The Rudolf Steiner Archive

So, my dear friends, we have finally come to the end of our meeting, but we can highlight one fact in all of this. You see, my dear Theosophical friends, something extraordinarily important seems to have taken place. One might ask: Was it a general assembly? What was it actually? When it is talked about later, it will be said, “Once upon a time...” — just as it is said in fairy tales. We were still members of the Theosophical Society in Adyar when we arrived here, but now we are no longer members. Something earth-shattering seems to have happened, but in terms of the matter, one has not actually noticed it. We are again diverging in terms of the matter, as we used to diverge, and precisely this fact, that we can do that, that we do that, is a very important one. Perhaps this does testify to how serious we were about the spiritual, about the cultivation of spiritual culture, about the content of our cause; and if we were serious about that, no form will break this content, but this content will seek its new form if the old one is challenged.

As for myself, my dear Theosophical friends, I must confess that, with regard to the external events that have occurred, I have been so touched by the matter that I must say again: things actually only differ in degree. You see, Mrs. Besant has found it necessary to make the claim, which defies all facts, that I was educated in a Jesuit school. It is so that one must take it seriously, because it is a very strong accusation in the present, and effective if it were believed in relation to the inner, to the hateful motives.

And with regard to the other underlying motives of Mrs. Besant, I find only a slight difference compared to another accusation that came across my eyes, from a letter that is one of a whole series of letters. I received a letter from Hamburg in which a lady writes that she had always been persuaded not to go to the lectures, but now she had seen for herself, because before she never went because a pastor had said that I was a Satan. I have not yet read the other letters, but there is one coming every day, sometimes two. Shortly before the lecture here in this hall, a letter was brought to me – I should definitely read it before the lecture. In the letter, a lady wrote to me that she had heard some of my lectures that she liked. But now she looked me up in the dictionary of writers to find out how old I actually am, and she discovered that I carefully dye my hair, because people my age don't have black hair anymore! So she can't come to my lectures anymore, because it would be outrageous and speak to the prevalence of such a thing.

You hear all kinds of things and finally, the accusations are to be distinguished according to the motives for how they are made effective. The motives are human, all too human, whether one or the other makes them, whether one is accused by Mrs. Besant of having been educated in a Jesuit school or by another lady because of something else. That's how people act. There are many more stories I could tell.

Something that really did meet with the enthusiastic support of our friends – the printing of the cycles – is also being made the target of attacks. I am being reproached for the fact that it says: “According to a postscript not checked by the speaker.” But there is a very simple reason for this; I don't have time to check the postscripts. They would never see the light of day if I had to read them first. The person concerned says: He – Dr. Steiner – has not looked at the matter, so he always leaves himself a back door open if he were to be caught making mistakes.

In this way, one can suspect everything, while we have really only taken into account the energetic wishes of the members. We are dealing with serious, profound, and meaningful things, and so we must be able to fully distinguish between what is a serious and sacred matter and what is an external form, and we must not sleep and believe that we can always dream and talk about the content to get ahead. The worst things could happen to us if we were not on guard, if we did not take into account the need to remain vigilant. And in this respect, I was also able to tie in with what Dr. Peipers said today, the word about keeping watch. There is also a productive way of keeping watch. That is in our nature and not in that of our opponents.

I hope that we will part peacefully, with the feeling that we will remain united intellectually.

Goodbye!

Wilhelmstraße 92/93, House of Architects

Report in the “Mitteilungen für die Mitglieder der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft (Theosophischen Gesellschaft), herausgegeben von Mathilde Scholl”, No. 6/1914

At 10:30 a.m., Fräulein von Sivers opens the General Assembly with the following words:

My dear friends! On behalf of the Executive Council, I warmly welcome you to the second General Assembly, the first ordinary General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society! For as long as we have held general meetings of the Theosophical Society, it has been customary for the General Secretary of the Theosophical Society to also chair the general meeting. However, it is the right of the general meeting to elect the chair. On behalf of the board, I propose that Dr. Steiner be elected to chair this general meeting. I ask you to vote on whether you agree to this.

The meeting unanimously accepts this proposal.

Dr. Steiner: My dear Theosophical friends! We are gathered here for the first time in a regular General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, and it is my duty to greet you most warmly and to express my joy at the large number of you who have come. I would also like to express the hope that this first General Assembly of our Society will be fruitful in all respects. My dear friends, you have surely brought with you hearts filled with an anthroposophical spirit for this day, hearts throbbing with the enthusiasm that is necessary if a spiritual current is to be brought into existence in the world, a spiritual current like ours, which can certainly, without being guilty of the slightest exaggeration, be said to have to be born in pain. And from the many antecedents that have befallen us in recent times, it will indeed become clear that we have a great need to approach our task with great seriousness and a certain urgency at this time.

Before I try to continue the train of thought that I have stimulated with a few words, I would like to dedicate the word to those who have left the physical plane since we last gathered here and, as members of our movement, which is so close to our hearts, now look down on our work from the spiritual world. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize once again that those who have passed away from the physical plane will continue to be considered our members in the most beautiful sense of the word, and that we will feel united with them as we did when we were still able to greet them on this or that occasion on the physical plane.

First of all, we would like to remember an old theosophical personality, old in the sense that she was connected with what we call true, genuine theosophical life for the longest time of most of our ranks, Baroness Eveline von Hoffmann. She is one of those who have imbued their entire being and active will with what we call the theosophical attitude. Many have come to appreciate the deeply loving heart of this woman, if only because they have felt infinite strength flowing from this heart in times of suffering and adversity. Although little of this became known to the outside world, Mrs. von Hoffmann was a loyal and self-sacrificing helper to many. And we may consider it a particularly valuable thing that she, who had been involved in theosophical development for a long time, was last in our midst. And with her dear daughter, who is still with us, we will keep the memory of this loving, loyal, and helpful woman, who wants to be united with her in the spiritual world.

I also have to remember some old members who left us for the physical plane this year. I have to mention our dear old friend Edmund Eggert in Düsseldorf. If some of us perhaps know the great inner difficulties that our friend had to struggle with, the heroic strength with which he became involved in what we call our spiritual current, then those who knew the good, dear man will certainly join me in making unceasing efforts to continue to be loyal friends of our dear Eggert in the spiritual worlds. And those of the dear friends who hear this, what I say from a troubled heart, will faithfully send their thoughts to the one who has passed from the physical plane.

I also have to remember a dear, loyal member, a member who always gave us sincere, heartfelt joy when we were able to see her in our midst time and again, our dear Mrs. van Dam-Nieuwenhuisen from Nijmegen, who left the physical plane this last time, and who certainly was one of the most beloved personalities among those who were her close friends, who worked faithfully for our cause as long as we knew her, who in particular also did a great deal to ensure that our cause was appropriately represented among our Dutch friends.

I must also mention a loyal, if perhaps quieter member, who always gave me great joy when I was able to see her in the circle of our dear Nuremberg friends, Fräulein Sophie Ifftner. She was much appreciated in the circle of our Nuremberg friends, who will ensure that the way is created through their feelings so that we will always find her when we seek her in the spiritual worlds.

I would also like to mention another faithful friend who has been active within the circle of our worldview for many years. She has been tragically recalled from the physical plane to the spiritual worlds. I would like to mention one of those to whom she has become dear and precious, and who want to be and remain with her in their thoughts, Miss Frieda Kurze.

I would also like to mention our Julius Bittmann, who was torn away from his dear family and from us, until his last difficult days, the fixed point of his inner life, despite difficult external circumstances, in what we call Theosophy. It was a deep joy for me to be able to spend the evening before the death of our dear Bittmann at his side once more, and I am sure that those of our friends who were closer to this man will not fail to form the path here as well, on which the theosophical thoughts unite us with the friend in the spiritual world.

I must also mention Jakob Knotts in Munich, who was a man who, after all his various struggles in life, finally found his firm support and his definite point of reference in Theosophy, so that his friends will be his mediators in the same way.

I must also mention another friend who left the physical plane during this period. Mr. Eduard Zalbin, who had come to us from Holland, was sadly mourned by his wife and children when we saw him depart from the physical plane through a quick death. Shortly before this occurred, Zalbin was still at our last general assembly, and his departure from the physical plane had to be pointed out there.

I would like to remember an old friend of the Stuttgart Lodge, who had organized her innermost life in such a way that she associated everything she thought with Theosophy, and who will now certainly be surrounded by the thoughts of all those who knew her, Miss Duttenhofer.

I must also mention Miss Oda Wallers, who we felt was connected to our cause with all her soul, for a long time. She was one of those souls who was as loyal to the cause as a human soul on earth can be, so loyal that we not only saw this soul depart from the physical plane with deep sorrow – a sorrow that does not need to be particularly emphasized in this case because all those who knew Miss Oda Waller knew her, felt it with the deepest sympathy – but at the same time we looked up to her in the spiritual world with the most beautiful hopes, with those hopes that are justified in the case of such a faithful soul, who, like Oda Waller, has firmly established in her heart to remain connected to the theosophical cause for all time. There will be more than a few who, united with their dear sister Mieta Waller, will be in heartfelt contact with our dear Miss Oda Waller.

I have to remember our Munich friend Georg Kollnberger. Those who knew him will be our mediators when we reflect on him with our feelings and emotions.

I have to remember a dear friend in Bonn who left the physical plane not so long ago, Miss Marie von Schmid. Those who knew her feel deeply how closely connected Miss von Schmid's soul was to the spiritual life. Those who felt a close connection with Miss von Schmid, a soul so open to the spiritual life, have lost a great deal, as have those who felt a close connection with an outwardly shy and withdrawn nature. It is so pleasant to meet such a nature in life. Precisely because she was so reserved, we got to know her so little. Those who knew her understand what I mean by these words.

We have to remember a member who, in terms of his physical strength, was unfortunately taken from us all too soon, a man who was happy to put his physical strength at the service of our cause, but who will also be an esteemed member in the form in which he is now connected to us, Mr. Otto Flamme in Hannover.

I must also remember our friend Fräulein Munch, who was found in the circle of our Nordic friends in our midst, and who, after a long, heroically endured illness, despite the most careful and loving care, finally had to leave the physical plane. Perhaps those who were closest to her will have the most understanding for what I would like to say about this soul, when we consider how she clung to the theosophical cause, I would say with inner strength, and passed through the gate of death with it.

I would also like to mention a friend who had also become acquainted with our friends in Berlin and who, after long and severe suffering, has recently left the physical plane. She was fully aglow with the yearning to implement in practical life on the physical plane what shone so beautifully for her heart and soul. We are sure that she will now continue her work in other places in a way that we also assume for our dear friend Flamme from Hannover.

All those who have passed away, as well as those who have become less well known in the circles of our members, we remember in this solemn hour: Mr. Brizio Aluigi from Milan, Mrs. Julie Neumann from Dresden, Mrs. Emmy Etwein from Cologne, Mrs. E. Harrold from Manchester, and we affirm that we sense, we want to live with them in thought – with these dear departed members, who, after all, have only changed the form of their way of life for us – that we want to surround them with the forces and thoughts with which we are accustomed to connecting with those friends who have left the physical plane; we affirm this will and remembrance by rising from our seats.

Dr. Steiner continues:

My dear friends!

First of all, I have to read out some letters that have been sent to the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society.

To the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society. On behalf of the Swedish members, we send our fraternal greetings and wish that the coming year may bring good success for our spiritual striving. We also express our heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Steiner, Miss von Sivers and our German brothers and sisters for all that we have received in the past year.

Stockholm, January 15, 1914.
The board: Gustav Kinell, Gustaf Ljungquist,
Anna Wager Gunnarsson.

Zwolle, January 17, 1914.
Zwolle working group sends warm greetings and best wishes for the meeting.
[Gaston] Polak.

Prague, January 17, 1914.

The Prague working group sends its warmest greetings to the assembled members and asks the holy protecting powers to help us all so that we may work together to bring about a vibrant and harmonious development and prosperity of the high teachings and revelations entrusted to us. May our Society remain inwardly healthy and strong, and may it continue to be a spiritual brotherhood that brings help, consolation and blessing to all people for a long time.

Ptikryl

I am sure that you will all accept these very warm greetings with thanks.

My dear friends!

Perhaps I may, in accordance with the custom of earlier years, say something in advance to this assembly; something that is really meant not otherwise than as a kind of greeting from the bottom of my heart to your hearts and souls, a greeting that I feel so deeply this year because we are united in this way for the first time within our Anthroposophical Society. For in a sense, the constituent assembly that we had to hold last year was what we had to hold. But only this year have we been able to see how many souls want to walk with us. And it shows itself to us through your extraordinarily large attendance. Perhaps it is right, at the very point of origin of our anthroposophical endeavors, to bring ourselves face to face with what we actually want to be with our goals and endeavors. When we turn to these goals and endeavors with our thoughts, two feelings must prevail in our souls, side by side, for they can hardly go hand in hand. One is a deep awareness of the necessity and importance of the spiritual life, to which we want to be devoted in our time with seriousness and loyalty, a feeling that must be connected with the earnest desire and the striving for sufficient energy to participate in what can deepen our time spiritually. The other sentiment that must go hand in hand with the first is what one would call, not wanting to be sentimental, but precisely in order to express something quite serious: the humblest modesty. Only in the humblest modesty and in the feeling of our inability to accomplish the great task can the necessary counter-image be created in our souls to what could so easily lead to an overestimation of ourselves and to pride. Because that is precisely the most important thing: the seriousness, the importance and the dignity of spiritual striving on the one hand; on the other hand, we can only advance in the right way on the path we have chosen in the most humble modesty towards our inability. And, my dear friends, if I may now pick up on the first thought that was expressed, we must never lose sight of the need for true and honest spiritual striving in our present time.

What I would like to tell you, I must summarize here in a few words. But there are some things I do not want to leave unspoken. What is connected with the serious feelings is what must make us attentive to the whole course of the spiritual life of our time in the broadest sense. In particular, this makes it my task time and again to point out, in a way that I certainly do not seek from a different point of view, these or those other spiritual currents, which should truly not be fought in a superficial way, but only to show how little they are suited to meet the deep, serious longings of the souls of our time. But people do not yet know about most of the deep longings that are present in the souls. Unconsciously, they rest in the depths of the souls. But the spiritual scientist tries to dive down into these depths of the soul. He knows how necessary it is to make progress in this area and to integrate spiritual science into the currents of life as far as possible. People today do not always admit that there is something in the depths of the soul like the call for these spiritual necessities. But anyone who clearly sees in the eye of the mind what souls strive for without knowing it in their innermost being can find this silent, silent call for spiritual life everywhere. And this call becomes a duty in our soul: to work together on spiritual work in order to make progress in this area.

One symptom is shown of how these or those personalities fight us, how they refute us and describe the things that come to our attention through our teaching as fantastic and unscientific. Sometimes, however, they give themselves away in the way they reject something, and by rejecting us they show that in fact they agree with us at the deepest level. Perhaps one of the most daring assertions that I have often made is that the materialism of our time, the monism in [contemporary] intellectual life, is based on fear. I have had to experience it that people from the audience, especially after such statements, approached me after the lecture and were horrified by such a grotesque assertion. I will not mention any names, I will only mention one man who has already achieved a great deal for our present intellectual life, who bears a revered name in connection with the name of our great Schiller, Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm, who belongs to the descendants of Friedrich Schiller, and who has already achieved a great deal. I will quote his words, which—one might perhaps call it “coincidence” if one were not a theosophist—yesterday “karma” delivered to my desk:

Balzac once dared to express the wish that a professorship in occultism would be established at the University of Paris. Such a professorship, however, is not about to be established, nor is the laboratory for the purpose of researching occult things, which Schrenck-Notzing presents as a desideratum. Even today, most people, and not only the devoutly religious, feel uneasy, afraid, horrified, and physically and psychologically repelled by any study of such things. This is usually only manifested in attempts to ridicule these things and to deny their reality. It is what Madame de Staël so beautifully calls 'Le côté nocturne de notre nature', and hand on heart: we are all afraid in this nocturnal darkness.

Please pay particular attention to these words: “We are all afraid.” Here you have expressed the opposite point of view to our own, which has been expressed again and again as a result of decades of research: that all clinging to materialism arises out of fear. So, sometimes people betray themselves by saying things that show how right we are with our views. We hear, when people betray themselves, especially when they put their hand on their heart, affirmations such as: “We are all afraid in this nocturnal darkness...”. One must look at what is going on between the lines of present life. Then one will feel the justification that is emphasized by the necessity of our spiritual work.

And, my dear friends, however slowly it may proceed, we do see fruits that show us how what is sought in spiritual heights can be implemented in practical life. I would remind you of a saying that I have taken the liberty of saying and writing often in the course of the striving of our German Section: on the one hand, our task is to search for the secrets of the spiritual worlds, to make that which we can explore , to make it our spiritual heritage and to care for it among those who belong to us; on the other hand, our task is to make fruitful in the right way what we are exploring in the spiritual life in our lives, wherever we can. And we see fruits in this respect too - I would like to mention just one symptom. Souls are maturing in our midst who, we may say, are willing to carry into the place in life where they are placed, what can be won on our ground, even outside the circle of our Anthroposophical Society. Among many beautiful phenomena, let me mention one because it was deeply satisfying for me. Our young friend Karl Stockmeyer wrote a significant essay in a journal for the Baden school system about the impossibility and impracticality of what is being striven for from many sides: to use the cinematograph to teach mathematics in schools. It is wonderful to be able to guide the soul along such paths through the problems of life, where something can be gained if one engages with the way we have to approach the matter. This is exemplified by our dear young friend Karl Stockmeyer, who in such a modest way allows what has become his to be exemplary for what is meant when I have repeatedly said and written: In addition to cultivating the wisdom treasures, one should also make practical use in life of what we can gain in our souls from these wisdom treasures. I would like to sincerely request that as many of our friends as possible familiarize themselves with the unpretentious but very valuable essay.

I always want to speak only symptomatically about such things, I want to speak so that it can be seen from the example how the things are meant. What we strive for from spiritual heights can be fruitfully applied in the particular. So when we try to bridge the gap between our spiritual values and the demands of practical life, we will gain the opportunity in many ways to let real theosophical-spiritual striving, anthroposophical spiritual life, flow into the life of the present. And such a task we have, we have a task! I would like to place all the emphasis I am capable of on this simple word: we have a task to carry into the world in a proper and correct way what we recognize as being right, what we are able to research.

The mood in the world is not one that makes such a task easy. There are people who call themselves theosophists and who have done much to tarnish the reputation of the name “theosophy”. All the more reason for us to take on this task when people who believe they are at the height of spiritual culture repeatedly condemn us for giving a bad name to theosophy. For example, in a German journal, 'Die Tat', Giuseppe Prezollini uses strange words. In a lengthy essay, he describes what he means by theosophy. He starts by talking about all kinds of philosophical schools and characterizes them - one might say - wittily. Then we have the following sentence:

Theosophy and spiritualism are becoming more popular and enjoying the increased attention that all cheap imitations receive when the real product rises in price. Of course, women are not missing either, because women go wherever the wind blows, and their presence is both a sign and the best guarantee of success.

My dear friends! It is symptomatic that such things are written by people who are taken very seriously in their field. We must really bear in mind that what presents itself to our soul as a duty, that we have to regard a sacred belt in such a way that we have to stand up for it. The direct transition is made in this essay from philosophical education to the university. I would like to make the transition to the German university.

All kinds of cheap books are appearing today. There is a collection; “Bildung der Gegenwart”; in it there is the following chapter on modern theosophy:

In Germany, the Theosophical Society in Leipzig (founded in 1897) is a center of the movement. It is a branch of the “International Theosophical Fraternity,” which considers its main purpose to be “to form a nucleus of a general brotherhood that spiritually encompasses all of humanity, without distinction of race, nationality, creed, class and sex, around which the theoretically already recognized ideas of universal human love and human brotherhood crystallize, and the highest ideals of humanity can be realized.

This direction particularly appreciates the writings of the former physician Franz Hartmann, who spent a long time in India with H. Blavatsky († 1912).

Rudolf Steiner can be considered the spiritual leader of another (more aristocratic) theosophical group based in Berlin. He draws particularly on Goethe and the Romantic period. He wants to give Germanic-Christian mysticism a modern form that will also stand up to the criticism of scientific thought. In contrast to the Buddhist disdain for our world of experience, which can easily lead to quietism, he values Christianity as a source of positive life-enhancement and a powerful way of shaping life. The existence of supersensible powers is a fact that can be grasped by direct, intuitive insight. He believes that everyone can acquire this ability of intuition through training. On the basis of such inspirational insight, he gives teachings on the cosmic development of the planets and the epochs of human history, which, however, descend into wild fantasies. (Prophecies of major events, especially of violent wars and other catastrophes, are also common in theosophical circles).

Steiner regards the soul, the actual “higher self”, as an immortal force that comes from the Godhead and returns to it. (This is reminiscent of the doctrine of the nus poetikos in Aristotle and his Arabic interpreters, cf. vol. I, p. 68, 109; vol. II, p. 4.) From here, Steiner arrives at the doctrine of the re-embodiment of the soul (to which Lessing and Goethe also tended, and which Schopenhauer, in line with Buddhism, advocates).

So now anyone can educate themselves about Theosophy for little money. But what is distressing is that this is in a treatise on the “History of German Philosophy from the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century to the Present”. What is distressing is that the man who writes this refers, for example, to something that I certainly never quoted as a source: a Buddhist catechism, a superficial compilation that no serious person can use. He goes on to quote the “Secret Doctrine”. But then he gives the sources from which he has informed himself; he mentions Hans Freimark's (!) “Moderne 'Theosophie” (1912). But that is not yet the distressing thing, because if an ordinary writer had done that, it would not have meant anything for our culture. But this is written by the full professor at the University of Giessen, Dr. Messer. We learn from it how official representatives of the highest intellectual life judge us. We must conclude: this is how men who teach our youth today write.

With such conscientiousness, a licensed professor of philosophy, an official representative of science, teaches himself about things. Is one not entitled to conclude from this: if this man writes and teaches about Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, how is our youth taught today?

I do not want to say anything against the views that Messer presents against Theosophy. It is not this opposing criticism that concerns me, but how the man who writes such things informs himself about the things. What value can his explanations of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc. have if this is how the man informs himself? How, then, did that which is currently being disseminated as “science” and so accommodatingly believed by many come about? Can one not see the bleakest of circumstances here!? I am not talking about the fact that Messer is our opponent; I am talking, independently of that, about the nature of his “scientific conscience.” The final sentence in Messer's account reads:

Undoubtedly valuable ethical and religious tendencies are at work in this Theosophical movement, but only critical reflection will be able to prevent it from lapsing entirely into arbitrary and fantastic enthusiasm.

Undoubtedly, there is sometimes good will and the belief that something is known associated with what today calls itself philosophy and the like. Nevertheless, it will take a great deal of serious and genuine spiritual striving to put the incredible arbitrariness and ignorance that is spreading today into the right perspective for our time. I do not wish to shrink from pointing this out in a fitting manner, in order to show how deeply significant what I understand by seriousness and dignity is, and how it must be taken if we want to help what we call our spiritual heritage today to find its appropriate place in the world. Those who know how I avoid saying such things on all other occasions will forgive me if I put these things in their proper light on this occasion, in order to show how things stand and what tasks we must take on.

