N. A. BERDYAEV (BERDIAEV)
THEOSOPHY AND ANTHROPOSOPHY
IN RUSSIA
(1916 - #252b)
Russian text
I.
The trend of this
type, which I should want to characterise, only conditionally
can be called religious thought. It does not have any separate
outstanding representatives in Russian literature and it is impossible
to define it regarding any particular one thinker. 1 We do not here meet with the psychology of an individual’s
thought, [as with Bulgakov and Merezhkovsky], but we endeavour
to uncover the psychology of a thought typically impersonal. The
founder of the Theosophic society was the notable Russian woman,
E. P. Blavatskaya, but the theosophic trend itself cannot be called
characteristically Russian, or essential to our religious thought.
And if all the same I want to speak about theosophy in the characterising
of the types of religious thought in Russia, then it is only because
theosophy has begun to play a remarkable role in Russian spiritual
life, within our cultural strata, and its role undoubtedly will
grow. Theosophy and its chief variant -- anthroposophy -- are
peculiarly refracted within the Russian soul. Russian theosophy
as regards its spiritual provisions has little resemblance to
German or English theosophy, and not rarely there can be discerned
in it features of an apocalyptic construct, completely foreign
to Western theosophy and even contradicting the foundations of
the theosophic doctrine. In investigating the religious searchings
of our time, it has become impossible to bypass theosophy, since
for certain of the strata of the contemporary cultural society
it is quite the easiest to pass over to religion upon the ground
of theosophy. Upon the theosophic pathway are demanded not the
least intellectual sacrifices and forbearance. It is not necessary
to forswear the habits of rational thought, the cultural wonts,
and it is possible to reconcile all the contradictions. Popular
theosophy purports to be the national supplement to positive science
and positivist culture, the extension of naturalism onto a new
plane. Theosophy does not promulgate any type of creative religious
thought, and evidently, makes no pretenses to creative significance.
Theosophy is contentious against creative natures and repels them
from itself. Theosophic literature is but the popularisation of
ancient wisdom, primarily bestown through its teachers. Theosophy
first of all posits itself pedagogical, and not creative tasks.
And it is difficult to find creative thinkers among the theosophists.
The median level of theosophic books is not very high. Theosophists
fight independent thoughts and are little interested by the multiplicity
of creative processes, that occur outside their circle. The seclusive
closed-in circle is very characteristic for the theosophic and
anthroposophic setting. But all the same it mustneeds be said,
that theosophy responds to some very deep needs of contemporary
man, deeply unsatisfied by official science, official philosophy
and official religion. The spreading about of theosophy is a symptom
of the crisis of official knowledge, at the basis of which should
be not an abstract philosophising, but rather a concrete mythologising.
And theosophy popularises, not infrequently in a dry and dull
form, the great mythic-creative knowledge of former times. Theosophy
is a contemporary gnosticism, it wants to give the human soul
neither a religious faith nor abstract scientific knowledge, but
rather an entire all-wise knowledge. The soul of contemporary
man at a certain step of development thirsts for an all-wise knowledge,
which is satisfied by neither a scientific, nor religious faith.
But is it possible to acknowledge contemporary theosophy, as presented
in the theosophic literature, as indeed the highest gnosis?
If there be taken up books
of two of the chief theosophic writers of the present time --
Anna Bezant and Rudolf Steiner, then the knowledge presented there
is a descriptive knowledge, like geography or mineralogy, gainable
not through personal creative efforts nor personal revelations,
but receivable through scholarly study. Theosophy books in their
style and character have nothing in common with mystical books,
nor philosophical books. Upon them lies no imprint of personal
creative inspiration nor personal creative thought. Theosophic
writers, evidently, timidly avoid having their own thoughts and
ideas. They want to give a map of the construct of the world on
all its planes, to give the pure description of objects and things.
There flows the river, there stands a mountain. In this type is
to be constructed the beloved contemporary book per theosophy.
Theosophy as it were does not strive to grasp the meaning of the
mountain, to unravel its riddle, to discover its ends and purpose.
In this, contemporary theosophy is like contemporary science,
but it describes another plane of the cosmos, it discovers deeper
levels. But problems of the origin of the world and the problem
of the Divinity, and the meaning of the world process, are not
only not decided, they are not even presented in contemporary
theosophic books. Theosophy is but a descriptive, science-like
and empirical knowledge of the cosmic structure and cosmic evolution.
Least of all is it any knowledge of meaning, the creative signification
of being. At the very least theosophy would seem unjustifiable,
since there is no knowing of God and even the name of God rarely
is mentioned in contemporary theosophic books. And thus in this
contemporary theosophy does not come close to the theosophy of
J. Boehme and other great theosophists of former times, with whom
there was an actual Divine-wisdom and Divine knowing. If in the
contemporary theosophy it is difficult to find a teaching about
God, then also in contemporary anthroposophy it is no less difficult
to find a teaching about man. Both theosophy and anthroposophy
are concerned not with God and not with man, but with the cosmos.
Theosophy and anthroposophy do not posit the question about the
meaning of cosmic evolution, about its beginning and end, since
the question about the meaning of cosmic evolution is already
the question about God and about man, not derivative from the
cosmos, but rather into it bearing its own light. Ultimately,
theosophy is compelled naturally to apotheosise the fact of cosmic
evolution, having neither end, nor beginning, and it demands from
man an obedience to a process meaningless to him. The fate of
man therein is not illumined by the light of God-knowing, -- he
is instead smothered by the fact of world-knowing. Theosophic
knowledge is too oriented to the natural sciences and it demands
only their extension to the other planes of being. Contemporary
popular theosophy is very deferential towards science, but almost
completely it ignores philosophy. From the natural sciences it
borrows a naive realism. Theosophy does not possess its own gnosseology
and uncritically it makes do with the concepts of a gnosseologically
naive realism. With ease contemporary theosophy conveys the supra-sensual
into a sensual terminology and it materialises the spiritual.
