The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. First Address on the Dornach Crisis

[ 1 ] I must bring up an incident today, albeit one of a different nature than yesterday’s. This morning I received a document, and I feel not only compelled but obligated to bring this document to the attention of every single member. I will explain later the reasons why I feel not only compelled but compelled—indeed, downright forced—to do so.

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Heinrich and Gertrud Goesch to Rudolf Steiner

Dornach, August 19, 1915

Dear Dr. Steiner!

I have come to realize that, in your work within our spiritual movement, alongside your activities dedicated to the good, you also allow a course of action that serves the evil to proceed in parallel. Above all, I recognize as good the esotericism you have brought us, the teachings you have proclaimed to us, the mystery plays you have given us, the inauguration of eurythmy, and the art of Johannesbau. In all these respects, I continue to see you as an emissary of the Great White Lodge and am filled with the deepest gratitude for you and your work dedicated to the good. However, I recognize as evil the way in which you shape the relationship between yourself and the other members of our spiritual movement. In this behavior of yours that serves evil, I see the greatest danger to our spiritual movement. You establish such relationships between yourself and the other members that the others are meant to be merely your appendages, rather than independent spiritual beings alongside you. You behave toward the others only superficially as one human among others. In truth, you actually spurn any genuinely human connection and, instead, presume to interfere in the lives of others—an act reserved only for the gods, but never for a person of today. In this way, you create an anti-Christian connection between yourself and the other members of our spiritual movement. And all those people who have prepared themselves to receive the great spiritual teachings of our time—you make them poorer than the poorest materialist out there. For even the materialist, with his distorted, inverted version of Christianity, can still develop a strong sense of self. Your students, however, if this continues, will sooner or later become victims of black magic due to the ceaseless weakening their “I” experiences as a result of your conduct.

It has already happened that distinguished members have substituted an appeal to Your Word for an appeal to the truth, and have cut off any criticism of any part of Your work with the objection that such criticism would place one above You. Out of the belief that placing oneself above you is an unthinkable act of presumption, they believe that by raising such an objection, they have properly settled the matter. It is not the members who are to blame for such aberrations, but You. While proclaiming ever-wider parts of the doctrine, You have failed to continually cultivate, in Your fellowship with Your disciples, the conviction that every person, as a Christian, must time and again place themselves not only beneath everyone else but also above everyone else; that for everyone, not only is the deepest essence of even the humblest fellow human being of irreplaceable value, but also that even the humblest bears responsibility toward the most developed and must combat his or her faults. It is your own teaching that has strengthened me in these perspectives. In life, however, you employ a series of means that run counter to this Christian ideal of a human community.

I will now discuss two such means in more detail. This may help clarify the meaning of my assertions.

It is a fact that you have developed a habit of making promises and not keeping them. Surely no one would claim that you are unable to foresee the future adequately or that you are too weak to carry out your original intentions—which would give you some justification for repeatedly failing to fulfill your promises. It is, therefore, a matter of deliberately causing disappointment; and since you make these promises of your own accord—even when they are not at all requested—it amounts to a deliberate intrusion into the lives of others, to doing within those lives something that must be reserved for fate alone. A disappointment sent to us by karma will be directly beneficial to our development. A disappointment, however, that a person deliberately inflicts upon us will, at least initially, constitute a serious wound and—if trust in the offender is not withdrawn—a weakening of our sense of self. It is the same difference as between death in a conflagration and death on a pyre built by human hands.

Now, the person who receives such a promise and waits for it to be fulfilled enters a state of tension due to the trust he places in you, which makes him feel insecure, while you can calmly observe his gradual disappointment. If, at some point, it becomes clear to the person concerned that you will not keep your promise, he will either stop taking such words from you seriously in the future and, in that sense, distance himself from you. However, by continuing to place his trust in you as a whole, he will lose the standard for the sanctity of the word and may even begin to act similarly himself. He will be bound to you in an inhuman way and, like you, seek to influence others. Or one of the following three cases will occur. Out of the trust he places in you, the person concerned will suspect a deep occult meaning behind your conduct. He will come to believe that there are profound occult reasons for which it is permissible—or even necessary—to make promises with the intention of not keeping them. Here and there one even encounters such a distortion of feeling that this kind of behavior is admired and regarded as a sign of superhuman nature. But it is readily apparent that no power in the world could grant a person today the authority to make promises with the intent of breaking them. Causing disappointment is the sole prerogative of the gods who direct karma. This confusion of concepts is all the more dangerous for the student of Spiritual Science because modern Spiritual Science appeals precisely to sound judgment, which is undermined by such attitudes. Then, in a fateful way, Your Word takes the place of truth, and the realization that You are doing something wrong here is replaced by the thought: “I cannot, after all, place myself above him.” As a result, however, the person affected loses one piece of inner human dignity after another, and he becomes a spiritually dependent tool in your hand. A second possibility for the person betrayed regarding the fulfillment of the promise is that, in order for the affected person to be able to maintain the trust he places in you, the fact that you never intended to keep the promise in the first place is not brought to their conscious awareness, and they find a way to accept the subsequent breach as a new revelation of a being whom they do not perceive as human at all—or whom they cannot hold accountable as a human being. This view is also held within society and must inevitably lead to you, as a human being, becoming increasingly shadowy. Or, finally, thirdly, some souls choose the radical solution of completely forgetting the entire set of facts—that you ever made a promise of this or that kind at all. This, in turn, robs the person of a part of their “I,” and those standing beside you are not independent collaborators in our spiritual movement, but shadows whose “I” has been weakened through you. Yet it is you who bear the blame for all of this.

A second example of your malicious behavior is your rejection of any criticism directed at the people active in the movement. In expressing your rejection, you occasionally make the insinuation that any such criticism stems from negative feelings. This insinuation is false. We are not speaking here at all of spiteful, destructive criticism, but only of responsible, constructive criticism—which many members are, in fact, quite capable of offering. Such criticism might be avoided, at most, only if one is aware that leadership positions are filled by unsuitable individuals. In today’s world, where a hierarchical order is to emerge from the free association of people—based on their freedom—in order to fulfill our tasks, a certain degree of benevolent criticism, exercised by everyone toward everyone else, is the sole guarantee of prosperity. In our time, the natural establishment of a true hierarchical order can take place only through the workings of such criticism. If the person being criticized fails to meet the justified demands of the criticism—which he is, in fact, obligated to seek out—then he must step down from his current position in the hierarchy so that the truth may prevail. And no higher authority should protect such a person by acting as if everything were in order. This follows from the nature of our times. But if, whenever someone occupying a particular position in the hierarchical order makes mistakes, one does not criticize these mistakes but quietly allows them to persist—indeed, lets them continue to occur—then one creates nothing more than a hierarchy in name only. Such a hierarchy is not based on true human qualities and bonds, but on fictions—fictions that require ever-new injustices to be perpetuated. And once again, the result is inhumanity and anti-Christianity in all relationships. You bear the blame for this. Through an organization of society such as has gradually developed under your leadership, there is a usurpation of the members’ powers for the benefit of yourselves and perhaps certain other individuals in high positions within this sham hierarchy, while the affairs of society are poorly managed.

