[Kulturtheosophie]
Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl[1]
One speaks today of cultural philosophy, just as one likes to use the word “culture” as often as possible. There’s a good reason for that. It means that we are in an epoch when people are consciously trying to put into practice the lessons of history, the principles of great philosophers, the admonitions of Jesus Christ and of the Church. Bismarck spoke of “practical Christianity” and the entire period since then has tried to make this word true in many areas.
But of course we are still at the very beginning of this movement. Theosophy must now also begin to assert its influence. It must become “practical theosophy,” “cultural theosophy.”
At first the Christians lived for themselves, concerned only with their sanctification. But gradually they began to transfer their moral principles to their environment. For centuries there was thus an ever-increasing stream of Christian influences upon the aging Roman Empire and the burgeoning barbarian tribes.
In celebrating the anniversary of the Edict of Constantine in 1913, it is right to remember that Emperor Constantine made it possible for the new Christian culture to be planted on the old pagan culture, thereby creating our modern Christian-Germanic-Greek civilization.
We are in a similar era today. Everyone feels that the old has become rotten, that the churches will not be able to exercise their moralizing influence much longer, and that new ideas must arise that can help us.
Only the theosophical movement can achieve this. It is to begin to take over the former role of Christianity. She has reached a dead end. Hitherto it has been entirely esoteric and sought only the truth. Now it must begin a new period and victoriously plant the Aryan banner in order to practically realize its new tenets in the world. Any originally esoteric movement becomes exoteric over time. The new religious community emerges from the catacombs. Secretly communicated sentences condense into dogmas, temples arise and priests exercise their office. Skepticism and agnosticism are negative; only the positive, constructive rules the world.
It is not principles that rule the world, but people. If one could make the world a better place with beautiful principles, Christianity would have made it a paradise long ago. But today we are in danger of falling into a new modern barbarism as a result of materialism and egoism gaining the upper hand.
The theosophists have to fight against both monsters. The theosophist is to become the dragon slayer of our time.
“All too often the members of the Theosophical Society content themselves with the rather superficial study of their books and do not do the slightest bit of real work,” — says Blavatsky. “If the Society is to become a force for good in this and other countries, then all its members must actively participate and we would seriously urge each of them to first consider carefully what kind of work they could do, and then to get serious about carrying it out. Right thinking is a good thing, but thought that is not put into action is of little use. Not a single member is unable to do anything for the furthering of the causes of truth and general brotherhood; it depends only on having the good and earnest will to make that something a finished fact.”
The period of the theosophical movement that has since passed has sown seeds and provided inspiration. It must now get serious about theosophical education and theosophical social policy. It must become pedagogical.
In America, this has long been recognized and acted accordingly. In the American section there are no fewer than 31 different committees for propaganda. I will name a few of them: Propaganda Fund Committee, Lecture Bureau, Bureau of Propaganda Literature, Primer Distribution Bureau (for distributing suitable books for beginners), Correspondence Bureau for new members, General Correspondence Bureau, Press Bureau (with no fewer than 14 members spread across the United States), Scandinavian Propaganda Committee, Dutch (Dutch), PC, Finnish PB, German P. League (German Propaganda League, head of same, Schuddemagen 7228 Coles Avenue, Chicago), Karma and Reincarnation League, Children’s Karma and Reincarnation League (for children), Bible Study Bureau, Prison Work Bureau, Stereopticon Bureau, Travelers’ League, among others.
Of these, for example, the League of Travelers, the purpose of making people aware of Theosophy in a wise way while travelling, e.g., by distributing slips of paper or brochures that are suitable for the introduction, or by skilfully dropping a theosophical expression (such as “karma”) in conversation and then enlightening the astonished questioner. One has now in Krotona near Los Angeles created a theosophical center in California, which magnificently spreads the principles of Pythagoras (after which the center is named) as a theosophical Adept.
Since the laws of karma and reincarnation are one of the doctrines particularly emphasized by the theosophists, it is not surprising that the Karma and Reincarnation League is very eager to get the new ideas out to the people. One tries to get articles on this subject into newspapers. In Idaho e.g., where there is no lodge yet, a series of articles have been published under the title “Theosophy, Karma and Reincarnation” and hopes in this way to soon be able to bring together thinking people to form a lodge. The Secretary of the League will send material for submission in newspapers to anyone who so desires.
The Stereoscopic Imagination Bureau is also very busy. Pictures are brought about thought forms, about the inner body, reincarnation and karma, etc.