But rarely does it reveal the symbolic nature of the material.
The vulgar mindset of theosophy is tainted by a completely uncritical
materialism. Popular theosophic knowledge defines itself as being
the knowledge of the non-creative, the passively-descriptive,
as pure empiricism. This -- is an extended positivism. Theosophy
provides an eclectic synthesis of bits of the old religious knowledge
together with bits of the new scientific knowledge. The pathos
of theosophy is directly contrary to all subjectivism and individualism.
In theosophy contemporary man seeks salvation from psychologism,
from self-absorption, from solitary volition. Theosophy allures
with the promise to unite contemporary man with the ancient world
wisdom, to bring the modern soul into the chain of the Divine
world evolution and the Divine world hierarchy. And for many,
theosophy is the sole bridge, over which they can cross over to
spiritual life, by which they can withdraw from the soulless and
meaningless life of the contemporary world. Modern theosophy is
not great, but it is connected with the great and upon it falls
a reflection of the ancient Divine wisdom. This cannot but allure.
There is too great a spiritual hunger in our days, and man senses
himself forsaken. Contemporary man is alienated from the sources,
and theosophy promises to unite him with the [true] (sources).
Theosophy warily leads modern man to the ancient sources of life,
whilst taking consideration of the habits of his thought and the
terrors of his soul, afront the miraculous and the catastrophic.
And the growing popularity of theosophy is not occasional and
superficial a mode, -- it signifies a deep process in the spiritual
life of our times.
II.
Modern theosophy,
in contrast to the revival of Orthodoxy with Bulgakov or the new
Christianity of Merezhkovsky, goes from below upwards, from the
contemporary consciousness, from contemporary science towards
a Divine consciousness, towards spiritual knowledge. Theosophy
is very much the pedagogue, it trains modern man on evolution,
and it does not want to let go of him. Popular theosophy is intended
to be on a not very high level. It is intended not for creative
people, not for thinkers and artists and not for saints, -- it
takes hold with the centre of the cultural masses, endowed with
spiritual claims. Theosophy is connected with occultism, with
ancient traditions and customs. But its esoteric core remains
hidden, and it itself is exoteric. In contemporary theosophic
literature has been formed a peculiar exoteric esotericism. The
method of theosophy is always spiritual-evolutionary, and not
spiritual-revolutionary, nor spiritual-catastrophic. The pathway
of theosophy -- is a graceless path, on this path not a single
ray of Divine light falls from above, everything is gained from
below. In theosophy nothing is gratis, everything is difficult,
nothing is through love, everything is through justice. There
is nothing Divinely bestown through theosophy, and therefore there
is nothing giftedly bestown. The human soul is doomed to wander
through the cosmic corridors, and its fate -- is a fate under
law, it has to live by the law, which likewise also is Divine
justice. Theosophic consciousness, in distinction to the old-Christian
and the new-Christian consciousness, is a decisive and extreme
immanentism and monism. Theosophy identifies the Creator with
the creation, God with nature. This immanentism and monism is
received from the ancient religious consciousness of India, it
is purely Aryan and does not accommodate the Semitic religious
graftings. But the immanentism and monism of modern theosophy
bears the characteristic of the evolutional-naturalistic. Thesosophy,
as a system of spiritual knowledge, carries over the laws of naturalistic
evolution onto other planes and other worlds, into the life of
spirit. Not in vain does Steiner connect himself so with Haeckel,
and desire to transport Haeckel to new worlds. In the philosophy
of Steiner there is quite much from naturalistic monism, not the
philosophically-refined monism of Drews, but the popular naturo-scientific
monism of Haeckel. 2 And in the beloved popular theosophic book it is
possible to discern elements of the vulgar naturalistic monism.
In this also theosophy seeks a centre external to man and his
depths, it objectifies and materialises everything. The human
spirit is posited in a servile dependency upon a cosmic evolution
of quite thousands of years, upon tremendous intervals of time.
Theosophic-naturalistic evolutionism leads to a denial of the
non-mediated connection of the human spirit with the Absolute.
Theosophy denies the dualism of freedom and necessity, of spirit
and nature.
The popular theosophic
teaching about Karma is a teaching about the naturalistic evolution
of the unredeemed soul, about the wanderings of the soul, which
draws behind it infinite threads from the past. Karma is the law
of nature, identified with the law of Divine justice, the naturalisation
of Divine mysteries. And the Eastern teaching about Karma is a
denial of graced love, of creative surfeit. Everything comes forth
and everything is given only in the measure of justice. But Divine
love is not a matter of justice, in it is given immeasurably more,
than in justice ought to be given. This also is of the mystery
of Christ, of the mystery of supra-abundant graced love, which
to the Good Thief promises today the gaining of the Kingdom of
God. The Good Thief in justice and in necessity is not worthy
to be with Christ and behold the Kingdom of God, it becomes him
yet to live through a thousand tormentive reincarnations. Theosophy
does not want to know this mystery of Christ, this miraculous
and graced deliverance from the oppression of the past, from the
might of time, of this shrinking of infinite time into a single
instant. Everything in theosophy is based on the terrible and
irreversible measure of law, and it carries over into the very
depths of Divine life. Karmic fate -- is just and commensurate
with law, but it knows neither forgiveness nor mercy, it knows
neither love nor freedom. Christianity however is first of all
the religion of love and freedom, and not of justice and commensurability
with law. From Eastern theosophy, from the teaching about Karma
wafts a nightmare of the unredeemed past, and stretches its threads
into the endless future. For the human soul there is no exit from
the endless cosmic evolution, into the Absolute and Divine life.