My dear friends! If, on the one hand, we link these considerations to the feeling of how serious and necessary our task is, then on the other hand, we should never forget how incapable we are, how modest we must be, how we must know how little we are actually capable of in the face of our great task. I am convinced that those who understand me will always adhere to this most humble modesty. So we must endeavor to bring our spiritual knowledge to people in such a way that we never lose the most humble modesty. If we were to take pleasure in the fact that we are compelled to speak such words, if we were to let ourselves be carried away by a feeling of superiority for a moment, it would be bad for us. We do not want to do that! We want to strive for our spiritual good in all seriousness and dignity, but we want to do so in such a way that this striving is carried by the most humble modesty, and that we carefully keep every trace of self-esteem, every trace of arrogance, away from our souls. Let this, what Karma has brought me, let this be kept in mind. I did not seek out the symptoms; they forced themselves on me. I was obliged to take Messer's book in my hands because I am obliged to inform myself about these things at the moment when I am working on a philosophical book myself. In the same way, the journal 'Die Tat' was also sent to me. This is a social monthly for German culture. I bought this, as they say, by chance from a newsagent. I really wasn't looking for these things. But I want to avoid telling you something else that I found in the farthest reaches of my mind that was similar to what I've been describing. I'll leave it at that.

I wanted to address these words as a first greeting to your souls. I think it is the best greeting I can offer you, when I speak those words that also touch me deeply, and that can contribute to our being together in the right spirit in these days, and to give an impulse for what we decide in our souls for the Anthroposophical Society, if we all decide it in the right spirit.

We come to the second item on our agenda, the report of the members of the Executive Council.

Fräulein von Sivers: The membership movement is as follows: The total number of working groups and centers is 107; of these, 47 are in Germany and 60 in other countries. The number of new members is 3,702. Of these, 19 have died and 36 have left. The total number is therefore 3,647. Of these, 2,307 belong to the working groups in Germany.

Dr. Steiner: Does anyone wish to comment on this report? Since this is not the case, we will move on to the third item on the agenda, the financial report.

Mr. Seiler: The financial statements can be described as favorable, on the one hand because voluntary donations have been received, and on the other hand because two large items have ceased to apply, namely contributions to Adyar and contributions to congresses.

Cash report

The financial statements of the Anthroposophical Society from February 2, 1913 to August 31, 1913 are as follows [in Marks and Pfennigs]:

Dr. Steiner: Does anyone wish to comment on this financial report?

Mr. Tessmar: The meeting has just heard the figures that make up the final result. The two auditors commissioned to audit the books have done so and dutifully checked the accounts. It is to be said that we found everything to be correct and in order, and we can testify that the sum of 5,340 Marks 32 Pfennigs is deposited at the savings bank; the proof of this was presented to us. I would like to emphasize that this cash report covers the period from February to August 1913, and that this year was particularly difficult because three financial statements had to be prepared. The accounts have been properly and correctly prepared. I therefore take the liberty of proposing that the treasurer be granted discharge for the period from February to August.

Mr. Seiler: I would like to point out that a large number of members are unclear about the contributions. Each member has to pay five marks in entrance fees and at least six marks in annual dues. If a member belongs to a lodge or a group, they will be registered with us by the group. In this case, the group is then obliged to pay a contribution of three marks to the central fund. It is up to the individual lodges or groups to decide what contribution they charge their members. Members who do not belong to a group have to pay six marks to the central fund. The question has now arisen as to how much should be demanded from a regional group – foreign country, section. Basically, this issue is hardly acute, since the need for regional groups is hardly present. It only exists in one case. It has now been proposed to raise one mark from the members of such a regional group. At present, the dues for foreigners have been reduced to one mark to support the group. I would also like to mention that in previous years, the individual groups had to pay a fee for the charter diploma. A fee of ten marks was charged for these diplomas.

Dr. Steiner: Does anyone wish to comment on the financial report?

Fräulein Scholl: You have heard that it has been considered whether only one mark should be paid to the central fund by the individual lodges abroad for the member. However, as long as there are no national associations (no sections), there can be no reason for foreign lodges to pay only one mark in membership fees. This is simply for the reason of sending the “Mitteilungen”. In any case, it turned out that postage costs of around 80 to 100 marks had to be paid from Berlin for each issue. In 1913, seven issues were published, which resulted in additional postage costs of around 600 to 700 marks, a large portion of which was for shipments abroad. For the “Mitteilungen”, a standard rate, an annual contribution of at least two marks from each member, should also be levied. Relatively speaking, that is still very, very cheap, since a lot of the work is done for free. In other societies, much more is levied. I would like to propose levying two marks annually as a standard rate for the “Mitteilungen”.

Mrs. Geelmuyden: If it should be necessary to translate the “Mitteilungen” into foreign languages, then it might be appropriate to set the contribution so low. As long as we enjoy the same rights, it is only fair that we foreigners also bear the costs.

Mrs. von Ulrich: I would like to agree to change the membership fee and maybe make it an occult number, so that seven marks would have to be paid as a membership fee.

Mrs. van Hoek: I would like to ask whether sending the “Mitteilungen” would not be simplified by sending the “Mitteilungen” only in one package abroad, and then having the respective lodges take over the mailing to the individual members themselves?

Fräulein von Sivers: But in the future it will probably be even more necessary to address the mail personally to the individual members. The possibility has been created that a member belongs to several working groups: This also means a complication of the management. It will be necessary to start from a registry of personalities, not from branches, when sending messages and communications of any kind.

Mr. von Rainer: If I understand Mr. Seiler correctly, there are two types of members. Those who belong to a working group and those who do not belong to a working group, the latter pay six marks to the central fund. If Fräulein Scholl's proposal is accepted, each member who is directly connected to the headquarters would have to pay eight marks. I would like to propose that we accept Ms. Scholl's proposal. Each member is managed by the working group in which they pay.

Dr. Steiner: It would be a great help for the registry if each member were registered at the time of their registration and in all correspondence at the headquarters: “Member so-and-so, managed by working group so-and-so, belonging to working groups so-and-so.”

Fräulein Stinde: If we could call the working groups that are dedicated to specific studies study groups, then there would be no confusion. Dr. Steiner: But groups could also be formed that are not dedicated to a specific study. Perhaps we could just say “group” to indicate the difference. So let's note this for once, that we say “group” and call the others “working groups” to distinguish them.

Mr. Hubo: I would like to support Miss Scholl's proposal.

Miss von Sivers: Even if this proposal is accepted, the clause can remain in place that a reduction could be granted if necessary and at the request of the student.

Mr. Tessmar: Couldn't a conflict arise from the fact that it would be very difficult to account for the costs of sending the “Mitteilungen” in Mr. Seiler's account? Let's just drop the “Mitteilungen” and simply say: the contribution will be increased. That might be assumed. If the motion passes, then it must also be determined from when this increase should be introduced.

Mr. Meebold: But if one group claims the right to a discount, difficulties will easily arise. Our group in London would have nothing against an increase in dues. But they are doing it with sacrifices, and it will be more difficult for them to continue if other groups have discounts. The “Mitteilungen” thing isn't really fair, because the foreign members receive it in German.

Fräulein von Sivers: Perhaps the dues could just be increased by two marks for all German-speaking members.

Mr. Baster: I would like to ask whether it is necessary to increase the contribution at all, since the cash balance was quite favorable. One must not forget that individual lodges already have a lot to pay for. Could not those members who receive the “Mitteilungen” directly from headquarters contribute to this?

Fräulein von Sivers: I would like to point out that we are trying very hard to reduce expenses and that it would be necessary to enlarge the office space. We are forced to work under very uncomfortable external conditions at Motzstraße 17; our rooms there are quite inadequate in the long run. It is equally necessary to increase the number of employees as our society continues to grow. This year, we received a particularly large sum of voluntary contributions from the collection in Cologne before the Anthroposophical Society was founded, and we cannot count on this in the future. We have not touched them yet, in order to have something in the coffers for future cases, but we may soon be forced to make use of them because we do have to adapt external circumstances to the rapid growth of the movement.

Mr. von Rainer: If in the future it should turn out that the contribution of two marks is too much, then that can be changed again at any general assembly.

Mr. Bauer: It does not seem entirely practical to me that the two marks should be taken especially for the “Mitteilungen”; one could then do without the “Mitteilungen”. We may certainly make the request in the interest of simplifying the work: for German members, an annual contribution of five marks will be levied for the central fund; for foreigners, a contribution of three marks. If perhaps some fear that our current increase in contributions will not be met with entirely friendly feelings, I believe the matter can be smoothed over if we decide to introduce the increased contribution only for the year 1915. That is so far away that no one will be upset.

Ms. Scholl: Mr. Bauer will excuse me if I do not agree with him on this. I find this last suggestion unjustified. I would consider it right to pay an additional two marks for the past year, for the “Mitteilungen” that have already appeared. After all, one can look back on work that has already been done. You know what had to be published in the interest of our movement, and how so many members abroad in particular were able to be informed about the true events within the Theosophical movement. When you look back on it, you have to say that it has a value that cannot be paid for with two marks today. That should encourage us to pay later rather than postpone it. I propose that we stick with the first motion to raise the dues by two marks. If individual members are unable to pay these dues, then there are certainly wealthier members in the individual lodges who could step in for them. This way, no one will be harmed.

Fräulein von Sivers: Although I can understand Fräulein Scholl, who empathizes with the difficult external conditions under which work often has to be done in the cramped rooms on Motzstraße, I would still like to ask you to accept Mr. Bauer's proposal. 1915 is a normal point in time. The building in Dornach is standing, and the huge sacrifices that had to be made for the Johannesbau have been overcome. Of course, we have received proposals in which members propose an increase in contributions. Although they show a complete lack of knowledge of the situation, they are nevertheless very well intentioned. These proposals would now have to be read out.

Dr. Steiner: My dear friends! It is sometimes in the nature of such discussions that they expand endlessly. But the whole matter can be simplified. Before deciding whether to accept the more rigorous approach of Miss Scholl or the more liberal approach of Mr. Bauer, and before voting on the Sivers motion – which would create the possibility that after some time members will be happy to pay again – we must first read two motions from our Tübingen friends.

Fräulein von Sivers:

Tübingen, January 3, 1914
for Sunday, January 18, 1914,
three proposals from the plenum.
Proposal Tübingen, regarding membership fees.

A letter dated October 15, 1913, signed by Mr. Franz Seiler and attached to the membership statistics, informed the chairmen of the groups, lodges and branches of the Anthroposophical Society that our fiscal year would be changed from the September period to the calendar year and requested the advance payment of a four-mark membership fee for 16 months. This request directly contradicts the membership fee of six marks per year stated on page 6 of the draft of the principles of the Anthroposophical Society, according to which eight marks should have been charged for the aforementioned 16 months. These six marks annual contribution must be considered as intended only for the Anthroposophical Society and do not include any local membership fees.

In the interest of improving our financial situation, with due regard to our steadily growing income and expenses, the following motion is proposed:

Motion 1: The annual contribution to the Anthroposophical Society should be maintained at six marks in accordance with the draft principles, and the corresponding four-mark contribution should be levied retroactively for each member for the 1913/1914 financial year.

Furthermore, it should be noted that until the Anthroposophical Society was founded, we were obliged to pay three marks per capita membership fee to Adyar each year. This obligation to pay dues to Adyar has expired for each member upon their entry into the Anthroposophical Society.

Almost at the same moment, we have decided to regard the execution of the Johannesbau as a sacred duty, and to do our best to make it possible. Therefore, it must be considered a matter of course and unavoidable that the three marks of annual membership dues that have now been freed up by breaking away from Adyar should be donated to the Johannesbauverein.

This leads to proposal 2:

The annual membership fee of the Anthroposophical Society in the amount of six marks should be increased by a further three marks for the Johannesbau and collected retroactively for the 1913/1914 financial year.

Rudolf Schenkel.

In principle, the above motions to increase
membership dues are supported by
Christian Schuler, Bertha Hauff, Johanna Hauff, Paul Hauff.

Motion Tübingen in favor of the
Theosophical-artistic fund

The news that this year's Munich festival made a loss of around 15,000 marks, which was only whispered and only became known in a roundabout way, aroused deep indignation in many circles of our Anthroposophical Society, especially since, according to reports, previous festivals had also ended with at least a similar deficit.

However, it must be noted that such unofficial information, which gradually leaks out, is increasingly likely to arouse suspicion about the management or financial management of an organization. It should therefore come as no surprise that otherwise generous members everywhere are very reluctant to donate through their foundations.

The unfortunate consequence of such administrative techniques is the annually recurring recourse to the capital strength of individual members who are well-to-do.

This practice must be rejected out of hand in the interest of our Anthroposophical Society, because every participant in the festival would have been willing, without further ado, to pay an entrance fee that was more in line with the expenses, even double the amount, if properly informed in a manner consistent with the spirit of truthfulness.

It must therefore be deeply regretted that following the request to exchange any incorrectly issued tickets during the last days of the Munich festival, no member entrusted or charged with managing the Theosophical-Artistic Fund reported on the deficits that were growing larger every year. And if there had been even the slightest suggestion that the reimbursement of ticket prices could be waived in favor of covering the deficit, then practically minded members would certainly have gone so far as to propose that they would rather contribute to covering the previous and also the expected deficit by paying a voluntary contribution.

This would have had two practical advantages:

1. the costs incurred by the events would have been passed on to the participants to a much greater extent – and quite justifiably – and

2. the capital of the financially strong members, who were exceptionally called upon to cover the deficit, would have been reserved for our more extensive endeavors, such as the Johannesbau.

From the above considerations arises

Proposal 3: For future festival or similar events organized by the Theosophical Artistic Fund, an admission fee should be charged that is more appropriate to the value of these events and more commensurate with the costs incurred, if possible based on the previous year's financial statements.

Furthermore, consideration should be given to how, in the future, participants in such events can be made aware of the occurrence of such deficits in a dignified way and be asked to help cover them, although ideally only while they are gathered at the event and are therefore most willing to contribute financially. This will, frankly, cause many a prejudice and other thing against the management at our events to fall away and open many a hand more willingly to further donations in support of our efforts, but above all in favor of the Johannesbau.

Rudolf Schenkel.
In principle, the above motion to increase
entrance fees for the performances is supported by
Christian Schuler, Bertha Hauff, Johanna Hauff, Paul Hauff.

Dr. Steiner: You can now include these motions in the discussion.

Mr. Schuler: The author of the motion is solely responsible for the wording of the two motions. The other signatories have only endorsed them in principle. The contributions alone should create a certain basis. We have had exceptionally low contributions so far. I take the view that the lower the contributions, the lower the efficiency. The dues would surely have to be increased bit by bit. In my experience, the truly needy and poor people are the ones most willing to pay all dues and increases. Regarding the opinion on increasing the dues, I would like to say: Those who can pay three marks can also pay five marks. The individual lodges would have the opportunity to demand higher dues on their own initiative.

Dr. Unger: It was to be expected that Dr. Schuler would present a justification for these Tübingen proposals. These proposals are a serious matter. In the final analysis, it is not a question of payment here; after all, everything is moving towards the same goal. However, it is a different matter when it comes to creating clarity about the conditions that actually exist. It is not that the proposals contain truly strange things, but rather that these things are present due to a misunderstanding of the situation. We must pay particular attention to this at our Annual General Meeting, because such things are likely to cause confusion, which then proliferates again and again. These proposals speak of mistrust arising and so on. Furthermore, these Tübingen proposals show a tremendous confusion of the most diverse things. One should gradually start to distinguish between the Anthroposophical Society, the Theosophical Artistic Fund and the Johannesbau Association. In this proposal, the Theosophical Artistic Fund is placed in a kind of opposition to the Johannesbau Association and the Society itself. It is important to point this out because one should not actually base proposals on ambiguity. The matters of the Theosophical-Artistic Fund have been treated in this application out of complete ignorance of the facts. One really has no right to stick one's nose into such things. The point is that in recent years everyone has felt a sense of deepest gratitude, of deepest respect for all that is behind the Theosophical-Artistic Fund. We would never have had mystery plays today if these plays had been based on any kind of income. This is a pure gift that we accept in the appropriate way. Income and expenses do not and cannot play a role. It is a matter of course that an entrance fee is charged, but this should certainly not give anyone the right to interfere in these matters; we can only look up and accept this gift with the deepest gratitude.

The Johannesbau Association is now endeavoring to create a framework for these mystery plays. So when people talk about the fact that funds are being withdrawn from the Johannesbau through the Theosophical-Artistic Fund, it is a gross distortion. We would not need a Johannesbau if we did not have the Mystery Plays, the gift from the spiritual worlds. It is deeply regrettable that these motions have been tabled with the best of intentions. That is precisely why they are completely unacceptable.

Fräulein von Sivers: I would just like to add to what Dr. Unger said that it is one of the greatest ironies I have experienced in my working life within the Theosophical Society, which has been so rich in experiences, that what is being discussed here in this proposal has become possible. So a gift is made out of the purest, most unselfish motives, a personal, private gift. If two months of the year were not set aside for these performances, given the demands that the members place on Dr. Steiner's time, the mysteries would probably never be written at all. And it would never be possible to put on a performance in this short time if one had to ask society whether a worker could be given 50 pfennigs more or less in tips, or whether an artist could be compensated in this or that way. Anyone who knows just a little about everything that goes into a venture would give up from the outset under such conditions. The project was born out of personal initiative, and it was not even considered to ask society for contributions. How can one speak of a deficit when only expenses are calculated! How could such a low entrance fee even cover the expenses? Out of pure enthusiasm for art, to make possible something that is considered a gift, not only for society but for all humanity, the funds are given.

The Mystery Plays have been enthusiastically received, and a worthy setting had to be created for them. The Johannesbau was created from this idea. So it cannot be said that it is the more enduring. Many of us are convinced that these dramas will live longer than a building made of wood and stone.

Now it has proved expedient for the Theosophical Artistic Fund to provide an address for donations for the building. These will be receipted with the note “Theosophical Artistic Fund for the Johannesbau”. So they have nothing at all to do with the performances and are kept strictly separate from them.

Fräulein Stinde: The Theosophical Artistic Fund was set up so that the mystery plays could be performed and only secondarily for the Johannesbau. Of course, we older members who set up the fund find it easier to understand all this than the younger members. That would be an excuse. But they could still know what it is about. Of course, most people don't appreciate the monetary value of art and performances; they don't realize that when a new play is performed in a theater, the costs amount to 60,000 to 80,000 marks. Thanks to the great willingness of our artists to make sacrifices, we are only able to make such performances possible; it would be impossible if we had to pay our artists. The entrance fee that is charged cannot be counted against the costs.

Mr. Bauer: One more comment! It would be easy to say at first that a good opinion underlies the request, and therefore the rest could be overlooked. But we don't want to cloud the issue ourselves; we have to look at this opinion at its core. It may be well meant, but if we look closely, this good feeling has a heavy shadow. Otherwise this proposal would not be possible, because it could only come about from a bad opinion of others. One does not assume a sense of truthfulness in others. We must also be clear about this; specifically, he presents a good opinion based on mistrust.

Dr. Steiner: My dear friends! We still have a great deal of work to do in the so-called business part of our General Assembly. Now, however, we must allow the time to come when some refreshment must be taken for the less intellectual organs. This point cannot be postponed any longer, because our stomachs would not be able to appear in such a way with the tea that is offered to us here at six o'clock that we would be able to achieve as much as possible. So we will now take a break and meet again here at four o'clock this afternoon to continue our negotiations.

Adjourned at 1:30.

The negotiations adjourned at 1:30 will resume at four o'clock.

Fräulein von Sivers: The many arguments about the financial situation were perhaps quite useful in order to be able to know what the situation is. But since we have to make such strong demands on the willingness of the members of the Johannesbau this year, I hereby make the request that the assembly refrain from increasing the membership fee this year and break off negotiations on this point.

The proposal is adopted.

Mr. Walther: I propose that we also not enter into negotiations on the two Tübingen proposals, but rather assign them to the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society for resolution.

Mr. Schuler: I have no objection to this, but I would like to emphasize that these are not “Tübingen proposals”. The proponent is responsible for the proposals. The others have only agreed to the increase in contributions.

Dr. Steiner: The term “Tübingen motions” was not intended to refer to the Tübingen working group; it was meant only geographically, just so that the motions came from the city of Tübingen.

The proposal is accepted.

Dr. Steiner: We now come to the proposal of our auditor, Mr. Tessmar, to grant discharge to the treasurer and cashier.

The assembly grants this discharge.

Dr. Steiner: It will be necessary to deal with the Boldt proposal as the next proposal. I am obliged to present this Boldt proposal and to provide a little background information so that we are able to discuss this proposal in a reasonably objective manner.

Mr. Ernst Boldt, a member of the Munich I working group, wrote a paper in 1911 that was published by Max Altmann in Leipzig at the time: “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural and Spiritual Science”. I would like to explain Mr. Boldt's intentions with a few words from the brochure that was sent out by the publishing house at the time and from which I will read a few passages:

This book stands out from the abundance of modern sex literature in a unique and purposeful way. It occupies a special position in that it seeks to establish the scientific basis and framework of an independent philosophy of sex and thus to open up new perspectives on life, independently of contemporary research. The inadequacy of the relevant literature, which mostly only gropes around the outside and surface of these problems and not infrequently speculates on the hidden lustfulness of the reader, prompted the creation of this thoroughly honest and solemnly written book. It can therefore lay claim to attention in the widest circles, because it offers the thinking person, who must be highly dissatisfied by the common vituperation of this topic, a wealth of new perspectives and rich thought content.

This is indeed a new publication that will, over time, provide the most important impetus and will truly break new ground for all sexual research. It is a fundamental work of sexual philosophy that literature has yet to match.

The author initially bases his ideas on the results of modern science, but in order to do full justice to his subject, he finds it necessary to supplement and deepen these with the little-known and much-misunderstood extrasensory or occult findings of spiritual or secret science (theosophy). Despite his spiritual research methods, Boldt agrees with the monists insofar as they remain on the firm ground of true science and do not stray into the barren swamps of materialism through vague hypotheses; but he turns with implacable severity against the dualists and their culturally backward tendencies. The author himself stands beyond monism and dualism, since both mean only stages of human knowledge to him. Seen from a higher vantage point and illuminated by the light of spiritual research, 'the world reveals itself in a completely new form. And the author had to base his explanations on this in order to enable a real solution to such profound problems.

Boldt has a calm and confident command of his subject and thus does justice to a great task. In seven concise treatises, he reveals the deepest mysteries of the past, present and future of human nature in terms of sexuality. It is precisely these broad views of the past and the future that sharpen the eye tremendously for the present state of things. Certainty about the “where from” and “where to,” which has always been the greatest concern of the deeper thinker, also sheds light on the “why,” allowing people to most clearly recognize their most pressing tasks. In this

sense, Boldt gets to the root of the problems. The simple and clear style facilitates understanding of the complicated, occult facts, which have so far remained inaccessible to both the layman and the academic, and which are presented and explained in the strangest of images. Although the reader must initially accept these “facts” without question, the explanations that Boldt bases on them meet the requirements of a self-contained, strictly logical thought process that can withstand any criticism. The author provides more detailed information about the sources from which the occult ideas in his book are drawn in the introduction and in a corresponding appendix.

The book is of equal interest to men and women, scholars and laymen.

