The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Theosophical Society. German Section.

To the esteemed members of the German Section of the Theosophical Society.

Dear friends!

The undersigned take pleasure in inviting you to the eleventh general assembly of the Theosophical Society, to be held in Berlin on February 2, 1913.

The proceedings will be as follows:

Saturday, February 1, 3:00 p.m. (Motzstraße 17) regular board meeting; 8:00 p.m. social gathering at the branch, Geisbergstraße 2.

Sunday, February 2, 10:00 a.m. (architect's house,

Wilhelmstraße 92/93) the business part with the following program will take place:

1. Opening of the meeting by the Secretary General.

2. Reports of the Secretary General, Secretary, Treasurer, Secretary and the auditors.

3. Possible discussion of pending matters.

4. Motions from the floor. 5. Reports from the representatives of the branches. 6. Miscellaneous.

On Sunday, February 2nd, at 4 p.m. (Architect's House, Wilhelmstraße 92/93), there will be a factual-theosophical part with the following program:

Free lectures and discussion by members. (Ms. Wandrey, Ms. Wolfram, Mr. Daeglau, Dr. Unger, among others, have announced lectures so far. Further lecture registrations from members are requested.

Sunday, February 2nd, at 7 p.m., social gathering of members at the architect's house (Wilhelmstraße 92/93).

Monday, February 3rd: Possible continuation of the factual-theosophical part, which will be announced on Sunday.

Members are requested to notify Miss Marie v. Sivers, Berlin Wilmersdorf, Motzstraße 17, of their attendance at the General Assembly immediately upon receipt of this invitation.

Proposals for the General Assembly and registrations of individual members for lectures, addresses, etc. are requested (to the address of the General Secretary) by January 25, 1913.

Hoping to welcome as many of our dear members as possible on the days mentioned above,

The Theosophical greeting

The Secretary: Marie v. Sivers.
The General Secretary: Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

Postscript to Walter Blume: Musical Reflections in the Spirit of Spiritual Science, Berlin

This application of spiritual-scientific knowledge to music is unobjectionable; but a warning must be given against applying the same kind of observation to another art in exactly the same way. In the case of music it is possible precisely because the inner proportions of the I are completely mirrored in the astral as unconscious proportions. In painting, for example, one of the members of the astral body falls out of the mirroring and into the physical body; in sculpture, two members of the etheric body fall out of the physical body and into the extra-bodily reality; in architecture, which is even more complicated, three members of the etheric body fall into the subsensible reality. So it is especially important that such a direct application of the I-constitution to music is possible. But it is precisely this that is particularly characteristic of the 'art of inwardness'.

Dr. Steiner.

Review of the 2nd edition of Jakob Ruchti's work “On the History of the Outbreak of War” (1916) in: Münchner Neuste Nachrichten, Vol. 70, No. 216 of April 30,

Among the vast amount of war literature that has been written, Dr. Jacob Ruchti's “On the History of the Outbreak of War According to the Official Files of the Royal British Government”, which was awarded a prize by the History Department of the University of Bern, is of particular value. For it contains a consideration that is conducted according to the strict rules of historical research and conscientiousness that the historian seeks when he wants to form an opinion about factual connections.

The view that a discussion of the causes of the war has already become a fruitless exercise cannot be maintained in the face of the way in which the statesmen and the press of the Entente are trying to persuade the world that they are forced to continue the war despite the Central Powers' peace offer. Among the reasons they give, a very special role is played by the assertion that the beginning of the war proves that peaceful coexistence with the Central Powers can only be achieved by a devastating blow from the Entente against these powers. Now Ruchti shows that this claim is based on an untrue legend that the Entente forged to counter the statements of its own documents, in order to teach the world the view of the outcome and goal of the war that it deemed appropriate. The significance of Ruchti's work lies particularly in the scientific treatment of the facts and then in the fact that a member of a neutral state unreservedly communicates his results, and that a scientific seminar of this state finds the work to be so scientifically sound that it awards it a prize. Ruchti does not go beyond what the sources reveal. In fact, he points out where the factual material is uncertain and must be withheld with objective judgment. He relies almost exclusively on English documents and uses those of other countries only to supplement this or that account. With this method, he comes to a conclusion that can be summarized in the following words:

The assertions with which the statesmen of the Entente want to persuade the world are recognized by the English documents as the opposite of the truth. The whole fabric of the assertions of Grey and his supporters about the peace efforts of the Entente statesmen falls apart before Ruchti's scientific research and becomes one that only shows the appearance of peaceful efforts, but which in reality not only had to lead to war between Russia and France on the one hand and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other, but was also likely to place England on the side of the former powers. From these statements, it is clear how Sasonow makes the dispute between Austria-Hungary and Serbia the starting point of a European dispute, and how Grey takes this Russian starting point as his own from the outset and uses it to organize his so-called peace efforts. There is not the slightest evidence that it might have occurred to Grey to take such diplomatic steps that Russia would have been forced to let Austria fight out its dispute with Serbia alone. Since Austria-Hungary had given its assurance that it wanted to achieve nothing more with its military measures against Serbia than the complete recognition of its ultimatum, and this in turn demanded nothing more than Serbia's appropriate behavior against Austria-Hungary within its previous borders, there would have been no reason for another power to go to war if Grey had dissuaded Russia from interfering in the Austro-Serbian dispute. But England was Russia's ally and the Central Powers' enemy from the outset; and Grey had initiated a policy that would inevitably lead to war in the form it then took.

To claim, in view of what Grey did, that Grey failed to maintain the peace merely because Germany did not want it, is reprehensibly dishonest, precisely because it is as effective as possible at misleading the world by emphasizing a truth that is both self-evident and meaningless. For it is certainly clear that England, and probably France and even Russia, would have preferred peace to war if it could have been avoided through diplomatic channels, in order to push Germany and Austria-Hungary down to political insignificance in the face of the Entente and to bring about their submission to the Entente's will to power. What matters is not whether Grey wanted peace or war, but how he positioned himself in relation to the claims of those powers at the outbreak of war that are England's allies in the war. And Ruchti proves that Grey's actions were such that the war was inevitable. It is certainly permissible to add to Ruchti's evidence here that Grey himself did not want to push for war, but that he is a weakling who was pushed into his actions by others. But that does not change the historical assessment of his actions.

Ruchti succeeds in proving that Grey's diplomatic actions do not give him the slightest claim to claim that he did anything to prevent the war. But the Swiss historian also succeeds in showing that the English statesmen conducted themselves in the negotiations with Germany in such a way that the breach of neutrality with respect to Belgium was presented to them as a reason for war that they could have avoided if they had responded to certain German overtures. But they needed this reason for war in order to make it acceptable to their people, who could not be brought to war because of Serbia and because of Russia's European claims. This popular persuasion also required a forgery, which Ruchti proves in the English White Paper. By means of false dates in a correspondence that Grey had conducted, the English people were to be shown how peace-loving France had been invaded by Germany. The falsification of dates was intended to create the impression that Germany had attacked France much earlier than was actually the case. Furthermore, in his war speech of August 6, 1914, Asquith simply failed to mention the decisive negotiations with Germany, with the same success in deceiving the people.

After objectively weighing all these facts, Ruchti forms an opinion that justifies him in presenting the so-called peace efforts of the English statesmen as an untruthful legend and even in showing the forces driving them towards war. At the end, Ruchti utters the momentous words: “History cannot be falsified in the long run, the legend cannot stand up to scientific research, the dark fabric is brought to light and torn, no matter how artfully and finely it was spun.” But for the time being, the Entente is still trying to pass off this dark web as a means of justifying its dark warlike activities to the world as a necessity of civilization and the noblest humanity.

The colored booklet of the Waldorf-Astoria, Stuttgart, no year, no. 29 [1918]; also in: Through the spirit to the realization of the reality of the human riddle, Berlin, no year.

