The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The extent to which Rudolf Steiner was committed to the two main precepts of esoteric life, truthfulness and continuity, is particularly evident from the deeper reasons that led him to separate his first esoteric department from the E.S.T.¹ The fact that after only three years of affiliation the connection was dissolved again shows that, however willing he was to cooperate, he was by no means willing to make concessions on spiritual issues. Above all, the commandment of absolute truthfulness always stood for him, without which any esoteric striving must become meaningless and without which no true brotherhood is possible either. He stated this succinctly during the period of his most intense disputes with Annie Besant. At that time, he presented it as his “ideal” to have inaugurated and strictly adhered to a Theosophical-occult movement that “wants to be based solely on truthfulness and truth”. Even if no stone were left of what could be developed so far, his ideal would still be achieved if one could say that an occult movement based entirely on truthfulness had been striven for. At the same time, he warned that if not practiced correctly, occultism could undermine the powers of judgment instead of developing them (Berlin, June 20, 1912). This had occurred in the T.S. not only through the changed behavior of Annie Besant in the management of the Society, but also through her reconstituting the Esoteric School and having the members take an oath of obedience.²

The tendency towards this development had already become apparent to Rudolf Steiner when he broke away from the Esoteric School in 1907. This took place on the basis of a personal agreement between him and Annie Besant, on the occasion of her presence at the Theosophical Congress in Munich during the Whitsun days of 1907. Rudolf Steiner has mentioned the fact of the separation as such on various occasions, for example in his “Life Course” (chapter 32).^{3span class="footnoteText">Cf. page 22.} However, the actual reasons only become clear from the relevant documents in this volume. They make it clear that he no longer tolerated certain actions by leading personalities in the T. S. He later characterized them as the “beginning of the end” of the Theosophical Society (Dornach, June 15, 1923).

These were incidents related to the Masters, who had been accorded fundamental importance in the T.S. and the Esoteric School from the very beginning. The term “Master” - from the English “Master” for the Sanskrit word “Mahatma”, which literally means “great soul” and is a generally accepted honorary title in India for spiritually advanced personalities - had S. had acquired a special significance when, in 1879, its headquarters were moved from America to India and it became known that the Society's founding and the Theosophical teachings could be traced back to Tibetan Mahatmas with superhuman knowledge and abilities who were in contact with H.P. Blavatsky. In the early years of the Society's existence, the Mahatmas, who otherwise lived in the greatest seclusion, are said to have appeared frequently: sometimes in astral, sometimes in materialized, sometimes in real physical form. They gave instructions and orders, and sometimes left objects, especially letters, the so-called “master letters”. After a fraud perpetrated on H.P. Blavatsky with fake master letters, they withdrew from society and became the “inner” head of the Esoteric School; H. P. Blavatsky, and later her successor Annie Besant, were understood to be the “outer” head.

The first reports of the Mahatmas reached Europe through the sensational writings of the English journalist Alfred Percy Sinnett, who was living in India at the time. Blavatsky had arranged for him to correspond with one of her Tibetan teachers, in which the teacher answered a wide range of questions. As a result of this correspondence, Sinnett published his work “The Occult World” in 1881 with a number of master letters (German “Die okkulte Welt”, Leipzig 0.J.).⁴ In 1883, ‘Esoteric Buddhism’ (German ‘Die esoterische Lehre oder Geheimbuddhismus’, Leipzig 1884) followed. These two writings by Sinnett provided the first systematic presentation of the Theosophical world view. In 1885, Mabel Collins' widely read work “Light on the Path” (German “Licht auf den Weg”, 2nd German edition with notes and explanations, Leipzig 1888) followed, which also contains much talk of the masters and on which Rudolf Steiner wrote an exegesis. In the actual main theosophical work, the “Secret Doctrine” (1888, German “Die Geheimlehre”, Leipzig o.J.) by H.P.Blavatsky, it is also stated in the preface that it is about the teachings of the masters, with the restriction that the responsibility for the often inadequate way of reproducing them lies solely with the writer.