This is what is known in the book trade as a “blurb”, which is always added to books when they are first published. I don't know who wrote this particular blurb; sometimes authors write their own. But I don't want to claim that in this case, I just want to mention a very common usage in this instance, because not all of our members are informed about the practices of book distribution.

If I were to tell the story of how I came to write this book, which culminates in my arguments, I would have to keep you waiting a very long time. I don't want to do that, but I would like to mention that Mr. Ernst Boldt originally intended to cover this subject, which was then condensed into his 1911 book of 148 pages, in a great many volumes. Then various things led him to make this short extract from his so-called “research”. I may well admit that long before this book was written, Mr. Boldt's various views and pretensions were brought to my attention by Mr. Boldt himself, according to various practices existing in our society, and that I was not in a position to Mr. Boldt made to me at the time – with the exception of the obvious, which is to tell a younger man: He should move in this or that direction in the field of thought so that he can move forward and also to give this or that piece of advice that you yourself consider good. Then, after this advice had been given, Mr. Boldt came to write this book. He also wrote me a letter of many pages, while the book was actually already in print. I am really not always able to respond to all such requests and to deal with all the details of what is in the literary intentions of our members. I also think it better if someone has the pretension to appear scientifically literary that he proves less in need of support in such a case. Now the book was published. Mr. Boldt had the obvious requirement that not only our various Theosophical working groups should display the brochure for this book – I have read it out so that you can judge it – in the lodge rooms in order to do their part for this book, but he also had the requirement, which is evident from his current behavior, that I should recommend the book in our circles; indeed, even assumes that the various measures or lack of measures that he criticized so sharply can be traced back to the fact that I did not recommend this book, and that I—despite Mr. Boldt's statement that I personally often asked how things were going with his book—never gave any information other than one that was “neither warm nor cold” when he asked me about it. You can understand that an author may easily feel that a piece of information is neither warm nor cold to him if it is not given to him exactly as he had imagined it. But not only did I have reasons not to deviate from a judgment that is “neither warm nor cold,” but I also had my good reasons, which I did not conceal from Mr. Boldt, in a gentle way, not to recommend the book. There will be more to say about some of this later, so I will mention the main reason I gave to Mr. Boldt first. I told him, roughly, that the book still has a very immature, amateurish character, and that this is especially evident from the fact that the whole execution is such that you can't do anything with it if you really want to get involved with the subject. Despite the cover, which says that it is a new publication that will change the whole of sex research over time, the book is actually such that, in my humble opinion, no one, even if they are responsive to the issues at hand, can really learn much from it.

There would have been only one reason – I don't know if anyone of those who know me better could see this as a reason for me in this case – to recommend this book: it contains many praiseworthy and laudatory things about myself. But that is no reason for me to recommend the book just because Mr. Boldt praises me. And I must confess that I would have preferred it if what I have endeavored to produce over decades in various fields of knowledge had not been presented in such a way in a book. The fact that someone pays all kinds of adulation that refers to me will never be a reason for me to give a special recommendation about anything; the only reason for this can be the quality of the performance.

So I did something for which, in addition to all the reasons I have given, there was another reason that could perhaps be appreciated: that it is my right to remain silent about something! I don't know if anyone doubts that I am entitled to do so? If one were to doubt that I am entitled to remain silent about anything, I would have to regard that as the worst kind of tyranny. If someone, as in this case, comes to me with the assumption that I am obliged to recommend this or that and would be acting incorrectly if I did not do so, I would have to regard that as the harshest and most terrible imposition that can possibly be placed on a human being. For I would like to know what would become of the freedom of mankind if a society were founded in which the person to whom some people adhere is obliged to recommend a book or other article by a member? You can imagine the tyranny that could result. So it happened that I could not give such a recommendation. I could give you many reasons for this; perhaps that could be done in the course of the negotiations. But our friends – perhaps with the exception of the 25 percent to which Mr. Boldt refers – did not particularly enjoy this work either. So it was left out of consideration. The great “injustice” has been done: this book has been ignored, let us say, has not been bought! My friends! In the past few days, a large number of us have received a brochure that now reads as follows:

Please pass this on!
Munich, January 1914.

Dear Members of the Anthroposophical Society! The undersigned respectfully takes the liberty of personally informing the esteemed members of his recently self-published work “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy? - A Free Word to Free Theosophists”. In it, the author seeks, in the interest of our great cause, to shed light on various abuses within our circles and to bring them up for discussion at the upcoming second general assembly. The writing is of an intimate nature and therefore cannot be published by a bookshop. It is “printed as a manuscript” and is addressed exclusively to the members of the Anthroposophical Society, for whom this topic is likely to be of particular interest.

With theosophical greetings
Ernst Boldt, Munich, Adelheidstraße 15/111

Then, at the bottom, is the order form. A few days after the brochure appeared, I received the pamphlet “Theosophy or Antisophy? — A Free Word to Free Theosophists” from Ernst Boldt. The brochure contains the following words:

The writing is of an intimate nature and therefore cannot appear in bookstores. It is “printed as a manuscript” and is addressed exclusively to the members of the Anthroposophical Society, for whom this topic is likely to be of particular interest.

In the “preliminary remarks” of the brochure, I immediately read the words:

The following observations are taken from the manuscript of a larger work in the process of being written. They formed the first introductory chapter. However, since the completion and publication of this extensive work may be delayed for years due to the unfavorable economic and health conditions of the author, it seemed advisable to publish these observations now as an independent work, initially within our circles. Whether these remarks will be taken up in the Anthroposophical Society or not will determine whether they should later be included in the work intended for the general public, which has been temporarily set aside by this announcement.

So, it is said, if the members are well-behaved and accommodating, it will be refrained from being carried out to the wider public; but if the members do not behave well, this printed “manuscript” may perhaps be presented to the wider public after all. However, it is very strange that this was only learned after the booklet had been purchased. I did not buy it, because it was sent to me for free. This booklet – which is not to be read out because it is not desired – contains many accusations against the backwardness and ignorance of the members of our “Anthroposophical Society”, who, in their developmental naivety, ignore such things that address the most important problems of the present.

My dear friends, had the whole matter come to me before the program of our present General Assembly was sent out, I would have had – not exactly because of Boldt's proposal, which has more symptomatic significance, but for other reasons that could arise from the negotiations - I would have had reason enough not to give the four lectures announced, “The Human and the Cosmic Idea”, and instead to speak about the inferiority of some scientific work in the present day. For there is much that can be said about the subject that is called “sexology and related subjects”, which could one day provide an opportunity to say a few necessary words to those who hold many dubious views on this point at the present time, not to say it to our members, but so that our members can counter many of the corresponding pretensions in the present day by advancing the thought processes presented through their own research.

In the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” the author relies heavily on Nietzsche as a fighter against ascetic ideals, and Mr. Boldt finds that he needs to tell our members the truth quite bluntly. On page 28, he writes:

It is entirely in the interest of keeping the Christian-Theosophical blood of life pure when we seriously warn against its parasites.

However, Mr. Boldt does not look for these “parasites” among the 25 percent who are in favor of him, but among the other 75 percent.

However “occult” they may behave, these “believers” are nothing more than a lively swarm, a lot of love, a lot of folly, a lot of non-bearded worship... anyone who knows the fleeting, cowardly human race should not believe in these springtimes and colorful meadows!

Woe betide if these half-wits spoil everything here too – there is no lack of tendency in that regard! For the intellectual posing as a Theosophist, to whom Theosophy means little more than a fashion, a kind of sport, is undoubtedly more dangerous to the anthroposophical movement than the monist who is disappointed in Theosophy. If the yearning flirtation with ascetic ideals, which is already “good form” in Theosophical circles, also becomes dogma and an epidemic, then we can no longer refrain from exclaiming indignantly with Nietzsche: “All our ‘reverence for the ascetic ideal, provided it is honest!’ But we may 'all these coquettish...

here the printer was probably unaware that he should have used a z instead of a g; for Nietzsche writes “Wanzen” and not “Wangen”, and since I do not believe that Mr. Boldt wanted to speak of the “flirtatious cheeks” of our members, I assume that the printer stumbled here.

... cheeks whose insatiable ambition is to smell of the infinite, until the infinite smells of bugs.

One cannot demand that the members of the Anthroposophical Society always be treated politely; nor can it be said that the least has been done here to be reasonably polite. There is not much politeness in the other sentence either:

In the interest of the great cause, which seems to me to be endangered by this behavior, I long for the day when Dr. Steiner will say with Nietzsche's Zarathustra: “Let them go and fall... and do not complain! Better still blow with rustling winds among them, - blow among these leaves,... that all that is withered may flee from you even faster!

(“On the Renegades.”)

So much for the tenor of how – and I am addressing the other 75 percent – you are addressed yourself. I myself am addressed in a peculiar way. If I put before me the figure in which I appear, then allow me to characterize it with an expression that is perhaps better understood in Berlin and the surrounding area than in the circles further outside this narrower country – that I say: the person who appears under the name “Dr. Steiner” seems to me like a “Konzessions-Schulze in the disguise of a superman”. That is more or less how I must appear after what I am portrayed as in this book. I don't know how widely this expression will be understood; but members who live further away and don't understand it can ask their friends in Berlin what a “Konzessions-Schulze in the disguise of a superman” is. Among other things, it is said that I have a right to do everything I do, but that because I have to make a pact with the 75 percent of the backward ones - those who are supposed to run away and who will contribute to the fact that infinity will one day smell of bugs - I am forced to say what my true opinion is. What I should actually have said about Mr. Boldt's book, I don't know; but in any case, I am the one who wears masks and has to rely not on telling the truth, but on saying what is pleasant for his 75 percent followers. So I appear in a very peculiar light:

I repeat: a philosopher as a great educator may and must be reserved with his true thoughts and judgments; he has the right and the duty to use masks and gestures. But should there not be a limit that must not be exceeded? The logical fictions and false judgments, which are undoubtedly necessary and fruitful for the theosophical movement in a certain initial phase of development, must have a hindering and paralyzing effect as soon as this development enters a second, higher phase. In other words, if these fictions and false judgments are part of the conditions of the former group and current, they must be felt by the second as a paralyzing poison.

Then it is said that it would indeed be necessary to gradually change tack, with the following words:

But in The Will to Power there is also an essay (980) that sheds even more light on this subject and can be applied to Dr. Steiner's powerful personality: “Let us imagine a philosopher as a great educator, powerful enough to draw long chains of generations up to him from a lonely height, then we must also grant him the uncanny prerogatives of the great educator. A great educator never says what he himself thinks, but only what he thinks about a matter in relation to the benefit of the person he is educating (and wants to be thought about it, I might add). In this pretense, he must not be guessed at; it is part of his mastery that one believes in his honesty. He must be capable of all means of discipline and punishment: he can only bring some natures forward by lashes of the whip of scorn, others, the indolent, the indecisive, the cowardly, the vain, perhaps with exaggerated praise. Such an educator is beyond good and evil; but no one must know it.

It's strange: what you have had to experience over the years! I must say: I do not want to expand the term “concessionary school in the disguise of the superman” any further, but only state a few things about how the 75 percent of the members who do not belong to Mr. Boldt are treated, and how I myself am treated, so that you may know a few things even if you have not been prompted by the brochure to read it. The brochure was sent to me together with the following letter:

Munich, January 9, 1914,br> Adelheidstraße 15/III

Dear Dr.

Since summer 1911, I have repeatedly asked you for a factual statement about my book (“Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and the Science of the Spirit”), which was published at the time. Since you have given me only inadequate, contradictory, evasive and confusing answers to my private questions and have repeatedly promised me “critical marginal notes” on my book but have repeatedly promised me, I saw myself compelled, for reasons of spiritual and intellectual self-preservation, to deal with this embarrassing and distressing subject in a pamphlet (“Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy? - A Free Word to Free Theosophists”) and to submit it to you as my contribution to the second General Assembly, with the urgent request that you take a stand on it in the next few days. I have announced the publication of my writing by sending 2,500 brochures to all branches of the Anthroposophical Society and have already sent out a number of copies; I may therefore assume that the content of the brochure is known at the General Assembly. Although the dam of cold objectivity may be breached here and there by the stream of feelings in my remarks, I know that you will have to call me to order strictly for this, but I would still ask you to always separate the factual content from the jagged form and not to give the latter too much weight. In any case, I ask for leniency as far as the form is concerned; not everything is meant as badly as it may appear in the rigid print on paper. I have not named any personalities and certainly did not want to offend anyone. It is in itself quite unimportant who said this or that, but the fact that it was said is what I could not get over. Should anyone feel offended, however, well, he may justify himself as best he can, or apologize and regret his behavior. I will certainly not be unreceptive to it. Whoever knows how much I have suffered from these things over these years will understand that I could not remain silent any longer. And you, dear Doctor, should know first that it was only pain that guided my pen. If freedom and independence, truth and truthfulness are not to remain empty phrases or abstractions in our circles, then these words, wherever they take on concrete life, must also be respected and duly appreciated; otherwise, the same applies to us as to what Lykophron of Phrygius says (pages 24-25): “You are all shadows without life, larvae without will” and so on. But we want to be free men indeed, over whom the sun of Christ can rejoice. I still remember exactly your wonderful words in Düsseldorf (1909) about the praise of the ability to make “first judgments”. At the time, you lamented finding this ability so undeveloped in our circles, where you would so much like to encounter it. Well, I did not wait to be shown the way to take a step – I did not need to be seduced or goaded – I had the strength, the courage and the good conscience for my “first judgment”! – I hope it is not misunderstood and held against me as a crime – I passed it with the best of intentions.

Since it is financially and physically impossible for me to come to Berlin myself, I kindly request that this letter be read at the general assembly.

With deepest admiration yours, Ernst Boldt.

In the last few days, the explicit request has been made to discuss this letter first and to add the following:

Munich, January 15, 1914.
To the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, Berlin.

Dear Doctor!

As was to be expected, my brochure has caused a storm to rage against me, especially here in Munich. This is also expected to continue in Berlin at the upcoming general assembly. Since it is unfortunately not possible for me to attend the meeting for the reasons mentioned, and to defend myself against any attacks and distortions of my intentions, I would like to kindly ask you, dear Doctor, to read this written material yourself in the order given, or to have it read.

The evening before yesterday, Director Sellin delivered to me the order of our lodge board to declare my resignation from the local lodge I, otherwise I would have to consider myself already excluded. From this I may well conclude that our board feels offended by my pamphlet. It is therefore to be assumed that he will speak in his defense at the general assembly, and in the sense in which he has already spoken here. He has claimed that I have besmirched him and a number of members from top to bottom with dirt, that I have severely insulted Dr. Steiner and accused him of moral cowardice, as reported to me by Director Sellin, who also made these claims.

I must protest in the strongest possible terms against this understandable but nevertheless outrageous distortion of the facts, against these objective untruths. It is not true that I threw mud at the ladies; I only pointed out facts in strong words and castigated the excesses that will have to get out of hand if we do not work energetically against them in time. In saying this, I was only expressing the convictions of about 25 percent of our members; if they now also have the courage to openly stand up for their convictions, this would certainly be in the interest of our great cause. It is also untrue that I severely insulted Dr. Steiner and accused him of moral cowardice. Only very superficial thinking, unacquainted with deeper psychology, can make such unfounded assertions. Those who are sensitive to nuances and have eyes for true greatness of mind and character will have to admit that this serious accusation does not apply to me in any way; rather, I have fully and completely done justice to the great mind and character of this superhuman personality, who, for his extraordinary purposes and goals, must also make use of extraordinary means and methods. Even if at one point, on pages 25-26, I asked for clarification regarding some points that had long weighed heavily on me, I believe that this is my good human and intellectual right.

On pages 25-26 of the brochure, the words can be read:

My question pains me deeply, but it must nevertheless be asked: Does Dr. Steiner do the “in the field of theosophy working”, who have not only made the cultivation and dissemination of the existing treasure of extrasensory knowledge their mission, but also “wherever it can be, observe where life needs and can experience a deepening by the theosophical way of thinking' - does Dr. Steiner not do them an injustice when he ignores their honest striving, apparently as a result of their compromising with backward groups and currents, as inadequate or inadmissible? And further I ask: Theosophy, which disregards every possibility of “making the highest realizations fruitful for the most everyday things of life”, as certain circles have proved by their behavior, does not lead in the best way “to things to which it should least lead to: the formation of sects, narrow-minded dogmatics and so on, which leads to a theosophical priesthood and sisterhood, which I already warned against so energetically in Düsseldorf, because I saw it coming for sure? Dr. Steiner, forgive me for asking this last question: If he is inclined to preserve the Theosophical Society in its primitive, initial stage by suppressing efforts of my kind, then he seems to me to be cutting off the lifeblood of this movement in its progressive impulses and thus falling into an unfathomable contradiction with himself.

Should the anthroposophical movement ever need a Luther in the future, which is likely, he can refer to me as his modest forerunner, who is willing to be fried for his convictions, mindful of the words: “Here I stand - I cannot do otherwise - God help me - Amen!”

That is there, as required by “good human and intellectual law.” I continue to read the letter to you:

Not everything is immediately clear and transparent to me, because I am not concerned with mere allegiance, which is certainly very cheap. As we know from him, Dr. Steiner has to defend himself against the blind adoration of these followers, as if they were astral clouds that block his work. I don't want any part in the formation of these astral clouds, I don't have the talent for that. I have no doubt that Dr. Steiner does not feel at all offended or accused of moral cowardice by my profound remarks. I am also convinced that Dr. Steiner will take the serious questions and honest striving of an independent thinker seriously again. Those who, like me, strive to understand rather than to admire, will best protect themselves against desertion and subsequent opposition. After all, “we should not show external reverence and admiration for our teachers, but we should strive for their understanding.” (Messages No. X, p. 3.)

This “aspiration” is quoted from the messages no. X, page 3, where the sentence is: “We want to be praised less, but understood more diligently.” - Now Mr. Boldt continues:

And that is the great crime of which I am accused by the blind admirers and admirers. “O sancta simplicitas!” - If only the Theosophists would take their Theosophy more seriously, they would not have so much time to admire and criticize, and would not compromise themselves so embarrassingly with their accusations...

Anyone who was present at the cycle in Düsseldorf in 1909 will know that it was Dr. Steiner himself who drew my attention to this $4 in Nietzsche's “Beyond Good and Evil,” with the words: ” The questioner (who was none other than me) once quoted 2sche; now, he should also be familiar with $4 in Beyond Good and Evil, where Nietzsche posits the sentence: “The falsity of a judgment...” and so on. This just needs to be understood correctly, and the questioner will understand me if he understands Nietzsche. This sentence also applies to the theosophical movement: if it is to be fruitful in a certain sense, then it does not depend on the pure truth, but... and so on, as I have reproduced almost literally on p. 16 of my writing.

There are the words that a great educator can tie up anything to people if they only believe in his honesty.

Well, I have understood Nietzsche and through him Dr. Steiner better than my indignant accusers. If they want to make up for what they have neglected and work their way to a deeper understanding of their great teacher, then they will also have to acquit me of the offence of which they now accuse me. So much for now in this point for my justification.

Furthermore, I am accused of vindictiveness due to hurt vanity as a writer because the ladies did not do any propaganda for my book. I understand this argument perfectly in view of the mentality of my judges; but nevertheless I must acquit myself of this accusation in every sense. I therefore expressly repeat that I have a completely impersonal interest in these conditions and processes. When I wrote my brochure, I was well aware that the personal impact and the sharpness of my speech would make it easy for my opponents to twist it into a rope. And yet I could not bring myself to change my mind; after all, I am addressing my writing only to free and insightful Theosophists, and I expect them to be able to distinguish between the factual content of my writing and its sharp form. In this sense, the board of a larger lodge wrote to me today, whom I do not know personally, but who addresses me in the name of his lodge or in the name of the few free and insightful: “Our dear Mr. Boldt”: “Your brochure is a painful call! But the good in it will be drowned out by the reproach that will be made to you by those who think they are “chosen”: that the non-acceptance of your book is to blame!” - This, however, was the starting point of my considerations; as such and in itself it is quite unessential and accidental. Only the conditions and events that attached themselves to it as an independent event were essential and necessary. Just as I do not feel personally attacked and hurt by this rejection, so it is not my intention to attack or hurt anyone personally, which is also criticized, and to which I can only reply with Nietzsche: “I never attack people; I only use the person as a kind of powerful magnifying glass with which one can make visible a general, but insidious, and hardly comprehensible state of emergency.” – (“Ecce homo” 1.7.) So much in general; in particular, I have the following to add. After I sent out the brochures, I was asked in writing in the most amiable way by our board to pin them up in the hallway and put them on the library table or distribute them to the members at the door themselves. Nothing else could be arranged without favoritism. I then enclosed the following lines with my brochure mailing:

Munich, January 10, 1914.

Dear Countess, dear Miss Stinde!

I was pleasantly touched by your willingness to help with the publication of my last brochure. I was actually quite surprised, all the more so because I still had feelings about you that you had caused about 2.5 years ago with the brusque way in which you responded to my request to announce the first brochure. While you have given me enough time to think about the step I have now taken, you have done nothing to make up for what you neglected to do, nor to apologize for it. If you had shown me even half as much kindness back then, this brochure, dictated by pain, could have remained unwritten. I deeply regret that it had to be written, but I also hope that it will not be without effect. This in response to your kind words. More details about this matter will be discussed at the upcoming general assembly in Berlin.

Kind regards, sincerely, Ernst Boldt.

In response to this, I received the following letter, which I can share here without incurring the accusation of indiscretion, due to its factual content:

Munich, January 11, 1914.

Dear Mr. Boldt!

Even before I can read your brochure, I would like to answer your card, which arrived earlier, to avoid any misunderstandings. According to this, you are surprised that we are accommodating you regarding the announcement of your last brochure, while we had to refuse to announce your first brochure. Perhaps you missed a lodge evening about 18 months ago, when we announced the following. We said then that it had always been our custom not to publicize any programs for works or lessons or other matters of our members in the lodge, that we had never hung any programs or brochures or the like in the library or in the hallway because it could have opened the floodgates to all manner of extolling of the work, leading many of our members to believe that we or even Dr. Steiner endorsed it. (Unfortunately, we have had more than enough experiences of this kind.) We were then asked by another lodge to provide the addresses of our members so that they could send a brochure. However, since we consider giving out our members' addresses to be an indiscretion, but still wanted to accommodate our friendly lodge, we decided, albeit very reluctantly, to display these brochures in the library and to pin them up in the hallway, thereby overturning an old principle and now also allowing all our members to display their programs and brochures in the library or pin them up in the hallway. Since then, our members have made much use of this permission, as they must have noticed, right? So displaying your brochure was not a concession on our part, but simply the result of the decision made by the lodge's board at the time. This from the board. – Personally, I would add that for me, there is no reason to apologize to you and I would not want to go back to that tone and manner. If you had donated your work to the library with an inscription stating that it was given by the author, as other writers do, that would have been the best way for the members to have read the book and commented on it.

Yours sincerely,
Countess Pauline Kalckreuth.

I am enclosing my response to this letter (copy) with the urgent request that it be read at the general assembly. It touches on a topic that urgently needs to be discussed in the interest of our cause and complements the content of my brochure. This letter was not read here on the last evening of the lodge, and I had to take the severe attacks by Director Sellin upon myself without being able to refute them or defend myself because I had already been expelled from the lodge. Therefore, I ask once again, politely but urgently, that this letter also be made known.

