Esoteric Lessons 1913–1923

GA 266III

Preliminary Remarks on Part III

In order to understand the origins of the esoteric youth circle, we must begin with the general anthroposophical youth movement, since the idea of the “circle” is closely connected with it.

The catastrophe of the World War from 1914 to 1918 had proven that the old social structures were outdated and in need of complete reorganization. Thus, in the spring of 1919, the movement for a threefold social order arose out of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy. Instead of the old unitary state, it sought the full self-administration of intellectual, legal, and economic life. The great response these efforts elicited from the public was also reflected in the fact that more and more young people were drawn to anthroposophy. Anthroposophical student groups sprang up at universities and other institutions of higher education in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, and in the summer of 1920 they founded the “Association for Anthroposophical Higher Education.” With university courses at the Goetheanum in Dornach and in other cities, the intention was to sow the seeds of a free university system. These intentions were apparently met with some skepticism within the Anthroposophical Society, which prompted Rudolf Steiner, at the first general meeting of the Society after 1914, held on September 4, 1921, in Stuttgart,¹ in response to a vote by a student at the University of Tübingen² with the words: "Here has spoken a representative of the youth movement! There are a whole number of representatives of the student body sitting here! My dear friends: The fact that members of such movements or such bodies have come to our Anthroposophical Society is something we must regard as epoch-making in the history of our anthroposophical movement. We must do everything that can rightly be expected of the Anthroposophical Society from this quarter." He had already characterized the youth movement (Wandervogel) that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century as a “movement that shot up internationally out of elemental forces,” in which something of the “tremendously significant turning point at the end of the 19th century,” the end of the Kali Yuga, had come to light.³

Fired by such elemental forces, young people interested in anthroposophy, some of whom were still closely connected to the Wandervogel youth movement, felt deeply dissatisfied in the Anthroposophical Society. And so they sought ways to organize themselves anthroposophically and socially. On March 17, 1920, a first circular letter was sent out from Stuttgart “To the youth of the anthroposophical movement”⁴ calling on them to join together to form a general youth branch based on an idea by Rudolf Steiner. Shortly thereafter, one of the young people, Otto Palmer Jr., was given the opportunity to report on these efforts on April 25, 1920, in Dornach at the 7th regular general meeting of the Goetheanum Association, the free school of spiritual science. According to the minutes⁵ he said the following:

"If one is to report on the anthroposophical youth movement and what positive things have been achieved there, this is only possible if one briefly looks back at the origins of this movement and its development.

If one wants to understand this movement correctly, one must above all regard it as a protest that has come to life among young people against the old branch life that has been customary in the Anthroposophical Society up to now. There is indeed something alive in young people that feels the need to take anthroposophy not merely as a Sunday afternoon decoration, but to bring everything that is given in anthroposophy into life and put it into practice. The fact that here and there, out of this protest, the mistake was made at first of approaching the matter programmatically was perhaps due in part to the fact that this need was felt so strongly and people wanted to feel their way in all directions at once, instead of starting work on a single point and allowing this positive work to crystallize further. This gave rise to fundamental controversies, with one side placing particular emphasis on the need to establish a youth branch — which was met with mistrust by the other side, who feared that this would introduce precisely what they did not want. This purely nominal difference of opinion led to a solution whereby we now have a number of groups in Stuttgart that have grown out of the needs of this youth movement in the sense that, instead of I would say, of someone lecturing from the podium to a more or less listening audience, people have now come together who really want to work on a topic together, whether the focus of this work is a book, whether it is a joint discussion, or whether a specific topic with a technical content is being worked through in a joint seminar. Working in this way naturally creates the basis for a lecture series in which the events of these groups working individually can be combined into a series of lectures where a lively connection between the lecturer and the audience is established and where the audience, thanks to the preparatory work that has been done, perceives these lectures as a summary and culmination of their own work.

This solution, which in a certain way seeks to approximate the idea of freedom of spiritual life, which cannot possibly be confined within narrow limits, strives—since the old form of the branch was felt to be a constraint—to replace this kind of constraint with a creative and formative activity arising from what is truly alive, which cannot be expressed in advance in a specific program. It is really a matter of attempting to realize the freedom of spiritual life as far as this is possible within this small framework. It is necessary to overcome a certain fear that still prevails that such a free spiritual life will awaken counterforces that could and will cause difficulties. One can only undertake such a task if one believes that one has something alive within oneself from which the forces capable of overcoming the counterforces can come.

