II. Max Dessoir on Anthroposophy

Dessoir states that my reference to spiritual being, “on the whole, characterizes itself as a materialistic coarsening of soul processes and as an anthropomorphic leveling of spiritual values.” With respect to the contents of my books, this assertion makes about as much sense as the following would make: “A thinker who is capable of saying that ‘to use an admittedly very imperfect analogy, one can call the present moment of consciousness a circle, whose circumference is black, whose center is white, and whose intermediary areas are gradations of gray,’ such a thinker's view characterizes itself ‘on the whole ... as a materialistic coarsening of soul processes.’ And the thinker who is doing this grotesque thing—comparing the present moment of consciousness with a circle and speaking of white, gray, and black—is Max Dessoir.” Now it would of course never occur to me to say such things, because I know that Max Dessoir in this case is not coarsening soul processes in a materialistic manner. But what he does to me is like what I have just hypothetically characterized.