The following fairy-tale pictures came about when I felt compelled in my dramas to have characters say things that, as experiences of the soul, would immediately lose their essence if they were to be expressed in any other way than in such pictures. It seems to me that they can be taken out of the dramas and accepted as such pictures in their own right. For what is painted in these pictures can occur as an inner experience in every human soul. I have found people who found the fairy tales “difficult to understand”. I believe that they only feel this way if they lack the childlikeness of mind that a soul should retain through all ages in order to experience in certain hours that which “no mind of the reasonable” can experience in its true form. But I also believe that anyone who wants to interpret them rationally does not understand what is meant in the pictures. I myself, as they were presented to my soul, felt nothing but the content of the pictures in my soul. It was far from my mind to embody a “deeper meaning” that should be understood as something different from what the pictures say through them. But I do believe that certain secrets, which are contained in the life of nature and the human world, reveal themselves to the soul only when the soul has the sense to behold them in such images. Such secrets elude the human mind when it seeks to capture them in concepts. But they surrender to the intuitive perception that comes to life in the image.

Rudolf Steiner.

The colored booklet of the Waldorf-Astoria, Stuttgart n.d. [1918], No. 31; also in: Through the Spirit to the Realization of the Human Mystery, Berlin [1918]

The following two scenes belong to the last of four interrelated dramas that depict the experiences of people undergoing an inner psychological development. These four dramas are: 1. The Portal of Initiation; 2. The Test of the Soul; 3. The Guardian of the Threshold; 4. The Awakening of the Soul (all published by Philosophisch-anthroposophischen Verlag, Berlin W., Motzstr. 17). This development should lead them to a living insight into the spiritual world and to permeating their will with the ideals of this world. The experiences they undergo on the way to this goal are manifold. Among these experiences, there are also those in which they see in pictures people from earlier ages of culture striving towards the same goal under different circumstances. These are people in whom they recognize their own being, their soul qualities, and the direction of their will. They can recognize from the destinies of these people the difficulties and obstacles that such striving encounters. By recognizing themselves in these people, they find the strength to continue on their path. They feel integrated with the whole spiritual development of humanity through their own being. They can see how that which is currently working in their soul has worked in other times. They learn to understand how it must reveal itself now, by becoming a repetition and consequence of what was revealed in times gone by. The two dramatic pictures printed here present the souls looking back to an earlier cultural age. The Egyptian cultural age, already in decline, is to be visualized. The 'sacrificer' who appears recognizes that a new era must dawn. The other guides at the wisdom site insist on the traditional forms. They want to introduce a disciple to the experience of the spiritual world in the sense of these forms. It does not matter to them whether this disciple is truly mature, but rather that their forms should live on. The “sacrificial way” thwarts their efforts by revealing the immaturity of the disciple through his behavior, which is guided by higher goals. In doing so, he brings about a pictorial event that shows how the doomed culture must be replaced by a new one.

Rudolf Steiner.

for eurythmic performances for pianoforte for two hands, composed by Leopold van der Pals, Berlin 1918

Mr. van der Pals conceived the musical “preludes”, which are presented in the following pages, as accompaniments to a particular type of eurythmic performance. This type of eurythmy is initially cultivated within a closed circle, but it is expanding. It originated from the fact that several years ago a lady (Mrs. Smits) asked me whether a more serious form of dance art could be realized. Something developed from the kindness of this request, which, however, has little to do with what one is accustomed to calling “dance art”. What the aforementioned circle practices as eurythmy can perhaps be characterized in the following way. In human speech, the larynx and its neighboring organs are in motion, which can be grasped through intuitive knowledge. Those who have truly penetrated Goethe's metamorphic view can attempt to transfer it from the realm of forms to that of the organism's movements. According to this view, an organ or organ context is the result of the transformation of another organ or organ context. But an entire organism can also be thought of as the metamorphosis of one of its members. Extended to the movements of the human organism, this view results in such movements that embody a spoken or musical thought through the whole human being, just as word and tone are artistically embodied through the larynx and its neighboring organs. When such a eurythmy is practised, one is dealing with an art of movement in the human organism that leaves aside all pantomime, all mere gestures and movements, and replaces them with a natural context that has been elevated to an artistic one. Through this art of movement, the whole human being accomplishes what, in the natural order, the larynx and the organs that unite with it to form words and sounds accomplish. Anyone who takes Ernst's view of Goethe, as expressed in the sentence, “Style is based on the deepest foundations of knowledge, on the essence of things, insofar as we are allowed to recognize it in visible and tangible forms,” will come to the possibility of seeking art in this way. When attempting to realize a very limited field of art, one should certainly not refer directly to a comprehensive idea for its characterization; but one may perhaps point out that the feelings that guide such an attempt are in line with those that Goethe asserted for artistic creation. Goethe saw art as a continuation of nature, “for in that man is placed at the summit of nature, he sees himself again as a whole nature, which in turn has to produce a summit. To do this, he rises to the level of permeating himself with all perfection and virtue, invoking choice, order, harmony and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art (Goethe in the book on Winckelmann).