While Sinnett's publications were burdened by a certain sensationalist journalistic simplification, Blavatsky endeavored to emphasize the diverse and complicated connections in the hierarchy of adepts, whereby, however, all great adepts and historically known initiates, like the branches of a tree, could be traced back to a first great leader of early humanity, to the initiate, therefore called “Mahaguru”. This is also indicated by Rudolf Steiner's written record of the Hierarchy of the Adepts ($. 152), as well as the following note, which Marie von Sivers made of her private remarks:

“When the individuality of Mahaguru incarnated as Buddha, his teachings had led to misunderstandings and divisions; he had given too much. Buddha had to incarnate again as Shankarasharya. And from him the Tibetan teachers, the Mahatmas,⁵ which have handed over the teachings of theosophy to the public in part, in order to give the various religions the esoteric content that underlies them all, and to raise the fallen spiritual level of humanity.” (1903, undated).

These Tibetan Mahatmas refer in particular to the two who were considered the teachers of H.P. Blavatsky. They are also meant when it is said that the Esoteric School is led by the Masters. They have long been known in theosophical literature under the names “KH” (Kuthumi) and “M” (Morya). The same applies to their portraits, which were painted by a German theosophist, Hermann Schmiechen, from sketches by H.P. Blavatsky, the genesis of which is described in A.P. Sinnett's “The Occult World”. He later joined the German Section and also painted copies for Rudolf Steiner, which were shown in the early days in esoteric hours. Marie Steiner recalled that these pictures played a major role and had a great effect: “I myself have seen how some people lost their speech when looking at them and were quite absent and confused for a while. But the pictures used to be shown in a very mysterious way or at esoteric gatherings; now they have been printed many times.^{6In a letter dated September 29, 1948.}

Since the history of the T.S. was determined from the very beginning by its relationship to the masters, it can be seen today that it was bound to fail precisely because of the erroneous development of this relationship. Because it was originally understood as a foundation of the masters, structured into three sections, of which the third section managed itself, one always referred to the encounters that had taken place with the masters and to the teachings and instructions received from them, in order to support the credibility of the teachings and for social measures. Such an anachronistic appeal to invisible authorities for the modern consciousness was bound to lead to misunderstandings and abuses. Two major scandals arose from this, which undermined the further effectiveness and significance of the Theosophical Society in the eyes of discerning and critical individuals.

The first scandal occurred in the early 1880s, when H.P. Blavatsky was publicly branded a fraud for allegedly revealing that the letters of the master were forged. According to Rudolf Steiner's account, however, she was not the fraud, but herself the victim of a fraud. He once hinted that she was cheated by the fact that the “sublime powers” that had stood at the starting point of the Theosophical movement had been “falsified”, because occultists pursuing their special interests could “take the form of those who had previously given the actual impulses” (Helsingfors, April 11, 1912). This obviously also applies to the authorship of the Master Letters. For this reason, it is not really a contradiction when Rudolf Steiner speaks of these letters as highly significant cultural documents (Berlin, June 21, 1909) and at another time describes them as the result of a fraud (Dornach, June 12, 1923). In one case, the original and genuine master letters are meant, as published by Sinnett, in the other case the forged ones.

But why could a personality like H. P. Blavatsky, who was well-versed in practical occultism, be deceived in this way? Rudolf Steiner, who often shed light on the Blavatsky mystery, once explained that it had to be understood from the conditions of the time why the Masters had to use Blavatsky as their instrument to bring about the “cultural miracle” of the occult revelations that were so necessary for the new age. Blavatsky had precisely such a “greatness of soul” and unreserved devotion to the intentions of the Masters, which the scientific greats of the last third of the 19th century could never have mustered due to their learned reservations; she, on the other hand, lacked such a scientific training of thought that would have enabled her not always to refer to the Masters, but to personally take responsibility for what she advocated. (Berlin, May 5, 1909; Helsingfors, April 11, 1912; Dornach, October 11, 1915).