Betwixt God and me there always lies the endless evolution of
uncountable worlds. Man remains under the power of the bad infinitude
of the developing. There is no graced deliverance, no overcoming
of all time with an exodus into the Absolute, Divine life. The
mystery of redemption is not effected over the soul. Eternally,
endlessly must the soul stumble about through the dark corridors,
living out its Karma. This -- is the bad infinitude of the natural
order, carried over as well into Divine life. The old Christian
consciousness knew an ending, an exodus, a victory over time,
paradise and hell, for which things there was no yet natural evolutionary
process. Hell also was that dear value, which ransomed from the
nightmare of the bad infinitude of reincarnation, of endless evolution.
But an eternal hell is (even) better, than this endless process.
In the religious consciousness of India a tremendous role is played
by the thirst for deliverance from the nightmare of endless reincarnation.
Bliss in Divine love or torment in the Divine fire, but at least
there is an ending within the Divine, and not an infinitude within
the natural. In hell itself there is (as it were) a Divine absoluteness.
In this old Christian consciousness there is a limitedness of
the field of vision, but there is also the great truth of an exiting
from the natural order into the Divine order. Theosophy however
does not know of an eschatology. Its immanentism -- is naturalistic,
and not Divine. And for theosophy God is even farther from man,
than with the transcendent dogmatics of the Church. But this --
is the distancing of an infinite natural evolution. In popular
theosophy altogether unresolved is the question about time and
eternity, about the relative and the absolute. Eternity and the
absolute are naturalised, they are made suitable for this world.
In the teaching about reincarnation is a great truth. Karma is
the law of the natural life of the soul. Theosophy penetrates
deeper into the structure of the cosmos and its developing, than
does the traditional churchly metaphysics. But the natural truth
about reincarnation is transformed within Christianity, it is
transfigured, redemptive grace alters the ultimate naturalistic
evolution of souls, time is abridged and can be condensed into
a moment. The Good Thief, having turned himself to Christ, in
a single instant lives out more, than he would live out within
infinite cosmic evolutions. And mysticism always knows this victory
over time and over the world, since it is oriented towards the
depths of Divine life. This however is not known by an occultism,
oriented towards the infinitude of cosmic life.
III.
Theosophy, having
its sources in India, in the non-Christian East, does not constitute
anything uniquely unrepeatable, it does not know the mystery of
the facial countenance, the countenance of Christ and the countenance
of each man. For the theosophic consciousness nothing is unique,
everything is endlessly repeated, of Christ there are many, and
the human countenance is splintered into a multitude. Eastern
theosophy is not the revelation about the “I”, about
man. 3 It knows only an impersonal, non-human spirit, solely
alone. But the impersonal pantheism is conjoined in it with a
cosmic multiplicity, with a much-recurring repetition. A personalist
metaphysics is completely alien to theosophy. The ancient religious
and philosophic wisdom of India in modern theosophy is popularised
and simplified. In the Indian God-consciousness there is something
inexpressible in our language, not able to be translated into
our European concepts. Being and non-being do not at all mean
in Indian wisdom, what it means in European philosophy. Theosophy
however adapts the wisdom of India into modern language and modern
concepts and by this simplifies it. But we are all however aware,
that the Christian truth about the person, about man, was foreign
to ancient India. This -- was the original stage of development
of the religious revelation of the One. And it is but the one-only
and unrepeatable appearance of Christ that reveals the uniqueness
and unrepeatability of every human countenance. Eastern theosophy
does not know the God man. For theosophy man is but a tool of
cosmic evolution, he is transitory. Man is enveloped within the
cosmos in various membranes, from the splinterings of the planetary
evolution. And so man is dissected into his component parts. Christ
also is dissected and de-composited. There is no undissectable,
no primordial and eternal countenance, nor Divine image. Theosophy
does not know the First-Adam, the First-Man, coming forth prior
to cosmic evolution and not derivable from it. J. Boehme taught
about the First Adam and connected it with the New-Adam -- Christ.
His theosophy was Christian. Christology and anthropology have
an inseparable connection between them, -- this is a matter of
two sides of one and the selfsame truth. Our teaching about man
depends totally on our teaching about Christ, they are completely
similar. And here the unbelieving Christology in modern theosophy,
representing a giant step backwards in comparison with the theosophy
of J. Boehme, begets also an unbelieving anthropology. In this
type of theosophic thought there is no religious anthropology.
Theosophy knows man and Christ only as capsizings within cosmic
life, within the cosmic evolution. In the cosmic evolution everything
is formed and decomposes, and nothing unique and unrepeated comes
about. The unique and unrepeatable countenance dwelleth in God,
and not in the world. It is in God, and not in the world that
there mustneeds be seen both Christ, and man. And truly man through
Christ -- the Absolute Man -- dwelleth within the very bosom of
the Holy Trinity. Man is primordial and prior to the world, he
is greater than the world and cannot be but its implement-tool.
In the evolution of the world there forms and decays only the
outward envelopings of man, and not his solely unique and unrepeatable
facial-countenance, not his image of God. Thus ought a Christian
theosophy to teach, one very distinct from that, which is expounded
in the contemporary theosophic books. But God they all shun and
separate off from the theosophic consciousness, He is to be attainable
at the end of the cosmic evolution, which is not to have an end.
The theosophic consciousness, totally oriented towards cosmic
evolution, does not know of an end, does not know of Divine eternity.
