life from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science. During January 18-22, he was in Budapest, where he spoke on reincarnation, karma, and the descent of man. He then made a tour into Holland and the three Scandinavian countries. Having spoken in Holland in 1904 on Mathematics and Occultism, he now dealt with the esoteric and the religious life, speaking on March 4 at Hilversum on The Christian Initiation, and then in The Hague, for members, on Mysticism and Esotericism, Macrocosm and Microcosm, and for the public on The Initiation of the Rosicrucians, and on March 7 in Amsterdam under the title Concerning Christian Esotericism. He dealt in other lectures, in Rotterdam, Nijmegen, and Amsterdam also with initiation and the stages of higher knowledge.
Having taken part in the dedication of the Goethe-Schiller Group in Strasbourg, he now visited the Scandinavian cities—at first Malmo and Lund, in Sweden, where there were friends who had made arrangements for his visit. Three public lectures were given in Stockholm during March 30-ApriI 3 on Goethe’s Esoteric Answer to the World Riddle; The Fundamental Idea in the Nibelungen Ring; and Initiation.
It is interesting to observe that, although similar subjects were chosen for the different countries, the lectures were given in each country a characteristic form of their own. The subject matter was in essence the same, but Rudolf Steiner varied his approach according to the country—for example, in Germany he addressed himself in particular to the need for a philosophical penetration into the subject and to a sound mystical sense; in France to the demand for logical reasoning as well as a historical and dramatic art form; in England to natural talent and inclination for studying things spiritual as “matters of fact,” as occult phenomena, whereas in the countries of Scandinavia regard was paid to the fact that spiritual life had there been born out of a powerful mythology, out of a disposition for picture-concepts.
Of course, all such aspects came to expression in the course of time, but only through a gradual process beginning with the most accessible characteristics in each national type. A beginning could be made during these trips of 1908 with Goethe, because of the universal admiration for that genius. Later, conditions of war narrowed the horizons of international understanding and even led at times to a misuse of Dr. Steiner’s teaching in behalf of national interests. In truth, his range of interest was the whole world, all of humanity.
During the Scandinavian trip, the ancient university town of Uppsala was visited, and a lecture delivered there on Natural Science at the Parting of the Ways. At Stockholm, besides public lectures, some were given to members on the social question, on a true Rosicrucianism and on The Mystery of Golgotha. Lectures which followed in Norway, in April, at Christiania and then at Göteborg, were devoted to Christian esotericism. There, too, he spoke again on Goethe and Hegel, while his sojourn in Denmark provided the opportunity for a public lecture in Copenhagen on April 7, 8 on Theosophy, Religion, and Science, and one for members on the spiritual stages of knowledge.
Having meanwhile returned to Germany, Dr. Steiner gave lectures between May 8 and 31 in Hamburg on The Gospel of St. John, which appeared later in print as Cycle III. In the same year he devoted to this document, the greatest possessed by mankind, fifteen further lectures during July in Christiania. After the Hamburg lecture, he remarked to his audience: “It will come to be understood that Christianity is only at the beginning of its influence, and will fulfill its real mission only when it is understood in its true form—that is, its spiritual form. The more these lectures are grasped in this sense, the better will they be comprehended in the way in which they were intended.” Later he particularized the tasks of the two Christian streams: the Petrine and Johannine, the former finding its outlet more in the exoteric form of ecclesiasticism and a certain dogmatism, while the latter from the very beginning lay rather in the esoteric sphere of quiet meditation, serving as a source of inspiration. Through a spiritual-scientific interpretation of the universe, a new epoch of spiritual influences has now been marked out for the Johannine Christianity in the future.
In June 1908, Dr. Steiner supplemented these glimpses into a universe permeated by the Creative Beings through further lectures. The titles were: Concerning the Spiritual Hierarchies; Elemental Beings in Nature; and The Relation of the Spiritual Beings and the Spirit Worlds to Man. He thereby aimed to introduce his students to Goethe’s “three venerations”— veneration for what is above us, veneration for what is our equal, and veneration for what is beneath us. The attitude of all types of modern human beings toward the earth and the cosmos needed to be radically changed.
Dr. Steiner spoke, therefore, about the activities of the Hierarchies, the elemental beings, and the Spiritual Powers and forces in nature, never for the purpose of enhancing man’s subjective nature, but in order that human beings might learn to apply themselves in a different, more conscious, responsible, and purposeful manner to the concrete tasks of the life on earth. And the results of such an education, clearly traceable in pedagogical, medical, agricultural, and all practical spheres of life, proved that he remained firm and consistent in this attitude.
After delivering two further lectures on June 15 and 17 in Nuremberg and Munich on Goethe and Hegel and on Spiritual Science, the Gospel and the Future of Mankind, he delivered a lecture course in the spirit of Johannine Christianity, during June 18-30 in Nuremberg, on Theosophy in the Light of the Apocalypse. Even the most difficult picture-language of the Apocalypse had to be brought within the ken of modem man. He made clear, to begin with, the spiritual-historical origin and the preparation of this Johannine world of thought from the Egyptian Mysteries and the Orphic and Eleusinian Initiation Mysteries of Greece. He spoke in comprehensive terms on this as follows:
“The comprehension of what occurred on Golgotha was possible only where the content of the Mysteries was known. ... The writer of the Apocalypse absorbed the verbal tradition of the Mysteries; he said to himself: When I let myself be penetrated with what could be experienced in the Mysteries, Christ then appears before me. Thus, not the Apocalypse itself, but its application to the unique Event on Golgotha was something new. The essential thing was that, for those who had ears to hear, there was the possibility, by the help of what is to be found in the Revelation of St. John, progressively to penetrate to a real understanding of the Event of Golgotha. This was the purpose of the writer. He obtained the Apocalypse out of the ancient Mysteries. It is an ancient and sacred book of humanity, and has now become a gift to all mankind from the disciple whom the Lord loved and to whom he had bequeathed, as if by testament, the task of making known His true stature. He shall remain till Christ comes, so that those who are endued with a more enlightened consciousness can grasp Him. He is the great teacher of the true Event of Golgotha. He has given to mankind the means of really comprehending the Event of Golgotha.”
Rudolf Steiner frequently stressed the fact—which to a large extent has, indeed, received the confirmation of science—that the many difficulties which arise in understanding these old texts are attributable to a faulty, nonsensical, or wrong translation. It is not possible here to go into the manner in which the Apocalypse of St. John, with its picture-language, has been interpreted by him as one of the greatest documents, which can serve to decipher the book of the destiny of man. For this purpose, a thorough study of his writings on the subject would be necessary. We limit ourselves to the remark that here a person who, with a comprehensive scientific equipment, was striving toward a knowledge of the universe, at the same time included the holy texts of religious tradition, which had seemed lost to mankind in their true meaning, in order to show how science and religion, even though in different ways, can yet lead to the same goal.
The Nuremberg lecture course was arranged to synchronize with the centenary of Hegel’s entry into Nuremberg in 1808, and Dr. Steiner, by way of introduction, recalled Hegel’s words: “The deepest thought is connected with the figure of Christ, with the historical, the external. And the great thing about the Christian religion is that every level of consciousness is capable of grasping it in its external and historical aspects; but that, at the same time, it challenges us to the profoundest efforts of the spiritual life, to the deepest penetration. For every level of education, the Christian religion is comprehensible, and it is at the same time a challenge to the deepest wisdom.” After having again emphasized that spiritual science has no desire to found a religion, but that, in the sense of this great German philosopher, “it can be the instrument, the tool, for explaining and bringing to comprehension the deepest wisdom and truths and the most serious and vital mysteries of religion,” in order to draw attention to what is a reasonable attitude towards such documents, Rudolf Steiner used at the beginning of the lectures for elucidation of this relation a comparison of our relation to the historical documents of Euclidian geometry:
“It may, perhaps, appear a little remote if, in order to portray the relation of spiritual science to the records of one religion or another—and we shall today deal with the religious records of Christianity—one makes the comparison that spiritual science is related to the primary religious records in the same way as mathematical theory is related to those records which, in the course of historic evolution, have appeared as mathematical text-books or as books generally. Here we have an ancient book, the Geometry of Euclid, which only such historical investigators as are actually well versed in mathematics would take notice of. This book contains for the first time in a pedagogical form what the children of today learn at school in the way of mathematics and geometry. How few of these children, however, know that all they study regarding parallel lines, triangles, angles, etc. is presented in that ancient book; that it was presented to mankind for the first time in that ancient book. It is right to awaken in the child the realization that one may comprehend these things for oneself; that, if the human intellect but exerts its powers and applies them to spatial forms, it is in a position to comprehend these forms without any regard to that ancient book. Anyone, however, who has absorbed the theories of mathematics and geometry without previous knowledge of this book would understand on becoming acquainted with it how to esteem it in the right way. He would understand how much to value the gift which had been made to humanity by that man who had presented this book to them for the first time. Similarly one would wish to characterize the relation of spiritual science to the records of religion. The sources of spiritual science are such that they do not call for reference to records or traditions of any kind, if they are but understood in accordance with their real impulses. Just as other human learning brings about knowledge of the surrounding world of sense through a free exercise of human powers, so do the deeper-lying supersensible powers and capacities slumbering in the human soul bring about in the same way the knowledge of the supersensible and invisible lying behind all that is visible. ... For him who walks this path, who really approaches the records of the Christian message armed with knowledge of the supersensible worlds,—for him, of a truth, the value of those records is not lost; on the contrary, they assume a greater brilliance than they had when approached in a mere spirit of belief; they show that they contain profounder wisdom than one previously had any idea of prior to spiritual-scientific knowledge.”
Precisely in the Nuremberg lecture course in the center of Europe, Rudolf Steiner now called to mind that it is possible for us to read the preparatory stages of Christian lore and of the Act of Redemption, not only in the original sources of the southern, but also in those of the northern Mysteries of Europe:
“Allow me to refer to one small symptomatic example of a recent experience on one of my lecture tours. This example shows how world history, when regarded as an expression of the divine-spiritual, appears everywhere significant, speaks everywhere a new language to us. I was able to see in Scandinavia a few weeks ago how, in the entire life of our European north, everything still betrays an echo of that ancient existence of the Norse world in which everything of a spiritual nature was permeated by a consciousness of the Beings which stood behind the figures of Gods in Norse mythology. I mean to say that, in all that confronts one in those lands, echoes are perceptible of that which was taught as the ancient Norse spiritual life by the initiates of the Druid Mysteries, of the Trotten Mysteries, to their pupils. One grows aware of how much the magic story of that spirit-life pervades the north; one sees something like an expression of beautiful karmic connections. One sees oneself—as was granted to me at Uppsala—planted, so to speak, in the midst of all when confronted with the first Germanic translation of the Bible, the Silver Codex of Ulfilas. This came to Uppsala as if through karmic complications of a strange kind. It was, to begin with, at Prague. In the war with Sweden it was seized and taken to Uppsala, where it now lies, a token of what penetrates into one who is able to see a little deeper into the old Mystery lore. Indeed, this old Mystery teaching, this penetration into the spirit-world within the ancient civilizations, is permeated by a common peculiar character, which those experienced in a higher degree who had received initiation in those times of old. Like a tragic touch, it pierced their hearts when it was made clear to them that they might, indeed, see into the secrets of existence, but that only in the future would something come which would appear as a complete solution. Over and over again, they were reminded that light from a higher level was to shine into that knowledge which could still be found in the old Mysteries. One might say that a prophetic forecast was given in all these old Mysteries of what was to come in the future—of the appearance of Jesus Christ. The tone, the sense, of expectation, the mood of prophecy, lay in this Norse Mystery teaching.”
It was in such a vein as this that Rudolf Steiner spoke in July when on a visit to Christiania, in a course of fifteen lectures on the Gospel of St. John.
The world picture thus gained from spiritual-scientific knowledge, and from the clarification of historical and religious documents, was presented in a different aspect between August 4 and 16 at Stuttgart in Cycle IV under the title World, Earth, and Man. In preparation for the cycle announced for September on the Egyptian Mysteries, stress was now laid more on the wisdom of the Osiris and Isis Mysteries, which had streamed in from the south through Greece to Europe, and upon their later metamorphosis in the world picture of the Christian West.
Here, too, he characterized the aberrations which had taken place through historical developments. On the one hand, the southern, Egyptian, primeval wisdom deviated later in the course of the intellectual influences of Arabism into decadence, and the mummified thinking of materialism; on the other hand, the magnificent myths of the North had deviated toward the sphere of a form of imagination alien to the world and no longer appropriate to the times. Both spheres have now to be rescued from this one-sidedness and mastered anew in a fresh form.
A lecture Cycle V, concerning Egyptian Myths and Mysteries and Their Relation to the Spirit Forces Active in the Present, delivered in Leipzig between September 2 and 14, served this aim in special degree. In this connection, Rudolf Steiner emphasized how our time, no matter how astonishing this may seem at first, has a quite special relation to the Egyptian epoch of civilization. He showed how the so-called Post-Atlantean period of evolution is seen, upon closer examination of the centers of civilization which took the lead in the course of time, to be divided into seven cultural epochs, of which the first four—the Indian, Persian, Egyptian-Babylonian, and Graeco-Roman epochs—already lie behind us in the rhythmic course of the growth of history. The imprint of the first of these epochs is to be mirrored in the seventh, the second in the sixth, the third (the Egyptian) in our own epoch, the fifth—although naturally in a transformed and higher stage of evolution. Just as every living organism exhibits similar rhythms, the time-organism of history also has its inner rhythms and laws, and it is of special importance, therefore, in our time to study the Egyptian cultural epoch from this point of view. The Egyptian civilization, with its profound wisdom, its extraordinary knowledge of cosmic laws, and its meaningful myths, exercised upon European evolution a permanent influence by way of the Egyptian-inspired Grecian Mysteries. But it has continued in its bad influence as well as the good through the centuries, leading in its later decadence, brought about by the Arabian philosophy and view of the world, to a mummification of thinking and, following the disappearance of the world of myth, to the one-sided materialism of our own time. It is necessary, therefore, to rescue from its later obscurity the esoteric germ of goodness residing in the old Egyptian Mysteries. For our own time, as well, there remains the possibility and also the task, by means of grand pictures and true imaginations, of bringing home to man the appreciation of creative forces active in nature, as was attempted in a different way in Egypt through the Osiris-Isis myth and in Greece through the Demeter myth. Rudolf Steiner made a step in this direction in the lecture cycle referred to. In October of this year, he made a second visit to Switzerland, where a new Group was established in Zurich on the tenth of the month. A public lecture in Zurich dealt with Goethe’s Significance for the Present Day, and he spoke on the next day in St. Gallen on the subject Life and Health in the Light of Spiritual Science.
In October, the lectures of the winter semester were resumed in Berlin in the Architecktenhaus, beginning with the question: Where and How Does One Find the Christ? At the same time a course was begun for members on Spiritual-Scientific Knowledge of Man.
On October 26 the Annual General Meeting of the members took place. Rudolf Steiner pointed out in his introductory address that the Section was now approaching the beginning of its second seven-year epoch; and voiced for the approaching period the following prophecy, which proved only too true: “Nothing surprising is being said if I remind you that, perhaps, much in the nature of obstacles and dangers and testings of destiny which the German Section will have to experience will fall in just this period. We shall be able to see something of the fruits during this period, but also the growth in this fateful period of obstacles and difficulties.”
Yet he emphasized at the same time that the Section had grown so strong since its first beginnings that it was able boldly to face these new tasks. He recalled the time when, following the turn of the century, only twenty listeners were present at his lectures on Mysticism and Christianity as Mystical Fact and remarked that their number had already grown to over a thousand. In this development the Section had firmly avoided any form of propaganda or agitation in pursuit of its aims; had simply placed before people the knowledge resulting from spiritual research. The evolution of a living organism, such as this community, could be as little shaped according to theoretical maxims as the development and training of the separate individual—the child.
He said:
“We may remind ourselves at this moment that the child’s seventh year of life, for example, is an important moment for the entire life of the individual; likewise an important moment for a ‘spiritual child’ is its arrival at the seventh year of life. In a certain sense, the conformity to law is altogether decisive which comes to expression each time in the next-following three years.”
A society also has to develop in accordance with its spiritual destiny and individual talents. A reference by Dr. Steiner to lecture courses given in the past, to the mutual work and its spread over such wide regions of Europe, brought out the possibility and tasks lying in the future. Frl. von Sivers thereupon gave a report on the increase in the number of Groups to 37 compared with 28 in the spring, while membership had increased to 1,150. In the election of officers to the executive, Rudolf Steiner was once again unanimously elected General Secretary. He then said that he had to perform “the painful duty” in connection with “a first incident” occurring in the history of the Society of presenting a resolution from a Group to the effect that: “a present member of our German Section be no longer regarded as a member.”
The case was that of a Dr. Vollrath. There is no need here to go into unessential details, but it is instructive to note that the appropriate decision was arrived at by the Executive, primarily because the work of the Society had been prejudiced from that quarter inasmuch as the attempt had been made through personal methods to force arbitrary personal activities into the life of the Society. On this point Rudolf Steiner observed:
“We have not opposed anything, but were simply of the opinion that we must allow forces their free play. We work in a positive sense. If others think they have a right to go on as they do, then they must take the responsibility; only we will not have anything to do with it nor allow an opinion to be foisted upon us from any quarter.”
Dr. Vollrath had, in addition, founded a so-called “Literary Section” and appointed its members without the knowledge either of the General Secretary or the Executive, thereby inflicting injury upon the constitution of the Society. Regarding petitions for the expulsion of members, Rudolf Steiner was, as a matter of fact, extremely reluctant, as was often made clear. But an injury to the constitution of the Society for which he was responsible was a thing which, in spite of emphasis upon the freedom of others, he would never tolerate. The person in question, therefore, as a consequence of his behavior, was “no longer regarded as a member” of the Section.
After this disagreeable but necessary intermezzo, the meeting otherwise so positively tuned through retrospect and anticipation was brought to its close as to its “business” part. As to its “essential” part, Rudolf Steiner gave a lecture for the members on the Meaning of Self-Denial, Renunciation, and Sacrifice. There followed a lecture on Novalis, in connection with which Frl. von Sivers recited the wonderful Hymns to the Night. The great significance of this poet, who, like Goethe, was a researcher in nature as well as a poet, was imparted to the world and kept alive in the following years by the efforts of Rudolf Steiner. His students owe a great deal to the literary and scientific works of Novalis.
After this event, the friends who had assembled from all directions were the guests of Frau Eliza von Moltke, wife of the Chief of the General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke. Special mention is made of this as evidence that Rudolf Steiner already had relations with this family in those days of peace based purely upon spiritual and cultural interests of these two highly cultured personalities. The student Kleeberg says in his memoirs that, on the occasion of Rudolf Steiner’s first visit to Cassel, in the year 1905, the declaration was reported to have been made by General von Moltke: “That all world views and philosophies had somewhere a gap; that the Theosophy of Rudolf Steiner alone was throughout its whole system complete and without a gap.” From the very beginning, therefore, non-political, purely spiritual and world-conceptual interests alone formed the tie between Rudolf Steiner and the family of the Chief of the General Staff.
On October 27 and 28 Dr. Steiner spoke to the assembled guests on The Nature of Pain, Sorrow, and Blessedness.
Among the November lectures may be mentioned The Course of Human Life from the Point of View of Spiritual Science, given in Hannover; Tolstoi and Carnegie, in Munich; The Nature of Illness and The Theory of the Categories of Aristotle, in Berlin. In the same month he undertook his second journey of the year to Austria, where he spoke in Prague on Man, Woman, and Child in the Light of Spiritual Science—a theme with which he dealt several times in that year. He spoke in Vienna on The Nature of Man as Key to World Secrets; at Klagenfurt on Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods; Practical Training in Thought; and The Germ of Wisdom in the Religions. The return journey took him on December 3 via Breslau to Gorlitz, where he described the spiritual personality of Jacob Boehme, the famous mystic, whose home had been there. After a further round trip, the lectures at the Architektenhaus were continued, and also those on The Knowledge of Man. The Christmas festival was celebrated with particular reference to the spirit of Novalis and his annunciation regarding the Christ.