The Rudolf Steiner Archive

38

To Marie von Sivers in Berlin
Sunday, November 19, 1905, on the way from Hamburg to Colmar

Sunday, 12:30 p.m.

My darling! Enclosed is the Moon Evolution.⁵⁴ I worked it out for you today from the morning and will send it immediately by express letter from Colmar. You must receive it tomorrow morning. It was quite impossible to do it at Hubo's. It is freezing in my bedroom and he is constantly moving around in his rooms. He had taken the whole of Saturday off from work. Then keep the document until I arrive. It is very suitable for reading aloud. I still have to polish a bit of “Lucifer”.

Last night in Hamburg, the hall was full and I had the feeling and the intuition that it was better than ever. Sellin ⁵⁵ and Mrs. Tode.

There was no real discussion. And it was certainly because people wanted to hold on to the impression.

I hope I find a fresh and healthy M. on Thursday.

With best wishes, Rudolf.

• 54. This manuscript for Marie v. Sivers to read in the Monday evening work of the Berlin branch is not available in the estate. However, since Rudolf Steiner still remarks, “For ‘Lucifer’ I still have to polish it up a bit,” it can only be the chapter from the “Akasha Chronicle” “V. Life on the Moon,” as it was printed in “Lucifer-Gnosis” No. 29. Now in “From the Akasha Chronicle”, GA 11.
• 55. Albrecht Wilhelm Sellin (1841-1933), director of the Hanseatic Colonization Society, which was active in Brazil, November 1904 member in Hamburg, July 1908 retirement, chairman at the founding of the Zurich branch October 1908, from 1910 active in Munich, played in the mystery plays 1909-13.

39

To Rudolf Steiner, probably in Colmar, ca.
Sunday, November 19, 1905, from Berlin

Many greetings, – I have visitors all day today, – please read Miss Minsloff's letter if possible. ⁵⁶ Letter. It is a deeply tragic case, which I will discuss later.

• 56. Anna Rudolfovna Minsloff, a Russian, became a member of the Berlin branch in October 1905. A remarkable personality, highly educated and with great occult knowledge, she exerted a strong influence on the Russian Theosophists for a time.

40

To Marie von Sivers in Berlin
Monday, November 20, 1905

Colmar in Alsace, November 20, 1905 My darling! I hope you received the article about the “Moon” in time for it to be published tonight. I arrived here yesterday at 3:27 a.m. Ostermann ⁵⁷ was expecting me and then led me to an ice-cold room, almost as bad as Hubo's. I froze for hours and really didn't understand what was going on. Because there was even heating in the corridors. Just not in my room. Then in the evening I said quite dryly that this was not acceptable. He replied quite naively, “I completely forgot.” They turned on the heat, but how!

Then I went to the lecture. There were quite a few people there, but not too many. It was a bad Sunday weather. The audience knew nothing about Theosophy. There were some Protestant pastors and two Catholic priests. The questions lasted from 8 to 11 p.m. It seemed to have really succeeded in interesting the audience.

Then, in the evening, I found a room that was only moderately warm, and in the bed was a hot water bottle that I immediately threw out. Isn't that incredible, downright droll: to put a steam boiler in an ice pit to half-scald you.

For washing, I got a cup of warm water in the morning and the sink is also as big as what Martha didn't want to stop putting on the table.

I don't really want to write you all this stuff, but I would like to ask you to write a few words to Arenson to the effect that I - for whatever reasons, for my part - have to stay in a hotel in Stuttgart this time. I hope they don't take it badly in Stuttgart. Say it as you like. But I really can't help myself. I can bear anything else without harm; but these private invitations, with the exception of the very kind ones in Munich and Cologne, are really likely to make me gradually unable to work. Here I am now completely convinced of this.

Forgive me, my darling, for this lament. But I am writing this while freezing. It is really not the people's fault. But they understand nothing of the conditions of intellectual work.

So today is Strasbourg, tomorrow Colmar again. Then I will leave for Freiburg as early as possible on Wednesday (Hotel Continental “Zum Pfauen”). — It's better to stick to the floor there, which has happened once, than to freeze to death here.

As you have probably read, Mrs. Lübke writes on Dec. 3. I have just accepted. Please also let Miss Scholl know that I would like to be in Elberfeld on Dec. 3, but only in the evening. Then I will travel to Düsseldorf during the night of the 3rd to the 4th and would also like to stay in a hotel there.

Be a healthy, fresh M. Much love, Rudolf. But I have not received a letter from Miss Minsloff.

• 57. Alfred Ostermann (1862-1919), Colmar, member of the French section of the T.G.