For the T.$. the scandal surrounding the forged master's certificates had the effect that the broad membership was faced with the alternative of either continuing to believe in invisible authorities or considering them to be frauds. The discussions about this in the Society and in the interested public were countless. Many members left the Society at that time because they could no longer believe that Blavatsky was an emissary of the real Masters. She had to resign from the Society and leave the Indian headquarters. She demanded to be defended by the Society so that the Masters could remain in contact with it; if she herself had to leave the Society, the Masters would go with her. Apparently she was not defended by the Society to the extent she expected, because although she was soon officially asked to resume her position in the Society, she remained in Europe and never returned to India.

That was around 1885/86. In 1887 she founded her own magazine “Lucifer” in London ⁷ and in connection with that, the ‘Blavatsky Lodge,’ whose members regarded her as their spiritual teacher and from whom they received esoteric instruction. From this arose in 1888 – the year in which her “Secret Doctrine” also appeared – the “Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society” with the obligation to remain loyal to the Masters, come what may. Originally, therefore, the Esoteric School was incorporated into the Society. However, antagonisms soon arose in relation to the leadership, leading Blavatsky to reorganize the Esoteric Section into the “Eastern School of Theosophy” (commonly abbreviated to E.S.T. or E.S.), which was completely independent of the Society. This took place in 1889, and from then on the School was under her sole direction. In the year of the reorganization, Blavatsky's work “Key to Theosophy – a discussion in questions and answers about ethics, science and philosophy, for the study of which the Theosophical Society was founded” was published. In it, in a chapter (“The Theosophical Mahatmas”), questions about the Masters are addressed. ⁸ The Masters had ceased their direct association with the Society and now became “The Inner Head” (the inner head) of the Esoteric School, while Blavatsky - and after her death Annie Besant - as “The outer Head” (the outer head) personally directed the school. The Society had become a democratic administrative organization. Thus, a scandal orchestrated by opponents of the Theosophical cause, to which H. P. Blavatsky had fallen victim, had after all led to a new form and inner consolidation.

This was the situation when Rudolf Steiner re-established contact with the Theosophical Society and its Esoteric School after the turn of the century; it also forms the basis for his account, for example in his letter of January 2, 1905 to Amalie Wagner, of the contrast between the movement and the society, or between the Esoteric School and the Society.

The second scandal, also in connection with the masters, occurred in 1906/07. In May 1906, C.W. Leadbeater, a prominent Theosophical writer on account of his own clairvoyant research, had been accused of certain moral transgressions and had to withdraw from the T.S. as a result. In January 1907, it became known that at the deathbed of founding president H.S. Olcott in Adyar, the Masters K.H. and M. had appeared several times and confirmed his wish to appoint Annie Besant as his successor. They also advised him to resolve the matter of Leadbeater, which had been dealt with too hastily. Thereupon Olcott sent a message to the General Secretaries.

After Olcott's death on February 17, 1907, Vice President A. P. Sinnett officiated as President until the election of a new President scheduled for May. Sinnett, along with many other Englishmen, expressed doubts as to whether the Masters who had appeared were really who they claimed to be. This again led to great discussions in the Society. Since the matter had not only reached the Theosophical press, but even the public press, Rudolf Steiner felt compelled to comment on it publicly in his journal 'Lucifer-Gnosis'; see 'On the Occasion of the Election of the President of the Theosophical Society'. He had also written to Olcott personally in the same vein, and after his death to various committees. In a letter to George Mead dated March 6, 1907, he concludes that he “naturally considers it quite impossible that the president of our society can be the head of an esoteric school.” He expressed himself particularly freely and clearly in his letter to the Russian woman Anna Minsloff dated March 26, 1907. On this basis, he met with Annie Besant who had come to Munich in May 1907 to attend the Theosophical Congress while the presidential election was still in full swing, they agreed to separate his esoteric study group from its previous connection with the Esoteric School. In the first esoteric lecture he gave in Munich after the congress (June 1, 1907), he characterized this separation as a drastic change. The final remark, that this was an answer to the questions that many had asked themselves “as a result of recent events”, obviously refers to the questionable events surrounding Olcott's death. From that time on, Rudolf Steiner spoke only of the Masters of the West.

