Gemütlichkeit

Gary Lachman (a.k.a. Gary Valentine) is a former rock star who decided on an alternative career as author of books on spirituality. In "Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work", Lachman takes on the founder of Anthroposophy. The book is extremely easy to read (I got it on Tuesday afternoon and finished it Wednesday night!) and very interesting. Ultimately, however, it raises more questions than it answers, both about Steiner and about Lachman himself. But then, Steiner seems to have been a complex and somewhat mysterious character.

I found Lachman's personal reflections on Steiner interesting. His reactions to the man's writings closely parallel my own. On the one hand, Steiner had interesting and perfectly serious ideas about philosophy, the evolution of consciousness and Goethe. On the other hand, he frequently made strange, outlandish and downright bizarre pronouncements, solely based on his own "spiritual research". Worse than the statements themselves is the fact that they are impossible to verify. Unless we want to become uncritical devotees, this is obviously a problem. Another drawback is Steiner's extremely tedious style of writing. Even one of his followers, Friedrich Rittelmeyer, admitted that reading the master's words gave him nausea! On a more comic note, I noticed that Lachman just couldn't stop reading Steiner, despite finding him difficult and weird. He compares his intellectual interest in Anthroposophy to a dysfunctional relationship. You know it hurts you, yet you can't let go. I feel the same way, but I'd rather call it a "love-hate relationship".

Well, it's good to know that Ashtar Command is just as kookish as Iggy Pop's former guitarist! :-D

The German-speaking Austrian Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) seems to have been a very contradictory person, at least on the surface. He loved science and mathematics, and emphasized the need for clear, systematic thinking. However, he also had a clairvoyant side already as a child. Young Steiner saw the outside world as a dream-like haze, while the spirit-world seemed more solid and real. He didn't obtain a normal vision until his thirties. Despite his scientific and philosophical orientation, Steiner established a relation with one Felix Kogutzki, a lowly herb-gatherer regarded by most people as a harmless and incomprehensible crank. Steiner, however, believed that Kogutzki was the representative of a mysterious Master, and claimed to have met the latter as well. These contradictions are intriguing, since Steiner later would claim that Anthroposophy is a combination of science and spirituality ("spiritual science"). His fascination with Goethe also has its roots here, since Steiner saw the German polymath as a non-materialist scientist trying to grope with spirit.

Another contradiction: Steiner was drawn to people he disagreed with (or should have disagreed with). He met Darwinist biologist Ernst Haeckel, pessimist philosopher Eduard von Hartmann, Nietzsche's slimy sister Elizabeth, the sex magicians of the OTO, and various windy bohemians at the Vienesse "Megalomania Café". In another book, Lachman mentions that Steiner visited Ascona in Switzerland, rather like visiting Berkeley circa 1968. Apparently, Steiner even looked like a hippie during this period, with long hair and a beard! Yet, he also stinted as editor of a pan-German magazine. These strange gyrations have led many critics to accuse Steiner of opportunism, something he supposedly tried to cover up later, when he became the head of his own spiritual-religious movement and wanted to be perceived as infallible. Lachman suggests that Steiner had a strange compulsion to get to the bottom of opposing viewpoints, which made many people assume that he had adopted them himself. (Steiner's weird defence of Haeckel's materialist theory of evolution is a case in point.) An "occult" explanation also suggests itself: perhaps Steiner wanted to "transform evil from within" or wanted to "balance" error with his own truths?

Steiner had an empathic side, as when he took care of a handicapped child or acted as a virtual counsellor for his fellow Anthroposophists. Lachman uses the Austrian word "Gemütlichkeit" to describe Steiner's basic character trait. However, he could also be untactful, as when he published an "objective" article on the Jews in Austria, while working as a tutor for a Jewish family. When lecturing, Steiner sounded fierce and charismatic rather than Gemütlich, and he evidently also had a dramatic side. Above all, Rudolf Steiner was extremely independent-minded, which may explain why he could socialize with bohemians and decadents without being influenced by them (readers might want to contrast this with Jung's susceptibility to the decadent Otto Gross). When Steiner joined the Theosophical Society, who wanted him to become one of their lecturers, he did so on condition that he would be free to follow his own spiritual path unhindered. He seems to have joined the OTO on similar conditions. As we all know, Steiner became so influential in the German section of the Theosophical Society, that he in effect took it over. Steiner's brand of occultism, while similar in some ways to that of the Theosophists, was nevertheless sufficiently original to eventually cause a break between the German section and the Theosophical leaders in Adyar. Steiner had become the founder-leader of his own movement, the Anthroposophical Society.

Lachman's book concentrates on Steiner the man, rather than on his ideas. This is perhaps understandable, given the fact that Anthroposophy is extremely complex, almost to the point of conceit. While Lachman doesn't accept Steiner's more extreme claims, he is fascinated by his philosophical side. Steiner's strange ideas about different Earth incarnations are, according to Lachman, almost identical to Jean Gebser's theories about the structures of consciousness, if interpreted more allegorically. Naturally, he mentions Owen Barfield, whose exegesis of Steiner is almost a philosophy in its own right. Lachman is positive to Waldorf education, bio-dynamic farming and other cultural activities rooted in Anthroposophy. He is less enchanted by Steiner's mystery plays. Overall, however, Lachman could be considered a fellow traveller of sorts to the Austrian mystic. Unfortunately, this leads to Lachman downplaying Steiner's more problematic sides. For instance, Lachman echoes the Anthroposophical claim that Steiner was somehow neutral during World War I, and that his ideas owed nothing to German nationalism. The reality is more complex. Steiner's lectures on World War I, "The Karma of Untruthfulness", clearly show that he supported the Central Powers, blaming the war - including the German occupation of neutral Belgium - squarely on the British. Lachman mentions Steiner's contacts with German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke in passing, but these contacts weren't a passing episode for Steiner, who tried to defend Moltke's reputation after the general's death, and even claimed to receive communications from Moltke's departed soul! Since Moltke was responsible for the German invasions of Belgium and France, it's unclear how Lachman can believe that the Doctor was simply being Gemütlich with the old general. I don't doubt that Steiner had interesting things to say about Goethean science and the evolution of consciousness, but his politics leaves something to be asked for...

Finally, I have to complain about a few sloppy errors in Lachman's book: Yugoslavia wasn't dissolved in 1989, Franz Joseph wasn't the last emperor of Austria-Hungary and Czecho-Slovakia didn't even exist during Steiner's pre-war lecture tours. Iggy Pop, much? :-0

That being said, I nevertheless regard "Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work" as a good and interesting read. It may not solve the riddle of Dr. Steiner, let alone the complex of riddles known as Anthroposophy, but it nevertheless makes you think, at least if you have some previous exposure to the subject. Therefore, I rather Gemütlich give it four stars.