The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Dr. Unger: With regard to the Boldt motion, we have to work through to understand why we entered into this at the general assembly. It is not about us making the Boldt case a big case. Mr. Boldt has hurled accusations and insults in his brochure and forced a matter on us that we do not like. But if it is to have a general significance, then we must pay attention to what is typical about such a phenomenon.

First of all, it is quite impossible to force members to buy a brochure so that they are informed about its contents at the general assembly. The only correct thing, in accordance with the rules of procedure, is for someone who wants to orientate a meeting to provide the relevant material and not to demand 50 pfennigs from each person in order to be able to orientate themselves. In addition, if you have read the brochure, in which there is nothing at all that we can use, you are supposed to buy the book as well. These are things that are impossible for us. That is why we did not need to meet here. But it is typical and significant of the case. It is important for us to learn something from it and to become aware that it is necessary within our society to emancipate ourselves from certain prejudices and suggestions that the whole of life and thought in our time wants to impose on us. In this regard, we must pay attention to some of the things in the brochure. For the accusations, which need not be taken personally at all, relate, among other things, to the fact that something has been rejected here that deals with an important problem of our time, which supposedly deals with a problem in the manner of “spiritual science” and claims to be a scientifically significant matter, as can be seen from the “blurb” read out yesterday. Such an accusation is unjustified from the outset; for no one can demand that any intellectual products should be read, but one can only wait and see what each individual wants to do of his own free will. Then it is claimed that all those who have rejected the matter are supposed to have done so out of ignorance. It was therefore very commendable that some samples from the book were given yesterday, so that anyone who has not read it because they did not want to can now say from their own experience: there is nothing in the book that could have any value for us. What matters is that we educate ourselves to be able to judge what has value and what has no value. And since this is precisely the kind of problem that should be placed at the center of our attention, that should be imposed on us as a problem even though it is not one at all, it is important to work through the question of this alleged problem.

We want to come together here to cultivate knowledge, to gain insight into the workings of spiritual beings. This means that we do not take the starting points from external appearances and symptoms, from what is imposed by sensory experience or what could be gained from the habituation of scientific observation, but that we recognize that all true knowledge can only be found in spiritual reality. It is important that we learn to hold fast to this, that we learn to recognize how much of what passes itself off today as “scientific” is reality and what is not. And that is why it is important that this is not just a “Boldt case,” but a case that gives us the opportunity to shed light on the workings of scientific claims and prejudices in our time. An example will be given that, in terms of its content, already points to the problems that are to be brought home to us here. If we want to look at any vital questions from the spiritual-scientific point of view - that is, from the point of view that we seek to gain on the basis of what is communicated to us from higher knowledge - then it must be the first condition for us to know something know something about it, to know something from the spiritual sources; otherwise we are not in the channel of a spiritual movement, the spiritual movement in question here, but only deal with what is prepared as “scientific phenomenology”. So an example is to be given that, as it were, introduces us to our subject.

When we are led to the basic principles of how man has been born out of the spiritual worlds and has developed under the guidance of spiritual beings, we are then shown that this is not a theory, but a reality of the spiritual worlds, which in the past has also worked in a pictorial way into the pictorial consciousness of mankind, and the expression of these images has been preserved in myths and legends. When we occupy ourselves with myths and legends, we have something that touches our inner hearts, and what would otherwise be presented to us in dry, sober thoughts is presented to us in pictorial thoughts. The legends of the gods are higher realities for us, and in this respect they are a force that reaches deep into our hearts, with which we can approach the problems of existence. They contain something that can work as an element of progress for our movement. We can gain knowledge within our movement from research in the spiritual world about a certain area of existence, namely about the origin of myths and legends and about their significance for the past and present of humanity. If we now ask the circles that behave scientifically about this, we do find a reliable collection of myths and legends as fact. It is not characterized by the fact that one says: it is superficial or not. For such a collection is something that is still most to be praised for in this day and age, namely the diligence in collecting facts. What is then added to such a collection is usually very little. But among the things that are added, we find something typical: a tendency to look at everything from the point of view of a preconceived favorite subject. In this, so-called “sexual literature” is particularly distinguished by the fact that nothing is sacred to it; and in this sexual literature we find volumes of descriptions that trace myths and legends back to the lowest sexual elements - not only to what belongs to natural or animal life, but all excesses, perversions and decadent phenomena are placed in the most arbitrary way at the beginning of the cultural history of mankind and thus the legends and myths are explained. If we wanted to pay attention to it at all, then we would have to give up our entire spiritual-scientific point of view from the outset. The moment we open our ears to what not only wants to reach us from such circles, but also wants to behave in an “occult” manner, we pronounce our own death sentence!

And this is the significant lesson that arises from this: that we must beware of anything that, in whatever way, with great ingenuity, perhaps even wit, presses itself upon us and seeks so easily to associate itself with the name “occultism”; that, on the contrary, we learn to recognize it, see through it and reject it out of our innermost knowledge and understanding. It is not necessary to point out the dangers that beset us in this regard; even the name Leadbeater can be avoided. But one thing must be emphasized: that we also find something in the newer Adyar literature that must be rejected by us in the strongest possible terms: Mrs. Besant refers to her earlier work, to her collaboration with Bradlaugh, to the possibility of limiting the population in the sense of Malthusianism, and so on. What was spread at that time from England, out of the general materialistic spirit of the age, was superseded by Mrs. Besant when Mrs. Blavatsky approached with her spiritual aspirations. Today it is rearing its head again, “illuminated by the glory of occultism.” We see in what presents itself as “occultism” the face of materialism, and we must pay attention to this and draw attention to it. It is certainly true that the influence of materialism on our movement is very strong, so that we must be on our guard, must sharpen our judgment, must learn to stand firmly on spiritual ground, and must learn to seek and find the starting-point for our world-related thinking more and more in the spiritual worlds and beings. In this sense, my request is that, in dealing with this matter, we should look less at the personality of the unfortunate Mr. Boldt than at the typical contemporary phenomena that it expresses, which we must take into account if we want to continue our movement in the right direction.

Mr. von Rainer: Dearly beloved! It may be necessary, after all, to shed light on this “Boldt case,” which has already been examined in some respects because it is symptomatic, from a perspective that plays a major role in our spiritual movement in our time. And if I am obliged to say some things in such a way that it appears as if I wanted to give good teachings, it may be necessary to preface this with a personal comment: that I am fully convinced that all people are children of their time, and that in can only speak with such conviction about something if you feel clearly within yourself how much you are a child of your time and how much opportunity you have to observe how being a “child of your time” creates an enormous obstacle for all ideal endeavors.

From the letters of Mr. Boldt, which he writes to the two representatives and chairmen of the Munich Lodge, the word has been read that he “has been insulted in his theosophical honor.” Even in today's world, the word “honor” actually has only a passive side and no longer an active one. One's honor is continually offended, but today one does not ask oneself whether one might offend the honor of other people. And if we ask ourselves why such a fact plays a significant role in our movement, we must remember the cycle of lectures given by Dr. Steiner in Norrköping on “Theosophical Morality”, where he pointed out that the moral qualities of the Orient, of India, for example, were different from those of Europe. While the Indian was characterized by devotion and worship, courage, standing up for one's convictions with clenched fists, so to speak, was always what distinguished the Westerner. The spiritual impulse of the theosophical movement has now been brought to the West with thoroughly Indian concepts, including the Indian concept of worship, of devotion – certainly justifiably – towards everything that exists in the world. But in doing so, it has been completely overlooked that in the West one is faced with a different audience than in India. In India, the caste system excludes the democratic spirit of the West from the outset; and it is already expressed in political institutions that veneration and devotion must then be modified somewhat differently in a certain way depending on what one is facing. But the West has been a pioneer for humanity in precisely this respect, in that the development of freedom has found a certain support through the democratic spirit of the time. But the whole nature of intellectual life in our time is such that it does not understand when it is stopped. Therefore, one did not understand how to stop in the democratic spirit of the time, in this spirit, which I would like to characterize for you through the saying of a poet, because precisely this poet, the Austrian poet Grillparzer, can be considered quite distant from all political endeavors...

Here Mr. von Rainer quoted a passage from the drama “A Brother Quarrel in the House of Habsburg,” which was put into the mouth of Emperor Rudolf II, and which ended with the following lines:

I say to you: not Scythians and Khazars,
Who once extinguished the splendor of the ancient world,
Are threatening our time, but foreign peoples:
The barbarian struggles loose from his own bosom,
Who, once without reins, everything great,
Art, science, state, church
falls from the heights that protect it,
to the surface of its own vulgarity,
until everything is the same, yes, because everything is low.

And following on from this, Mr. von Rainer pointed out that there is also a certain danger looming in our circles, from which we must protect ourselves. He then continued:

It is not always the case in the world that when someone comes along with certain pretensions and also displays on the other hand all the qualities that should lead to his condemnation as a human being, that these should also make him unworthy of human compassion. We must show a personality like Mr. Boldt's the greatest compassion, indeed the greatest love, but we must not be deceived by it. We must remember that love does not consist in overlooking or even excusing the dangers inherent in a fellow human being. If we examine the dangerousness of what is written in this brochure, objectively, regardless of what kind of person Mr. Boldt is, we must say: What is written here has emerged from the school of Vollrath, Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden and so on. But it is also written entirely in the spirit of our time, about which we heard again yesterday from Dr. Steiner, that it really leaves much to be desired in terms of truthfulness. And I must also cite evidence of the way in which people and things are judged today, without even informing themselves about what the personalities in question actually want with their appearance.

An essay by Dr. Wilhelm Oehl entitled “Modern Theosophy” has been published in the magazine “Der Aar”, a monthly publication for the entire Catholic intellectual life of the present day. It states:

In stark contrast to the reserved Hübbe-Schleiden and even more so to Hartmann, who emphasized ethics, the magician Rudolf Steiner is at the center of a large group of followers who hold his person and his supernatural secret forces in absolute devotion. (“Der Aar,” July 1913 issue, p. 519).

At the beginning, the author writes in a footnote:

As sources, I used the writings of Blavatsky, Besant, Hartmann, Hübbe-Schleiden, Collin, Brahmacharin-Bodhabhikshu and Hermann Rudolph, as well as many essays in the journals “Theosophische Kultur”, “Sphinx”, “Lotosbl , Prana and The Theosophical Path; valuable material is contained in the two brochures by Hans Freimark, Moderne Theosophen und ihre Theosophie and Die okkultistische Bewegung, both published in Leipzig in 1912 by Wilhelm Heims (Leipzig). Finally, attention is drawn to the excellent essay by P. Zimmermann in the 'Stimmen aus Maria Laach': 'Die neue Theosophie' (1910, pp. 387ff.). The various conversation encyclopedias and church encyclopedias offer almost nothing or very little about Theosophy. - Several years of contact with the Theosophists, occultists and astrologers of Vienna, Berlin and Zurich gave me the most desirable opportunity to thoroughly get to know the thinking of these circles.

These were the sources that he said he had used; and yet he has the nerve to write what I read about Dr. Steiner's personality, even though it is clear from his own statements that he is not familiar with any of Dr. Steiner's books! And while he cites the titles of books and publishers for other authors, he only says in the rest of the essay that Dr. Steiner published the magazine “Lucifer - Gnosis”; he says nothing about any of his other books. Perhaps it could be objected that this is a journal that serves a certain tendency; but it is precisely in these circles that people pride themselves on being “modern” and on wanting to draw modern aspirations into the church.

So I saw a poster for a lecture: “Modern Theosophy in the Spirit of Christianity”. Where pretensions arise that “modern theosophy also wants to represent a surrogate for Christianity”, one speaks of a person as a “fantastic magician” and does not even know what books he has written!

These are terrible times in which the reader is deprived of any basis for judging something correctly; because one must be able to read between the lines of such articles and see that, for example, Hans Freimark and Father Otto Zimmermann are opponents of Dr. Steiner. These are the kinds of signs that should make us extremely vigilant about our time and ourselves. It is a tremendous slogan to write on a brochure: “A free word to free Theosophists”. You can quite calmly write this as a powerful motto at the top of your brochure, and then later say: If Dr. Steiner had said something good about my book, I have no doubt that it would have been considered thoroughly Theosophical and would have been read and distributed in the widest circles.

What about “freedom” here? If you speak well of a book that someone writes and publishes, you can be sure that you will be called a “free person”; if you say nothing or cannot say anything commendatory, then you have violated freedom! It is entirely possible that someone comes along with the pretension of redeeming the gagged Frei and then says quite calmly: If the person in question, whom I naturally do not recognize as an authority, had asserted his authority for me, I would not have objected; then the whole brochure would not have been written, and everything else would have been avoided. On page 23, Mr. Boldt writes:

I had to come to the conclusion [at that time] that Dr. Steiner's negative attitude had not remained without influence on these events.

the “events” that his book was not recommended!

As a result, he only encouraged the prudishness and herd prejudices in theosophical circles. I am certain that if he had devoted even a single good word to my work, which has been appreciated by many Theosophists, no one would have dared to find the book un-Theosophical and to object to the sale of the book or to the announcement of the prospectus within the lodges.

Thus, the representative of freedom and opponent of authority would have had no objection to the “herd-like human prejudices” if they had proved useful in the dissemination of this book.

So it is that someone can say, “I am offended in my theosophical honor,” but does nothing for the honor of the other people, the 75 percent, as he says, that he counts among the “partisaners”; because he insults them with the brochure. If we are guided by the perhaps “outdated” but nevertheless existing concepts of honor that prevail in the West, namely to have strong convictions for the moral foundations of Western man, then it is no longer possible to accept what is offered to us. We seem to be like game that anyone can shoot, just because we have a conviction – and not only can anyone from outside shoot at it, whom one cannot blame for it for certain reasons, but everyone within the movement shoots at it! However profound this movement is, among ourselves the individual is actually treated very superficially. In these circles anyone who dares to write anything that condemns 75 percent of the people in a movement dedicated to a high ideal, lock, stock and barrel. One has only to recall the unheard-of nature of such an act! It is always said that it is the belief in authority that we have towards Dr. Steiner. No - our own honor, our theosophical honor is at stake here, because we cannot allow ourselves to be disparaged in this way by a person who knows nothing about the view of life that we want to realize and who wants to exploit for his own purposes what we want to create in the world with this view of life.

Where are the 25 percent he refers to? They should show themselves, these 25 percent, and if there are more of them, they should show themselves too, because we are tired of being attacked in this way. We are Westerners in the sense that we say: We don't have to do theosophical work if there is no one for whom it is suitable. But we would like to hear it! So someone writes this and goes around in the Society! He speaks of “masks and gestures.” But there are many people going around who are saying the same thing! In this regard, we must cultivate a certain honor and say: We will give a fitting answer to anyone who speaks like that, even if it is in the most trivial private conversation, because otherwise a poison will enter the movement and spread! We can only make progress if we are clear about the active part of the theosophical honor. It is not acceptable that just anyone who has barely sniffed into the theosophical movement can appear and say, “All this is blind faith in authority”; or that someone can express such a thoroughly dishonest view that he says, “I am completely permeated with love and admiration for the personality of Dr. Steiner , but this personality of Dr. Steiner adheres entirely to Nietzsche, who says, 'One must not come to people with the truth', and then in a certain way acts as if Dr. Steiner had the same personality in Nietzsche, from whom he gets everything he needs to lead this movement.

In the face of such a thing, it is also necessary to state very precisely what can shed light on the matter. In the first chapter of Dr. Steiner's book “Friedrich Nietzsche – A Fighter Against His Time” it says:

The words that he (Nietzsche) has spoken about his relationship to Schopenhauer, I would like to say about mine to Nietzsche: “I belong to those readers of Nietzsche who, after reading the first page of him, know with certainty that they will read all the pages and listen to every word he has ever said. My trust in him was immediate... I understood him as if he had written for the sole purpose of expressing himself clearly, but also immodestly and foolishly.” You can speak in this way and be far from professing yourself a ‘believer’ in Nietzsche's world view.

This is stated at the beginning of the book and should be borne in mind when quoting from it. Mr. Boldt is not justified in quoting Dr. Steiner as saying: 'Dr. Steiner himself admitted that Nietzsche is an authority on this point ($. 16).

In his discussion of this topic, Dr. Steiner himself characterized the unconditional striving for truth and truthfulness, as advocated by Fichte, as “superficial,” whereas Nietzsche's view is said to be “rooted deeply in the essence of human nature.

Such a juxtaposition cannot help but create the impression that Dr. Steiner is of the opinion that the pursuit of truth and truthfulness must be characterized as “superficial.” What is meant, of course, is that, as it also appears in the book “Friedrich Nietzsche - A Fighter Against His Time,” Nietzsche himself raised the question: Must one strive for truth? Why does one want truth and not rather untruth? These are philosophical, intellectual processes about which one can say: It takes tremendous courage to express such things; but they cannot be taken as a basis for the practice of a way of life, especially not in a circle like ours, where we know where we want the foundations of the truth. We only need people who remain true to this truth. After all, truth no longer needs to be invented.

One need not say of a book like Mr. Boldt's that the author also has good aspirations. He should develop them wherever he wants, but not within the Anthroposophical Society, which has its store of truth. If one really always works positively, one already comes to such concepts to advance the movement.

This is not a matter of Theosophical honor revolting against what someone else does; rather, Theosophical honor should be flexible enough to allow us to do something that someone else does not. That is one side of it. But there is also a second side. For it would be easy to object to such statements: Are we not really doing everything that is humanly possible, so to speak? Are we not truly completely honest for this movement?

With regard to this movement, we must truly also think that we are children of our time. We are children of our time for the Movement itself, and it is not at all certain that those who write in this way are not also completely children of their time. But the misfortune is when we always “soar on clouds” in a certain respect, when we want something, and believe that we must always achieve something great, and think that there are no “little things”. You have to start with the little things! At the beginning of our movement, there were many who said, “How can I be useful to the movement?” before they really knew what it was about. But the more the movement needs strength, the more those same people show themselves to be truly willing to work where they are placed by karma. It is not enough to work for a worldview if you are with the “idea” of the matter. In terms of the practice of a worldview, one can be there for an idea and yet be a crass materialist. In this respect, it is perhaps good to take a historical look at our society, at what has happened since the time of the Constituent Assembly.

The lunch break begins around two o'clock; the continuation of the business negotiations is scheduled for four o'clock.

Dr. Steiner: Before Mr. von Rainer speaks further, I would like to mention one thing.

When the brochure “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” was sent to me, I read the motto on the title page:

Anyone who feels that they can do some good must be a nuisance. They must not wait to be called upon. They must not pay attention when they are sent away. They must be what Homer praises in the heroes: like a fly that, when chased away, keeps attacking people from a different place.

“Goethe,” it says below. I have studied Goethe for a long time, and to me the words seemed quite un-Goethean; and I must confess: I could not remember how the words relate to Goethe. It did not occur to me at all where Goethe might have uttered these un-Goethean words – un-Goethean in the case that he might have used them himself. But I thought that someone who refers to me as much as Mr. Boldt does must at least have learned what I have so often pointed out: that the words spoken by characters in plays should not be applied to the poet himself; otherwise, one could quote Goethe with the words spoken by Mephistopheles in Faust. But I couldn't say anything because I didn't remember. - So I asked Dr. Reiche, who has the “German Dictionary” at hand, to look up the expression “plague ghosts” - since it is the most characteristic in this sentence - in the “German Dictionary”. And under “plague ghost” it was also revealed how these words are connected to Goethe.

Goethe wrote a little drama called “Lila”. Various characters appear in it, including a lady who is somewhat eccentric and is being treated by doctors without success. Verazio, a doctor, is called in to make her well again, and I would like to read to you the conversation that develops.

Baron Sternthal enters.

Verazio: If my presence, like my art, is repugnant to you, then please excuse me for still finding myself here. In a little while, Count Altenstein will arrive and take me back when he unfortunately sees that his recommendation has not been taken into account.

Baron: Forgive me, and the count will also forgive me. It is not ingratitude for his care, not mistrust in your art, it is mistrust in my fate. After so many failed attempts to restore her mental health, I have to believe that I am being put to the test, as I have been. Will I endure sharing her misery, since I promised myself so much happiness with her? I do not want to be unruly and expect in patience from heaven what people are not supposed to give me.

Verazio: I honor these sentiments, gracious sir, but I find it hard that you even hide the details of her illness from me, do not want to allow me to see her, and thereby cut off my way to expand my experience, and to say something specific about the help that could be done for her.

Sophie, who is something of an enfant terrible in this piece, then says:

Sophie (to the others): And he would also like to broaden his experience with our poor sister Haut. They're all the same.

Lucie: Oh yes, when they only have to dissect, enema, [electrocute], they are on hand to see what kind of face it cuts and to assure them that they would have foreseen it as in a mirror.

Baron (who has been talking to Friedrich and Verazio): You are plaguing me!

Verazio: Anyone who feels that they can do some good must be a nuisance. They don't have to wait to be called. They don't have to pay attention when they are sent away. They have to be what Homer praises in heroes: They have to be like a fly that, when shooed, keeps attacking people from a different direction.

But the “Enfant terrible” then says:

Sophie: At least he is honest; he describes the barker clearly enough.<.p>

(General amusement in the assembly).

Mr. von Rainer continued: “It could be said that we are doing everything we can to show how deeply we are imbued with the significance and seriousness of what we receive from spiritual science, and that this lives fully in our ideas and convictions.” But if you look at the facts, you might come to a different conclusion. Above all, one thing can be considered: that at the constituent assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, which took place a year ago, Dr. Steiner gave us the right word of warning. He spoke of the fact that occult research presents a difficulty for our time: to allow our idealism and enthusiasm to truly mature into action — because we all have something morbid, which we have come to know as the “Amfortas nature”, and because with all truly convinced devotion to an ideal, this sick part of our soul life always plays a role in us, and we must therefore be very vigilant. It was said at the time: We have no reason to be particularly joyful, because we have great enemies outside, and we will not be able to work without concern in our individual working groups, but will have to be watchmen, protectors of what we have received as spiritual science, and of which we increasingly recognize – I add this now – that it is what today's humanity urgently needs. And with the admonition “Watch and pray” we were dismissed at the time.

Mr. von Rainer then emphasized how important it seems to him that there be even more active participation on the part of the members in Dr. Steiner's cycles and lectures, and that by doing so they would show that they have recognized the full seriousness of the world-historical moment that is coming to light in our spiritual scientific movement. Through active participation, one should show that one is aware that a new stage in the spiritual-scientific movement is to emerge through the work of the Anthroposophical Society.

Mr. von Rainer then continued: The difficulties in a movement that is constantly changing in the means are certainly great in order to understand them. But it is not without reason that it has been pointed out again and again how, out there in the world, what is left of truthfulness and understanding of reality is perishing with a certain rapidity. And anyone who has observed in a certain respect how, in recent times, one and the same theme has been repeated by Dr. Steiner in very different ways, especially in public lectures, namely how it has been structured and developed in order to present it, anyone who has observed this , must also have realized that the means by which spiritual science is to be communicated must be changed. This is because in the outside world everything is repeatedly and repeatedly trivialized and quoted in a misleading way. The need for flexibility of mind was already recommended to us at the constituent assembly of the Anthroposophical Society. Therefore, it is necessary that we do not always get stuck on what has already been brought, but that we go along with the movement as it is necessary. The new books are not given so that they are not read, even if they are very difficult to understand. This does not mean that the old books have lost their meaning. And one could see how in 1913, Dr. Steiner always gave what could draw attention to what is actually important now. This must really be taken into account! And if one does this, one need not fear that one cannot keep up.

It is only too obvious that misunderstandings will arise in this regard, and I would like to mention one because it is symptomatic and needs to be taken into account. After Dr. Unger's lecture series in Munich, a series of lectures were given on the book “Theosophy”. An Anthroposophist who is a true and sincere admirer of Dr. Steiner's teachings, and in particular a very honest striving person who certainly did not want to do anything against Dr. Steiner, had the opportunity to hear Dr. Unger's lectures and now wanted to repeat them in our branch. I told him that I had nothing against him doing it, but I didn't think it would be right to do it on the only branch evening of the week. The Anthroposophical Society is our teacher, and the only branch evening should be devoted to the teacher's writings, because we have not yet worked through his writings sufficiently. I don't want to say anything against the good intentions of the person concerned. But as far as the teaching itself is concerned, we must concentrate on the personality who brought the teaching into the world, and we must realize that it is the spiritual impulses that make us productive in this field. We cannot say that we can achieve something in this respect, but only that we are inspired by these impulses, and that gives us some insights that we can pass on. But the one who truly leads and guides the matter must be and remain Dr. Steiner. After the Munich lectures, we had the cycle in Kristiania – one can truly say: a milestone in the development of humanity! And to personally listen to this cycle is not the same as just having it communicated through writing. If we are to get a feeling for the living force that should be in our movement, we must feel that “being there” plays a certain role. Of course, the reproduction of the cycles makes it easier to study; but on the other hand, we should say to ourselves out of our active theosophical sense of honor: We must be there personally through action! In this way we show ourselves to be truly loyal. One should not actually proceed according to numbers, but it does make a certain impression – and rightly so when such a new movement is launched – if one also shows this through the number; because it is also something that one shows on the physical plane that one is loyal to the cause as a follower.

In this brief overview of what has happened since the constituent assembly, I wanted to show that it is necessary to pay much more homage to action than to words. Words have a lot of seductive power. It was said in Helsingfors that withheld speech forces bring moral impulses to action, and if you talk about something a lot, you usually don't do it. But it is good if, through what you get into your soul from your active sense of honor towards your ideal, anthroposophy, you come to do less talking and more action.

There is nothing more absurd than being repeatedly accused of “worshipping” Dr. Steiner or when Freimark even speaks of “deceived frauds”. Dr. Steiner cannot be concerned with having admirers. What he communicates will not be changed by this. But for us, who have gained an understanding of what is necessary, what is in the teaching, and what humanity needs, it is necessarily a moral duty to hold the protective hand over the truth that is in this teaching and to reject everything that is not compatible with it.

Mr. Bauer: I would like to make a very brief comment about a correction that does not belong to the Boldt matter; but it would not have the same significance later as it does now.

Mr. von Rainer gave the example that after the last events in Munich, a member of the board or some other member wanted to repeat the lectures that Dr. Unger had given in Munich about the book 'Theosophy'. Mr. von Rainer advised this member not to do so, because it was not our task. We must place the writings of Dr. Steiner at the center of our studies, and the other does not belong to our task and would only detract from the core. I cannot let this remark go unchallenged. I do not understand the logic of this remark about what Mr. von Rainer said. I will try to illustrate it with an analogy. I assume that Dr. Steiner would have spoken here, and the hall would be much larger than it is, and there would now be someone in a corner who has not clearly understood what has been said and who is therefore turning to someone who was sitting in the middle of the hall - between him and the speaker - and who should have heard exactly what was said. Then Mr. von Rainer would have to intervene and say: “This distracts you from the right central task; you must listen only to Dr. Steiner; listening to others distracts you from Dr. Steiner!”

In Munich, Dr. Unger showed with his own loyalty how one can study a book like Theosophy over many years and always find something deeper and deeper. He demonstrated the seeds that were already in this book, and thus directed all his efforts to leading to Dr. Steiner. He, through his peculiar, not too widespread gift and through his great loyalty to the writings of Dr. Steiner, can do much more in this than many others. One can understand many things through it that one would not otherwise have understood. He can tell you many things as one who is “in between” and has heard it better. So if someone, fired up and inspired by what he has heard in Munich, comes home and says, “Now I want to show the members what can be extracted from the book if you look at it in the sense of Dr. Unger,” then he is deterred by such a strange view as that held by Mr. von Rainer; I cannot describe it any differently now. But one point is certain: I have no doubt that only a very few people could take this point of view. This point of view would coincide with what was mentioned at the board meeting on Saturday. Arenson's lecture had appeared (“On the Study of Spiritual Science”) and been sent to a lodge. However, the lodge in question sent it back with the explanation that it belonged in Stuttgart, that it was Stuttgart material! That would be more or less the same thing. I think I need say no more about it. This is just one point of view that must be described as “erroneous”. I cannot describe it differently.

Fräulein Kittel then talks about how important it is to understand the full seriousness of our time, and that our movement must be protected from everything that does not belong in it.

Mr. Walther: Dear friends! Since the Boldt matter has already been discussed at such length, I didn't really want to say anything more; but since I had initially planned to do so, I will present the little that I had planned here. In the small brochure that we have repeatedly discussed, on page 13 there is a sentence written by Mr. Boldt:

For them

that is, for the 'followers' of Dr. Steiner

even the 'Philosophy of Freedom' must, for the time being, remain purely abstract; they are not yet ready for a translation of this writing into concrete life, as I have attempted in my book!

This is the accusation that Mr. Boldt makes against us. I have now also read his book, in which he shares with us what he has gained from the “Philosophy of Freedom” and is now handing down to humanity. To put it very briefly, I will pick out a few points from the book and use them to show what Mr. Boldt regards as the content or the impulse to action that arises from the “Philosophy of Freedom.” On page 75 of his writing “Sexual Problems” he writes:

The strict moral law is certainly fully justified insofar as it can rein in the savage who lives among the stirrings of his animal nature and force him into a certain mold. Within civilization, moralism justifiably disapproves of and fights against the unbridled life of instinct; for it is civilization's task to overcome it. However, it goes wrong in its means and replaces the one, an animal compulsion acting from within, a different moral compulsion acting from without. Thus man is thrown from one bondage into another and swings back and forth between the fateful Scylla and Charybdis of life. One can therefore aptly compare the moral culture of the present day with a menagerie. The modern social man is a beast tamed and rendered harmless by the dogma of morality; his animal instincts are only gagged and put behind iron bars by morality, but not transformed and purified. The moral theologian plays the role of the animal tamer here.

Such is the judgment Mr. Boldt makes of the culture in which we live. And on page 78, he also tells us his remedy for how we can free ourselves from this “cage”:

After these explanations, it seems almost foolish to speak of the freedom of love, since freedom is already contained in love. But here it is not a matter of the inner, ideal freedom of the lovers, but also of the outer, real freedom. And since the latter is often severely endangered by social mismanagement, class prejudices and moral inquisition proceedings, it certainly makes sense to point this out again in particular.

And now he expands on the “freedom of love” in his book and then, on page 85, shows all the institutions that lock us into this menagerie or [in this] cage:

The compulsory celibacy of the church state is unnatural and therefore immoral; it must be resolved, precisely for moral reasons. If we apply this standard to the life that directly surrounds us, then out of a hundred marriages, ninety must be labeled immoral and profane.

This is what Mr. Boldt has gained from his study of the “Philosophy of Freedom.” But we can shed even more light on it if we also consider what he said on page 90:

Extraordinary people, as Goethe already emphasized as Carlos in Clavigo, are always immoral because they act in a self-aggrandizing way. They have to “rise above circumstances that would frighten a common person” Nietzsche calls “the liberation from the moral prejudices that lies in the unleashing of the great spirit, the typical immorality of genius.” - (“Will to Power,” p. 382).

I think that what we have just heard from the book could well show us that he who presumes to judge a work like “The Philosophy of Freedom” and who receives such impulses for action from this study that he lets them end in a complete self-indulgence - well, in an indulgence with “free love” - can certainly not have understood “The Philosophy of Freedom.” Truly, the Philosophy of Freedom would be a terrible work if it were to teach man such a doctrine, such volitional impulses as are found in Boldt's book. An attempt has certainly been made to show man what freedom is and how a person who understands what is given in the book can truly come to a freedom, but how this freedom is not realized by him in the sense that Boldt would like to live it in the sense of a boundless superman, in which he no longer cares about anything and only wants to live as the most perfect egoist. We know such concepts among people as they are known as “anarchism”. That is also not meant in the book “Philosophy of Freedom”. Rather, it is about strengthening the powers of the ego, which can raise our ego to a level that we place ourselves in life in such a way that we voluntarily take on what might otherwise appear to us as a compulsion in Boldt's sense. The “Philosophy of Freedom” does not teach that one should overturn all existing values of life, but that we should make ourselves available to these values of life with a strong I, so that we can reshape them – but not in the self-aggrandizing way that only the selfish personal ego knows, but in such a way that we never lose sight of the point of view of the whole, of community. So it is not a matter of us activating everything that is predisposed in our lower nature and that might arise through a misunderstood freedom of will, but of understanding and implementing the “Philosophy of Freedom” in our lives in such a way that we use the strength it can give us to work for community and for higher life goals and values. For that would not be a freedom that only served to fulfill the desires of the human being. But such a strengthened self, in the sense of the “Philosophy of Freedom”, will not, as Mr. Boldt recommends, live out in free love and advocate for such an endeavor, as free love does find its followers, even in scientific circles, and is recognized by the general public. On the contrary, it should be said: this must be opposed! It would be dangerous if we followed Mr. Boldt here and sanctioned such theosophical or anthroposophical ideals as are meant here. Never ever must we mix such things with our movement, and it would not seem good if we did not strictly reject what is meant here in the book. We must not allow our movement to be used as a cloak for the things which Mr. Boldt is trying to do and hint at here.

I would now like to suggest commenting on what Mr. Boldt is suggesting here. And even if we do not go to the extreme of expelling him, what we have to say against his writings could be communicated to him to make him aware of the consequences that it could have, so that it should cause him to change his position towards us. But it would then also have to be made clearer to him that if he wanted to continue his efforts, he should expect nothing from us, because we could never give up our movement to serve as a cover for the unbridled expression of the lower nature.

Director Sellin: Are you not at all afraid that I will add fuel to the fire and come to you with Mr. Boldt's atrocities? I am, after all, the one least competent to judge Mr. Boldt, and I must say: I am actually pleased that I lack the understanding to link philosophy with eroticism in the way Mr. Boldt does. I only asked for the floor because Mr. Boldt believes that he would be expelled from the Munich branch if I made a request to that effect. That is not the case. The matter is as follows: When the article “Theosophy or Antisophy?” was distributed eight days ago, I talked about it with Theosophical friends, and some of them said, “You are the oldest. Can't you go to the man and give him a piece of your mind?” So I agreed, went to him, gave him my opinion and gave him a piece of my mind! And Mr. Boldt was careful not to cite me as the first person to praise the excellence of his opinion. As I did then, I told him in a thoroughly fatherly manner: “What you have written is so outrageous that you cannot take responsibility for it. You have thrown dirt at the ladies, at the board of the Munich branch. You have accused the teacher of moral cowardice. But since you have no prospect of getting your point across and putting another researcher in charge, I don't see why you want to continue to belong to this, in your opinion, hopelessly run-down society. Why not withdraw your membership! You can form a new group and gather people of your kind around you. There is such great annoyance in our society about your behavior. It would be best if you withdraw your membership. If you don't, you can experience being excluded!"

Eight days later, I asked whether Mr. Boldt had responded, and was told that he had not. Only then did I feel justified in making a motion to expel Mr. Boldt from the Munich branch if he did not make amends for his wrongdoing and withdraw the offensive brochure. He has now done something quite different.

Ms. Stinde has been kind enough to postpone the decision on my motion until eight days after the general assembly. If Mr. Boldt has not taken action by then, I will have to maintain my position; because I say to myself: Then the man does not belong with us. I will continue to make the motion for expulsion.

Fräulein Scholl: With so many speakers having already addressed this matter in such detail, it is only natural that some points that one might have wanted to raise oneself have already been covered. It is therefore not necessary for me to speak at such length as would otherwise have been required, and I think we should proceed in such a way that we can deal with the matter as quickly as possible. The material has been sufficiently made known to you, and you have also become sufficiently familiar with the attitudes expressed in Mr. Boldt's brochure and book. However, perhaps another point of view may be pointed out, from which the whole matter can also be considered, and it does not seem superfluous to me to point this out.

It has already emerged from a discussion at the board meeting that Mr. Boldt did not always tell the truth during the negotiations with the Munich lodge. As Countess Kalckreuth said, there were some parts of the letters that did not always correspond to the truth. This is only mentioned because Countess Kalckreuth was about to state it here as well. Now, we may have to consider a few more points to ensure that we have covered everything, or at least the most important aspects. It should be pointed out once again, as Mr. Boldt always refers to in his writing and later in the brochure, that the whole train of thought of his ideas, what he has published in his book, is based on the teachings of Dr. Steiner and specifically on the “Philosophy of Freedom”, and he always wants to point out through the quotations and the references that he has always connected his thoughts to what Dr. Steiner gives. But if you know the teachings of Dr. Steiner and then read Mr. Boldt's writings, it is really as if pure sunlight were transformed into the cloudy light of a smoky kerosene lamp. And it should be noted: We are responsible to the rest of humanity for allowing Dr. Steiner's teachings to be distorted in this way, not only when the quotations are literally wrong, but also when they are wrongly reproduced in meaning, because then they are a lie. It is really a matter of taking a firm stand against such occurrences and not allowing this spirit of untruth to arise. Not for our own sake! We could perhaps bear Mr. Boldt quite well; even if 25 percent of Mr. Boldt's nature and character were in society, we could bear it. But we should show the rest of humanity that we do not want to endure this 25 percent — or even just one percent of this kind, that if we want to be anthroposophists, we do not want to endure this spirit of lies, wherever it appears, in the smallest or greatest things. But here we are dealing with the greatest things, in the face of which Mr. Boldt appears.

If you take such descriptions by Dr. Steiner as he has given about the Grail mystery, if you think about what has been told about the transformation of lower forces in man into higher ones, in how wonderful a way it was given, so that only feelings of reverence and devotion could flow through the listeners , and then you read how it is presented in Mr. Boldt's book – not 'dirty' because it deals with certain problems, but dirty because of the way in which he presumes to deal with the most sublime, a way that must disgust anyone who has a healthy sense: Then you can understand that the rest of humanity, when presented with this, must receive quite distorted ideas about the teachings of Dr. Steiner. Therefore, it seems especially important to me that we take strong action against these things. Other such untruths can be found in great numbers in the book. One need only point out Mr. Boldt's contradictions, for example where he says what the “Anthroposophical Society” is in his opinion, and where he says something quite the opposite about it. One time he says on pages 27-28:

The “Anthroposophical Society” does indeed represent a rock on which the Christ can build his new church, the church of the freedom of the creative spirit, the “School of Spiritual Science”.

But on pages 15-16 he has already said – he has probably forgotten this:

Can anyone seriously believe in the viability of the now 'Anthroposophical Society' if Dr. Steiner wanted to ignore this essay by Nietzsche?

And at the same time, he ascribes a peculiar character trait to Dr. Steiner:

Oh, he knows it only too well and has occasion to use it more often than one would think.

How can we understand that he says one thing on pages 27-28 and something completely different on pages 15-16? These are contradictions, and they are repeated over and over again in this little booklet. And then there is the comment as if Dr. Steiner behaved in the way attributed to him by Mr. Boldt, which has already been characterized several times. It is the most repulsive defamation that can be uttered about a person. Apart from the fact that we - each of us personally - must be horrified by the way he treats us, using Nietzsche's sayings, which he continually tears out of completely different contexts and uses only to reinforce his own thoughts, without the person who would have used the quote in this way – so, quite apart from the fact that Mr. Boldt is treating us very vilely and insultingly, it seems to me that we cannot tolerate a person in our society who acts in this way against Dr. Steiner and especially against the teaching. We know that we have only been able to receive these teachings through Dr. Steiner in our time, and that we honor Dr. Steiner's personality in this sense for the sake of the teachings that are given to us by him from the spiritual worlds. Among us, however, there are still some people who are not very mature or experienced in the field of spiritual science, those who still know too little about the whole spirit of the movement to be able to stand firm in every moment and to have the right judgment of such poisonous works as those of Mr. Boldt. But it should be sufficiently clear from the matters presented what harmful elements we are dealing with.

Therefore, my proposal – this was meant from the outset, and my judgment has not been mitigated by the milder proposals of the other speakers – is that Mr. Boldt be expelled from the Anthroposophical Society. I believe that on average we are not so well-disposed that we can say with Ernst, “Despite the fact that someone acts in this outrageous way against that which is the highest and most sacred for us, we want to keep him among us and we will love him.” — In any case, I have to say that I do not have this love so far. I move, rather, that Mr. Boldt be struck from the lists of the Anthroposophical Society — out of love for our cause and out of love for the spiritual heritage that is endangered by such tendencies as those of Mr. Boldt, and on which alone we can live!

Dr. Steiner: Before we continue, allow me a few words. It would perhaps be very appropriate to be as clear as possible in this matter and to arrive at a judgment by looking at things, I would say, soberly. Above all, let me first raise some questions that might serve us to form an opinion.

I would like to raise the question: What actually happened for Mr. Boldt to approach us in such a way at this our General Assembly? Perhaps we will find it easier to answer this question if we ask ourselves: What should have happened first so that Mr. Boldt might not have come to the decision to approach the General Assembly in this way?

If you have followed the debate, you will have seen that one of the first mistakes we made in Mr. Boldt's mind was that the two ladies of the board of the Munich Lodge I did not lay out the prospectus for Mr. Boldt's book in the Munich Lodge two years ago – approximately.

I believe there can be no doubt that the display of this brochure in one of our lodges would have been perceived as a kind of recommendation; after all, we cannot display things without being aware that we are recommending them. I don't think there would be much point in displaying it at all if we can't advocate things from some point of view or other. That is to say: Mrs. Kalckreuth and Mrs. Stinde should have endorsed the book, which has now been characterized by the various speeches, in so far as they should naturally have endorsed the wording of the “prospectus” presented to them at the time. Conscientiously, one cannot understand it any other way than that the ladies should have said, as it says in the prospectus:

This book lays for the first time the occult or spiritual foundations on which the philosopher must build if he seriously wants to solve the sexual problems that are still shrouded in darkness. Furthermore, it indicates the directions that the ethicist and pedagogue must take if they want to contribute to promoting the cultural process in a correct, contemporary way and to show humanity the way to the heights of existence.

And everything else I read to them earlier should have been acknowledged by the aforementioned ladies. That is the first question I want to raise: What should have been done to prevent Mr. Boldt from approaching us in this way?

I would like to raise a second question, which is connected to the judgment that Mr. Boldt has passed on me. This judgment, which appears at various points in his brochure, can be summarized by saying that the - I do not want to repeat the joke used yesterday - the man characterized in the well-known way is compelled by the peculiar circumstances of society to present his doctrine in a very peculiar way. One could say: This Dr. Steiner, whom Mr. Boldt indicates as a reference and on whom he wants to base his “sexual problems,” can indeed present some things to the world; but he has a society that is a minority of 25 percent, which “clenches its fists in its pockets” – as politely indicated to the other, so backward 75 percent –

... when it comes to shedding light on and eliminating abuses within the lodges, because we do not want to belong to a Salvation Army, a Catholic girls' boarding school or a convent. (p. 21)

Because society initially has this 75 percent girls' boarding school, nunnery and Salvation Army, Dr. Steiner is compelled not to tell the truth; Mr. Boldt explains how this is understandable: since society has to adhere to Nietzsche and the “falsehood of a judgment is not an objection to a judgment,” so Dr. Steiner is obliged not to present the things he believes to be the truth, but those that he considers suitable for presentation to that 75 percent. Following on from this description of “Dr. Steiner”, I would like to ask my second question. I have tried to find out from this brochure “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” what exactly it is that is wrong with what I present to the 75 percent girls' boarding school, nunnery or Salvation Army from lecture to lecture, from working group meeting to working group meeting. I had to say to myself: It is somewhat difficult to find out what this wrong is supposed to be. Because if the 25 percent who do not belong to a girls' boarding school, a convent or the Salvation Army have now happily figured out that Dr. Steiner tries not to say what he thinks is right, but what he considers suitable for the 75 percent who attend girls' boarding schools and so on, can one ask what the value of this “fatal doctrine” - because it seems to me to be a fatal doctrine - should be? Because it must have some value! Because I can't help but say, based on what the brochure says: If these 25 percent don't want to withdraw from society and don't want to do without lectures and want to participate in the spiritual knowledge – that is, in the concoction that I brew for the 75 percent girls' boarding school, nunnery and Salvation Army – then these 25 percent who sit there in the strange way, with their fists clenched in their pockets, enjoy it so much and attach such importance to it that they definitely want to be there; so they appreciate a brew that is intended for girls' boarding schools, nunneries and salvation armies that they do not want to belong to. I said to myself: I won't find out what is wrong with what I am concocting for girls' boarding schools, nunneries and the Salvation Army. I tried harder to find out. Then I realized – and I don't know if the 75 percent agree: The only thing, it seems to me, that makes Mr. Boldt say that I make such a concoction is that I did not recommend his book! That seems to me to be the one that the 75 percent don't want to be in. If anyone finds something else, let me know!

But I would also like to take the liberty of saying what I have already said: that I really do not consider Mr. Boldt's book to be a very mature product of our contemporary literature.

But on the other hand, I would like to say something else. You see, I do share the opinion of the character I read to you earlier: the opinion of the enfant terrible Sophie in the little drama “Lila”, which does the saying that has already been read out, after Verazio spoke the words that Mr. Boldt used as the motto on the first page of his brochure – so they are not Goethe's words, but the words of a character in a play – and wants to apply to himself:

Everyone feels within themselves that they can do some good, must be a nuisance. They don't have to wait to be called upon. They don't have to pay attention when they are sent away. They must be what Homer praises in the heroes: They must be like a fly that, when chased away, keeps attacking people from a different place.

I am a little bit of that myself. Opinion – also with regard to the first sentence – of Sophie:

At least he is honest; he describes the barkers clearly enough!

I do not believe that Mr. Boldt is dishonest; I do not even believe that he has evil intentions, and I must therefore say: What seems to me the most distressing thing in such a matter is actually always the case; and in this “case” one can very much detest the personality and consider the case as such.

Mr. Boldt seems to me to be nothing more than one of the many victims of our time in a particular field. And it behoves us to point out that in the field of anthroposophy, we are not motivated by a nun-like, Salvation Army-like or girl's boarding school-like attitude, but by completely different reasons - reasons that not only Mr. Boldt, but also many other people do not have a proper concept of, we have to turn against such science and wisdom, as Mr. Boldt wants to bring to the man, seduced by some currents of our time, that we have to turn against such science and wisdom, against such pseudo-science and pseudo-wisdom, against such immature science and wisdom!

The first thing we have to bear in mind is that we – how often have I emphasized this, especially in the course of the last year! – have the very task of standing up for truth and truthfulness. And it is not for nothing that we decided to put the motto on our statutes ourselves: “Wisdom lies only in truth!” Seduced by many of the currents of our time, immature minds then feel that they are in the — as it seems to them — justified position of speaking of the fact that precisely the one who stands up for this sentence — “Wisdom lies only in truth” — as a motto for our Anthroposophical Society must assume masks in order to cover up the truth so that he can get rid of its followers. This is not personal audacity — it is done by the seduced immature mind, which can be forgiven personally, but which must be characterized objectively as it arises from the character of the current. One of the first things to be characterized in this trend of the times is something that has often had to be mentioned in connection with our necessary striving for truth: It is that which deeply permeates the times and is even connected with some of the conditions of life in our time: It is untruthfulness, the lack of conscientiousness, which is not only found in what Mr. Boldt produces, but also in a large part of our contemporary literature! No wonder immature minds are seduced by it! But if we have to stand up for truth and truthfulness, we have to listen to the Spirit of Truth; but not to what is in this current of untruthfulness and lack of conscientiousness. Everywhere outside, we find that what is said in some other direction is cited to defend all kinds of private matters that, in the eyes of those who want to defend them, usually have the highest value.

My dear friends, I ask you with reference to the man who wrote the book “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural and Spiritual Science” and who wrote in this book [in footnote 12] on page 136/137:

12) To supplement this thought, read Steiner: “Die Geheimwissenschaft”, $. 65 to 75. There is talk of a “hidden spiritual”

, and so on, as it has been mentioned before:

What is said here regarding the satisfaction that the hungry being derives from ingesting food also applies to the pleasure that lovemaking gives to loving beings; for hunger and love grow on the same wood, as Schiller also indicates in his poem “The World Sages”.

Here, a certain enjoyment is clearly and explicitly mentioned! It continues:

The reader can find more details about enjoyment in “Lucifer-Gnosis”, issue 13 (“How to obtain knowledge of the higher worlds?”), as well as in “Theosophy” (“The path of knowledge”).

Imagine that someone does not have the conscientiousness to reach for issue 13 of “Lucifer - Gnosis”; then he must get the idea that is there: “there is talk about the enjoyment of love”. - Who can read anything else into it? But open “Lucifer - Gnosis”, issue 13, and try to figure out what it is about. There it says [on] $. 5:

What can be achieved through devotion becomes even more effective when another type of feeling is added. It consists of the fact that the person learns to devote himself less and less to the impressions of the outside world and instead develops an active inner life. A person who chases from one impression of the outside world to the next, who is always looking for “distraction”, will not find the way to secret science. The secret disciple should not become indifferent to the outside world; but his rich inner life should give him the direction in which he faces its impressions. When walking through a beautiful mountain landscape, a person rich in feeling and depth of feeling experiences something different than one poor in feeling. Only what we experience inwardly gives us the key to the beauties of the external world. One person sails across the sea and only a few inner experiences pass through his soul; the other feels the eternal language of the world spirit; the secret riddles of creation are revealed to him. One must have learned to deal with one's own feelings and ideas if one wants to develop a meaningful relationship with the external world. The outer world is filled with divine glory in all its phenomena; but one must first have experienced the divine in one's own soul if one wants to find it in one's surroundings. The secret disciple is advised to create moments in his life in which he quietly and lonely sinks into himself. But he should not devote himself to the affairs of his own ego in such moments. That would have the opposite effect to that intended. Rather, in such moments he should quietly reflect on what he has experienced, what the external world has told him. Every flower, every animal, every action will reveal unsuspected secrets to him in such quiet moments. And he will be prepared to see new impressions in the outside world with completely different eyes than before. Those who only want to enjoy impression after impression dull their ability to recognize. Those who, after enjoyment, allow themselves to be revealed by the enjoyment, cultivate and educate their ability to recognize. They just have to get used to not just letting the enjoyment linger, but to processing what they have enjoyed through inner activity, while renouncing further enjoyment. The danger here is very great. Instead of working within, it is easy to fall into the opposite error, and to want to fully exhaust the enjoyment only afterwards. One should not underestimate the fact that incalculable sources of error open up for the secret disciple here.

And now you are wondering whether, if you profess the views of the Anthroposophical Society, you may quote what is said here in “Lucifer - Gnosis”, issue 13, in such a way that, may one, after having previously discussed the enjoyment of love in Boldt's manner, say: “The reader can find more about enjoyment in ‘Lucifer - Gnosis, Issue 13’ and so on?”

In this context, I ask you: Is Mr. Boldt a disciple of the anthroposophical current or is he not - with regret I say: unfortunately; with reference to his weak personality, with which I have compassion - just a seduced of a current of today?

We are entitled to ask ourselves such a question; for it is not a matter of treating the “Boldt case” as the case of Mr. Boldt, but of regarding it as symptomatic of what is happening not only to Mr. Boldt but also, I would say, speaks to us from the windows everywhere, and is infinitely more important than the individual case of Boldt, which is only one form of many of the things that are happening in our time, and which we are called upon to fight.

Much to my regret, I was obliged on another occasion to point out how quotations are used today – on the occasion of Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden's “Denkschrift” (memorandum). On page 135, you will find the following about Boldt:

In his journal “Lucifer - Gnosis,” issue 23, “From the Akashic Records,” Steiner comments as follows: “His (the human being's) entire lower half – that which is often called the lower nature – has now come under the intellectually shaping influence of the higher beings (the Jehovah-Elohims). ... One can also say that those noble spiritual powers... have now descended to unfold their power in the field of reproduction. In fact, noble divine powers have a regulating and organizing effect in this area.

Here, individual sentences have been taken out of context, which reads as follows:

Man has straightened up. This is the direct consequence of the ride on the moon. And with the moon, all those forces have disappeared from the earth's body through which man, during the time of the nebula of fire, was still able to fertilize himself and bring forth beings of his own kind without external influence. His entire lower half - that which is often called the lower nature - has now come under the intellectually shaping influence of the higher beings. What these beings were previously able to regulate in man himself, due to the fact that the mass of force, now separated in the moon, was still united with the earth, they must now organize through the interaction of the two sexes. It is understandable that the moon is regarded by the initiates as the symbol of the power of reproduction. These forces are, so to speak, attached to it. And the higher beings described have a relationship with the moon; they are, so to speak, moon gods. Before the separation of the moon, they worked through its power in man; afterwards, their forces worked from the outside on man's reproduction. One can also say that those noble spiritual powers, which previously worked through the medium of the fire-mist on the still higher instincts of man, have now descended to unfold their power in the sphere of reproduction. In fact, the forces of the noble Gods work in this sphere in a regulating and organizing way. And with that, an important sentence from the Secret Doctrine is expressed, which reads: The higher, noble divine powers are related to the seemingly lower powers of human nature. The word “seemingly” must be understood here in its full meaning, because it would be a complete misunderstanding of the occult truths if one wanted to see something low in the reproductive powers themselves. Only when man misuses these powers, when he forces them into the service of his passions and instincts, is there something corruptive in these powers, but not when he ennobles them through the insight that divine spiritual power lies in them. Then he will place these powers in the service of the evolution of the earth and carry out the intentions of the higher beings who have characterized them through his powers of reproduction. The ennobling of this whole sphere and the subordination of it to divine laws is what Theosophy teaches, but not the annihilation of it. The latter can only be the result of an externalized and distorted conception of misunderstood occult principles.

Anyone who takes this as it is presented here, and the preceding and following must also be taken into account, will find that the one who wrote this considered it necessary to place these things in this overall context and not to tear them out of this context. And if Mr. Boldt is embarrassed to speak to the readers of his book about “fire fog” and “moon entities,” then let him keep his hands off it! Then it's none of his business! He has no right to tear sentences that I use only in one context out of that context in order to use them for his own private purposes.

But something else has been said here that anyone who wants to can read. And I believe that the 25 percent who do not want to be a girl's boarding school and so on could read something like that. It is said:

And the higher beings described have a relationship to the moon, are, so to speak, moon gods. Before the moon was separated from the earth, they worked through its power in man; afterwards, their powers worked from the outside on man's reproduction. One can also say that those noble spiritual forces, which previously worked through the medium of the fire nebula on the still higher instincts of man, have now descended to unfold their power in the realm of reproduction. In fact, noble divine powers have a regulating and organizing effect in this area.

Let noble divine powers work in this area! But not the dirty fantasies of our contemporary sexology. They have been described precisely in order to clarify the matter, but not to defile them with what can be said about this area from the coarse, clumsy human powers. And that was the spirit in all the explanations I have given over the course of many years for the anthroposophists.

Truly, gentlemen, I would deny those from whose heads Mr. Boldt learned the right to speak at all about these things! I could never allow the students of those whose right I deny to speak at all about this area, which is protected by the noble powers of the gods, to spread among us. This is how one quotes in our time in the broad stream of life! But those who are disciples of this quoting have, in my opinion, no place within our anthroposophical stream!

And another question that I want to ask you, and which is now to be linked to what has just been said, is one that is, however, more of a logical one. In Mr. Boldt's brochure, it says on page 21:

If I, of all people, have the courage and clear conscience to give voice to this deeply felt and painful dissatisfaction, I believe that I have sufficiently proven my right, indeed my obligation to do so, through the sad experiences I have had to endure in these years. Since the lodges – that is, the sum of their members, not the boards alone – are autonomous and even Dr. Steiner – as I was assured by authoritative sources – does not have the right to interfere in their decrees, we members also want to make use of our free right of self-determination when it comes to illuminating and eliminating abuses within the lodges; because we do not want to belong to a Salvation Army, a Catholic girls' boarding school or a nunnery.

I address the question to those who present themselves in the “we”: Why don't they stay out if they don't “want to belong”? Because it does not seem logical to me if they are inside. Because the only thing that is to be held against me is that I have not praised Mr. Boldt's book and that everything I present is a concoction for girls' boarding schools, convents and salvation armies. So then the only conclusion to be drawn with respect to Mr. Boldt and the others – and here I am speaking of many people found in today's intellectual culture – is that they should view this concoction for girls' boarding schools , convents and Salvation Army from the outside – not from the inside – and that they do not let themselves be told only when their logic demands it would be illogical not to be among us!

By this I wanted to suggest that we should not concern ourselves with the “Boldt case” in such a way that we “use a sledgehammer to crack a nut”. That is not necessary. But we really want to show that we have something to say about the field in which Mr. Boldt is a student – a seduced, unfortunate student. Therefore, I would like to continue here tomorrow with what I still have to say about this, as briefly as possible.

The continuation of the “business part” is set for Tuesday, January 20, 1914, at ten o'clock in the morning. Dr. Steiner announces that he will speak about “Pseudo-Science of the Present” in relation to the matter at hand.

Shortly after 1:15, Dr. Steiner begins his announced lecture on contemporary pseudoscience.

My dear friends!

Yesterday I spoke to you about how phenomena such as the book “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and the Science of the Spirit” by Ernst Boldt and also his recent brochure – this one in particular – “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” can be traced back to a certain school of thought in the present day, and how actually the younger people who want to enter, so to speak, the field of “free writers” are more pitiful seduced people of certain currents of our present intellectual life than people to whom one can ascribe in the fullest sense of the word what they do and write. It does not matter that Mr. Boldt himself may not want to know that he is a student of the “pseudo-science” to be characterized. He has unfortunately become one without his knowledge. Before I move on to a proof of what I have just said, I would like to cite once again a particularly worrying example of what such a training can achieve.

As you know, in the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” the accusation is made against myself - let us say - that I “take on masks”, that I do not tell the 75 percent within our society that have now been sufficiently identified what I myself recognize as the truth, but rather what I believe is suitable for their particular inferiority. You may know from the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” that with regard to this point, special reference is made to my writing “Friedrich Nietzsche - A Fighter Against His Time”, and that the brochure particularly points out that in that writing I represent the Nietzschean point of view with regard to the truth. I must read a few sentences on page 16 of the brochure “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” so that you can get to know the full severity of the accusation expressed on page 16 of the brochure, insofar as it is based on something I am said to have said in my writing “Friedrich Nietzsche - A Fighter Against His Time”:

No matter how correct a thought or judgment may be, if they do not further a matter in a given situation, they are worthless and false at that point; and if certain logical fictions and false judgments can lead to a desired result under certain circumstances, then they are valuable and true at that point. Dr. Steiner himself, in his discussion of this topic, characterized the unconditional striving for truth and truthfulness, as Fichte advocated it, as “superficial,” while Nietzsche's view was “drawn deep from the essence of human nature.

My dear friends, you should consider the full weight of the audacity of such an assertion as has been made here. On pages 9-10 of my essay “Friedrich Nietzsche... and so on,” I have in fact uttered the following words in response to the question of the value of truth, quoting Nietzsche first:

Is it any wonder that we finally become suspicious, lose our patience, turn around impatiently? That we, in turn, learn how to ask questions from this sphinx? Who is it, actually, who is asking us questions here? What in us actually wants “the truth”? Indeed, we stopped long before asking about the cause of this will – until, finally, we came to a complete stop in front of an even more fundamental question. We asked about the value of this will. Suppose we want truth: why not untruth?

This is a thought...

so I now say further,

... of almost unsurpassable audacity. If we compare this with what another bold “thinker and friend of riddles,” Johann Gottlieb Fichte, says about the pursuit of truth, we can see how deeply Nietzsche draws his ideas from the essence of human nature. “I am called upon,” says Fichte, “to bear witness to the truth; my life and my fate are of no importance; the effects of my life are of infinite importance. I am a priest of truth; I am in its pay; I have bound myself to do and dare and suffer everything for it.” (Fichte, lectures ‘On the destiny of the scholar,’ fourth lecture.) These words express the relationship in which the noblest minds of Western modern culture place themselves in relation to truth. Nietzsche's saying quoted above makes them appear superficial. One can object to them: Is it not possible that untruthfulness has more valuable effects on life than truthfulness? Is it impossible that truth can harm life? Did Fichte ask himself these questions? Did others who bore “truth's witness” do so?

When such a sentence is written, it has been wrested from the bleeding heart in order to gain and present an insight. First of all, a relationship is presented – and presented in such a way that something is singled out from the whole of our Western culture that belongs to the very depths of what can be said; and only in comparison with an even deeper psychological search and an even deeper rumination on the values of truth in the human soul does this appear even less profound than the “deeper” one, that is, it appears as the “relatively superficial”. Now, the starting point is taken from what is rooted in the soul as the impulse that makes Fichte seek truth, and it is pointed out - this is implied in the sentence - that in the sense of Nietzsche - who, after all, also lived a century later than Fichte - Fichte's question could and should be asked even more urgently than Fichte did.

However, people do not come close to asking a question of this kind – this must be said! – people who then boast about it by saying:

Those with an eye for nuance and a sense of character will have to admit that this serious accusation does not apply to me in any way.

Anyone with a “finger for nuances” would never dare to quote a passage such as the one on page 10 of my Nietzsche essay in the outrageous way it is done here in the brochure. Such a quotation comes from the school from which these people learn what they are able to learn, not from what should be done within the anthroposophical stream.

Following on from this, let me now ask another question. Is there not a question underlying all these accusations that have been made: Why doesn't Dr. Steiner address certain issues in front of that 75 percent? I have once again tried to find an answer to this question, at least in the sense of the questioner. I leaf through the book “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and Spiritual Science”. There is a good deal in it about the misunderstood Haeckel and some of it is taken directly from my writings and lectures. Reference is also made to my lectures “Man and Woman” and “Man, Woman and Child in the Light of Spiritual Science”. What is in Boldt's book, insofar as it is based on occult principles, is admittedly borrowed from what I said about the 75 percent of girls' boarding schools, nunneries and the Salvation Army. Mr. Boldt finds what I say about these people good enough to use for the teaching he is counting on. He carries the wisdom of the nunnery to those who, let us say, are unprejudiced. Thus assertions are made. What people do directly contradicts what they say, so to speak, immediately. For how else would Mr. Boldt have taken what he wrote “from the occult point of view” if not from the messages that were given to the 75 percent girls' boarding school, nunnery and Salvation Army? Such logic is the fruit borne by the school from which such writings come. But let us not be surprised that it bears such fruit. If someone talks about “sexual problems” today, it is because he has been influenced by “authorities” in this field, and Mr. Boldt has also been influenced, even if he does not know it or admit it. And who would not know that a much-cited authority in this field is Professor Auguste Forel! I would just like to share with you some characteristics of some contemporary scientific work from Forel's lecture on “Sexual Ethics”, namely from the first half, where ethics in general is discussed. Page 3:

1. Ethics.

Ethics is the science of morals. What, then, is morality? It can be said that morality consists of two things:

1. A feeling: conscience, sense of duty or ethical feeling (altruistic feeling), which tells us: “This you should do and that you should leave.” This feeling is instinctive and consists of a mixture of pleasure and displeasure. Those who develop it feel pleasure when they follow “the voice of conscience” and displeasure when they do not follow it.

Anyone who writes something like this has never taken the trouble to read even a single serious psychological book in our time, even superficially. A person who is an authority in our time speaks in sentences like these:

This feeling...

morality

... is instinctual and consists of a mixture of pleasure and displeasure.

I do not want to say what kind of pain one gets when, somewhat familiar with these things, one has to accept a sentence that confuses “feeling” with “instinct” and then talks about a “mixture of pleasure and displeasure.” The worst kind of amateurism betrays itself at the beginning of the book of a great authority! Then page 4:

But reason and science rebel against the categorical imperative, the longer, the more. Kant, great though he was, was not infallible. The imperative of conscience is not categorical in and of itself, nor is it categorical in any other way than that of the sexual drive, fear, motherly love or other feelings and drives. First of all, daily observation teaches us that there are people who are innately without conscience, who lack the voice of duty.

Let anyone who is considered an “authority” in this field dare – I will ignore all the rest, purely formally and logically – to write the sentence: “The imperative of conscience” – by which he means the Kantian imperative – “is in and of itself no more categorical and no less categorical than that of the sexual urge”! I want to ignore all moral aspects and point out only the perverse logic and phenomenal ignorance in all philosophical matters of a contemporary authority. I want to point out something else and read the sentence again:

Firstly, daily observation teaches us that there are people who are innately unscrupulous and who lack the voice of duty.

I turn to page 7, where the question is examined as to what the “voice of conscience”, the sense of duty, actually consists of:

The sense of duty is, as an inclination, innate, that is, hereditary.

There is only one page in between; on page 4, “authority” denies that it is “innate” because “innate people can be without conscience,” and on page 7 it says:

The sense of duty is, as an inclination, innate, i.e. hereditary. It can be developed or, conversely, dulled by education; but it cannot be acquired, and only brain diseases can destroy it where it is clearly present. That which is acquired or acquired...

There is no way to escape this tangle of crazy contradictions!

...is least the conscience; rather, it is its objects, just like those of the sense of shame.

It goes on to say:

Where does conscience come from, the sense of duty?

On page 8, we read further:

When I feel sympathy or love for a person, an animal, an object, I suffer myself and feel displeasure as soon as the object of my sympathy suffers or is endangered.

You may think: Well, that just slips out of the pen like that! No, it just slips out of the pen like that if you have confused thinking!

Hence the words compassion and sympathy (pain with). I therefore seek to help the object of my sympathy, to save it.

This “object of sympathy” continues to play a role; it is not just a typo here. At best, the word “object” can be used if “people” or “animals” have not been used beforehand. But if you have used “people” and “animals” beforehand and then say “object,” it shows that you have not the slightest sense of clarity of presentation. But the gentleman has something else: strange terms for many things, from which we can learn something in the present. Page 9:

But the necessity for a common defense against enemies led many animals to develop feelings of sympathy and duty towards entire groups, resulting in the emergence of loose societies here and there (swallows, buffalo, monkeys). Finally, certain animal species have developed feelings of sympathy and duty to such an extent that they have led to the realization of anarchist socialism, as is the case with wasps, bees, termites and ants.

I believe that even the less educated will almost turn around when they hear the words “anarchistic socialism”; because it is synonymous with “iron wood” or “wooden iron”. And that Professor Forel has not misspelled it again, but just does not know how to correctly formulate the terms in today's world, is shown by the further remarks, which I will not go into further. Then he continues on page 10:

Thus, humans have instinctively developed feelings of sympathy and duty that were coupled with intensely selfish predatory instincts. The enormous complication of the great human brain has now made things extremely complex. Thus, crime and heroism could develop side by side. We see infanticide, patricide and matricide, robbery, theft, slavery, war and, not to be forgotten, the most abject subjugation of women as objects of purchase and sale or as beasts of burden, the fruits of the egoism of a highly developed, cleverly thinking brain organization.

These are the words you would use in a lecture aimed at an audience you want to speak to in a popular way! You tell them that all these things – these strange, confused phenomena, mixed with all kinds of predatory instincts – stem from a particular complication of the brain organization. Materialism is blackened by this way of thinking, which is devoid of all logic! Continue on pages 11 [and 12]:

It is now as clear as day from this brief sketch, the main features of which we owe to the theory of descent and natural science, that morality can only be relative. It was always relative to the family, to the clan, to the fatherland; it must become relative to humanity. Man's phylogenetic sense of duty (i.e., the instinctive sense of duty inherited from our animal and human ancestors) unfortunately varies greatly from individual to individual.

So now we have inherited a sense of duty from our “animal and human ancestors”! It goes on like this. But this gentleman also quotes out of context. Page 13:

But now another difficulty arises, namely the frequent lack of harmony between the ethical motives of an act and its ideal value. “(I am) part of that force which always wills evil and always creates good.”

These are the words of Mephisto in “Faust”; therefore, he puts “I am” in brackets and then says immediately afterwards:

We often say instead of always,

so he brings a quote so that he has to change it immediately afterwards – and on the same line, because otherwise it wouldn't fit! On page 14, something strange happens that the gentleman and his students don't notice:

Altruism and egoism are only in relative contrast. In ants and bees, they are wonderfully harmoniously adapted to each other instinctively, without ever coming into conflict with each other. This can and should be striven for in humans, however great the difficulties are that his nature poses to this task. For this, a harmonious interaction of hereditary feelings of duty with reason and knowledge is essential.

But this “reason and knowledge” would not exist at all if the strange theories developed here were sound. But they are introduced; just as materialistic ideas are previously introduced into the text, “reason and knowledge” are now introduced. - The following is the author's view of the “nature of morality”, page 14:

I must briefly mention two more points: firstly, morality and social or racial hygiene coincide, ...

Social and racial hygiene and morality are therefore the same: they coincide! This is how he comes to characterize the “essence of morality.” Yes - but they only coincide

... as soon as one understands by hygiene that of the brain, i.e., of the organ of the soul, and subordinates individual hygiene to social hygiene.

Anyone who can still think anything of value in the face of such a sentence is actually hard to find! But these things characterize the thinking of the “authorities” – and are never cited as proof of the scientific conscience that reigns over certain schools of thought in our time. Do not think that this is an isolated example; these things are widespread; and they are significant for a reason that I will explain.

Why are they significant? Well, they stem from an “authority” in the field to which we are referred, from a generally recognized authority, from a man who is much talked about at home and abroad. He is an authority in this field, and he knows everything that can be learned in this field in terms of craftsmanship and natural science. And that is the significant thing, that is what is so bad in our present time: one can actually be an authority in any specialized field today without even knowing the very most elementary basic elements of logic and the very most elementary basic elements of scientific methodology at all; one can pass on to humanity today the most important things that are being researched in such a way that they are blackened into the worst form of nonsense! One often stands before these things with deep sadness. There is an excellent mathematician of the present day, a famous mathematician, to whom the rank of one of the first among mathematicians is not to be denied, Leo Königsberger. Recently I read from him – I am almost ashamed to say it – an “academic treatise” about what mathematics actually is as a science. He refers to Kant, and what he says about the methodological foundations of the mathematical sciences and their relationship to other sciences is the most immature, childish stuff.

That is to say, today, when it comes to accepting things that are there to educate the public about the progress of our intellectual life, you can accept the most childish stuff from the authorities, because people no longer feel obliged, when they step out of their area of expertise, to even know a little about what they want to talk about. Yes, if only they would not talk about it – but, excuse me, that is not an option, because otherwise the gentlemen would have to remain silent about so many things that we would hear little from them!

And now I ask another question. Those who, without knowing anything about the facts of natural science themselves, speak or write about sexual matters or similar topics among younger people today are fed from sources like the ones I have characterized. Let us not be surprised if their heads are in a mess; because with such logic, their heads must be in a mess, as we are dealing with one. And the poor, pitiful victims are innocent, their entire mental life is destroyed by what I have just characterized, which does not stand alone but pours out into literature in a broad stream, which is precisely what our audience feeds on today.

My dear friends, we are dealing today – and as anthroposophists we have to deal with it! – in many fields of today's production, not with 'scientificness', but with 'pseudoscientificness', not to use another word. An example of such pseudoscience is given to you; I could give many.

A certain Dr. Freud in Vienna has founded all kinds of “scientific” things. Among them there is also a “dream science,” the famous Freudian “dream science,” to which much reference is made today. I will pick out just one example from the beautiful “scientific” world that prevails.

From his point of view, Freud finds that every dream is based on a wish; and he finds the theory, which is more convenient than factual, that when a person cannot satisfy a wish in life, and he might be disturbed in his sleep, he then dreams in his sleep that his wish has been fulfilled. So anyone who hopes for something and does not have it dreams - and then sleeps well because they have fulfilled their wish in their dream. Yes, but it is not the case with all dreams that they can be traced back to a hope, to a wish; the facts cannot be treated so simply. In the field of this “science”, a distinction is made between “latent” and “manifest” dream wishes. For example, the following example is constructed. - I take things that have actually been given.

I dream of a person whose name is, say, “R”; but he doesn't look like “R” at all, but like “B” - and “B” is crazy. Now it is difficult to construct the pipe dream here. But Dr. Freud is never at a loss for an explanation. He says: Yes, but the R I dream about secretly wishes he were crazy! If I dreamt about him as he really is, I couldn't dream that he's crazy, because he isn't. So I dream about the other guy, B, who is crazy, because I wish that R would go crazy like B.

Here the latent is separated from the manifest. What is introduced is, to use a nice technical term from Freud, “dream censorship”, and I could cite a nice smorgasbord of such examples from Freudian dream censorship.

Yes, such “scientific rigour” has led to the well-known Freudian “psychoanalysis”, to the fact that the followers of this psychoanalysis attribute various phenomena that occur in the human soul to so-called “islands” or island provinces in subconscious life. So, for example, if there is hysteria or something of the sort, then the person coming to the doctor is examined by being interrogated; but one must interrogate him until one comes upon something sexual. Because these islands are always unfulfilled sexual desires. They go down into the subconscious and stay there until the doctor brings them back up; and until the doctor brings them back up, they are the causes of all kinds of mental disorders, and you cure them by bringing the suppressed sexualisms back up.

I do not want to bring out these suppressed sexualisms present in the subconscious and apply them to the founder of the theory himself; because something strange could come of it if one were to apply this theory to the one who has formulated it, and trace it back to something suppressed inside, to such island provinces that could have accumulated in childhood.

But with these “wishful dreams”, with the “latent” and “manifest” states and with “dream censorship”, we now come to other things, for example to the answer to the question: “Why do so many people dream of the death of close relatives?” - And it is said that now, because as a child one thought, even if one did not love these relatives: “If only he would die soon!” This has gone into the subconscious and comes up again as a latent wish and then comes out later. But it is not limited to childhood; because it also happens in other relationships that people wish each other dead – for example, the younger son, who is not the heir in his family, has the wish that his older brother, who is the heir, may die. He does not admit this to himself when he is conscious, but the dream brings it out. In particular, there are many such island provinces in the human soul in the sense that early-arising sexualism, which the theory of these people, stirs in the first tender childhood, is expressed in such a way that girls love their father and are jealous of their mother, and vice versa, that boys love their mother and are jealous of their father, and that children then wish the individual dead. But this is something that happens quite commonly; for it is to this “commonplace” that the Oedipus tragedy, for example, can be traced. And these people ask: Where does the harrowing nature of this Oedipus tragedy come from? Answer: Because a picture was once used to describe the fact that a son often loves his mother and seeks to kill his father. That is supposed to be the harrowing nature of the Oedipus tragedy. Dr. Unger was hinting at such things when he pointed out the peculiar way fairy tales and myths are interpreted by this school. I could cite several more, even worse examples, but I think this example is enough.

Is this “science”? This is pseudoscience! Inferior science! But it has a large audience today. But it is a source of confusing and misleading immature minds. Let's not be surprised if these immature minds then go around with confused thoughts.

I have allowed myself to cite a particular example of how sexuality creeps into pseudo-science. Of course, an infinite number of other examples could be cited to show how this pseudo-sexual science creeps into public discourse.

My friends! I once said two things to Mr. Boldt because I felt obliged to say them when he wanted to write not a slim volume like “Sexual Problems,” but four or five volumes. I said to him – it was before the little book was written: “Mr. Boldt, don't write that now! When you are ten, twelve, fifteen years older, you will regret ruining your life by writing such stuff in your youth.” On page 12 of the brochure it says:

That is why Dr. Steiner has consistently refrained from speaking since the summer of 1911. I must of course remain silent here about his private comments to me; I can only reveal that they were neither warm nor cold.

I said a second thing to Mr. Boldt on another occasion. I said to him: “You see, Mr. Boldt, to deal with this subject in particular is a dangerous matter, and really only someone who is really at home in the field of research that delves deeper into the secrets of existence, and who speaks about these things from this point of view, can do it; because then one speaks quite differently about these things. And it is the most dangerous subject one can touch upon, for the reason that when the thoughts are directed to this sphere they will always become darkened in a certain respect."

I am touching here on something that would have to be treated at length if it were to become quite clear, but which is a real result of spiritual science. We may dwell on many things about which we seek to gain clear thoughts: The moment thoughts turn to the sexual sphere, however pure the act, it is all too easy to lose control of one's thoughts. That is why those who knew more about the occult side of life veiled this area in symbolism – and in many symbols. And it seems to have been left to the crude materialism of our time to destroy the sacred symbols with clumsy hands, so as not to point out that there are sacred, high realms, and that the lowest of these realms, which is to be sought for us humans - the most particular case - is the realm of the sexual. It seems as if today's crude materialism, with its clumsy, foolish hands, was destined to start from this area and declare the high, sacred areas to be reinterpreted in terms of the sexual area, as you have just seen with Boldt. Things are bad in this area, but we should not be surprised if immature minds are confused by the way things are treated in a literature that is increasingly flooding over us – I have to keep saying it over and over again.

It would be good to call upon history for help here too, and I would like to refer to a book, although I would like to make it clear that I do not agree with some of the nonsense in it. This is a reference to the “Memories and Discussions” that Moritz Benedikt wrote in his book “From My Life”, which was first published in Vienna in 1906. Moritz Benedikt is a gentleman who has grown old and has experienced a lot in terms of the development of scientific life in recent decades; from this point of view, it is extremely interesting to read the book. I would like to quote a passage where Moritz Benedikt talks about his visit to Florence. This visit took place in the 70s of the nineteenth century, which is worth noting. He writes

In Florence, I naturally made personal acquaintances this time, and the most valuable, with whom I maintained contact during visits to Florence and elsewhere, were Mantegazza and Moritz Schiff. Mantegazza was and is a very imposing figure; he instinctively recalled imposing Italian model baritones for the role of Don Juan. He is a master of the art of living. Florence owes its magnificent anthropological and ethnographic museum to this brilliant anthropologist. Mantegazza, who is a witty scientific psychologist, also wrote novels, and the hero of one of them is tuberculosis. His book “Gli amori dei uomini” has become the most popular, having been translated into all languages. No publisher wanted to be named, and the motto “Honny soit qui mal y pense” was emblazoned on the title page.

At that time, no publisher wanted to be named; today it is different!

