Monism versus Dualism: Theosophy and Modern Knowledge

GA 51 — 15 October 1902, Berlin

Discussion

First, O. Lehmann-Rußbüldt gave a lecture on Dr. Steiner's lecture for orientation purposes, adding that it was his personal wish that not only the 250 to 300 listeners to the lecture would have been present, but also the 2000 to 3000 people who make up the spiritual public life in Germany. Dr. Steiner's call to make theosophy, if it is a female philosophy according to Duboc, into a male one in critical Germany, should be underlined thickly, so that it would take up a whole page in print, because there is certainly no small danger in the theosophical movement. The speaker acknowledged that, despite electricity and precision mechanics, our intellectual culture could be called crude compared to the harmony that existed between science and religion in the great cultures of antiquity, but, he added emphatically, we do not want to despair of ourselves because of that. The obvious superiority of our intelligence, as it manifests itself in the machine age, could be a guarantee that we will deepen and expand what the culture of antiquity only had a presentiment of, albeit in the most magnificent way. To this end, the speaker quoted a passage from Count Gobineau's racial work about the spiritual disposition of the Aryan, which can certainly also be applied to the peoples of the Atlantic world, i.e. Western Europe and North America: "The Aryan is thus superior to other men mainly to the extent of his intelligence and energy, and thanks to these two abilities, if he succeeds in conquering his passions and his material needs , he is likewise granted the ability to achieve an infinitely higher morality, although in the ordinary course of things one can find as many reprehensible actions in him as in individuals of inferior races.” The speaker concluded by saying that, in his opinion, science would develop from the defamed hypnotism and somnambulism into an expanded and refined psychology, which would mean as much to us for the knowledge of the soul as astronomy and chemistry mean for the knowledge of nature, despite the fact that these sciences have developed from astrology and alchemy. In the discussion that followed, Nicolai was the first to criticize the fact that it was not explained what Theosophy actually wanted and could do.

Dr. Steiner replied that his lecture had only wanted to emphasize the connection between monism and the world view, which was already moving in modern tracks in the days of Vedanta philosophy in India. The dualism that has been emerging in Christianity since the 4th century consists in the fact that it may well accept the eye and the senses for the knowledge of the world of phenomena, but for the knowledge of our origin and our destination, it does not allow the means of our knowledge either, but refers us to faith, to the revelations of old books and prophets. But monism promises a development of knowledge, just as it has been able to establish a development of species for living beings. In the writings of Vedanta philosophy, there is a conversation in which a disciple asks the teacher: What happens when I die? The teacher replies: The solid and liquid parts of your body will become solid and liquid again, because man is like a stone and an animal; even the expressions of your thoughts and actions dissolve into your surroundings, but what remains is the “development,” the reason for what has formed your personality. — Thus, Vedanta philosophy is already monistic in its core. What lives only in the unconscious in animals, namely the urge to develop their personality, must enter into fullest consciousness in humans and merge with consciousness as an ideal.

Fritz Sänger polemicized against Dr. Steiner. The Theosophists always pretend that they already possessed and still possess the results of modern natural science, but they have never given any examples of such superiority. He feared that a movement of this kind was only too well suited to undermine the results of modern natural science; despite the most careful observation, he had only been able to find the expression of idiocy in spiritualism, but he had to acknowledge the fact of hypnotism. After Köhn had spoken in warm and urgent words in favor of Dr. Steiner, O. Lehmann-Rußbüldt remarked that Mr. Sänger's remarks were typical of the representatives of so-called natural science of all times. Fifteen years ago, Sänger would have declared as nonsense the fact, demonstrated by Krafft-Ebing among others, that a lime-leaf laid on a hypnotized person causes a burn like a glowing piece of iron if the hypnotized person is to regard it as such; just as a hundred years ago the French materialists declared it to be nonsense that meteorites can fall from space onto the earth. Dr. Steiner then once again vigorously opposed the confusion of Theosophy and spiritualism. If Mr. Sänger had encountered such Theosophists who gave cause for this, then he should stick to them, but he, Dr. Steiner, firmly rejected this. He considers it immoral in the philosophical sense to seek teachings about destiny and human nature through the manifestations of so-called spirits; that would be gross materialism. He also does not place any particular value on the name Theosophy. Above all, he finds the high ethics of Theosophy meaningful in his sense, which, for example, leads to the most serious consequences in education. What a perspective for the mind of the educator when he is aware that he has to unfold a seed of divinity in the child!¹