# Dr. Steiner's Reply

It is my duty to inform the esteemed members about this letter from Mrs. Besant. I will do so objectively on the basis of the true facts.

1. Mrs. Besant writes in May 1912: “Dr. Vollrath made no appeal to me; therefore I had no duty to consider right or wrong in this matter, and to this day I do not know it.”

The exact opposite is the objective truth!

*The facts are as follows*: Dr. Vollrath addressed an appeal to Mrs. Besant in the form of a five-page letter regarding his expulsion in October 1908, as early as December 1, 1908. This letter from Dr. Vollrath was sent to me by Mrs. Besant, enclosed in a letter she wrote to me on January 7, 1909, in which Mrs. Besant wrote: “Dr. Vollrath is sending me various complaints; I enclose his letter. Kindly let me know whether you consider that there is anything in his case which should prevent his being a member-at-large? A man is sometimes troublesome in a Lodge or Section whose membership is harmless in the General TS and a Section can expel a man from itself but not from the TS, as a Lodge can expel a man from its own body but not from the Section. I am not in favor of expelling a member from the general TS, but I shall not answer Dr. Vollrath definitively till I hear from you.” This means in German: “Dr. Vollrath sends me various complaints. I enclose his letter. Please let me know if you think there is something in his case that would prevent him from remaining as a member in the broader sense. A person is occasionally disturbing in a lodge or in a section whose membership is harmless in the General Theosophical Society, and a section can exclude a person from itself, but not from the Theosophical Society, just as a lodge can exclude a person from its body, but not from the section. I am not inclined to expel a member from the General Theosophical Society; but I will not answer Dr. Vollrath definitively before I hear from you."

In response to this letter from Mrs. Besant and the appeal addressed by Dr. Vollrath to Mrs. Besant, which already in 1909 contained things of the very same kind as Dr. Vollrath repeated in his pamphlet of 1911, I replied to Mrs. Besant at length, presenting the case to her and also writing to her about the reasons which then led not me but the Section's Executive Council to take the step.

*In response to this, Mrs. Besant replied to me on 18 March 1909*:

> “As regards Dr. Vollrath. I fully recognize that it is sometimes necessary to exclude a man from the smaller working areas of a lodge or of a Section.
> (these words are underlined by me, Dr. Steiner). I, as President, confirm the action taken by the German Section, and enclose a note to that effect, which you can use or not in your official organ as you please. I also write by this mail to Dr. Vollrath, so informing him.”

The above-mentioned note, which was enclosed with this letter, reads: “To Dr. Rudolf Steiner, General Secretary of the German TS. My dear Colleague, under Rule 36 of the General-Constitution of the TS which vests in the President alone the power of issuing and cancelling Charters and Diplomas; and having in view Rule 37, which gives to each National Society the power of making it own Rules; I, as President of the TS, having been appealed to by Dr. Vollrath, of Leipzig, against his expulsion by the German TS and having heard all particulars thereof, (These words are underlined by me. Dr. St.), decide that his expulsion from the German TS is valid, and that Dr. Vollrath has ceased to be a member of that body.» This is the English translation: “To Dr. Rudolf Steiner, General Secretary of the German Theosophical Society. My dear colleague. In accordance with Rule 36 of the General Constitution of the Theosophical Society, which gives the President alone the power to grant or revoke charters and diplomas; and bearing in mind Rule 37, which gives national societies the right to establish their own rules: I, as President, having Vollrath of Leipzig has appealed to me (these words are underlined by me, Dr. St.), because of his expulsion from the German Theosophical Society, and after hearing all the details of the case (these words underlined by me, Dr. St.), I decide that his expulsion from the German Theosophical Society is well founded, and that Dr. Vollrath has ceased to be a member of this body.

In the face of these facts, I will simply summarize and say: *On March 18, 1909, Mrs. Besant writes: “after Dr. Vollrath has appealed to me and after I have heard all the details of the case...” On May 8, 1912, the same Mrs. Besant* writes: “Dr. Vollrath did not appeal to me; therefore I had no duty to consider right or wrong in this matter; and to this day I do not know it.”

Mrs. Besant now continues: “In the summer of 1911, when the question of a representative of the ‘Order of the Star of the East’ in Germany arose, I suggested Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden. The Order is not part of the Theosophical Society, and Adyar has nothing to do with its administration. The whole attack on Adyar is not nice, because the Adyar administration had no knowledge and did nothing for Dr. Vollrath or the order. When talking to Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden about possible secretaries in Germany who would work under him, I suggested Dr. Vollrath, not as a representative of the president – who cannot be represented within the order – but as a secretary under Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden.

