In Praise of Rudolf Steiner; Philosopher and Spiritual Seeker

[William Prest]

Recently Rudolf Steiner was called an anti-Semite and this is fundamentally untrue. This appears to be a tactic to deflect and drive people away from reading about Rudolf Steiner, his philosophy, his awareness in many fields of endeavour and take on the humanist social question. It is also a subtle slap against anyone who delves into fields like mysticism, philosophy, occultism, the arts and spirituality. It is an attempt to achieve self censorship. The real import of this attack is against his spiritual and occult views. Unfortunately, some of his ideas ended up in Nazism via Nietzsche and thus he became identified as part of the occult Reich and the anti-Semitic views of Hitler. As a political tactic, it hits below the belt and flies in the face of free thinking, investigation and finding the truth for one's self no matter where that search goes. To come to the truth on any matter, a person must first question authority, especially any that is self appointed. All too often, those who criticize do so without any practical knowledge of that which they criticize. This is the basic tactic of a sycophant that espouses themselves as a true leader when they from lack of knowledge are a misleader.

Not many people today are aware of Rudolf Steiner, but earlier in the lat 19th century and early 20th century, he was well known and various institutions were founded on his ideas in many fields. His epistemology is based on the ideas of Immanuel Kant that he developed further. Even Hegel, who developed the dialectic, was influenced by Kant. Rudolf Steiner was multi-talented and he influenced many fields of endeavour. He prolifically wrote over 330 volumes on many topics with very little repetition. He is considered by some as a genius. Rudolf Steiner had the concept that real spirituality could only be affected by one's treatment of others in the larger society of humanity. He believed that science and spirituality could be merged into one discipline an set out to prove it. In fact, we can say that science without spirituality is cold, often cruel and spirituality without science degenerates into mere superstition. The two must work together and this includes social sciences. As far as the occult and science are concerned, even the likes of Einstein indicated that many of his equations had to be intuited, as they could not be readily solved. Even orbital positions are almost impossible to calculate due to complex perturbations in the N-bodied system and must be largely intuited. Though we have computers that can number crunch such complex systems, they fail on the grounds that we have yet to account for all the variables due to lack of knowledge of their real existence.

We are not followers of Rudolf Steiner, but we are against Libel that kills. True, Rudolf Steiner is dead, but there are followers of of his who are also innocent of his alleged crimes. In fact, Hitler hated Steiner and Hitler was a thorough going anti-Semite. It may be possible that Hitler murdered Steiner just has he and his gang of hoodlums killed Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebnecht. We do know from history that Hitler hated Steiner and wrote a vehement article against him in his own press quoted below. In fact, Hitler accused Steiner of collaborating with the Jews to destroy peoples minds and keep Germany subject to the Versailles Treaty; i.e., Not to rearm or take the Ruhr. Hitler even claimed that Steiner was a Jew. How then can Steiner be an anti-Semite? Steiner was gaining popularity with his programs for social and political reform and Hitler had his own ideas concerning these and saw Steiner was viewed as competition.

“... It is a plain lie to the German people when, on the order of the German government, one maintains that Simons would have refused. The fact is that Simons had declared himself ready to accept the Treaty of Versailles for five years and, thereby, practically forever. It is straight-on monstrous impudence when this Mr. Simons, who is not a reactionary man of god but, on the contrary, an employee of the German people, presumes to announce that the German people cannot correctly value their own capacity for work. It is possible that Simons can actually value it better; the man appears to have exactly valued the capacity for work of the German people. In the course of the London affair there now rises to the surface, by degree, such mysterious accompanying circumstances that it is not only appropriate but also quite necessary to inspect somewhat closer this Mr. Minister -- the intimate friend of the Gnostic, Anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner himself the adherent of the Threefold Social Order which is one of the many completely Jewish methods of destroying the peoples’ normal state of mind – to see whether his mindless face, mindless according to the opinion of Lloyd George, is really only the result of the lack of spirit or whether it is the larva behind which something else is concealed…

Poland will occupy Upper Silesia. Germany will rebel. France rumbles occupation of the Ruhr in the event of German opposition, and then Mr. Simons with his mindless, stupid face, as Mr. Lloyd George said, will again represent the German people. Then this friend of Germany and of Rudolf Steiner will again make us observe that, in order to keep the Ruhr, we could trade-off Upper Silesia more quickly because Upper Silesia dispatches 43 million tones of coal and the Ruhr 115 million tons. So will he persuade us, a god and reason forsaken people, only yes, in god’s heavenly will no real opposition, only peace and prudence, the recognized war cry of the German newspaper lion and the Levite. We will for the sake of peace, of quite, and of the Ruhr region renounce Upper Silesia and six months later, due to some other cause, will lose the Ruhr region anyway to the amusement of the whole world. Mr. Simons will still have his stupid gaze. As Lloyd George says, he has no mind.

And this is one of the chief reasons for the disarmament of the German people. It is the intention to make the German people defenseless and this does not apply only to the Bavarian militia. And therefore we protest against it and not form a narrow-minded, bird-brained perspective. And what is the driving force behind all this devilishness? The Jews, friends of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, who is friend of the mindless Simons.”

FROM: the March 15, 1921 National Socialist newspaper, Völkische Beobachter

Signed by Adolf Hitler


Hitler aside, who advanced by lies and political manipulation; the reason Steiner is attacked today in absentia, is the fact of his accusers identifying him as a mystic and idealist instead of a materialist. But we must recall, that all great things start as an idea in someone's mind within the material context and from this, it is made real in the materialist context. It took insight to observe nature and emulate that in agriculture and the like. This is true in any field, including the political. To strike a blow by mis-information is one of the lowest tactics that can be used. The old saying holds; “if you can't find something real to harm or destroy another; invent something to accomplish the purpose”.