In accordance with this statement, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer's circular letter of April 16, 1920, following the appeal of March 17, 1920, states “Draft of the Basic Principles of the Work in the Youth Branch”⁶ "The work in the Youth Branch should be carried out above all from the point of view that young people can one day become the bearers of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. (...) If we add ability to our will, then the struggle against old thinking can be taken up everywhere. If the work of the Youth Section is carried out in this sense, the outer form will emerge of its own accord."

However, such an outer form only emerged at the beginning of 1923 with the help of Rudolf Steiner. He made it possible for a separate “Free Anthroposophical Society” for young people to be formed alongside the official Anthroposophical Society.⁷

This was preceded by the following stages: Youth groups had sprung up everywhere. An anthroposophical university association had been founded. Anthroposophical university courses and large congresses were organized. But neither the young nor the old were really satisfied with this development, and the generational conflict grew ever deeper. This led to several like-minded young people coming together during the East-West Congress in Vienna in June 1922 and forming a plan to seek a meeting between the youth and Rudolf Steiner in order to resolve their problems. By July, three of them—the two friends Ernst Lehrs and Fritz Kübler, along with Rene Maikowski, the managing director of the University Association—were able to discuss the matter with Rudolf Steiner in Dornach. They received confirmation that such a meeting would take place in Stuttgart at the beginning of October. Ernst Lehrs then traveled through northern Germany and Fritz Kübler through southern Germany to invite anthroposophically oriented young people to attend the meeting. Ernst Lehrs reported on his experiences in a letter to Rudolf Steiner as follows:⁸

Jena, September 18, 1922 Dear Dr. Steiner! Before we meet you in Stuttgart, I would like to share with you my experiences during my stay with friends in Bremen, Berlin, and Dresden, as well as through our written exchanges. To my great delight, I found everywhere a new impulse arising from the very same impulses that had brought Kübler and me to you in Dornach: there is a general realization that every attempt at cooperation in the age of the consciousness soul was doomed, even in our circle, to become a mere working side by side, and that it is high time, especially in view of the now unstoppable collapse of the outer structure, to consciously educate ourselves through working side by side to a brotherhood that can become a cooperation that can serve as an example. It would therefore be too narrow a view to say that a number of budding “educators” are coming together in Stuttgart who would like to hear what you have to say about their “professional” training. Rather, it is people with a scientific, artistic, and educational orientation who are coming together, most of whom are already working on building a community in the above sense. They all share the urge to educate people, because in all three areas, learning is no longer enough for us today; we need self-education, not teaching, but education! And for all of them, insofar as they are anthroposophists, something like a “friend of God” has come from the spiritual world in the course of this year, just like the layman who came to Tauler! So while most of those present in Stuttgart will be future “schoolchildren,” there are a considerable number of others—for example, delegates from a Dresden circle of sculptors and architects who are in the process of forming a working community in which they want to educate themselves and others to become “master builders” on the basis of spiritual science. All of them wish to be together in Stuttgart so that when they part, something will remain together in the spiritual world, so that they may help and encourage one another in a serious, heartfelt mutuality from group to group, from place to place, from profession to profession, so that they can give their fellow human beings courage and confidence for a final liberation of spiritual life through their exemplary being and work. Yours gratefully, Ernst Lehrs It would be advisable not to schedule any events on October 1 so that participants have time to get to know each other."

The letter makes it clear that for most of these young people, the focus was on their future teaching profession, while for some others it was more the intention to join a profession-independent “nameless but living alliance.”

The suggestion of such an association can be traced back to Ernst Lehr's meeting with Wilhelm Rath and his working group in Berlin in August 1922, shortly before the letter to Rudolf Steiner was written. While working with a Berlin youth group, Wilhelm Rath had become enthusiastic about Rudolf Steiner's writing “Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life and Its Relationship to the Modern Worldview” (1901, GA 7) because of the medieval figure of the friend of God from the Oberland and his circle of twelve friends of God described therein. This sparked in him the ideal of forming a similar brotherhood for anthroposophical youth work, but one that was appropriate to the demands of the present. These Berlin young people were further encouraged by a call published in mid-July 1922 in the magazine "Anthroposophie, Wochenschrift für freies Geistesleben" (Anthroposophy, Weekly Journal for a Free Spiritual Life).⁹ They were immediately of the opinion that it was not possible to proceed as described in this appeal. And shortly afterwards, during his organizational trip for the youth meeting, Ernst Lehrs met with Wilhelm Rath and his working group in Berlin. They immediately felt that it was not possible to proceed as suggested in this appeal. And when, shortly afterwards, Ernst Lehrs met Wilhelm Rath and his working group in Berlin during his organizational trip for the youth meeting, he too became enthusiastic about their ideal of a league similar to the Friends of God. At that time, Wilhelm Rath already spoke to Ernst Lehrs about his idea that Dr. Steiner should be asked to lead a joint meditation through which all young people could connect with each other spiritually every day. Shortly before leaving for Stuttgart, Rath wrote to Lehrs expressing his belief that this idea could be brought up at the youth meeting: "I have one more suggestion, but perhaps it will only be possible to bring it up in personal conversation during the course of the event, so that it can then be submitted to Dr. Steiner as a request: that he give us, who want to come together for intensive, lively cooperation in the future, the opportunity, even when separated by distance, to unite in spirit at specific times in rhythmic succession through meditation, that the doctor give us a common meditation that unites us, the content of which we can contemplate in the morning or evening. This idea seems important to me. Whether and how it will be realized remains to be seen—the dangers associated with its realization must be given special consideration.“ With this letter, according to Wilhelm Rath in his report ”Mein Weg zum Kreis“ (”My Path to the Circle“), ”the result of a long, intense struggle to formulate the question we wanted to put to Dr. Steiner had finally been achieved."