Finally, I would like to repeat my request for leniency regarding the harshness of my writing, which I condemn in a sense myself. After all, it has helped to hit the nail on the head and provide an unambiguous description of the hardships and events discussed. But let uncompromising severity and objectivity prevail as regards the content of my writing. Here I claim no mercy, no compassion; here I want to find an incorruptible judge. Should my expulsion from the Anthroposophical Society really be necessary in the interest of our cause, then I will submit to it, for I do not wish to serve myself but the cause, and in this case I am happy to sacrifice myself for the benefit of your great work. That is, after all, the fate of the firstlings. At least I will have the satisfaction of having set the ball rolling and thus achieved what I set out to do. May I be judged on the basis of my sharp polemics – after me there will come someone who will say the same thing and much more in terms of content, but who will not take a personal starting point for doing so and will avoid all polemics on principle. I would like to have broken the ice for him and paved the way – and this too is entirely in the interest of our great and lofty cause.

I remain in the most sincere veneration and unchanging loyalty,

Yours sincerely, Ernst Boldt

Munich, January 14, 1914.

To the board of the Munich branch of the Anthroposophical Society

Frau Gräfin Pauline von Kalckreuth Munich.

Dear Countess!

Please allow me to offer a few thoughts in response to your esteemed letter of the 11th of this month. Based on this, it could appear as though you are entirely in the right and I, beset by error, have taken hasty action. To superficial thought and appearances, this seems obvious. On the basis of deeper reflection, however, this is not the case at all, as I will show.

I knew very well that some time after my first prospecting affair, such a decree was announced in the lodge, and I also noticed the application of this new decree. But I also knew that this break with the old principle was not a free, insightful act of our board. You yourself admit that you were only “very reluctant” to decide to overturn this old principle. Ideologically, in spirit, you still represent this backward principle today, and that is the crucial point – formally, outwardly, you had to break with it because the spirit of freedom and progress cannot be kept in chains in the long run. As everywhere, and at all times, it had to enforce its just rights here too, since it is never voluntarily granted.

At the time, I complained to various quarters about this restrictive principle, which is unworthy of the free spirit of our movement, and this will not have remained without effect. I knew very well that nothing more should stand in the way of the publication of this second brochure, since the same rights apply to everyone. I was only extremely gratified and surprised by your kind offer, without my having asked for permission to distribute the brochure in the lodge, because I had no intention of making use of this favor this time, since I had already sent about 300 brochures to about 50 addresses of our Munich members. I therefore expressly repeat: it was not the permission to distribute my brochure that I addressed as an unexpected concession, but only the unsolicited willingness, the kind invitation to do so, which should be very understandable. This on my part to avoid any misunderstandings.

To stay with the matter at hand, I would like to briefly discuss why I called the old principle, which you only “very reluctantly” overthrew, backward and incompatible with the free spirit of our movement. First, a preliminary question: Don't you have any sense that there is something hurtful for these members in the assumption that our members could make the “most conceivable recommendations” to us in the lodge? But let us assume that not everything that is announced is theosophically tenable; how can we develop our independence and judgment if the executive committee anxiously withholds from us everything that could help us to develop our ability to make “first judgments”; if, in other words, we are so carefully patronized. Eating alone makes you fat, thinking alone strengthens the mind. I am reminded of the unrefined way in which we were recently patronized in the case of Fidus, the lecture. An approach that caused widespread outrage - but, as so often, many fists remained in their pockets. As adults, members should be left to form their own opinions about the things that come up to them. If they are not considered capable of it, “then away with all hypocrisy of freedom and independence. Just say: the Theosophists have to wait ‘to take a step that you can ’show them the way and so on. (Based loosely on Steiner: ‘Philosophy of Freedom’, pp. 155-156, and Schur &: ‘The Children of Lucifer’, pp. 24-25).

Returning to your letter, I would like to continue. Regarding the tone and nature of your rejection at the time, to which you do not wish to go back, I maintain my view that you, as the board, were at fault on this point and should therefore have apologized to me. I would like to remind you of the inappropriate phrases you used at the time: “I cannot possibly mention such a dirty subject in the lodge” and “We do not do any propaganda for theosophical books in the lodge”. These are two objective untruths; firstly, the area of procreation and reproduction, the area of human sexuality, is neither dirty nor clean in itself; it is a neutral area of nature that we simply have to take into account in the interest of our racial and spiritual development. As a lodge executive committee, you should be clear about this. Perhaps you could find out about the nature of this area from Dr. Steiner: “Lucifer-Gnosis, first edition, issue 23, page 345, where it says, among other things: ”In fact, noble divine powers are at work in this (dirty?) area, regulating and organizing... Refinement... but not destruction... of this whole area... is what occult science teaches,” and what I too have taught and advocated in my book in a way that cannot be misunderstood. According to Dr. Steiner, their tendency to regard this area as ‘dirty’ can ”only be the result of occult principles that have been misunderstood and distorted into misleading asceticism.

From this explanation it follows that my book cannot be un-Theosophical, which any unbiased reader will confirm. Since you have not corrected these two prejudices to date, I must assume that you still hold this untenable point of view for a lodge board, which makes me feel offended and insulted in my Theosophical honor. Formally, everything would have been fine if you had simply informed me objectively about your lodge principle, which was still unknown to me at the time, but not in such a harsh, insulting way, without having read my work. I make this accusation not to you personally, but to you in your capacity as a lodge board member, as a member.

I find your belated suggestion that I should have donated my book to the library to be bluntly naive. You can't seriously be trying to persuade me that the library would have accepted my book – and even if it had, that it would then have been lent to members. If such “dirty behavior” could not be mentioned in the lodge, then it could not have found a place in the Theosophical library either. This in response to your error-correcting lines.

Director Sellin discharged his duties to me yesterday evening. In response, I have to say that I am not inclined to resign from the lodge, for the reason already stated in my brochure, because I do not want to voluntarily deprive myself of Dr. Steiner's great wisdom, because I can no longer do without it. But should my expulsion be demanded, I must resign myself to it.

I request that this letter be read at the lodge this evening, but I leave it entirely to your discretion. Had I not already been denied entry, I would have read it myself, since it is not personal but entirely factual.

Yours sincerely, Ernst Boldt.

Munich, January 20, 1914.
To the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, Berlin.

Dear Dr. Steiner!

Please be so kind as to also communicate the enclosed lines to the General Assembly. I have received another letter, but I do not yet know whether I am allowed to make use of it.

With the highest regard,
Yours truly, Ernst Boldt.

Munich, January 19, 1914.

Dear Mr. Boldt!

We read your brochure with great interest. We fully support your endeavors, all the more so since we had already read your book “Sexual Problems” with great benefit.

With best regards,
Karl Pschorn, Hedwig Pschorn, Emmy Zormaier, Heinrich Perri,
Deisenhofenerstr. 8/0.

My reply:

Munich, January 19, 1914.

Dear Mr. Pschorn,

Thank you for your kind words. I am pleased about them in the interest of our good cause. I have already received a letter of appreciation from the board of a larger lodge. Please let me know immediately whether I can present your letter to the General Assembly in Berlin if necessary and whether you and the other three want to stand up for your convictions there with your names. Only recently I had to experience a severe disappointment with a theosophist who reserves the right to put me in the dock because I had included in the brochure his opinion, which he had communicated to me in a letter, about my “sexual problems”. According to this, there are theosophists who have two opinions about a matter, one private and one public. Such experiences could seriously displease one about belonging to this society.

Yours sincerely,
Ernst Boldt.

The reply to this letter is:

Mr. Ernst Boldt, Munich,
Adelheidstraße 15/111.

Of course agreed.

On behalf of:
Pschorn.

In addition, Ms. von Sivers will read a letter from Mr. Horst von Henning, because Mr. Horst von Henning is mentioned in the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” in a special way that may be considered symptomatic. It says on page 10:

Mr. Horst von Henning writes to me: “The reading of your writing interested me all the more to a high degree, since I am one of the oldest students of Dr. Steiner and head of the local (Weimar) branch of the Anthroposophical Society: I will remain concerned about doing my part to spread your book in serious circles.

Fräulein von Sivers: Mr. Horst von Henning writes regarding the Boldt affair:

Weimar, January 13, 1914.
Luisenstraße 19.

Dear Fräulein von Sivers!

You have so often kindly represented the members of our small Weimar branch at the general Meetings that I would like to ask you to do so at the upcoming General Meeting as well. Please find enclosed the relevant power of attorney.

Furthermore, however, I would like to address a personal request to you, as unfortunately I have to refrain from coming to the general assembly myself for financial reasons and therefore have no opportunity to counter any misunderstandings that may arise with regard to myself in the event of a discussion of the recently published brochure by Mr. Ernst Boldt, Munich.

Some time ago, Pastor Wendt here gave me a writing by Mr. Boldt about “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural and Spiritual Science” to read, which interested me all the more because the author professed to be a follower of Dr. Steiner and also let it be seen in the brochure that he believed he could base his views on Dr. Steiner's teachings or bring them into line with them. Even after studying the paper, I couldn't shake the impression that Mr. Boldt was stretching this assumption a bit far and I didn't want to identify with Mr. Boldt's views at all. However, the paper encouraged me to pursue the problems developed in it, which is why I turned to Mr. Boldt with the request to help me with the further material mentioned in his writing and to tell me where to find the relevant literature.

Under the impression of the writing, which, as already mentioned, I could not approve of in all its parts and up to the conclusions drawn in it, but which interested me in some respects and took me for the author because of the frank language, I gained the impression that the problems raised in it could well be discussed by serious anthroposophists at some point, which is why I wrote to Mr. Boldt: “The reading of your writing interested me all the more, as I am one of the (I believe I said) older students of Dr. Steiner and lead the local branch of the Anthroposophical Society. I will do my part to spread the word about your book in serious circles.”

I then received a letter from Mr. Boldt, from which I gained the impression that he had interpreted my words more in his favor than I had intended, and that I was dealing with a personally annoyed man. I therefore refrained from any further correspondence with him and also refrained from recommending his writing, since I had second thoughts, despite all the recognition of the good intentions, it does not provide a suitable basis for the proper discussion of this extremely difficult problem. But now, a few days ago, I received several copies of the following announcement of another of Mr. Boldt's writings, which I had sent to me in order to be informed about everything, but otherwise refrained from further promoting the writing. I only mentioned it to Pastor Wendt, who had lent me Mr. Boldt's first writing at the time.

How great was my surprise and astonishment to see the above-mentioned sentence from my letter to Mr. Boldt reproduced on page 10. Although I now have the honor of being mentioned alongside the highly esteemed gentlemen Edouard Schuré, Ludwig Deinhard and Friedrich Lienhard, I believe that these gentlemen, like myself, will not be pleased to be named in the brochure as Mr. Boldt's supporters, so to speak. In any case, I will make it clear to Mr. Boldt that I consider it to be a lack of tact to have published parts of my private letter without my prior knowledge. The entire content of the new brochure is now such that I must strongly object to being associated with it in any way. I suspect, and not without good reason, that when Messrs Schure, Deinhard and Lienhard wrote approvingly about Mr Boldt's first book, they only wanted to make it known to me that they found it commendable to discuss the sexual problem in connection with our movement, they will certainly also reject the conclusions drawn by Mr. Boldt and, in particular, strongly condemn the recent attempt to force Dr. Steiner to make a public statement. It is unfortunately often the case that writers confuse the interest shown in their work with full approval of their statements, and I would never have revealed my personal relationship with Dr. Steiner to Mr. Boldt if I had suspected that he would make such an unpleasant use of it – or rather, misuse it. In any case, this unpleasant incident will serve as a warning to me and cause me to exercise the utmost restraint in disclosing my student status to Dr. Steiner. But one can certainly recommend a book for study without identifying with the content of the same; indeed, one can do so in order to get the discussion flowing and to see the errors corrected. It was with this latter in mind that I wrote the lines already mentioned to Mr. Boldt, but not to appear as an unconditional supporter of his views. After these explanations, you will understand that I am extremely annoyed to see my name misused in this brochure, the content and overall tendency of which I am very far removed from. I would like to ask you to take the opportunity of the general assembly to make this known in a way that you consider appropriate, so that the members attacked by Mr. Boldt do not consider me to be one of Mr. Boldt's supporters. I am not ashamed to admit that I would not consider it a mistake if the sexual problems, which have such a profound impact on human development, were to be properly examined by a serious party, and that I would deeply I would express a deep desire for understanding if he found it right to step out of his reserve, which he has certainly observed for good reason up to now. However, I must absolutely condemn any desire to exert the slightest pressure on the resolutions of our great teacher in this direction. Likewise, I am willing to admit that, due to my current state of mind, I may have shown more interest in Mr. Boldt's remarks than would be the case today. However, I strongly object to being considered Mr. Boldt's partisan and attach particular importance to the statement that I never authorized Mr. Boldt to consider me as such, much less to publish my private lines in a brochure.

I am taking a keen interest in the proceedings of the General Assembly. Please extend the special greetings of the Weimar branch to those gathered. I remain with the expression of loyal sentiments and warmest thanks for your efforts

as always, your very devoted
Horst von Henning.

A second letter, which arrived on January 15, reads:

Weimar, January 15, 1914
Luisenstraße 19

Dear Miss von Sivers!

Please forgive me for bothering you a second time with a request regarding the Boldt matter.

I thought it right to address the following circular to Messrs Ludwig Deinhard, Edouard Schuré and Friedrich Lienhard, and I have already received the same, along with the attachment, back from Mr. Deinhard, who writes to me that he, too, finds it an unparalleled lack of tact that Mr. Boldt, without asking him, printed in his brochure a statement that was only made orally and which, in his (Deinhards opinion) is full of tactlessness. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Deinhard does not have Mr. Schuré's address, and since I do not know it either, I would kindly ask you to forward the circular letter and its attachment to Mr. Schur&, with the request that he then also forward it to Mr. Lienhard. I enclose a stamped envelope for your convenience and would also ask you to take note of the copy of my letter to Mr. Boldt attached to the enclosures. With warm regards to you and all dear friends there, I remain always

Your grateful
Horst von Henning

Fräulein von Sivers says: It would probably also turn out that Mr. Schure and Mr. Lienhard, like Mr. Deinhard, only gave Mr. Boldt a verbal assurance; after all, a well-meaning man like Mr. Schuré would hardly want to say anything other than, “Quite interesting!” to a young writer.

Dr. Steiner: Ms. Wolfram has asked to speak first.

Mrs. Wolfram: One could indeed just shrug off the Boldt case with a smile, and wave the application away with a hand gesture into the waste paper basket, and get on with the agenda. But since this “Boldt case” is a typical case, since there is not just one Boldt, but unfortunately many “Boldtes”, and it can happen to us again and again that our precious time is taken up and stolen in this truly unqualifiable way, I would like to present some of the facts of this case and conclude with an appeal to you, so that this Boldt case remains the only one of its kind and is not repeated. After all, we have better things to do than to waste our time on these matters, which are as tragic as they are comical.

To avoid appearing to be concerned only with what Mr. Boldt said out of annoyance at the fact that his book was not accepted, and to avoid giving the impression that the book might not have been all that bad after all, and its author might have had some reason to write his pamphlet, then I would like to quote a few passages from the book to prove that we are dealing with a work that is as stupid as it is brazen and shamefully dishonest. From this it will be clear that if Mr. Boldt had read this book in 1911, he would no longer be with us today. Because if someone could write such a book, then he no longer belongs in our midst. We want to develop a sense of who belongs in our society and who does not. On page 2 of his book, Mr. Boldt says:

The publication of this book may now bear witness to the fact that the Theosophical movement has made some progress in these six years, even if it is only a small one at first. We want this little book to be seen as a modest attempt to incorporate the theosophical truths into one of the practical areas of life. We believe that we have sufficiently trained our thinking, feeling and willing in the “eternal laws of existence” to be able to step out into life and promote the cultural process in a proper, timely manner by solving the problems at hand.

The sexual area is one of the most fundamental areas of life, in which, because it was shrouded in night and fog and held in awe and fear by the most dreadful ignorance, it has been possible to sin in quite appalling dimensions; it therefore most urgently needs the light and its spiritual reforming idea. And the naturalist and spiritual researcher who, free of all materialistic and moral blinkers, seeks to plow up this field overgrown with weeds in the spirit of Schiller's “Aesthetic Letters,” Steiner's “Philosophy of Freedom,” and in the spirit of theosophy, must necessarily arrive at the present results through logical, appropriate thinking. If the mission of the spiritual researcher is now mainly to seek out and proclaim the occult truths and eternal laws of existence as the primary foundations of all life reform, then it is our task to work on the secondary development of the individual spheres of life in the sense of these truths and laws, and to build on the existing abilities of the given human material with full understanding of the tasks of the Theosophical movement within our cultural epoch, and to raise it by one step.

* * *

In the introductory words to the essay on the “Education of the Child”, Steiner set out the program for social reform work at a higher level. Since the existing sex literature does not meet these high standards, we felt compelled to establish a new one.

Yes, what impression do you get from that? The author is not a bit megalomaniac! He speaks of himself in the greatest conceivable modesty! I say this above all to show you that these accounts are teeming with examples of the impotence of consistent thinking. But the author does not notice any of this himself; on the one hand, he contradicts what he has said on the other. This only needs to be stated once. Because it is important to me to point out: we do not want to do it like our dear Mr. Horst von Henning, who may have read the book briefly. We want to approach the book with one thing in mind: whether it is sound or not. In this day and age, it is not difficult to publish a book teeming with mistakes – it is almost painful to listen to the chaos that it presents. And everyone who values logical thinking should get used to listening to this chaos. The young man continues (p. 4):

The monistic-spiritualistic literature on this subject, as attempted for the first time in this book, contains new, future-oriented values of a higher order and leads the herd-man out of the present dilemma of the sexual Scylla and Charybdis onto the only real path of the mountain-man to the goal of his highest perfection in the super-man.

We call the tendency of this book monistic-spiritualistic because, independently of contemporary sexual literature and overcoming it, it seeks to establish new foundations for life.

In his brochure, however, he says (p. 4):

As an occultist, I stand beyond monism and dualism...

In the book, however, he says “monistic-spiritualistic,” and then it continues:

It treats this material by drawing on occult, spiritual scientific research results, without therefore leaving the real ground of monism.

Just think about this tangle of thoughts! And on this ground, Mr. Boldt now wants to graft everything that the seer gives in terms of spiritual science! This is now amalgamated by Mr. Boldt and the further ground is created from it, on which we - we “bugs” - can develop further. Furthermore:

With its head in the sky, it seeks to gain a firm foothold on earth and vice versa: rooted in the physical world, it strives with its blossoms and fruits into the spiritual world. - For this reason, we too will not be able to please any of the contemporary parties, because our premises are also - since they are theosophical - “far beyond all party politics”.

When it comes to the various issues of the day, there is no reason to ignore the gender issue in favor of the other cultural issues, for it asserts itself in all its harrowing scope. The theosophist must therefore not withdraw his attention from it. He must also allow the light of his spirit to fall on this area of life and fertilize it with the spiritual reform ideas of Theosophy. This has been admirably stimulated by Steiner's two lectures on 'Man and Woman' and 'Man, Woman and Child in the Light of Spiritual Science'. Our task was now to treat this subject in a broader developmental-historical sense and to bring together all occult knowledge about it.

Where are the Theosophists, one might ask, who have so far dared to approach the reform of sexual life in the spirit of Theosophy? And how many are there who are able to bring the necessary interest and understanding to such endeavors? It is understandable that a pioneering undertaking like this one must meet with great resistance, especially from the partisans of the dualistic and monistic schools. But if such resistance also arises in part from the theosophical movement itself, this is merely due to the immaturity of the majority of its “followers”. But this movement is certainly not concerned with followers; it needs free spirits and big hearts that see through the life of the present with a bright, clear gaze and find the right points of attack for social action.

It is really not that difficult to see that this is written by a young, rather self-confident man, in whose head it not only looks quite chaotic, but also hovers in a rather ominous way the spirit of megalomania. And it must be said that during the time this young man has been our member, he has not only forgotten nothing of his megalomania, but has also profited nothing from the teachings of spiritual science. What does the insistence that we must deal with sexual problems mean to anyone who reflects on the facts of developmental history that have been given us through spiritual scientific research? The frequent references to sexual problems are somewhat superfluous. If one has only studied and thought about what has been communicated to us, for example, about the development of the human being, about the course of development of the world and humanity, from the fact of the influence of the spirit into the world and so on, then everyone will have to say to themselves: How foolish it would be if we Theosophists were now to coin a very specific formula for how we wanted to deal with this sexual issue. After all, this is about the most personal area of each of us, and everyone will know that it is self-evident how a person should behave in their particular case. It is a different matter if we wanted to know what foolish views prevail in scientific circles. In the case of Mr. Boldt's book, however, one can only conclude that it is a stupid and brazen book; but it is also a shamefully dishonest book. And I will prove this to you.

If one wanted to say that this Mr. Boldt was not aware of the terrible things he is saying and doing, that is no excuse. It only makes it much worse that in our circles, where enough can be learned, it is possible that a person writes, dares to write, that he lies and is not supposed to know it himself. So such things are growing in our circles. I still have to show you that there are other “Boldtes”, which is why I want to treat this case as a typical one. Mr. Boldt then talks about the “sources” of his book, cites works by Dr. Steiner and then says page [7-8]:

The elementary, ethical-aesthetic content of this writing is the author's own. Nevertheless, it should not go unmentioned that it is fully in line with what Steiner has set down in his brilliant “Philosophy of Freedom” and in the magnificent book on “Friedrich Nietzsche.

If you are not careful, you will not notice anything, not notice what the “ethical-aesthetic content of ideas” is. I must confess that I could not believe my eyes when I saw where Mr. Boldt finally ended up as a result of his interesting and valuable research, what he considers to be right for the sexual life of our time (p. 54 of his book). One can only describe it: that the ideal of asceticism should already be recognized, but that it should hover over people like a very distant ideal for the future. We humans are not yet so far that we could think of realizing such an ideal. When Mr. Boldt wants to think, he always quotes Nietzsche, and then he explains what is the only right thing for our time. It is remarkable that I, of all people, always have to say such things: the unrestricted freedom of the individual to experience lovingly sexually whatever he desires; and Mr. Boldt then presents the “Oneida practice” as something worthy of imitation. He says that what he quite openly proclaims as the conclusion of his ideal, his ethical-aesthetic idea, must be based on what Dr. Steiner himself says. In the remarks that follow $135 - as is the case with all profound works, there must be a commentary on them - things are said to explain why Dr. Steiner says the same thing as what Mr. Boldt proclaims as the ideological content of this book, which is his own soul property:

11) When Foerster often finds a “hymn to the powers of procreation” in the sexual education literature of recent years and thereby “really gets the feeling that religion has not disappeared, but has been transferred from the soul to the sexual sphere, and that God no longer reveals himself in conscience, but in the organs of procreation...”, he is by no means mistaken; spiritual science fully confirms the accuracy of this feeling. God reveals Himself not only in the free, thinking human spirit, but also in the organs of procreation. The wisdom of Foerster, “that sex itself is a street urchin,” is vigorously rejected by modern spiritual research. In his journal “Lucifer - Gnosis,” issue 23 “From the Akasha Chronicle,” Steiner comments on this as follows:

And now you shall see what it is capable of when we let all those into our circles who brutally and dirtyly exploit everything for themselves.

