Daniel's Musings: March 2004 Archives

Below is something I wrote for a workshop. The assignment was to stand outside for 15 minutes and note everything that you percieved with your senses.

The loudest sound I heard was a sound between a plop and a plunk that came from my shoulders. Some of these sounds were louder than others. It was rain hitting my jacket. The larger drops made an almost popping noise as they hit the wet canvas surface of my coat. In closer to my ears was a sound of a different pitch. It sounded like droplets of water hitting urethane foam. This was the sound of water droplets hitting my fleece hat. I took my hat off for little while and there was a huge change in the soundscape. The higher pitched noises of the drops on the hat were gone. The rain hitting my hair made no sound that I could hear. But then I could feel the cold of the water; not right away but slowly, gradually, as enough of it got through the hair and down to my scalp. Eventually enough collected to start running down my forehand. At that point the water was already warmer. I put my hat back on.

I noted six separate birdcalls. They were repeated at varying intervals. Sometimes one bird called simultaneous to another (I saw several dozen birds). One bird called regularly with the same short burst of sound, repeated nearly a dozen times - then a pause. Others would call one phrase, and then wait. It was not possible to determine whether the various calls came from the same bird, or if another bird was answering or imitating. There was no larger pattern to their calling that I could discern, no identifiably rhythm or superstructure to their voices; the sounds were unpredictable.

The sound of the running water formed a background to the other noises. It was regular, almost rhythmical, except it was entirely structurally chaotic. White noise is what they call it - the differences in sound are so subtle that and so close together - with so many layers of randomness - that the ear hears it almost as a single tone. With effort it was possible to isolate one blurble or gurgle that was discernibly louder or more prominent than the others, but mostly they blended one into and over the other so that they were featureless.

Occasionally I would hear a car on the road (about 600 feet away). These were heard mostly by the sound of their tires as they moved through the water on the street; the engines were inaudible. Once I heard a truck. This I identified by the sound of the engine - a diesel - as it strained on the downshift. It was faint - mostly drowned out by the stream and the steady plop of raindrops on my shoulder - but it protruded enough to be noticed.

The wind hit my left cheek more than my right. Every once in a while it would shift for a moment, but mostly it came from my left. Even after I had been indoors for fifteen minutes, I could still feel my left cheek to be cooler than my right when I put my hand to my face. Otherwise I was comfortably warm - my three layers and down jacket saw to that, plus my wool long underwear and wool socks inside insulated boots. The wind did not blow strongly enough to be felt under my clothing, or even to move my clothing perceptibly. Only my face felt this (my hands were in the pockets of my jacket).

I did not smell anything worth noting. The air was fresh with scent rain, and my jacket gave off a certain faint scent released by being wet, but otherwise there was nothing my nose could pick up.

I did not feel much beyond the wind on my cheek. The typical effort at standing was involved, but the ground was level, and nothing disturbed my balance. My clothing stayed warm, and my hat kept the rain off my face. My hands stayed in my pockets the whole time.

I saw many things: to my left a branch was dripping. It was one of a pair. It was broken, so that the end was sudden where the branch was still fairly thick. Its twin continued, and had an upward direction towards the end. This one ended in a more general direction. Water dripped off of it at a rapid rate. No sooner had one drop fallen than immediately another would form, and this one too would fall; perhaps five or six per second. Yet the drops remained distinctly formed up to the release. A little more water, and the drops would have formed in the air as the water streamed off the branch, but this was not yet the case.

The stream was higher than usual. The ripples from the raindrops formed a complex pattern of interaction with the ripples from the submerged rocks. The whole surface was in constant motion; it was not possible to fix it conceptually even for a moment. It flowed from one shape to another in every fraction of a second. The general contours remained fixed within certain limits, but the specific shape changed continually. The water was a dirty grayish color. About half way across the stream the color of the sky was more visible than the color of the water ? a pale but intense light gray (perhaps a 10% gray in a printer's intensity chart). This color merged into the dark gray along the contours of the ripples; the closer the ripple was to the horizontal the more it took its color from the sky; the more the surface tilted to the vertical, the more it became a dark gray. Parts of the bottom of the stream were visible ? the near side where the water was shallower. Smaller and larger rocks made up about half of the surface area, and were light gray to medium gray. The soil on the bottom of the stream was partly dark brown, and partly a yellow ochre. This was muted by the gray of the water.

The dominant color of the whole scene was a reddish brown. This was the color of the trees, as well as the wet and rotting leaves left over from last autumn. There was actually very little color contrast between the various types of trees; in the rain they were all slight variations of the reddish brown. Their barks differed; some had ridges that ran more in a horizontal pattern, others more to the vertical. Some had more smooth areas, others were completely ridged. A tree to my right had water pouring down one small section, from high up all the way down to the ground. The water made a thin sheet over the bark, which was mostly smooth with some horizontal striations. The water rippled over the striated portions, and the rippling made long vertical bulges in the surface of the streaming water.

Another way of approaching the question would be to ask, "Who would Anthroposophists recognizes their own?" Those who qualify would be those who in general accept the greater portion of Rudolf Steiner's teachings, or at least are among those who don't actively reject significant portions of it. This disqualifies those who pick and choose and make their own philosophy of racial superiority out of bits and pieces of Rudolf Steiner's work, for in doing this they reject Steiner's central principles. This also disqualifies those who go through a shorter or longer phase of their life in which they are enthusiastic supporters of Anthroposophy only to reject it later, either from neglect or by actively turning against it. These can be said to have had an anthroposophical phase in their life, but the description 'Anthroposophist' cannot be applied to describe their life as a whole. This excludes Max Seiling and Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch, among others from the ranks of "Anthroposophists".
We have a clear and solid definition of an Anthroposophist if we limit ourselves to those students of Steiner who have exhibited an enthusiastic support for the whole (and not just a part of) Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner's teaching from the moment they accept them up to the end of their life.
By this definition the list of historically tainted personalities becomes much shorter. Rudolf Hess is not an Anthroposophist. Ernst Uhli still qualifies, and I have to examine the facts upon which he is supposed to be a racist and Nazi more closely. I should also note that if we focus only on the small circle of personalities who are guilty of the historical sin of supporting aspects of National Socialism during their lifetimes and neglect to look at the anthroposophical movement as a whole during that time period we will build a distorted picture. Looking at just a few examples could misleadingly create the impression that there was widespread and enthusiastic support for Nazism among Anthroposophists. In reality the vast majority of Anthroposophists deplored the developments in Germany under Hitler's regime. This was the regime, after all, which banned the Anthroposophical movement and seized all its assets in 1935.

The case of Rudolf Hess raises the question of what constitutes an Anthroposophist. The first point is to consider who is applying the term and what they hope to accomplish with this. In the case of polemical authors attempting to tarnish the Anthroposophical movement as a whole by the actions of a few individuals, an excessively broad definition will serve well. Such a broad definition might define as an Anthroposophist as anyone who finds value in Steiner's work. This definition is overly broad since it would include many people who might disagree with Steiner in many areas despite finding his work valuable in some contexts. Defining as an Anthroposophist anyone who is a consumer of the practical results of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual insights is also overly broad, as it includes anyone who regularly buys Demeter brand produce or Waleda and Dr. Hauschka brand cosmetics, as well as all Waldorf parents and anyone who happens to be treated in an Anthroposophical clinic. Even if their patronage of these practical results borders on fanatical, as in the case of Rudolf Hess, I don't feel that this is sufficient to consider them an Anthroposophist.
To me an Anthroposophist is, at the very least, someone who studies Steiner's work actively. But even this is not a final definition, for a number of very hostile critics arguably also fit this criterion. Whether or not a person is an Anthroposophist is as much a question of inner attitude towards Steiner's work as it is whether or not they actively studiy it. If the reader feels a sort of warm enthusiasm when they read Steiner, then they are part of the way to meeting my definition.

In a discussion recently, someone wondered what Rudolf Steiner's last words were. The discussion started when someone remembered that someone said that Steiner's last words were on the relation of John the Baptist to Lazarus, or something to that effect, and that the attending doctors had this notarized. It seemed incorrect to me, so I did some checking. My Christoph Lindenberg biography of Steiner (1000 pages in German - usually considered the most comprehensive) states that Steiner, on his deathbed (that is, on the night he died) said nothing in the way of "last words" only a few "nice things" to Ita Wegman before closing his eyes, folding his hands and passing, in what seemed to those present a conscious manner (page 980). Present were Dr's Ita Wegman and Ludwig Noll, and Guenther Wachsmuth. It was about 5 AM, Monday, March 30th, 1925. Wegman described the passing as something that seemed decided only in the final moments. Just the day before Steiner was making plans to work on his sculpture "the representative of man" the following day. Though mostly bedridden for the previous six months, Steiner remained quite optimistic about overcoming his illness, read quite a bit, wrote a number of articles, and did work on the plans for the second Goetheanum. His passing struck many as quite unexpected.

So perhaps the "last words" came from a few days earlier. I looked back a bit. He spoke to Albert Steffen on March 28th in the evening. Earlier that day Steiner wrote his last "To the Members" article, titled "From Nature to Sub-Nature" covering "a preview of the 20th century" per Lindenberg (the article can be found in Volume 26 of the complete works, page 258). Access to Steiner was strictly controlled, since by his own diagnosis the illness was caused by exhaustion from personal interviews, so the only people he really saw were Steffen, Wachsmuth, Wegman and Noll, and of course Marie Steiner (who had been away from Dornach attending to the business of the Society since February 23rd).

In the end I am as curious as anyone to know what Steiner's "last words" were. However, the largest, most comprehensive and most recent Steiner biography (published 1997) don't speak of any last words, much less notarized last words, so I have to be somewhat skeptical of their existence. Further I have to wonder how they could possibly have been notarized. While I am not familiar with the process in Switzerland specifically, most countries require a notary public be physically present to certify that the words (usually written) are the express will of the author. At best Dr's Noll or Wegman could have their own statements notarized after the fact. These, however, would not be Steiner's words, but Wegman's or Noll's words, that are notarized. Yet as I have already stated, even these are not known to Steiner's most thorough biographer. Perhaps the mistake is considering Steiner's final lecture cycle "The Book of Revelation and the Work of the Priest" to be "deathbed comments." But in the end, it appears that Steiner did not die leaving any "last words" or final message.

I was discussing recently with someone how to find truth. The question was how an "ordinary" person could judge whether Steiner was likely correct or incorrect in some of his more far-out descriptions of spiritual beings. It was suggested that we could start with the things we could easily verify, namely how Steiner treats other authors. Is he fair to other authors? That is, in agreeing or disagreeing with another point of view, does he present that which he is opposing in a manner that fairly describes what the original author intended before beginning with his objections? Steiner wrote a considerable amount on philosophy and the history of philosophy (for example, his book "Riddles of Philosophy") so a person knowledgeable about philosophy in general could establish whether Steiner was generally trustworthy by how he treats other philosophers.

This type of test is useful for writers beyond Steiner as well. Take any of his critics, for example. Are they fair to other authors? That is, in agreeing or disagreeing with another point of view, do they present that which they are opposing in a manner that fairly describes what the original author intended before beginning with the objections? Do they pass this basic test of trustworthiness?

Anti-Semitism has many forms. Some are blatant, others subtle. Defining an anti-Semitic statement is not always easy. Here are some preliminary thoughts on working towards a definition:

A pro-assimilation stance is sometimes anti-Semitic, and sometimes not.
Apparently it depends on:

Who said it.
When they said it (micro context as well as macro context - that is, the
immediate context as well as the historical context).
Who the speaker or writer was (what other views they held, either when they made a statement, or prior to making the statement, or afterwards).
What nationality or ethnicity the speaker is or was.
What the speaker or writer intended (though innocent intentions are not enough escape the charge of anti-Semitism).
What the speaker or writer "meant" (by whatever standard the accuser decides to apply).

From this point of view, it is hard to defend any pro-assimilation stance against charges of anti-Semitism. The definition appears to be so ambiguous that it boils down to, "Anti-Semitism applies to any pro-assimilation stance that the accuser chooses to apply it to."

Yesterday's quote was written while Steiner was still General Secretary of the German section of the Theosophical Society, and would continue to be for another 6 years. Pages 61-64 of the same book also contain a discussion of Blavatsky from a letter written in 1905. It appears that Steiner's opinion of Theosophy was more or less unchanged from 1902 up to his death, and is hardly unflattering.

Potentially confusing to the researcher is the fact that Steiner was very hesitant to indulge in criticism, generally favoring a tendency to emphasize the positive aspects and remain silent on what he considered negative traits. Most of his direct criticisms such as the one above come from private correspondence. This silence on negative traits has lead a number of people to misunderstand Steiner's relationship to Haeckel, for example. Steiner gave his reasoning for this in the following manner:

"An affirmative attitude is always enlivening, while negativity is exhausting and deadening. Not only does addressing the positive aspects of the situation require moral strength, but positivity always has an enlivening effect as well, making the souls forces independent and strong."

Rudolf Steiner. "First Steps in Inner Development" Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1999. Page 52.

Steiner recommended positivity for his students in a number of places, and generally followed this himself. When he did feel it necessary to stake out a position different from mainstream Theosophy, he tended to be quite subtle. Paying attention to these subtleties is crucial to understand how Steiner differed from mainstream Theosophy. And by "how" I mean the method as well as the details of doctrine. In the end, I find in many examples much to substantiate Steiner's claim that he discovered Anthroposophy entirely out of himself, and used only the vocabulary of Theosophy where it suited his purposes.
In summary: There are many similarities between a variety of spiritual streams. There is a significant overlap between Anthroposophy and Theosophy on a number of points, and this is especially evident in the terminology. But there are very significant differences in the meaning of common terms, so researchers need to be careful not to confuse an understanding that is valid for Theosophy as applying equally in Anthroposophy, even if the same word or phrase is used. This is true of such basic phrases as "astral body" and "akasha chronicle", and even more so in other areas.

The criticism by Steiner of Blavatsky that I posted yesterday is from 1923, that is, after Anthroposophy parted ways with Theosophy. But this type of criticism was hardly new for Steiner. Writing for Eduard Schure in 1907, Steiner said:

"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 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. This is because the truths of themselves are inspired by the great initiates of the West, who also inspired Rosicrucian wisdom. 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. Because of the Western initiators saw how little opportunity they had to allow the stream of spiritual wisdom to flow into mankind by this means, they decided to drop the matter in this form for the time being. But the door had been opened: Blavatsky's soul had been prepared in such a manner that spiritual wisdom was able to flow into it. Eastern initiators were able to take hold of her. To begin with these Eastern initiators had the best of intentions. They saw how Anglo-American influences were steering mankind towards the terrible danger of a completely materialistic impregnation of thinking. They - these Eastern initiators - wanted to imprint their form of spiritual knowledge, which had been preserved through the ages, on the Western world. Under the influence of the 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. There was a short phrase, when Annie Besant entered the stream of initiators through her pure and elevated mentality. But this phase came to an end when Annie Besant gave herself up to the influence of certain Indians who developed a grotesque intellectualism derived from certain philosophical teachings, German ones in particular, which they misinterpreted. This was the situation when I was faced with the necessity of joining the Theosophical Society."

Source:
Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner. "Correspondence and Documents: 1901-1925." New York: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988. Pages 17-18. (Translated by Christian and Ingrid von Arnim).

From a distance the similarities between Anthroposophy and Theosophy will be the first thing a researcher would notice. This is especially true because of the shared vocabulary. Approaching the question from another angle, I have noticed that Steiner repeatedly distanced himself from Theosophy. So the question naturally arises, was Steiner attempting to rewrite history after the Anthroposophical Society parted ways with the Theosophical Society, or did he really feel that there were significant differences from day one?

To answer this question, it becomes necessary to dig really deep into the minutiae of Theosophical doctrine and compare it to a large body of Steiner's work. I have been working on this for a while, but I do not feel competent to offer the final word on the matter.

Another thing to note is the amazing amount of similarities shared by virtually all approaches to spiritual questions. Believers tend to take this as a sign that all religions and other esoteric movements are viewing different angles of the same truth. Cynics claim that a form of literary "borrowing" lies at the root of this. In viewing Steiner, it is possible to say, "Steiner said many things that are similar to Blavatsky because he blatantly ripped off her 'Secret Doctrine'." Or it is possible to say, "Steinerlooked into the spiritual world, and many things he saw there corresponded to aspects of Blavatsky's 'Secret Doctrine', hence the similarities." Now I haven't had a chance to do a detailed comparison, but having looked at Blavatsky recently, I am actually amazed at how many things are in 'The Secret Doctrine' that are not in Steiner. The question "why?" naturally presents itself. An explanation is offered by Steiner:

"Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism was soon recognized as of the work of the spiritual dilettante, a compendium of old, badly understood esoteric bits and pieces. But it was less easy to find access to a phenomenon of the period such as Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine. For this work did at least reveal in many places that much of its content had its origins in real, powerful impulses from the spiritual world. The book expressed a large number of ancient truths which have been gained through egotistic clairvoyance in distant ages of mankind. People thus encountered in the outside world, not from within themselves, something which could be described as an uncovering of a tremendous wealth of wisdom which mankind at once possessed as something exceptionally illuminating. This was interspersed with unbelievable passages which never ceased to amaze, because the book is a sloppy and dilettantish piece of work as regards any sort of methodology, and includes superstitious nonsense and much more. In short, Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine is a peculiar book: the great truths side-by-side with terrible rubbish."

Rudolf Steiner. "The Anthroposophic Movement." Bristol: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1993. Page 23. Translated by Christian von Arnim. (Lecture of June 10th, 1923).

Essentially, Steiner had his own, independent grasp of truth, and then looked to see how the works of others did or did not correspond with his own understanding.

The case of Rudolf Hess raises the question of what constitutes an Anthroposophist. A broad definition might define as an Anthroposophist as anyone who finds value in Steiner's work. This definition is overly broad, as it would include many people who might disagree with Steiner despite finding his work valuable in one or another aspect in the world. Defining as an Anthroposophist anyone who is a consumer of the practical results of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual insights is also overly broad, as it includes anyone who regularly buys Demeter or Waleda or Dr. Hauschka, as well as all Waldorf parents and anyone who happens to be treated in an anthroposophical clinic. Even if their patronage of these practical results borders on fanatical, as in the case of Rudolf Hess, I don't feel that this is sufficient to consider them an Anthroposophist. To me an Anthroposophist is, at the very least, someone who studies Steiner's work actively. But even this is not a full definition, for a number of very hostile critics arguably also fit this description. Whether or not a person is an Anthroposophist is very much a question of inner attitude towards the work of Steiner's as they actively study it. If they feel a sort of warm enthusiasm, then they are part of the way to meeting my definition.
Another way of approaching the question would be to ask, Who would Anthroposophists recognizes their own? Those who qualify would be those who in general accept the greater portion of Rudolf Steiner's teachings, or at least are among those who don't actively reject significant portions of it. This disqualifies those who pick and choose and make their own philosophy of racial superiority out of bits and pieces of Rudolf Steiner's work, for in doing this they reject Steiner's central principles. This also disqualifies those who go through a shorter or longer phase of their life in which they are enthusiastic supporters of Anthroposophy only to reject it later, either from neglect or by actively turning against it. These can be said to have had an anthroposophical phase in their life, but the description 'Anthroposophist' cannot be applied to describe their life as a whole. This excludes Max Seiling and Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch, among others.
If we limit our definition to those people who have exhibited a lifelong enthusiastic support for Anthroposophy and Rudolf Steiner's teaching, in whole and not just portions thereof, then the list of historically tainted personalities becomes much shorter. Ernst Uhli still qualifies under this definition, and I have to examine the case against him more closely. Finally, if we focus only on those personalities who are guilty of the historical sin of supporting aspects of national Socialism during their lifetimes, and neglect to look at the anthroposophical movement as a whole during that time period, then we will build a distorted picture, for the great majority of Anthroposophists deplored the developments in Germany under Hitler's regime.

This is something I have been puzzling over for some time. Given:

1. It is not anti-Semitic if "assimilation" means integration into mainstream society without loss of separate ethnic identity.
2. If assimilation results in a loss of separate cultural identity, whether inadvertent or intentional, then it is anti-Semitic.
The next question is what to think if someone says (either then or now) "It would be nice if the Jews lost their separate identity and merged completely with mainstream culture."
By most definitions, this is an anti-Semitic position, whether or not it is intended with an element of compulsion or not.

What are we then to make of the following fact? In modern US society many Jews have lost their separate identity and been assimilated into mainstream culture, becoming non-practicing agnostics. Does that make US society anti-Semitic? If you find this development good, does that make you an anti-Semite? Are such Jews themselves anti-Semitic? If the definition of anti-Semitic is stretched so far that the freedom of an individual Jew to choose to abandon their heritage becomes anti-Semitism, that seems inimical to a humanist view of individual freedom of conscience.
On the other hand, if there is no objection to an individual choosing to abandon their heritage, why is it wrong for someone to say that they feel, in principle, such an occurrence would be desirable? It seems like a catch-22.