What really needs to be eliminated—and what might even be the subject of a lecture—is the personal sensitivity of those on the receiving end of criticism. As a rule, criticism—especially when offered at the right time—can be presented in such a stimulating and positive way, and be so free of personal bitterness, that any sting disappears, and the person being criticized can be glad to receive help in this manner and to see the matter advanced. However, the nervousness or animosity often displayed by critics today stems in part from the justified feeling that, even with the most objective criticism, one is not heard but rather viewed with suspicion and completely sidelined. A truly superior person has no reason whatsoever to fear criticism. True superiority is demonstrated precisely in the face of even the sharpest criticism. In cases where a critic, acting out of a sense of responsibility, is in fact unable to grasp the full picture, this will—when it actually occurs—usually become clear to the critic himself, either immediately or later, easily and without unnecessary delay. I am setting aside here the case in which a critique has already developed into a self-justified rejection of an entire, complete system standing before me, as my letter represents. Here, no postponement would change anything. However, if in a specific case I am informed—not merely by a figure placed above me in the apparent hierarchy for inscrutable reasons, but by a person whom I myself recognize as superior—that I am not yet able to grasp the matter at hand, I will gladly postpone my criticism until the matter in question has been sufficiently resolved. In our spiritual movement, however, under your auspices, a spirit prevails that demands such a postponement of criticism indefinitely—as a rule, until the fact in question is forgotten—not only for certain individual cases but, in principle, for all cases. This, however, results, on the one hand, in much that is wrong being done to the detriment of all, and, on the other hand, in the impairment of the power of judgment, upon which everything depends. I must again point out the contradiction inherent in the fact that Spiritual Science, on the one hand, appeals to people’s sound power of judgment, while on the other hand, this very power of judgment is, as a matter of principle, sidelined in the vast majority of events within our movement in favor of reasons for actions that are incomprehensible and impossible to grasp. One must, however, admit that today, two millennia after Christ, human beings already possess certain standards that everyone must apply—and allow to be applied to themselves—if they are not to be lost, and that there are indeed sufficiently well-defined sets of facts that are truly subject to our judgment. Precisely the fact that a person finds himself compelled to reflect on a case tends to indicate that he also possesses the capacity—albeit perhaps not without assistance—to come to a clear understanding of the matter.

As things stand now, a large part of the members’ mental energy is constantly and intensely occupied with the fruitless task of searching for the hidden, wise reasons behind the evil in your conduct and that of your top associates—an exertion of power that you can calmly observe. Or else, in order not to lose their trust in you, these people must resolve to suppress within themselves precisely these very forces of truth-seeking and thus succumb to a kind of partial mental dullness. But where do all these forces end up? It is horrifying to pursue this thought any further. In any case, you represent a great center of power, for which all the individuals are merely organs that you use at will for inscrutable purposes. Thus, our spiritual movement is by no means a genuine life unfolding among fully developed human beings, in which everyone is also allowed to give their best. You are not the friend of all members; rather, through your entire conduct, you reject any living relationship of friendship. In truth, for many, you are the strongest enemy they have ever encountered.

All the things described are not only objectively evil, but are even in direct contradiction to the teachings you proclaim. Through you, I have come to understand the reasons that lead me to reject this course of action. It almost seems as though, the longer time goes on, the more you live out your connection to the Christ impulse only in your lectures, while outside of them you pay homage to opposing impulses. Indeed, in some places it seems to me that your teaching—not in terms of content, but in terms of formal structure—has strayed somewhat from the practice you have otherwise followed. For example, there are already sentences whose structure implies a promise that is not subsequently fulfilled, and which can serve no other purpose than to lead the reader into fruitless mental labor. (“Thoughts During the War,” page 9, 12th line from the bottom, et seq.) Or you seek to use the fact that you, like every living person, have indeed changed your views over time as a way to fend off annoying criticism (The Riddle of Philosophy, Preface, last paragraph). Incidentally, both of these passages also reveal a distinct shift in style toward the incomprehensible.

But such a relationship between people, as you are establishing it, not only contradicts the teachings in general; more specifically, your behavior also directly contradicts what you demand of a spiritual teacher in our time. Such a teacher is to address only the conscious individual. He has assumed the duty toward his student not to exert any magical influences on the student’s subconscious—influences beyond the student’s control—without the student’s consent. You, however, do precisely this constantly through the behavior you have described and other occult means. Every handshake, every friendly conversation becomes a means for you to cultivate these false relationships. The bliss that fills the members after an encounter with you is not that of the communion of saints, but merely a Luciferic-Ahrimanic one. You yourself, not the members, are to blame for this. Even members who have already seen through the falseness of the relationship you seek, you try to draw back into it against their will through handshakes and friendly conversations. I have recognized with the utmost certainty that in this way you exert unduly strong influences on your students.