His (the human being's) entire lower half – that which is often called the lower nature – has now come under the intellectually shaping influence of the higher beings (the Jehovah-Elohims)... One can also say that those noble spiritual powers... have now descended to unfold their power in the area of reproduction. In fact, noble divine powers have a regulating and organizing effect in this area.

But all this is done in such a way that the reader thinks that Dr. Steiner said it.

And with that, an important sentence from The Secret Doctrine is expressed, which reads: The higher, noble divine powers are related to the seemingly lower powers of human nature.

And so on:

12) To supplement this thought, read Steiner: “The Secret Doctrine”, $. 65 to 75. There is talk of a “hidden spiritual” that “works in the revelations of the body”. Because “in everything that the senses perceive, they also receive a spiritual... The lowest pleasures can be revelations of the spirit. The satisfaction that the hungry being gets from eating is a revelation of the spirit. For through the intake of food, that is brought about, without which the spiritual could not find its development in a certain respect... Sensual pleasures the I must have as long as it lives in the body, even insofar as it is spiritual. For in the sensual the spirit reveals itself; and the I enjoys nothing but the spirit when it surrenders to the light of the spirit in the sensual world... This sensual world is a revelation of the spiritual hidden behind it. The ego could never enjoy the spirit in the form in which it can only reveal itself through the bodily senses if it did not want to use these senses to enjoy the spiritual in the sensual.

And what does Boldt make of it? He reinterprets everything in a sexual way!

As long as a person is moderate in his enjoyment, “sensual enjoyment as an expression of the spirit means elevation, development of the ego”; on the other hand, if “reasoned enjoyment increases to excess and debauchery,” it has an impoverishing, desolating and destructive effect on the ego.

What has been said here regarding the satisfaction that the hungry being derives from ingesting food also applies to the pleasure that loving beings experience through sexual union; for hunger and love grow on the same wood, as Schiller also indicates in his poem “The World Sages”.

The reader can find more details about enjoyment in “Lucifer - Gnosis”, issue 13 (“How to Know Higher Worlds?”), as well as in “Theosophy” (“The Path of Knowledge”).

There are still some passages that mean an increase.

The assembly has expressed its will to refrain from further reading!

Mrs. Wolfram, continuing: What do we have here? You cannot make even more unscrupulous use of another person's intellectual property! If Mr. Boldt had read the book thoroughly, he would no longer be in our ranks.

And now I would like to make an appeal to you, after first adding something to what I said earlier: that there are many Boldtes, and that this one is just a typical case. Unfortunately, there is a view among far too many people that our movement is there to support all those who do not want to help themselves. Our society would be such a large aid institution, and one would be obliged, if one is the head of a branch, to support such and such a person in his outer life. In short, the greatest demands are placed on society. Those who now enter society with a state of mind like Mr. Boldt, for example, and who believe that they can do everything with their heads, although they can do nothing at all, these only form a choir of the discontented. It was people like that who could not play a role; they have now done what they could - which then led to their exclusion from our society.

In order to give you a proper foundation, I would like to read a few words from No. 7/8, Volume IV, 1914 of Theosophy, edited by Dr. Vollrath, part of which is edited by Casimir Zawadzki. A year ago, he wrote me a letter asking me to do whatever I could to restore the old, good relationship between him, Dr. Steiner and the Society. This Zawadzki was a member of our Society for a while, and not a very comfortable member at that. I did what I could until he plagiarized Dr. Steiner's work in an outrageous manner, until he was expelled and threw himself into the arms of Dr. Vollrath, where he still is. He then thought that since he is Polish, it would be nice if he could perhaps become Secretary General in Warsaw. But when he realized that under Besant's aegis the matter was becoming shaky, he thought he would do better if he could work under Dr. Steiner again. And now I would like to point out how really not that much is needed to know whether someone fits into our society or not. Sometimes something like an impotence of logical thinking manifests itself in a single word. The letter reads:

Leipzig, January 31, 1913.

Dear Madam!

I must thank you most sincerely for the friendly welcome you gave me last Sunday and at the same time I would like to kindly request you once more to talk to Dr. Steiner about my matter and then give me news. As I said, I would like to be a disinterested co-worker in Dr. Steiner's work, because I have never stopped deeply admiring him.

My separation from Dr. Vollrath is imminent, I will hasten the matter myself as best I can. Perhaps Dr. Steiner will be so kind as to grant me an interview, through which the old good relationship between him and me, for which I long so much, can be restored. First of all, I definitely want to become a member of the German Section, which is under Dr. Steiner's leadership, but then I want to start work in Poland in line with Dr. Steiner's thinking. ... I would like to become a member of the lodge again, also without any interest, just for the sake of the cause and unity in the spirit, if I am to remain in Leipzig for some time. ...

Anyone who can write this has not just lost their marbles, they have lost several screws!

It is completely hopeless to believe that someone who is capable of writing such a thing can deserve to be taught by us. He lacks any possibility of correct thinking when he writes this in a letter in which he wants to present himself in the best possible light. This gentleman then launched a sensational advertisement about a teaching course – again about sexual matters. I then wrote in reply to his letter that it was not acceptable, and the matter was dropped. Now Zawadzki is writing an article in No. 7/8 of Theosophy that is linked to No. III of the Mitteilungen für die Mitglieder der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft (Communications for the Members of the Anthroposophical Society). So it is possible that a person like that could have had this No. III!

This number must be judged with a sense of history. It has value for the literary historian. Today's common sense has no way of verifying the facts stated here. Only those who have been able to distill the events that are documented in it through their own sense of truth would be able to criticize; the way in which they would do so would show their attitude. Today's educated person, who has risen above domestic morality and ethics, already regards his neighbor's private life as something sacred, untouchable, as a legal sphere that is none of his business, as a circle whose author is responsible for its weal and woe.

This is now attributed to Dr. Steiner because he published the letters of Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden.

Even higher than this person is the educated man who has gone through the training of some theosophical system of stories or is still in it. For him, not only the private but also the public duties of his neighbor are something untouchable, something sacred.

Can you understand this? I can't! And I would like to point out that there must be no confusion where it is not possible to see at first glance what is important. It continues:

Dr. Steiner settles the score with Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden. He has changed his style in a gratifying way since earlier. He used to get his words from the language of the servant when he couldn't find reasons.

He goes on to discuss Dr. Steiner's “servant manner” and the complete lack of feeling for human dignity and reverence, talks about Dr. Unger and Mrs. von Reden, and then talks about the “Esoteric Section”:

It was precisely this strange thing that Dr. Steiner did that made him unpopular in the Theosophical Society. Now at last people recognize the poison of this institution; they recognize the tremendous moral dangers associated with such a theosophical circle. One must distinguish between the abuse of the Esoteric Section and the institution itself. Institutions are neither good nor bad.

Now he is slobbering again, something is going around in his mind, and so is Mr. Boldt.

It is only use that falls under the law of karma and makes them bad and good tools. Mrs. Wolfram in Leipzig has often emphasized that Dr. Steiner, as head of the Esoteric School, should be given the vow of obedience by handshake. Now the “Mitteilungen” make the following statements about the Esoteric School: “The vow of unconditional and immediate obedience, as required in the Esoteric School, is a sign of a degenerate mind. It is self-aggrandizing presumptuousness towards God and man. An act that calls down the wrath of the God within man. ...

There is no other way to say this about the Besant institutions. — Another gentleman also wrote to me, saying that I should do everything I could to help him meet Dr. Steiner again; but in the same issue of Vollrath's Theosophy, he is at it again.

And now I would like to say the following. Everything must be done to counter the infiltration of certain elements by nurturing certain attitudes and feelings. There is a concept of tolerance within our society, of course we should be tolerant; but what do we mean by that?

That we have recognized that there is an unspeakably valuable teaching material that can be handed down to us, and for which we feel a responsibility. We can still be tolerant of those who appear beautiful, but not of those for whom the sensation of what is true or untrue, what is beautiful or hypocritical, is no longer there in the brain. Observe what is first presented in the cases of Fidus, Hübbe-Schleiden, Prellwitz and others, and then how it is said, “That is not at all so,” and then they still write, “... with deepest reverence,” and so on. It is not true that we are a hospital. And by this I mean that we want to make a little front against the intrusion of such elements into us! Because that means being tolerant of what is most precious to us! The lodge boards could be granted more rights – which is only right and proper vis-à-vis a lodge board. There is so much debate about what a lodge board can and cannot do, but nothing is said about the rights it should have. I do not see a lodge committee as a “jack of all trades” who only has to ensure that the lodge rooms are clean, that lectures are available – and has nothing further to say. I think that a lodge committee should above all have the freedom for the waste paper basket once they have been trusted by being elected. The patronage of all possible products of the various Theosophical members must stop. In ordinary life, I am not legally obliged to read or buy something that someone sends me; and yet the lodge boards are supposed to be obliged to display something in the lodge rooms if someone has produced it, and you get a cold if you don't do it? In this regard, every lodge board must be able to ensure the most meticulous cleanliness of the atmosphere. If he can ensure the cleanliness of the lodge rooms, he must also be able to do the other. And it is really not that difficult to know who belongs to our ranks and who does not. If only we could get rid of the eternal judging according to emotional values, according to what someone “says”! A person is not what he says – he may believe it of himself; a person is what he does. And if he has done this or that on the physical plane as an expression of his being, then I judge by his deed. If a Hübbe-Schleiden, a Boldt and so on have done this or that, I know what they have done. And if he wants to be taken up again, he must bring forth a different deed as a metamorphosis of his being.

The various lodge boards and the general board must at least have one resolution in the soul of each of them: from now on, everything must be done to ensure that the kind of people we have heard about today are the very last of their kind among us. If that were possible, then the matter could have been dealt with at our board meeting. If the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society is so sure of the trust that is so often mentioned, then it would be a matter of course that such documents as the Boldt case, when they arrive, are simply consigned to the wastepaper basket!

I would like to propose that the board be given the right, on the basis of the trust placed in it by the election, to dispose of such matters as it sees fit, so that we do not waste our time on such things, as is the case now.

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps something else would happen if the “concession Schulze in the disguise of the superman” would dare to stand up for Mr. Boldt's book. If I were to be as bold as Mr. Boldt wants me to be and recommend his book to the 75 percent of our members who are lagging behind, what would happen then? On page 14 of his brochure, Mr. Boldt says:

The probable consequence of this would be that in a few weeks the most tender friendships with an erotic touch could be seen developing among Theosophists of both sexes. Of course, the tendency towards this has always been present, and not exactly weakly, and here and there many an immoral yearning has found satisfaction – as it also happens in other circles; for nature is always true and life is always right. But the situation would only become embarrassing if those living in free love could invoke the authority of Dr. Steiner. Like Ellen Key in Sweden, he would be held responsible in Germany for every illegitimate Theosophist offspring. This could have the most disastrous consequences and seriously endanger the living conditions of the Theosophical Society.

This is just an appetizer. And now I ask you to enjoy the other dishes as fully as possible!

The meeting is suspended for tea; the negotiations will be continued on Monday, January 19, 1914.

The continuation of the protocol will be published in the following issue of Mitteilungen.

Discussion in the “Giordano Bruno League for a Unified World View” with a speech by Rudolf Steiner.

The purpose of the Bruno Federation is to promote a unified worldview. It does not see this as a final accomplishment, but as a task in the solution of which it seeks to participate in a research and teaching, organizing and stimulating way. In doing so, it is particularly concerned with bringing the various points of view to an understanding and, if possible, to some reconciliation. He also strives for unity in that he wants to harmoniously combine science, philosophy, art and devotion. As one of the means to this end, the league considers not only larger public lectures but also discussions about questions of world view in a smaller circle, as well as the publication of such league discussions through printing.

The first attempt to discuss a unified worldview took place in March 1902. The topic for discussion was: “What does a unified worldview mean in terms of its concept and value?” The new secretary of the federation, Dr. Hermann Friedmann, had taken on the introductory presentation, but was unable to deliver it due to illness. Mr. Wolfgang Kirchbach kindly stepped in for him to improvise and present his own views. After the Federal Chairman, Dr. Bruno Wille, had pointed out the purpose of the discussion evenings, Miss Maria Holgers read Hölderlin's moving poem “To Nature”. Wolfgang Kirchbach then took the floor:

"The Chairman has just emphasized that it is an equally difficult, challenging and significant task to establish and pursue a monistic worldview. Therefore, today, at our first discussion, I will try to present to you the full difficulty of the problem we face. However, this reference to the difficulty of our task is intended to be purely academic.

The sentence I have to talk about is formulated: What does ‘a unified worldview’, in terms of its concept and value, mean to us, or rather to me? I will briefly present the problem as it relates to me. For those who are not yet familiar with it, I emphasize that the word ‘unified worldview’ here is only a translation of the word “monistic,” which expresses the processing of all conceptual and other knowledge into a worldview of the unity of being, of the existence of the world in a unity. The word ‘unified worldview’ would probably describe the meaning more aptly.

But if we establish a unified worldview, we cannot deny ourselves the question of the value of such a worldview, the areas in which it is of value and the areas into which it breaks down.

To seek unity in the realm of the cosmos, as nature and its laws are popularly called, would be one side of a unified research and thinking. However, as it stands at present, science does not yet give those who have penetrated more deeply into it the right to speak objectively of unity in the cosmos. We are accustomed to thinking of this world as quantitatively represented in terms of matter and, in connection with it, the concept of force. The dualism that adheres to this combination of concepts has led to attempts to dissolve it into a unity. It was said that force is a function, an expression of matter, and in this way a certain unity was gained by conceiving of matter as something essentially one. In a completely different way, actual natural science has developed the concept of matter. With the help of its analytical methods, it has isolated more and more elements from the surrounding cosmos and, through empirical work, has found about seventy different elements, that is, materials, instead of a monistic matter. Thus the term “matter” has only the value of a linguistic abstraction, like the term “animal”. It does not correspond to any real individual, but the unity of these seventy elements is for the time being only a hypothesis.

We find the same thing with regard to the concept of force since Robert Mayer's discovery of the unity of force and the transformability of energy. They are faced with the tremendous mystery that the mechanical force and perhaps the same force that sets the globe and the sun in permanent relation and causes the rotation of the stars, that perhaps the same force, converted and transformed, represents those phenomena that a thunderstorm, for example, presents to us. But the fact remains that this phenomenon of electricity manifests itself differently than, say, the force that drives a stone to the center of the earth. Thus, science has not yet shown that we must assume a unity of nature in the sense that the various forms of energy are one. The different phenomena have not yet been bridged; here, too, we are only faced with hypotheses.

The same applies to a whole series of other phenomena. For example, we do not know where to draw the line between the higher concept of life of the organic and that of the inorganic. The entire explanation of nature is in the throes of a lively dispute on this point.

Since we have to tie in with this aspect of the world view with the material that science provides us, we must therefore admit that, objectively, the unity of the universe has not yet been proven as a fact.

But what about the other question that needs to be addressed in our overall quest for a unified world view? It is the question: How does our own thinking, which is based on unity, relate to its object, the world? Here we are faced with an apparent dualism. We see: there is something outside, and here is something that absorbs this outside. We have a duality here. But now we ask: To what extent can and may we assume that the functions of our brain, the forms of expression, categories of our mind form a unity with the world? The fact that you relate all the functions of your mind to a unity could at best be deduced from the fact that you localize them together in your body. First of all, the activity you perform when you research the cause that causes a stone to fall towards the earth is quite different from asking: Is it possible under the given conditions that this fall occurs? It could well be that the ideas supplied by the various mental activities come into conflict with each other and thus there would be no unity within you. A further question would be how the unified picture of the world that you carry within you corresponds to objective reality. To what extent do the laws that prevail in my mind also operate in the external world? In doing so, we will first have to think dualistically. Resolving this dualism into a monism is, however, a supreme urge in thinking itself; but epistemology is faced with a major problem here. Since Kant, dealing with it has been a duty for anyone who deals with questions of world view.

Thus, in constructing a unified worldview, we have to perform two operations: on the one hand, to empirically trace the infinite multiplicity of the world down to its smallest differentiations, and on the other hand, to always form our thinking in an epistemological sense into a monism, into a unification of that multiplicity into a unity.

In working with the material in this direction, we would soon encounter difficulties, not to mention those in the ethical realm. The question would soon arise before us as to what extent we can judge the moral life in man himself and the processes in the cosmos from the point of view of unified moral laws. For we cannot let any process of this world affect us without at the same time processing it ethically. The joy of the cosmos, the contemplation of harmony in infinite diversity, is at the same time a moral engagement. So the question arises: Can we arrive at a monistic view in ethical thinking itself and connect it with the rest of the monistic contemplation? — At the same time, the question arises for us: Could our moral feeling not also find satisfaction through a different contemplation? Why, for example, does the devout Christian consider his doctrine, which recognizes only one God, to be so infinitely higher than paganism, which has several deities? And how has the Christian nevertheless arrived at a dualism, even at the assumption of an even greater multiplicity in the supernatural world?

If scientific considerations were to yield proof of dualism, we would have to declare ourselves satisfied with that. To establish a monism just for the sake of being monistic would be worthless. But we have in mind a monism, a being of things themselves, by which we can measure the value of all our views: the true, the truth. There is only one lasting evaluation for every single science, for every knowledge: that its statements are true, that is, that they correspond to objective processes. This is also the only valid assessment for a worldview. Only if a monistic mode of explanation proved to be true in all objective circumstances, as in our subjective actions, in all manifestations of the diversity of life, would it be valuable; I could see no other criterion for judging the value of this world view. This monon of truth, which can never become untrue, is so far the only recognizable eternal unity, to which objective phenomena in their multiplicity and transitoriness interact with the spirit."

After these words of Kirchbach, Dr. Rudolf Steiner rose to give the following remarks:

"I would like to stick closely to the question: What does a unified worldview mean in terms of its concept and values? In doing so, I am in direct opposition to the previous speaker. If I ask myself: From the standpoint of our modern natural science and spiritual science, are we justified in considering the world to be a unity? I have to say that we are, we are at least placed in the position of having to search for it. In the face of the manifold diversity into which the specialization of the sciences has undoubtedly led us, I ask: Where should we look for unity? To say from the outset that this or that must first be demonstrated as a unity seems to me to be the exaggerated demand of an extreme epistemology. For me, the pursuit of a unified worldview is justified by the simple fact that it is an indelible need of the human spirit that has existed at all times, perhaps more clearly in pre-Christian times, when it had not yet been suppressed by the dogmas and views of the church, which a union that seeks to build on Giordano Bruno's legacy has a particular duty to fight against.

Meanwhile, I find that the results of the natural sciences also meet this need. Chemistry has found seventy elements and will perhaps increase this diversity; but at the same time it has found something very special: Between these elements, it has found certain relationships with regard to atomic weight, for example, according to which a scale of the elements can be constructed that is also a classification of these elements according to their acoustic, optical and other physical properties. From a gap in this scale, one has inferred missing elements, partially predicted their properties and actually discovered them afterwards. Thus the phenomenal elements, although different, nevertheless represent a great unity, which we can follow with the calculation.

However, the chemist is forced to look for the unity elsewhere than in the brutal concept of a unified substance, namely in a system of lawful relationships. Professor Ostwald spoke out in this direction at a congress of natural scientists. Recently a journal has been founded to further develop the outdated materialism in this new natural philosophical sense. So we are standing in front of a new world view, which we cannot yet conclude, but to which a perspective has been opened up, and indeed a perspective on unity.

The same applies to the uniformity of force. In terms of phenomena, we will probably never be able to trace electricity back to pure gravitation, but in the mathematical formula we use to calculate and convert it, we have something real and fundamental; and thus a perspective has been opened up for us regarding the unity of force.

Without wanting to take the exact position of Goethe's metamorphosis theory, which was the first to seek a unifying principle in the organic realm, I do think, however, that it also represents an important step towards a unified world view. Added to this is the biogenetic law, according to which every being, in its embryonic development, once again passes through the forms of the species from which it originated. Since it has become possible to produce organic substances in the laboratory, we are offered a clear prospect of unity here as well.

If one does not want to demand unity in the phenomenal, this perspective shows us where to look for the monon. And it is becoming increasingly clear to us what all great philosophers had no doubt about: that what we experience in the external world is equivalent to what we experience in the mind. If we proceed from external to internal experience, we will arrive at a unified world view. For those seeking unity, the last decades of science are quite comforting, for from all fields elements are flowing to them that open up a unified worldview.

Its value lies in the fact that it satisfies a spiritual need, which, just as necessary as air and light, belongs to the happiness of a spirit that develops this need within itself.

Mr. Kirchbach replied as follows: “Regarding the question: How do we arrive at a unified worldview and how do we imagine it? Dr. Steiner has given many suggestions with which I fully agree. But there are individual points that can be argued about. The example given by the previous speaker of Goethe's doctrine of the metamorphosis of plants shows how even a great mind could believe that he had found a unifying principle in a point that later turned out to be questionable. Goethe believed that the same morphological principle applied to the chlorophyll leaf as to the stem, and he saw the principle of the leaves recurring in the shape of the petals and in the pistil, so that to him all parts of the plant were only modifications of one and the same morphological principle. On the other hand, it is a fact that in the rose the stem leaf has only one median channel, while the petal has three, so there is indeed a fundamental difference in the morphological structure of the rose, as well as a chemical one.

The newer cell theory seeks unity in a completely different area than in this apparent morphology. Here the cell is the formative principle and brings about the overall structure through the sum of all factors to which it is subject. Perhaps it will be similar with some of the concepts of Darwinism.

I have used this example to show how difficult it is to find unity even in natural phenomena, because we must first learn to group the phenomena correctly according to mere observation before we can conclude their essential unity through mathematical or other logical mediation.

Dr. Bruno Wille: “You have just heard two representatives of worldviews that, I think, agree on the fundamentals, apart from a few points of difference. First of all, certain difficulties were pointed out that apparently stand in the way of developing a unified worldview. We do, of course, first experience nature as a multitude, as an enormous amount of different sensations. Only when we compare this diversity in a spirit of seeking unity and partly bridge the differences, partly dissolve them, can we come closer to a unified world view.

To seek such unity is indeed, as Dr. Steiner says, a general human need; first of all a logical need. Our cognitive apparatus, which seeks to comprehend the world, tends to think of all that is multiple as a unity. Thus, despite all their differences, we see a certain commonality in the trees of our forests in Brandenburg and combine them into a single unit, for example, in the term “pine”. We then order the pines together with the birches, oaks and aspens, with the blueberries, ferns and mosses into an even higher unit, into the term “plant”. If we compare a plant with ourselves, then here again a unity is present; we are dealing with organic living beings. Thus our thinking is constantly in search of overarching associations and contexts. This, of course, raises the important question of epistemology: Does our thinking correspond to the world independent of us? Is the unity of nature more than a mere subjective, intellectual experience? The answer is highly complex. Today I am content with a simple 'Yes', while I still note: I also seek the monism in that, unlike Kant, I understand subject and object, spirit and nature as an inseparable unity and, like the medieval 'realists', see a real, not just nominal identity in the concept.