The well-known Golden Chain Work, intended for children, was introduced in many schools and is said to have raised the morale of the schools. “The Golden Chain” is intended as a morning prayer for children and reads in German as follows:
I am a link in the golden chain of love that stretches across the world and must keep my link shiny and strong.
Therefore, I will seek to be kind and kind to every living being I meet and to protect and help those who are weaker than me.
And I will strive to think pure and beautiful, to speak pure and beautiful words, and to do pure and beautiful deeds.
May every link in the golden chain grow bright and strong!
Theosophical Sunday schools for children have also been opened. A theosophical school has been founded in New York. The impact on the prisoners is getting bigger and bigger. Most inmates of the prisons listen attentively to the teachings of karma they enlighten and often make true the old saying, “The greater the sinner, the greater the saint.”
To give an idea of how assiduously one labors in America, I will name the lectures which were given during eight weeks (July and August 1912) at the Krotona Institute: Greek Theosophy, Elementary Theosophy, Nutrition and Vegetarianism, Relation between Science and theosophy, theosophical psychology, theosophical pedagogy, relation between theosophy and Christianity, esoteric explanation of drama, relation between theosophy and modern culture, mother religions of the 5th rootrace subraces, parliamentary law.
I ask: can’t we do the same? Should we let the Americans surpass us in energy and self-sacrifice? Should the famous German “Gemütlichkeit” [cosiness] keep us from performing Christian love duties to our fellow human beings? Might not a central committee for cultural theosophy be formed, gradually communicating certain new principles to the people in a suitable manner?
Many theosophists just want to prepare themselves for the later sixth root race. They live, like the Rosicrucians, occupied only with their inner life. If their karma drives them to do so, then they are right, just as right as if someone goes to a monastery out of inner instinct. But there are other adherents of the new doctrine who also think about their fellow men on the side and do not wish to flee from the battle. When life is a struggle, one must not avoid it. This is what Krishna says to the hero Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita. That still applies today.
Through “tapas,” that is, Brahma made sacrifices in the world. It must be preserved through sacrifice. We all have to make sacrifices, each in our own way. What does it matter if the world despises and ridicules us? It always did. What does it matter if one suffers defeats and failures on the physical plane? No effort is lost, no good thought perishes. Anyone who is not yet understood on the physical plane and perhaps dies a martyr for his convictions is victorious on a higher level. According to Thomas a Kempis this is even preferable.
Jesus Christ expresses this thought by saying, “The seed of the sower fell among thorns, and the birds of the air came and ate it.” That is to say, what cannot be used on the physical plane today goes to beings on higher planes who feed on the good vibrations and then later, when the time is right, send them back down again. What is rejected today will be resurrected tomorrow.
The world is one. The higher one climbs, the deeper one sees, the better one sees that everything above is connected. It is an essential task of theosophy to teach that nothing is isolated on earth, that everyone reaches up to the stars with their soul, that beings from the hereafter constantly want to contact us, that departed souls feel with us that demons harass us daily, that angels, archangels, thrones and authorities protect us.
One could picture the two paths that lead to God as the beams of a cross. One means knowledge of God through the visible world with everything that is in it (realism), the other through one’s own inner world (idealism). In the middle, where both beams intersect, sits God.
One cannot understand the world without reason. The laws of nature come about through them. The higher it is developed, the better we see the skeleton, which behind the visible world gives an idea of another world, and the better our inner senses function, the faster this skeleton becomes flesh and blood again, and so on, until we reach the Arupa level, “where the pure forms live,” as our Schiller says.
Training our soul in such a way that it can see for itself and does not need to ask “authorities” for advice is a major task for the future. But this requires Hatha Yoga. Without awakening the inner senses through appropriate breathing exercises, through proper nutrition, abstinence from alcohol, etc., the ascent cannot take place.
Above all, love must be cultivated. “As much as a person is able to sacrifice, so deep is he,” says Rudolph Kassner (“The Indian Thought”). “The first duty and the eternal duty — because it includes all other duties — is to love,” says Dunan in his book Division des Devoirs (Division of Duties). Should one not be able to hold public courses on education, by and in love? Couldn’t one publicly put up beautiful notices, electrically lit at night, in the streets with the saying: Love your neighbor as yourself?
You don’t have to force your views on people; but one may give everyone the opportunity to get to know the truth. Otherwise one fails against one’s own duty. “Every duty, says Ruskin, which we neglect obscures a truth we should have known.”
We must realize the absolute unity of the cosmos and the divine self as our own self. Then we are Theosophists. But then we also love all our fellow human beings as brothers. “See how they love one another!” said the pagans of the early Christians.
Francis of Assisi calls the sun his brother. We, too, should live in intimate communion with all created things. That is Theosophy. One may speak of “spirit, breath, ga-Llama, prāṇa, primordial germ, fire, light, Logos spermatikos, World Soul, ākāśa or word”; it doesn’t matter how we name the primal force. It is what Christ calls “life” that appears on earth as thought, magnetism and electricity (according to the Avesta: thought, word and deed, according to the New Testament: knowledge, will and accomplishment).
The ancient Indians had mysterious god names for this, such as Indra, Agni, etc. But they clearly recognized that these “gods” also formed the basis of their own soul. We, on the other hand, have only gone one way outwards in recent times, the way of knowledge through science, through the horizontal beam of the cross (Never explained above), and we have been so cornered that earlier used to say: “Science must turn around.”
It is not science that must turn back, but man. “Anyone who wants it, takes the water of life for free.” Inside the spring is bubbling, outside the fire. The Adept had to go through water and fire to attain initiation. He still has to. “Only those who break through the fire may be Brunhild’s suitors,” He wins the sleeping bride, the sleeping beauty of the fairy tale.
But whoever has received the baptism of fire has the duty to help. Bold knights gathered around King Arthur and formed a round table. Even today in the English-speaking countries “round tables” are formed again to train the growing youth in charity and all kinds of service. We have “scouts”: shouldn’t we be able to find spiritual scouts who are serious about practical Christianity?
There are three major directions in which cultural Theosophy can move. The first consists in sanctifying oneself, the second in the effect on one’s fellow allies, fellow aspirants, co-religionists, and the third in striving to give those who are farther away, the people, the world, new stimuli that make true progress possible. These three main purposes must be added to the three tasks of the Theosophical Society.
According to its statutes, the Theosophical Society as such cannot be a bearer of culture. She’s just researching. But individual theosophical communities can undertake this task. In addition to society, one can think of smaller or larger groups pursuing practical goals. Society must not establish dogmas. But it is obvious that every proposition which one takes to be true is a dogma for the one who believes it. Thus reincarnation is a belief for every theosophist, even if it has not been established as such.
So who prevents those who accept the same dogmas from forming a religious community alongside society? Who prevents them from dreaming up beautiful ceremonies? The average man longs for a church. Many desire an uplifting service, hymns, sermons, robes, beautiful temples with music and incense.
Why shouldn’t they work to leave the world the best they can as an inheritance? All religions were originally esoteric and limited to a small circle. Shouldn’t the new theosophical movement be able to invent new religious forms, which gradually enter the existing churches like leaven? We find approaches to this, e.g., in the Mazdaznan movement. There are ceremonies that go back to the ancient Parsi rite. There are beautiful songs.
Couldn’t one make the Grail saga the focus of a devotion? Imagine a room in oriental taste, like a mosque, furnished with symbolic signs, in the apse behind an iconostasis, as in the Greek churches, the holy of holies, where the priest withdraws to carry out the transfiguration of the chalice. Uplifting chants and solemn recitative by the priest. Concentration of the church on the hereafter that is within. Blessings that evoke favorable spirit-waves and enliven the grail.
And the Grail will reveal itself. Men must be trained to be priests. They will be magicians. They will be able to bring about the “change” through their purity and power of faith. Manthras [Mantras], sacred magic formulas, are said to emanate from their mouths. They are to be a source of sacred strength to the church.
Without manthrams, properly speaking, “the path” is difficult to walk. But Mahatmas, hidden Masters, look down on the pathfinders. Saints who have walked it before give their blessings. Every theosophical lodge, every community is under a deva, has its own star. May the star of initiation continue to shine over the theological movement, which must become a god-loving one for the salvation of the world!
“Reincarnation, Karma, Fraternity, the Path, the Masters—these are, says Annie Besant in a letter dated May 29, 1912,—the noble teachings which it is our duty to spread, to popularize, to pour into the forms of the various religions, so that everyone may hear them in the language of the faith in which he was born, the precious mother tongue of his own religion. Happy indeed are we in whose footpath this light has been shed; happier still if we become bearers of the light to others, until there will be none in the world whose eyes it has not pleased.”
Note:
[1] Culture-theosophy. [Kulturtheosophie. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 6, no. 1-2 (January-February 1913), 22-37] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl, ©2025}