The knowledge of the end or of the actual infinity is indeed that
knowledge, which is knowledge of the uniquely-personal. Bad infinity
and bad repetition -- are of nature alone. Theosophy credibly
teaches about the complexity and manifold-composition of man,
about the connection of his fate with the cosmic evolution, about
the envelopings of man. But the deficiency is in this, that for
theosophy I as an human appear ultimately at the end of a long
evolutionary process, and it is subjoined to other component parts.
Theosophic immanentism does not liberate man and does not bring
him nigh to God; God is not at all immanent for man, not in his
depths, God is separated off from man by the cosmic evolution.
And thus there appears a new transcendent, transcendent for man,
-- the infinite and remote cosmic evolution.
IV.
The modern theosophic tendency
arose during the second half of the XIX Century, in the epoch
of the reign within Europe of positivism and materialism, when
man had forgotten about the ancient religious wisdom and had become
alienated from all the sacred traditions. To the forsaken man
it had begun to seem , that for him there is a gaping abyss opened
up, that he has received nothing by way of an inheritance and
that everything must be gained by his own dirty work. The vanguard
of Western mankind has ceased to feel itself Christian. It has
had to proceed through fragmentation and apostasy. When the desolated
soul of Western man waxed melancholy and grew aware of spiritual
famine, it began to await light from the East. In the West as
it were there had dried up the wellsprings of spiritual life,
and the gaze of seekers of spiritual life turned towards the ancient
cradle of sacred wisdom, to India. The heavy remembrances of the
past and the biases of the present gave hindrance to the European
man of the XIX Century, who had lost his faith, from returning
to Christianity, and he would the sooner instead consent to accept
Buddhism or Brahmanism. Eastern theosophy entered into the spiritual
life of Western mankind at a very propitious moment for it. The
soil was already plowed up. Western man, feeling his spiritual
thirst, was unable to put to theosophy any sort of the conditions
connected with Christianity, nor those connected with the Christian
revelation about the human person. He had lost his especially
Christian revelation and was unable to oppose it to the pre-Christian
revelation of the East. Theosophy, deriving from the East, happened
all at once to adapt itself to the scientific consciousness of
the European man of the XIX Century, and to the modern evolutionism,
to the contemporary avowal of the measure of law and the denial
of miracle. Theosophy declared, that in Christianity is indeed
that truth, which is common to all religions, and that it is not
the religion of utmost truth. For the apostate to Christianity,
theosophy makes it acceptable for his Christianity to be rendered
innocuous. But in the subsequent decades there occurred radical
changes in spiritual life, both in Western Europe and in Russia.
We stand beneathe the standard of religious searchings, of religious
renewal. It is already no longer possible to speak seriously,
not only about materialism, but also about positivism. 4 Philosophic thought is grown all more and more metaphysical.
Science is undergoing a serious crisis, on the one hand -- it
has expanded and crashed the artificial limits, and on the other
hand -- it has occupied a more modest place suitable to it. Man
is made religiously bolder, and his boldness is manifest first
of all in that he again dares to be Christian, and he turns himself
to his spiritual riches of former times. The human spirit turns
itself towards Christian themes, and the impersonal revelation
of the East cannot still satisfy it. In theosophy itself there
occurs a change. Blavatskaya related negatively towards Christianity.
But contemporary theosophists try to soften this attitude, and
they all more and more introduce into theosophy, Christian themes
and concepts. Theosophy moves from East to West. And the Christian
West itself begins to remember its forgotten Western traditions,
its connections directly to the wisdom of Greece and Egypt. The
Western occult tradition begins to show itself, in contrast to
the Eastern occult tradition. The existence of a Christian esotericism
is being discovered. Upon this basis there has occurred the separation
off of anthroposophy from theosophy and therein has appeared the
Steinerian current. The difference of opinion of anthroposophy
with theosophy, of Steiner’s current from the current of
Bezant is not so accidental and trivial, as it would seem at first
glance. This split is deeply symptomatic and characterisitic of
the spiritual life of our times, and it is necessary to examine
closely this movement of theosophy as regards Christianity and
the revelation about the human “I”. Within theosophy
itself is being effected a Christologisation and anthropolisation.
But with Steiner and the Steinerians is it possible to find a
revelation about man?
R. Steiner affirms
his theosophy as being Western and Christian, and in distinction
from Eastern theosophy, he posits it under the standard of Christ’s
impulse. In his later years Steiner has particularly insisted
upon the uniqueness of his own path. The Eastern theosophy --
is prior to the cosmic activity of Christ’s impulse, prior
to the revelation about the “I”. But a large part
of the popular theosophic books by Steiner can only with difficulty
be distinguished from the theosophic books of A. Bezant and the
other Eastern, pre-Christian theosophists. In the books of Steiner
very little can be found particular to him, and in them is impersonally
expounded the usual, traditional theosophic teaching. All this
is indeed the teaching about cosmic evolution and with a still
strongly expressed imprint of naturalism, and then the teaching
about the planes, about the complexly constituted man, and then
the teaching about Karma and the transmigration of souls, this
being the graceless path of the unredeemed soul, each step attained
by the weighty task of achieving perfection. One of the best books
by Steiner, “The Path to Devotion”, is written such
as though the impulse by Christ does not act within the world.
In it are prescribed the usual practices of Eastern Yoga. Only
in the latter years, when Steiner had turned from theosophy to
anthroposophy, have there begun to sound new notes. 5 Christian occultism as it were conquers the Eastern
occultism. But in the appearance of anthroposophy, taking its
name from man, it is as difficult to find man as it was in theosophy.