However, when it comes to eliminating uncontrollable influences on the subconscious—as is required in today’s world—it is not enough simply give lectures or introduce other new spiritual teachings; rather, it is necessary that you place your own life—as you live it together with the other members of our movement—under Christian principles and thus progress toward the kind of relationships with your students that you so beautifully portray in the figure of Benedictus in the Fourth Mystery. At present, even after so much teaching has been conveyed to us, this is by far the more urgent duty.

When I ask myself how it is possible that you, of all people—you who were charged with proclaiming the teaching—could act in such a way against it, two main answers come to mind. On the one hand, I can surmise the reasons why the Great White Lodge may have had to choose a person who has not yet been fully Christianized for this task, and I can still regard you, as the bearer of the teaching, as its emissary. On the other hand, it seems to me that the deepest motive at work within you is by no means active malice—as it might be mistakenly interpreted based on certain observations I have had to make—but rather an overly one-sided interest in the contemporary renewal of the teaching and, above all, a fear of true life. Yet in your avoidance and obstruction of true life, and in your creation of surrogates for it, you are already unleashing a force of evil in which I must see the greatest danger for our spiritual movement and also for yourself.

The Christian occultist can never be content merely to teach; rather, he must at the same time enter into a community of life with his students. In a true relationship between human beings in the Christian sense, it is absolutely essential that each person allow the other to see through him, to the extent that his abilities permit. Everyone should devote himself, with all that he has, to his neighbor, to the extent that the neighbor is able to receive it. A modern hierarchy must also be based on this foundation. The one higher in the hierarchy must reach out to the one lower in the hierarchy with everything he can possibly give. They, however, follow the opposite practice in an anti-Christian manner and, for example, arrange everything as much as possible so that intentions remain hidden and events are treated as if they had never happened. It is not enough to admit that one might occasionally have a moment of weakness. It is necessary not only to admit this but, as a human being, to continually affirm that one is in some way imperfect and has much to learn from every other person—who, in the Christian sense, is just as necessary as oneself. It is necessary to seek out this shared life with one’s neighbor, even if this may be a source of dread for the occultist of the older school. It is not enough merely to have guarded oneself against blind admiration. It is necessary to seek out appropriate criticism.

Thus, in this community of life, the spiritual teacher must do without all the aids that, in pre-Christian times, served to facilitate the students’ reception of the teaching—above all, the unapproachable authority of the teacher, filled with divine wisdom, over students in whom the “I” had not yet been born, and the separation of teacher and student from all human relationships. For the pre-Christian initiator, the problem I am pointing out here did not yet exist. The “I” had not yet been born, and the divine being working through the teacher had the authority to intervene in the students’ destinies in a way that otherwise only karma does. But we Christians must regard a modern initiate first and foremost as a human being, and our trust in him rests precisely on the fact that he will not make any superhuman interventions in our destiny.

It is certainly tempting for those who devote all their energy to renewing doctrine for our time to initially reject the difficult tasks of a Christian community and instead to artificially create, in every possible way, those simplifications in teaching that were natural in times past. But these things are evil in our time. And it would be more acceptable for the proclaimer of doctrine to remain invisible, apart from this proclamation, than for a teacher in our time to enter into such a relationship with his students as you do. After all, preserving and strengthening the students’ sense of self is far more important than the proclamation of the doctrine. The doctrine now addresses the self. Any curtailment of the rights of the self must inevitably result in the doctrine taking root incorrectly within the human being. Any clouding of the power of judgment endangers those striving toward the spirit to the utmost.

However, living this true life within a relationship is infinitely more difficult for you than it is for others. The Christian occultist must take on a task that will only become relevant to other people in the future: to live and to observe. The danger of a false conflation of the various planes and their laws constantly hangs over him. But he cannot escape this danger by rejecting this task. Without being able to orient himself by the Christ impulse, he will nevertheless mix the planes in an impermissible way. And in every such encounter with a student in which this occurs, the student will be able to recognize the most horrific consequences. And how quickly must these fall back upon the teacher!