For our moral endeavors, too, doubt about what is morally true, right, and salutary can only be dispelled if we can derive the individual moral ideas from a supreme unity. If there were two or more world principles that were in absolute opposition to each other, contradictory principles for our moral life would also be derived from them; and in fact we would end up in terrible contradictions in all areas of our lives. Thus, our entire idealism points us to monism, to the search for the eternal One.

Of course, science has not yet given a clear and unequivocal answer to the question of why we have to look for the One in the seemingly manifold world; but, as Dr. Steiner very rightly emphasized, the magnificent development of science in the last century was so fruitful for the cause of a unified world view that the monistic philosopher must not fail to make full use of these fruits. On the other hand, the natural scientist should not look down on the millennia-old work of philosophy with contempt, but rather take the doubts raised by philosophy seriously and seek to answer them. I am pleased that Dr. Steiner has acknowledged that old materialism has become untenable. This insight is a fruit of philosophical criticism. And so philosophy and natural science belong together as complementary ways of looking at the world.

To supplement the scientific facts, in which Dr. Steiner rightly sees important aspects of monism, I would like to refer to the following pages of my unified world view. Above all, I would like to emphasize that we find a comprehensive natural law in all world processes and phenomena, for which we have never been able to establish an exception: the law of causality. It is a fact that every process follows, in terms of thought, from another, which we can call the cause of the following. I now think that in this context, cause and effect mean nothing other than what we call development. We can understand the emergence of the effect from the system of its conditions as the further development of the cause. The law of causality thus permeates all world processes, for which we can in turn determine special rules, the special laws of nature. According to such 'eternal, ironclad, great laws', the world comes together for us as a unity, in contrast to the dualistic world view, which admits of miracles, i.e. exceptions to the laws of nature, which it cannot plausibly explain without 'higher counsel', that is, without admitting human ignorance.

I find a further unity of the world in the fact that everything I know about the universe is an experience, either an experience for me or an experience for other beings, as well as an experience of the self. If by this is not meant only the experience of ideas, which would bring us closer to the idealistic view that regards only the idea as the real thing in the world, then I think we can all agree on this sentence; for no one would be able to prove that there is any existence that is not an experience. In this fundamental principle of my world view, I have achieved a reconciliation of significant contradictions, which give cause for concern in any one-sided materialistic or mechanistic monism. Thus I have overcome the contradiction between matter and spirit, which I unite by understanding all that is physical as experience, not, of course, as mere phenomenon for our senses, but as a way in which the eternal One experiences Itself. In general, my monism denies all absolute contradictions. For me, death means another side of life. I can only imagine the emergence of the organic from the inorganic if there is no absolute contradiction between the two natural kingdoms. In the moral life, I regard evil only as an immature form, a lower stage of the good; thus I do not accept any absolute evil, only a relative one. So too is error only an immature truth, a certain stage of development on the way to knowledge.

I seek a unified worldview, as you can see, also in the sense that I strive for a subjective unity, a unity between my various spiritual aspirations, my manifold experiences and personality forces. I have overcome the opposition between head and heart, between sentiment and reason, between true religiosity and scientific knowledge, as well as the opinion that art is only an illusion, a sweet deception that stands in the way of cool insight. So I emphasized at the founding of our association that in cultivating a unified worldview, people should be guided to transform the tearing hostilities in their inner life into harmony – into a reconciliation; not, of course, into a sentimental reconciliation, but into a clear unity of their highest spiritual deliberations.

Wolfgang Kirchbach: “In concluding this discussion, I would like to ask you to consider the conversation that has taken place between the three gentlemen as the preface to the discussions that follow. In the upcoming discussions, we may perhaps refrain from continuing them in this general way. Lines have been described along which an inner consensus can be followed. In the next discussions, we want to pick out specific questions. All speakers agree that a unified worldview is an unavoidable need. So our main task would be to determine how far these efforts have come and to limit the question to specific points. I do not want to give any further details about this yet and so I will end the novel with a “to be continued” for today, to whet your appetite: “How will it continue?”

An introductory lecture by Rudolf Steiner: “Before which forum can a decision be made regarding ‘a unified worldview?’ — An attempt at an answer to the question of ‘Truth and Science’ ”; followed by discussion.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner, as speaker: I was once inspired to pose our question “Before which forum must a unified worldview be decided?” by the earlier discussions of our association, which, after all, wants to cultivate a monistic worldview, and also by my personal involvement in the dispute over Haeckel's “Welträtsel” (World Riddle). Here in the group, the questions were often considered: What is the essence of a unified worldview, what is its value, do we actually have the right to speak of a specifically monistic one? It was emphasized once that according to the present standpoint of science we have no right to speak of unity in material respects, and on another occasion Dr. Penzig explained that in the striving after a unified world picture embracing the whole of nature and the spiritual world one could not but round off the objective picture given by the individual sciences, thus forcing the facts. Even then I noticed that the greatest advances often originated from such supposed falsifications. The Copernican system, for example, was a “falsification” of the facts available for its time, just as the Lamarck-Darwin theory of evolution is nothing more. Just as Tycho de Brahe provided the only possible world view for his time, so it is easy for the fact fanatic, who does not want to go beyond the objectively given facts with his thinking, to prove the “falsifications” that Lamarck-Haeckel's theory of evolution contains according to the current state of science. Nevertheless, I believe that, like Copernicus, Haeckel will be proved right. At the time, I strongly supported the much-debated “Welträtsel” because I admired the consistency and extreme boldness with which a mind creates and “falsifies” a world view from a one-sided point of view. Although my basic philosophical views are only opposed to his in what he fights against in them and agree with him in what he presents positively. At the same time, however, I was described as one of Haeckel's main opponents, an experience that seems symptomatic to me of our time, in that the author's world of ideas takes on a completely different image in someone else's mind. We use our terms, based on their usual position in intellectual life, to put forward ideas that mean something other than what we want to express.

In the course of these arguments about Haeckel and in the discussions within the Bund, a question has been brought to life for me that I have often asked myself: What is the relationship between truth and science? Does science contain truth? Does it contain any elements that could lead to the construction of a unified world view? Do we have the right to construct a unified world view or any world view at all on the basis of science?

This question, which has occupied people for centuries, has been closer to being solved in the past than in modern times, and has been obstructed in

way of solution by the so-called theory of knowledge has blocked itself, one must realize before which forum anything at all can be established in relation to truth and science, in relation to the truth content of science.

Nowadays, after all the developments of the 19th century, we have the idea of truth as something that must correspond to objective reality. We find ourselves in an intensive fanaticism of facts that does not allow us to go beyond mere registration. If truth is only a conceptual repetition of what exists outside of us, then, according to the perception of those who today strive for a worldview, this is also nothing more than a counter-image of facts existing outside of us, of the reality already finished in the world outside of us. If it were possible to take a photograph of the world from some corner in the most favorable perspective possible, the ideal of a worldview would be achieved. But to construct such a world view would actually be superfluous, a mere luxury of the human mind, if, like science, it were to be nothing more than a mere repetition, a kind of photographic counter-image of what is going on in the world, what is available in a completed form. The fact that the individual still forms an individual counter-image alongside science would be completely superfluous, infinitely unimportant for the whole world context. If nature has provided and developed everything for us except the final point, then what the human spirit dreams and creates does not belong to reality. For this point of view, which appears grotesquely in today's science, even in Haeckel's “Welträtsel” (World Riddle), man is nothing more than a mere speck of dust in the cosmos, differing from the worm only quantitatively. If he forms a picture of the world, he lives a life of luxury, doing something that adds not the slightest thing to the evolution of the world. Rather, he is required never to contribute anything of his own that is not found in the rest of nature, but only to register, compare, and logically combine.

We ask: Is this procedure of merely confronting objective nature logically, never adding anything beyond the current state of affairs, consistent with the course of nature's entities; is there perhaps nothing in the direction of nature's development that compels us to add anything to reality? Nature gives us the answer itself. In particular, it should give it to the evolution theorist.

Allow me to explain this to you in a concise way, assuming that nature is at the stage of its development that there were only monkeys and no humans. The monkeys would have investigated the phenomena of the world, they would have found what lies beneath them, and monkeys too. If they had taken the empirical standpoint, they would have been satisfied with the realization that the world ends with monkeys. Perhaps they would have founded a monkey ethic based on general monkey perception, so that nothing new would have been added to the world here and they would have remained at their standpoint. But from our standpoint of knowledge, we know that in the principle of development there was indeed something that led beyond the ape genus, that, because it was a productive principle, because it led beyond what was present as a completed reality, , led to the development of man, something that was not limited to the actual, which, as a real imagination, as it were, real intuition in nature, leads it beyond its individual stages and lifts it beyond the immediate present.

Man, too, as a product of evolution, as a being in nature, is there to live for evolution, not merely to look back and form a picture of evolution and regard himself as the end of the series. A Weltanschhauung that seeks to summarize the content of all his thinking and doing will therefore not only be theoretical and contemplative, but also practical and postulating. Man should therefore not only repeat nature in some way, but see if there are not forces within him that lead beyond the immediately given. He should make the development spiritually, ideally alive in himself, should seek the forces that drive the species forward, that bring about progress, not merely examine his mental powers to see if they correspond to reality. The question “Can we penetrate to the thing in itself, see into the essence of the world?” is a disaster, an obstacle for man. But when he places himself in the process of evolution, intervening in nature to advance it a step further, he comes to a sense of his exalted task, of his position within the world.

There are in fact rudiments for the formation of this superscientific standpoint, which fully recognizes science but rises above what science offers it as the lawfulness of logical thought. Maeterlinck, for example, has advanced similar views in one of his more recent books, in which he describes the marriage of the bees. One wonders: can we speak of truth in the sense of scientific truth, of agreement with the given reality, which is always in the material small print, if it is to be the content of a world view, or does it, as a world view , does it lead beyond the purely objective truth in a similar way to the poetic truth according to the view of those who understand it in the Goethean sense, as the poetic truth leads beyond the immediate naturalistic truth?

Such approaches can be found in many forms today, to the delight of those who see truth in living life, and to the horror of fact fanatics like Tycho de Brahe or Haeckel's opponents. But it does not belong in their forum. The truth, which wants to fertilize, will always be a search, will always have to “falsify” the image of the fact fanatics; but it stands infinitely above this, in that it develops something intuitive, spiritual in man, adding something new to nature, which would not be without the human spirit. Thus, what man cherishes in his dreams, what he creates in his mind, acquires more than the significance of mere luxury; in life, it becomes a cosmic truth, something that man has newly generated. Thus, on the foundation of science, he rises to productive work that flows freely from his soul as original intuition. At the highest level of development, he has a task that no other being in the world has; he adds something that would not exist forever without him.

These views may be abhorrent to the pure scientist, but I believe it is a correct insight that man has the right to be productive in his world view, a feeling that was different times, when we had not yet been blinded by a fanatical belief in facts and by epistemology, times that were convinced from the outset of the cosmic character of this addition.

Let me conclude with the words of Angelus Silesius, which express the realization of the unique significance of the human spirit in the world:

Without me, God could not create a single little worm; if I became nothing, it would have to break into nothingness.

Schäfer, former spokesperson for the Free Religious and Humanist Community in Berlin, objects to the term “falsification” for Copernicus' error. If he had assumed a circular motion instead of an elliptical one, then that would have been an inadequate conception, which, like many similar ones, has been clarified by the advancing human spirit, as it will always be the fate of man to have to stop in front of imperfections of his conceptions, which will only be resolved later.

The speaker would have preferred to have seen the topic formulated as follows: “By what forum, by what court can a judgment be passed on a Weltanschhauung, on truth and untruth, and thus on its right and wrong?”

This forum can only be the personality, its sovereignty. From this position then flows the feeling of responsibility.

Dr. Stern: “An important basis for our discussion is the question as to whether a world view, that is, a general philosophical view of the true nature of the world and of all that exists, is possible at all. This question has been answered very differently. While on the one hand it is considered unobjectionable to create a dogmatic world view based on experience, another opinion, to which I subscribe, is critical positivism, which, starting from scientific knowledge, does not stop at the individual fact, but still does not consider it possible to gain a true picture of the cosmos.

To justify the dogmatic method, reference is made to the metaphysical drive that undoubtedly exists in man, even in the child who breaks the toy in order to get to the bottom of the matter.

In the formation of metaphysical systems to satisfy this urge, however, two psychological errors have crept in: Greek philosophy singled out one of the various parts of the universe and made it the subject, the true essence of nature. So Thales the water. In more recent times, people have fallen back on the idea of considering various psychological abilities of human nature individually and, fantastically magnified, of imposing them on nature as an entity. Thus Hegel makes reason the world principle, Schopenhauer blind will. Lotze assumes a comprehensive consciousness that mediates all interaction. Thus philosophy has happily returned to where it started, in hylozoism.

I consider it impossible to find a general, true and correct worldview, on the one hand because of the subjective nature of the human mind, which sees everything through subjective glasses and, according to Kant, can never recognize the thing in itself, and on the other hand for the objective reason that all our research covers only such a small part of the universe and it is generally impossible that such a large part of what is happening will ever enter into the circle of our experience that we can draw universally valid conclusions about the whole world from it.

Benedikt Lachmann: “Dr. Steiner seems to me to be positing a contradiction between human beings and nature. The essence of the human being, like that of every other form of existence, can be dissolved into a play of forces, of movement and resistance, that fight with each other in vain. It cannot be a matter for human beings to rise above these forces, but rather they must seek to engage with them as best they can.

Wolfgang Kirchbach: “Dr. Steiner said that it is a danger, indeed a necessity of the human spirit, to arrive at a falsification if it does not want to content itself with a simple image, an imitation of reality. In contrast to this, Baco of Verulam believed that he could build a correct world view based solely on the perceptionibus sensuum, and he rejected the Copernican system because it contradicted his conception of the perceptiones.

When determining the truth, it depends on the knowledge that man has of his powers and abilities, which are given to him to judge reality. This includes, for example, mathematical judgment, which corrects perceptions. One can only speak of falsification in the sense that man unilaterally renounces one or the other ability. There have also been minds that thought in full possession of all their mental abilities at a certain level of maturity, which we call reason. When Mr. Schäfer says that the forum of a worldview is the sovereignty of my personality, he certainly meant that this forum is the total possession of the mental powers of my personality, and we can agree on the name reason.

The rational grasp of truth demands that every judgment be reconciled with reality for every thought, in science as well as in world view, and requires observation, perception, correction of perception, to find the concept, the expression that expresses the greatest sum of known facts according to the respective state of knowledge, that expresses the greatest concordance of our judgments with reality.

This is the only way to make research and imagination productive, to protect oneself from error, which is refuted by reality, without content and unproductive. Only in this way is it possible to add something productively to nature. Even if the poet gives us a view of the world, we think it better that he creates realistic figures in which a social or other general law can be observed in his work. His work is also only a reflection of reality, but the act of finding the real inner symbol is an eminently productive activity, just as in science the act of finding the comprehensive, fruitful generic term from the sum of the opposing and restrictive data.

It does, however, require a productive imagination, but this also needs a rational regulator, a restriction of fantasy through reality.

This method has added something to the world by creating new organs. Through methodical and reasonable observation, Kant has added a completely new element to what we commonly call nature in the moral realm, the world of sensation and feelings of pleasure, which extends far beyond empirical nature: the categorical imperative.

Dr. Steiner: “I must confess that the attacks have not touched on what I have said today at all. I did not speak of a contradiction between humanity and nature. I was speaking rather from the standpoint of the most consistent point of view in the theory of evolution, that I regard all stages of nature, from the lowest to the highest stirrings of the spirit, as unified, and only appearing in different forms. But an amoeba is not a human being, and it is not a matter of blurring all distinctions. But if I say that in nature everything is only force, resistance, motion, then it is too reminiscent of the sentence: All cats are gray at night. It is not possible to get to the bottom of the world in the twinkling of an eye. Only when I have distinguished things can I look for a unifying, connecting principle. In the sense of the connecting principle of development, I have spoken of the task of man as one within nature, given by the facts of development.

I fully agree that we must adhere to reality if we want to be productive, and that we must correct our imagination in line with it. I only pointed out that efforts to present a world view that is only a copy of reality, as Büchner wants, have not yet met these requirements, and that, for example, this too is forced to do violence to the facts. It is not the intention that is important here, but the result. One behaves as if one wanted to give a picture of reality, but cannot. My principle is therefore not a theoretical, but a practical going beyond reality in the sense in which I see it in the principle of development, where creatures go beyond their own kind. This aspect of the problem has not been touched upon in the discussion.

I did not use the word falsification in the sense of the imperfection of a presentation that will only be clarified later, but rather meant that researchers are always forced into deliberately false representation for the sake of the system when they seek comprehensive unity, and therefore asked whether what we are entitled to call reality in the highest sense at all coincides with what the naturalist thinks of as reality. When Haeckel illustrates three stages of embryonic development with the same stereotype, he is forced to falsify in order to be able to provide evidence according to the scientific method. I mean that such forgers are nevertheless right, as Haeckel is in relation to his opponents who cling to the purely factual nature of the scientific method, because they intuitively see beyond the individual facts, not in a fanciful way.

But when Dr. Stern rejects the possibility of a world picture, of an overall view in principle, and in doing so draws on the diversity of philosophical systems to support his view, it is a fable convenue based on incomplete ideas of the individual systems. The most significant attempts at truth that have been made, from Vedanta philosophy through Greek to German, are approximations to the truth in varying degrees.

The forum before which the legitimacy of one or the other view is decided can only be the forum of the human being, his sovereign personality, as I agree with Dr. Schäfer. This sentence seems to me to be a truly real one, which has been formed not out of theoretical fantasies but out of the experience of men who have worked practically. But just as it is true that the personality is the ultimate forum, so it is certainly true that then the personality must always feel the responsibility of this position and the duty to constantly develop, to educate the depths of the personality. The child cannot be a forum in the same way as someone who is at the height of knowledge. The question therefore arises: Where in us humans lies the potential for development, the productive element? What in us corresponds to that which nature drives forward, which allowed apes to leave their species and become human?

If I regard man as a product of evolution, then I can indeed see him as the highest possible forum. But I also have the obligation to constantly call the highest human in me into existence and have no right in any moment of my life to recognize myself as the final and absolute forum, but I can, as I am in development, give myself up to the expectation that in every moment of my existence a higher point of knowledge than I now have can arise. The further development of the personality must be based on science, but it must also go beyond it, as art and poetry do. Just as art and poetry cannot be reduced to blind phantasms, so, when people control their personality by means of the principle of development, however far they go beyond objective nature, agreement will arise in the most diverse people, as the agreement of philosophical systems of all times shows.

The solution to the question “To what extent does science contain truth? Can it alone lead to truth?” lies in this sovereign meaning of human personality.

The world, especially for science, is in many respects dualistically constructed. Evolution is only possible because nature has prepared the future in it in a twofold way. Nature presents itself to man as an apparent, seemingly irreconcilable contradiction that cannot be resolved by science, as force, matter, and so on.

This is where the significance of human personality comes in. Only the life activity of man can be unifying, monistic. It consists in dissolving these apparent contradictions into a higher, productively generated view of life, in the life of development, in the uniting of contradictions, in living action.

Therefore, the question of the validity of the world view is to be decided before the forum of life, not before the forum of knowledge.

Lecture by Rudolf Steiner at the Giordano Bruno League

Dr. Steiner begins by saying that in the current state of German intellectual life, a man who is worldly-wise in the ordinary sense would not speak publicly on such a topic, because there is hardly any other that would be so likely to compromise him, and then continues: “Theosophy is a name often claimed by people who want to explore their destiny in spiritualistic circles. And yet, even though it has a whiff of fraudulence about it, I am fully aware of the topic when discussing its connection to German intellectual life. I much preferred being in my chemical laboratory to being in any spiritualist circle, and I know that one can get one's hands dirty in such circles, but I have also washed my hands and hope that I will be able to give you an understanding of the word theosophy as a serious worldview. It must be clearly stated that a serious world view can only be sought on the basis of modern natural science. I will never deviate from the idea that only in it is salvation to be found. But science still fills hearts and minds with its materialistic philosophy, and even if individual enthusiasts claim that we have long since passed the age of Büchner and so forth, if we

the materialism of the 1850s will continue to conquer the world. Almost all natural scientists of the present day are materialists, even if they deny it.

Natural science has shown us how gradually beings came into existence and perfected themselves until man appeared. But here, according to Haeckel in the 22nd link of his organic ancestral series, it stopped. David Friedrich Strauß praised the fact that natural science has freed us from miracles, from the miracle in the sense in which Linné said in the 18th century: “

How can we restore the harmony that existed for the ancient religions, and even for the early Middle Ages? With St. Augustine, this discord gradually emerged, leading to the two great dualistic currents in the contrast between scholasticism and Galileo and so on. Science was like a son who returns home from abroad and can no longer be understood by his father, and Protestantism is nothing more than the father's declaration that he wants to disinherit the son, and Kantianism is the conclusion, the last phase of this process!

The first great attempt to overcome this dichotomy was made by the German idealist philosophers Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. Three years after Hegel's death, Fichte's son published a book on human self-knowledge. It deals with this as a task that natural science itself has set. I.H. Fichte says something like: When we observe natural beings, we see their eternal laws. But when we regard the human soul itself as a natural process, we are faced with a change in our understanding. The laws of nature lie outside our personality in the natural basis from which we have emerged, but in our soul we do not see finished natural laws; we are natural law ourselves. There nature becomes our own deed, there we are development. We do not merely recognize, we live. We now have the task of creating eternal iron laws, no longer merely recognizing them. I.H. Fichte then suggests: at this point, man not only lives in his knowledge of nature, at this point he realizes and lives the divine, the creative, at this point philosophy passes over into theosophy!

This is how the concept of theosophy appears in German intellectual life. We can now perhaps see more clearly that theosophy is nothing other than the ultimate demand of a true monism between knowledge of nature and knowledge of the self. This gives us a perspective for reconciling the contradictions between religion and science. We now know that there is no other divine power that can elevate the worm to man; we know that we ourselves are this divine power.

One may ask: But what is the use of such knowledge? Well, I would reply, what significance does the simple recording of facts have, which is usually called knowledge? Those who I would call cosmic loafers are satisfied with that.

Those who understand the concept of theosophy in this way will also understand Fewerbach, who says that man has created God in his own image. We are quite willing to admit that the concept of God is born of the human heart, and that God, as a symbol of an inner ideal, can develop man beyond man.

In this way we shall gain a divine wisdom that will express the divinity of nature. We are now living in a time that could become an important turning-point in the spiritual development of Europe, as it was for the age in which Copernicus, Giordano Bruno and Galileo lived and founded modern natural science. But the latter has not known how to celebrate its reconciliation with religion. We are faced with this task, we must fulfill it. No matter how inadequate these attempts may be, there are currents in modern intellectual life that are moving in this direction. Religions are not founded as such, and so there are no religious geniuses in the sense that there are scientific and artistic geniuses. But there are personalities who express the content of knowledge of their time as religious feeling. I am well aware of the great defects and errors of the theosophical movement. Duboc has called theosophy a feminine philosophy. We can change that by making it a masculine one in critical Germany.

I know that there can be no salvation outside of science, but we must find new methods of soul research based on natural science in order to do what all the old religious views were able to do: establish a great unity between religious need and science. Theosophy in the sense I have characterized it has nothing to do with the reports of facts of hypnotism and somnambulism that are often lumped together with it; indeed, one could reject these and still be a theosophist, but these appearances of abnormal mental life are not to be rejected at all, and in the scientific interpretation of these facts, undertaken particularly by French and English scholars, I see the first tentative attempts at real soul research.