The relationship of trust that Wilhelm Rath had established with some of the older generation of Berlin representatives had clearly contributed to this. He was also able to discuss his thoughts on the formation of an esoteric community with them, who told him a great deal about the esoteric school of the pre-war period. These were Wilhelm Selling and his wife Karin Selling, as well as his brother-in-law Kurt Walther, who had been a member of the executive board of the Anthroposophical Society until the fall of 1921. The three became a kind of protector of Rath's endeavor, accompanied him to Stuttgart in October 1922, and were among the founding members of the esoteric youth circle.

When around 80 young people aged between 18 and 25 (joined by a few older people) gathered at the Stuttgart Gesellschaftshaus on October 1 for the meeting of young people with Rudolf Steiner, the contrast between the “older and younger generations” was immediately apparent. The official representatives of society were offended that they had not been included in the event.¹⁰ They therefore asked Rudolf Steiner about this, to which he replied that he himself did not know what the young people wanted from him. Some of them had visited him and talked to him about all sorts of things, and he had agreed to give them this course at their request. But they had not told him what they really wanted. When the initiators of the youth meeting were told this, they were very alarmed and asked a friend to ask Rudolf Steiner for an explanation. His answer was that they had expressed the view that rigid programs were outdated. He agreed with them completely. Based on the work they had done among themselves in the meantime, they should tell him what he should talk about in the course. He had been advised (in Ernst Lehr's letter) not to appear on the first day, in order to give those gathered time to get to know each other properly. He suggested that this time be used to decide on a specific topic for his first lecture. After listening to it, they would then have material to help them decide what they wanted to hear from him in his second lecture. In this way, just as they wished, the course¹¹ would come to life without a program. (According to the report “History of the Youth Circle” by Ernst Lehrs.)

During the subsequent discussions in the organizing committee, two very contrasting views emerged. While the Rath-Lehrs group wanted to raise the question of forming an esoteric community independent of any profession, the other group categorically rejected this and demanded that only questions relating to education be asked. Finally, a neutrally worded question was agreed upon. When this was presented to Rudolf Steiner after his arrival on October 3 and he seemed disappointed, Wilhelm Rath felt compelled to say that some people were still particularly interested in the question of forming an esoteric community. Rudolf Steiner immediately agreed to discuss this, but suggested that it should first be discussed among all course participants; those who were interested would then find each other. He would then come back to the subject himself, and they would arrange it so that only those who really wanted to would be present at the next meeting.

Several times, all the course participants met with Rudolf Steiner in this way. In addition, there were discussions among the participants alone. After some very heated debates, the majority separated from the RathLehrs group and further discussions took place in a smaller circle, without the opponents. Due to contradictions in the documents, it is no longer possible to determine exactly when these meetings took place and what Rudolf Steiner said at which meeting. All that is known is the date of the last preparatory meeting, which took place on October 12. The following day, only those who had decided to form a circle were present. There were twelve to whom Rudolf Steiner gave the requested meditation and, three days later, on October 16, 1922, the formula of the vow.¹²

The next meeting of circle friends with Rudolf Steiner took place in Dornach, a few days after the catastrophe of the Goetheanum fire on New Year's Eve 1922. Ernst Lehrs reports: "His blunt criticism of society and various activities within it in the weeks preceding that fateful Christmas and New Year period made it clear that it was their failure that had caused the building to lack the necessary spiritual protection. It was precisely this experience of failure that had given rise to the youth course and to what led to the creation of our special cause. So the idea arose among us that we should ask Rudolf Steiner whether and how we could contribute to the society becoming “consolidated” again, as one of us put it. With this in mind, they asked him if they could speak with him. When they were able to ask him on January 3, 1923, in the Glass House, how they could contribute to the consolidation of society, he replied “in a calm tone with emphatic seriousness”: “Just keep yourselves consolidated, and society will be consolidated.” He then advised them to meet regularly for “symposium-like discussions” to reflect again and again on the fundamental impulses of their community.

