I was all set to write Wibke Reinstein off as just another Steiner reincarnation wannabee --- with a flair for self-promotion and semi-New Age vagueness --- but then I happened to see a new entry on her Facebook discussion page called

THE PROFOUND UN-CHRISTIANITY OF RUDOLF STEINER'S CHRISTIANITY.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wibke-Reinstein/134046936626241?v=wall&story_fbid=\
118339971554197#!/topic.php?uid=134046936626241&topic=428
 
Hooked by the title, I began reading and after every sentence, I found myself making a fist and punching my other hand, exclaiming "Yeah!!!"

I realized I had a ringside seat to witness the gory spectacle of an anthroposophical grudge match, the likes of which I had never seen or read about before, maybe not since the green-eyed Marie Steiner booted Ita Wegman's sweet Dutch ass out of the Society in the 1930's.

Rudolf Steiner did speak somewhere about a person needing to develop a healthy antipathy towards his or her previous incarnation, so that alone gives me pause about Wibke as I watch her kick Steiner's butt 6 ways to Sunday! Yeaahhh!!!

Holy Premature Brain Deposit, Batman!
Ka-Pow!!! Ffff-thump!!! Wap!! Krak!!! Ka-Splat!!! Thud!

Anyway, I translate! You decide!

Tom

===================================

THE PROFOUND UN-CHRISTIANITY

OF RUDOLF STEINER’S CHRISTIANITY

By Wibke Reinstein

Translated from the German by Tom Mellett

October 23, 2010

-------------------------------------

In the book I'll stay with you --- Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman, the author Peter Selg presents quotes from Steiner that show why he broke away from Annie Besant and the Theosophical Society.
 
What a complete lack of the most basic tolerance and love on the part of Rudolf Steiner permeates these words!  What crucial turning points in spiritual history are hurled into yet another abyss! Through this action of Rudolf Steiner, a schism was pre-programmed that would manifest after his death within the Anthroposophical Society and --- as you can surely read about in so many of his supporters today --- leads to a selective narrating of history. Even today this narrative often still bestows a gullible sainthood on Rudolf Steiner.

Annie Besant wanted to groom and market Krishnamurti as the new President (of  a part) of the Theosophical Society --- something he publicly rejected in his later adulthood saying “truth is a country without any roads” and that no society could ever be created by man. Rudolf Steiner had refused in principle to connect this presidential selection process with supersensible powers in any way whatsoever [see Notes 36] since this would lead to deliberations that the selection process was not impartial.

Annie Besant accepted Rudolf Steiner’s demarcation of paths for training students, but she distanced herself from the “Christian-Rosicrucian” direction that Rudolf Steiner adopted. She granted him freedom to teach, respected the complete autonomy of his esoteric school and emphasized her continuing relationship with him.

(quoting Annie Besant)

“I regard him unequivocally as an excellent teacher and as a person with authentic knowledge. He and I are working in genuine friendship and harmony, but with different styles.  He doesn’t know the Eastern path, so he cannot teach it.”

(Quoting Peter Selg)

“However, in a letter to Hubbe-Schleiden, she let it be known,” Peter Selg writes, “that the Theosophical Society under her leadership in the future --- and in spite of the enduring loyalty and cooperation of Rudolf Steiner --- would not be persuaded into ‘accepting the principle of Western initiation under her leadership’." Maybe she was just being too intellectual and heretical and/or arrogant rather than it being a matter of  fitting into the overall scheme of things.

Elsewhere Peter Selg points out that Christian Rosenkreuz was actually in the East during the 15th century and had integrated the Eastern way into the Western one. But what a mockery and disdain of the truth! I was already annoyed with Steiner that he would “dress up”  love and female abilities, yet he never really loved and understood the essence of the woman, which is the way of intuition, the path of the East --- not to mention that on the Western path, there is nothing but a willful and more intellectual form of intuition.

Marie von Sievers Steiner wrote in 1909: 

“Annie Besant became a tool of an anti-Christian stream. In Budapest, in the summer of 1909, Rudolf Steiner had to tell her [Besant] that their paths would be inwardly divided. This conversation was the starting point of the schism that happened later. A battle for and against the Christ has taken place here.”

(Marie Steiner: “The Anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner” Collected Works I)

What an abject failure of love does this demonstrate on the part of  Steiner and Marie von Sievers!  Even leaving aside the fact that Krishnamurti was right and the truth really is a country without roads that will not brook any man-made society, cult or religion, by the same token, Steiner could have stayed within the Theosophical Society and dealt with the coexistence and endured the process to wait and see what was really happening there. What he demanded for himself --- that everyone might recognize him in the process --- he did not yet bestow [the same courtesy] on the people around him. He could only have really learned that from his deep abilities developed on the male Western path.

And now with this personal decision, with this appalling self-created schism--- or maybe deeply karmic one --- who comes on the scene but Ita Wegman? Rudolf Steiner forces people to decide: and from today's perspective, what an un-Christian decision it was! What a farce of a spiritual individuality he was!

(quoting  Ita Wegman)

“People were always eagerly absorbed in trying to figure out how Steiner acquired his vast knowledge of the supersensible world, a knowledge that the Theosophists could not even approach. And when Rudolf Steiner himself explained to Annie Besant that he acquired his knowledge about the Moon Sphere from the Sun Sphere with a consciousness that did not require him to go to sleep, then his statement was perceived   as heretical, arrogant and based only upon his own authority.” (Ita Wegman, p. 43)

Rudolf Steiner would have subordinated the Western path to the Eastern way if he had remained in the Theosophical Society. I see it right there in the recorded notes. It was also his own exclusively personal battle, a karmic struggle, in that he had -- not yet --- elevated himself to that thinking and reflecting in the Sun-Sphere --- he still couldn’t do it yet! An enormous arrogance to take this proud and heretical stance: yes, indeed, but a stance whose foundation was a profound incompetence.

How could he possibly comprehend --- let alone be sensitive to ---  the nature of women while ensconced within those monastery walls during his previous incarnation as Thomas Aquinas? And in the time of Rudolf Steiner, how could he also accept the Eastern world in its infinite variety? How could Annie Besant recognize first his intellectual and then his spiritual-scientific ability when he so crassly divided the ways of the male and the female that they collided with each other and Steiner could not point this out?

The Christianity that has integrated the Feminine is much more than Christ ever indicated it was during his lifetime. It’s even much more than whatever Christian Rosenkreutz could have brought from the East into the West: it's a completely different approach to life, a completely different connection to the spiritual world --- you simply have to love: and only through love can it be learned and understood.

For the last few days, I have been feeling a profound sadness, because Steiner demanded a social divisiveness (between the theosophical and anthroposophical paths) and the people around him were required to choose one path or the other:

(quoting Steiner)

"The Eastern school will be led by Mrs. Annie Besant, and if you feel in your heart more attracted to her, then you can no longer be part of our school. May each one of you judge correctly on which path your heart's longing guides you.”

What a pathetic testament to Steiner’s capacity for love!