The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Dear friends!

When the dear woman whose mortal remains we are gathered around here, looks down from the bright heights of the spirit and reads our souls to see why we are here, she will hear the simple, plain and yet so meaningful answer: we all loved her and will always love her. And when the son and daughter, whom she brought to us for many years through several summer weeks for our deepest satisfaction, and the granddaughter return to their earthly home with the mortal remains of the dear woman, they may take with them the thought that during the times during the time she lived among us, she endeared herself to all hearts with her loving nature and noble qualities, and now we look up with love to the soul that has freed itself from its earthly shell and ascended to the spiritual realm. And the son wishes me to express these thoughts by thanking those gathered in his and his relatives' name for their heartfelt sympathy at the passing of the dear wife and for the floral tributes that express this sympathy.

And the daughter, who lives in spiritual community with our dear friends, will always feel strengthened by the fact that so many dear colleagues send their thoughts to the spiritual world with her for her dear mother, when she herself will faithfully and devotedly send her thoughts there.

How warmly and sincerely the deceased was loved was always expressed by our friends when this woman was among them each year; they loved her because their souls recognized her kind and noble character and felt sincere affection for it. And this was a feeling that was based on inner understanding. The soul that has left us took a warm interest in the spiritual life that our friends cultivate. And how she related to the glimpse into the spiritual worlds often came to my mind in recent years when she spoke of these worlds and of her hope of being together with her dear husband there in the future. So we stand here around her mortal remains and believe that our thoughts and loving feelings will find the dear soul in the realm that man enters when he has crossed the threshold of death.

And especially in the last days of her painful suffering, one could feel this relationship to the divine worlds so beautifully, It poured into my soul like a warm spiritual intimacy when the daughter, who is working with us in spirit, shared with me the feelings with which the deceased listened to the spirit-imbued ode by Zschokke, which expresses the elevation of the earthly human to divine heights in the last hours in which she could still absorb words. Thus her last meaningful impression was caused by a glimpse into the spiritual world when her daughter read the poem to her.

All this strengthens our belief that we may forward as a last earthly greeting the words that express our way of thinking about man's entering the higher worlds when he has found the connection with these worlds here on earth. And we may think that the harmonies of their soul will resound, which man can find in the realm of peace of mind, and that the spiritual light will shine upon it, which is permeated with love. And this, our last earthly greeting, is the thought: The dear woman knew herself grounded in the divine here. Those who were allowed to stand by her deathbed when her soul detached itself from the mortal shell know that she died in that to which we are so faithfully devoted, in the power and essence of Christ; therefore we may believe that the spirit will lead her to the light in which the soul will live peacefully.

Live well and be bathed in light! This is what the souls who loved you so dearly here and who will continue to love you call after you.

A place has become empty for the physical world among us, which was filled by a personality who filled this place with the warmest striving for knowledge and most understanding loyalty. Our love flows to this place, it looks to this place and seeks to revive the intimate bond that has connected us for many years with this personality who has passed away from the physical plane. Our pain looks for her place. This pain will remain alive, as is the thought that carries us back to all the invigorating, blissful loyalty and love with which we were connected to dear Sophie Stinde. And the deep esteem that we had to have for her, seeking to understand her very unique nature, must transform itself in us into the most faithful memory, so that, now that she no longer walks with us in the physical world, her spirit may reign among us, work with us, that spirit that shone so wonderfully for us over the years in its significance, in its value within our work, has shone so wonderfully for years. The esteem in which we held Sophie Stinde will be sorely missed, and this loss can only be compensated by our faithful adherence to the spiritual realm, through which we will always be connected to her, to Sophie Stinde. Let us try to unite ourselves today in the image she created of us through her love, her work, strong influence she created in us through her sympathetic work within our work – in this image we seek to unite, remembering how her soul's eye looks down on this image and can unite with us when we, with the right mind, with the right love, with deep understanding, recreate the image that she herself created in us in this moment in our soul.

So, my dear friends, as the dear soul of Sophie Stinde floated away from us, in the heights of the ether, this image of her formed before my soul:

You lead us out of earthly existence
To the spiritual sun-land
The beings whose reflection we Were allowed to feel in Your work;
They lived for us as the fruits of existence
In everything you created on the paths of the earth
In power and love.