This was agreed to, but on his return to Germany the good doctor found that Dr. Vollrath was regarded as an antagonist of Dr. Steiner, and so the election was rescinded. This is what actually took place, and I cannot possibly see in it any injury to Dr. Steiner or to the German Section. We had no reason to think that his exclusion from the German Section should be taken to mean that he should be excluded from any kind of useful activity outside the Theosophical Society. But when we found that his election was regarded as antagonistic to the General Secretary, it was withdrawn to avoid injury.

Dr. Steiner speaks very strongly about Dr. Vollrath's pamphlet and brands this pamphlet as the cause of the injury. But I have never read a line of this pamphlet and have no knowledge of what it contains. Had I known what a damaging pamphlet was being prepared against Dr. Steiner, I certainly would not have proposed Dr. Vollrath's name as secretary, for I have always shown respect for Dr. Steiner, both as General Secretary and as a friend. It might have been better to ask me if I knew the pamphlet before such speeches were made.

Again, the following is the objective truth: It did not matter that Mrs. Besant had read the pamphlet, because in many respects it was a repetition of things that Dr. Vollrath wrote to Mrs. Besant two years earlier and which were refuted by me in a detailed letter to her at the time. I therefore never assumed that Mrs. Besant had read the 1911 pamphlet, but that she had not responded to my 1909 letter. In a detailed letter that I addressed to her in March 1912, I now expressly explained to Mrs. Besant that I certainly did not claim the right to give her instructions regarding measures relating to the “Star of the East”, which I never took care of and which therefore does not concern me at all. I myself did not say a word against Dr. Vollrath's appointment. What was expressed at the general assembly of the German Section was only the stating of the fact that Mrs. Besant, who has known the relevant facts since 1909, expressed a vote of no confidence to the German General Secretary by completely disregarding his judgment. This expression of opinion came from the German Section assembly; it did not come from me.

For some time now, Mrs. Besant has been taking action against me that is very similar to that in this letter. What I do as General Secretary of the German Section, what I undertake as a lecturer, is treated in this way and repeated and reprinted in numerous Theosophical communications in the Theosophical Society. What the present assistant of Mrs. Besant in Germany, Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden, is doing in Germany in this direction, goes beyond all bounds of possibility to such an extent that it is difficult for me even to write about it. Only one thing may be mentioned, namely, that he calls the German Section an organization like the Catholic Church, with a Pope at the head and with branches resembling dogmatically governed bishoprics. He compares my and my colleagues' approach to that of the Jesuits. And all this after he has used the most unctuous words about brotherly love, peace, and the like.

My dear friends, anyone who is familiar with my writings and lectures can see how far I am from anything that could be described as dogmatism. I certainly do not refrain from emphasizing often enough, not only in words but in theory, how little should be taken dogmatically, what I have to represent, *but* how it should be *examined*; I always try to point out possible serious objections myself, in order to give everyone the opportunity to make their own assessment through the whole approach of what I assert. Examiners, what is happening against me from Mrs. Besant's side and her helpers, and it will hardly be possible for a different judgment of real impartiality to arise, than that my work is precisely the obstacle to allowing the Theosophical Society to become a mere Leadbeater-Besant sect. It is incredible that we are spoken to about things that are not really important, but treated in a way that is, for example, the following. I am forced to discuss the objective fact of the cancellation of the Genoa Congress at the last general assembly of the German section. I say that after the cancellation, I contacted the General Secretary of the Italian Section to find out the reasons for the cancellation. He replied to me in a telegram: “I have acted on strict orders from President Mrs. Besant and Secretary Mr. Wallace; please contact them.” This is the strict, objective fact. Mrs. Besant is now spreading the following: I had misrepresented the whole matter, for she had never canceled the congress, but only reported to Genoa that she would not be coming there. As a result, the opinion is forming in wide circles of the Theosophical Society that I said something incorrect at our general assembly, while I did not say anything about my view of the matter, but only communicated to my members the clear wording of the official telegram from the responsible General Secretary. I never said that Mrs. Besant had canceled the Congress, but only that she could not have canceled it because she had no right to do so.

This is how it goes with statements that Mrs. Besant makes about me in almost every issue of The Theosophist. Dear friends, do not ask me to refute all these errors in The Theosophist. It would lead to nothing but a series of replies, and in the end no one would understand anything. You can refute errors, but when it comes to the issues at hand, you refrain from refuting them for reasons that are easy to understand. I truly have better things to do than refute things that are not there.

I would like to tell you only one thing. Your trust alone allows me to hold out at the post of Secretary General of the German Section. Because what I have had to endure for years in this position is bitter, and only to avoid being called sentimental do I not say that it is a martyrdom.

