The History of the Esoteric School 1904–1914, Volume Two

GA 265 — Berlin

Rudolf Steiner to A.W. Sellin

Berlin W 30, August 15, 1906
Motzstraße 17

Dear Director,

At last I am able to write you the letter I announced a long time ago. But above all, I ask you – I refer to a few sentences in your last letter – never to assume that I could be hurt by anything. Please strike this word out of our correspondence altogether.¹

And now I will go straight to the point. The concerns you have expressed regarding part of my occult activity are based on erroneous assumptions. And the things you have heard from others are also wrong.

Let us speak openly: in my occult activities I was recently obliged to take up something that, according to certain premises, could be described as moving in the direction of occult Freemasonry. I now ask you to take each of my words and turns of phrase very precisely. I do not use certain turns of phrase to conceal something, but to describe the real facts very precisely.

Now there was a so-called “Memphis and Misraim Order” in Germany that purported to work in the direction indicated. This order described itself as a Masonic organization. And it worked on “degrees”, of which the first three corresponded to the recognized Freemasonry.² My occult aspirations have nothing to do with this “recognized” Freemasonry. They do not want to and cannot interfere with it. Freemasonry has not the slightest reason to concern itself in any way with these efforts.

When I now wanted to start working in the indicated direction, it was incumbent upon me to introduce a ritual for certain processes of the higher planes for those who sought such. This ritual can be no other than the mirror image of what is fact of the higher planes. This ritual is no different from that which occultism has recognized for 2300 years, and which was prepared for European conditions by the Masters of the Rosicrucians. If something in this ritual has been carried over into the three St. John degrees, this only proves that these St. John degrees have taken on something from occultism. My sources are only occultism and the “Masters”.³

Now I had two options. Either to ignore the order mentioned altogether, or to deal with it. The former would only have been possible in a single case: if the order had rejected an understanding. In the other case, it would have been disloyal in the sense of certain historical concessions that occultism must make.

What I have now done, I tell you on the assumption of your complete discretion.

The Grand Master General of that order was a certain Theodor Reuss. What he has otherwise done is not part of the discussion. Whatever it may have been, the fact that he was Grand Master General of that order, which purported to operate in the stated direction, was the only thing that mattered. I had to deal with this fact. For this purpose I had to visit the aforementioned Theodor Reuss, whom I had never seen before and about whom I had never learned anything. It would have been easy for me to find out about these circumstances, of course. But they were absolutely none of my business.

I have now told Mr. Reuß what can be formulated in the following sentences: I want nothing, absolutely nothing, from your order. However, I will work in a direction that the order claims as its own. It now only depends on the order acknowledging, not for me but for itself, that I am doing this in the sense of the degrees that the order claims as its own. I make it a condition that the order does not communicate anything of its rituals to me. No one should ever be able to say: I received something from the order. I want my step to be considered only from the standpoint of occult loyalty. And no one may receive the right to interpret it differently.

Reuß said rather briefly: he could not do that, because this would make him impossible in his order. I now left for the time being. What has happened and will happen, will happen whether with or without the mentioned order. After a few days, Reuß requested further negotiations. He now made no further demands, other than that I recognize, purely in a business-like and practical sense, his right to receive a fee – no different than the usual one – for anyone who goes in the direction that the order considers to be its own. All further negotiations now concerned only formalities. I constituted what had to be constituted, without Mr. Reuß ever being present at anything. Mr. Reuß, for his part, recognized everything I did. But I completely ignored the order in factual terms. In order, as he said, not to violate his order's rules, Reuß gave me diplomas and ritual objects. That is, he brought them to my house. To buy all this from him would have been, even if there had been no other reason against it, the greatest foolishness on my part, because there was nothing in all this stuff that could not be bought for very little money from any antiquarian. The fact that Reuss simply receives the fee for each member that he is legally entitled to is merely a loyal recognition of a right to which he is entitled, regardless of what else is going on with him.

Of course, only a member can know what is going on in the “lodges” that have been constituted.⁴ I myself can only say a few things about it. But this is objectively quite sufficient. Firstly, the name Reuß has never been mentioned in these lodges. Secondly, none of those I initiated can show a diploma that originated with Reuß. Thirdly, nothing ever happened that somehow violated loyalty to Freemasonry. Fourthly, everyone has been informed about the relationship between the matter and Freemasonry. Finally, fifthly, only Theosophists are members of our “lodges”. If former members of the said order wanted to join us, they would have to prove that they not only held the degrees by right of their tax returns and diplomas, but that they had them “within”.

So what I have established has nothing to do with what used to be in Germany and purported to be the “Memphis and Misraim degrees”. And none of this concerns me in the slightest, what is going on around Reuss and his comrades' medals. - There have even been naive people coming to the house, busily telling me what they know about Reuss, or even “warning” me. But in truth, none of this concerns me in the slightest. Not even that people who previously allowed von Reuß to give them “degrees” feel duped and are now angry. I understand this anger; but it is not loyal that I am brought into play at all from this side.⁵

As you can see, Director, everything is in order from my side. I have answered you because you asked me in good faith. Only time will tell what can be done about people who would like to accuse me by saying things they couldn't possibly know.

Today I also have something to say about your exercises...⁶

Kind regards

yours sincerely

Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Addition to the above letter to A. W. Sellin

The above letter was made available to Marie Steiner by the recipient, A. W. Sellin, after Rudolf Steiner's death. In his accompanying lines of April 9, 1925, he wrote:

... I feel compelled to make available to you two letters from the dear departed, which may in the future acquire significance for the history of the Anthroposophical Society. In any case, they are better off with you than with me.⁷

The first letter, addressed to me on August 15, 1906, deals with the genesis of the “Mystica aeterna” and is the answer to my request addressed to the doctor for this reason.⁸

This request was all the more important for me, who was at that time in the middle of German lodge life, because Reuß was so indiscreet as to publish in No. 1, 5th year of his magazine “Oriflamme” the text of his granting of permission for the founding of a chapter and a grand council of the Adoptive Masonry under the name “Mystica aeterna”⁹ and to name Dr. Steiner as deputy Grand Master and you as Grand Secretary of this new association.¹⁰

This indiscretion of Reuß, who had sent the mentioned number of his magazine to numerous Masonic lodges, later caused me great trouble in the Masonic Federation, which I was only able to overcome gradually on the basis of the clarification provided by the doctor in the enclosed letter.