The eurythmy described here is based on such perceptions. What can be intuitively recognized as the impulse of the larynx and the organs that work together with it is transferred in a lawful way to the movements of the whole human organism. In addition, there are forms of movement of this organism in space, and forms that arise through the interaction of a number of people. These movements are a spatial image of everything that animates the formation of words and sounds as emotional content, rhythm, verse construction, etc. If everything that is striven for in this way is only just beginning to be present in the circle mentioned, it may perhaps be seen as the beginning of a movement art based on possible sensations, which promises a fruitful continuation.

On the one hand, this eurythmy is connected to the art of recitation. What resounds in recitation — not the content of the thoughts as such, but the artistic content — comes to manifestation through the changing movements of the human organism and through group forms and group movements in space. From the basic view, it follows that this manifestation is not an arbitrary visualization, but should work in the sense of a work of art that has its own inherent laws, like a musical work of art. In the field of a kind of collaboration between the art of movement and recitation, Marie Steiner has taken over the direction of what has been attempted within the circle mentioned above.

Another aspect, the mood and other musical elements that permeate the performances, are embodied in the following compositions by Mr. van der Pals. The composer has fully adapted to the artistic laws of eurythmy. At the beginning, in the course of certain parts, at the end of a eurythmy piece, these 'preludes' are performed in connection with movements that correspond to the music as well as to the recitation that follows or precedes it. It may well be said that the personalities involved in eurythmy know that they owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. van der Pals. For through his musical assistance, he has had a most significant stimulating and invigorating effect on the art of eurythmy. It is therefore with great satisfaction that this group of individuals is undertaking the publication of van der Pals' compositions. They will give an idea of how this eurythmy will be connected to music in the future. So far, more has been done with a connection after the recitation of the beginning. But there is the possibility to bring the intended art of movement to the musical as closely as to the art of recitation.

Rudolf Steiner.

A contribution to the history of the world war and to an understanding of true Freemasonry, Basel 1919.

The insights that lead to an understanding of the great world catastrophe that befell us in 1914 must be sought in the most diverse areas of international and human life. The area that was considered to be the actual political area until that point in time contains only one of the currents that converged to bring about the devastating event. The thoughts that led to the confusion of July 1914 were joined by many other thoughts that had been seething for a long time, thoughts that poured in the forces that divided humanity. This book describes only one of the currents in question. The reader may decide to what extent it is important to direct the searching gaze to this current, to whom in the following, some factual material is to be presented, which can prove how certain secret societies of the Entente countries and their lodges turned an originally good and necessary cause into the service of national egoism and the selfish interests of individual groups of people. A cause that should serve all of humanity, without distinction of race or interest, turns from a good one to a bad one when it becomes the basis of power for certain groups of people. The foundations of certain insights were used by secret societies of the Entente countries to drive a political ideology and influence world events, preparing the world for catastrophe. It would be one-sided not to take into account that many other things have emerged from the places of origin of such attitudes and influences. The book that is hereby presented to the public does not comprehensively deal with the “guilt of world war”; but it wants to draw attention to things in which the one who wants to find this “guilt” must also look. And anyone who does this will have to combine what he finds here with many other things. But it should follow from the factual reports presented that anyone who, when searching for this “guilt”, which should better be called a search for determining causes, does not direct his attention in the direction indicated below, will ignore an important aspect.

Zurich, October 10, 1918.