I reproached him once and told him that I was one of those Honny etc. Mantegazza's book is the most original, ingenious and learned among its peers. But this topic should not be treated in a popular way. Mantegazza apologized to me with the fact that his salary was 5,000 lire without any other academic income. He therefore had to publish a lot, and in such a way that it would bring him a considerable income.

Here you have one of the causes of the sources that confuse our immature minds.

The French forensic psychologists have often and insistently dealt with this topic in the past without causing a scandal, and the same applies to a book by Tarnowsky in St. Petersburg; these authors wrote only for specialist circles.

The literature on sexual perversions grew later, and only British scholars refused to compete, making no secret of their indignation against such authors. When the well-known book by Krafft-Ebing appeared, Hack-Tuke told me that the committee of the British Medico-Psychological Association wanted to propose that the Vienna colleague be deprived of his honorary membership.

In the 1870s, the committee of the British Medico-Psychological Association wanted to propose withdrawing Krafft-Ebing's honorary membership because of his book.

I talked them out of it. I said that Krafft-Ebing had certainly written the book in good faith; he could not have known how far its content would penetrate into young people and even into girls' schools, and I could spare the man the shame. Of course, when the effect became clear, he should not have allowed further editions to be published. Today, the pupils of “higher girls' schools” are more enlightened about these topics of sexual perversity than we were as young doctors, and often I feel like introducing corporal punishment for those “emancipated” teachers who promote such enlightenment.

This was written in 1906 by the truly important criminal anthropologist Moritz Benedikt: that young doctors were recently less enlightened in certain matters than female students at secondary schools for girls are now! Apart from everything else, it seems that it might be better if those who profess such things turn to secondary schools for girls, since they do not want to be a convent, a Salvation Army or a girls' boarding school . No, you see, not even the comparison with the “girls' boarding school” applies, because these are indeed something like higher girls' schools; because according to Moritz Benedikt, you could find things there. So it would be very difficult to get out of the contradictions, which you have to get into if you are put in the position of having to talk about these things.

It would be taking this topic far too far if I wanted to expand it even further in the way I would like to. I just wanted to show you, so to speak, that in such a case we are dealing with people whose minds have been made confused, and we should not be surprised. For there is a broad trend of pseudoscience, and a broad trend, made by scientific authorities – who they really are. For Mantegazza is also a scientific authority, and it is fair to say that Florence owes its Anthropological Institute to him. But that is precisely the sad thing, that today's world has brought it about that all such institutes are in the hands of people who can handle so little true scientific methodology. And we ask ourselves: Should we allow this practice to enter our circles? Or is it not precisely our task to seriously oppose such practice? I think that in relation to this question, no one could actually be in doubt! Anyone who looks through what exists as “sexual literature” today will unfortunately only find this problem discussed in the most pseudo-scientific sense. I often had to drive in the car these days; but I could see from the car “lectures on sexual problems” etc. advertised on the notice boards. Just look at a single notice board: That is the topic of sexuality today, which is popular, which is popular. You can't say that by discussing this topic you are doing something unpopular; oh no, you can rather make yourself “unpopular” if you avoid the topic.

What have I actually wanted to say with all such things? I wanted to say first of all that we have a great need in these matters to see everything in the clear light – to see in the clear light that people like Mr. Ernst Boldt and like Casimir Zawadzki, who was mentioned to them the day before yesterday, including – I don't want to exclude him either – Hans Freimark, are basically poor fellows, pity the poor fellows who also want to write something; and because they have learned too little, they choose what is easiest to write about today – firstly because it is popular and people don't pay attention to the mistakes, and secondly because it is a field in which you can fool people about anything. Just read the second part of our friend Levy's book, the part that refers to Freimark's sexual literature. Basically, one can have nothing but pity for all these people; they can only evoke the feeling: How sad it is what can happen to immature souls today! And if it were not absolutely necessary to point out clearly everywhere where the fruits of what I have characterized emerge – because otherwise the nonsense takes hold – one would remain silent for the sake of these poor seduced people , for the sake of these poor people who also want to write something because they have not learned a trade in life either, one would remain silent for the sake of these poor people - and silently pass over such stuff.

We cannot do that. It is our duty to spread light and truth about things. It is our duty to emphasize that we will never allow ourselves to be forced to talk about this or that - we will not allow ourselves to be forced by anything other than our conviction, which is based on the truth. And how much and in what way I will ever speak about these things, I will make dependent only on my conviction - not on what authorities or immature minds find contemporary.

I understand the compassion and the feeling that one can have for such people. Therefore, I am not surprised that I received the following letter this morning; because I already said yesterday: I consider a person like Mr. Boldt to be honest – like Sophie in The Purple, the one hero of whom she says: “At least he is honest; he” – I will not repeat the word – “characterizes himself clearly enough.” I do not think Mr. Boldt is dishonest; I even subjectively grant him every good will. But where will we end up if we do not shine the light of truth on these things? Do we think we would silently accept a statement in a brochure that “Dr. Steiner has to don all kinds of masks and hides the truth”? What a treasure trove of information for anyone who wants to write new brochures about us! Should we then encourage this? Oh, I believe there are truly souls who would have preferred it if all these things had not been spoken about; and we could have experienced it that there would be all kinds of articles and brochures out there again, and even more so with the expression: “You see, this is said by a man who, even as one of the most loyal followers of Dr. Steiner, publicly professes it! What more could you want?"

I, my dear friends, want more! I want what I always want: not to be revered on the basis of authority, but to be understood! And if I am characterized as Mr. Boldt characterized me in his pamphlet “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?”, then, if one continues to speak of worship, one must have the most blind worship of authority and the most blind submission to authority. I thank you very much for such a belief in authority; I do not want it! Because I do not want any belief in authority! Again an example of how people who act in this way in the name of non-authoritarian belief are in harmony with themselves. So I understand a letter like the one I received this morning, instructing me to read the following to the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society:

My dear fellow thinkers!

Since it is unfortunately not possible for me to attend the General Assembly, I would like to take the liberty of responding in writing to the brochure by Ernst Boldt, which has been discussed several times here in the last lodge evenings. I cannot fully share the position taken towards the author of this pamphlet, although I too am of the opinion that the way in which Boldt presents his case is boorish with regard to the leading ladies, and therefore naturally has to be offensive. Unfortunately, he has only robbed himself of the success of his pamphlet, which contains many good things.

But even if, as I said, the form is nothing short of commendable, it does not seem to me to be sufficient reason to expel Mr. Boldt from our society, as requested; and I think that Theosophists in particular should be able to give credit to a youthful fire spirit and hothead. In any case, they are not the most dangerous opponents (insofar as one can speak of opposition at all here) who openly and honestly express their opinions, and if one wanted to exclude such people immediately, the necessary consequence of this would be to foster dishonesty on the one hand and a lack of critical thinking on the other. And surely we cannot want that!? If Dr. Steiner himself repeatedly calls on his followers to be unsparing in their criticism, then he found this fully compatible with the principle of having trust in his teaching and leadership, and I therefore cannot find the accusation that the booklet contains an insult to Dr. Steiner justified. On the contrary! Even the most cursory glance at it must make everyone realize what a high opinion the author has of Dr. Steiner despite his criticism. I feel obliged to say that I know Mr. Boldt to be one of the most enthusiastic and loyal supporters of the Theosophical movement, and that he always speaks with the greatest reverence and warmth for Dr. Steiner in regard to all the enemies of our great cause. In the good faith that this expression of opinion will not be held against me, I am

Theosophical greetings
Your humble
Ferdinand Freiherr von Paungarten
Munich, January 18, 1914.

As I said, I can understand such a mood - for the reason that people are not inclined everywhere to look into what is important. We must have the deepest, most earnest compassion for all the poor people who are seduced by what I have characterized; and finally: we should always dive down into the depths of existence. Here I would like to ask a question that may perhaps touch on the grotesque: is it really so very important whether people are ultimately outside or inside the Anthroposophical Society? Is it really so essential that we always reflect on the negative sides of these things? Perhaps we would achieve something if we took a more positive view of things!

My dear friends, the mistakes that are made are usually in completely different areas than where you look for them. But let us gradually learn to look for the mistakes in the right area. That is why we have to consciously make mistakes in our task. People may come into our circles for two reasons. One reason will be that these people are able representatives of our cause, and that they in turn want to stand up for this cause before the world. That is all well and good; we need not say any more about this reason. But on the other hand, there is another reason: people come to us who, above all, want to get from us what one can get in a spiritual movement today. We must give it to them; we must give it to them under all conditions, because we are obliged to do so. And even if some of them cause us trouble afterwards, we must give it to them; we cannot simply exclude everyone. Nevertheless, we never make the main mistakes when we exclude people, but we do make them – and we have to make them – when we admit people by accepting this or that person. Once people are inside, it doesn't matter much whether we let them in or put them out. That is not the point. What is important is that we present our case in a positive way. It is important that when someone on the outside, of the kind who fabricates their brochures against me, writes: “He is a hypocrite who only says what the 75 percent of members want to hear,” that the members point out the factual reasons why such a book has not been recommended in our Anthroposophical Society. Our members should point out that we know what we are doing and that we also know how to behave in the right way towards “fashionable science” because we know that it is a pseudo-science, an inferior science, that we do not want to propagate. Let us separate the matter from the personalities altogether! Let us try to do this. If we act in this way in public, when the public approaches us, as has been attempted, and if we derive all the writing from the whole structure of an inferior pseudo-science, if we give these things the necessary dismissal because of their unscientific nature - out of a higher scientific nature - when they knock at our doors, then we have fulfilled our duty, our impersonal positive duty. Let us change the negative approach in this case to a positive one.

Vollrath's case was completely different from Boldt's. And I would regret it if this difference had not been discovered. An honest, stubborn man with a bit of megalomania, seduced by what I have tried to characterize, comes to us in Mr. Boldt - seduced by what we must fight against in the most severe way. Not only today - we must always stand up with our whole personality when it comes to taking action against these things. But we need to know how we stand as an Anthroposophical Society! To do this, we need to know a number of things. For example, we need to know: How does the Society relate to the fact that the two Munich ladies who form the board of the first Munich branch initially did not display the announcement of Boldv's book and did not promote the book? That is how the matter began. We know from the letters that our esteemed and dear director Sellin was taken ill for speaking his mind to the young man. That is the matter. And we heard yesterday from director Sellin that he has also told the young man his opinion about the book before. Yesterday we heard from this place that Mr. Boldt's “Philosophical Theosophical Publishing House” was asked to take this book on commission. Miss Mücke rejected this with indignation. I also believe that Miss Mücke objected to the fact that someone was asking her to take this book on commission.

I will pick out these four examples; but there is one thing we need to know about these four things if we want to achieve something positive in this area. We can ignore Mr. Boldt, as we have ignored him so far. But we do need to know whether what is happening is happening in the interests of our members. We need to know where the dividing line lies between the 75 percent and the 25 percent who are clenching their fists in their pockets. Clarity and truth must prevail!

It is not without reason that I have asked not to be something like I was before, when I was limited as “General Secretary” of the section in terms of submitting proposals and the like because I was General Secretary. You have indeed elected me as the chairman of this meeting; but this only applies to this meeting; it is a purely administrative office that has nothing to do with the Society as such. In relation to the Society, I am a private individual, and I am therefore allowed to make proposals now.

I would now like to make a proposal that puts us on positive ground with regard to this point, which we have talked about so much. I cannot go into all the details of the many excellent things that people have said here; I have only set four “examples”. And I believe we must now ask ourselves the question: How should the two Munich ladies have acted when in 1911 the pretender approached them to propagate the cause and to lay out the announcement? — They should have acted as they did! And our conversation will surely have shown that they acted correctly. But one must know how society thinks about it.

Our friend, Director Sellin, did the right thing when he went to the man and made him aware of his immaturity. I am convinced that Mr. Sellin has the deepest compassion for the deeply honest Mr. Boldt.

And Miss Mücke certainly has nothing against Mr. Boldt's personality; she is probably indifferent to it. She has expressed her indignant rejection of the brochure for factual reasons.

But all these are manifestations of the will of individuals. It is important that we clarify our position on such matters, that we put the positive above all else in relation to this matter. Therefore, I would like to ask you to consider the following proposal:

The General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, which has been meeting in Berlin since January 18, 1914, declares to the Executive Council of the Working Group I in Munich that it is in full agreement with the latter's attitude towards the 1911 essay “Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural Science and Spiritual Science” by Ernst Boldt 1911 – that after the negotiations that have been conducted on widespread pseudo-science of the present day, it has come to the conclusion that it is in the interest of truly spiritual cultural interest to protect such a position of the two board members by the fullest confidence of the General Assembly. This trust and the recognition for the rejection at the time is expressed to the board of the Working Group I in Munich, as is the same to Director Sellin for his fatherly advice, which he gave to those who were going astray scientifically in the past and are doing so again - The assembly expresses its agreement with the rejection of the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” by Miss Mücke, the director of the “Philosophical Theosophical Publishing House”.

My dear friends, those of you who will adopt this resolution will have expressed in a positive way how you feel about these matters – and need do no more than continue what has been done so far in relation to this matter.

The “resolution” will be read again in the above version.

Dr. Steiner: If we adopt this resolution, then we will know how the matter is viewed, and we will also have addressed the right people. Because it will gradually become more and more necessary that those who have to act in our society can also know whether or not they have the confidence of the members; otherwise it will always be repeated that one - well, that one “elects” the people again, but everywhere this or that is “rumored” here and there. It does no harm if we occasionally express to those who have offices to administer that we agree with them. It does no harm if we occasionally openly confess it to the world. I would not want to fail to explicitly express to Mr. Boldt that I am personally extremely sorry that the whole thing happened to him, and that I can put myself in the shoes of someone who has read too much confusing stuff and then comes to such arguments as the good man has done.

Since no one wishes to speak about this resolution, we will vote on it: It is adopted without any opposing votes.

Dr. Steiner: And this time it is necessary that I also ask those who voted neither for nor against, who thus sat with clenched fists in their pockets both times, who thus belong to the 25 percent of Mr. Boldt's group, to raise their hands.

No one raises their hand.

Dr. Steiner: I must therefore note that no one from the 25 percent has appeared here. Of course, what we have decided here regarding the Boldt proposal in no way prejudices the decision of the Munich Working Group I. The group is autonomous and can do as it wishes. We have only decided for the “Anthroposophical Society”.

Ms. Stinde: The Munich group has not yet made any decision. It is true that a motion for expulsion was tabled, but I suggested waiting until after the General Assembly and then putting the motion forward again because many members had not even read the brochure. I asked that the brochure be made available so that everyone could inform themselves and take a stand when we returned. Mr. Boldt has not yet been expelled, and it is up to the Munich group to decide whether or not they want to expel him. I said at the time that we would quietly accept the insults that Mr. Boldt had poured out on the board in his brochure, that he could write many more such writings, and that the members probably think the same way and therefore would not expel him yet. The reason why expulsion was requested was the gross insults against Dr. Steiner, and on this point we do not yet know what will happen. - I would also like to thank you for the trust that has been expressed to us. But I have to say: even if you had not approved us - we could not have acted differently than we did.

Mrs. Peelen: In his last document, Mr. Boldt pointed out that the Koblenz Lodge had recommended its members to buy his book. This is only half the truth; and because it could be construed as an indictment of the Munich ladies' actions, I feel compelled to say a few words on the matter.

Mr. Boldt's father had been a member of the Koblenz lodge for years. He honored us, my husband and me, with his trust and told us a lot about his—we may say—unfortunate son, who also caused him serious concern in terms of his health. So we had to bear with him and also learned from him that his son was working on a larger work. He also read us letters from him in which the son wrote in detail about his work and also mentioned what we had just heard: that Dr. Steiner himself had told him to wait another ten years before publishing, because he was still too young. In short, we followed the creation of the book with our father and shared in his suffering. Now the book was published. Naturally, our father brought it to us beaming with joy, so to speak, and immediately gave it to the lodge as a gift. We had not read the book, knew nothing of its content, nor did we know that Mr. Boldt – as he used the expression – had been “boycotted”, so to speak. But when our father put the book on the table, I felt it necessary to say a few words about it. Mr. Boldt probably took this the wrong way and repeated it as a half-truth, as if we had recommended his book to the members. But none of our members have read the book; it is still untouched in the library to this day.

Director Sellin: I would like to take the liberty of following up on Ms Stinde's comments: I did not simply make a general request for expulsion, but rather I gave Mr. Boldt the opportunity to withdraw his insults. Exclusion was made dependent on this. In the preface to his brochure, Mr. Boldt then said that if this writing did not receive the proper recognition, he would incorporate it into a larger work. That is a threat. Therefore, a somewhat forceful approach had to be taken. This took the form of him having to take back what he had said. Dr. Steiner is quite right when he says that I personally have nothing against Mr. Boldt. Mr. Boldt is ill and suffers from lung disease; I have the warmest sympathy for him. And when he suffered so severely this summer, I often went to him and helped him with my modest healing powers. He also said that I had brought him some relief. And during the conversation in question, I did not speak in a frivolous manner, but I calmly told him what he had done wrong. I also said to him, because he constantly quotes Nietzsche: “Leave us alone with your quotations. It sounds as if Nietzsche were the supreme theosophist for us, to whom we have to look up!” I told him many bitter things, for example: “If I had received such a manuscript earlier in my position as editor, it would have gone straight into the wastepaper basket!” But I told him this in a very calm manner. Now that he has heard this judgment, he may now reflect. He will gradually realize that he will not find any support in our society with his fantasies about sexual problems.

Dr. Steiner: It is clear that in this case we really have to stand on the ground that is appropriate for a spiritual scientific movement. I did not say in vain that Mr. Boldt is no different today than he has always been since he has been with us, that he will not be a different person when he is inside or outside - just as Zawadzki was exactly the same when he was still in the Society; he was no different than he is now that he is outside. Of course, he writes differently now than he would write if he were in society; but that doesn't matter, he is not a different person. But we should pay a little attention to the nature of the human soul; that is what matters. And if you consider that over the years a great deal has been done to help Mr. Boldt, to give him advice in a wide variety of directions, so that if the young man waited ten years and learned in those ten years what he had not yet learned while writing his book, then he could really believe that he would achieve something. I really believed at the time that after ten years he would regret – I did not say that lightly – having written such a thing, because he would have learned something.

When you consider this, why should we today have to exclude from society someone who behaves in this way? This case is quite different from those in which we have resorted to something else in the past. So I believe that we should refrain from excluding Mr. Boldt. And if in the future he attaches importance to participating with the girls' boarding schools, Salvation Army and convents in what he calls “the fruits of spiritual science,” I believe that we will enable him to do so with the same love as we have done so far. But if he comes at us again with his writing in the future, we will be able to draw some conclusions from these negotiations after what we have experienced.

Mr. Bauer reads the following resolution:

The Second General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society rejects with indignation the way in which Mr. Boldt has spoken about Dr. Steiner in his brochure “Theosophy or Anti-Theosophy?” as a serious insult to both Dr. Steiner and the Society.

Mr. Bauer: If trust has already been expressed to those who have worked positively, then something positive should also be expressed on our part – which could perhaps be poured into other forms – about how we stand in relation to Dr. Steiner regarding the insults heaped upon him in this brochure through the quotations and the whole way of presenting them. So the intention of this resolution was to achieve a kind of rallying cry, to show how we stand before and after - and even more so after - with complete trust and loyalty to the teacher of our movement.

Dr. Steiner: I think we need to have variety in our negotiations, and I do not think it is appropriate to take up all the time with one part. Therefore, we now want to insert something else and postpone the business negotiations until tomorrow morning.

The conclusion of the protocol will follow in the next issue of the messages.

Mr. Bauer: I have to declare that the resolution that our last meeting decided on has been withdrawn and that a new resolution is being introduced. Before we move on to this, it will be necessary to read out a letter that was submitted to the board:

The motion that Mr. Bauer brought to the meeting regarding his resolution arose from the quite correct feeling that the vote of confidence put forward by his opposite number needed to be supplemented. But the term 'indignation' no longer seems appropriate to me from the perspective from which we have been willing to look at the matter in accordance with Dr. Steiner's last remarks. Indignation is too much the expression of personal feelings colored by affect, but we wanted to separate the personal from the factual.

The following is an attempt to formulate what could be communicated to Mr. Boldt as the result of the negotiations, without, however, anticipating the motion for a circular letter. The first ordinary General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society considers it its duty to express its strongest disapproval to Mr. Ernst Boldt for the way he has proceeded and behaved, as documented in the brochure “Theosophy or Anti- ?» and the associated correspondence, because it sees in it a profound misjudgment and denial of the spirit that it is the Society's responsibility to cultivate and bring to living expression. If it is content with this protest and refrains from expelling Mr. Boldt from its ranks, it is because it is convinced of his good and Christian intentions, recognizes him as being under the disastrous influence of a rejects as dishonest and pseudoscientific and does not want to deprive him of the opportunity to internalize the spiritual knowledge given to him as long as he still desires it. But it leaves it to him to take a stand on the question of his remaining in society in real self-determination, as this society must expect from its members that they are willing in sincere striving to by the spirit of holy truthfulness and purity, which has not yet been expressed in the aforementioned brochure or in the book that precedes it (Sexual Problems in the Light of Natural and Spiritual Science).

Signed Mathilde Redenbacher

The new resolution that has been tabled is perhaps best read at the same time as this letter. It reads:

The second General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society further declares [gap in the transcript]

This “further” is intended to immediately follow the expression of confidence

[Gap in the transcript] the leadership of Dr. Steiner.

Dr. Steiner: If I may say something about this, I would like to say: Since it cannot be strictly said that our “announcements” are not read here or there, it seems to me to be questionable to resolution here – for the reason that it would really be better if it did not express what can so easily be misunderstood when the words 'leadership' and 'management' are used in a resolution. Why can't it be expressed in a way that takes into account the “agreement” and the conviction that one is in the right in representing these things? It is not necessary for a society to choose words that can be misunderstood at every turn in today's world, as it is. Of course, they are not bad words as such. But in our time, when everyone emphasizes their absolute freedom from all authority, loudly and with great emphasis, in order to conceal the fact that they are in fact pursuing the very opposite, it is not wise to repeatedly provide points of attack on all sides.

Mr. von Rainer: May I just say a word that may follow from what I said the day before yesterday. I would just like to preface it with something else. I heard that out in the world, where many things are going on, people have also come to the conclusion that resolutions are not that effective. So they passed a resolution somewhere that they no longer want to pass resolutions. Perhaps we should take this as a model, although we should not otherwise take what happens outside as a model. And let's go one step further: instead of passing a resolution, maybe we should make the decision: let us write what Dr. Steiner said yesterday into our hearts, that we want to understand him!

Dr. Unger: Allow me to respond in just a few words by saying that what Mr. von Rainer said would also affect the already adopted resolution if one did not want to adopt a resolution at all. On the other hand, it should perhaps be borne in mind that it is necessary to record the sentiments of the present General Assembly in a protocol-like manner, so that the minutes in the “Mitteilungen” can be used to show even in later years that the General Assembly knew what it wanted at a crucial moment.

Miss von Sivers proposes that the decision on this resolution be postponed, because it is not possible to vote on it so suddenly; instead, time must be allowed to consider the wording of the resolution.

The proposal to postpone the resolution is adopted.

Dr. Steiner: A proposal signed by Dr. Emil Grosheintz [and Joseph Englert] has been submitted:

Dornach, Christmas 1913

To the Second General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society. The undersigned, firmly convinced that Dr. Steiner's almost constant presence in Dornach is absolutely necessary in the near future if the completion of the Johannesbau is not to be dangerously delayed and its execution damaged, and the most vital interests of our movement are to be put at risk, we hereby make the following request: The Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society should, as far as possible, request all branches to which Dr. Steiner has promised to give lectures to drop their respective claims.

Dr. Emil Grosheintz
Chairman of the Johannesbauverein and
Leader of the construction conferences in Dornach
Joseph Englert
Engineer for the building work on the Johannesbau

Mr. von Polzer-Hoditz: I believe that we cannot actually make any direct “demands” regarding lectures by Dr. Steiner, and that on the other hand we cannot do without them for people

we do not know whether they will come. I think that everyone will be very happy when Dr. Steiner comes to a city and gives lectures - despite the difficulties of the work on the Johannesbau. And I think that we will then also find it right. On the other hand, if Dr. Steiner is wanted somewhere where he is accustomed to going and then refrains from going, I believe that the Anthroposophists there will also be glad if he refrains, because then it will also be the right thing to do. Therefore, we can leave it to Dr. Steiner to decide whether he wants to go somewhere or not, and therefore I propose that we close the debate on this proposal and move on to the next item on the agenda.

Dr. Steiner: Allow me to say a few words about this. In view of the fact that the Johannesbau is to be completed this winter, or by the end of the first half of 1914, if at all possible, we must always expect to face two difficulties at present. One is to advance the Johannesbau as quickly as possible. These are difficulties that have been emphasized often enough. On the other hand, we are faced with the difficulty that the further our spiritual movement progresses, the more the opposing voices emerge from the most diverse angles. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to remain silent in public, especially in the near future. I believe that you will all feel that it would not be good to remain silent in public now. It must be said that we must refrain from giving up the lectures already planned for the public and the follow-up events in the individual locations. What is planned for the public must be accomplished this winter. We cannot foresee this under the current conditions. You will also understand that new engagements for lectures cannot be taken on for the time being; in particular, you will understand that specific dates cannot be set for a long time. If someone comes to us today with requests for lectures or the like, we unfortunately have to say: perhaps it will be possible to attend here or there, but the timing cannot be fixed because it cannot be predicted when the most urgent work will be in Dornach and we will have to be there. It could be, therefore, if the members could quickly make arrangements with regard to these or those inconveniences, that something could still come of it for the future. We must therefore take the given conditions into account. But what could really be improved to a high degree is that, for the next few months, understanding could be shown wherever I go with regard to private meetings. The Johannesbau is truly not something that can be dealt with just by standing here or there on this or that corner. Things have to be done. And it takes a lot of time to get them done. In this respect, it is really quite difficult to reach an understanding. Because of course you can understand when someone says to you, “I don't have the opportunity to see anyone this afternoon,” and when the person in question then says, “But I only have to take two minutes of your time,” not considering that these two minutes could be just as much of a burden as an hour because you are completely torn away from an ongoing task.

I will be available if something is necessary, but a little understanding could be shown in this regard. This cannot be achieved by a resolution, not by a motion, but only if the members show understanding for the matter, and this understanding spreads a little. A great deal can be done, especially in one direction, for example when our members, who can do a great deal, approach others with helpfulness when someone needs human help. And if many others also develop understanding, a great deal will be achieved in this direction. The relief of private conversations, private discussions and the insight in this regard is desirable. Perhaps this cannot be achieved by submitting an application; but a great deal can be achieved through understanding and cooperation.

We all have a certain responsibility towards the Johannesbau. Please bear in mind that our members have provided the funds for the construction with great love and devotion. It must not be built carelessly. It must truly become what we envision. But this is only possible if we do not divert too much manpower from the cause.

I think it was necessary to add this before we decide on anything.

The motion “Adjournment” is adopted without any opposing votes.

Fräulein Scholl: I would like to make the following request today with regard to the decision made yesterday that the adopted resolution should also be printed in a special place in the “Mitteilungen” on a perforated slip of paper with the request that members not present here should still give their special consent as to whether they agree with it. I believe that it is really not necessary to carry this out in order to convince the two ladies of the Munich Lodge of the trust they have in you. There would be a lot of correspondence attached to it, and based on past experience, one can conclude that there would be a lot of unpleasant correspondence, but it would lead nowhere. Then there is also the fact that the whole thing would be yet another advertisement for Mr. Boldt's brochure. Therefore, I believe that it would be more correct not to implement this decision and I propose that it be rescinded.

Speaking in favor of the adoption of this proposal: Director Sellin, Mr. Gantenbein, Baron Walleen, Ms. von Sivers and Countess Kalckreuth. The proposal is adopted; thus the decision that was taken at the request of Ms. Waller is annulled.

Ms. Wolfram: I would like to make a motion. We have all felt to a sufficient extent how we have all been under the tyranny of a young, immature person for the past few days. Now, I think that something should be decided that can serve as a protective barrier to prevent such things from happening again at the next general assembly: I have had the opportunity to talk to all the members of the board about this, which I will now propose.

If any of our members wishes to make a proposal to the General Assembly, that member would first have to submit this proposal four weeks before the General Assembly, since we know approximately when the General Assembly will take place, so that there is time to consider how to respond to this proposal. If this motion had perhaps been submitted to Boldt four weeks before the General Assembly, Dr. Steiner would have chosen a different topic for his lecture, as you yourselves have heard.

I then request that any member who wishes to submit a motion must ensure that they find seven members and three members of the board who declare their solidarity with this motion. In this way, it could no longer be said that it was a passing opinion, but rather that a very specific group was behind the responsibility for such a proposal. One should not object that it would be a difficult measure to demand.

If the proposal is really worth bringing before our forum, then seven members and three board members will be found without much difficulty who are inclined to support it. If it is not possible to find seven colleagues and three board members among the 3600 members of the Anthroposophical Society despite diligent efforts, then the matter is not worth bringing before our forum. And one should not object that someone who lives in isolation does not know enough members. We have the Reichspost, after all. A proposal to be discussed here must be one that does not just flash through someone's mind, but is the result of conscientious and thorough consideration. And if the proposal is valuable enough, everyone will have the opportunity to find like-minded members with the help of a few stamps and some paper. This requirement for a group of ten members to support a motion will serve as a kind of safeguard against frivolous motions. It might be easy to find seven members to support a less than recommendable proposal to the General Assembly; for example, there could be seven members who have only recently joined the movement and are therefore not yet well informed about the significance of the movement. Therefore, it is good if three members of the board can be found who, as older members, have had the opportunity to become clear about the goals of the movement.

If you consider all this, you will not be able to say that too much is being asked. An equivalent must be created for the work and energy expended in examining a proposal; this equivalent must be that the proposal is worth the time and energy we spend on it. So the proposal should read:

Anyone who wishes to submit something to the General Assembly must have the signatures of seven members and three members of the board attached to their proposal, regardless of whether these three members of the board belong to one or different lodges. In addition, the proposal must be submitted in good time, four weeks – or at least three weeks – before the General Assembly.

And then I would like to propose something else. Do we still have to “propose” it, or are we not already aware of its necessity as a result of all the painful hours we have been through? If I have to formulate it as a proposal, it would read: I propose that the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society be joyfully granted the right to throw motions that are unsuitable into the wastepaper basket at the council meeting preceding the general meeting. Nothing should be kept secret. Rather, if you give us the right to the wastepaper basket, a summary would be presented to you on the day of the General Assembly that – I hope you will assume – has been prepared in the most lawful manner. This would properly inform you of the quintessence of the proposal and why we threw it in the wastepaper basket, and not the slightest thing would be kept secret. I think one would have to concede that to an executive committee that one has voluntarily elected.

Mrs. von Ulrich: I am of the opinion that the first motion is difficult in that a motion can contain something very important that is not yet known, and then the person making the motion can be a person who does not have the opportunity to find so many people to sign the matter. The four-week deadline is probably necessary, because ill-considered proposals need time to mature. I am in favor of these proposals, although I believe that the second proposal would cancel the first.

Ms. Wolfram: It seems to me that the latter is not the case, because a lot of work would be saved if motion I is adopted. Perhaps the following could be added to the wording: If someone does not have the option of finding ten people to support them, they should contact the board as a whole so that they can take on the motion. I am very happy to do this, for example.

Mr. No[vJak: This extensive motion concerns various matters, first of all the following: Would it then even be possible to submit a written motion three weeks in advance? Or would it still be possible to submit motions arising from the proceedings during the General Assembly? But there is something else I would like to mention. I feel that the time we spent dealing with this first topic was not entirely wasted. The infinitely valuable comments of various personalities have clarified things that are of great value for our work as a whole. We can even say that a gift has been given to us!

If we judge the work only by what large groups do, then many questions fall away. But where groups are just forming, certain teething troubles keep cropping up. Everything that is certain to correspond to the present time is emerging today in an alarming way. Not only from a side that calls itself “scientific”, but also from a side that calls itself “artistic”, what we have just discussed and rejected is being brought into our work; so that those who faithfully stand by and represent the views we want have the most incredible difficulties.

When what is discussed here appears in the “Mitteilungen” – which has and must have an infinite value for the beginning of work – the Society has documented what we are working on and need to work on; and we will then easily be able to reject something that may come to us with the best of intentions. So what we have achieved and spent time on has really been well spent. And if any motion in the future is as important as this one, and we receive an equally generous gift in return for negotiating in this way, then this will also have a positive impact on our work. If there are any small, trivial motions, the general assembly will deal with them in no time. I am not opposed in principle to the extended board being granted the right to deal with certain proposals within its own sphere of influence and then to submit them in the summary with the resolution. On the contrary, that would be one way of solving it. But I cannot agree with only seeing something negative and obstructive in such proposals as they have been put forward; because everything that appears to be negative is always transformed into something positive by the purpose of our work and by the way in which this work is guided by our teacher.

Mr. Kühne: I would like to go back to what the previous speaker said and note: If Mrs. Wolfram's motion is adopted in this way, then motions from the General Assembly itself would be excluded. But it should be possible for motions from the General Assembly itself to be admissible; otherwise, no more motions could be made during the proceedings.

Fräulein von Sivers: We have certainly had the opportunity to learn many new things, but the tiresome Vollrath affair is still fresh in our minds. Perhaps the whole thing is not quite as strict as it has been proposed. Because if someone cannot name seven members and get them to support their proposal, then the proposal really will not be that important. This year's proposal was truly a source of new wisdom for us; but we have seen other proposals that were just an attempt to drive a wedge into our society. We know that since the Munich Congress in 1907, where we appeared independently for the first time, it was decided to drive a wedge into our work! And since then, everyone who wanted to assert themselves out of morbid vanity and self-love has been supported. We are now in the seventh year of our independent work; perhaps it is the receding waves that are making themselves felt. But we have had to experience the direct intention to disrupt our work and the existence of proposals that arose from this intention. It could be a protection for the past seven years and also for future work if the proposals are accepted.

Perhaps one board member is enough instead of three, or perhaps another mode can be found to address the proposals, because certain proposals in the past years only wasted time.

The negotiations will be suspended at two o'clock; they will be continued on Thursday, January 22, at ten o'clock in the morning.

Dr. Steiner: If things had not gone as they went, the course of the general assembly would have been quite different; we would have come to completely different things earlier. But it is quite good for our members to have to get an idea of how it is done, if you absolutely have to make the affairs of the company your own, and how it is still possible - if you don't encourage the customs of the outside world to be carried into our circles, just as you can carry pseudo-science into them. You may know that if you want to stop any proper work in parliaments, you have the system of “urgency motions”. If you use this system appropriately, you can paralyze all other work. There is no other way: since we have stopped at a certain point, I must also bring to your attention everything that has happened during the proceedings. If we had dealt with these matters earlier, they would have arrived too late.

So, before I get back to the agenda, I have to read out some letters that have arrived:

[Gap in the handwriting]

Miss von Sivers: As a representative of Mr. Horst von Henning, who is the one forming the attacked party here, I would like to say a few words in his defense. Because it is quite clear from Mr. von Henning's letters that these are not contradictions, but rather that he, after perhaps standing for a while under other mind suggestions, has now found the courage to say: A few years ago he thought differently than he does now. - So first of all, he thinks differently about the meaning of the matter. But now it is also clear, after he wrote a letter to Mr. Boldt in the first instance – which is included in the brochure – that Mr. Boldt interpreted the words more in his favor than Mr. von Henning intended. The same is also evident from the letter of Mr. Deinhard, who says that it was only a very fleeting remark, which, made fleeting, hardly contained any recognition. Then it further emerges from the letters of Mr. von Henning that he attaches importance to the fact that he absolutely condemns exerting even the slightest pressure in this direction on the resolution of our great teacher.

But Mr. Boldt wants that because we have not taken sufficient interest in his cause. Mr. von Henning objects above all to coercion and then says that he has never given the importance that Mr. Boldt ascribes to his own writing.

Mrs. Wolfram: I would first like to draw attention to something that is clear from Mr. Boldt's letter that was just read out. In this general assembly, no one had a different opinion than we did, as was made visible by the show of hands. How is it possible that Mr. Boldt suddenly knows that it is necessary to send another letter? One might ask: how did Mr. Boldt have contact with this general assembly? This raises the question: He finds it necessary to do a little more than before – through what contact from here to Munich did he get this impulse? You will see from this that it might be a good idea after all if my request were approved, so that from the outset we would be dealing with a request from a group, not from a single individual.

I would like to respond to what Mr. Novak said. It certainly cannot be denied that we have been able to learn an infinite amount through the Boldt case in this General Assembly. But perhaps we could have learned in a different way if Dr. Steiner had not been forced to talk about this.

Then I would like to point out that my motion was not so much about eliminating motions that are factually unfounded, but rather about eliminating motions that are presented to us in an utterly unqualifiable way. I would like to emphasize that it goes without saying that the point is not to reject any problem as “impossible to address”. If Mr. Boldt had presented the motion to us in a dignified, respectful, and proper manner: “I would like to know how the General Assembly or Dr. Steiner stands on the sexual problem,” I would have signed this motion with pleasure. Any motion can be signed if it is presented in a proper, objective manner.

Once again, I would like to ask you to consider, if possible, how much time we have lost despite everything we have learned, through discussions that have arisen not from the problem itself but from the improper way in which the motion was put forward, the impertinence of which is unparalleled.

Dr. Steiner: I would like to note that the letters I have read could just as easily belong to the Wolfram motion, which we are supposed to deal with now. In response to what has just been said, I would like to note that the words spoken by Ms. Wolfram are deeply rooted: that with us, everything can be discussed if it is in the spirit of our cause. These words are not only deeply rooted, but you should also have the example and, if time permits, hear a lecture from our friend Dr. Max Hermann on this very problem. You will see from this that a man who has studied it scientifically can give a presentation and will be heard here. But you will also notice the difference between what can be said to you here and what wants to penetrate our circles as pseudo-science.

Of course, I would have made a different comment regarding what Mrs. Wolfram said first if I had had the impression that it was clear from Mr. Boldt's letters that he had been informed of the course of the proceedings. But I do not have this opinion. Mr. Boldt comes voluntarily – and may consider his matter important enough that everything that is sent in writing – without him knowing the proceedings of the General Assembly – is taken seriously by his personality and sent to the General Assembly. It is not stated in the letter that he has heard from the General Assembly. He sends it of his own free will; and you could experience that he would send much more if it did not give the impression that it was based on the indiscretion of members sitting here. Otherwise it would have to be treated quite differently according to the rules of procedure.

Ms. Wolfram: The Theosophical Society's headquarters in Adyar has decided to organize lectures in the adjoining room on the days of our general assembly. Since the members gather in the foyer during the breaks between the meetings, it is quite possible that the result of the negotiations could have been overheard in their conversations and passed on to Mr. Boldt.

Dr. Steiner: A written document regarding the Wolfram motion has been submitted:

Modification of the Wolfram motion:
Several members have asked me [gap in the transcript]

Fräulein von Sivers: It still seems to be misunderstood that it is not the executive committee that is sitting here that is meant, but the executive committee of some lodge. We have 107 branches, and it concerns the executive committees of these 107 branches. From several statements I have noticed that this has not been understood at all yet. So we are talking about the boards of all the branches scattered throughout Europe and now even all over the world; we can turn to all of them.

Dr. Steiner: I would be most happy if not we – the board – would plead for it, but [he] could leave it to the free decision of the plenum.

Mr. Hamburger: I do not support the Wolfram motion because the matter is being presented in a way that does not correspond to how Dr. Steiner wants to lead us. Since we are dealing with spiritual matters, we should prescribe more and more and less and less paper for our affairs. This will shake us out of our lethargy.

Ms. Wolfram: I would like to note objectively that, if we look closely, Mr. Ulrich's proposal is much more rigorous than my own. In Mr. Ulrich's proposal, you are dependent on the board of the working group. You have the greatest possible freedom if you accept my proposal to look for whomever you want. Of course, I can only agree with what Mr. Hamburger said, insofar as he presents us with the ideal of anthroposophists as they should be. Unfortunately, however, this ideal has not yet been realized! And we have to deal not with the desired ideal anthroposophist, but with the Anthroposophical Society as it is now, which includes Mr. Boldt and, as he says, 25 percent of his like-minded members. To prevent what Mr. Hamburger thinks from happening, we must now vigorously create conditions that make a “Case Boldt Number II” impossible.

Director Sellin: Since the executive council has just expressed the wish that resolutions be passed by the plenary assembly, I would like to propose that we fully endorse Wolfram's motion and would like to have this motion adopted as my own.

Mr. Schuler: When the “Bund” was founded and then the “Anthroposophical Society”, the ideal was expressed that we would manage without statutes if possible. When the Anthroposophical Society was founded, some statutes were then drawn up. Both must be seen as a great step forward. But we should not go on to set up points, provisions and statutes in the further course; because we know very well from ordinary life that – to put it somewhat drastically, to be understood – the laws are only there to be circumvented. The more laws, statutes and paragraphs there are, the more they are circumvented. Who among us has said that we do not take it for granted that the board is entitled, indeed obliged, to examine all proposals and present them with the opinion it deems appropriate? Who among the members who come to the general assembly can be prepared to think on their feet so quickly when something is proposed to them? Or who would not be grateful if the board, in which they previously had confidence, pointed out this or that? I therefore believe it is right, in a general sense and in the sense of the meeting, that the board can do this on its own initiative. So what should we decide, when we think about it, other than to say: “The board can do that, that is its duty! – So we take the matter on board.” That is what every parliamentary board does: it first discusses the proposals that have been received and presents them with its [gap in the transcript]. Then the general assembly can still do whatever it wants. For example, yesterday we were so quick to dismiss a motion on the agenda: we could perhaps say more about the way Dr. Steiner could be discharged than we are now supposed to say about the Wolfram motion. The motions are only there to be misunderstood. They are misunderstood, no matter how well they are meant. And if a motion or resolution now comes up that still mentions the Boldt case, then we should also move on to the agenda. - I move to move on to the agenda!

We naturally have the confidence; it is written in our hearts – so I also support the words of Mr. von Rainer. Regarding what has been said about the resolution... well, we sometimes have to adopt a resolution; but the one that has been adopted should suffice, and all further ones should be dropped.

[Rudolf Steiner:] Before we discuss the “transition to the agenda”, [Mr. Kühne] is still noted down as a speaker.

Mr. Kühne: As I did yesterday, I would like to point out some difficulties that would arise from accepting the Wolfram motion. Motions must be submitted three to four weeks before the Annual General Meeting. Later motions, which might be recognized as “urgent” at the Annual General Meeting, could not be discussed.

The board, which meets shortly before the general assembly, could not put forward any motions to the general assembly on its own initiative because they were not known three weeks in advance. At the general assembly itself, someone who wants to impose themselves on the assembly could, for example, bring up something in the discussion that they might have thought the board would not let approach the general assembly as a motion to be dealt with at the general assembly. No proposals could be made regarding the proposals that would be discussed at the General Assembly. Proposals from the floor to the General Assembly would be inadmissible. This is how management and procedural difficulties arise.

Dr. Steiner: I have to address something about the rules of procedure. There are now two motions from Ms. Wolfram and a motion to “move to the agenda” from Mr. Schuler. If a motion is legally submitted, as in the case of Ms. Wolfram's motion, you cannot move on to the motion to the agenda; further discussion must be given to it. I must now open the discussion on the motion to move on to the agenda, which means that in this case no further speakers should be signed up. Whether or not this is desirable, I would ask you to consider voting on a motion without being completely clear about it, because not only the motion itself is on the table, but also a modification of it. We will then have to vote on each individual proposal; otherwise the General Assembly would not be properly conducted; it would be legally contestable, and anyone could declare it invalid.

Mr. Arenson: As much as we all want to avoid unnecessarily prolonging the proceedings, I think it is too important an issue for us not to discuss it. Even if we talk it over, we can avoid lengths; but to break off briefly does not seem right to me. There is too much at stake for the future in the form in which motions can be tabled for us to be tempted to rush through it.

Mr. von Rainer: It may perhaps help to clarify this matter if I mention something. I would like to have had more time to speak about the concepts of “Roman law” for our time. But I would like to mention just a little about it here because it is relevant to the present.

It is well known that the “Codex Justinianus” is the summary of Roman law. What is this summary? It is the summary of the legal pronouncements made by the praetors at the Roman Forum. These legal pronouncements came about because there was no “written” law at that time; rather, as was generally the case in older times, case law was such that people who were thought to have a special power of judgment over right or wrong decided the case in question in one way or another, depending on whether they considered it right or wrong. There were no general principles of law yet. Now these legal pronouncements, which were made in the Roman Forum, have been collected and principles of law have been made out of them, although originally they were pronounced only for the individual case by the praetors concerned. From this, under the Emperor Justinian, the “Codex Justinianus” was later derived. Our entire legal system today is based on this, which, if you can judge it, consists more and more of laws and offers less and less opportunity to individualize the individual case. I just wanted to point out what the truth is: that it is not possible at all to express a “legal principle” because each individual case would always have to be treated individually.

But what Mrs. Wolfram expresses with her motion also has the character of wanting to express a “principle,” while each individual case must be treated individually. In the Boldt case, the board proved that it did not exercise the right to which it is fully entitled to drop a motion and not bring it before the general assembly, but to deal with it itself. Our situation is such that we do not need the proposal at all. And it would be a continuation of what Roman law has done wrong in jurisprudence if we were to establish such principles again. It is indeed easier for the board if it can invoke the fact that the general assembly has given it the right to deal with proposals on its own initiative; but after all, it will still have to individualize itself.

But now that a “free word to free Theosophists” is being addressed, they will say: “They may have got the motion under control, but they are already working to ensure that no more free bolders can be addressed in the future.” — With that, I also agree that we should not go back to business as usual, because the matter needs to be clarified. But on the other hand, I would like what can be considered a fact, Roman law, to be taken into account as an example.

Dr. Steiner: It will be very good if we discuss these matters thoroughly this time. I must confess that the Annual General Meeting, which is now scheduled for Thursday, has left me with a strange feeling: a feeling of sorrow for those members who have come here to take part in the results of anthroposophical work and to go home with these results. If we were to have only general meetings like this one, it would only serve to make these general meetings longer and longer: this time it is a week, the next time it will be two weeks, and we will no longer be here, but after 52 years it would be 52 weeks!

It would be necessary for you to authorize the board – this is not a motion, but rather concerns a practice – to set the first day or one and a half days for the business negotiations, and to dedicate the remaining days to the Theosophical work. Otherwise, I fear that we will be sitting in front of empty benches at the next General Assembly; I don't think that many members who have to travel long distances to the General Assembly to hear such things will be satisfied.

Ms. Wolfram: I would like to remind everyone that Mr. von Rainer has encouraged us to discuss the delusion and value of laws. What purpose have laws actually had and do have? They have always been children of necessity; man has built a defense against the enemy in them, a barrier against him. If you accept my proposal, we will be doing exactly what Mr. von Rainer wants: we will create a very individual law for the “Individual Anthroposophical Society” that is supposed to protect it.

And it is not because I enjoy developing a law out of myself that I have submitted my proposal, but because I think that something concrete must be done now to stop the current situation. Yes, the board has agreed to take on these long discussions so that this case can be handled as a “typical” one. It is not intended to serve as a model for other general meetings, and the question is whether we want to draw a conclusion from all this or not?

If you listen to what Mr. Schuler said, you will see: in theory, Mr. Schuler is happy to admit that we have the right to consider proposals. But he himself says afterwards: the board will bring it up - and then we'll talk about it! But that's not the point, that a proposal is still being discussed that the board has dismissed after conscientious consideration at its meeting.

We must therefore be clear from the knowledge of the case we have dealt with that it must come to the law, if you want to call it that. There must be a barrier precisely because people are not as they should be, but as they are; we must take this into account. Because the facts are such, we must build a kind of barrier that can later be torn down, when the ideal society has been realized. Building this barrier is truly our duty now.

Dr. Steiner: What is the consequence of such a correspondence between Mr. Boldt and the undersigned, Pschorn, [Zormaier] and Petri, as read out earlier? I will be very brief. In Mr. Boldt's brochure, it says that I have committed the great sin of not speaking to the members as he thinks fit. And these members, Pschorn and so on, write to Mr. Boldt in agreement, so that I should be forced to speak about what Mr. Boldt likes. The consequence would be that I would not be able to determine the topics I speak about, but the members of the Anthroposophical Society. This is the consequence, even if people do not consider it.

It is the sin that people do not consider the consequences of their assumptions! So in the future, it will be necessary to take a closer look at these things and be clear about the consequences of such things. These may be people who mean well, as I said about Mr. Boldt; but the point is that we have the opportunity to move our Anthroposophical Society forward!

Mrs. Wöbcken: Seven years ago, I attended the General Assembly and now, after everything I have heard, I have to say that, in terms of how we handle external matters, we are in exactly the same position as we were seven years ago. Yes, I even have to say: in an even worse position! For this reason, I would like to ask the members to leave it to those who have a true insight into the matter and vote in favor of the motion that Fräulein von Sivers has made.

Fräulein von Sivers: What motion? I would like to consider this not as a matter for the board, but as a matter for the plenary assembly; the general assembly should decide on it and all those who travel here from faraway countries should decide whether they agree with it, or whether we can act somewhat independently for once.

Mr. Lévy: Since I am one of those who have traveled here from faraway countries, I would like to say something for practical reasons. What Mr. Schuler and others have said is, of course, entirely defensible. But it is not a matter of saying something “right”; because from a correct, theoretical point of view, one can also defend the Wolfram proposal. I just want to shed light on the practical side, because we will meet again in a year and want to have learned something from that. The Wolfram proposal says: The board should be informed three to four weeks before the general assembly of the motions to be put forward at the general assembly. One can only say that it would have been very salutary for the Boldt case if that had happened, because the members were required to study a book and a brochure in order to form an opinion about it. So here, if you look at the practical side, there is a necessity to do something. If you also consider that a motion needs to be supported by at least seven people, then you can only say: if a member does not have seven friends in the whole society who support the matter that they want to raise, then they are not being entirely serious about it. These seven people could, after all, be in other countries. But then it turns out to be a settled matter that can be raised. We have already been together for seven hours in the board meeting. So everyone should be able to come and present something to the General Assembly that makes sense. And then the proposals to the General Assembly must be prepared in such a way that they contain sufficient material, and that not just proposals are received that are categorized without anyone thinking about them. Such provisions have already been introduced wherever there are assemblies.

So, for example, I know that the French [Lücke in der Mitschrift] committee has also made such arrangements – and much worse ones than those proposed by Ms. Wolfram.

Mr. Schuler withdraws his proposal and instead makes the following proposal:

The General Assembly may decide that it is left to the board to submit the received proposals with appropriate justifications to the General Assembly or not to submit them. Furthermore, the board determines in advance the duration of the General Assembly.

Mr. Lévy: That would be an infringement of the rights of the plenary. In any case, it should be possible to see what is contained in the proposals. However, it would not be right for the plenary not to see what proposals are coming in.

Dr. Steiner: Since the Schuler proposal is the more far-reaching one, it is necessary to discuss it.

Ms. Wolfram: I would like to know how Mr. Schuler thinks it would work in practice if we were to decide to set aside one or two days for negotiations? Let's assume there are ten or twenty motions; not all motions can be dealt with. So if we only have a limited amount of time, so many motions will have to be dropped, and we would have to deal with each motion for so many minutes, according to the bell. How do you think this can be practically implemented?

Dr. Steiner: If the time for the business negotiations were set, for example, at one and a half days, then the General Assembly would be strictly broken off after one and a half days, and the motions that had not been dealt with would then be “deferred to the next General Assembly”. This would mean that at the next general assembly, we would only be able to discuss items from the previous year's general assembly, and at the following one only matters from the year before last, and so on, as the old Reichskammergericht in Wetzlar did – which is where the phrase “law and rights are inherited like an eternal disease” comes from. Mr. Hubo proposes closing the debate on the Schuler motion. The end of the debate is approved.

Dr. Steiner: We will now vote on the Schuler proposal. I would like to point out that the first part of this proposal would exclude the Wolfram proposal, but not the proposal to determine the duration of the Annual General Meeting.

Mr. von Rainer: I would like to take this opportunity to request that the Board of Management abstains.

Dr. Steiner: You can't make a decision about whether a number of members, who are also members of the board, should have a say or not.

The Schuler motion is rejected.

Dr. Steiner: We will now move on to the further discussion of the Wolfram motion, and I would first ask Ms. Wolfram to determine the exact wording of her motion.

Ms. Wolfram: The motion reads:

The General Assembly may decide that any motion from a member of the General Assembly be submitted to the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society at least three weeks before the General Assembly, and that each applicant must have supported his application by seven members of the Society and three members who are on any board of a working group or on the broader board of the Anthroposophical Society.

Mrs. von Ulrich wishes to amend that only one member of the executive council of any group should support the proposal and no special members, and that furthermore a proposal should be submitted only ten to twelve days after the announcement of the General Assembly.

Mr. Hubo: It seems to me that the matter has now been sufficiently illuminated from “twelve standpoints” and I move that the debate be closed.

[Rudolf Steiner:] Mr. Selling has also requested the floor.

Mr. Selling: We have two points of view here. One sees the society-endangering living from the formal side and wants to contain it. For the other, life is more important; he is against the restriction. The fact that both points of view exist gives them a right to exist and they both have something to say to us. If we look more closely, both can be quite well reconciled. From a practical point of view, it would be foolish not to make use of the experience gained here for the future: that Dr. Steiner was unable to change the title of his lecture in time because he only found out about Boldt's brochure too late, although he would otherwise have done so. This can be avoided in future cases by accepting Wolfram's proposal, which, to a certain extent, represents the last safety valve to be activated in time. But it is much more important that we keep our eyes open and pay constant attention throughout the year, so that we immediately know when a little Boldt is about to start wiggling! (General amusement.) We have to be outwardly conservative, that is, conservative, but at the same time inwardly quite liberal, that is, respectful - not disrespectful - of the life germinating in souls. Then such exuberant life will not harm us, but only serve as a necessary resistance for our development and be guided back into the right direction itself. Boldt has just, as it so often happens, confused the “test” with the “mission”.

The motion to end the debate is approved.

The vote is taken on the Ulrich motion, as it is the most extensive:

The General Assembly may decide that any motion to the General Assembly be submitted to the Board at least ten to twelve days after the announcement of the General Assembly to the members, and that each applicant have the signature of any board member under his application.

This proposal is rejected.

The Wolfram proposal is adopted in its latest wording.

Thereupon the proceedings are postponed until 4 p.m. except for four items.

Continuation

At 4:30 p.m., the proceedings that were adjourned at noon are resumed.

Mr. Bauer: The last “resolution” that was introduced has been withdrawn. Instead, a third version will be read:

The General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, meeting in Berlin between January 18 and 24, 1914, hereby declares that it has the deepest compassion for the aberrations into which Mr. Boldt's thinking has fallen. It sees him as a victim of certain thought suggestions and pseudoscientific influences of our time. In contrast to this, it sees itself as an association of people who consciously and resolutely reject such influences.

The discussion of this resolution begins. Dr. Unger will take over the presidency for the duration of the discussion.

Mr. Lévy: In view of the spirit of the resolution, which refers to Dr. Steiner, I would like to ask the Friends that we express our opinion on it not by raising our hands, but by standing up or staying seated.

Ms. von Ulrich also supports this.

Mr. Lévy's proposal is adopted.

Mr. Baron Walleen: It is a little difficult for me to talk about this matter, because there is no doubt that the content of the resolution expresses our most intimate feelings. But I do wonder whether it is always necessary to emphasize our trust in Dr. Steiner on every occasion? The matter that arose with Mr. Boldt is not of such overwhelming importance. It is self-evident that we have trust in the relevant personalities within our society. I think: too much talking is not good. I just want to recall a healthy word that Mr. Bauer spoke when the “Bund” was founded; it was:

“Who wants to come with me?” Many had the trust, and it has probably only grown stronger since then. And I think: as long as it remains silent, it has a stronger effect on the world than all fine words. The resolution is very fine; but I would like to leave it to you to decide whether it would not be better not to speak about it.

Mr. Bauer: In the resolution proposed yesterday, the final sentence contained something like an expression of trust. It was the echo of the first version. The idea was that this trust on our part should be made known in the circles to which the resolution would reach without our intervention – namely, to the outside world. Ultimately, however, it had to be said that this would have the opposite effect. It is certainly not necessary to declare trust within our ranks. But not to make any statement at all would not be right. Firstly, because we have already made a statement, and secondly because of the threats, insults and so on that are said about Dr. Steiner in the brochure. If we were to leave unchallenged this darkening of our acceptance of masks, the right or duty to disguise ourselves and so on, then we would be reproached with it over and over again, and it would be said, “So it is probably true after all.” But if we have a ready-made explanation for this, then that is a ready-made answer for all those who want to reproach us with the story of the mask-like nature of our great educator.

Mr. Arenson: If we are to pass a resolution at all, then it would not be right if we left out one point — and especially the point that is addressed to Dr. Steiner. We have responded to the other things! So, in view of these allegations by Boldt, we must once again clearly identify our direction, so that three quarters are answered and one quarter simply remains unanswered. The form in which the reply is now presented seems to me to be extremely favorable, because it emphasizes independence from authority. Therefore, we should clearly state the direction in which we are marching. This is not only good, but necessary – and must not be missing from a resolution that we adopt at all in response to this Boldt motion.

Baron Walleen: Mr. Bauer said that this resolution should have an external effect. Then it would have to be published; because the “Mitteilungen” are not written for the outside world. But then I think that everything that could be said has been said in the resolution that Dr. Steiner submitted. I cannot help but feel that this resolution is somewhat superfluous. It would be a different matter if the “Mitteilungen” were really written for the outside world. But they are only for us, and we cannot speculate that they will end up somewhere unlawfully.

Fräulein von Sivers: I would just like to say that it is a fact that the brochures are read. But then it is above all necessary that the members make themselves heard, who are not 75 percent sheep, and that they also clearly express that they are aware of their own judgment and do not go along as sheep.

Mr. von Rainer: Although I have said before how much I am against resolutions, I must say that in the present situation I am not against it. What has prompted us to this resolution now is what is stated in the brochure “Theosophy or Antisophy?” No other attack against Dr. Steiner has been brought forward at this General Assembly. And the resolution is a rejection of this brochure. So it is actually only about the brochure by Mr. Ernst Boldt and nothing else. And if you reject what is in the brochure, you have actually done everything you can with the brochure. If the resolution turns out to be the one that the majority will adopt, I would like to say that it emphasizes what particularly characterizes Boldt's attack: that Dr. Steiner adopts masks and gestures. We must guard against this!

Mr. Selling: It seems necessary, after all, that we show that we can think things through to the end. When we have begun to formulate, we must also bring this point into the form; otherwise it forms the gateway for hostile attacks that come not only from outside but also from within society. Lucifer and Ahriman are also inside and ready to invade again at any moment.

Mr. Levy: If we adopt a resolution here, it is certainly with the absent members in mind. We can only make them understand the way in which the first part of the resolution emerged for us by adding the second part: Not only that we firmly and consciously reject the brochure, but also on the basis of our own judgment and independently of Dr. Steiner. We must also say this to those who are not present; otherwise they might come to a completely false view. And after all, they must also represent the matter externally.

Mr. Hubo: I would like to point out one thing first. Only a small part of the total number of members of the Anthroposophical Society is gathered here, and this resolution in particular would summarize the overall result of our position in short paradigmatic sentences regarding this case and the whole essential question that underlies it. Secondly, it is necessary for the larger number of members who are not present here to read this in black and white, so that what is expressed in the resolution is repeatedly deepened, this ability to judge, which may not yet be very well developed in some people.

Dr. Noll: It seems possible, however, that we take a positive position on Mr. Boldt, especially in view of the fact that Boldt's brochure will continue to be read and may also fall into other hands. This could be done in such a way that, after everything we have now understood, we ask Mr. Boldt to withdraw his brochure. This would be the strongest way for us to express our disagreement with his arguments; so that perhaps the resolution can be worded to request Mr. Boldt to withdraw his brochure.

Dr. Unger: It is not appropriate for us to express a “request” to a person within a “resolution”. This would have to be treated as a special motion afterwards.

Dr. Grosheintz: When Dr. Steiner explained the injustices perpetrated by Mr. Boldt, he divided them into four points: injustice against the board of the Munich Lodge, injustice against Director Sellin, injustice against the Philosophical Theosophical Publishing House, and the injustice against himself was the fourth point. We also agreed that Mr. Boldt should not have written what he did in his brochure. Until now, we have only supported

the first three points and expressed that we have recognized the injustices. We can clearly see why nothing can be said about the fourth point in Dr. Steiner's motion. And I do not understand why Baron Walleen considers Dr. Steiner's motion to be perfectly adequate. Dr. Steiner could not include in the proposal what should be said about the injustice against him. That should come from the plenary! And I believe that it is very nicely expressed in the resolution that is now on the table. I would therefore like to make a motion that we simply vote on this “fourth point” now and close the debate.

Fräulein von Sivers: In response to the previous speaker, I would like to associate myself with what was said by Messrs Selling, Hubo and Lévy. I would like to say to Mr. von Rainer that all the answers to the accusation of “mask-like quality” in the resolution are already implicit in it; but perhaps something can still be changed, and the resolution can then be read again with the addition of a word. Then it will be seen that the things that are desired are already in it. Regarding Dr. Noll's suggestion, I would like to say that we do not have any “requests” to make to Mr. Boldt! The acquaintance with it – even if the resolution is printed in the “Mitteilungen” – where it is said that we have confidence in our own judgment, can be spread throughout the world. We certainly don't need to hide behind an explanation of what is merely a fact when we are being assailed from outside!

The “resolution” will be read again with an amendment in the following form:

Resolution

The General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, meeting in Berlin between January 18 and 24, 1914, hereby expresses its deepest sympathy for Mr. Boldt, who has lost his way in thought. It sees him as a victim of certain thought suggestions and pseudoscientific influences of our time. In contrast to this, it regards itself as an association of people who consciously and resolutely reject such influences. Its greatest obligation towards Dr. Steiner arises from the fact that he has opened up to it the sense of freedom and truth in the field of scientific, moral and spiritual research and endeavour. She turns to Dr. Steiner out of her own sense of judgment and critical sense of truth, in recognition of the broad cultural significance of the treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom he offers. By duly emphasizing her independence from his authority, she believes she is acting in the best way in his interest.

Dr. Grosheintz: We have now reached the point where we have to decide whether we want to make a statement at all or not. It seems to me, after having discussed this matter for so long, that we could also draw a conclusion. And a “conclusion”, a complete conclusion, would be reached, in my opinion, if we were to adopt this statement. This declaration is, in a sense, a counter-declaration. Consider this: another declaration has been made by a member of the Anthroposophical Society, stating that Dr. Steiner has made certain “gestures” towards us, and that this member claims to have the support of 25 percent of the members of the Anthroposophical Society! Four or five of the 3,700 have found themselves fortunate enough to support his cause. This will be proudly announced to the outside world, that “one” person from our circles has stood up and said what so many others outside the Society are saying! Mr. Boldt went a step further: In the “preliminary remarks” of his brochure, he threatened that the inclusion of his writing in the general assembly would depend on whether it would later be incorporated into a larger work, which has been temporarily omitted from this announcement.

I believe that we should also give a response to this answer and take a position on it. It is not really clear to me why we should not dare to make this statement, which so clearly expresses what we all live by, and thus draw the conclusion from all that has been discussed so far.

Dr. Unger: Please allow me to point out that a motion to end the debate has been tabled!

Mr. von Rainer: I really do not think it is appropriate to put this motion to the vote with a motion to end the debate. Everyone who has signed up to speak would have to be given the floor. I am against the motion to end the debate.

Mr. Bauer: Before we vote, I would like to say: Without doubt, we need to explain something. An explanation given by Dr. Steiner during the proceedings would mean nothing to people who think similarly to Mr. Boldt. They would say: “There is also the fact that he was once obliged, due to his ‘arch-archangel activity’, not to make a gesture!”

In any case, Mr. Boldt will count us among those who cannot count themselves among the “Archarchangels”. We will merely have to rely on our logic and our sense of truth. And based on our sense of truth and our logic, and with regard to our guiding principle “Wisdom is only in truth”, we want to reject the view that somehow the truth cannot be upheld by archangels. What has already been done is not enough. We must do it! Actually, no one disagrees with the content of the resolution. So why hesitate to adopt it?

Mr. Toepel criticizes the fact that the resolution is not specifically linked to the Boldt case with regard to the points concerning Dr. Steiner's personality. Based on the brochure, one would have to reject the book “Sexual Problems”. That would be an objective rejection of the “authority”. Since Mr. Boldt is accused of untruthfulness, the resolution would have to address the personality of Dr. Steiner, who would be able to educate us to see through pseudoscientific activities. This should be submitted as a new resolution, to which he would be happy to contribute.

Dr. Unger: The end of the debate is still up for discussion! No new proposals are to be allowed within this proposal.

Mr. Lévy rejects Mr. Toepel's objections because this way of arriving at a result would create dependencies. First, on Mr. Boldt's brochure, and second, on the way in which Dr. Steiner introduced his first resolution. It is always better for us to focus on ourselves. If we went into all the details, as we are otherwise opposed, we would not get any positive work done. Mr. Walther proposes the motion to close the debate. The motion to close the debate is adopted.

Dr. Unger: The debate on the content of the resolution is closed. We will now vote on the resolution itself. However, an “additional motion” has been submitted. Since a separate vote cannot be taken on an additional motion, I would like to put it to the vote beforehand.

Mr. von Rainer: I would like to formulate the additional motion in such a way that it could be inserted at a suitable point in the resolution: “The General Assembly is convinced that Dr. Steiner, true to the motto: ‘Wisdom lies only in truth!’ is acting loyally in the face of all external and internal attacks.

Mr. Hubo: I believe that it is not in keeping with our feelings that we should put what Mr. von Rainer has said into words.

Mrs. von Ulrich: The additional motion is useless because the word “truth”, which was added by Miss von Sivers, contains exactly the same thing – only in a shorter form.

The “additional motion” is rejected.

Dr. Unger: We will now vote on the resolution itself. It has been decided that the vote will be taken by standing up from our seats. I therefore ask that all those in favor of adopting the resolution stand up!

The assembly stands.

Dr. Unger: I hereby declare the resolution adopted unanimously by the General Assembly in the wording that has been read out!

Dr. Steiner (after he has resumed the chair): It did not seem to me that this resolution was somehow a vote of no confidence against me, but rather that it expressed a kind of summary of what I actually endeavored to do in these negotiations: to make it clear what was at stake.

We could have kept quiet about the whole matter if the “75 percent” had not necessarily given themselves a vote of confidence. Whether this is more or less a matter of course – just as “more or less” as it seemed necessary to me to express a special vote of confidence within the company – it still seems very important to me. And let me emphasize that such a document, in which our dear friends declare that they want their own judgment, is available. The objection that has been raised to the effect that this declaration would only be published in our “Mitteilungen” and therefore could not be found by the outside world seems incomprehensible to me. For no one is prevented from using in the broadest public what he finds in the “Mitteilungen” about our positions and views. It is something different from the case of Mr. Casimir Zawadzki, for example, and not as if we were embarrassed to use what is in the “Mitteilungen” to defend our positions in the broadest public. I would just remind you that in repeated cases it has been used in defense of our matters, which have been discussed here, in the broadest public. And it will even be very nice if our members say to certain ongoing attacks: “We passed this resolution back then!” - I don't know why it couldn't be rubbed in everyone's face when dependence and belief in authority are mentioned again! Regardless of what the resolution says about me, I would like to correct this; and I believe that the tenor of this resolution is truly not a vote of confidence in me, and I will therefore have no reason to thank for this resolution as if it were a vote of confidence in me. But it is a summary of why we spoke at all – a rallying cry. If it had not been there, I would not know what we had been trying to do.

Since our time for the business negotiations is up, we have to postpone the continuation until tomorrow at ten o'clock. I had assumed, however, that we would deal with what we have now in three minutes - instead of five quarters of an hour!

The proceedings are suspended at half past five, and the deliberation on the remaining points is set for Friday, January 23, at ten o'clock in the morning.

Dr. Noll: I would like to reiterate the opinion expressed yesterday that the Boldt case does not appear to have been settled. However, I withdraw my motion, since it is initially the responsibility of the Munich branch to conduct negotiations with Mr. Boldt if such a course of action appears appropriate.

Fräulein Stinde: I would like to note the following: That is not entirely the case. Dr. Noll thinks that we should tell Mr. Boldt that we can only keep him in our branch if he withdraws his application. If he does not do so and we expel him from the Munich Lodge, it does not matter to him as long as we keep him in the Anthroposophical Society; then he is still entitled to come to the lectures and cycles. Our lodge is not decisive in this matter.

Dr. Noll: Since the General Assembly has already decided that Mr. Boldt will remain in the Society, there is no other way out than for the Munich branch to negotiate with him again from scratch.

Ms. Stinde: I would like to ask the Central Committee to contact Mr. Boldt and suggest that he withdraw his brochure, and that we will only allow him to remain in the company on the condition that he does so and does not write any similar brochures in the future.

Ms. Wolfram: We have only dealt with the Boldt case in such detail because it is a typical case, and not because of Mr. Boldt's personality. And I would now like to ask that we do not concern ourselves further with Mr. Boldt's personality, but consider him a quantité négligeable. Let us give him the opportunity to come to his senses in the course of a year. He is a hothead, after all, and perhaps the united and solidary approach of society will have an effect on him. We have gained the fruit of the negotiation by creating a kind of protective wall for the next general assembly. Let us assume that he does not see reason, writes another brochure or makes an inappropriate motion: you can be sure that the spectacle of this General Assembly will not be repeated at the next General Assembly, because we have created a protective barrier by accepting my proposal. We have shown Mr. Boldt how we feel about him as a “typical case”; he can read it in the next “Mitteilungen”. Having done what we had to do to protect our cause, let us now show tolerance towards Mr. Boldt by giving him time to find his way. I therefore propose that the General Assembly take no further action against Mr. Boldt and consider the Boldt case closed.

The proposal is accepted. Mr. Boldt's proposal is therefore rejected.

Dr. Steiner: We can now really consider the case closed; but I ask you to really do so. Because if you don't take with you and represent the awareness that we didn't and don't have a “Boldt case” at all, but rather a “pseudoscience case” that we wanted to deal with – and just wanted to consider Mr. Boldt as an example for this, and if you do not take what has happened here with you as not directed at Mr. Boldt, then what I had in mind for the treatment of the case would not be achieved. Because, frankly, Mr. Boldt is really not such a bad person; he has just been seduced by the pseudoscience of the present day. He is basically a very good person, but he has some people around him who are taken in by the pseudoscience of the present day. He is particularly provoked. And if, in the days when he was particularly wild and wrote this brochure, a kind soul had found him and said, “Don't do that, it's useless,” he would probably have been open to reason. He has always been open to reason. And if you can't get to him with reason, then his pride goes up in his face and he starts writing. This is already the case with many in the present. Otherwise, if he studies what is there, he would have the best material to become a good member and to accomplish many good things. The matter of “sexual problems” could just as well have been written by someone else. So separate the person of Mr. Boldt - and also the other persons, Mr. Pschorn and so on - from the matter. A hundred and a hundred others could have said that. So we leave it to him what he does with his brochure, what he does with his membership and so on.

I just wanted to say these few words so that we now explain internally what we have put in Mrs. Wolfram's motion, if what is going around in the company as “rumor” is meant to be dealt with again, that the case would be seen as a personal one.

Now Mr. Schuler's proposal is up for discussion: in future, the business part of the Annual General Meeting should be limited to one, or at most one and a half days.

Mrs. von Ulrich: I believe that this proposal would be detrimental to the whole company. You can't squeeze things that interest us all like a rubber ball. We should all be concerned not to drag things out and not to waste our speaking time unnecessarily. But to restrict the time is out of the question. That would not be a general assembly, but a race.

Dr. Steiner: But it would just be a general assembly, like basically all general assemblies in the world. It is only ours that has been presented as being unlike any other in the world. I feel a little ashamed of the way this General Assembly has been conducted – we are among ourselves and can speak freely for once – because it is actually scandalous compared to the practices that usually prevail at General Assemblies. There is no need for us to carry what we have now experienced over into the next General Assembly. Yesterday I did the calculation that if the Anthroposophical Society were to last for another 52 years, the General Assembly would last 52 weeks. We really cannot get things done like that. And I will tell you why it was entirely in keeping with my intentions to let the meeting proceed in this way: we are prevented from doing many things that should definitely be done. Since tomorrow is the last day of the General Assembly, everything that is usually organized during such General Assemblies is canceled and not done. On this occasion, in particular, many things have been cancelled. For example, it would have been in line with my intentions – I discussed this with some members – if we had been able to discuss some theses here in a free, theosophical, objective discussion, which I was willing to put forward.

It would therefore not be a “restriction” if something like this were decided, but rather an adoption of custom, which is almost a matter of course. I think it is good that Schuler's motion has been set; but it is not necessary. Because according to our “principles” - they have only long been forgotten - the board would always have the right to restrict the time for business negotiations in any way it liked. At the present General Meeting the members should see eye to eye. And that is all well and good. But it is not against the intentions of the Anthroposophical Society for the Schuler proposal to simply set down in the rules of procedure something that is already in our principles. I am not trying to foist anything on you. Reject the Schuler proposal for my sake. But then it will be necessary for the board to limit the time for discussion in accordance with the rules of procedure so that we do not experience such a general assembly again. Then, of course, motions such as “muzzle” and the like will come again from members. I ask you not to insist that the members be “muzzled”; there is always a balance. Other associations also have limited time for their management. But consider that not only time but also money is wasted; this hall, for example, costs a lot for every hour. Other associations manage with less; and when something really important needs to be discussed, an application is made to call an extraordinary general assembly. This general assembly has shown that we cannot manage with less!

Mrs. von Ulrich: I wanted to make a modification to Mr. Schuler's proposal by leaving the duration of the General Assembly entirely to the discretion of the Central Board.

Mrs. Wolfram: The modifications requested by Mrs. von Ulrich would unnecessarily cost the board time and effort. I consider Mr. Schuler's proposal to be the only appropriate one and recommend its adoption by the General Assembly. I move that the debate and voting be closed.

The motion to close the debate is adopted.

After Mrs. von Ulrich's motion is rejected in the vote, Mr. Schuler's motion is adopted.

There are no items on the agenda for Item IV “Reports of the branch representatives” or Item V “Miscellaneous”.

End of the business part, Friday, January 23, 1914, at 11 o'clock in the morning.

My dear friends!

I would be sorry if we parted without a farewell word this time. During this General Assembly, the friends have had to do hard work, so to speak. I estimate that our business discussions took up 17 to 18 hours, and otherwise we also had a full schedule. Nevertheless, even though some friends of this General Assembly may have expected something different than what they are now able to take home, it seems to me that this General Assembly may not have been entirely fruitless for us. On the one hand, it has shown us how we have, as it were, groped our way forward in the first year of the “Anthroposophical Society”; but perhaps we will be able to gain some fruitful insights from what this groping has brought us, for the way in which we are to move forward in the spirit of the “Anthroposophical Society”.

If we reflect on the essence of our Anthroposophical Society and movement, beyond the external events that have been interspersed with some dissonance even in these days, we may still emphasize two things and carry with us in our hearts: that many of us – perhaps all of us who were there – have been able to retain a sense of the cultural significance, the cultural essence and the task of our anthroposophical movement. After all, we were able to get a feeling for how we should look with understanding and we should keep our eyes open to what is so intrusively emerging in our present-day world and is rearing itself up as a judge over the cultural tendencies that have been taken out of the essence of human development, the inner justification of which we were, after all, trying to understand. Let us not fall prey to misunderstandings about these matters. Some harsh words have had to be said in recent days, have had to be said. However, we should not take with us the conviction that what I have said so often over the years, and particularly in recent months, can no longer be regarded as true: that in the natural sciences, in science in general, over the past few centuries and particularly over the course of the nineteenth century, humanity has achieved admirable and glorious results, and that we, as spiritual scientists, have to admire these glorious and fruitful results. As spiritual scientists, we must learn to distinguish between the work that is done in a purely positive sense, in which people work in the field of, for example, scientific facts, understand them and are able to apply them, and the work that is done in the field of, for example, all kinds of philosophies, world views and the like that arise in our present time and which we have sometimes had to characterize so harshly. Perhaps it may be pointed out, when many a harsh word has been spoken, that we have indeed become “refined people” in some respects in our time, and that we also express ourselves harshly with our harsh words only for our time. I may perhaps draw attention to an occurrence that we can use for comparison.

Luther had a companion, Melanchthon, who was a fine, subtle and thoroughly modern scholar for his time. Melanchthon was enthusiastic about the science of history, about history, and considered it his task to defend this historical science against all those who not only attack it but cannot stand it. So he tried to explain his feelings in his own way to all those who dislike historical science, and expressed it in a concise sentence: “All people who have no sense of history are a gross sow!” We do not express ourselves in this way, even though some harsh words have been said. And we may also point out the difference for ourselves, which exists between the attacks from outside, which are made from inferior points of view, and the necessary means of defense that we need against pseudo-science and against pseudo-intellectual life; and anyone who wants to distinguish will find the necessary difference between the way we are treated and the way we try to place what must be characterized in the present in the right way in this present. Otherwise, one will actually only experience, piece by piece, that true science, in the facts as they assert themselves, is by no means suited to refute what spiritual science wants, but to confirm it everywhere.

Recently you heard the second interesting lecture by our friend Arenson, who once again explained to you what was said in Stuttgart during one of the first of our cycles about the interior of the earth. And Mr. Arenson explained to you that after all that we are accustomed to knowing, we could have been perplexed and surprised by this description of the earth's interior. Now, if you take everything that science has said about the interior of the earth since then, especially what it has been able to say recently, you will find that even with regard to these seemingly strange, seemingly paradoxical descriptions of the interior of the earth, science is slowly limping behind. Even today, you can find statements in scientific circles that break with the “fiery-liquid earth core” and so on, which has come down to us from ancient times and is still reflected in today's worldviews. You may find that science has moved on from these things to the order of the day. We must keep an open eye for what is often practiced as “worldview” in our present time and become aware of how what we have to represent is to be placed in the present.

This is basically something that is added to our actual task. We would much prefer to be left in peace from left and right and from all sides and to be able to cultivate what we can explore from the spiritual realms, and if we could therefore defend what we have researched from the spiritual world with the same calmness in the world with which it is possible to defend what has been researched in the purely sensual realm. That we have concerned ourselves at all with external science, especially with its pseudo-edition, was unavoidable because authority and the addiction to authority play too great a role in the present day.

We can keep on confronting this simple fact that this or that is being brought out of the depths of spiritual research, and then one or other is willing to come and explain: this cannot stand up to 'science'! We must not only become aware again and again that it can stand up, but how it can stand up before science. Our anthroposophists should know what is actually meant by the so-called 'scientific world view' that is being put forward here and there today. Unfortunately, time and again in recent times, we have had too many opportunities to see how our theosophists allow themselves to be impressed by this or that. Perhaps this General Assembly can do something to ensure that our Theosophists no longer allow themselves to be impressed by anything, but look at things as they are. A current of much of what we have had to characterize of the present goes into the world view that also plays a role in Theosophical circles. We were able to gain a great deal of experience in this regard during the years when we were still in the other Theosophical Society. If our Theosophists are vigilant and can really find their way into the innermost source and impulse of our anthroposophical work, they will no longer be impressed by all kinds of world-view things like Wilhelm Bölsche's “Love Life in Nature” and the like. It has happened time and again that people have been impressed by these things. And sometimes the image arose in me merely of the style of such a work as “Liebesleben in der Natur” is, when I had to hear many a word in these days. You have seen from the fine, distinguished way in which our Dr. Hermann treated his “topic” that one can truly talk about everything. But here too it is about the Faustian saying: “Consider the what, more than the how!” It depends on the “how”. It is indeed very sad that basically so little is noticed - I beg: read through “Love Life in Nature” and try to imagine everything you are supposed to pick up there - all the slimy stuff you are supposed to pick up there! Perhaps I may take this opportunity to refer to an essay by Leo Berg, who wrote a very nice essay “On the Love Life in Nature” about all the things you have to take in your hands. But these worldviews have a basic character: they are suitable for the beer philistine to be an “idealist” as well; and he feels so good when he can say: I can be an idealist too! The philistinism of idealism spreads in such cases!

We must be aware – and become more and more aware – of the ground on which we must necessarily stand. We must learn to keep a watchful eye on that which is all too easily allowed to impress us; then it will dawn on our friends that what pulsates through the journals as a world view , and what is also sold as “worldview” in popular assemblies, in materialistic or monistic assemblies and the like, is not even “present-day” science, nor even yesterday's science – but rather, it is the day before yesterday's science. These people may be great chemists – and yet they do not even understand the fundamentals of thought! It is just that it is not often recognized. It is then justified to be as critical as possible when one has to present these things. The worldviews that are currently pulsating through journals and so on are just surrogates for a science, in comparison with which one must say to the greatest possible extent: if only people would take the standpoint of true science, they would soon see the complete harmony between true science and what we call “spiritual science”! But much of what is presented to us as “today's science” on the side of monism has already been given a funeral feast by true science decades ago. And what the monists of today have as science is what the remaining cold wedding dishes give them from the funeral feast of that time! These world views feed on what is left over!

All this should be just sounds at the end of our general assembly, to remind us that we must learn to inscribe in our hearts, to really carry out into the world, as best we can, the impulses of our – let me now speak the paradoxical word – anthroposophical will.

My dear friends, you have shown that you can take our cause to heart; you showed it with your willingness to make sacrifices for the Johannesbau. This willingness to make sacrifices also imposes an obligation and responsibility on us – a responsibility to ensure that the Johannesbau becomes a symbol of the most honorable thing we can do for our anthroposophical cause. It should be considered in every respect, although it can only be an experiment. But let it be an experiment, let it be what it must be in the sense of the present cycle of humanity: the attempt to create a symbol for something that, based on our knowledge of the evolution of humanity, must necessarily be made into an important, meaningful new impulse in the human movement. Indeed, with the deepest inner satisfaction we can go home with our willingness to make sacrifices for our Johannesbau, with the best hopes for the future that we will succeed in this endeavor. But may this willingness also, my dear friends, take hold of our whole heart, our whole soul, when we go out into our lodges, into our working groups. Let us try to make as fruitful as possible what we can make fruitful.

It is always a pleasure at this General Assembly to see our friends at work, offering their own. And there is certainly nothing more justified than our friends exchanging their work with others at the General Assembly. But let us try to bring what we have so beautifully developed over the years to more and more people, both at the specific places where we work and wherever we can, to strengthen the impulses of our anthroposophical cause. Let us try, from the spirit that we may have been able to strengthen in these days, to permeate our working groups more and more, more and more actively, with this spirit in its strengthening of our working groups.

My dear friends, what it means to present the way in which one has to stand up for the truth of spiritual facts and entities, if one can feel them as such, in a dignified and complete way with one's personality, that is what touched us deeply in our hearts when our dear Director Sellin spoke to us during these days. Let it be your guiding principle to stand up for what you have to accomplish with your whole personality, be it in one form or another. Some will have to do it in a thinking, scientific way, others in some other way. Every form is valuable if it is the direct expression of what we have to invest in our personality. More and more, we must lose the strange timidity that we have had for many years and which was expressed in the fact that many have said: When you appear here or there with Theosophy or Anthroposophy, you should keep the 'name' to a minimum and only give people the 'thing'. There is no help for it, there is truly no help for it: we must learn — we cannot of course learn it from anyone — to commit ourselves to the exact degree to which we ourselves stand in the matter! And the more lively and intense the life of our working groups becomes, the more we will succeed — not only for ourselves, but for the good of all humanity. Perhaps we would certainly have liked to have accomplished many other things during this time of the General Assembly. But if this General Assembly has helped to strengthen the sense of awareness I have just described, and if it has perhaps led some of us to see more clearly how we have to keep our eyes on pseudo-science, which would like to trample on the still tender germs of our spiritual life, then something has been achieved.

I can sympathize with all those who would prefer to cultivate spiritual life purely and for whom it may be painful in a certain way that we have had to press this or that into rigid scientific forms, that we have to deal with this or that with which we might not have to deal if so many obstacles were not placed in the way of our movement. I can understand all that. But try to show understanding within our movement as a whole for the fact that it is necessary for more and more scientific minds to be among us. I am really far from demanding that all of us be scientific minds; but if there are only a few of us, try to show these few the right understanding. The cancer that was prevalent during the Theosophical Society, from which we were thrown out, was that the leading personalities there, or those who became such at the end, Misses Besant and Mister Leadbeater, are both unscientific personalities who have no scientific education. The excesses within this movement could never have occurred if these leading personalities had had the slightest scientific education. As I said, I do not want to demand scientific education for one or the other, but I would like to stand up for those of us who would like to cast into scientific forms what, of course, must primarily take the form of “messages from the spiritual worlds”. Those who have followed how an attempt has been made to present the life of Christ Jesus from the Akasha Chronicle will not accuse us of merely doing abstract science. But we need people among us who are able to withstand pseudo-science. And we will find them! There will be more and more scientific minds among us! They are already among us. But they will find fertile ground if you learn to appreciate them more than you have done so far. We need them to place our cause in the culture of the present, because nothing causes the modern man to sink to his knees more than the word: 'something can be defended scientifically!'

Our eurythmy has shown and can continue to show that we are not becoming one-sided — both to ourselves and to wider circles. After all, this eurythmy will also be pedagogically important for our movement in our goals! It will demand a certain tact for the way in which it will have to be brought to humanity - because it will be taken for granted that if it is not brought to the rest of humanity with the necessary tact, it will only lead to misunderstandings and be confused with all sorts of stuff that is prevalent in the present.

So let these words be spoken to you as an appeal to your hearts and minds. And let me add this one word, which is related to another that I had to speak these days – namely because of the private meetings. If fewer private meetings can take place in the coming months, please bear in mind that it cannot be otherwise, and that we will be able to work all the more efficiently if the continuation of our work is not held up in this way. Indeed, the possibility has been given for years for what lies within our movement to reach the minds of people. What, after all, are all these many, many books for, which always fill me with dismay when I see the book table, overflowing with books and becoming more and more numerous? What are they for, when, in the now so occupied time, people who have read very little of these books want to talk to me? Really, my dear friends, one should understand that since it has often been so impossible to speak to our members, it is not possible to hold any more conferences with outsiders in the near future. It is not possible; otherwise we would be held up in our work. And you can really find everything you need by using the literature appropriately. There are also friends among us who can give other advice. I would like to say a few words in this regard, which come straight from the heart.

I would like to ask you to please always have more and more trust in the other members. You will see how much one can help the other if there is truly trust among our members, and if the members endeavor to negotiate, implement, and so on, what is in our literature together. It is really necessary that, to a certain extent, what had to be done at the central office, when the Society was still smaller, must increasingly be done among the members. Therefore, it is only necessary to delve into the right “how”, and perhaps this General Assembly can contribute one or two ideas. And if we now go our separate ways strengthened and with high hopes, we will take this strengthening and these high hopes with us into our working groups, we will take them with us wherever we have to go. Through all such experiences, let us try to tighten the bond that holds us together ever more closely and ever more firmly. Let us try to make it so that, across the wide expanse of the world, across which we are scattered, we find the possibility of beating together in our hearts. Let us try to feel that we are members of the anthroposophical community, and let us try to draw strength from this sense of community when we need it. Let us take from the discussions of these days what I would like to summarize in words that you will understand in the right sense if you understand them by feeling.

Let us allow what we have been through to enter our souls in such a way that the honest, justified anthroposophical striving of each other's hearts can find a place in every heart! Let us let the sounds of our community, the sounds of our great cause, resound through our minds. Let those friends who could not be there sense something of what you bring with you to your place of work from your friends at home; let them sense something of the awareness that must make our hearts beat more joyfully after all: that we are showing, both in the Johannesbau and in things like our eurythmy and many others, how what we are striving for spiritually can flow into the broadest currents of our cultural life, into our life.

If you can feel such positive strengthening within you that every justified, honest heart feels an echo in every other honest theosophical heart, if you can do this positively, then you will always find the right words, the right works and, above all, the right strength with which to bring into the world that which has been entrusted to us. Let us resolve to go our separate ways with the greeting that every heart in our circle now calls out to every other heart at this moment; and if this greeting from every heart to every heart is sincere and loving, then it will be good — and then good and beautiful and true things will arise on the soil of our Anthroposophical Society!

Our time is not very inclined to build that bridge that must be built to the realm where the dead and the high spirits are; and our time, in many respects, my dear friends, one can even say it has a hatred, a truly hateful attitude towards the spiritual world. And it is incumbent on the spiritual scientist who wants to be a Christian, it is incumbent on the spiritual scientist to familiarize himself with the hostile forces of our spiritual scientific development, to pay a little attention to them, because the matter has really deep reasons. It has its reasons where the reasons are for all the forces that counteract true human progress today.

Isn't it truly wonderful – I have mentioned this often and I don't want to bore you today, but I must mention it at some point – isn't it truly wonderful that those who fight the hardest against that which wants to live in our Anthroposophical Society are often those who have emerged from this society themselves. We have witnessed the grotesque spectacle of what is alive in our Society being fought against, and the arguments used for this fight are taken from my writings! Everywhere else, people at least get their reasons from outside; here with us we experience the strange phenomenon that what is built on throwing filth at me — the expression is not exaggerated — is constantly being substantiated with quotations from my own writings. It is a phenomenon whose deeper reasons will have to be investigated, because they are connected with one another in many ways, my dear friends. There is a continuous line, a continuous current, from the quiet gossip that sometimes runs rampant in our society to the Ahrimanic attacks, but one must only grasp things by their right name; this is more necessary today, my dear friends, than at any other time.

Think – as I said, I don't want to bore you with this, but such things must be mentioned briefly – think: a short time ago, and following on from that, a series of other articles appeared that I have not read, by a man who was in our society for years, who went through everything in our society – in which the man in question wants to prove all kinds of contradictions in my works. The person in question knows very well what the situation is with these so-called contradictions; he is of course very well aware of all the nonsense he is asserting. But you can assert anything in the world if you want, especially if you find a community that believes in good faith; you can also refute such things. But what are the causes?

The same man who writes this very pompous article once published a small work with our publishing house, and after some time he again requested to publish another work with our publishing house. However, because he had used various things from my writings without authorization in this writing in an improper way, we could not exactly – since he said that the things in my writings are imperfect and he wanted to perfect them – we could not exactly publish this writing, and so we had to reject it. Today, if we had not rejected the writing, the man would still have been a good follower, despite always grumbling and grumbling. He does not tell the world that he now hates just because we could not publish the writing. But he now finds a whole edifice of all sorts of contradictions.

Such reasons, my dear friends, which are the real reasons, which are the most pernicious, selfish reasons, you will usually find behind the most shameful attacks.

Now, in addition to these disgraceful attacks, there is usually another phenomenon. There is a kind of person among us who does not turn their goodwill to those who are right, but to those who spread gossip, who do all kinds of wrong things, and who find that those who defend themselves against these things are terribly wrong. It is a very common phenomenon. Indeed, this phenomenon goes a step further, as things intensify. Some time ago, we were really quite badly insulted in our circle; although we were actually quite, quite reserved in our defense — we were not interested in this defense, because one has more important, more positive things to do — not the slightest thing was done from our side, but everything from the other side. But still – Dr. Steiner received a letter saying that she should do everything she can to help the people who throw things at us in this way, to meet them halfway and to help them in turn, to encourage them to live together with us in harmony. If the writers of such letters (and it is very often women who write them) then find that they are not obeyed to a T, they think: What despicable theosophists! They want to be called theosophists, and yet when they are insulted they cannot even find it in themselves to ask people for forgiveness!

Yes, you see, when I tell this to my dear friends, it seems grotesque; but that is really how these things are in the broadest sense. Because this attitude: to apply the most tremendous love and goodwill to sin, this attitude is an extraordinarily popular one, and one must stand in amazement before it again and again. These things are symptomatic of significance. And they are significant for the simple reason that the worst enemies of our cause will actually come from among those who take the weapons with which they wage a war of this kind from our own cause. And if these things are not properly appreciated, then nothing will come of it but that, as it happens so very often now, a spiritual movement that wants to do its best for the spiritual progress of humanity will, for some time, be made impossible.

I have often interwoven precisely this remark into my lectures; but this remark is not taken very seriously. And above all, one very often finds: That one harmonious mood should not be interrupted by such things.

But my dear friends, it is not I who am interrupting you, and I would certainly prefer it not to be necessary to interrupt the harmonious mood. But it is extremely important for the sake of the matter at hand that we consider this in the context of the great impulses that are to pass through our movement. For today's superficial humanity, it naturally means an enormous amount when opponents grow out of the circle of anthroposophists themselves. It is of course easier for outsiders to forge their credentials. For these things, one must be willing to develop an unprejudiced, absolutely unprejudiced judgment, and not develop unkindness – forgive the grotesque, paradoxical word – unkindness towards a person who, purely because because he has had a book rejected, trumpets all kinds of things out into the world, one must not be unkind to this person by keeping quiet about it, because that is the truth, and the truth must be told. And such truths underlie very many things which certainly harm society at first, but with society they harm the matter.

And when we consider how many Ahrimanic powers are waiting to place obstacles and hindrances in the way of our movement, then we will want to pay a little attention to what, despite having become bad enough, today still looks, I might say, like the beginning of a countermovement. It is the beginning. And this, in particular, is connected with the hatred and antipathy towards the rise of a spiritual movement. My dear friends, when it comes to certain phenomena, it is not true to keep repeating that these people are convinced of what they are saying. It is not true. If you trace this conviction back to its roots, they turn out as I have just explained in this specific case.

My dear friends! It is necessary to say these things because anyone who really looks into the spiritual life of the present and what is needed for it says to himself: It takes such an effort to overcome the obstacles that come from outside that there is truly no time to keep in mind what comes from within in the way I have indicated. But it will have to be considered.

Yes, my dear friends, the ways are not quite easy. If someone writes something in a magazine, no matter how well it is refuted, not much comes of it. And some of these things that have been written are so long since they could easily be condemned with a court action. But do you think that our movement would be served if we had to take part in 25 court cases? That is probably how many there would be. Then it would be easy to get a conviction.

In order to work with all our intensity on the impulses of our spiritual movement, it is necessary for those who want to be loyal to our movement to, above all, overcome the prejudices mentioned, which culminates in our not always turning our benevolence to the side that does something wrong; that those people are found to be the best members who go against us ourselves. Usually the people who act on this impulse are unaware of it, but I say it so that they will pay attention. The trivial gossip usually starts, then it ends somewhere, where someone can write, in a long, lying newspaper article, which is often only the last link in an avalanche that comes crashing down. The seed may be that someone could not keep his tongue, or out of his very ordinary selfishness found that someone should have done something that the person concerned had to refrain from doing for good reasons, and so on, and so on.

What matters most is that we rise above such prejudices and look at things in their truth, getting used to looking at things in their truth. Then we will also find ways and means to represent and carry things through in their truth, so to speak.

Please excuse me for linking this smaller reflection to the larger reflection after our time had already expired, but given the intensity and the outrageousness with which there is now a furor in private and journalistic life against what we do, it is necessary that at least the thing in which the reasons are to be found be pointed out.

And now I have, you must allow me, a few things to say about society, because I am compelled by all that has arisen in an increasingly serious way within society to communicate certain measures that have now become necessary and that must be understood. And I am convinced that those among our members who are serious about our cause will be the ones who best understand these measures.

Last time I spoke here, I already pointed out how necessary it is to look at the true motives of those attacks, which are now becoming more and more numerous. And I do not want to be misunderstood, my dear friends. You see, attacks that take the form of what are otherwise considered literary forms in the world, that make use of the means that are otherwise used in science, they may appear by the hundreds and thousands, but they will never do harm; they can be refuted objectively and should be refuted objectively; but I would not want to be misunderstood as meaning that I have anything against objective attacks, from whatever quarter they come. But these things are not at issue, my dear friends. Quite different things are at issue, and indeed things that are already beginning to cause our spiritual science to sink into gossip, through its connection with the Anthroposophical Society. At least we must keep an unbiased eye on such things.

You see, my dear friends: it is possible to spread spiritual science, anthroposophy, without an Anthroposophical Society; the Anthroposophical Society must have a content and meaning of its own, a meaning that a member of the Anthroposophical Society can also absorb, can to some extent identify with. Now, over the years, it has become apparent that within the Anthroposophical Society itself — partly due to its earlier affiliation with various members of the Theosophical Society, and partly for other reasons — all kinds of damage has arisen, serious and grave damage, and that precisely within this society, due to its peculiar nature, it is not possible to develop an unbiased, honest judgment about these things, despite me having pointed out these things many, many times. And if we need something in the Anthroposophical Society, insofar as it is to continue to exist, it is an unprejudiced, straightforward, true, unclouded judgment within this society; it is also necessary that things here are not taken differently, at least not worse than they are taken outside in the ordinary, decent world.

Let us just recall the case of Heindel-Vollrah, which I have already discussed publicly. What happened there? Everything connected with it is actually typical of what is possible in the Anthroposophical Society. One day, a Mr. Grasshoff turned up, dragged in by a member. Mr. Grasshoff listened to public and branch lectures and so on for many months. Of course, one cannot anticipate the future and turn away such a gentleman for reasons to which we may return later; one cannot simply turn away such a personality. Think of what would happen. You would then have to justify your judgment, which is impossible, because you cannot say to someone who is joining the Society: You cannot be admitted because later you will become – yes, I don't know how to put this – opposed to the Society and its teachings. You can't put that into words to anyone. You can't anticipate the future.

So this Mr. Grasshoff listens to the lectures for months, public and branch lectures; he visits the homes of members, borrows all kinds of written materials, copies them down, had a large package, one might say several packages with what was presented here, in part in the most intimate lectures, and traveled to America with it. There he made a book.

Before he left, he told me that he would write a book, but that he would write it properly. And so it happened that before he left, I gave him advice on everything except the title of the book. I couldn't tell him, “You will write the book as a bastard.” – excuse me for using the expression myself. For I myself coined the expression 'Rosicrucian World Conception'. So the man wrote a book that caused quite a stir in America. In the preface to this book, he explained that he had gained a lot from my lectures here; but when he had finished with these lectures, when he had heard everything he could hear, then, far away in Hungary, in the Transylvanian Alps, he was offered the opportunity by the higher powers of fate to visit an initiate who called him. And this mysterious initiate first gave him the deeper truths, which he then had to supplement with what he had heard. And then he “supplemented”; he wrote what he had copied here from members from private lectures that had not yet been published; so he “supplemented”; that was what he had received in the Transylvanian Alps. So it was what he had copied from the Zweig lectures and other lectures. The book was published in America.

Well, you can say: the book was published in America, the man is not particularly honest; but you have to accept it. But it didn't stop there. But a translation of this book by the American was published here in Germany by Hugo Vollrach as “Rosenkreuzerische Unterrichtsbriefe” (Rosicrucian Lessons). In this translation, it was said that the impure thing that was represented here first had to be purified in the Californian sun and should thus be presented here as purified Rosicrucian wisdom.

My dear friends! It is one thing that the Anthroposophical Society, formerly the Theosophical Society, had to be founded before something like this could happen at all. Because look for yourself in the decent world the possibility that something like this can happen outside the circle that does something like it is done within the Anthroposophical Society! I have repeatedly pointed this out: if the Anthroposophical Society is real, then this fact, this disgrace, must be made known; because one must know what one is actually dealing with, especially in the area that is so often identified with our cause.

Now I ask you: Isn't that man a kind of small case of what I just told you, [that man] who wrote a book “Who was Christ?”, also wrote all kinds of stuff in this book, and then wrote in the preface: I had hinted at some things, but he had to explain them first. But what he “explained” is from the cycles! Isn't the man who then sent this book to the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, where it had to be rejected, actually a little case of Heindl-Vollrath, who, from the moment when this book had to be legitimately returned to him, after having previously member of the society and as a member of the society has sought his goals, has now turned into an enemy – is this man worth much engagement with what he now puts forward in his foolish articles, sentences that seek to uncover apparent contradictions? The right thing to do is to point out the reality, the fact, where all the opposition comes from, as I have now presented to you, and to which I already pointed last time. But this man seems, despite the fact that he counts himself among the academically educated - he is, after all, an Imperial Court Councillor and Professor - despite the fact that he counts himself among the educated, he seems, since one can't achieve much with so-called theoretical refutations of spiritual science, cannot achieve much, he seems to be increasingly pursuing the goal that is now being pursued: to bring things into the false gossip that sometimes arises from the wildest fantasies. And how today's humanity is eager to read scandalous stories – whether they are lies or not, that is not the point – to let gossip and scandal have their effect, one should see through that; one should also see through the fact that today there are enough editors, of this or that journal, for whom it is much too inconvenient to get involved in any kind of objective refutation of spiritual science, but who, precisely from this side, want to unhinge spiritual science by publishing scandalous stories that are lies.

You see, it is an outrageous case that Bamler, who used to dangle around here in this branch, found sales opportunities for his articles. This man, who writes nothing but nonsense and lies, is now in danger of having his stuff spread, which is not only laughable but also spiteful. But what is the story behind this case of Bamler? Years ago, a Mr. Erich Bamler, who at the time lived in a small town in central Germany, wrote to Dr. Steiner that he was at a turning point in his soul and therefore wanted to turn to her. He did not know what he should actually do; if he should do this or that, or if he should somehow marry into a business, she could help him in this regard, and so on. Then the aforementioned Mr. Bamler appeared, after he had been informed that we were not there to help him marry into a business, then he appeared in the company. It was only recently that I was credibly informed that this man, under many pretexts, was determined to get a member, actually a female member, to marry into our business. Then, after the man, who had no idea of any declamatory art or the like, had once let loose a terrible-sounding declamation – I think it was “Kassandra” by Schiller – at a general meeting, to the horror of those who listened, it suddenly developed in that man the longing to become – yes, not to become, but to be – an artist. And one is always happy to support any endeavor; the man then went to Munich, and we tried to arrange for him to learn from this or that painter. But that hurt him. He knew nothing about painting, but the idea that he should learn something from painting was outrageous; he wanted to be a painter, and above all he wanted to be a genius. That was what he wanted above all. Well, all the things he wanted could not be achieved, and so the antipathy towards the Anthroposophical Society increased, which has not even managed to magically turn someone into a genius, to the point that it then erupted in that article. That, in turn, is what underlies the matter.

But what really matters is the right judgment of things, and without the right judgment developing in our membership, things cannot be managed in our society. Above all, it is actually necessary that things do not happen in our society that are of the following kind. I don't really want to talk about things from the immediate present that are very close at hand. But let us take something typical, because things really happen almost one after the other that are of a similar nature.

You see, years ago some people came to the Society and had two boys, two rather large boys; and among other things, they besieged me with letters asking me to take full charge of these two boys. I was to ensure that these boys become something very significant, that they develop in a way that is worthy of the anthroposophical cause. What people understood by that is another matter. Yes, suppose I had listened to all the fine speeches and pleas and wishes, which were always introduced and embellished with “dear master” after every third word — do you think I would have given in in this case, what would have become of it? What could have become of it? Now the boys could be seventeen to eighteen, fourteen years old, they could have become stubborn, it would have been easy for me to do so, since I cannot educate all children of anthroposophists, who must also remain under other influences. What would have happened if the boys had become stubborn? One would have said, of course: There we have the fruits of this anthroposophical education! People are corrupted by anthroposophy; they are ruined in body and soul by anthroposophy!

At the same time, I was confronted with another unreasonable demand: a picture was brought in, and I was told that I should somehow magically discover that this picture was a genuine Leonardo da Vinci. Now, it was clear by non-magical means that it was not a Leonardo da Vinci; but in any case, it was pointed out with a particular wink that if those millions, which today can be earned through a Leonardo da Vinci, were to come, then the building in Dornach — or I don't know what — would also receive a considerable sum of it.

You see there a few examples singled out, which could easily be multiplied by many, many more. But you see, not only do people like Max Seiling have a taste for the most incredible gossip, which basically has nothing to do with us, but through some members it is brought about to drag us into it, thus leading the whole thing onto a track that corresponds very well to many instincts of the present, and it seems that this is now starting from all sides; to start from all sides.

It is possible, my dear friends, that a member who, incidentally, turned out to have been dragged into the Society for years after being accepted at a special request, was also somehow society, that for years it basically always tried in a somewhat sophisticated way to undermine the ground, namely under my feet, and in a way that I will not describe further, but which does not represent anything particularly beautiful. This member became ill. This member now finds himself obliged to tell the most incredible things, which are purely invented. I would like to emphasize, my dear friends: for us, who are involved, in this case Dr. Steiner and I, none of this is significant when it is emphasized that it is a sick member, but for us, in this case, only the fact that the things are untrue from beginning to end, objectively false, is significant. That is what matters: the things that have sprung from the most wild and filthy imagination and that could have been invented, despite the fact that this member has recently had to admit that I have not spoken to her at all about anthroposophical matters since 1911, and before that only briefly about things that actually had very little to do with anthroposophical matters.

But, my dear friends, you may think about the matter itself as you like, but the important thing is that such purely invented, wildly invented, uncleanly invented things find editors today who accept them with open arms and with the will to destroy Anthroposophy; editors who can also be characterized at some point in the future. The latter fact is what matters. It is a matter that is as ridiculous on the one hand as the Goesch case is ridiculous, and on the other

hand as spiteful as the Goesch case is spiteful. It cannot be denied that these things are invented follies; but they are so ridiculously invented that sensible people immediately recognize the folly; people who are out to test the sensible and the nonsensible of a matter. All the things with the handshaking and the like, all the things that are present in the Goesch case, are on the one hand just ridiculous, and on the other hand just spiteful. But that is precisely what makes it so dangerous, so monstrously damaging to the anthroposophical cause. For the things are so ridiculous that they are likely to make the Society look ridiculous in the eyes of people who are malicious but reasonable, and to make people who are unreasonable look hateful. But in the case of people who, despite the great folly, have a basis for bringing society into scandal, especially the anthroposophical cause and myself into scandal.

These are things that do not stand alone. I have been saying for years that these things must come, that these things cannot fail to come. Because, my dear friends, one must see the inner connection between what must necessarily pulsate through our society and such things.

Do you believe that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, necessary for inner reasons, that I not only state the case for a matter everywhere, but also, as you can see from Zyklen, always state the arguments that can be brought against a matter from one point of view or another? In order to make progress in the humanities, one must have the opportunity to also have at hand that which belongs to free criticism. Therefore it is quite possible to quote from my books — which is now happening quite a lot — the material with which one can refute spiritual science, if one leaves out the material with which one can also prove it. Another method that is only used in our movement! Let us be clear about this: this is also something that is only used in our movement!

Spiritual science is something that goes to such depths that it is also connected with the depths of the human soul, and it is really no exaggeration when I say that among those who today associate more often in order to cultivate such a movement in general philanthropy, there are always potential enemies lurking. Of course, one can fight enmity, one can fight hidden hatred, but there is always the possibility that it will emerge at the right moment. Let us not deny it: Especially when one speaks esoterically to 120 people, there are 70 among them who have the potential for enmity, who have the potential for hatred. It is only a matter of time before the right occasion arises for them to transform themselves into open enemies. Unless we face these things squarely, such a society cannot endure. We must be clear about this.

And what is most damaging to our movement, my dear friends, is that so many things come to the fore that I can describe as sectarian. If you take what comes from me, you will be able to see from an unbiased judgment that there is nothing further from this spiritual scientific world view that I have come up with than anything sectarian. But just look at society in many ways, how great the tendency towards sectarianism is. Not to take a more obvious example, I would just like to mention the one that I like to mention again and again because it is extremely vivid. We once arrived at the Stettin train station for a lecture tour to Helsingfors. What do we see there? A little way from us, on the other side of the platform, a whole row of ladies with strange costumes and purple bishop's caps on their heads – they were the Anthroposophists who were taking the train to Helsinki. Yes, my dear friends, what is more obvious - in Helsingfors it was different, because the Helsingfors people were so terribly afraid when they got off the train that they could accommodate them somewhere where the idea of the fact that they belonged to the Helsingfors Anthroposophists; they were so taken up with this fear that they did not come to a judgment during the whole time – what is more obvious than to say: This belongs to Anthroposophy! This belongs to Anthroposophy, to go around so foolishly.

But the sectarianism, also in other things, is something that a gathering place can easily find in such a movement. But nothing should be more carefully kept out of such a movement than all sectarianism. It is not necessary, my dear friends, to see one's membership of the Society in such a way as to give the impression to the outside world that this Society consists entirely of oddballs and unhealthy natures. In the outside world, this judgment is often heard: This Society is one that believes in authority; this whole Society actually only listens to what Dr. Steiner says.

Now, there may be something similar in some other circles, but in general it can be said that if anything in this Anthroposophical Society may correspond to my will, then the opposite happens - even if it is often said, “That's what he wants, that's what he said, that he wants it.

For example: a lady or a gentleman - let's say a gentleman, out of politeness, although that is rarer - wants to travel to some cycle. She needs a reason to the outside world, to the man or to make herself important - she needs a reason. Instead of saying: I like it, it gives me pleasure, I want it, what do you say? One says: Doctor Steiner has given me the mission to travel to the cycle and so on, of course. These things do not happen in isolation. And there one has a very strange conception of this fact, my dear friends, one has the conception that when I am asked, “Should I travel to the cycle?” and I say, “Yes, what does it matter to me whether you travel to the cycle?” — “Do you have something against it?” – “Yes, I don't mind at all!” – “He is in complete agreement!” – It is one thing to love doing something, and then after a quarter of an hour it is translated as: “He said it should be done.” – This has been a very common occurrence.

But, my dear friends, it also happens very, very often that members come to seek advice on this or that matter and then do the opposite. That is their prerogative. Whether it is necessary, whether it makes sense, to then bother me with the question, that is another matter. But it is every member's prerogative not to follow this advice. Please do not misunderstand me. But they then say, when they do the opposite of what has been advised: He said I should do that!

It is a shame that one has to say these things; but now that the matter has progressed so far that there are actually numerous people <501> who tell the wildest fantasies about what is said to have been said or to have happened in private conversations, now it is necessary to speak of these things.

These private discussions with the members, my dear friends, which the privy councillor Max Seiling has now sharply criticized, although he has been seeking them for years, because he finds – despite the fact that, as I said, he sought them out himself – because he finds that the cycles should be better understood during the time when the private discussions with the members take place, these private discussions have not only taken up time, but also energy. Because if you are serious about what you have to say to a person, you need your strength to do so, even if sometimes you don't notice how the strength is used.

Things are developing in a very strange way. How I had to decide years ago, I would say under duress, to print the cycles in the form in which they are now printed. I resisted it with all my might. Why did the cycles have to be printed? Well, first of all, because the members insisted that they be printed. I explained that I couldn't review them. So each copy bears the inscription “According to a transcript not reviewed by the lecturer,” which Seiling criticizes again. But another reason was that, before they were printed, the transcripts – and sometimes what kind of things – passed from hand to hand and the most grotesque things wandered from member to member in the transcripts. We only need to remember that we once discovered a transcript in which it said that I had explained in a lecture cycle that prostitution was an institution of great initiates. It was in a transcript of a cycle from 1906. However, there was nothing that could be done about the principle of unauthorized copying and distribution of the cycles, so we had to take the distribution into our own hands in order to at least ensure that not the greatest nonsense circulated among the members and, of course, came to the public. That the cycles are not being preserved by the members in the appropriate way can be seen from the fact that almost anyone who wants to write something shameful about what is in the cycles can read them, that they can be bought from an antiquarian bookseller, and so on. All this points to certain underlying issues in the Anthroposophical Society. Overall, it provides a basis for those who are either unable or unwilling to engage seriously with anthroposophy or spiritual science, but who want to get rid of it. So now they can collect gossip at the gossip mills – of course, this includes men as well as women – which, especially within this society, is sometimes capable of inventing the most incredible things. These things, which young people's imaginations have invented and made up today, would never have occurred to a large proportion of the older people sitting here. The urge to deviate from the truth is, today, a very great one.

Well, you see, it is very unfortunate that when one is dealing with a society, the innocent within that society must suffer with the guilty. No one can regret this more than I. But I know that on the other hand, precisely those who are innocent, those who endeavor to keep spiritual science at its best, will understand what I now have to say. One must not wait until things have become an avalanche before tackling them; it is necessary to recognize this, especially with a movement such as ours. The avalanche initially consists of the small snowball up there. But as often as I pointed out the snowball, it went in one ear and out the other. Things first had to become avalanches. They have become avalanches in abundance and will become more and more avalanches.

A snowball, for example, is this, comparatively. For us, it is important to stick to the facts above all else. Telling facts is often done in the most peculiar ways by people today. Let's say A says something to B about C; he says this and that. I am merely schematizing, but I am actually recounting a specific fact that occurs over and over again. A says this and that to B about C. B now says to himself: From what A has said, he actually means that C is a bad guy. - That did not occur to A at all; but B now goes to C and says: Hey, A said you are a bad guy. Take this pattern, compare it with life, and you will see how often the greatest harm arises from the fact that a judgment that is passed is told as a fact; while it would be especially necessary in our movement to develop a sense of fact. Therefore, especially because private conversations, even those that did not take place, were misused in such a way, I am forced to take the following two drastic measures. And I ask that you do not relate one measure alone, because that would make it look wrong, but they necessarily belong together.

For the time being, I will be forced to eliminate all private conversations with members, so I will not be accepting anyone for a private conversation in the near future. In one place where it was announced, it has already led to people saying: Because of a few people, everyone has to suffer! - I can only say: Stick to those because of whom everyone has to suffer, and not to those who, in any case, have to suffer the most because of the matter and who are forced to take such measures. Do not turn what is right upside down in this area as well. We have also experienced this in Berlin. While a scandal was being made in Dornach by a few ladies, a lady wrote to Dr. Steiner saying that she should do everything she could to calm these ladies who had attacked her and to bring them back to the right path. In short, it was a blatant example of the fact that it is not the person who attacks who is held accountable, but the one who is attacked, that one's so-called philanthropy is directed towards the one who sins and not towards the one who has to suffer from the sin. Things are such that when you tell them to a person of straight thinking they actually sound incredible, and yet they are true and repeat themselves over and over again.

So it is necessary, my dear friends, that I no longer accept private interviews. Perhaps then, in a relatively short time, since a great deal of strength will be saved as a result, what is now being put in the most unfavorable light will be possible: that my older books will be published again. While people are well aware of why the older books could not be republished, since the funds had to be devoted to the Society, people are finding editors and journals today who write that I do not want my older books to be published because they contradict the newer books. And perhaps help will also come through this measure.

But the other measure, my dear friends, is this: that I release everyone from any obligation, insofar as they themselves want to not speak, not to speak - according to the truth - about what has been spoken in all private conversations. Insofar as each person wants to, they can tell the truth about it everywhere. And if it is not the truth, then one will find the means and ways to correct it in this very way – to tell the truth about what has ever been spoken in a private conversation!

There is no other way than to place the Anthroposophical Society in the full light of the public. For those who have a sincere esoteric will and an esoteric longing for development, I will find ways and means to find what is necessary despite this measure. Just give me a little time, and those who need esotericism will find it. But these two measures are absolutely necessary.

I know that those members who are serious about this movement will understand these measures and fully endorse them. And if one or the other should still take offense and say, “Why must the innocent suffer with the guilty?” Then I can only say: appeal to those who have made these measures necessary; that will be the only right way. I am just as sorry that these measures are necessary as anyone can be sorry; but one must also be able to carry out the painful, the sorrowful in the service of a higher necessity.

And in view of all the nonsense that has arisen from the private discussions, I see no other option than to stop these private discussions myself. And so that the world can know that these private discussions were always inviolable, it must also know that anyone can tell what happened in these private discussions, provided they tell the truth. If he tells the truth, no one will be offended by the things that have occurred.

My dear friends, spiritual science certainly has no need to fear true and serious attacks; it will always be able to stand up to these things. But with the gossip and scandal, with the dragging in of personal things, as they so easily arise from a society like this, one can endanger it indirectly, by actually not hitting the point at all, but by denigrating and slandering the persons with whom it is connected, and so forth.

Those who do not want to understand these things, who for example cannot grasp why the attacker should not be pampered in our society and why the attacked should not ask for forgiveness – which is really the opinion of some of them, they will of course be incorrigible; they will find that such measures, as I now have to take, are an attack on the first principle of the Anthroposophical Society and so on and so on. Oh, this first principle, with which so much nonsense is being done! Because you can subsume so much personal stuff under this principle, and you can cover so much hatred with the principle of universal love as perhaps with nothing else.

It was necessary, my dear friends, that we spoke these serious words; because these serious measures are necessary. And I must emphasize that, apart from the factual necessity, there is also the fact that, after I have been speaking for the walls for a long time in these matters, such measures have been taken that some will have to be felt, that attention is also drawn to the seriousness with which these matters must be approached. The mere word has not helped, so perhaps such measures must point out the seriousness and importance of the matter.

Now just a few remarks following on from what I said the other day, because I am almost afraid that some things could be misunderstood again. From a variety of symptoms, it is clear that some things could be misunderstood. Just remember that it must not be believed that I disapprove of or somehow complain about or even find it incomprehensible when articles appear that are opposed to spiritual science and take a factual point of view. Such articles cannot, of course, do any harm to the cause. Even what the privy councillor Max Seiling wrote about the alleged contradictions cannot harm the cause of spiritual science; for everyone can see from the literature what it is about. Therefore, when I speak of the damage to society, it cannot be the case that society could now have the task of dealing with what is factual from a social point of view; that is the concern of the individual. The individual who stands up for spiritual science – whether positively or polemically – will be able to do a great service to spiritual science as such. But spiritual science is most certainly not a matter for the Society as such in this context. I have to say this, otherwise it will seem ridiculous to say that meetings or discussions are being held on how to deal with the attacks on Dr. Steiner.

Of course anyone who wants to can write about the matter; that is their business. But it cannot be a matter for the Society. It can be a matter for individuals, but not for the Anthroposophical Society. So, for example, if special meetings have been held in one place and one of the main topics there was what should be done about such attacks, then that is of course completely off the mark. Such attacks, which are factual – even if they are not factual – want to be factual, must also be countered in writing, in the usual way that it generally happens. What is at issue now is that this method of trying to kill spiritual science by drawing people into a web of lies, slander and defamation is not used, but that spiritual science is made impossible because people find it too uncomfortable, or for other reasons, to engage with spiritual science themselves. They have to deal with it themselves. But someone who tells you the most stupid, fantastic orgies - you don't need to get involved in spiritual science for that. But with today's human disposition, it is something through which you can achieve a lot. But this is something that is quite connected - I say this fully consciously - with what has often been played out in the Anthroposophical Society, and also earlier in the Theosophical Society.

You see, after printing an article that is a pack of lies from beginning to end, an editor finds it appropriate to talk about how, I don't know, admirers or female disciples of Dr. Steiner everywhere emphasize that they consider him to be the Christ returned. This is not something that occurs in one place only, it occurs everywhere. Just yesterday it occurred to us again, in the following form: someone claimed that they could find witnesses that I had given a public lecture in a city from which it could be inferred that I had spoken of repeated embodiments of the Christ and pointed out that I myself was claiming such an embodiment.

But, my dear friends, do not believe that this does not already relate to certain murky things in the development of our society. Those friends who observe things with understanding will have found that from a certain point in time, which was very early on, I had begun to assert with complete determination, to emphasize again and again, that the Christ event is a unique one, and I emphasized it because, as I well knew, coteries had formed among us very early on that spread this, well, you can't even call it a fairy tale, but this nonsense, that it has penetrated everywhere, now it is appearing. Do you think I don't know those who in 1905, 1906, 1907 were already toying with all kinds of ideas of incarnation, who were spouting nonsense back then, and had connected with that what - I can't even repeat it because it's such trite stuff. Not only when the Alcyone swindle first appeared did I speak of the impossibility of repeated Christ incarnations, in order to counter what was going on here in this society. It became apparent very early on that a small group, small coteries, were forming, each of which wants to have been this or that, and of course, if one wants to be a Baptist, they need the other complementary piece, because they have to appear together again. Such John the Baptists, Apostles John - they just walked around like that, didn't they.

A lot of it also has to do with the fact that one has a selfish joy, a typically selfish joy, when one can say to someone: This is a secret! I am not allowed to tell you! This is only for the inner circle! - A lot of it has to do with all these things. These things have now been pushed far enough; these things have led to the gossip and scandal that has proliferated. I recently spoke not to counter this, which apparently or really deals with the facts, but about what threatens to let society sink into gossip and rumor, into slander and defamation, because spiritual science can be drawn into gossip and rumor as a result.

And what is a social matter is what has led to the fact that measures had to be taken. Do you think that articles that challenge one or the other sentence have led to such measures having to be taken now? No, they have not! But if you have powers of observation, you can see the intertwined paths everywhere, especially in what has been appearing for some time. As some of you may still remember, it all began with a mean article that appeared in the “Deutsche Tageszeitung” [German Daily Newspaper], which actually contained gossip that had been exaggerated in a very specific way. Since that time, no protest has ever been raised in the Anthroposophical Society against gossip and idle chatter, but it has been thought — as I generally emphasize, that as a rule the opposite of what I mean happens; I have always been misunderstood. As if I believed that this or that, which is apparently or really factually objected to spiritual science, should be dealt with by society. That can certainly be asserted by members, but that is a matter in itself. But we cannot continue the society if such swamp flowers arise as they are now; we cannot possibly do so. All kinds of things are sought after in one direction or another that have nothing to do with spiritual science, that depend on whether one has a society, so it happens that everyone in the society, no matter whether they represent the greatest nonsense, belongs to the society. So people say: This is the society that Dr. Steiner represents! He is responsible for all the nonsense that is carried out. And what a lot of cabbage it is! People go to the doctor and explain to him without any coercion: Yes, Dr. Steiner knows all this better than you do; he knows how to find the illnesses through the spirit.

It is obvious that these things, which accumulate and are always there in one form or another, make it impossible for society to continue in its present form. Apart from many other things that make it impossible, which in particular mean that there is hardly any kind of impudence to which we have not been exposed over time. Above all, everyone understands their membership in such a way that they can scold us according to their needs, preferably in writing or in some other way. We have not been spared any kind of unjustified impudence over time.

Now, these are not really impertinences, there is no need to get annoyed about them, you can accept them objectively, they do not harm you; but the things that then happen are factual. The person who writes an impertinence represents it in every respect; the impertinence becomes a lie, becomes a lie, and then it leads to gossip and slander. That is why it is so important to keep pointing out the factual judgment.

Do we have to overheat everything? Do we always have to put everything in a false light? Things on the physical plane are not so that they can be deified in every single link, in every single small phase. And can we not, when it comes to emphasizing as a social issue what has been said often and for the purpose of being said, so that what our society should be can really learn to distinguish itself from all the ghastly sectarian societies with which it is repeatedly and repeatedly confused. But what is happening?

Please take the whole stack of the Zyklen (a series of lectures) – I don't even want to mention the books – take the Zyklen, the lectures that were given, and please look up how much is in them about the purely physical question of nutrition: what one should eat or drink, what one should not eat or drink; please look up what is in them! Then ask how many members of the Anthroposophical Society are going around saying: Dr. Steiner said you shouldn't eat that, I know what, you shouldn't eat roots, that and that. - All sorts of things that make the Society look ridiculous! But it is arranged so that not only the Society is ridiculed, but I am always ridiculed with it; that is the technique that is followed.

It depends on the spirit in which things are done, because that is the spirit in which they are then driven. And I can observe this spirit from other symptoms. It is almost unbelievable when I see the kind of rubbish that is sent to me from members. If someone comes up with nonsense like cutting potatoes and placing them on warts to heal them, a member will ask whether this is right or not, or what should be done in such a case. This spirit also leads to telling members whether they should drink coffee, eat cheese, or consume mustard and paprika, and the like. I beg of you, take a look at the whole bunch of cycles and see if you can find any of these things there! So anyone who, even with the best of intentions, advocates these things as they are advocated and makes stories out of them that appear to be made in the name of the Society is falsifying what this is all about in the worst possible way.

Of course, I know that many, many, hopefully the majority of the members, feel the same way, but it is important to judge the things. If you have a society, you have to consider: everyone is a member of this society; but does that blind you to the qualities of the society? Is it necessary that it blinds you to the qualities of the society? Isn't it true that sometimes one has to deal with a person, one should also deal with him, one can perhaps do him some good by dealing with him. But does one then have to be blind to the person? Can't one walk alongside a person with seeing eyes? Does one have to justify oneself to oneself when one is friends with a person, that he is a high I or even a terribly great incarnation or the like?

I am talking about very specific things that have happened. Really, a lot would be kept back if one were to make the effort to judge. So it can happen, of course, as attitudes develop in our society, that I can't save myself whenever a certain personality, when I went on a trip, also bought a ticket and of course sat down in the compartment where I sat. That is something I can't prevent. I can't forbid any passenger to sit with me in the compartment, otherwise I would have to buy up all the tickets. — That is harmless; but if people from the Anthroposophical Society then come and, because the person in question always sits in my compartment and travels with me, they consider this person to be a highly initiated one, that is, an especially highly developed personality, then the damage of considering someone to be something begins. It is precisely this that matters, that one has first formed one's opinion.

I really don't always want to be 'betrayed' about these things, but the way these things are coming out of all 'clusters' now, how we really can't go on a journey and see in all places how far people go with the most sacred things. Of course, I never spoke in that place in the most distant of successive incarnations of Christ, but I least noticed that I myself was that incarnation, as in 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907 it was constantly whispered to the world, but not trumpeted, that is precisely the worst thing, that bears its fruits today.

But here we have a person who claims to have heard it, because he claims that he was sitting at the lecture and can also point to others who heard it too. So things go so far that you hear things that could never possibly have been said. But do you think, my dear friends, after the experiences I have had, that I would dare to be completely sure if someone were to say: Yes, there was someone there who took notes, who gave me the transcript, I can prove it! – Do you think I would claim that there can be no such transcript? I am even willing to believe, after all the nonsense that has been spread in the postscripts, that this too can be found in the postscripts.

Just as my dear friends, such nonsense, such ridiculous nonsense in such a hateful way has not really been written at all yet, as is now being written against us, so one must also say: the Anthroposophical Society had to be founded to bring such things to light, which would not actually be possible on any other ground. Nevertheless, many of those who engage in such things are, according to the state of their consciousness, fully convinced that it never occurred to them to ever participate in such things. They may not even know, those who do it.

It is only under such conditions that we are able to see the result that arises, among other things, from this. I will mention only the mildest: Dr. Steiner spoke about the Lazarus miracle, how the human being can be transformed. And then it is shown that he also wanted to perform the Lazarus miracle in a special case with a member. The member felt that the miracle should be performed on her. The way was that Dr. Steiner, when the person concerned was in a sanatorium, sent chocolate biscuits “to thicken the blood”. So, because chocolate biscuits were sent to the sanatorium, as the person concerned herself says, “to thicken the blood”.

Of course, Dr. Steiner only sent them to eat. If she had not walked past a pastry shop, but an orange and apple shop, she might have sent oranges or apples, but she sent chocolate biscuits.

But once the aspiration has arisen, my dear friends, to seriously tie in with the cultural movement of humanity in general, the society was generally not the right instrument for doing so. I once talked about the first attempts of this or that painter or sculptor and tried to show them. One would like it if one were interested in something that, even if it is only at the beginning, is hung in lecture halls for the sake of shame, and people walk past it; but all such endeavors were ignored. A boycott of everything that is not dilettantism is also an ingredient of the Anthroposophical Society, which weighs heavily on the soul.

On the other hand, if you came into the individual branches, the seven red “patches” over the black cross were everywhere, of course! Whether or not it was a work of art was not the point! Rather, the ugliest and most inartistic was that which was the deepest. And once when I was speaking in Dornach about how the big problem, if one can call it that, with Dürer's 'St. Jerome', but especially with 'Melancholy', lies in the use of chiaroscuro, in the entire spatial arrangement, and how I was trying to place that in the development, since we were able to show the picture as a slide at the time, and one could discuss this particular aspect of the Dürer picture, a voice suddenly arose that found this quite Botokudisch, of course, that I saw the important thing in the actually artistic problem: Can't you see anything deeper in it? He meant that one had to start explaining according to the pattern of how it had happened once – well, we had presented something and someone came and asked: Which person is Atma, which one is Buddhi, which one is spirit self? Everything should be an abstract symbol.

This, of course, leads to the factual, but I also had to mention it for the reason that these aberrations in the factual form the centerpiece; for on the other hand they lead into the abyss of that which presents itself as a love of the nebulous, which is then no longer far removed from all possible subjective deception and which is no longer far removed from objective untruth.

But today it is important not to confuse social issues – and these are very much social issues – with issues of spiritual science, which are something completely different. Otherwise, one could come up with the absurd idea, which someone has already come up with, of setting up a press committee to which anyone who wants to write something, in particular wants to write counterattacks or wants to make attacks, would have to submit. My dear friends, firstly, I believe that if such a committee had existed, Seiling would hardly have bothered to go and ask whether he could write his articles. And neither would the others. If they were forbidden to do so, they would at most resign. That is the second point. The third is that the whole thing would be nonsense.