Anyone who has followed how the relevant things have developed in recent years can see how little it is true when the attackers and accusers now claim that I represent an intolerant dogmatism. This does nothing more than shift the main points everywhere. Those who have followed my lectures know how things were a long time ago. I held to a certain view, for the reasons I had to put forward, of the Mystery of Golgotha, for instance. I initially presented these things in isolation. I hardly touched on other views; I wanted to let everything speak for itself on its own merits and on its own grounds. Then individual personalities approached me and repeatedly bombarded me with questions about the mismatch between my presentation and that of Mrs. Besant. I hardly engaged in such questions at first. For it seemed to me that the audience should decide which account was supported by the stronger arguments. I could understand that some of the prominent figures in the Theosophical Society found it difficult to come to terms with themselves when they saw the contradictions in the accounts. But I wanted nothing to be said for this account other than the internal consistency of this account itself, which can be seen from the publication of my book: 'Christianity as a Mystical Fact'. Everything I presented after this book was nothing more than a further elaboration of what was given there. I had good reasons for simply stating what I believed I had recognized, and leaving it entirely up to each listener to decide how to relate to what I had presented. That is how I wanted to continue. Nothing should have any effect except what my listeners found convincing in my presentation. I cannot be blamed for the fact that a number of listeners found something useful for themselves in my presentation.

In the following period, I would have done nothing other than continue with what I have just characterized. Then quite different things happened. People not only began to attack what I had said. Everyone had every right to do that. I would have done nothing in the face of these attacks except let my statement work through its inherent reasons. But what came from the other side was not at all an attack on what I had said, but something quite different. I will mention only a very few of the many things that were said against me here. I could see from an official account of a speech Mrs. Besant had given at the Annual General Meeting of the Theosophical Society in Adyar that she was not polemicizing against what I had said, but that she was putting forward things as peculiar to my account that no one could match with this account of mine. She presented, for example, what I had said as something specifically German-Christian in a way that had never occurred to me. I wanted to maintain the peace, so I initially confined myself to pointing out Mrs. Besant's error in a letter. I did this at great length. I also wrote to her that what was at issue here was not applicable to the fact that the most diverse points of view can coexist within the Theosophical Society. This, after all, is self-evident. What I had to do was to teach Mrs. Besant that it is quite another thing to tolerate different points of view and to say something about another point of view that has nothing to do with that point of view but distorts it. I wanted to make it clear that truth should prevail when one person is talking about another. After all, the versatility of points of view cannot also include the possibility that something incorrect can be said from a different point of view. Mrs. Besant did not answer me when I wrote to her that she had always emphasized that different points of view in the Theosophical Society were useful and not harmful. So it was finally with many; on what it comes down, one did not go in, the answers were taken for granted that meant nothing. I had now, despite all this, the intention to quietly continue in the manner described above and to let what I had to say take effect through its own reasons alone.

The following period showed that Mrs. Besant's words at the general meeting were repeated in many places. In addition, many other similar things happened. Of the numerous cases that occurred, only one of the most recent ones will be highlighted. A pamphlet by one of Mrs. Besant's helpers, “The Message of Peace,” was published. In it, various statements are made against the descriptions I have given. If you look more closely, you will make the astonishing discovery that the quotations from my writings mean something different, and in several cases even the opposite of what I have had printed. In addition, the passages that are not in my writings are quoted. This or that is then presented, not against what I actually said, but against things that I did not say. I must confess: the experience of such quoting, as practiced in the “Message of Peace”, must first be made to even consider it possible. Well, I will limit myself, as I have already done in various branches, to merely reporting this kind of behavior towards other views and making it clear that one really has no reason to go into such an “alternative point of view” in any more detail. But it will be interesting to see whether anyone is found who does not shy away from the judgment: I am aggressive because I tell people that I am being quoted incorrectly. It will also be interesting to see whether someone can be found who is willing to say, among those who find something useful for them in my descriptions, there is intolerance towards other opinions because of the compulsion to say that Mrs. Besant said the opposite in a letter in 1912 of what she said in a letter in 1909. It will be interesting to see whether people will realize that you are not fighting viewpoints when you simply present facts. And it will also be interesting to see whether anyone will be found to accuse us of being aggressive and unchristian for stating the facts of important matters and saying: this is how things are. Or is it also possible to have different points of view about what has happened on the physical plane, which can be established as fact by anyone?

I continue to believe that points of view can coexist, but that this has nothing to do with the obligation to accept the facts as facts and to treat them truthfully where these facts have nothing to do with any opinion or theory.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner.