Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical Society

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The relationship between Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophical Society is a complex and changing one.

A turning point in Rudolf Steiner's life came in 1899, when he published an article titled "Goethe's Secret Revelation" on the esoteric nature of Goethe's fairy tale, The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. This article led to an invitation by the Count and Countess Brockdorff to speak to a gathering of Theosophists on the subject of Nietzsche. Steiner continued speaking regularly to the members of the Theosophical Society, becoming the head of its newly constituted German section in 1902. (It was also within this society that Steiner met Marie von Sievers, who was to become his second wife.) In 1904 Steiner was appointed by Annie Besant to be leader of the Esoteric Society for Germany and Austria, having made it clear that this school would teach a Western spiritual path harmonious with, but differing fundamentally in approach from, other Theosophical paths.

The relationship between the Theosophical Society centered in Adyar, India and its German section became increasingly strained as Steiner's popularity grew, and as his originality became apparent. ^[1] The breaking point came when C. W. Leadbeater, followed by Annie Besant, claimed that a young Indian boy, Jiddu Krishnamurti, was the new World Teacher, a Bodhisattva, and a future vessel of the Christ. Steiner quickly denied this attribution of messianic status to Krishnamurti, claiming that Christ's earthly incarnation in Jesus was a unique event. Steiner held that though the human being generally goes through a series of repeated earth lives, the spiritual being Christ only incarnated once in a physical body. Christ, he said, would reappear in "the etheric" — the realm that lives between people and in community life — not as a physical individual.

Several issues were debated:

1. The German Theosophical Society refused membership to members of The Star of the East, an organization founded by Leadbeater and Besant to support Krishnamurti's supposed mission as the new World Teacher. The World Teacher concept was unpopular with many theosophists, and was repudiated by Krishnamurti himself in 1929, leading to a crisis in the Theosophical Society. It was, however, a basic principle of the TS that adherents of all religions were admitted.
2. Besant made false accusations about Steiner having connections with Jesuitism - he had none.
3. Steiner's popularity as a lecturer spread far beyond the borders of Germany: he was active in Switzerland, Holland, Norway, Austria and other countries. Besant tried to restrict him to lecturing in Germany itself, but this contravened both Theosophical Society statutes as well as a statement of Besant's greeting this broadening lecture activity, issued some months before.

As a result of the conflict, two steps followed in rapid succession:

• The overwhelming majority of German-speaking theosophists followed Steiner into the new Anthroposophical Society, founded between August and December 1912. In a telegram sent to the Theosophical Society they justified this step by stating it was: "based upon the recognition that the President [Besant] has continually and even systematically violated this highest principle of the T.S., 'No religion higher than the truth', and has abused the presidential power in arbitrary ways, thus hindering positive work."^[2]
• Steiners exclusion of Star of the East followers was a direct contravention of TS statutes, and duly led to the charter of the German Section being revoked.

Steiner later claimed that he never had considered himself to be part of the Theosophical movement;^{[3] [4]} Even while the leader of the German section of the movement, he made a great point of his complete independence of philosophical thought and esoteric teachings from the Theosophical Society's esoteric path.^[5] His reaction to the above events was: "I myself experience what has happened - apart from what has been sobering and painful - as a great liberation from the oppressive narrowness that has characterized the life of the Theosophical Society for years."^[6]

The basic structural skeletons of Steiner's cosmology and of his description of the human being as composed of various physical and spiritual aspects are based on Blavatsky's schema, to whom he acknowledged his debt. ^[7] Steiner's elaborations of these (in his Theosophy and Outline of Esoteric Science) diverge from other theosophical presentations both in style and in substance, however.

[edit] References

1. ^ Annie Besant tried unsuccessfully to prevent him from lecturing outside of German-speaking areas, indeed, even in Switzerland, but protests came from the Society branches involved, and Steiner pointed out that the Society's statutes explicitly allowed him free reign. (In 1910, Besant had written an article praising Steiner's work that ended, "Long may he live to guide the people whom he enlightens, and to carry his message through Europe," which made her change of position the following year more difficult to justify.) (see Lindenberg, pp. 487-8)
2. ^ Lindenberg, p. 501
3. ^ In 1901, asked by Marie von Sivers why he didn’t join the Theosophical Society, Steiner is supposed to have answered that "there were more significant spiritual influences than oriental mysticism," and "it is certainly necessary to call into life a movement for spiritual science, but I will only be part of a movement that connects to and develops Western esotericism, and exclusively to this." When the leader of the German theosophical branch, Countess Brockdorff, asked if he would not work with them, Steiner agreed under unusual terms: "Steiner evidently avoided requesting membership in the Theosophical Society, and made the condition that he would be released from all membership contributions. "‘Then I was sent a complementary “diploma” from England and became at the same time General Secretary of the German Theosophical Society.’" (Lindenberg, Christoph, Rudolf Steiner, Stuttgart: 1997, p. 326.)
4. ^ Already in 1897, well before the above-mentioned contacts, Steiner had clearly articulated his objections to the movement, criticizing it for "empty phrases" borrowed from Oriental texts and "inner experiences that are nothing but hypocrisy"; one of his chief objections was that the Theosophists elevated the East's path to truth to the only possible one, thereby discounting modern science's approach to truth through reason and logic; see Steiner, "Theosophen", Magazin für Literatur 1897 Nr. 35, reprinted in GA 32, p. 194-6.
5. ^ Steiner, Rudolf, The Course of My Life, Chapters 31-33.
6. ^ Lindenberg, p. 504
7. ^ Geoffrey Ahern:The Sun at Midnight, chapter 6; R. Steiner "Theosophy", H. P. Blavatsky: The Secret Doctrine", Steiner The Course of My Life, Chapter 32