Annie Besant also commented at the time on Rudolf Steiner's division of the Esoteric School into an Eastern and a Western School. After her return from Munich to London, she wrote about it to a leading German theosophist from the turn of the century, Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden. He had approached her with a question on the subject, since he was also a member of Rudolf Steiner's first esoteric department, and on June 7, 1907, she wrote him the following reply:

"Dear Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden,

Dr. Steiner's occult training is very different from ours. He does not know the eastern way, so he cannot teach it. He teaches the Christian-Rosicrucian way, which is a help for some people, but it is different from ours. He has his own school and also bears the responsibility for it. I consider him a very good teacher in his own direction and a man with real insights. He and I work in perfect friendship and harmony, but in different directions.

Always, yours Annie Besant.<99. Facsimile of the English original in Emil Bock, 'Rudolf Steiner. Studien zu seinem Lebenswerk', Stuttgart 1961.

In addition, she officially informed the members of the E.S.T. in one of the so-called Esoteric Papers “Membership in the E.S.” (1908). It states that there is now a school in Germany whose main is “good colleague Dr. Steiner”. She had discussed with him last year (1907) that it would be better “if his disciples formed a special organization under his responsibility, rather than remaining only nominally part of the E.S.T. and yet looking to him as their leader.” In truth, however, the initiative for this came from Rudolf Steiner, for the reasons stated and for essentially different reasons.

These reasons then led to the separation from the Theosophical Society. The stone that set this avalanche in motion was the Leadbeater case. In 1906, Annie Besant had still been one of those who had condemned Leadbeater most severely, demanding that “the Theosophical Society must reject all teachings that defile and degrade,”¹⁰ After her election as president of the T.S., she pursued his re-admission in a way that met with widespread criticism and rejection. Among others, George Mead left the Society at that time. Rudolf Steiner had already explained his position on the Leadbeater case in detail in a letter (p. 279) to Annie Besant in 1906. In a letter dated October 1, 1908, he was asked to get the German Section to take up Leadbeater again, but he refused in his letter at the beginning of November (p. 283). Thereupon A. Besant wrote from Adyar on November 23: “... What you write is indeed in line with this, so that unless I hear the opposite from you, I will consider your vote in favor of the motion.” Since the decisive meeting of the General Council in Adyar began on December 27, 1908, and the mail boat to Madras took three weeks, Rudolf Steiner telegraphed in mid-December to abstain from voting.

The whole related issue was summarized by Edouard Schure in his letter of 1 May 1913 to the President of the Theosophical Society in France, in which he explained his resignation, as follows:

The personality that now speaks from her mouth is no longer the author of the Ancient Wisdom, but the dubious visionary, the skillful suggestor, who is no longer allowed to show himself, neither in London nor in Paris nor in America, but who, hidden in a garden house in Adyar, directs the TG from there through its president.

The disastrous consequences of this influence were soon to be revealed in broad daylight by the Alkyone affair and the founding of the Order of the Star in the East.