This new task may have been resolved to some extent only within the Grail Community so far, and you do admit that what you have said about the Grail is somewhat unsatisfactory to you personally, and you have clearly described to us your difficulties in conducting research into the mysteries of the Grail. You yourself, however, refer to the new initiates as “initiates of the Grail.” Perhaps the Grail will send us salvation in this hour of need.

Due to the events described, my wife and I have found ourselves in a situation with you in which it is impossible for us to meet again in the same way as we did last time—my wife on Sunday, July 25, in the woodshop, and I on Thursday, August 5, on the stairs leading to the eurythmy hall. We were already aware of all these facts at that time, and you knew that very well. Nevertheless, you shook our hands and drew us into a conversation as if nothing had happened. Such behavior would have been impossible for a person without clairvoyant abilities. In your case, I recognize this kind of behavior as an attempt at an impermissible intrusion into my being. I will omit the detailed reasoning behind this assertion here, as it would lead too far afield.

I can, as I attempted to do that evening, greet you from a distance with the utmost respect as the bearer of the teaching. But I cannot bring myself to exchange handshakes and friendly conversation with you as if nothing had happened; all the more so because, as I have clearly recognized, it is precisely these handshakes and conversations that serve as one of your primary means of exerting undue influence on your students, and I cannot subscribe to the view—expressed even by an distinguished member—that these things are meant to test one’s own strength against outside influences.

The purpose of my letter, as it pertains to us personally, is to inform you of this need to avoid personal contact in the future.

The personal purpose of my letter, insofar as it concerns you, is that in this serious matter—however little I may be able to do, that is, whatever I can accomplish as your fellow human being—I would at least like to achieve, by sending you this letter, the following: to confront you with the fact that you have once been made aware, by a human being on the physical plane and through physical means, of the evil in your conduct. You would indeed be condemned to a shadowy existence if no human being were willing to address you in this way. I hope that the fact that at least some people today are able to recognize your mistakes as such, to keep them in mind, and to take a stand against them, may be of assistance to you in the now necessary reorganization of life within our spiritual movement. I will also inform several other members, whom I believe to have an understanding of the matters discussed, of the content of my letter to you.

However, it is necessary that you immediately begin to fundamentally reshape the relationship between yourself and other members of the movement in the direction indicated. Stating this is the practical purpose of my letter to you, in the interest of continuing our spiritual movement in the spirit of evolution. What would be the consequence if you were to shirk this task? You have already forfeited—at least in certain cases—the one activity that must surely have been assigned to you by the White Masters: that of personal, individual instruction. For, based on what has been said, there is all too much reason to harbor deep mistrust regarding your handling of individual human destinies. Nor can I imagine how, under the prevailing circumstances, an E.S. [Esoteric Hour] could take place. If you were to limit yourself to proclaiming ever-wider sections of the teaching, while otherwise allowing everything to continue as before, then—if not enough members can bring themselves to embrace the insights required here—the Society would degenerate and, in the very best case, become an exoteric association, for which there are already certain signs, in addition to the developments toward evil and mental degradation. Or, if the students were to become aware of their responsibility, they would gradually have to effect a complete separation between the teaching and the teacher, and you would have to exercise your office in this sacred place among the starving and grieving disciples as a guilty and tormented Amfortas.

I am nearing the end of what I wish to say at this time. I have not yet been able to give these insights—which I acquired under the guidance of the Keeper of the Seal of the Society for Theosophical Art and Culture, whose patron is Christian Rosenkreutz—the form I had envisioned, because the obstacles were still too great for someone who has only just begun to free himself from the spell. But I have decided to send this letter, as the hour demands it.

When I consider the feelings with which you will receive this letter, I am particularly weighed down by the question of whether you will find people with whom you can go through these experiences and begin the necessary transformation. This is an area where, in our Christian era, the occultist must set aside his role as such and simply be a human among humans—just as Christ Jesus had to experience things on Earth that, as God, He could not have known. May you turn to this Spirit for help!