You look from the heights of the spirit
Into the hearts of your friends;
Your soul's gaze meets
The blossoms of your works of love;
They shine through the pain
In that bright light
That there around their souls you created.

The certain faith in what was rightly recognized:
It was the first spiritual being
That inspired all your doing; —
He who sensed this in you
Gained boundless trust
In his own work, which he Was allowed to unite with your work.

The sense of truth, which unerringly
Worked from your clear soul,
He was the second being
To whom everything was always allowed to approach,
What on the paths of human life
Related feeling must strive for.

The third spirit who lived through you,
Felt its warmth of soul,
Those connected to you for life's work;
He steeled your noble love power
Through a sense of duty that was firm;
He could
Conceal the strictest duty deed in pure heartedness.

So you stood in our midst,
In your being you fully embodied
The meaning of the work to which we live;
The place in the world of ideas that you
Invigorated with your strength:
In your way, no other will ever be able to invigorate it

It will appear empty to friends in the sense of being;
But
the spiritual lambs will shine brightly from it,
which you
have ignited with your being.
They will shine in the mirror of your friends' souls
in a powerful reflection.
The eternal human spirit,

Whose earthly cover
Lovingly revealed to us,
Hear him from yonder etheral height,
Who now unites with himself,
The soul's ear as a word of comfort proclaims
To the friends, who are filled with deep sorrow:

"I will unite with your earthly work
with what in the spiritual world

My dear friends! Thus, Sophie Stinde's soul stands before our own. We sense how she is guided in the heights of the spiritual ether by the three genii, by the three spiritual beings, by whom her work, her activity, by whom her character, by whom all her being here, as it manifested itself in the physical, was accompanied.

The unwavering loyalty with which she was connected to our spiritual striving, built on an infinite firmness, is truly the one essence that we could feel at Sophie Stinde's side, and that she so confidently and so deeply understandingly put on the path of our work. When we let our eyes drift thoughtfully into life and try to feel which people we must seek out in the most serious, important, and meaningful moments of life for our shared journey through life and work, then it is those people with whom we not only connect with what can always consciously live in our soul when we are with the souls of friends, the souls connected in love: those are the souls we must seek in such moments of life, those who are connected with us in the deepest part of our soul, in that part of the soul that constitutes our being and carries our being over into the friend soul and from the friend soul over into ours, so that we can be sure even then, when we must be united with it through ties that cannot be consciously revealed under all circumstances. We approach our life's work, we are often unsure how we should proceed at the beginning of one or the other; we take our friend's hand; we know how to tell him: In this or that way, we expect you to help us, to do with us what we intend to do. There are those strong souls of friends to whom we do not need to say such things, with whom we are so deeply connected that we need only tell them what we ourselves know from the beginning of our endeavors, but who feel so intimately related to us in our striving that they work with us even when the fruit and essence of the work can only unfold in the joint effort itself. There, below the threshold of consciousness, the soul-connecting loyalty develops, that loyalty that must truly be there on the ground of a spiritual striving, as ours should be, that loyalty that holds souls together firmly, even in what is revealed and lived out by the souls not only here on the physical plane, which holds the souls together to the deepest depths of the spiritual being. Those who were truly allowed to get to know Sophie Stinde felt this way here on the physical plane, connected to her, and so they came to recognize the one of the three companions who guided them through life and who now guide their soul up into the realms of eternity.

And what we may call the direct sense of truth, which unerringly awakens in the soul as a self-evident light, so that this soul finds the strength to follow the sincerely meant realization through its own nature, this sense of truth, it was the second genius who stood by Sophie Stinde's side, that genius who made those who were close to her so secure in her presence, that genius who caused the atmosphere of truth, the atmosphere of the most earnest, most dignified search for truth, to spread between her and her friends.

And the third of the spirits who were with her, who will remain with her, was the one who kindled in the human soul that deep, deep love for humanity that knows how to find those depths in the soul of one's neighbor that are in need of love. And Sophie Stinde's soul – one may say – her love always knew how to find the places in the soul where love is needed, and she was aware that love must work where it is needed, if it is allowed to work. But radiating into this love, into this warm love, was a sacred sense of duty, duty in the guise of the body, that was the third spiritual being at Sophie Stinde's side. The one who understood Sophie Stinde knew how sacred the sacrificial service of duty was to her; but he also knew how intimately she could connect with the hearts and souls towards which her fulfillment of duty had to be directed.

So she really stood among us, so she stood among us in faithful work, in serious, deep work of knowledge and love, so she made the work of our spiritual science her own work, so she devotedly combined the best forces of life with what is needed for our work, so she also took upon herself as a matter of course all the sacrifices that are to be made for our work. Someone who is so closely connected with our work, as Sophie Stinde is and was, works, ignoring everything personal, purely objectively, always keeping only the objective in mind, for the goals that our striving must set. Many misunderstandings arise. It is only natural in life that we encounter many misunderstandings when we try to speak as human beings purely for the sake of the matter at hand in the other person. Our dear Sophie Stinde was not spared misunderstandings, which come precisely from the background, which are connected with the objective work, because she was a model in terms of objective work, so objectively suppressing her personality that she could not help but surrender to faith when she was so absorbed in objectivity that everyone else could also accept what she wanted in full objectivity.

Those who saw her work among us will keep her image within them as a power upon which the soul's eye, the spiritual gaze of the being that lived in Sophie Stinde, can look down, can force itself down into the souls of her friends, upon whom this being can draw with the power and strength from the spiritual realms and work into the souls of her friends. For the soul that has worked among us will continue to work when we know how to accept its work in our hearts, in our innermost being.

And Sophie Stinde was connected with our work not only from one side or the other, she was connected with our work in the most comprehensive way. She came into our midst by, in order to fully grasp what she recognized as her task within our midst; she came to leave the art she was so fond of, which she believed at certain times would fulfill her life. We see in the pictures she created, and which we would like to bring here today, where we want to connect our thoughts with Sophie Stinde's earthly thoughts, the most loving grasp of nature, the most intimate coexistence with what spiritually permeates and lives through nature. Because she believed that she had to serve something even higher within our spiritual science, she left this field of her work and devoted the energies she had previously offered to art to our field. And we felt the way in which Sophie Stinde's soul's deeds flowed into our spiritual work, the direction of her strength, which, full of artistic meaning and artistic warmth, could pour artistic imagination into what the spirit wants to work out within our midst. And those who feel most deeply connected to our work, who are not distant from what art actually carries and nurtures, can perhaps appreciate what it means for our work when artistic imagination combines with the soul's effectiveness that we need in the practice of our spiritual scientific work. For it is the same thing that flows out of the human soul into color and form in one sphere of activity and into other artistic forms of work and effect in another, that becomes active in the cognitive powers of spiritual science, that becomes spiritual scientific vision. The one who brings infinite treasures into the field of our work brings them from the realms of art, from the warmth of enthusiasm for art, from the capacity for artistic creation. And so we felt connected to her in the field of work in which our dear Sophie Stinde was active, as if we were standing with her before the sacrificial altar of our work, on which she willingly wanted to sacrifice her best from her current life on earth with us. So we felt united with her in a sacred duty and – as we may believe – in loyal love; so we look back with heartfelt gratitude on what she achieved in her incarnation on earth in our midst to our delight. And so we follow in faithful remembrance of her soul, knowing that she continues to work among us, even if she has changed the way she works, her powers. And we need them, these forces among us. That we were able to connect with the idea of building the structure that was first to be erected in Munich and that will now be erected in Dornach is intimately connected with what Sophie Stinde longed for our work. And what had to be done to bring the first germination of the idea of this building to life was largely done by Sophie Stinde. She combined her thoughts and aspirations for our spiritual work with the very first seeds of thought for this building, and she devoted her work to it as she did to the other branches of our work. Indeed, in recent years, especially in the last few months, we have often seen how she weakened from overworking in the wide range of duties that had gradually fallen to her. We anxiously observed how often her overworked physical body could reveal the soul. Those for whom our work is precious, who understand our work, will always associate our work with the name Sophie Stinde. We worked at her side in Dornach, we looked at what we saw emerging piece by piece as the artistic form of our work there in the Dornach building. It was dear and precious to us to be able to work with Sophie Stinde on this building and to see this building as it was created piece by piece. The physical eye of Sophie Stinde will not rest on the forms of this building on the day when this building approaches its completion, as we have to write down today. In the physical sense, Sophie Stinde's workplace around this building is abandoned, but nothing in this building, as in our other spiritual scientific work, does not carry Sophie Stinde's spiritual activity imprinted in the deepest sense. And those who feel our work in the living sense, rather than in the abstract, also feel Sophie Stinde's spiritual eye and spiritual deeds, which belong to the organs of this work. Physically we will not have her with us in our work, but spiritually she will always be with us. We will not only feel that she will remain loyal to us in her spiritual form, but we will know that she will continue to work among us with the strong power that she developed during her incarnation for the spiritual form. The souls that came close to Sophie Stinde will feel this. Those who were able to work with her in a closer sense will feel a particular pain and love that will remain in their souls as a monument, strong and always shining in the most serious moments of life. How faithfully, lovingly and beautifully Sophie Stinde worked together with her friend, Countess Kalckreuth, here in Munich. Those who are close to this work, I know that I am not addressing their souls in vain when I express to them, together with these souls, our love for our dear friend, Countess Kalckreuth, who is the closest of those we have lost to grieve, when I tell her that we will faithfully share her pain and faithfully cherish the memory of our dear friend. Our dear Countess Kalckreuth has allowed us to share in an exemplary way the intimate love with which she was united to her friend, allowing us to share without envy, to share devotedly, claiming nothing for herself that she did not gladly give up from the precious treasure that her friendship was to her. So may she allow us to vow in 'loyalty to now also bear her pain together with her, that pain that writes itself so deeply into our souls from all the love and all the esteem that we had to show Sophie Stinde because we tried to recognize her, because her work shone among us as such a clear light, clear light of truth. But to those dear friends who knew how to appreciate and love Sophie Stinde, I would like to say: Turn your feelings, turn your thoughts, turn all your loving soul being to the spiritual places where you now sense Sophie Stinde's soul being, turn these feelings, these thoughts there and learn to get used to to turn these thoughts and feelings of yours to this spiritual place of Sophie Stindes, which you sense, whenever you, who were bound to her in loyal friendship, need strength for what you have to accomplish here on earth, need advice and encouragement for many things you want to do. Turn to the soul in her spiritual realm, who has so often stood by you in life with advice and active help. You will not turn to her in vain, to this power, to this soul being in the spiritual realm. You will feel when you say to yourself: This is one of those moments when I would seek Sophie Stinde if she were still here in the world of visibility. When you experience such moments, you may feelings up to their spiritual place, you may feel intimately connected with them in your soul, and if you have won the right love, the right appreciation for them here in this earthly existence, then they will turn their spiritual gaze, the soul's eye, the spiritual power down to you, and you will feel advice and help from the depths of your souls, which they will send to you by spiritual means. We can recognize this from the way in which we now feel connected to a number of our dear departed, that those who were connected to us in the physical life continue to work among us, even after they have visited their spiritual place. Sophie Stinde, one of our first workers, will also be one of our most effective spiritual workers where she now dwells, after she has left the physical body. And so, in this hour, we connect ourselves as deeply and as strongly as we can with her soul, we grasp together all that can live for her in our soul according to the strong power with which she lived among us:

Dear soul, you who were so dear to us, we turn to you, so that from this turning our soul power may take its start to the constant bond with you in loyalty, in love, in growing striving for knowledge.

The words of remembrance: “To lead you out of earthly existence...” are spoken once more. So let us establish the feelings and thoughts that shall bind us to the spirit of Sophie Stinde. So let us vow to ourselves and to her in loyalty that we will hold fast to what connects us with her and she with us forever.

Munich, December 20, 1906.

Dearest Friend!

... I am pleased that the exercises written down in Barr are of some use to you. They are, after all, in line with Rosicrucian wisdom. And if I may ask you for something, it is this: not to lose patience if the time of a perceptible effect takes a little while. The path is a safe one, but it requires a lot of patience. In a short time, when the right moment comes, I will certainly write the continuation of it. Initially, one experiences the effect only through very intimate processes of the soul life. And it actually requires great and at the same time subtle inner attention to sense how the manifestations from another world are adjusting. These can only be noticed, as it were, between the other events of inner life.¹

• 1. The full content of the letter is printed in “Nachrichten der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlaßverwaltung”, No. 6.

Memorial notes by Eugenie von Bredow

Necessity for the esotericist to understand the plan that humanity is unconsciously working out under the guidance of the white lodge.

The humanity of the earth is its center, that which is important in this world. On many other worlds other entities are at work and the people of those worlds are like our higher animals. The people of the earth have been given the planet by the gods and are, so to speak, reshaping it. At first their development takes place on the plane of the sensuous - in the broadest sense of this word. For this it was necessary to train their intelligence so that logical thinking would unite people into one humanity.

The Atlanteans could not yet think; they were guided by the gods. The Aryans must become masters of their world from within themselves. Intellectually, the unity that excludes different views has already been achieved. There are no different views on the construction of a steam engine or the like. Science and its products, the harnessing of the forces of nature, the means of transportation have united the different races and nations into a single entity. Five thousand years ago: what a difference, for example, between the products of the Chinese and European peoples. Today, a certain bridge has been established even between these dying peoples and the Occident. A bishop of Bremen writes about the customs in the Mark in the 11th and 12th centuries, how animals were slaughtered and horse's blood drunk in religious cults. This was in eastern Germany, while cities were already flourishing in the west. $uch contrasts side by side would be impossible today.

However, mankind has only just begun to harness the forces of nature. This will change completely in the near future and into the next millennia. People will draw out the forces in the flowing water and make them useful to themselves, they will catch the powerful forces that lie in the sun's rays through powerful mirrors and know how to make them useful to themselves; they will learn to control the forces in the earth's interior that are now being triggered by volcanic eruptions and that originate from a powerful spiritual being in the earth's interior; the most marvelous machines will be devised by men to put all these triggered forces at the service of mankind, indeed they will get the magnetic power of the whole earth under their control, for the earth is but a great magnet whose south pole is at the north pole and whose north pole is at the south pole. Now they can only guide their ships by this force. When the changes of the earth were necessary in ancient times, the forces of the gods tilted the axis of the earth; in times to come, mankind will be able to turn the axis. The formation of the intelligence and logic of mankind is thus taking place more and more and brings about the unity of mankind in the sensual field.

The formation of the moral was first made possible by the gods through the ethical teachings of all the great religions. But a time must come when men will recognize the law of good as clearly as they do today the laws of logic. What is good and what is true in the spiritual realm can then no longer be a matter of opinion, as it is still expressed today by the various religions, by the formation of parliaments to resolve this or that legal issue. When people become aware that there is a good, a moral, which is as definite and clear as a mathematical theorem, then people will also have united in this area to form a humanity which has a completely different physiognomy from the humanity of today.

The fourth master, Christian Rosenkreutz, founded the Rosicrucian Order in order to lead people to this knowledge of morality, to reveal its laws to mankind, so that a multitude of people working consciously out of themselves in this field would arise. The different intellectual training of the West requires different teachings. In the East, the spiritual teachings given to the Indians by the ancient Rishi had a strong influence on the people. Christian Rosenkreutz and his seven disciples laid the foundation for the knowledge of the law of morality, so that it would not resonate in people as given by the religions, but so that the law, recognized as such, would awaken to individual life in each person. The truth in the areas of morality, morality and goodness should arise in people as something that is recognized and felt.

The work of the esoteric schools is to initiate this unity that binds people together into one humanity.

Regarding the election of Annie Besant, head of the Esoteric School, as president of the Theosophical Society, which led to the separation of the Esoteric School.

Mead sent a letter, dated March 3, 1907, to Rudolf Steiner asking that Mead's March 1, 1907, circular letter to the T.G. branches opposing Annie Besant's candidacy be brought to the attention of the German Section. According to a typewritten template in German and English. (Date after the English text, which has May for March due to an error, also in the first line.)

Munich, May 6 [March] 1907 My dear colleague,

Thank you very much for your letter of March 3rd, including the information about the election of the president.

To be honest, I think the worst thing about the whole matter is that the idea could arise within society to associate such a matter as the election of the president with some manifestation of the transcendental world. The mere fact that something like this could be made public is bad enough. Because whatever may happen now, the confusion it causes will be difficult to repair. I would therefore have preferred to remain silent about the whole Mahatma affair in our section, to ignore the word “appointment” and to announce the nomination of Mrs. Besant as a personal opinion of our dear Olcott. In this way we would have simply gone about our business as usual, ignoring the unfortunate developments in Adyar. This did not seem unjustified to me, because Olcott's statements in this regard can only be attributed to the debilitating effects of his illness.

Of course, I am only talking about the German section. Now, however, the announcement of the matter and the discussion in the other sections is making such a policy more and more of an impossibility. And anyone like me who has to work in a young, up-and-coming section that has recently made good progress is faced with a difficult situation at the moment.

This is due to the following:

1. We cannot put our members in a situation where they can be influenced by some kind of supernatural manifestation in an election that is free according to the statutes.

2. We expose ourselves to ridicule in the non-Theosophical world if these manifestations become known in any way. I would not hesitate for a moment to accept this ridicule and scorn quietly if a pertinent principle were at stake. Here, not only is that not the case, but the situation is rather that one would give up the right to ever refer to the experiences of the higher worlds if one made a point of referring to these Mahatma manifestations. And in view of the way in which I have so far directed the German Theosophical movement, it is almost impossible in the long run to merely shrug my shoulders when a question concerning the content of this matter is raised. After all, the members have a right to hear an opinion on the subject. But the moment I express this opinion of mine, I destroy much of what I have built up here.

For all these reasons, just as I have not published anything about the supernatural in Adyar within the German Section, I must also reserve my decisions regarding the publication of your valuable communications. However, I will never fail to work to ensure that purely administrative matters are not confused by the introduction of supernatural things. I have informed Mr. Sinnett that I will not initiate the election before May 1. Perhaps by then there will still be a possibility to repair the fatal situation created by Adyar.

Personally, I would just like to add with regard to the one point of your circular that I naturally consider it quite impossible for the president of our Society to be the head of an esoteric school.

Yours very sincerely

Rudolf Steiner

Regarding the election of Annie Besant, head of the Esoteric School, as president of the Theosophical Society, which led to the separation of the Esoteric School.

Munich, May 4, 1907 ¹

Dear Mr. Selling,

Please find attached the material needed for the election, which I ask you to duplicate.

1. A confidential letter to all my esoteric students. I ask you to make 250 copies of this. It is especially for you – so not with anything else – to be sent in a sealed envelope to those addresses that I will send to you by express letter no later than tomorrow morning (Sunday). So you can duplicate this letter tomorrow, Sunday, and Ms. Boesé can then write the addresses on the envelopes and take care of the mailing on Monday. You can calculate the postage with me.

2. Ballot papers and information. These are to be put in a sealed envelope and sent to each member of the German section. We cannot do it any differently for the sake of order. So ballot papers and information are to be sent by letter to each member of the German section.

The circular to the esotericists must be sent at least 24 hours before the ballot papers are sent. So if you are able to send the letter to the esotericists on Monday, the ballot papers can be sent on Tuesday, or, if a delay is necessary, otherwise accordingly.

Miss Boesé will help you with everything, and I ask you to be very precise. Of course, no [non-]esoteric can get their hands on the confidential letter.

With warmest regards, Dr. Rudolf Steiner

• 1. Rudolf Steiner was then in Munich preparing for the Theosophical Congress.

Regarding the election of Annie Besant, head of the Esoteric School, as president of the Theosophical Society, which led to the separation of the Esoteric School.

Munich, May 4, 1907

My dear Mr. Selling!

Here are the names of the esotericists to whom the circular is addressed. More will follow tomorrow by express delivery. This matter will be ready by Monday and can be sent on Monday evening. And then on Tuesday the ballot papers.

Please send me the rest of the circulars here. I will need them. With this, we have finished the election matter for the time being. Sincerely yours,

Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Please send me the esoteric addresses as soon as the envelopes have been written. I will ask Miss Boese to write the addresses, including the esoteric ones.

Regarding the election of Annie Besant, head of the Esoteric School, as president of the Theosophical Society, which led to the separation of the Esoteric School.

Munich, May 5, 1907

My dear Mr. Selling!

Please enclose the remaining addresses of the esotericists. Please also have these copied and sent to Miss Boes€,

and send the rest of the copies to me. Kind regards,

Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Regarding the election of Annie Besant, head of the Esoteric School, as president of the Theosophical Society, which led to the separation of the Esoteric School.

Probably May 4, 1907 from Munich

The upcoming election of the President of the Theosophical Society.

To all those members of the German Section who seek esoteric schooling from me.

In these days, when the German Section is to vote on the future President of the Theosophical Society, it is my duty to say a few words to those who belong to the esoteric current.

The esotericist has a different relationship to spiritual life than that which is required for membership of the exoteric society. The members of the exoteric Theosophical Society have nothing to do with but the statutes. And according to the statutes, Colonel Olcott has nominated Mrs. Besant as the future president. The member will have only to consider whether he regards Mrs. Besant as a suitable President or not and cast his vote accordingly. Exoterically, that is all there is to it.

The matter looks different when viewed from the esoteric standpoint. There is the fact that it was announced from Adyar that the nomination of Col. Olcott had been made by the Masters at the bidding of his Masters, who appeared at his sickbed shortly before his departure from the physical plane. And Mrs. Besant has emphasized with all possible clarity that she accepted the election because her Master told her to do so.

I now speak in this letter only to those who have confidence in me. For only such have turned to me for esoteric counsel. Had they not this confidence, they would not have turned to me. And I again expressly request here that only those who have this confidence may hear these my words. The others may simply leave them unconsidered.

Occult connections are complicated. Therefore, no one should think that it is easy to talk about them. The time will come when I will be allowed to speak more clearly than I can today about the phenomena in Adyar.

It has been my principle so far not to advance anything within the Theosophical movement that I cannot vouch for with my own knowledge. This must continue to be my principle. This is not to say that others should not teach what they accept on trust. I emphasize that they are right to do so. Only my principle must be the above. It is only on this principle that I feel justified in esoterically relating to Theosophists and to people in general as I do.

With these qualifications, I now say what I have to say about Mrs. Besant's nomination.

From all the discussions that have taken place about the Master's appearances in Adyar, one thing is clear: either they are true, in which case it would be a rebellion against the Masters not to follow them; or they are false, in which case there can be no question of taking them into account, and then everything connected with Mrs. Besant's leadership is called into question. But there is no such contradiction. Within real occultism, there should be no talk of the possible inauthenticity of the phenomena in Adyar. It would never occur to a true occultist to question their authenticity.

I myself must now have a different view of these phenomena than Mrs. Besant. But that does not change the following facts.

Mrs. Besant is part of the spiritual life. She is inhabited by that spiritual life that emanates from the spiritual powers. And anyone within the Theosophical Society who wants this spiritual life will see Mrs. Besant as the appropriate person to hold the presidency at the present time.

I have different experiences in relation to many things that are difficult for Mrs. Besant to consider. I have to assume that many difficulties in the conduct of Central European esoteric matters may arise through her. And I will never relate to those who have faith in me other than in a way that I can justify to my own knowledge, to myself, and to the individuals we call the Masters. Once more I emphasize it: Whoever does not have the trust in me in this direction, let him not listen to me. I want to give everyone the message that I am able to give; but I want no one to receive it other than from the completely free decision of his heart.

Precisely because I feel so completely independent from any belief in authority Mrs. Besant, precisely because I must find other ways prescribed by the exalted individualities whom we call the masters: precisely for that reason I may also say that I am in complete agreement with Mrs. Besant that the Theosophical Society draws its strength, its power, indeed its content from the masters, and that it must die if it were to deny the masters and thus spiritual life.

Even if I had to go in a different direction from Mrs. Besant during her presidency, I would still have to say that she seems to me to be the right president. And even if I have said that I have different experiences of the Adyar apparitions than Mrs. Besant, I must still say that esoterically Mrs. Besant is right in her appeal to the Masters.

All this is decisive for me alone, when I express just as clearly as openly to those striving esoterically that Mrs. Besant is the suitable personality for the presidency for me, as on the other hand, that for all those who have confidence in me, no “psychic tyranny” will ever be exercised by any personality.

The occultist, however, can only regard the discussion as to whether the Adyar phenomena are genuine or not as unesoteric, and must refrain from entering into it.

In view of the responsibility I am assuming in this letter towards the wise men of humanity,

I greet you

Rudolf Steiner

Notes taken by participants during two lectures by Rudolf Steiner.¹

Theosophical knowledge has only been accessible to all people for a few decades, but as long as people have been thinking and striving for the highest, asking questions about the primeval world and the purpose of life, there has been a theosophy. But theosophy has not always been presented to the world as it has been for about 30 years. In the early days, it was presented in intimate small circles. There were always small circles of initiates, occult or secret fraternities, whose members knew much more than could be communicated publicly. The nations, humanity as a whole, were to receive only the fruits of the initiates' knowledge. The world did not recognize them as such, it only recognized the effects. One only knew that such and such a man was a carpenter, another a locksmith, and yet another perhaps a high government official. Such people can perform deeds in the world that the outside world is unaware of. A word from these initiates had much more inner significance than the world could guess.

What the world calls historical figures were not the greatest of all. These lived secluded. Such an occult initiate had a fleeting acquaintance with Rousseau in the 18th century, for example. The words that the latter spoke were not taken as anything special by the initiate, but they had an occult effect. When Rousseau had a sudden insight as a result, he spread it in books; he himself was not initiated, but the initiate stood behind him.

Another example: how did Jacob Boehme, the poor shoemaker, come by such amazing knowledge? In his biography, people overlook many important things. There is the following little story. Little Jacob was an apprentice in the shop of his master, his teacher, who was absent at the moment. He had been forbidden to sell anything, he was only supposed to mind the shop. A fascinating personality, who had a powerful effect on the little boy, entered and spoke only a few words. After she left, Jacob heard his name called three times in front of the shop: “Jacob, you may be small today, but you will grow up to be great. Remember that.” This remained indelibly in Böhme's memory.

Now and then someone spoke to a statesman; the words, which seemed insignificant, had a magical power. It depends on the right words. These are the means by which the initiated have worked. They had to give the thought, the impulse. For example: someone had received a letter containing a petition. This person was specially designated to carry out something; he had to receive the impulse to do so. If he knew how to read, he could find something remarkable in the letter, which apparently contained nothing special. Four words had to be left out, the deeper meaning was hidden in the fifth. These were the words that could work.

Today we have to find other ways. The moment this was revealed, the words lost their value. These were small, elementary things of the mysteries.

One German scholar who was initiated was Tritheim of Sponheim, the teacher of Agrippa of Nettesheim. In his works, one finds theosophy when certain words are left out at the beginning and end of a sentence. This was necessary because only individuals could be initiated with sufficient preparation. Knowledge should not be curiosity, but should be put into action.

Theosophy is there to proceed practically in the world, to penetrate into the nature of the state and of society. The one to be initiated had to undergo hard tests to see if he was worthy of initiation. Only those who passed the tests were initiated in stages. This method has been abandoned in more recent times. The elementary teachings are now taught publicly. These are only the beginning of the deep wisdom. More and more of the divine wisdom will be given to the world, to the larger public. Theosophical wisdom is ancient knowledge; only the way of preparation is new.

What we will hear is the common knowledge of all those who have formed an image of what is going on in the spiritual world not through speculation and hypotheses but through facts.

All knowledge comes from the spirit. In the past, religion was the most effective means. For thousands of years, religions have been the source of wisdom and knowledge. Now, many people want to know. We want to ascend through knowledge, not through faith. Today there is a conflict between science and religion, knowledge and faith. The real reason why Theosophy became necessary is the art of printing. With the popularization of sensual knowledge, that conflict arose. This is where the initiates stepped in and bridged the gap.

• 1. No location or date given, presumably Munich 1906. Cf. lecture in Berlin, October 8, 1906.