46

To Marie von Sivers in Berlin
Saturday, January 13, 1906, from Colmar

January 13, 1906

My darling,
Ostermann and I just came from Strasbourg. I want to use the time until the afternoon lecture to write to you. Ostermann booked a large hall in Strasbourg and offered free admission, so there must have been 600 people at the lecture yesterday. It lasted until after 11 o'clock, starting at 8 o'clock. Before the lecture, we were with a man who has just written a book about the various “Lives of Jesus” since the 18th century.⁴ the lecturer at the university and is also now studying medicine in addition to his theological and philosophical studies. After four years he wants to go to Africa to educate the “savages”. You see, a scholar of the better kind. But precisely for that reason so characteristic. In every word, a confirmation of what I wrote in the article “Theosophy and Science” ⁵ Completely jaded by anything truly spiritual. About Mrs. Besant, whom he had heard speak in Strasbourg, he only said: “a very dependent nature, with nothing at all coming from her.” I don't yet know what he said about my lecture yesterday.

Of course you, my darling, are quite right in what you write in your letter. And we now must seriously consider how we can relieve you. But it really has been so difficult to find someone to do a job in Germany. Just think of the experiences we have had with our helpers so far! But now something has to be done.

If it seems appropriate to you, my darling,⁶ my darling, if we were to “make” Freemasons in Munich like that, then you would have to bring me and yourself the complete regalia. And then we would definitely need some of the implements that apparently have not yet arrived (I don't need the hat, but everything else): 1.) Bible, 2) crown of thorns, 3) triangle, 4) compass, 5) skull and crossbones, 6) a cloth to place on the table, 7) candlesticks and candles, if you don't assume that you can get them on the spot, 8) the myrrh that has to be there. Since I don't have all this here, I can't of course make the Freemasons on the way. Geering-Christ and Schuster want to be there right away. [Günther] Wagner is a St. John Mason; I have told him everything. It remains to be seen whether he will make the leap from ordinary St. John Masonry to the high degrees. It will be the same with Arenson. He is also a St. John Mason. I will see what can be done in Stuttgart. But the formal initiation can only take place when I have the things with me. By the way, don't forget to take the provisional aprons and sashes for the neophytes with you if you want to take anything at all for Munich. Huschke is also a possibility in Munich. We will see.

I signed the acknowledgement of receipt for the items because I thought that we would only hand them over when we had the items.

It will be nice if you visit Regensburg.⁷

On Monday evening, ⁸, you could perhaps tell the people something about the “Christ”. You can weave in some beautiful things from Schuré. And you know the basis of the nature of Christ. One has to imagine the “essence” of Christ as the reverse of the macrocosmic man, but one who is equal to the second aspect of the Godhead, or the Logos. Imagine the moment before the so-called “monad” (the totality of monads) descends to incarnate in the animal-human bodies that have been prepared for it. The animal kingdom, as far as it had developed, had physically spread out everything that had to be drawn together into one being for the lower human, with the exception of the mammals. Into these Lemurian animal-men the world of monads descends, in which Manas first separates from Budhi. Manas is thus incarnated in the Lemurian man, uniting with Kama to become Kama-Manas, while the Budhi Atma remains only as an anlage still linked to Manas. Christ is now the Being who first awakens the 'Budhi' as a first spark. For this it is necessary that the Christ Being takes possession of a chela in the third degree (Jesus). Thus we have to look upon the Christ-event on earth as the reversal of the process within the world of the monads, of that which took place in the case of “Adam”. St. Paul expresses this quite clearly when he calls the “Christ” the “reverse Adam”. The external historical process is only the actual symbol for the inner spiritual process.

So one has to visualize the matter according to the following scheme:

If Mrs. Schmidt won't be satisfied about the “fatherhood” of Jesus, then tell her that we are only concerned with spiritual things, and that the “fatherhood” could only have been important for the predecessors of our present-day good lawyers if they had had to settle the inheritance of Jesus, but that “Jesus” has renounced all inheritance and that therefore the matter of the “father” is not exactly precarious. Except for the lawyers, “fatherhood” is only of interest to the aunts at the coffee klatch and the five o'clock tea. But all that didn't exist back then.

Now again: Let yourself be met in Munich as a completely healthy mouse. I will arrive in Munich at 7:52 in the morning. Therefore, I ask you not to wait for me and also to tell the ladies not to wait for me under any circumstances. I will arrive alone and be at Stinde-Kalckreuth's around a quarter past 8.

All my love, Rudolf

• 4. It can only be Albert Schweitzer with his book “From Reimarus to Wrede”, 1906, 2nd edition under the title ” History of the Life-Jesus-Research, 1913.
• 5. In No. 28 (September 1905) of “Lucifer-Gnosis”, reprinted in “Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908”, GA 34.
• 6. Refers to the fact that the esoteric institution recently set up in early January was jointly headed by Rudolf Steiner and Marie v. Sivers.
• 7. Marie v. Sivers and Rudolf Steiner met in Munich on January 17, 1906. She probably expressed her intention to visit Regensburg on the way to Munich in a letter to him that no longer exists.
• 8. Berlin branch evening.