Heinrich Goesch
Gertrud Goesch

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[ 2 ] Well, my dear friends, I have read this document aloud to you because it concerns each and every one of you just as much as it does me, and because, in my opinion, it goes without saying that each of you must form your own judgment as to the extent to which these matters correspond to the actual customs of our society. Otherwise, the impression might arise that I am afraid of the accusation made in this letter—that I am contributing to the “dumbing down” of the members—and that I do not regard the members as free enough to allow each one to form his or her own independent judgment on this matter.

[ 3 ] You yourself will realize, however, that such a letter cannot be taken in isolation, but is rather a symptom of what prevails in our society; therefore, I will not participate at all in the discussion about this letter or about what needs to be done. It must, of course, first be left to the members to do and determine what is necessary in this matter. For this reason, I would particularly like to say nothing about the passage that speaks of promises that have not been kept. For if the judgment is left to each individual, then each individual will also know how things stand; for surely each individual must know what was promised to him and not kept. In this respect, I must expect and demand that the community as such—the community living around the Dornach building—take the most decisive stance on this matter in the near future. I will absolutely not participate in any discussions on this matter. I wish only to say a few things, and I ask you to take them as what I must say in connection with what has been read aloud, since it is clear from other indications—not just from this letter—that much of what I have spoken to our members here in the course of the various lectures over the past weeks and months has been to no avail.

[ 4 ] First of all, I would like to emphasize the following, my dear friends. No one can dictate to me my right to regulate my interactions with the members in this or that way. It is solely up to me to determine how I deem it necessary to interact with the members. This should not be viewed as something intended to serve as a guideline for you, but rather as something I am stating of my own accord. I will not allow anyone, in any way, to dictate to me how I am to interact with the members, insofar as this interaction relates to the sin of omission that I am alleged to have committed toward the members. This is connected to a profound necessity. From this letter, but especially from various other things that have been coming to light in our Society over the years—and increasingly so in recent times—it has become clear that very many people do not wish to form a mental image of the responsibility borne by one who speaks of occult truths in such a way that he truly intends to take responsibility for them.

[ 5 ] It seems that very many people in our society simply refuse to have a mental image of what it takes just to utter a single sentence sometimes. The fact that, in addition to the mental preparation required to give a lecture, it is simply not possible to sit around with the various cliques of members until about two in the morning every night, chatting about all sorts of useless and superfluous nonsense—this is not properly appreciated; nor are many other things that, it seems, are expected of me and are treated as sins of omission. I need my time, and I need it in a completely different way than people seem to want to understand. If I did not use it the way I do, then you would hear just as nonsensical occult views from me as are commonly heard in the world. So much for the “sins of omission.”

[ 6 ] I do not know, my dear friends, how the accusation that I do not interact in a sufficiently Christian manner with each individual member or with each individual group of members fits together with the other accusation—that I must not allow myself to engage you in conversation or exchange a handshake without committing an unjustified, black-magic-like influence. As far as I’m concerned, the Society could certainly express its view regarding this positive aspect. For it naturally depends on the individual whether he wishes to have a friendly conversation with me or exchange a handshake with me. If this view were to gain popularity, it could be expressed so that such handshakes would, of course, be avoided in the future. I will not go into further details for the reasons stated; there is just one more thing I must mention, because it is characteristic.

[ 7 ] The following is stated in a passage of this letter: “Due to the events described, my wife and I have found ourselves in a situation with regard to you in which it is impossible for us to meet again in the same way as we did last time—my wife on Sunday, July 25, in the woodshop, and I on Thursday, August 5, on the stairs leading to the eurythmy hall. We were already fully aware of all these facts at that time. Nevertheless, you shook our hands and drew us into a conversation as if nothing had happened. Such behavior would have been impossible for someone without clairvoyant abilities who possesses sound judgment. In your case, I recognize this course of action as an attempt at an impermissible intrusion into my being.”