By a strange coincidence, I had the opportunity to surprise the secret motive and, so to speak, the psychological spring of this lamentable undertaking. I will start by saying that at that moment no one was yet talking about a new teacher who was to come from India, nor about a near incarnation of Christ, and that probably no one was thinking of it. Alkyone had not yet been discovered. It was 1908. I had just published the translation of Dr. Rudolf Steiner's book: “Christianity as a Mystical Fact”. This book had drawn the attention of the European public to the resurrection of Western esotericism in the magnificent work and deed of the German Theosophist. During a stay in Stuttgart, I met with about ten English, Dutch, French and Swiss Theosophists. The following question was raised: “Will the two schools, that of Adyar and that of Dr. Steiner, be able to work together?” We all agreed that an understanding could be reached despite the differences in our points of view, and that this was highly desirable in the greater interest of Theosophy, which does not represent any particularist or national current, but a universal current of contemporary humanity. One questioner in the group protested. He was a Dutch Theosophist, very intelligent, with a skeptical and mocking mind, and an intimate friend of Leadbeater and Adyar. He explicitly stated that the two schools would never be able to communicate, and gave as a reason that “India alone has the tradition, and that there has never been a scientific esotericism in the West.”

This decided ¹¹ assertion astonished me. I was to understand its meaning and scope soon afterwards, when, like a bombshell, or rather like an artificial firework, the Alkyone affair burst. For this affair is in reality nothing more than Adyar's answer to the rebirth of Christian esotericism in the West, and I am convinced that without the latter we would never have heard of the future prophet Krishnamurti...

While Annie Besant was still explaining to Rudolf Steiner in Munich in 1907 that she was not competent with regard to Christianity and therefore resigned the movement to him insofar as Christianity was to flow into it, she and Leadbeater proclaimed around the turn of the year 1909/10 that the imminent reappearance of Christ could be expected and that Iddu Krishnamurti had been chosen to be his vehicle. In order to prepare for this event, the “Order of the Star in the East” was founded in January 1911. ¹² Christ was spoken of as a bodhisattva being, a world teacher like other great spiritual teachers, while Rudolf Steiner always taught that Christ is to be understood as a cosmic being that has only embodied itself physically once. Since he felt obliged to defend his conception of Christ against the confused beliefs of Annie Besant, which ran counter to all Western sensibilities, this led to the German section, which at that time had 2,400 members, being officially excluded from the T.S. in March 1913 after the independent Anthroposophical Society had been founded at Christmas 1912 as a result of this predictable action.

• 1. This part includes letters and documents from the years 1906 and 1907 that shed light on the background to the separation from Annie Besant's Esoteric School, as well as notes from esoteric lessons from the years 1912/13, when these issues were revisited in connection with the separation from the Theosophical Society.
  For the 1996 reprint, the archive material used for this section was re-examined. This allowed the notes to be expanded and a date to be corrected: the letter marked “XI” in the first edition is now at “IV”, which resulted in a corresponding change for the following letters.
• 2. The vow read: “I pledge to support the Theosophical Society before the world and in particular to submit unconditionally and immediately to the orders of the head of the Esoteric Section in all matters concerning my relationship to the Theosophical movement; to work with it in the direction it will determine to prepare for the coming of the World Teacher and to give the Society every support I can through time, money and labor.” Quoted from the article “A New Spiritual Slavery,” in “Communications for the Members of the Anthroposophical (Theosophical) Society,” April 1914.
• 3span class="footnoteText">Cf. page 22.

These were incidents related to the Masters, who had been accorded fundamental importance in the T.S. and the Esoteric School from the very beginning. The term “Master” - from the English “Master” for the Sanskrit word “Mahatma”, which literally means “great soul” and is a generally accepted honorary title in India for spiritually advanced personalities - had S. had acquired a special significance when, in 1879, its headquarters were moved from America to India and it became known that the Society's founding and the Theosophical teachings could be traced back to Tibetan Mahatmas with superhuman knowledge and abilities who were in contact with H.P. Blavatsky. In the early years of the Society's existence, the Mahatmas, who otherwise lived in the greatest seclusion, are said to have appeared frequently: sometimes in astral, sometimes in materialized, sometimes in real physical form. They gave instructions and orders, and sometimes left objects, especially letters, the so-called “master letters”. After a fraud perpetrated on H.P. Blavatsky with fake master letters, they withdrew from society and became the “inner” head of the Esoteric School; H. P. Blavatsky, and later her successor Annie Besant, were understood to be the “outer” head.