Announcement for the book trade 1919

In this book, the social question is treated on the basis of the real life demands of the present and in view of the historical world situation revealed in the loudly spoken facts. Any utopian character is avoided and only possible solutions are discussed that lie in the realm of the immediately possible. For the author, the social question is an economic, legal and spiritual question; he seeks to approach it from all sides through this three-pronged approach. He believes that the only way out of the current turmoil is to recognize what is really needed for human development. The world catastrophe teaches us that we should also find the courage and strength to come up with ideas that break with tradition in the broadest sense. Anyone who reads this book and only wants to find long-standing customs in it will hardly get what they want. Those who want to read about the living conditions of the social future of humanity will find much.

Counterstatement in: Threefolding of the Social Organism, vol. 1, no. 27

A large part of the German press is reporting that Dr. Rudolf Steiner and the Federation for Threefolding are associated with Bolshevism and Communism. At the same time, “he is ascertaining the names of all officers allegedly active in a reactionary sense and collecting material against them regarding actions that violate international law on the basis of witness statements, which is then to be sent to the Entente for extradition.”

In response to this, we note that this message contains a slanderous untruth in every sentence and that the accusation of association with Bolshevism is a real absurdity that is easily recognized by anyone who is impartial as a transparent machination. The alleged letter from Dr. Steiner or the Bund is also included as evidence.

The Federation was brought into being in April 1919 in response to Dr. Rudolf Steiner's public appeal 'To the German People and to the Cultural World'. Since its inception, it has been concerned exclusively with the public dissemination of the ideas set forth in Rudolf Steiner's fundamental book “The Core Points of the Social Question”, and works without the support of any party, solely in the interests of healthy social development.

Stuttgart, January 6, 1920. Dr. Rudolf Steiner. Federation for the Threefold Social Organism. Prof. Dr. v. Blume, Kühn, Leinhas, Kommerzien-Rat Molt, Dr. Unger.

on Vladimir Solovyov: Twelve lectures on the God-humanity, Stuttgart 1921

Anyone approaching Solovyov with Western or Central European concepts of the world and humanity and wanting to relive his worldview will feel as if they are in unsafe emotional waters. They have to find their way into ideas and contexts that are foreign to them. Ideas that discussions of worldviews with which he is familiar do not lead him to. You only need to let some of Solovyov's ideas approach you, and you will immediately experience this. Take the ideas of “grace,” “sin,” and the way the Russian thinker talks about the “experience of Christ.”

But Solovyov speaks in the terms of a philosopher educated on Kant, Schelling, Hegel, the modern positivists and natural science. He not only speaks differently in these terms than Western and Central European thinkers; he also talks about different things.

This otherness can be found by reading Scotus Erigena. The content and state of mind of this ninth-century thinker lives on in Solovyov. And in Solovyov it is steeped in an inner warmth that is no longer found in Scotus Erigena, but must have been present in his predecessors. And so, when reading Solovyov, one can feel transported back to the time of the development of the Christian worldview from the fourth to the eighth century. The spirit of modern European concepts is spread over everything that Solovyov's soul experience becomes for the reader as a result of this development.

In Western and Central Europe, too, one can still find thinkers of Solovyov's soul condition. Anyone who reads Willmann's important “History of Idealism” will feel this. But with such a thinker, something else prevails. He is burdened with all the nuances of concepts that arise from the rejection of Locke-Hume and Kantian-Protestant thinking. His soul is burdened by the intellectual experiences that Europe has undergone since the tenth century. This is not the case with Solovyov. He uses modern philosophical ideas as a tool of thought, but he lives untouched by those experiences of thought in the state of mind that still resonates with Scotus Erigena, but which in his case has already passed over into the coldness of abstract thought.

Ideas such as “sin”, “grace” and the “experience of Christ” appear in both Solovyov and Scotus. As a result, his idea of “nature” is also similar to that of the ancient philosopher. His concept of “nature” is different from that of Western and Central European thinkers. For them, “nature” is a much more comprehensive concept that is based on the results of observation, experiment and intellectual consideration. Everything that is thought about man and his relationship to the world must be incorporated into this concept. By reflecting on human soul experiences, one arrives at ideas about the way in which nature continues to develop in man. But one cannot arrive at the concepts of “grace” and “sin” through straight-line progressive thinking. If one wants to speak of these, then one must seek their origin in the purely ideal sphere of human consciousness. And if one wants to ascribe an objective meaning to them, then one must seek it in a world of which one is convinced in a different way than of the natural world. One must resort to a belief in addition to the knowledge of natural knowledge. From the knowledge one can form ideas about “perceiving”, “sensing”, “comprehending”; one can speak of a causation of “will” through thoughts; but one cannot say that “grace effects” take place in the human soul life. For these presuppose that, in addition to the natural world, there is an objective spiritual world in which man knows himself to be as in the world of air or weather.