[ 8 ] I would just like to mention that on the Friday before Sunday, July 25, one of our members brought me a request from Mrs. Goesch regarding her child, and I was told that the child had fallen and injured herself in some way. I then said: “If there is a tendency toward this, I can see what is going on with the child.”—Following that, a member of our society brought Mrs. Goesch and the child to me. And then came Sunday here in the woodshop, where I intervened in Mrs. Goesch’s being by asking her how the child was doing and extending my hand to her. The encounter on Thursday, August 5, on the stairs leading to the eurythmy hall went as follows: When Mr. Goesch asked me whether the child I had just seen—who was standing downstairs by the door—should participate in the eurythmy exercises again, I said: Of course, the matter should be handled according to the parents’ wishes, since the parents’ wishes are the sole factor to be considered when deciding whether or not to allow the child to return to eurythmy. — I also made the mistake of offering my hand to Mr. Goesch. These are the two unjustified interventions into another’s being, based on black magic.

[ 9 ] Well, my dear friends, I must also point out that at the end of this document it says: “I have come to the end of what I wish to say at this time.” I have not yet been able to give this knowledge—which I acquired under the guidance of the Keeper of the Seal of the Society for Theosophical Art and Culture, whose patron is Christian Rosenkreutz—the form I had envisioned, because the obstacles were still too great for someone who has only just begun to free himself from the spell.”

[ 10 ] The so-called “Keeper of the Seal” is, I believe, known to everyone, and I have only this to say: in recent months, this Keeper of the Seal has sent a number of letters, some addressed to me and some to Dr. Steiner. A letter from this Keeper of the Seal was also received by Dr. Steiner today. ^{1See page 126.} I do not wish to go into further detail today regarding the matter of the Keeper of the Seal, and would only like to point out that these letters from the Keeper of the Seal mysteriously began around Christmas.

[ 11 ] Well, my dear friends, whatever I might have to say about this, I really do not wish to say it today. I want you to reach a judgment without being influenced. However, it is almost impossible to understand the mysterious connection between this document and the Keeper of the Seal without providing further information. But perhaps it is not a good idea to do so today or to say anything along those lines just yet. I would like to mention this, however: It was once announced in the fall that, because certain untenable symptoms were manifesting themselves in our society, it had become necessary to establish a certain closer-knit society; in doing so, I initially attempted to assign certain titles to a number of close associates who had been living within the society for some time, assuming that they would act independently in accordance with the spirit of these titles. I said at the time: If anything is to happen, the members will hear something by Epiphany. — No one heard anything, and this shows that the Society for Theosophical Art and Culture does not exist at all. This is actually self-evident, since no announcement was made to anyone, just as it would have been self-evident that an announcement would have been issued if the matter had been realized. The way the matter was perceived made it impossible. It was an experiment.

[ 12 ] My dear friends, I have often spoken about the fact that society must have a purpose as a society if it is to have any purpose at all. To present occult teachings, one could also create other institutions. I have pointed out that if certain symptoms continue to become more pronounced in our Society, it will be essential to find a different form, because then this form, as it is currently structured, will no longer work. I have sought to avoid what prevailed in the Theosophical Society from one side or the other by founding the Anthroposophical Society, of which I do not wish to be a member, because this is necessary for what I have to do for the spiritual movement.

[ 13 ] Our society is also frequently attacked from the outside, and naturally, those who are called upon to teach within this society are also attacked. This should give rise to a duty among our active members to defend the cause, if they take the concept of society seriously and with dignity. However, defamatory writings of the most malicious kind have appeared, some of which contain the most unbelievable slanders, and I leave it to everyone to judge whether our concept of the society has been understood by all those who could actively do something in the way that would be necessary if the society is to withstand these attacks from outside.

[ 14 ] My dear friends, it is neither advisable nor possible that anyone who wishes to do something to ensure the survival of our society should—as has in fact been the case for years and months—first take the step of coming to me to discuss what he ought to do in my defense and in defense of our cause. This should be avoided under all circumstances. For this would make it completely true that, fundamentally, people here are merely being placed in their positions, that their places are being assigned to them. I must respect the independence of the members, unfortunately often to the extent that I have to deny them certain things; and it is truly the case, as has been the situation so far—that I could indeed accomplish a great deal if I were not being called upon for all sorts of things for which such demands are unnecessary. It is truly, at least for what should be done for the benefit and good of our society, an absurdity to first want to consult with me about such matters. For if what I intend to do for society is to be accomplished, then I ask to be given the time to do it myself. The concept of society cannot consist in always turning to a single individual, but rather in doing what needs to be done for society on one’s own initiative.

