The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. Illumination of Nietzsche and Theosophy

Article in the “Weimarer Tageszeitung”, March 2, 1905

[ 1 ] Nietzsche and Theosophy. Last night, members and friends of the Weimar branch of the Theosophical Society gathered at the Erbprinz to hear Dr. Steiner (Berlin) speak on the relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche’s worldview and theosophy. In an eloquent presentation, the speaker drew on Nietzsche’s literary works to explain that Nietzsche—whom he described as the most characteristic figure among the seekers of truth in the nineteenth century—had, more or less unconsciously, followed paths in his outlook on life and the world that led to theosophy. Just as he had indicated in *The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music* that truth and a life worth living could be found only in the primal drama and in mystical wisdom, and had revered Wagner as the renewer of the primal drama, his “Supermen,” above all, are eloquent witnesses that he sensed a divine power within man that must elevate man above himself and thereby make his life worth living. Nietzsche’s statement: “If there were a God, how could man bear not to be a god?”—would almost have him proclaiming the ideas of theosophy, if one considers that theosophy demands that man must seek his God within himself [. The theosophical assertion that life has value only if it possesses the urge to transcend itself is also Nietzsche’s view. His idea of the return of the same is in harmony with the theosophical idea of the return of things in continual purification—the idea of reincarnation. Through Nietzsche’s view that man is the meaning of the earth and, as such, must strive for higher things, many admirers of Nietzsche have become Theosophists. In Theosophy, they have found the answers to the questions Nietzsche posed—questions that had led him to the very gates of Theosophy. And in the light of theosophical reflections, Nietzsche became understandable to many, and the many negative aspects of his thought became explicable. — The lecture was followed by a discussion in which the speaker provided exhaustive answers to the questions posed to him.