---
ga: 264
title: "To Doris and Franz Paulus in Stuttgart"
date: 1904-05-14
words: 853
---
# The History of the Esoteric School 1904–1914, Volume One

## GA 264 — 14 May 1904, London

### To Doris and Franz Paulus in Stuttgart

London, May 14, 1904

Strictly confidential.

Dearest Mrs. and Dr. Paulus!

A lot of work and travel have not allowed me to answer your kind letters in detail until today. I am particularly pleased to receive your last letter because I see that you have continued the meditation work, and I ask you to always keep it that way. You can be assured that you will always receive the necessary information from me at the right time. Because of our esoteric work in Germany, I had to spend the last few days in London here with our spiritual leader, Mrs. Besant, in order to obtain full esoteric authorization from her for everything I do in this field. You can be assured that in the esoteric, every instruction and every piece of advice is given in the most careful way and under the real guidance of the great spiritual leaders of the human race. Do not doubt that sooner or later you will find your way to these guides through meditation work itself. Only someone who has experienced what I have experienced can speak like that. I now ask you to continue meditating on the parts of the “voice” that precede the seven voices in the coming weeks. I will interpret these seven voices under authorization in the next few days and you will then receive a first copy of the interpretation. It will then be of much more value to you than if I had given it to you 14 days ago without full authorization. Because my esoteric work has only received the full consecration in the last few days.

Now I turn to your questions, dear Doctor. If I were not an esoteric and did not live a spiritual life, I might say: Your questions in Stuttgart and later by letter surprised me. But through the qualities mentioned, I was fully prepared for the realization of your deep psychological insight. I can only tell you: you have good psychic gifts and a beautiful precondition for both spiritual knowledge and for working in the physical world from the spiritual planes. What you experience simply shows that you have contact with the spiritual powers of the world, and your whole nature shows again that you are called to apply these spiritual gifts in a noble way to help people. Among other things, you repeatedly asked me who I was. The time will come when we can talk about it. But today I will only tell you that I have reason to believe that you did me a great service in an earlier life. Don't misunderstand me. Of course, errors cannot be ruled out in spiritual observations either. But I am not a person who lives in illusions. In the spiritual fields, I am one of those people who are called cautious and also 'sober'. That is why I can speak of justified belief. In my earlier life, centuries ago, a personality played a role in my life that snatched me from a certain family sphere and opened up the paths for me that were necessary for my former profession, a Catholic priest. Those were times when the church had not yet completely fallen into disrepair as it has today. At that time, you showed the lack of prejudice that still appears to me today as so great in you. At that time, you probably also created the conditions for your present life. These are suggestions that I ask you to take as critically as possible; but I can only tell you that I consider them fully justified. If what I say seems plausible to you, it will also be clear to you that you are called to psychic life. Do not be frightened by this predisposition. We must regard such gifts as a sanctuary; we must live with them as intimately as we live with the tables and persons in our physical environment. We must accept them objectively, and our self-confidence, our “I”, must always remain intact and at our core.

We must never allow ourselves to be enslaved by such influences. They are given to us; but never with the intention of overwhelming us. Whatever may come, hold fast to the principle that all the powers of the world, physical as well as spiritual, are there in the present epoch of the world's development for the purpose of helping man to fulfill his mission here on this earth as a free, self-conscious, thinking, self-supporting being. The spiritual powers and influences are only meant to guide him to find the right way here. And today woman in particular is called upon to find and assert her self. Everything that happens in this field will contribute to the welfare of mankind.

I will be back in Berlin on May 17 and will continue this letter then.[^1] For now, I send you both my warmest regards in good faith.

Yours Truly,

Rudolf Steiner

---

[^1]: Letter dated August 11, 1904