1912 Annual Report for the German Section of the Theosophical Society

Translated by Marie Steiner for the thirty-seventh Anniversary and Convention of the T.S., 1912

To the President, TS: - The undersigned has the honour to present herewith the annual report of the Theosophical Society in Germany.

This year also our work has gone along the same lines and in the same manner, as since the foundation of the German Section. In the various Lodges, to which 3 new ones have been added, the work was done in such a way that knowledge, as well as the deepening and ennobling of life, have been aspired to. And one can distinctly see how the public lectures, as well as the other activities emanating from our Society, find an ever-growing wider comprehension in broader circles of the population. New Lodges have been founded in Augsburg, Erfurt and Hamburg. One Lodge dissolved. The total number of Lodges is now 55, and there are besides 4 (or 3) Centres. 293 members entered during the year; 14 died, 90 have resigned or dropped; 29 have gone over to other Sections; the net increase being thus 160.

The lecture-work of Dr. Rudolf Steiner went on this year as in former years. Lecture-series were held by him in Hannover, Helsingfors, Norrköping, Stockholm, Christiania, Munich and Bâle. Single lectures were given by him in most of the Lodges of our Section and were also held abroad. Dr. Carl Unger’s work for the building up of a philosophical foundation of the Theosophical work has been vigorously continued. His efforts too were directed in the same direction as before. Herr Adolf Arenson and Fräulein Toni Völker work with devotion in Stuttgart and its environment. So do Fräulein Stinde and Baroness Gumppenberg in Munich, Michael Bauer in Nürnberg, Frau Wolfram in Leipzig, Frl. Scholl in Cöln, Frau Wandrey in Hamburg. All these unwearingly affective members try to serve in the most intense manner the ideal of strengthening Theosophical knowledge and Theosophical life. At present the number of members that have entered into the ranks of those that have put their work into the Service of our cause by lectures, effective service of humanity and other different ways, is very large, and it is not possible even to name each single one in this report. Dr. Peiper’s activity as healer and lecturer in Munich, Frl. Stinde and Countess Kalckreuth’s unwearying activity for the spreading of spiritual life in the lower classes of the population, the activity in word and deed of Herr Walther, Frau v. Reden, Frl. Vreede, Herr v. Rainer, Frau ReifBusse and many others, have helped in the most different directions to deepen our thoughts, and to implant them in an effective way into the life of the soul and also into practical life.

The fertility of our work on the line of mystery-representations in Munich showed itself this year not only through the ever-increasing number of visitors, but also in that we were allowed to offer besides the repetition of the mysteries already performed, «The Holy Drama of Eleusis» by Eduard Schur&, «The Portals of Initiation» and «The Probation of the Soul» by Rudolf Steiner, a fourth performance of a similar kind, «The Guardian of the Threshold». Of those that are active in this work and have already been named formerly in his report, of Frl. v. Sivers, Frl. Waller, Herr Doser, Herr Seiling, Dr. Peipers and many others, of Baroness Eckhardstein as artistic moulder of the scenic pictures, of our painters Herr Hass, Herr Linde, Herr Volkert, as shapers of the decorative work, of them all I will only say, that with the increase of work, their devotion and self-surrender have increased.

On the whole it may be said, that our work progresses in the line designated by the fact, that within our field of activity a great number of persons have found in Theosophy the inmost impulse of their life.

We send our best greetings to the President and to the brothers in India.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner,
General Secretary.