The Rudolf Steiner Archive

30. Discussion with Rudolf Steiner's Remarks

[ 1 ] First, O. Lehmann-Rußbüldt gave a presentation on Dr. R. Steiner’s lecture to provide some context, adding that it would have been his personal wish that not only the 250 to 300 people who attended the lecture had been present, but also the 2,000 to 3,000 people who constitute Germany’s intellectual and public life. Dr. Steiner’s call to transform theosophy—if, as Duboc claims, it is a “feminine” philosophy—into a “masculine” one in critical Germany must be heavily underlined, so that it would take up an entire page in print, for there is certainly no small danger inherent in the theosophical movement. The speaker acknowledged that, despite electricity and precision engineering, our spiritual culture could be called crude compared to the harmony that existed between science and the religious world in the great cultures of antiquity; but, he emphatically added, we must not despair of ourselves because of this. The obvious superiority of our intelligence, as manifested precisely in the Machine Age, could serve as a guarantee that we will deepen and expand what the culture of antiquity possessed only in a vague sense, albeit in the most magnificent way. To this end, the speaker quoted a passage from Count Gobineau’s work on race concerning the intellectual disposition of the Aryan, which can certainly also be applied to the peoples of the Atlantic world—that is, to Western Europe and North America:

[ 2 ] “ The Aryan is thus superior to other people primarily in terms of his intelligence and energy, and thanks to these two qualities, if he succeeds in overcoming his passions and material needs, he is also able to attain an infinitely higher level of morality—although, in the ordinary course of events, one can find just as many reprehensible acts in him as in individuals of inferior races. ” The speaker concluded by remarking that, in his view, the much-maligned fields of hypnotism and somnambulism would give rise to the science of an expanded and refined psychology, which would mean as much to our understanding of the soul as astronomy and chemistry mean to our understanding of nature—even though these sciences themselves had developed from astrology and alchemy.

[ 3 ] In the discussion, Nicolai first criticizes the fact that it is not explained what Theosophy actually aims to achieve and is capable of.

[ 4 ] Dr. Steiner replied that his lecture had merely sought to highlight the connection between monism and the worldview that, even in the days of India’s Vedanta philosophy, was already moving in a modern direction. This is the essence of the dualism that has prevailed in Christianity since the 4th century: while it does indeed allow the eye and the senses to be used for the knowledge of the phenomenal world, it does not permit the same means of knowledge to be used for understanding our origin and destiny, but instead refers us to faith and to the revelations of ancient texts and prophets. Monism, however, promises the development of knowledge, just as it has been able to establish the evolution of species among living beings. In the writings of Vedanta philosophy, there is a dialogue in which a disciple asks the teacher: “What happens when I die?”... The teacher replies: “The solid and liquid parts of your body will return to being solid and liquid, for man is like a stone or an animal; even the expressions of your thoughts and actions dissolve into your surroundings, but what remains is ‘evolution,’ the foundation of what has shaped your personality.” — Even in its earliest stages, Vedanta philosophy is already so monistic in its thinking. What in animals exists only in the unconscious—namely, the drive to develop one’s personality—must, in humans, enter into full consciousness and be realized in consciousness as an ideal.

[ 5 ] Fritz Sänger argued against Dr. Steiner. The Theosophists always claimed to have already possessed—and still to possess—the findings of modern natural science, but they had never provided any evidence of such superiority. He feared that such a movement was all too well-suited to undermine the findings of modern natural science once again; despite the most careful observation, he had found only nonsense in spiritualism, though he had to acknowledge the reality of hypnotism.

[ 6 ] After Köhn had spoken up for Dr. Steiner in warm, impassioned terms, O. Lehmann-Rußbüldt remarked that Mr. Sänger’s remarks were typical of the representatives of so-called natural science throughout the ages. Fifteen years ago, Singer would have used this line of reasoning to dismiss as nonsense the fact—demonstrated by Krafft-Ebing, among others—that a linden leaf placed on a hypnotized person causes a burn wound just like a red-hot piece of iron if the hypnotized person is made to believe it is one; just as, a hundred years ago, the French materialists dismissed as humbug the idea that meteorites could fall to Earth from outer space.

[ 7 ] Dr. Steiner then once again vigorously objected to the conflation of theosophy and spiritualism. If Mr. Sänger had encountered such Theosophists who gave cause for this, he should stick with them; he, Dr. Steiner, firmly rejected it. He considered it immoral in the philosophical spirit to seek teachings about fate and human nature through the manifestations of so-called spirits; that would be crude materialism. Nor does he attach any particular importance to the name “Theosophy.” Above all, what matters to him is the high ethical standard of Theosophy as he understands it, which, for example, leads to the most serious implications in the field of education. What a perspective this offers the educator’s mind when he is conscious that he has to develop a seed of divinity within the child! ^{1Our reporter, Mr. Otto Lehmann-Rußbüldt, the vice-chairman of the Bruno League, feels the need to add to this report that he regards this lecture, alongside so many other significant phenomena in spiritual life, as a seed of a new, noble culture. “Times of great upheaval do not simply come upon us like some mystical phenomenon; when we create them, they are here. I would welcome the ‘theosophical’ movement with a program such as the one formulated by Dr. Steiner. Let us hope that the newly emerging life forces of rejuvenation can, above all, create more vivid, poetically inspiring words; what use are all these ‘-isms’ to us! In any case, the golden wheat of genuine theosophy has, unfortunately, been buried under so much chaff—the mindless parroting of Indian vocabulary—that the philosophical hero who can gather it into a new barn, that is, under a new name, will be most welcome.”}