The first reports of the Mahatmas reached Europe through the sensational writings of the English journalist Alfred Percy Sinnett, who was living in India at the time. Blavatsky had arranged for him to correspond with one of her Tibetan teachers, in which the teacher answered a wide range of questions. As a result of this correspondence, Sinnett published his work “The Occult World” in 1881 with a number of master letters (German “Die okkulte Welt”, Leipzig 0.J.).

• 4. All master letters to Sinnett and others were published in book form by Trevor Barker in 1923. They are now also available in German translation by Norbert Lauppert: “Die Mahatma-Briefe”, 3 volumes, Adyar-Verlag Graz 1977/1980. The originals are now in the British Museum in London.
However, the actual reasons only become clear from the relevant documents in this volume. They make it clear that he no longer tolerated certain actions by leading personalities in the T. S. He later characterized them as the “beginning of the end” of the Theosophical Society (Dornach, June 15, 1923).

These were incidents related to the Masters, who had been accorded fundamental importance in the T.S. and the Esoteric School from the very beginning. The term “Master” - from the English “Master” for the Sanskrit word “Mahatma”, which literally means “great soul” and is a generally accepted honorary title in India for spiritually advanced personalities - had S. had acquired a special significance when, in 1879, its headquarters were moved from America to India and it became known that the Society's founding and the Theosophical teachings could be traced back to Tibetan Mahatmas with superhuman knowledge and abilities who were in contact with H.P. Blavatsky. In the early years of the Society's existence, the Mahatmas, who otherwise lived in the greatest seclusion, are said to have appeared frequently: sometimes in astral, sometimes in materialized, sometimes in real physical form. They gave instructions and orders, and sometimes left objects, especially letters, the so-called “master letters”. After a fraud perpetrated on H.P. Blavatsky with fake master letters, they withdrew from society and became the “inner” head of the Esoteric School; H. P. Blavatsky, and later her successor Annie Besant, were understood to be the “outer” head.

The first reports of the Mahatmas reached Europe through the sensational writings of the English journalist Alfred Percy Sinnett, who was living in India at the time. Blavatsky had arranged for him to correspond with one of her Tibetan teachers, in which the teacher answered a wide range of questions. As a result of this correspondence, Sinnett published his work “The Occult World” in 1881 with a number of master letters (German “Die okkulte Welt”, Leipzig 0.J.).

• 4
• 5. Eventually it should be ”Mathams” (philosophical schools founded by Shankarasharya),
• 7. Even Rudolf Steiner called his first theosophical magazine “Lucifer” because the name suggested the principle of independence: “That is why Blavatsky called her first magazine that way and that is why ours is called that way, to document this principle.” (Stuttgart, April 29, 1906).
• 8. According to a correspondence between Rudolf Steiner and the Leipzig publisher Max Altmann, available in the archives of the Rudolf Steiner estate administration, the “new only authorized edition” was translated and published in Germany by Rudolf Steiner. It is noteworthy that this took place in 1907, the year in which Rudolf Steiner felt compelled to separate from the T.S. Esoteric School due to the events in Adyar in connection with the Masters.
• 10. E.S. Circular letter dated June 9, 1906, from Simla, India. She continues: “Judge has fallen on this dangerous path of occultism, Leadbeater has fallen, and it is very likely that I will fall too... Should the day of my fall come, I ask those who love me not to shrink from condemning my mistake, not to sugarcoat it, nor say that black is white; but to lighten my heavy karma, as I seek to lighten the karma of my friend and brother, by calling black black, by proclaiming the unshakable purity of the ideal, and by declaring that the fall of an individual leaves their trust in the masters of purity and gentleness unshaken.”
• 11. In the German edition inaccurately translated as “decisive”.
• 12. Iddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986) dissolved the “Order of the Star in the East” in 1929 and completely distanced himself from the role forced upon him and from the Theosophical Society. He lived in London until 1986 as a philosophical writer.