The History of the Anthroposophical Society 1913–1922

GA 251 — 29 May 1917, Berlin

21. Disciplinary Measures

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.