Nor can the concept of “sin” be found in the series of concepts of nature. For, objectively conceived, “sin” is man's submergence in the natural order. In avoiding sin, man breaks away from the natural order, not merely to fit into an ideal order, but to fit into an objective spiritual order.

In Solovyov there lives a concept of nature that makes the ascent to such spiritual concepts possible. In Scotus too, the concepts of grace and sin are such that there is no gaping abyss between them and the concept of nature.

With the “Christ experience”, however, one enters a different realm. But in relation to Solovyov's attitude to the European state of mind, a similar thing applies. Within the Western and Central European view of life, the human being can sense within himself a spiritual foundation of the world order. He can say to himself: I am pointed to a divine in all of nature. This divine is then that which is called the “Father” in the religious creeds. But modern religious life does not provide any inner motives for progressing from this Father principle to the Christ. People who speak of the inner Christ experience on the basis of this experience actually only have the Father experience. They then relate the sense of the divine to the Jesus of historical tradition or dogma. But the actual inner experience they have in doing so cannot be distinguished from the experience of the general Deity, the Father-God. For such Christians, any possibility of gaining an understanding of the relationship between the Father and the Son through knowledge is lost. It is quite understandable that modern theology has arrived at the point of seeing Jesus only as the bearer of the doctrine of the Father, that it takes the Gospel as a revelation about the Father through Jesus, no longer as a message about the nature of the Son. For Solovyov these things are quite different. For him there is a Christ experience so strictly separated from the Father experience that he, like the Christian Fathers of old, can philosophize about whether the Son has an essence with the Father or not. Such philosophical discussions are not in line with the path that leads from the newer philosophical worldviews into the realm of the spiritual world. In Solovyov's work, the philosopher speaks about these things in the conceptual language of the nineteenth century.

What lives in the human community through Christ is for Solovyov just as much an objective reality as what lives through gravity. In his state of mind, the power of Christ is no different than gravity. This is something else that can still be found in Western Europe in Scotus, but which can no longer be viewed in this way. For Soloviev, the Christ is a Being directly present in the whole of humanity. What He speaks in human souls must become the starting point for social structures. These structures have a right to exist only if Christ lives in them as the invisible ruler.

The historical development of Christian culture comes to life in the soul when a Westerner or Central European studies Solovyov. In him, the first centuries of Christianity come to life in a contemporary who is also philosophically at the height of the nineteenth century. And his world view radiates a wonderful warmth of soul. Philosophy has the effect of religious contemplation; religion has the effect of philosophy experienced in the soul. Russia and Europe in the nineteenth century appear in Solovyov's works as in a mirror of the mind. In Solovyov one feels a spiritual light that shone in earlier centuries and that has faded for Europe. One senses how the first Christian impulses were preserved in the East and how they progressed in the West, but at the same time fell into abstract coldness. One must think about how the thinking of the East and West can mutually enrich each other, and how something higher can arise from this enrichment in relation to both.

Solovyov, as a man of the East, speaks in terms that are more flexible and alive than those of a Western thinker. But at the same time he points the way to greater flexibility of thought. For he is a modern philosopher, but at the same time a sage in terms of ancient concepts.

In all this there is something that makes Solovyov a highly important personality for our present time in the West and in Central Europe.

With these remarks I did not want to give an exhaustive characterization of Solovyov; nothing that claims to treat him as a “thinker”. I only wanted to say what I felt about the treatises that I was able to get to know from him. How little it can be exhaustive, how much it is a very personal judgment, I feel from the fact that he has written a lot that I could not get to know.

Rudolf Steiner.