Dr. Steiner concluded his programmatic lecture with a reference to a painting by the Belgian Wiertz, “Man of the Future”. It shows a giant holding cannons and other attributes of the culture of our time, smiling as he shows them to his wife and children, who have shrunk to the size of pygmies in comparison. It will be our task to ensure that we do not appear so pygmy-like in front of the man of the future.

First, O. Lehmann-Rußbüldt gave a lecture on Dr. Steiner's lecture for orientation purposes, adding that it was his personal wish that not only the 250 to 300 listeners to the lecture would have been present, but also the 2000 to 3000 people who make up the spiritual public life in Germany. Dr. Steiner's call to make theosophy, if it is a female philosophy according to Duboc, into a male one in critical Germany, should be underlined thickly, so that it would take up a whole page in print, because there is certainly no small danger in the theosophical movement. The speaker acknowledged that, despite electricity and precision mechanics, our intellectual culture could be called crude compared to the harmony that existed between science and religion in the great cultures of antiquity, but, he added emphatically, we do not want to despair of ourselves because of that. The obvious superiority of our intelligence, as it manifests itself in the machine age, could be a guarantee that we will deepen and expand what the culture of antiquity only had a presentiment of, albeit in the most magnificent way. To this end, the speaker quoted a passage from Count Gobineau's racial work about the spiritual disposition of the Aryan, which can certainly also be applied to the peoples of the Atlantic world, i.e. Western Europe and North America:

"The Aryan is thus superior to other men mainly to the extent of his intelligence and energy, and thanks to these two abilities, if he succeeds in conquering his passions and his material needs , he is likewise granted the ability to achieve an infinitely higher morality, although in the ordinary course of things one can find as many reprehensible actions in him as in individuals of inferior races.” The speaker concluded by saying that, in his opinion, science would develop from the defamed hypnotism and somnambulism into an expanded and refined psychology, which would mean as much to us for the knowledge of the soul as astronomy and chemistry mean for the knowledge of nature, despite the fact that these sciences have developed from astrology and alchemy.

In the discussion that followed, Nicolai was the first to criticize the fact that it was not explained what Theosophy actually wanted and could do.

Dr. Steiner replied that his lecture had only wanted to emphasize the connection between monism and the world view, which was already moving in modern tracks in the days of Vedanta philosophy in India. The dualism that has been emerging in Christianity since the 4th century consists in the fact that it may well accept the eye and the senses for the knowledge of the world of phenomena, but for the knowledge of our origin and our destination, it does not allow the means of our knowledge either, but refers us to faith, to the revelations of old books and prophets. But monism promises a development of knowledge, just as it has been able to establish a development of species for living beings. In the writings of Vedanta philosophy, there is a conversation in which a disciple asks the teacher: What happens when I die? The teacher replies: The solid and liquid parts of your body will become solid and liquid again, because man is like a stone and an animal; even the expressions of your thoughts and actions dissolve into your surroundings, but what remains is the “development,” the reason for what has formed your personality. — Thus, Vedanta philosophy is already monistic in its core. What lives only in the unconscious in animals, namely the urge to develop their personality, must enter into fullest consciousness in humans and merge with consciousness as an ideal.

Fritz Sänger polemicized against Dr. Steiner. The Theosophists always pretend that they already possessed and still possess the results of modern natural science, but they have never given any examples of such superiority. He feared that a movement of this kind was only too well suited to undermine the results of modern natural science; despite the most careful observation, he had only been able to find the expression of idiocy in spiritualism, but he had to acknowledge the fact of hypnotism.

After Köhn had spoken in warm and urgent words in favor of Dr. Steiner, O. Lehmann-Rußbüldt remarked that Mr. Sänger's remarks were typical of the representatives of so-called natural science of all times. Fifteen years ago, Sänger would have declared as nonsense the fact, demonstrated by Krafft-Ebing among others, that a lime-leaf laid on a hypnotized person causes a burn like a glowing piece of iron if the hypnotized person is to regard it as such; just as a hundred years ago the French materialists declared it to be nonsense that meteorites can fall from space onto the earth.

Dr. Steiner then once again vigorously opposed the confusion of Theosophy and spiritualism. If Mr. Sänger had encountered such Theosophists who gave cause for this, then he should stick to them, but he, Dr. Steiner, firmly rejected this. He considers it immoral in the philosophical sense to seek teachings about destiny and human nature through the manifestations of so-called spirits; that would be gross materialism. He also does not place any particular value on the name Theosophy. Above all, he finds the high ethics of Theosophy meaningful in his sense, which, for example, leads to the most serious consequences in education. What a perspective for the mind of the educator when he is aware that he has to unfold a seed of divinity in the child! ^{1Our reporter, Mr. Otto Lehmann-Rußbüldt, the second chairman of the Bruno-Bund, feels the need to add to the report here that he also sees this lecture, alongside so many other significant phenomena in the spiritual life, as a nucleus of a new, noble culture. “Times of great upheaval do not come upon us like a mystical something; if we create them, they are there.” I would welcome the ‘Cheosophical’ movement with a program as formulated by Dr. Steiner. Let us hope that the newly emerging life forces of rejuvenation can create, above all, more lively, poetically inspiring words; what use are all the ‘isms’ to us! In any case, the golden wheat of genuine theosophy has unfortunately been buried under so much chaff of parroting Indian vocabulary that the philosophical hero who can collect it in a new sheaf, that is, under a new name, is highly welcome.}

Rudolf Steiner: Regarding the 1919 appeal: On the one hand, it was very appropriate, but on the other hand, it had to be clear that it was a challenge to the professors and lecturers. Of course you can do that, but you also have to try to get through to them. It wasn't quite as bad as that, but it was similar to the cultural appeal in May 1919.

I don't think I can say that the positive outcome was what everyone had hoped for. This is not due to any carelessness or lack of activity within the student body, but to our current circumstances, which are really very difficult to overcome. It is all too easy to be seen as a rabble-rouser when characterizing today's conditions. But burying our heads in the sand is not helpful either. We have to be clear about one thing: the world needs anthroposophical will. We have to get through to it. The forms in which this anthroposophical will appears today may need to be replaced by others, and in this respect too, no stone may remain as it is; a breakthrough in this direction is necessary.

On the one hand, we have to admit this to ourselves. On the other hand, we will always be surprised to see the older generation today is afflicted with such indolence, with such a lack of interest in what is actually going on. There is such a terrible blindness, more a blindness of will than of the other powers of the soul. Say what you will about earlier times, but in terms of lack of willpower, our time is the most terrible that has been experienced in the history of humanity. One can only say that some people do not have good will, but good opinions; one experiences it again and again, one does not need to accuse anyone. For example, I spoke about the idea of threefolding in the political science association in Kristiania. You couldn't say that people didn't understand anything about it; it was clear from what was said: the professors, both theorists and practitioners, talked about the issues, but it didn't occur to them that something could follow from what they had absorbed that would be more than reading an interesting essay. People no longer grasp that something must be done in the world. That is the bleak part. It is, after all, the repelling of everything that actually means action. The younger generations, in particular, must feel this, must recognize it. We have a terrible selection process when it comes to leadership positions. I don't care whether someone speaks pro or contra in relation to anthroposophy. But what matters is the spiritual level of the speaker, as was demonstrated this morning by Dr. Tillich. That is why I said before that one looks like a rabble-rouser when one characterizes the times. Such personalities, who are blinded by blinkers, can become associate professors and licentiates. Such [note breaks off].

If you are disappointed about what you are about to hear, I would like to say in advance that today I want to discuss very elementary things [about the fourth dimension]. Those who want to delve deeper into this question should be very familiar with the higher concepts of mathematics. I would like to give you some very elementary and general concepts. One must distinguish between the possibility of thinking in a four-dimensional space and reality. Whoever is able to make observations there is dealing with a reality that extends far beyond what we know as the sensual-real. You have to do thought transformations when you go there. You have to let things play into mathematics a little, find your way into the way of thinking of the mathematician.

You have to realize that the mathematician does not take a step without accounting for what arrives at his conclusions. But we must also realize when we deal with mathematics that even the mathematician cannot penetrate a single step [into reality], that he cannot draw any conclusions [that go beyond what is merely possible in thought]. First of all, it is about simple things, but they become more complicated when one wants to arrive at the concept of the fourth dimension. We must be clear about what we mean by dimensions. It is best to examine the various spatial structures in terms of their dimensionality. They lead to considerations that were only tackled in the 19th century by great mathematicians such as Bolyai, Gauss and Riemann.

The simplest spatial size is the point. It has no extension at all; it must be conceived. It is the fixation of an extension in space. It has no dimension. The first dimension is the line. The straight line has one dimension, length. If we move the line, which has no thickness, ourselves, we step out of the one dimension, and the line becomes a surface. This has two dimensions, a length and a width. If we move the surface, we step out of these two dimensions and we get the body. It has three dimensions: height, width, depth (Figure 1).

If you move the body itself, if you move a cube around in space, you will again only get a spatial body. You cannot move space out of itself.

We need to turn to a few other concepts. If you look at a straight line, it has two boundaries, two endpoints A and B (Figure 2).

Let's imagine that we want A and B to touch. But if they are to touch, we have to curve the line. What happens? You cannot possibly remain within the [one-dimensional] line if you want to make A and B coincide. To connect points A and B, we have to step out of the straight line itself, we have to step out of the first dimension and into the second dimension, the plane. In this way, the straight line becomes a closed curve (that is, in the simplest case, a circle) by bringing its endpoints into alignment (Figure 3).

It is therefore necessary to go beyond the first dimension; you cannot remain within it. Only in this way can the circle be created. You can perform the same operation with a surface. However, this only works if you do not remain within the two dimensions. You have to enter the third dimension and then you can turn the surface into a tube, a cylinder. This operation is done in a very similar way to the way we brought two points into coincidence earlier, thereby moving out of the first dimension. Here, in order to bring two boundaries of the surface into coincidence, we have to move into the third dimension (Figure 4).

Is it conceivable that a similar operation could be carried out with a spatial structure that already has three dimensions itself? If you have two congruent cubes, you can slide one into the other. [Now imagine two congruent cubes as the boundaries of a three-dimensional prismatic body.] If you try to make one cube, which is colored red on one side [and blue on the opposite side], fit exactly over the other cube, which is otherwise [geometrically] identical but with the red and blue colors swapped, then you cannot make them fit except by rotating the cube (Figure 5).

Let us consider another spatial structure. If you take the left-hand glove, it is impossible for you to pull the left-hand glove over the right hand. But if you look at the two [mirror-symmetrical] gloves together, like the straight line with the end points A and B, you have something that belongs together. It is then a single entity, with a boundary [that is, with a mirror plane] in the middle. It is very similar with the two symmetrical halves of the human outer skin. 2

How can we now make two [mirror] symmetrical three-dimensional structures coincide? Only if we go beyond the third dimension, as we did with the first and second. We can also put the right or left glove over the left or right hand, respectively, when we walk through four-dimensional space.

[When constructing the third dimension (depth dimension) of the visualization space, we align the image of the right eye with that of the left eye and place it over it.

We now look at an example from Zöllner. We have a circle and a point P outside of it. How can we bring the point P into the circle without crossing the circle? This is not possible if we remain within the plane. Just as one has to go from the second dimension into the third when moving from a square to a cube, we also have to go out of the second dimension here. With a sphere, there is also no possibility of entering [into the interior] without [piercing the surface of the sphere or] going beyond the third dimension.

These are possibilities for thought, but they have a practical significance for the theory of knowledge, [in particular for the problem of the objectivity of the content of perception]. If we realize how we actually perceive, we will come to the following view. Let us first ask ourselves: How do we gain knowledge of bodies through our senses? We see a color. Without eyes, we would not perceive it. The physicist then says: Out there in space is not what we call color, but purely spatial forms of movement; they penetrate through our eye, are captured by the optic nerve, transmitted to the brain, and there, for example, the red arises. One may now ask: Is the red also present when there is no sensation?

Red could not be perceived without the eye. The ringing of a bell could not be perceived without the ear. All our sensations depend on the transformation of forms of motion by our physical and mental apparatus. However, the matter becomes even more complicated when we ask ourselves: Where is the red, this peculiar quality, actually located? Is it in the body? Is it a process of vibration? Outside there is a process of movement, and this continues right into the eye and into the brain itself. There are vibrational [and nervous] processes everywhere, but red is nowhere to be found. Even if you examine the eye, you would not find red anywhere. It is not outside, but it is also not in the brain. We only have red when we, as a subject, confront these processes of movement. So do we have no possibility at all to talk about how the red meets the eye, how a c sharp meets the ear?

The question is, what is this inner [representation], where does it arise? In the philosophical literature of the 19th century, you will find that this question runs through everything. Schopenhauer, in particular, has provided the following definition: The world is our representation. But what then remains for the external body? [Just as a color representation can be “created” by movements, so can] movement can arise in our inner self through something that is basically not moved. Let us consider twelve snapshots of a [moving] horse figure on [the inside of] a [cylinder] surface, [which is provided with twelve fine slits in the spaces between. If we look at the rotating cylinder from the side,] we will have the impression that it is always the same horse and that only its feet are moving. So [the impression of] movement can also arise through our [physical organization] when something is not moving at all [in reality]. This is how we arrive at a complete dissolution of what we call movement.

But what then is matter? If you subtract color, movement [shape, etc., i.e. what is conveyed by sensory perception] from matter, then nothing remains. If we already have the [secondary, i.e. “subjective” sensations [color, sound, warmth, taste, smell] within us, we must also place [the primary sensations, that is, shape and movement,] within us, and with that the external world completely disappears. However, this results in major difficulties [for the theory of knowledge].

Let us assume that everything is outside, how then do the properties of the object outside come into us? Where is the point [where the outside merges into the inside]? If we subtract all [sensory perceptions], there is no outside anymore. In this way, epistemology puts itself in the position of Münchhausen, who wants to pull himself up by his own hair. But only if we assume that there is an outside, only then can we come to [an explanation of] the sensations inside. How can something from the outside enter our inside and appear as our imagination?

We need to pose the question differently. Let us look at some analogies first. You will not be able to find a relationship [between the outside world and the sensation inside] unless you resort to the following. We return to the consideration of the straight line with endpoints A and B. We have to go beyond the first dimension, curve the line, to make the endpoints coincide (Figure 7).

Now imagine the left endpoint A [of this straight line] brought together with the right endpoint B so that they touch at the bottom, so that we are able to return to the starting point [via the coinciding endpoints]. If the line is small, the corresponding circle is also small. If I turn the [initially given] line into a circle and then turn larger and larger lines into circles, the point at which the endpoints meet moves further and further away from the [original] line and goes to infinity.

of the [original] line and goes to infinity. Only at infinity do the [increasingly large] circle lines have their endpoint. The curvature becomes weaker and weaker, and eventually we will not be able to distinguish the circle line from the straight line with the naked eye (Figure 8).

In the same way, when we walk on the Earth, it appears to us as a straight piece, although it is round. If we imagine that the two halves of the straight line extend to infinity, the circle actually coincides with the straight line.

The straight line can be conceived as a circle whose diameter is infinite.

Now, instead of a [geometric] line, imagine something that is real and that connects to a reality. Let us imagine that as the point C [on the circumference of the circle] progresses, cooling occurs, that the point becomes colder and colder the further it moves away [from its starting point] (Figure 9). Let us leave the point within the circle for the time being, and, as it becomes colder and colder, let it reach the lower limit A, B. When it returns on the other side, the temperature increases again. So on the way back, the opposite condition to the one on the way there occurs. The warming increases until the temperature at C is reached again, from which we started. No matter how extended the circle is, it is always the same process: a flow of heat out and a flow of heat in. Let us also imagine this with the [infinitely extended straight] line: as the temperature [on one side increasingly] dissipates, it can rise on the other side. We have here a state that dissipates on one side while it rebuilds on the other.

In this way, we bring life and movement into the world and approach what, in a higher sense, we can call an understanding of the world. We have here two states that are interdependent and interrelated. However, for everything you can observe [sensually], the process that goes, say, to the right has nothing to do with the one that comes back from the left, and yet they are mutually dependent.

We now compare the body of the external world with the state of cooling and, in contrast, our inner sensation with the state of warming. [Although the external world and inner sensation have nothing directly perceptible in common,] they are related to each other, mutually dependent [in an analogous way to the processes described above]. This results in a connection between the external world [and our internal world] that we can support with an image: [through the relationship between] the seal and the sealing wax. The seal leaves behind an exact imprint, an exact reproduction of the seal in the sealing wax, without the seal remaining in the sealing wax [and without any material from the seal being transferred to the sealing wax]. So in the sealing wax there remains a faithful reproduction of the seal. It is quite the same with the connection between the outside world and inner sensations. Only the essential is transferred. One state determines the other, but nothing (material) is transferred.

If we imagine that this is the case with [the connection between the] outside world and our impressions, we come to the following. [Geometric] mirror images in space behave like gloves from the left and right hand. [In order to relate these directly and continuously to each other,] we have to use a new dimension of space to help us. [Now the outside world and the inner impression behave analogously to geometric mirror images and can therefore only be directly related to each other through an additional dimension.] In order to establish a relationship between the outside world and inner impressions, we must therefore go through a fourth dimension and be in a third element. We can only seek the common ground [of the outside world and inner impressions] where we [are one] with them. [One can imagine these mirror images as] floating in a sea, within which we can align the mirror images. And so we come [initially in thought] to something that transcends three-dimensional space and yet has a reality. We must therefore bring our spatial ideas to life.

Oskar Simony has tried to represent these animated spatial structures with models. [As we have seen, one comes] from the consideration of the zero-dimensional [step by step] to the possibility of imagining four-dimensional space. [On the basis of the consideration of mirror-symmetrical bodies, that is, with the help of] symmetries, we can first [most easily] recognize this space. [Another way to study the peculiarities of empirical three-dimensional space in relation to four-dimensional space is to study the knotting of curves and ribbons.] What are symmetry conditions? By intertwining spatial structures, we cause certain complications. [These complications are peculiar to three-dimensional space; they do not occur in four-dimensional spaces.]

Let's do some practical thinking exercises. If we cut a band ring in the middle, we get two such rings. If we now cut a band whose ends have been twisted by 180° and then glued, we get a single twisted ring that does not disintegrate. If we twist the ends of the tape 360° before gluing them together, then when we cut it, we get two intertwined rings. Finally, if we twist the tape ends 720°, the same process results in a knot.

Anyone who reflects on natural processes knows that such convolutions occur in nature; [in reality,] such intertwined spatial structures are endowed with forces. Take, for example, the movement of the Earth around the Sun, and then the movement of the Moon around the Earth. It is said that the Moon describes a circle around the Earth, but [if you look more closely] it is a line that is wrapped around [a circle, the orbit of the Earth], thus a helix around a circular line. And then we have the sun, which rushes through space so fast that the moon makes an additional spiral movement around it. So there are very complicated lines of force extending in space. We have to realize that we are dealing with complicated concepts of space that we can only grasp if we do not let them become rigid, if we have them in a fluid state.

Let us recall what has been said: the zero-dimensional is the point, the one-dimensional is the line, the two-dimensional the surface and the three-dimensional the body. How do these concepts of space relate to each other?

Imagine you are a creature that can only move along a straight line. What would the spatial perceptions of such a being, which itself is only one-dimensional, be like? It would not perceive its own one-dimensionality, but would only imagine points. This is because, if we want to draw something on a straight line, there are only points on the straight line. A two-dimensional being could encounter lines, and thus distinguish one-dimensional beings. A three-dimensional being, such as a cube, would perceive the two-dimensional beings. Man, then, can perceive three dimensions. If we reason correctly, we must say to ourselves: Just as a one-dimensional being can only perceive points, as a two-dimensional being can only perceive one dimension, and a three-dimensional being can only perceive two dimensions, so a being that perceives three dimensions can only be a four-dimensional being. The fact that a human being can define external beings in three dimensions, can [deal with] spaces of three dimensions, means that he must be four-dimensional. And just as a cube can only perceive two dimensions and not its third, it is true that the human being cannot perceive the fourth dimension in which he lives.

Today I want to discuss some elementary aspects of the idea of multidimensional space [among other things, in connection with the] spirited Hinton.

You will recall how we arrived at the concept of multi-dimensional space, having considered the zeroth dimension [last time]. I would like to briefly repeat the ideas of how we can move from two- to three-dimensional space.

What do we mean by a symmetrical behavior? How do I align a red and a blue [flat figure, which are mirror images of each other]?

With two halves of a circle, I can do this relatively easily by sliding the red [half] circle into the blue one (Figure 10).

This is not so easy in the following [mirror]symmetrical figure (Figure 11). I cannot make the red and blue parts coincide [in the plane], no matter how I try to slide the red into the blue.

But there is a way [to achieve this anyway]: if you step out of the board, that is, out of the second dimension [and use the third dimension, in other words, if you] place the blue figure on the red one [by rotating it through the space around the mirror axis].

The same applies to a pair of gloves: I cannot match one with the other without stepping out of [three-dimensional] space. You have to go through the fourth dimension.

Last time I said that in order to develop an understanding of the fourth dimension, you have to make [the relationships in] space fluid, thereby creating conditions similar to those you have when moving from the second to the third dimension. In the last lesson, we created spatial structures out of paper strips that intertwined. Such interweaving causes certain complications. This is not a game, but such inter-weavings occur in nature all the time. Anyone who reflects on natural processes knows that such inter-weavings really do occur in nature. Material bodies move in such intertwined spatial structures. These movements are endowed with forces, so that the forces also intertwine. Take the movement of the earth around the sun and then the movement of the moon around the earth. The moon moves in an orbit that is itself wound around the earth's orbit around the sun. It thus describes a spiral around a circular line. Because of the movement of the sun, the moon describes another spiral around this. The result is very complicated lines of force that extend through the whole space.

The heavenly bodies behave in relation to each other like the intertwined strips of paper [by Simony, which we looked at last time]. We have to keep in mind that we are dealing with complicated spatial concepts that we can only understand if we do not let them become rigid. If we want to grasp space [in its essence], [we must first conceive it as rigid, but then] make it completely fluid again. [You have to go as far as zero]; the [living] point can be found in it.

Let us once again visualize the structure of the dimensions]. The point is zero-dimensional, the line is one-dimensional, the surface is two-dimensional and the body is three-dimensional. The cube has the three dimensions: height, width and depth. How do the spatial structures [of different dimensions] relate to each other? Imagine that you are a straight line, that you have only one dimension, that you can only move along a straight line. If such beings existed, what would their concept of space be like? Such beings would not perceive one-dimensionality in themselves, but would only be able to imagine points wherever they went. Because in a straight line, if we want to draw something in it, there are only points. A two-dimensional being would only encounter lines, so it would only perceive one-dimensional beings. [A three-dimensional being like] the cube would perceive two-dimensional beings, but could not perceive its [own] three dimensions.