[ 15 ] That is also why, my dear friends, this episode must be regarded today as an important and significant one. That is why I read aloud the document, which is, after all, merely a single symptom of many things that are smoldering here and there, and I will calmly wait to see what you, as members of the society, will do. In the meantime, I will do my duty; tomorrow we will follow our usual program. But it goes without saying that everything else will depend on the Society’s stance regarding what it has heard today—a matter that should not be viewed as an isolated incident, but rather as something that, in a sense, fundamentally touches upon many issues, as I have already pointed out in the various discussions I have held over the past few months.

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Following these remarks by Rudolf Steiner, a discussion took place that was not recorded in shorthand. Voices must have been raised in his defense, for—according to one participant’s recollection—Rudolf Steiner left the hall with Marie Steiner, saying, “I can have nothing more to do with such company!” The vast majority of those present were likely ashamed of this situation and drafted the following letter of support that very same evening:

Dornach, August 21, 1915

Dear Dr. Steiner!

We, the members of the Anthroposophical Society, wish to express our justified anger, our indignation, and our sense of shame that such a deceitful and immoral attitude, as revealed in the letter from Mr. Heinrich Goesch, has dared to be expressed toward you, Doctor, in this form dictated by the most reprehensible delusion of grandeur.

We must make painful self-reproaches that we failed to prevent what has happened in time and that we have so far proved incapable of creating a community in which thoughts and feelings such as those revealed in the letter would have been impossible.

We ask our beloved, revered teacher to forgive us, not to withdraw his trust in us—or at least to grant it to us once more—because we are earnestly resolved to better realize the ideal of the Anthroposophical Society and to be more conscious of our responsibility in the future.

It goes without saying that we no longer wish to consider Miss Alice Sprengel, Mr. Heinrich Goesch, and Mrs. Gertrud Goesch—given their views—as belonging to our community.

We ask you, esteemed Doctor, to accept our signatures as a pledge of our unlimited and unwavering trust and our heartfelt gratitude.

Michael Bauer [Member of the Central Executive Council] and over 300 signatures.

This letter was a purely human and spontaneous expression of the signatories’ connection to Rudolf Steiner. The factual aspects of the situation are reflected in Rudolf Steiner’s remarks. The difficulty members faced in assessing the situation was illuminated by a physician, Dr. Amann, in a clinical article (Basel, September 14, 1914) as follows:

“... The prevailing opinion among the members is still that Dr. Goesch is not mentally ill—he is merely under the influence!”

Isn’t it true that when someone has a fever or is drowsy, anyone can easily observe that; on the other hand, it is incredibly difficult to diagnose mental illness, even for a scientific expert, unless it is an extreme case on the spectrum.

From what one hears (which is why many members cannot understand that Dr. G. is mentally ill), the impression arises that people have mistaken mental images about the nature of the illness; they believe that the mentally ill must be idiots and cannot write intelligently.

An idiot is a mentally deficient person who, due to mental sluggishness, is incapable of thinking at all; he is mentally stunted, unless there are organic causes of illness that may have made him an idiot only secondarily. The exact opposite is true of the truly mentally ill person. Here, there is melancholy: clouded logic! This category must be clearly distinguished from insanity; the insane are dangerous!

The melancholic suffers absolutely no loss in the quality of his intellect; he even enhances his mental capacity, but he is a tireless intellectual worker—he engages in an immense amount of mental labor, working day and night. The pathology lies in the fact that they become entrenched in their own fixed trains of thought, hypnotize themselves with them, and remain impervious to outside criticism. In secret, these people suffer from their tormenting thoughts until they can finally give birth to them and present them to the public. They are driven by the urge to be productive and important—and to demonstrate it.”

Continuing his remarks from August 21, Rudolf Steiner elaborated on the case the following evening, August 22, 1915, as follows: