Daniel Hindes

On May 8th, 1911 Besant declared Krishnamurti the reincarnated Christ. [The following paragraph is based on the chapter “Die Trennung von der Theosophischen Geselschaft” (The separation from the theosophical society) in Lindenberg, Christoph. Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie. Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1997, pages 484-504]. This had been building up for some time. Since Leadbeater had “discovered” Krishnamurti, he had been groomed for an important role. Leadbeater researched the previous lives of an important individuality he called Alcyone, publishing his findings in a series of articles titled “Rents in the Veil of Time” in the English periodical Theosophist starting in April 1910. These were collected in his book The Lives of Alcyone. Going back 23,650 years before Christ, Leadbeater described Alcyone (whom he identified as Krishnamurti) and the people around him over successive incarnations. Important people in the Theosophical movement were involved in these previous lives, usually the more important the person in the present Theosophical Society, the more prominent they were in history. Leadbeater was “Sirius” and Besant was “Hercules.” Even among Theosophists his descriptions were not always taken seriously, as evidence by the limerick “In the Lives, in the Lives, I've had all sorts of husbands and wives.” A more detailed description is offered by Alice Leighton Cleather, in a letter she wrote in 1913 and reprinted as part of a book in 1923:

"The ill-omened consequences of this influence were soon to appear before the world through the affair of Alcyone and the founding of the Order of the Star in the East . . . lf a real Indian initiate, a Brahmin or otherwise, of ripe age, had come to Europe an his own responsibility or in the name of his Masters to teach his doctrines, nothing would have been more natural or interesting. . . . But it was not in this form that we beheld the new apostle from Adyar. A young Indian, aged thirteen, initiated by Mr. Leadbeater ... is proclaimed and presented to the European public as the future teacher of the new era. Krishnamurti, now called Alcyone, has no other credentials than his master's injunctions and Mrs. Besant's patronage. His thirty-two previous incarnations are related at length the early ones going back to the Atlantean period. These narrations, given as the result of Mr. Leadbeater's and Mrs. Besant's visions, are for the most part grotesquely puerile, and could convince no serious occultist. They are ostensibly designed to prove that for twenty or thirty thousand years the principal personages in the T. S. [Theosophical Society] have been preparing for the " Great Work " which is soon to be accomplished. In the course of their incarnations, which remind one of a newspaper novel, these personages are decorated with the great names of Greek mythology, and with the most brilliant stars in the firmament. During a meeting at Benares, Krishnamurti presenting certificates to his followers, received honours like a divine being, many persons present falling at his feet. He does not, however utter a word, but only makes a gesture of benediction, prompted by Mrs. Besant. In reporting this scene Mr. Leadbeater likens it to the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.

For this dumb prophet is founded the Order of the Star in the East, which the whole world is invited to join, and of which he is proclaimed the head . . . this passive young prodigy, who has not yet given the world the least proof of having any mission at all… becomes henceforth the centre and cynosure of the T. S., the symbol and sacred ark of the orthodox faith at Adyar. As to the doctrine preached by Mrs. Besant, it rests on a perpetual equivocation. She allows the English public at large, to whom she speaks of the coming Christ, to believe that he is identical with the Christ of the Gospels, whereas to her intimates she states what Mr. Leadbeater teaches, and what he openly proclaims in one of his books, The Inner Life – namely, that the Christ of the Gospels never existed, and was an invention of the monks of the second century. Such facts are difficult to characterize. I will simply say that they are saddening for all who, like myself, believed in the future of the T. S., for they can only repel clear-sighted and sincere minds…"

Cleather, Alic Leighton. H. P. Blavatsky: A Great Betrayal. Calcutta, India: Thacker, Spink & Co., 1922. Pages 12-13.

Steiner was notably absent from Leadbeater's book. While some at the time doubtless wondered, Steiner himself knew why. In June 1909 Besant had offered him the position of John the Baptist in the scheme – a role that was to have paralleled the one Besant imagined for him: the herald of the Christ. Steiner had politely declined. His response was to continue to hold lectures throughout Europe on his understanding of the Christ event, which he had long termed “The Mystery of Golgotha.” The descent of God into a human body was a one-time event, central to earth evolution. From the beginning Steiner had been clear that he would only teach what he himself perceived, and would not under any circumstances represent some party doctrine.

Turning now to paragraph 8 of Peter Staudenmaier's 'Anthroposophy and Ecofascism':

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 8:

Steiner dedicated ten years of his life to the theosophical movement, becoming one of its best-known spokespeople and honing his supernatural skills. He broke from mainstream theosophy in 1913, taking most of the German-speaking sections with him, when Besant and her colleagues declared the young Krishnamurti, a boy they "discovered" in northern India, to be the reincarnation of Christ. Steiner was unwilling to accept a brown-skinned Hindu lad as the next "spiritual master." What had separated Steiner all along from Blavatsky, Besant, and the other India-oriented theosophists was his insistence on the superiority of European esoteric traditions.

This paragraph follows that pattern established by Peter Staudnemaier: it covers a number of events from a period, but not in any depth or with any citations, and of course, it gets the basic facts wrong. First, Steiner was not dedicated to the Theosophical movement in the manner implied, as the passages of his that I quoted earlier make abundantly clear. He lectured and wrote for ten years as General Secretary of the German branch of the Theosophical Society, but always made it clear that he would only ever represent his own knowledge, and never the party line if that in the slightest way diverged from his own insight. And he was certainly not shy about pointing out exactly where he felt party-line Theosophy went wrong.

Examples of Steiner's many critical statements on Theosophy and the Theosophical Society include:

“The Theosophical Society was first established in 1875 in New York by H.P. Blavatsky and H.S. Olcott, and had a decidedly Western nature. The publication "Isis Unveiled", in which Blavatsky revealed the large number of esoteric truths, has just such a western character. But it has to be stated regarding this publication that it frequently presents the great truths of which it speaks in a distorted or even caricatured manner. It is a similar to a visage of harmonious proportions appearing distorted in a convex mirror. The things which are said in " Isis" are true, but to how they are said is a lopsided mirror-image of the truth.  .... A distortion arises because of the inappropriate way in which H.P. Blavatsky's soul has received these truths. The educated world should have seen in this fact alone the evidence for a higher source of inspiration of these truths. For no one who rendered them in such a distorted manner could have created these truths himself. .... Under the influence of this stream the Theosophical Society took on its eastern character, and the same influence was the inspiration for Sinnett’s "Esoteric Buddhism" and Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine". But both of these again became distortions of the truth. Sinnett’s work distorts the high teachings of the initiators through an extraneous and inadequate philosophical intellectualism and Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine" does the same because of her chaotic soul. 

“The result was that the initiators, the eastern ones as well, withdrew their influence in increasing measure from the official Theosophical Society in the latter became an area of all kinds of occult forces which distorted the great cause. ... This was the situation when I was faced with the necessity of joining the Theosophical Society.”

Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner. Correspondence and Documents: 1901-1925 . New York: Rudolf Steiner Press 1988. Pages 17-18.

The above is an excerpt from “the Barr Document” written by Steiner for Eduard Schuré in Barr, Alsace in September 1907. Steiner was the General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society at this time, and would be for another six years. Speaking of the subject in 1916, Steiner said:

"I now wish to say something about the development of our Anthroposophical Society, because errors have been circulated on the subject. For instance, it is said that the Anthroposophical society is only a kind of development out of what is called the "Theosophical Society". Although it is true that what we aim at within our Anthroposophical Society found its place for a time within the framework of the General Theosophical Society, yet our Anthroposophical Society must on no account be confused with the Theosophical Society. And in order to prevent this, I must bring forward something – apparently personal – about the gradual emergence of the Anthroposophical Society.

“It was about 15 years ago that I was invited by a small circle of people to give some lectures on spiritual science. These lectures were afterwards published in the title Mysticism The Dawn Of The Modern Age. Until then I had, I might say, endeavored as a solitary thinker to build up a view of the world which on one hand fully reckons with the great, momentous achievements of physical sciences, and on the other hand aspires to gain insight into spiritual worlds.

"I must emphasize the fact that at the time when I was invited to speak to a small circle in Germany on the subject connected with spiritual science already mentioned, I did not depend in any way upon the works of Blavatsky or Annie Besant, nor did I take them particularly into consideration. The outlook expressed by these books have little in common with my view of the world.  I had at that time endeavored, purely out of what I discovered for myself, to present some points of view about the spiritual worlds. The lectures were printed; some of them very soon translated into English, and that by a distinguished member of the Theosophical Society, which at that time was particularly flourishing in England; and from this quarter I was urged to enter the Theosophical Society. At no time had I any idea, if the occasion should have presented itself in the Theosophical Society, to bring forward anything to save what was built up on the foundation of my own, independent method of research.

"And that which now forms the substance of an anthroposophical view of the world, as studied in our circle of members, is not borrowed from the Theosophical Society but was represented by me as something entirely independent which – as a result of that society's invitation – took place within it, until it was found to be heretical and was "shown to the door"; and what had thus always been there was further developed and cultivated in the now wholly independent Anthroposophical Society.

"Thus it is an entirely a erroneous conception to confuse in any way what is living within the Anthroposophical Society with what is represented by Blavatsky and Besant. It is true that Blavatsky has in her books put forward important truths concerning spiritual worlds, but mixed with so much error that only one who has accurately investigated these matters can succeed in separating what is significant from what is erroneous. Hence our Anthroposophical movement must claim to be considered wholly independent. This is not put forward from want of modesty, but merely in order to place a fact in its objectively correct light.”

Rudolf Steiner. Approaches to Anthroposophy. Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press,1992. Pages 6-7. Translated by Simon Blaxland-de Lange. Lecture of January 11 th, 1916 in Basel, GA 35.

Continuing my commentary on paragraph 7 of Peter Staudenmaier's 'Anthroposophy and Ecofascism':

Staudenmaier's footnote does not actually have directly to do with the statements in this paragraph; it refers to a chapter called "The Occult Origins of National Socialism" in the book The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism by George Mosse. If this is as much as Staudenmaier has read on the issue of Theosophy as presented by Blavatsky (as his footnotes imply) then he is indeed woefully unprepared to discuss the subject knowledgably.

An unsubstantiated claim, and one which I would oppose on the strongest terms, is the claim that the authoritarian pattern established by Blavatsky and Besant carried over into anthroposophy. In fact, it was on the point of authoritarianism that the anthroposophists broke with the Theosophical society . Steiner described his position and the events surrounding this break in detail in several places . ( See “Die Trennung von der Theosophischen Geselschaft” [The separation from the theosophical society] in Lindenberg, Christoph. Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie. Stuttgart : Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 1997, pages 484-504.) Peter Staudenmaier appears not to have read anything on this matter beyond a small number of his favorite secondary sources, most of which are not noted for going into any depth on this or other matters.

It is further implied that Steiner adopted party-line Theosophical doctrine as the basis for his activity as the General Secretary of the German Section. Steiner himself was quite clear on his relationship to Theosophy as it was understood in the Theosophical Society:

“No one was left in uncertainty of the fact that I would bring forward in the Theosophical Society only the results of my own research through perception. For I stated this on all appropriate occasions. When, in the presence of Annie Besant, the German section of the Theosophical Society was founded in Berlin and I was chosen its General Secretary, I had to leave the foundation sessions because I had to give before a non-theosophical audience one of the lectures in which I dealt with the spiritual evolution of humanity, and to the title of which I expressly united the phrase “Eine Anthroposophie.” Annie Besant also knew that I was then giving out in lectures under this title what I had to say about the spiritual world.

"When I went to London to attend a theosophical congress, one of the leading personalities said to me that true theosophy was to be found in my book Mysticism ..., I had reason to be satisfied. For I had given only the results of my spiritual vision, and this was accepted in the Theosophical Society.

"There was now no longer any reason why I should not bring forward this spiritual knowledge in my own way before the theosophical public, which was at first the only audience that entered without restriction into a knowledge of the spirit. I subscribed to no sectarian dogmatics; I remained a man who uttered what he believed he was able to utter entirely according to what he himself experienced in the spiritual world. Prior to the founding of the section belongs a series of lectures – which I gave before Die Kommenden, entitled Von Buddha zu Christus. In these discussions I sought to show what a mighty stride the Mystery of Golgotha signifies in comparison with the Buddha event, and how the evolution of humanity, as it strives toward the Christ event, approaches its culmination. In this circle I spoke also of the nature of the mysteries. ... [The importance of Christ] was by no means taught in the Theosophical Society. In this view I was in direct opposition to the theosophical dogmatics of the time, before I was invited to work in the Theosophical Society. For this invitation followed immediately after the cycle of lectures on Christ here described.

"... Thus the thing evolved up to the time of my first attendance at a theosophical congress, in London, in the year 1902. At this congress,... it was already a foregone conclusion that a German section of the Society would be founded with myself – shortly before invited to become a member – as the general secretary. All that was interesting in what I heard [in discussions with Theosophists] stirred me deeply, but it had no influence upon the content of my own views.

Steiner, Rudolf. The Course of My Life. New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1951. Pages 297-298.

If Peter Staudenmaier would like to argue to the contrary that anthroposophy has an authoritarian dogmatism inherited from Theosophy, he should support such an argument with citations to both historical accounts and primary sources that demonstrate this. Simply asserting it is insufficient. And if he would like to argue that Steiner followed Theosophical doctrine to the letter (or even in spirit) during his years as a member of the Theosophical society this would have to be demonstrated from a comparative study of the relevant primary literature (by my estimation some 80 to 100 rather dense volumes). I am not aware of anyone who has put in the time for such a study (several years by conservative estimates) who has not found substantial points of difference between anthroposophy and Theosophy in precisely the area where Staudenmaier is claiming their similarity. There is simply no evidence that Staudenmaier has anywhere near the depth of understanding of Theosophical doctrine or of anthroposophy necessary to successfully advance his hypothesis.

Turning now to paragraph 7 of Peter Staudenmaier's 'Anthroposophy and Ecofascism':

Peter Staudenmaier writes in Paragraph 7:
In 1902 Steiner joined the Theosophical Society and almost immediately became General Secretary of its German section. Theosophy was a curious amalgam of esoteric precepts drawn from various traditions, above all Hinduism and Buddhism, refracted through a European occult lens. (On the connections between theosophy and the Nazis, see George Mosse, "The Occult Origins of National Socialism" in Mosse, The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism, New York 1999.) Its originator, Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), was the inventor of the "root races" idea; she declared the extinction of indigenous peoples by European colonialism to be a matter of "karmic necessity." Theosophy is built around the purported teachings of a coterie of "spiritual masters," otherworldly beings who secretly direct human events. These teachings were, of course, interpreted and presented by Blavatsky and her successor Annie Besant (1847-1933) to their theosophist followers, thus establishing the authoritarian pattern that was later carried over to anthroposophy.

Blavatsky did indeed originate the term "Root Race". And she did declare that indigenous peoples are dying out. However, Peter Staudenmaier has misunderstood (or never read) the explanation for how this is to be accomplished. Contrary to what Staudenmaier would have you believe, Blavatsky did not declare that those indigenous people who were alive ought to die for karmic reasons. Rather, Blavatsky, accepting the scientific reports that indigenous peoples were dying out as a unique racial group due to sterility, declared that this sterility was due to the fact that souls no longer wished to be born into these races. See Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. The Secret Doctrine. 1888. Theosophical University Press. Volume 2, Part 3, Chapter 7, page 780. 30 Apr. 2004 < http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd2-3-09.htm >.

"The dying out of the Hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day. Ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize with Occultists that the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of the workings of Karma. As Lefevre remarks, "the time is drawing near when there will remain nothing but three great human types" (before the Sixth Root-Race dawns), the white (Aryan, Fifth Root-Race), the yellow, and the African negro -- with their crossings (Atlanto-European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc., etc. -- all are dying out. Those who realize that every Root-Race runs through a gamut of seven sub-races with seven branchlets, etc., will understand the "why." The tide-wave of incarnating EGOS has rolled past them to harvest experience in more developed and less senile stocks; and their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity."

See also my article on Root Races at http://www.defendingsteiner.com/misconceptions/r-race.php

The dying-out process Blavatsky predicted would take another thousand years. The karmic necessity that Blavatsky talked about was that souls wishing to be born were choosing other races for karmic reasons, and not that indigenous peoples currently alive ought to die. Staudenmaier has treated Blavatsky with the same lack of scholarly care and accuracy that he brings to this study of Steiner.

Continuing my examiniation of paragraphy 6 of Peter Staudenmaier's 'Anthroposophy and Ecofascism'::

Further, only one example of Steiner's flip-flopping is given, an apparent reversal on the topic of Christianity. This question has been written on at some length by a number of people, though you wouldn't know it from this piece*, and Steiner himself commented on it in his autobiography . Writing in The Course of My Life (New York 1951, page 274) he said:

“Individual assertions regarding Christianity which I wrote or uttered in lectures at this time appear to be contrary to the expositions I gave later. In this connection the following must be noted. At that time, when I used the word “Christianity,” I had in mind the “beyond” teaching which is operative in the Christian creeds. The whole content of religious experience refers to a world of spirit which is not attainable by man in the unfolding of his spiritual powers. What religion has to say, what it has to give as moral precepts, is derived from revelations that come to man from without. Against this my view of spirit opposed itself, desiring to experience the world of spirit just as much as the sense-world in what is perceptible in man and in nature. Against this likewise was my ethical individualism opposed, desiring to have the moral life proceed, not from without by way of precepts obeyed, but out of the unfolding of the human soul and spirit, wherein lives the divine. What then occurred in my soul in viewing Christianity was a severe test for me. The time between my departure from the Weimar task and the production of my book Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache is occupied by this test. Such tests are the opposition provided by destiny (Karma) which one's spiritual evolution has to overcome.”

Asserting that Steiner "changed his mind on many topics" without any supporting evidence is an obvious attempt to portray Steiner as unstable, vacillating, and unreliable. Such a picture is completely at odds with virtually every depiction of the man by his contemporaries and biographers. Staudenmaier is obviously not afraid of going against consensus opinion on Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy, but it would help his case if the actual source material even remotely supported his position.

* See, among others the chapter “War Rudolf Steiner in den Jahren vor 1900 Atheist (Was Rudolf Steiner an atheist in the years before 1900)” in Johannes Hemleben, Rudolf Steiner und Ernst Haeckel, Stuttgart 1965 and Christoph Lindenberg, Rudolf Steiner: Eine Biographie, Stuttgart 1997, pages 443-454. A nice summary is given by Henry Barnes in his book A Life for the Spirit, page 67:

“Rudolf Steiner had been accused earlier of being Anti-Christian. It was subsequently said that his statements around the turn of the century were inconsistent with what he wrote later. He deals with this criticism in one of the shortest chapters of his biography. There he points out that it is the concept relegating Christianity to the “beyond” that he opposed. For him the view of revelation that comes to the human being from without – from a reality that we may believe in but cannot know – was at odds with his awareness of a world of spirit that could be experienced and known directly through an act of free cognition.”