Now, humans can perceive their three dimensions. If we reason correctly, we must say to ourselves: Just as a one-dimensional being can only perceive points, a two-dimensional being only straight lines, and a three-dimensional being only surfaces, so a being that perceives three dimensions must itself be a four-dimensional being. The fact that humans can define external beings in terms of three dimensions, can [deal with] spaces of three dimensions, means that they must be four-dimensional. And just as a cube can perceive only two dimensions and not its third, so it is clear that man cannot perceive the fourth dimension in which he lives. Thus we have shown [that man must be a four-dimensional being]. We swim in the sea [of the fourth dimension, like ice in water].

Let us return once more to the consideration of mirror images (Figure 11). This vertical line represents the cross-section of a mirror. The mirror reflects an image [of the figure on the left]. The process of reflection points beyond the two dimensions into the third dimension. [To understand the direct and continuous connection between the mirror image and the original, we have to add a third dimension to the two.

[Now let us consider the relationship between external space and internal representation.] The cube here apart from me [appears as] an idea in me (Figure 12). The idea [of the cube] is related to the cube like a' mirror image to the original. Our sensory apparatus [creates an imagined image of the cube. If you want to align this with the original cube, you have to go through the fourth dimension. Just as the third dimension has to be transitioned to (during the continuous execution of the two-dimensional) mirroring process, our sensory apparatus has to be four-dimensional if it is to be able to establish a [direct] connection [between the imagined image and the external object].

If you only imagined [two-dimensionally], you would [only] have a dream image in front of you, but you would have no idea that there is an object outside. Our imagination is a direct inversion of our ability to imagine [external objects by means of] four-dimensional space.

The human being in the astral state [during earlier stages of human evolution] was only a dreamer, he had only such ascending dream images.” He then passed from the astral realm to physical space. Thus we have mathematically defined the transition from the astral to the [physical-] material being. Before this transition occurred, the astral human being was a three-dimensional being and therefore could not extend his [two-dimensional] ideas to the objective [three-dimensional physical-material] world. But when he [himself] became physical-material, he still acquired the fourth dimension [and could therefore also experience three-dimensionally].

Due to the peculiar design of our sensory apparatus, we are able to align our perceptions with external objects. By relating our perceptions to external things, we pass through four-dimensional space, imposing the perception on the external object.

How would things appear if we could see from the other side, if we could enter into things and see them from there? To do that, we would have to pass through the fourth dimension.

The astral world itself is not a world of four dimensions. But the astral world together with its reflection in the physical world is four-dimensional. Anyone who is able to see the astral world and the physical world at the same time lives in four-dimensional space. The relationship of our physical world to the astral world is a four-dimensional one.

One must learn to understand the difference between a point and a sphere. In reality, this point would not be passive, but a point radiating light in all directions (Figure 13).

What would be the opposite of such a point? Just as there is an opposite to a line that goes from left to right, namely a line that goes from right to left, there is also an opposite to the point. We imagine an enormous sphere, in reality of infinite size, that radiates darkness from all sides, but now inwards (Figure 14). This sphere is the opposite of the point.

These are two real opposites: the point radiating light and infinite space, which is not a neutral dark entity, but one that floods space with darkness from all sides. [As a contrast, this results in] a source of darkness and a source of light. We know that a straight line that extends to infinity returns to the same point from the other side. Likewise, it is with a point that radiates light in all directions. This light comes back [from infinity] as its opposite, as darkness.

Now let us consider the opposite case. Take the point as the source of darkness. The opposite is a space that radiates light from all sides.

As was recently demonstrated [in the previous lecture], the point behaves in this way; it does not disappear [into infinity, it returns from the other side] (Figure 15).

[Similarly, when a point expands or radiates out, it does not lose itself in infinity; it returns from infinity as a sphere.] The sphere, the spherical, is the opposite of the point. Space lives in the point. The point is the opposite of space.

What is the opposite of a cube? Nothing other than the whole of infinite space, except for the piece that is cut out here [by the cube]. So we have to imagine the [total] cube as infinite space plus its opposite. We cannot do without polarities if we want to imagine the world as powerfully dynamic. [Only in this way] do we have things in their life.

If the occultist were to imagine the cube as red, the space around it would be green, because red is the complementary color of green. The occultist not only has simple ideas for himself, he has vivid ideas, not abstract, dead ideas. The occultist must enter into things from within himself. Our ideas are dead, while the things in the world are alive. We do not live with our abstract ideas in the things themselves. So we have to imagine the infinite space in the corresponding complementary color to the radiating star. By doing such exercises, you can train your thinking and gain confidence in how to imagine dimensions.

You know that the square is a two-dimensional spatial quantity. A square composed of four red- and blue-shaded sub-squares is a surface that radiates differently in different directions (Figure 16). The ability to radiate differently in different directions is a three-dimensional ability. So here we have the three dimensions of length, width and radiance.

What we did here with the surface, we also think of as being done for the cube. Just as the square above was made up of four sub-squares, we can imagine the cube as being made up of eight sub-cubes (Figure 17). This initially gives us the three dimensions of height, width and depth. Within each sub-cube, we can then distinguish a specific light-emitting capacity, which results in a further dimension in addition to height, width and depth: the radiation capacity.

You can imagine a square made up of four sub-squares, a cube made up of eight different sub-cubes. And now imagine a body that is not a cube, but has a fourth dimension. We have created the possibility of understanding this through radiative capacity. If each [of the eight partial cubes] has a different radiating power, then if I have only the one cube that radiates only in one direction, if I want to obtain the cube that radiates in all directions, I have to add another one on the left, doubling it with an opposite one, I have to put it together out of 16 cubes.

Next lesson we will have the opportunity to consider how we can think of a multidimensional space.

My dear friends, today I will continue with the difficult chapter we have undertaken to take on. In doing so, it will be necessary to refer to the various things that I have already mentioned in the last two lectures. Then today I would also like to create the basic lines and basic concepts in order to [the more exact geometrical relationships as well as] the interesting practical aspects of theosophy, to make them our own.

You know that we have tried to imagine four-dimensional space in its potentiality for the very reason that we can at least create some kind of concept about the so-called astral realm as well as about the higher realms, about higher existence in general. I have already indicated that entering the astral space, the astral world, is initially something tremendously confusing for the secret disciple. For those who have not studied these things in detail, who have not even studied them theoretically, who have not even studied Theosophy theoretically, it is extremely difficult to even begin to form an idea of the very different nature of the things and entities that confront us in the so-called astral world. Let us once again point out how great this diversity is.

As the simplest thing, I mentioned that we have to learn to read every number symmetrically. The secret student, who is only accustomed to reading numbers as they are read here in the physical world, will not be able to find his way through the labyrinth of the astral. If you have a number in the astral, for example 467, you have to read it as 764. You have to get used to reading everything symmetrically, to seeing everything symmetrically (in a mirror image). That is the basic condition. This is still easy as long as we are dealing with spatial structures or numbers. It becomes more difficult when we come to time relationships. When we come to time relationships, the matter also becomes symmetrical in the astral, in such a way that what comes later appears to us first and what comes earlier appears later. So when you observe astral processes, you also have to be able to read backwards from front to back. These things can only be hinted at, because they sometimes seem quite grotesque to those who have never had an idea of them. In the astral, the son is there first and then the father; in the physical, the egg is there first and then the chicken. In the physical, it is different. In the physical, birth comes first, and then the birth is an emergence of a new thing from an old one. In the astral, it is the other way around. There, the old emerges from the new. In the astral, what is paternal or maternal nature devours what is filial or daughterly nature for the appearance.

In Greek, you have a pretty allegory. The three gods Uranus, Kronos and Zeus symbolize the three worlds. Uranus represents the heavenly world: Devachan; Kronos represents the astral; Zeus the physical. Kronos is said to devour his children.” So in the astral, one does not give birth, but is consumed.

But things get very complicated when we look at the moral aspect of the astral plane. This also appears in a kind of reversal or mirror image. And that is why you can imagine how differently things appear when we interpret things as we are accustomed to interpreting them in the physical. In the astral, for example, we see a wild animal approaching us. This is not to be understood in the same way as in the physical. The wild animal is choking us. This is the appearance that someone who is accustomed to reading things in the same way as external events has. But the wild animal is in truth something that exists within ourselves, that lives in our own astral body and that is choking us. What approaches you as a strangler is rooted in your own desire. So you can experience that when you have a thought of revenge, this thought of revenge appears to you as a strangling angel that approaches you from outside and harasses you.

In truth, everything radiates from us [in the astral realm]. We must regard everything that we see approaching us in the astral as emanating from us (Figure 18). It comes from the sphere, from all sides, as if from infinite space, it penetrates into us. But in reality it is nothing other than what our own astral body sends out.

We only really read the astral [and only then] find the truth when we are able to bring the peripheral into the center, to see and interpret the peripheral as the central. The astral seems to come at you from all sides. Think of it this way: in reality, it is something that radiates out from you in all directions.

I would like to familiarize you with a term that is very important in occult training. It appears in a wide variety of works on occult research, but is rarely understood correctly. Those who have reached a certain level of occult development must learn to see everything that is still karmically predisposed in them – joy, lust, pain, and so on – in the astral outside world. If you think theosophically in the right sense, you will realize that the outer life, our body, in the present age is nothing more than a result, an average of two currents coming from opposite directions and merging into each other .

Imagine a current coming from the past and one coming from the future, and you have two currents that merge and actually intersect at every point (Figure 19). Imagine a red current in one direction and a blue current in the other direction. And now imagine, for example, four different points in this intersection. [Then, at each of these four points, we have] an interaction of these red and blue currents. [This is an image for the interaction of] four successive incarnations, where in each incarnation something comes towards us from one side [and something from the other]. You can always say to yourself, there is a current that comes towards you and a current that you bring with you. Man flows together out of these two currents.

You get an idea of it if you think of it this way. Today you sit here with different experiences, tomorrow at the same hour you will have a different set of events around you. Imagine the events that you will have by tomorrow are already all there. It would then be the same experience as if you were looking at a panorama. It would be as if you were approaching these events, as if these events were coming towards you spatially. So imagine that the stream that is coming towards you from the future brings you these events, then you have the events between today and tomorrow in this stream. You allow the future flowing towards you to be carried by the past.

In every period of time, your life is an intersection of two currents, one from the future to the present and the other from the present to the future. Where the currents meet, a congestion occurs. Everything that a person still has ahead of him must be seen emerging as an astral phenomenon. This is something that speaks an incredibly impressive language.

Imagine that the secret disciple [comes to the point in his development where he] is supposed to look into the astral world, where the senses are opened to him so that he would see emerging around him as outer phenomena in the astral world that which he would still have to experience before the end of the present period. This is a sight that is very powerful for every human being. We must therefore say that it is an important step in the course of occult training for the human being to be confronted with the astral panorama, the astral phenomenon, of what he still has to experience until the middle of the sixth root race, because that is how long our incarnations will last. The path opens up before him. No secret disciple will experience it differently, except that he sees as an external phenomenon what he still has to face in the near future up to the sixth root race.

When the disciple has advanced to the threshold, the question arises: Do you want to live through all this in the shortest conceivable time? Because that is what it is about for the one who wants to receive the initiation. If you think about it, you have your own future life in front of you as an external panorama in a moment. That, in turn, is what characterizes our view of the astral. For one person, it is something that makes them say, “No, I'm not going in there.” For another, on the other hand, it is something that makes them say, “I have to go in there.” This point in the process of development is called the 'threshold', the decision, and the phenomenon that one has there, oneself with everything that one still has to experience and live through, is called the 'guardian of the threshold'. The guardian of the threshold is therefore nothing other than our own future life. It is ourselves. Our own future life lies behind the threshold.

You see in this another peculiarity of the astral world of appearance, namely, that when the astral world is suddenly opened to someone through some event – and such events do occur in life – that person must first face something incomprehensible. It is a terrible sight, which could not be more confusing for those people upon whom, unprepared, the astral world suddenly breaks in through some event. It is therefore eminently good to know what we have now discussed, so that in the event of the astral world breaking in, one knows what to do. It may be a pathological event, a loosening between the physical body and the etheric body or between the etheric body and the astral body. Through such events, a person may be unexpectedly transported into the astral world and gain insights into astral life. If this happens, the person will come and say that he sees this or that apparition. He sees it and does not know how to read it, because he does not know that he has to read symmetrically, that he has to understand every wild animal that approaches him as a reflection of what lies within himself. Indeed, the astral powers and passions of man appear in Kamaloka in the most diverse forms of the animal world.

It is not a particularly beautiful sight to see people in Kamaloka who have just been reaped. At that moment they still have all their passions, urges, desires and cravings. Such a person in Kamaloka no longer has his physical body or etheric body, but in his astral body he still has everything that connected him to the physical world, that can only be satisfied through the physical body. Imagine an average citizen of the present day who has achieved nothing special in his past life and has not made any effort to achieve anything, who has never done much for his religious development, who may not have abandoned religion in theory, but practically, that is, in his feelings and attitudes, has thrown it overboard. In that case it is not a living element in him. What then is in his astral body? There are only things that can be satisfied through the physical organism. For example, he craves palate enjoyment. But the palate would have to be there for that, so that this desire can be satisfied. Or man craves for other pleasures, which can only be satisfied by setting his physical body in motion. Suppose he had such a craving, but the body was gone. Then all this lives in his astral body. This is the situation in which man finds himself when he has died without astral purification and cleansing. He still has the desire for the pleasures of the palate and the other things, but not the possibility of satisfying them. This is what causes the torment and horror of the life in Kamaloka. Therefore, the desire must be laid aside in Kamaloka if man dies without astral purification. Only when this astral body has learned that it can no longer satisfy its desires and wishes, that it must unlearn them, is it freed.

[In the astral world] the instincts and passions take on animal forms. As long as the person is embodied in the physical body, the shape of their astral body is somewhat based on this physical body. But when the outer body is gone, then the instincts, desires and passions, as they are in their animal [nature], come into their own in their own form. So in the astral world, a person is an image of their instincts and passions.

Because these astral beings can make use of other bodies, it is dangerous to let mediums enter into a trance when there is no clairvoyant is present to avert evil.

In the physical world, the lion is a plastic expression of certain passions, the tiger is an expression of other passions, and the cat is an expression of yet other passions. It is interesting to see how each animal is the plastic expression of a passion, of an urge.

In the astral, in Kamaloka, man is therefore approximately similar to [animal nature] through his passions. This is the source of the misunderstanding regarding the doctrine of transmigration of souls that has been attributed to Egyptian and Indian priests and teachers of wisdom. You should live in such a way that you do not incarnate as an animal, says this teaching. But this teaching never speaks of the physical life, but of the higher life, and its only aim was to persuade people on earth to lead such a life that after death in Kamaloka they would not have to develop their animal form. Those who develop the characteristics of a cat will appear in Kamaloka as a cat. The fact that one also appears as a human being in Kamaloka is the meaning of the rules of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. The true teachings have not been understood by the scholars; they only have an absurd idea of them.

Thus we have to deal with a complete mirror image of what we actually think and do here in the physical world in every area – in the areas of number, time and moral life – when we enter the astral realm. We must get used to reading symmetrically, because we must be able to do so when we enter the astral space.

The easiest way for a person to get used to reading symmetrically is to build on such elementary mathematical ideas as we have hinted at in the previous lecture and as we will get to know more and more in the following discussions. I would like to start with a very simple idea, namely the idea of a square. Imagine a square as you are accustomed to seeing it (Figure 20). I will draw the square so that the four sides are drawn in four different colors.

This is the physical appearance of the square. Now I would like to draw the devachan aspect of the square on the board. It is not possible to do this exactly, but I would like to give you an approximate idea of what a square would look like in the mind. The mental counter-image [of a square] is approximately like a cross (Figure 21).

We are dealing here mainly with two perpendicular intersecting axes. Two lines that pass through each other, and that's it. The physical counter-image is created by drawing perpendicular lines on each of these axes. The physical counter-image of a mental square can best be imagined as a congestion [of two mutually intersecting currents]. Let us imagine these perpendicular axis lines as currents, as forces that act outwards from the point of intersection, and let us imagine countercurrents to these currents, only now in the direction from outside to inside (Figure 22). A square then enters into the physical world by imagining these two types of currents or forces - one from the inside, the other from the outside - as accumulating against each other. The currents of force are thus limited by accumulations.

With this, I have given a picture of how everything mental relates to the physical. Likewise, you can construct the mental counterpart for any physical thing. The square here is only the simplest of examples.

If you could construct a correlative for every physical thing that corresponds to the physical world in the same way that two perpendicular lines correspond to a square, then you would obtain the devachan or mental image for every physical thing. With other things, it is of course much more complicated.

Now imagine a cube instead of a square. The cube is very similar to the square. The cube is a body that is bounded by six squares. Mr. Schouten made these six squares that bound the cube specially. Now, instead of the four bounding lines that are present in the square, imagine six bounding surfaces. Imagine that instead of vertical lines we have vertical surfaces as a kind of congestion, and then assume that you have not two but three axes standing on one another [vertically], and you have the boundary of the cube. Now you can also imagine what the mental correlate of the cube is. You have again two things that challenge each other reciprocally. The cube has three perpendicular axes and three surface directions; we have to think of congestion effects in these three surface directions (Figure 23). We cannot imagine the three axes and the six surfaces, as before the two axes and four lines, in any other relationship than by thinking of a certain contrast.

Anyone who reflects on this will have to admit that we cannot imagine this without forming a certain concept of the opposition, namely the opposition of activity and an obstruction, a counter-activity. You have to introduce the concept of opposition here. The matter is still simple here. By entwining ourselves around geometric concepts, we will be able to construct the mental counter-images of more complicated things in an appropriate way. Then we will find the way and to some extent reach higher knowledge. But you can already imagine the colossal complexity that arises when you think of another body and look for its mental counter-image. Many complicated things come to light. And if you were to imagine another person and their mental counterpart, with all their spatial forms and their activity, you can imagine the complicated mental structure that this produces. In my book 'Theosophy', I was only able to give a rough idea of what mental counter-images look like.

We have three dimensions, three axes in the cube. On each axis we have the corresponding perpendicular planes on both sides. So you must now be clear about the fact that the contrast I have spoken of is to be understood in such a way that you imagine each face of the cube as having come into being in a way similar to the way I described human life earlier, as the intersection of two currents. You can imagine currents emanating from the center point. Imagine space in one axial direction, flowing outwards from the center, and in the other direction, flowing in from infinity, another current. And this [imagine] flowing in two colors, one red, the other blue. At the moment they meet, they will flow into a surface, a surface will arise, so that we can assume the surface of the cube to be the meeting point of two opposing currents in a surface. This gives a vivid idea of what a cube is.

The cube is therefore an intersection of three currents acting on each other. If you think about it, you are not dealing with three, but with six directions: forward-backward, up-down, right-left. So you have six directions. And indeed, that is the case. Then the matter becomes even more complicated by the fact that you have two types of currents: One in the direction of a point, the other coming from infinity. This will give you a perspective on the practical application of the higher, theoretical theosophy. I have conceived every direction in space as two opposing currents. And if you then imagine a physical body, then you have in that physical body the result of these two currents running into each other.

Let us now denote these six currents, these six directions, with six letters a, b, c, d, e, f. If you could visualize these six directions or currents — we will come to being able to do this next time — and you would imagine the first and last, a and f, erased, then you would be left with four. And that is what I now ask you to take into account: these four that remain are the four that you can perceive when you see the astral world alone.

I have tried to give you an idea of the three [ordinary dimensions] and of three [further] dimensions that actually behave in the opposite way. It is through the interaction of these dimensions and their counteraction that physical bodies arise. But if you think a little way away from the physical [dimension] and a little way away from the mental on the other side, you are left with four dimensions. These then represent the astral world existing between the physical and mental worlds.

The theosophist's view of the world is such that it necessarily has to work with a higher sense of geometry that goes beyond ordinary geometry. The ordinary geometer describes the cube as bounded by six squares. We must understand the cube as the result of six currents running into each other, that is, as the result of a movement and its reversal, of the interaction of opposing forces.

I would like to show you another such concept outside in nature, where a real contrast has taken place that contains a deep secret of the world's development before the eyes of man. In the “Fairytale of the Snake and the Lily”, Goethe speaks of the “revealed secret”, and that is one of the truest and wisest words that can be spoken at all. It is true, there are secrets in nature that can be grasped with hands, but are not seen by people. We are dealing with reversal processes in nature in many cases. I would like to show you one such reversal process.

Let us compare humans with plants. When compared to plants, humans behave as follows. What I am about to say is not a game, even if it initially seems like one. It is something that points to a deep mystery. What does a plant have in the ground? Its roots. And upwards it develops stems, leaves, flowers and fruit. The main part of the plant, the root, is in the earth, and the organs of reproduction it develops upwards, towards the sun, which we can call the chaste way of reproducing. Imagine the whole plant turned upside down, with the root becoming the head of a human being. Then you have the opposite of the plant in the human being, who has his head at the top and his reproductive organs at the bottom. And the animal is in the middle of it all, as a stowage. If you turn the plant upside down, you get a human being. That is why the occultists of all times draw this with three lines (Figure 24).

One [line] as the symbol of the plant, one as the [symbol] of the human being, and one in the opposite direction as the [symbol] of the animal – three lines that together form the cross. The animal has the transverse position, it thus crosses what we have in common with the plant.

You know that we speak of an all-soul, of which Plato says that it is crucified to the cosmic body, that it is chained to the cross of the cosmic body.? Imagine the world soul as plant, animal and human being, and you have the cross. By living in these three realms, the world soul is chained to this cross. As a result, you will find the concept of congestion expanded. You will find it expanded by something in nature. Two complementary, diverging, but interlocking currents form plants and humans, with congestion being the animal. Thus, the animal actually places itself between an upward and a downward current. In this way, the Kamaloka [astral sphere] interposes itself between Devachan and the physical world. Thus, something interposes itself between these two symmetrical worlds, between Devachan and the physical world, and acts between them, acting on both sides like a dam. The outer expression of this Kamaloka world is the animal world.

Those who already have organs for this world, which must be grasped with strength, will recognize what we see in the three kingdoms in their mutual relationship to one another. If you understand the animal kingdom as emerging from a congestion, if you understand the three kingdoms as mutual congestion, then you will find the position that the plant kingdom has to the animal kingdom and the animal kingdom to the human kingdom. The animal is perpendicular to the other two directions, and the other two are two complementary currents that merge into each other. The lower realm serves the higher realm as food. This is something that allows a small glimpse of the very different kind of relationship between humans and plants and between animals and humans. Those who feed on animals are therefore related to a congestion.

The real effect consists in the encounter of opposing currents. This is the beginning of a series of thoughts that you may later see in a strange and very different way.

We have seen that the square is created when two axes are intersected by lines. The cube is created by intersecting three axes through surfaces. Can you now imagine four axes intersecting through something? The cube is the boundary of the spatial structure that is created when four axes are intersected.

The square limits the three-dimensional cube. Next time, we will see whose boundary the cube itself is. The cube bounds a four-dimensional structure.

Answering Questions

[What does it mean to] imagine six currents, of which two must be imagined as having been extinguished, and so on?

The six currents must be thought of as two times three currents: three acting from the inside out according to the three axial directions, and the other three as flowing towards these from infinity. For each axial direction, there are thus two types, one going from the inside out, the other coming from the outside in the opposite direction. If we call the two categories positive and negative, plus and minus, we have:

math figur

And of this [in order to get to the astral space, we have to] imagine an entire direction, [for example the] inner and outer flow, erased, so for example +a and -a.