True, for Steiner all our solar system and all its evolution stands
under the standard of Man, it is all Man at large. But the joy
at this is small. Man still flounders all the same within the
endless process of the past and the future, man is still all the
same enslaved by the gathering and the decaying forces of time,
he does not have a point of support in eternity, in God, deeper
than anything that transpires in the world of creatures. Man --
is the means of the world evolution, the point of the intersection
of the cosmic whirlwinds and currents. And for the anthroposophic
consciousness the human person is united to absolute being only
through world evolution, through the chain of Karmic reincarnation.
Cosmic evolution itself is altered in the power of the efficacy
of Christ’s impulse, a new cosmic epoch begins, in which
everything happens yet differently, than it did before Christ.
But Christ Himself is but a cosmic agent, but a moment of cosmic
evolution. Steiner sees Christ only as a tilting over within the
cosmos, and he does not see Him in God, in the Divine Trinity.
His Christ -- is naturalistic, is discovered in chemistry. Christianity
for anthroposophy is the revelation of the cosmic, and not the
Divine. The anthroposophic teaching about the immanent acting
of Christ’s impulse in man includes within itself both doubtless
and deep truth. But it does not go to the ultimate and the final,
the Divine First-Source, it remains in the midst of the created
world process. The attitude towards Christ in anthroposophy is
neither religious nor mystical, but exclusively occult. But pure
occultism is powerless to behold the Singular Countenance of Christ,
and for occultism He is disintegrated into the world. Pure occultism
is likewise impotent to behold a singular countenance of man.
It is because both the Countenance of Christ, and the countenance
of man, reside in God, and not in the world as their basis. This
is why the occult orientation of life, conjoined neither with
the religious nor the mystical, asserted in its exclusiveness,
denies the creative originality and the self-worth of the person,
for it does not understand human genius nor greatness. Everything
is regulated and directed by hidden cosmic agents, there is nothing
creatively-free. Both theosophy, and anthroposophy, extinguish
the passionate human nature, the Dionysiac-passionate creative
founts of creativity. Everything freely-volitional, irrational,
is denied. There is not that freedom and independence of man,
which is affirmed in mystery, when it is delimited by occult knowing.
Mystery immerses one into the unutterable depths of Divine life.
The denial of mystery within occultism puts everything into the
endless middle of the world process. The mystery of the Divine
depths defends man against being blown to atoms by the cosmic
winds. But it must be acknowledged, that in the more recent times
within Steinerianism there is being all more and more uncovered
the truth about the “I”.
V.
Around occultism has accumulated
much charletanism and mystification -- there is too much of the
irresponsible in this secret and mystified sphere of human life.
And up to now there has existed an insufficiently serious attitude
in scientific and philosophic circles, in esteeming themselves
as the preservers of the values of European culture. This attitude
can be termed not only unserious, but also thoughtless. For truly
it is thoughtless to regard something one knows not, with a sneering
denial, something of which one is not readied to render a judgement
of. The official teachings and philosophies are themselves saturated
with a pitiful aridity and bias. The world known to them and avowed
by them is but pragmatically created by them and pragmatically
a needful activity for them. Entire planes of cosmic life were
hidden for the ordinary European scientific and philosophic consciousness,
by virtue of a peculiar pragmatic lack of knowledge, which can
be set up alongside pragmatic knowledge. For man at a certain
stage of his spiritual development not only would it be not necessary,
but it would also be dangerous to know certain of the cosmic powers
and secrets. He would be defended by his ignorance up to a certain
point of growth. Christianity hid this from man with an hierarchy
of natural spirits, it freed him from the terror afront the pagan
demonology and by this it revealed to man the possibility to get
spiritually on his feet. In the pre-Christian pagan world man
was enslaved to the demons of nature. By this closing off of the
wellsprings of the inner life of nature, and expelling great Pan
into the hidden depths, the Christian Church mechanised nature
and made possible the science and technology of the XIX Century.
Man was alienated from the inner life of the cosmos and resettled
onto a restricted territory of natural and social life. In this
was the meaning of positivism. But the world and man then enter
into that maturity of their existence, when the ignorant lack
of knowledge becomes a danger and leaves man defenseless. Man
begins to be aware of himself and conscious of himself as a cosmic
being, an inhabitant of the great cosmos, immeasurable in its
depth and extent. Man emerges from the restrictive provincialism
of his existence upon the outer shell of the earth. And if earlier
it was a danger for man to see and to hear too much, so as to
be neither blinded nor deafened, then for now it becomes a danger
not to see and not to hear, since unavoidable and unknown cosmic
energies come at man from all sides and they demand from his side
a clear-seeing, wise activeness. I see the [tremendous and] serious
significance of the theosophic and anthroposophic currents to
be in this, that these currents turn contemporary man towards
the mysteries of cosmic life, and they extend knowledge upon all
the planes of the cosmos. The theosophic type of thought becomes
not an anthropologic, but rather a cosmologic problem. To this
problem is not oriented [either the Orthodox consciousness of
Bulgakov, nor] the Christian consciousness [of Merezhkovsky],
since [their] consciousness fears gnosticism and is repulsed by
any cryptic-knowledge. [Only] in occultism is it possible to find
the true knowledge, that the material congealed subjective world
is a temporal Moment of cosmic evolution, and not something absolutely
stable and unchanging. Not only for realism, but also for idealism
of the Kantian type, all this closed-in and law-governed material
natural order is identified with nature, with the cosmos, with
its boundaries immutable and unalterable, and there is no way
out to other planes of the cosmos, and no sort of energies from
other planes can penetrate through into this shut-in and closed-in
world. Only consciousness of the theosophic type senses the mysteried
spreading-about of the cosmos, the pouring through of cosmic energies
from one plane to another, the transitory character of this synthesis
of the material natural world order, which the scientific consciousness
assumes to be eternal and non-transitory, and with which the religious
consciousness also connects itself too narrowly. Thus, for example,
the Akasha-Chronika, the Chronicle of the world, a visionary reading
of the memory of cosmic history imprinted upon the cosmos -- involves
artificial boundaries, isolating the known period of the cosmic
process, very frequently being represented by an eternal material
world, separate from the preceding periods, in which there was
not yet such a physical condensing-out, of our embodiment of the
earth from its other embodiments. 6 The problem however is in this, that with Steiner
for example in the Akasha-Chronika, the world as it were dematerialises,
whereas spiritual knowledge is itself materialised. What is reported
is not about the spiritual world, the partial phenomenon of which
is our material world, but rather it is about the external, empirical
evolution of this material world, having condensed-out and become
diluted. The secret-knowledge of Steiner produces an impression
not of intuitive knowledge, not of an integral penetration into
the mysteries of being, but of an analytical anatomy-study of
being. Such a clarity of sight ought to see the corpse-liness
of the world. Everything organically whole is decomposed. All
the boundaries are erased, all the planes are confused. This is
in conformity with some sort of stage of the cosmic process. But
the clear-sighted contemplation of the corpse-liness, occasioned
by the cosmic decay and accretion, by disembodiment and atomisation,
can infect one with the corpsely poison, if a man does not oppose
to these processes his own integral countenance and image, extending
off into the very depths of Divine being. It is necessary to enter
upon the path of the spiritual knowledge of the cosmos, but it
is needful also to preserve man within these cosmic whirlwinds.
Man has a vocation to be an active creator in cosmic life, and
not a passive implement of the cosmic process, the meaning of
which is alien and unknown to him.
VI.
The theosophic
type of thought is not oriented towards history nor towards historical
tasks. The understanding of the significance of social questions
is absent in theosophy and anthroposophy. Steiner is very concerned
with the problems of Haeckel, but not at all concerned with the
problems of Marx. For him the spirit of the XIX Century is the
spirit of the knowledge of nature. But more correctly might it
be asserted, that the spirit of the XIX Century is the spirit
of sociology. It can even be said, that during the XIX Century
theology was substituted for by sociology, wherein all thinking
was tinged in a sociological light and in sociality they sought
for the ultimate meaning of life. The surmounting of Marx is no
less great a task, than the surmounting of Haeckel. Marx was a
man of genius, at the same time when Haeckel -- was a mediocre
populariser, and his monism was painfully dull. But neither with
Steiner, nor with other theosophists, is it possible to find an
understanding of the tremendous, directly religious significance
of the social problem for mankind. The whole meaning of theosophy
-- is in its approach to the cosmic problem, and from this side
it could shed light on the social problem. The sociological consciousness
has torn off human communality from cosmic life and hidden it
on the heights of the narrow expanse of the earth. All the social
utopias of an earthly total bliss are unrealisable and deplorable,
namely because they want to organise the social fate of mankind
independent of the ordering of the huge cosmos, the powers of
which influence social life and enter into it. Communality is
an inwardly-cosmic manifestation, and there ought to be comprehended
the connection of communality with the cosmos. It is thus possible
to get at the settings of the problem of cosmic communality, of
the world community. But theosophy does not do this and in the
sphere of social thought it remains elementary and naive. For
theosophy the problem of communality is replaced by the problem
of the perfecting of the soul. In theosophy there is an inhospitable
moral tendency, which renders the whole theosophic path non-creative.
Theosophy replaces social and historical creativity by perfectibility
and evolution, and to the very positing of social and historical
tasks it replies with a truth about the living-out of Karma and
Karmic reincarnations. 7
It is
difficult to combine creativity with the practice of Yoga, as
preached by theosophists. Entering upon that “path”
is deadly for creativity. In the theosophic path there is no inner
upheaval in man, there is no true spiritual freedom. And just
as theosophy rebels against all the traditional religious authorities
and against every faith, as being exoteric, it itself asserts
a principle of authority and demands from man a blind faith. The
authority of teachers and faith in teachers -- this indeed is
the basis of the theosophic path. The disciple must believe that
which he (still) knows not, and he knows usually very little,
and only the teacher knows much. The clairvoyant reading of an
Akasha-Chronika within the memory of the world is a free knowledge.
But the devout reading of pocket-booklets of “Akasha-Chronika”
as written by Steiner, is a dreadful entangle and mixing up of
Saturn with Jupiter, it is not a free knowledge, and it is rather
more reminiscent of an authoritarian faith. The problem is in
this, that the way of Steiner and the way of the Steinerians have
little in common between them. The way of Steiner is a way of
gnosis, the way however of the Steinerians is a way of faith.
Theosophy and anthroposophy rebel against churchly faith, as being
a childish condition, but they themselves demand faith of those
lower down in their capacity. It is impossible to demand faith
in an occult mere teacher-man, on an equal in faith in Christ
the God-man. An uncritical, submissive attitude towards the teacher
is recommended as the method, as a discipline and way towards
initiation. The theosophic teachings themselves presuppose at
first an acceptance on authority, on faith, without criticism
and examination by one’s own experience, and they promise
that with time all this will be known autonomously and by experience.
But why in such case should theosophy look down upon the demands
for an authoritarian faith in churchly teachings? Between man
and God, and between man and the world there is a whole series
of teachers, a whole complex hierarchy. We approach here a very
interesting question, for my purposes, about the role and significance
of the theosophic and anthroposophic current in Russia, and about
the type of thought and the psychology of Russian theosophists
and anthroposophists. What interests me is not an analysis of
theosophic doctrines nor examination of all the theosophic schema,
but rather an uncovering of the basic features of the theosophic
manner of thought and experiencing of being.
VII.
The theosophic
community bears an international character. Not without a bit
of wit do they compare theosophy with the Volapiuk movement [trans.
note: alternately “Volapuk” -- a late XIX Century
Esperanto like artificial language]. In contemporary theosophy
there are not any sort of traces of creative national thought
nor of a creative national experience. This is one of the principles
of the amazing drabness of theosophic books, a vivid temperament
absent in them. Theosophic ideas are bloodless, and in them is
so little of a living colour, just like in the Velapiuk language.
The anthroposophic community is empirically and occasionally connected
with Germany, but in essence it is likewise international, just
like the theosophic. Some make a connection of Steiner with the
German spirit. But in Steiner’s theosophy there is no feeling
of a vital creative inspiration, which could but be connected
with a national spirit, with the sap-juices of a national mode
of being. Upon the whole of theosophic literature there lies the
seal of a deadness of the international schema, of geographic
maps of being. Theosophy makes anaemic. Popular theosophic pamphlets
have a formal resemblance to the popular Social Democratic pamphlets.
This is not free creativity, but of a “party” or “circle”
type of literature, for propaganda. Free creativity is clearly
subordinated to this party, or circle’s, propagandistic
aims. Theosophic literature cannot bring anything new into national
spiritual cultures, it does not participate in the creativity
of national spirits. Theosophy speaks much about races, but these
races have little in common with genuine historical races. Theosophy
fashions cosmopolitan, international types, wandering from land
to land, from city to city in search of guidance. And it is quite
easy for theosophy to snatch onto souls, suffering in life a serious
bankruptcy, and torn away from their own land and their own people.
It is difficult for theosophy to actively participate in the spiritual
life of its own people and in their unique historical destiny.
Theosophy usually renders itself neutral, it does not make a willful
choice, for it is forbidden that selective love, always nigh to
passion. This then is a process of making anaemic, of extinguishing
the passionate human nature. All more and more the direct acceptance
of being is replaced by the acceptances of the schemae of being.
All the direct immediacy disappears and there appears an eternal
apprehension, lest life and the values of life diverge from the
teaching, from the doctrine, from the guidance of the teacher.
This is to be felt particularly in the Russian theosophists and
anthroposophists, readily transformed into abstract beings, into
bloodless and fleshless shadows. They become too domesticated
and submissive, too passive and timid in relation to all abstract
spontaneous creativity. In this popularity of the theosophic and
anthroposophic currents in Russia one senses the femininity of
the Russian soul, the searching for masculine organisers on the
side, on the outside, in the West, in Germany, the inability by
its own powers to organise its soul. The Steinerian discipline
is especially popular with Russian chaotic souls. The Russian
Logos does not penetrate into the chaos of the Russian soul. The
organising, disciplinising, light-bearing principle of the Russian
soul is felt as (though) transcendent to itself, having its dwelling
somewhere afar off. Russian theosophists and anthroposophists
[are not at all immanent as regards the stock of their spiritual
experience, they are totally transcendentists, they] seek a centre
not in their own depths, but on the side, afar off. Among them
are not a few “Russian boys”, about which Dostoevsky
speaks, and these are the finest amongst them. Much lower stands
that half-cultured layer, primarily composed of ladies, which
are attracted to theosophy as regards those warmly-cold motifs,
which attract them towards charity, towards morality, to the small
wonders of personal life. In the anthroposophic current is a great
strenuousness and great spiritual depth. The spreading about in
Russia of the popular theosophic and anthroposophic currents can
[also] play its own positive role, by raising the median spiritual
level. Theosophic morals, the preaching of a peculiar path of
moral perfectibility, remains for the majority of theosophists
its chief attraction. It is difficult for man to bear forsakenness
and be left to his own devices, and theosophy speaks about initiations
and teachers, helping people. Theosophy gives discipline to the
soul, it saves from chaos and disintegration. Many first receive
from theosophy initiation into the spiritual moral life. But the
wide dispersal of the theosophic currents can be an obstacle on
the pathway of our national self-consciousness and national creativity.
The Eastern theosophy is a typical Westernism upon Russian soil,
in such a degree of Westernism as is, for example, Marxism or
positivism. But Russia ought ultimately to emerge from its period
of Westernism, it ought to surmount both Westernism and Slavophilism.
Theosophy does not rouse to an immanent spiritual activity in
Russian man, it does not enable the religious setting-free of
person. But with the more creative and original natures, theosophy
is uniquely surmounted in the Russian element. Anthroposophy has
taken on an apocalyptic hue. This can be observed in A. Bely,
perhaps, a very great creative talent in Russia, who has recoursed
off upon the apprenticeship to anthroposophy. A. Bely is very
Russian, and his path is very characteristic for the Russian soul.
But hardly can Steinerism be felicitous for artistic creativity.
Creativity presupposes the surmounting of Karma and a victory
over it, and not its endless being lived-out. Creativity presupposes
a dualism between the world of spiritual freedom and the world
of natural necessity. But A. Bely receives creative impulses in
anthroposophy, and in this he is an unique case.
VIII.
The positive significance
of the theosophic current in general for us also in Russia particularly
mustneeds be seen in a turning towards gnosis, in the spreading
and deepening of knowledge, towards spiritual knowledge. Gnosticism
ought to be reborn and forever enter into our life. The modern
popular theosophy uncovers the ancient gnostic teachings in a
superficial and diluted form, too much adapted to the median level
consciousness of the people of our time. But it constantly comes
nigh to a new discovery in our time of gnosis, of wise, sophic
knowledge. And thus also ought anthroposophy, in a deeper more
Boehmean sense of this word, to be nothing other, than a revealing
of Sophia, of the Divine Wisdom in man, its immanent discovery
within man. We ought to be re-united with the traditions of the
theosophy and anthroposophy of J. Boehme, in truth with a Christian
theosophy and anthroposophy. And moreover, even more deeply ought
we to be re-united with the traditions of the esoteric, hidden
Christianity. But the fruition of the great traditions of Boehme
and of Christian gnosticism ought to be creative, it ought to
guide along the path of a completely new, creatively-active knowledge.
Modern people, seeking God and the Divine life, are very afraid
of thought and knowledge, and the basic thrust of their will often
becomes anti-gnostic. They admit the possibility only of a passive,
abstract knowledge. They cannot accept knowledge as a creative
act, bearing life into the light of the world, of knowledge as
being and life. All the magicism of knowledge either repels or
scares modern man, or it seems to him false and charletan. But
knowledge ought to be restored to its magic, world-dominant rights.
Particularly with Russians there is a dreading of thought in religion,
and almost a persecution against thought. For Russians this is
connected with an exclusive avowal of moral values. Russian man,
having entered upon the religious path, finds himself within the
exclusive domain of the cult of sanctity, he believes in only
the sanctity of life and he desires only the sanctity of life.
The gnosticism of Vl. Solov’ev seems already non-Russian
and it repulses many. The moral path and the path of sanctity
are acknowledged as the sole path to the light. Although even
the ecstatic path in Russian mystic sectarianism is acknowledged.
Knowledge however is presented as opposed to being. But indeed
true knowledge itself is being. True thought is itself light.
Religious thought itself is already religious deed. Gnosis is
an organic part of religious life. Life is transfigured from the
light of knowledge. A religious lived-experience, deprived of
the light of knowledge -- is an elementary, rudimentary lived-experience.
The contemporary striving for a primitive unrevealed, uninvestigated,
simplicity and elemental spiritual life, as though towards something
genuine and authentic, is a creative feebleness and self-delusion,
a denial of the theogonic, cosmogonic and anthropogonic process.
At present there is a fear of thought and of knowledge in Russian
thought, as being rationalisation. But this fear is itself the
result of a most extreme rationalism, for which both thought and
knowledge are always rational, always abstract, always inactive
and non-vital. The great mystics did not fear knowledge, they
saw in gnosis not rationalisation, but a communion with God and
the working of God. Contemporary irrationalism, alogism, adogmatism,
the modern fear of light, the contempt for thought and disdain
for knowledge is but the reverse side of modern rationalism, intellectualism,
the positivism of contemporary knowledge, the despotic force of
contemporary positivist science. From these sore straits it is
necessary for us to emerge into freedom, to creative thought,
to creative knowledge, to a gnostic light, to a world transfigured.
Modern theosophy does not do this, but in souls it indirectly
clears the soil, and prepares for this the mid-cultural level.
It is with an especial hostility towards religious knowledge,
towards gnostic thought, that the representatives of non-Christian
religious tendencies avail themselves. They particularly love
to insist on the modern irrationality, on the inexpressibility
of religious lived-through experiences. What impresses them is
the moral, vitally-simple side of religion. Some of them are prepared
to affirm the obscure, irrational, the unmanifest, not knowing
any sort of actual mysticism, and readily mixing up the experience
of the spiritually-mystical with that of the soulfully-psychological.
All of these tendencies ought resolutely to be countered by light-bearing
religious thought, by creative gnosis, by the revelation in man
of Sophia the Divine Wisdom, the magicism of knowledge. This is
the type of religious thought and spiritual life, to which we
at present approach, and it will all the more convince us of the
significance of active religious knowledge.
Nikolai Berdyaev
1916
© 1999 by translator Fr. S. Janos
(1916 - 252b -en)
THEOSOPHIYA I ANTROPOSOPHIYA V ROSSII.
Russkaya Mysl’. nov. 1916.
Reprinted in YMCA Press Paris in 1989 in Berdiaev Collection:
“Tipy religioznoi mysli v Rossii”, (Tom III), ctr.
463-486.
N.B. The Klepinina Bibliographie lists as #252 this
article together with the article “Spiritual Christianity
and Sectarianism in Russia”, which also appeared in the
nov. 1916 issue of Russkaya Mysl’. Neither the Klepinina
Bibliographie nor the YMCA 1989 reprint indicate the page numbers
for either article in the nov. 1916 Russkaya Mysl’; I however
follow the sequence in the YMCA text and also by Y Krotov, and
term this latter named article on “Spiritual Christianity...”
as the former, encoding it (1916 - 252a - en).
1
The most original and talented theosophic writer for us appears
to be P. D. Uspensky.
2
Vide: Steiner: die Philosophie des Freiheit. This book is
very characteristic in defining the philosophical sources of Steiner.
3
It suffices to peruse the books of either Brahman Chatterji “The
Concealed Religious Philosophy of India”, or of Swami Bivekananda
“The Philosophy of Yoga”, “About Raja-Yoga”
or “The Voice of Silence”, -- to be persuaded of the
truth of this assertion.
( 4
This was written prior to the Russian Revolution, in which has
appeared a new blossoming of materialism).
5
Of everything in print by Steiner for sale, most is revealed by
his gnostic Christology, “Die geistige Fьhrung des Menschen
und der Menshheit”.
6
Vide: Steiner. From the Embodiment of the World.
7
There is a (more) social character in the French occultism of
Fabre d’Olive, Sainte Ive d’Alveidre and others.
Permission granted for non-commercial distribution
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