Strangest book on World War I ever published

"Light for the New Millennium" is probably the strangest book on the history of World War I ever written. The book is published by Rudolf Steiner Press, and focuses on the peculiar relationship between Rudolf Steiner and the German general Helmuth von Moltke the Younger.

Steiner was the founder of Anthroposophy, a spiritual or religious group which believes in reincarnation, clairvoyance and the cultural mission of the German people. Anthroposophists have a special reverence for the German polymath Goethe. Steiner was an Austrian by birth, but had based the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland. He regularly visited Germany. Helmuth von Moltke was a very different kind of person. He was Chief of the German General Staff at the onset of World War I, but was sacked by the Kaiser after the German failure at Marne. He died in 1916, and has been a controversial figure ever since.

Helmuth von Moltke's wife Eliza von Moltke was an ardent Anthroposophist and a personal pupil of Steiner, who admitted her to the so-called Esoteric Section, the inner circle of his movement. Through Eliza, Steiner also had full access to General Moltke, who was an ardent admirer of Goethe's "Faust" and a spiritual seeker. Judging by some of the letters reprinted in this volume, Moltke was open to the idea of reincarnation and had an interest in Bible criticism and liberal theology! Something tells me these were unusual preoccupations for a German general... Unsurprisingly, Moltke became interested in Steiner's ideas, and read some of his books. Indeed, it's possible that he became an Anthroposophist of sorts shortly before his death in 1916.

Steiner was present at Moltke's bier, reciting a number of verses like a mantra over the general's dead body. Soon thereafter, things got *really* strange, as Steiner believed he was in contact with the deceased general's soul! From 1916 to 1922, Steiner would forward messages from "the Moltke soul" to Eliza on a semi-regular basis. These messages are also reprinted in this volume.

Steiner also attempted to defend Moltke's legacy on a more worldly level. In 1919, Steiner and Eliza von Moltke produced a pamphlet containing the general's negative reminiscences of Kaiser Wilhelm. The pamphlet was published by an Anthroposophical-related group in Germany, and Steiner hoped it would somehow exonerate Germany from the accusations of war guilt during the Versailles peace negotiations. The pamphlet paints an unflattering picture of the German top brass as incompetent, vacillating and bickering (only Helmuth von Moltke stands firm). Steiner's point was that such a bad leadership surely couldn't be held responsible for the war. The point was lost on the German General Staff, who dispatched General Wilhelm von Dommes to persuade both Steiner and Eliza to withdraw the little book, which they did. A new version was printed three years later, however, when the political situation in Germany had become more stable. The relevant portions of the pamphlet are reprinted in "Light for the New Millennium".

During the war, Steiner had supported the Central Powers, including his native Austria, and blamed the war on the Allies. (See Steiner's "The Karma of Untruthfulness", especially the second volume.) The idea that the Allies were responsible for the world-wide conflagration seems to have remained with Steiner even after the war, but on other points, his reflections as reprinted in "Light for the New Millennium" became more critical. Or perhaps "the Moltke soul" did, since Steiner attributed many of his ideas to the enlightened soul of his deceased friend. In the supposed after-death communications with General Moltke, the German defeat is seen as tragic but inevitable, the result of a karmic necessity. The German people and its leadership have renounced their cultural mission (Goethe, etc) in favour of raw power, empire-building and petty materialism. The German defeat at the hands of "Ahrimanic" Anglo-American civilization is a necessary chastisement and cleansing. (Ahriman is an evil spirit which plays a prominent role in Steiner's religious speculations.)

The Moltke soul claims to have discovered one of his previous incarnations: as Pope Nicholas I, a 9th century pope who found himself in conflict with both the Patriarchy of Constantinople and the Empire of the Franks. Eliza von Moltke was one of the pope's cardinals in a previous incarnation, while several of the general's adversaries are reincarnated black magicians from the same time-period, serving the court at Capua in southern Italy. (That explains everything, doesn't it?) In Steiner's extremely complex cosmology, Pope Nicholas I plays a central role as the man who initiated the division between "the East", represented by the Orthodox Church, and "the West", represented by Catholicism. By separating the West from the spiritual stream of Orthodoxy (a garbled form of the ancient mysteries and Gnosticism, according to Steiner), Nicholas initiated a process that would eventually make Western Europe more secular, materialist and anti-spiritual, more "Ahrimanic" to use Anthroposophical terminology. However, this seemingly negative development was a necessary evil which created Western man's strong sense of self, individuality and rationality. These traits are necessary for the next step of cultural evolution, when individual man re-unites with Spirit on a higher level. (This strange scenario sounds like a garbled version of Hegelian dialectics!)

It's less clear how this should come about, but the Moltke soul (or perhaps Steiner) claims that the light will come from the East, and that the Germans and Slavs must somehow unite their spiritual forces. This is a remarkable statement, given Steiner's hostility to Russia during World War I, not to mention the German occupation of large swaths of Russian territory in 1918, when some of the after-death communications came through. There is also a call for European unity, lest Europe be destroyed by "Asia", presumably Japan. "Light for the New Millennium" even reprints a curious drawing which Moltke forwarded to Czar Nicholas II during a diplomatic visit long before the war. The drawing, a gift from the German Kaiser, shows an angel of war admonishing the European nations (represented by the goddess Britannia and similar figures) to fight against the Asiatic threat, represented by a wrathful Buddha ominously hovering over a generic European city. Do the editors of this volume share this perspective? If so, who are they afraid of today? China? The Anthroposophical editors of "Light for the New Millennium" are particularly fascinated by indications that the time is *now*, at the beginning of the 21st century. Hence, the title of the collection.

I admit that I found this book somewhat bizarre and repellent, but I think it could be of considerable interest to World War I buffs, especially those interested in the early phase of the war on the Western front, and/or the personality of Helmuth von Moltke (the real one, down here on Earth). Of course, "Light for the New Millennium" is also of interest to historians of comparative religion, since it shades light on some less well-known sides of Rudolf Steiner, who is usually portrayed as a purveyor of harmless flim flam such as bio-dynamic farming or eurythmy. For these reasons, I give this collection four stars.