The next meeting with Rudolf Steiner took place in Stuttgart on July 13, 1923. The circle friends had asked for it so they could ask questions. However, Rudolf Steiner did not address them at all, but instead gave them an esoteric lesson. A second meeting followed in Dornach during the Christmas conference period, on December 30, 1923. In addition to Mrs. Marie Steiner, he also brought Dr. Ita Wegman with him.

According to a record of Ernst Lehr's “Definition of the Circle” from 1963, Rudolf Steiner continued to “make himself available to those concerned with his advice, verbally until his illness, then in writing until shortly before his death.” However, there are no documents on this in the Rudolf Steiner Archive.

For the post-war period until the re-establishment of the former esoteric school as the “Free School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum” at Christmas 1923, it is generally true – and for the esoteric youth circle in particular – that the initiatives for esoteric associations, as well as for the founding of the “Christian Community,” did not originate with Rudolf Steiner. Rather, he sought to respond to the questions and requests brought to him wherever possible.

Some information about the twelve founding members:

Daniel van Bemmelen, 1899-1982, born in the Dutch East Indies, member since 1921, teacher at the first Dutch Waldorf school in The Hague, which he co-founded in 1923.

Georg Groot, 1899-1967, Dr. med., born in Ronneburg in the Baltic region, member in Berlin since May 1920, became acquainted with anthroposophy as a student in 1919 through the threefold social order and then worked in the Berlin group of the Hochschulbund, to which Wilhelm Rath also belonged. After the Goetheanum burned down, he was one of the guardians responsible for the safety of the building and Rudolf Steiner for many years.

Herbert Hahn, 1890-1970, born in Pernau, Estonia, member in Berlin since March 1912. Appointed by Rudolf Steiner in 1919 as a teacher at the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart.

Ernst Lehrs, 1894-1979, born in Berlin, member since August 1921, then a physics student in Jena, later a teacher at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart and on the committee of the “Free Anthroposophical Society” founded in 1923 for young people. Later teacher in The Hague, London, Aberdeen, and after the war with his wife Maria Röschl at the Rudolf Steiner Seminar in Eckwälden.

Rene Maikowski, 1900-1992, born in Berlin, member since 1921, studied history and social sciences, from March 10, 1922, managing director of the “Association for Anthroposophical University Work,” later teacher at various Waldorf schools.

Wilhelm Rath, 1897-1973, born in Berlin, member in Berlin since June 1920, bookseller, writer, and later farmer in Farrach, Carinthia. With Lehrs and Maikowski on the committee of the “Free Anthroposophical Society.” Wilhelm Selling, 1869-1960, born in Steinau an der Oder, became a member in Berlin in April 1905, mechanical engineer, worked for many years as a colonial official in Africa. Retired early for health reasons, he devoted himself entirely to anthroposophical work in Berlin. He looked after the Theosophical Library in Motzstraße and was considered the mentor of youth work in Berlin. From 1931 to 1939 he lived in Stockholm.

Karin Selling, née Flack, 1880-1958, Swedish, teacher, already a member of the Scandinavian Section of the Theosophical Society, married Wilhelm Selling in 1920 and moved to Berlin, later becoming a teacher at the Waldorf School in Stockholm.

Emma Smit, 1896-1986, Dutch, teacher, together with her future husband D. van Bemmelen, she was one of the initiators of the “Frije School” in The Hague.

Maria Spira, 1895-1972, member in Vienna since April 1921, came from the Zionist youth movement, later married Wilhelm Rath and lived with him in Farrach, Carinthia, from 1935.

Albrecht Strohschein, 1899-1962, born in Hamburg-Harburg, member in Bremen in March 1920, initially a trained merchant working for the Kommender Tag in Stuttgart, then a psychology student in Jena, co-founder of the curative education movement in 1924.

Kurt Walther, 1874-1940, born in Frankfurt/Oder, postal official, member in Hamburg in June/July 1904, transferred to Fürstenwalde near Berlin in 1908. In 1910, he married Wilhelm Selling's sister Clara, who had been part of Rudolf Steiner's household since 1905. After he was transferred to Berlin in 1913, they returned to Motzstraße. Kurt Walther was a lecturer and leader of many courses, and from 1916 to 1921 he succeeded Marie Steiner on the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society.