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The Re-founding in Light of the Fire
Considering the 100th anniversary of the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society in light of the burning of the first Goetheanum.
By Bill Trusiewicz
1 From Peter Selg, Rudolf Steiner’s Life and Work, Volume 6 (1923)
On New Year’s Eve (1922-1923), Rudolf Steiner stood watching his architectural masterpiece, the double-domed wooden structure of the nearly-complete center of the modern mysteries, the Goetheanum, wrapped in flames and burned to the ground. More than ten years of labor of his own along with countless others in one night was reduced to heaps of rubble and ashes. In the light of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society, and the recent 100th anniversary of the burning of the first Goetheanum on New Year’s Eve, let us attempt to penetrate to the sources of wisdom that inspired Rudolf Steiner to re-found the Anthroposophical Society and to unveil the central motif of its re-founding: The Foundation Stone Meditation.
But before we do so, let us reflect for a moment on our time. In 2022, we stand at a crucial juncture for humanity on a planetary scale and for the Anthroposophical Society at its near 100th anniversary. The coincidence of these events in itself is remarkable and, I believe, not insignificant. After the three times 33 years of the existence of the Anthroposophical Society a radical impulse of renewal needs to take place to preserve the spirit of the work. Such a thing is not guaranteed simply by the passing of time; it must be taken up in truth and in the reality of the spirit of the times. To implement it will require new insight and courageous action. We who bear the least understanding of the significance of the current hour in world evolution are being called upon to rise to the occasion to build a new Society and a new world. If we don’t do it there may be no one else who can. The words of Rudolf Steiner at the refounding, repeated by Peter Selg, with which I have begun this essay, speak to this very matter: “It will not be viable if things continue as before,” suggesting that the Society needed to be suffused with the “will to wake up...because then it can inspire an awakening of the present civilization as a whole.” This is, I believe, as true now as it was at the re-founding a hundred years ago.
Now let us seek to penetrate to the sources of wisdom that inspired Rudolf Steiner to re-found the Anthroposophical Society and to unveil the central motif of its refounding, The Foundation Stone Meditation, as an aid to our own renewal efforts after nearly 100 years.
To do so, let us ask ourselves: Standing before the flames that enveloped the double-domed, wooden, first Goetheanum, what was going through the mind of Rudolf Steiner and what was he, as an initiate, able to bring away from that experience? Like finding the diamond that is created out of coal, let us attempt, in a humble way, to find our way into the dark core of this event to the spiritual flame of illumination at its heart. Was the fire that burnt the first Goetheanum the catalyst for the monumental changes that Rudolf Steiner initiated in the few remaining years of his life that were so amazingly productive? I believe the answer is yes. With this in mind, let us further ask ourselves: What might be the significance of the burning of the Goetheanum for the 100th anniversary of the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society?
*To penetrate the spiritual darkness surrounding the event of the fire I would like my readers to consider the idea that Rudolf Steiner confronted an almost identical situation as Hiram of Tyre, as we can discern in the Temple Legend.
* A earlier incarnation of Christian Rosenkreutz and Lazarus John.
Hiram confronted an exploding fire that had been contrived by his enemies to destroy his masterpiece, the bronze casting of a “molten sea,” as it was being celebrated as the culmination of the nearly-complete building of the renowned Temple of Solomon. He entered the fire and descended to the center of the Earth, to a region of pristine golden divinity and returned with three gifts: a Mystic Hammer, a Golden Triangle and the Lost Word—to restore the molten sea, and which initiated him into the deepest mysteries of uniting fire with water. The spiritual interpretation of the mystery of mixing fire and water, concealed in the creation of the molten sea, has to do with the uniting of the streams of Cain and Abel. The fact that Hiram worked with Solomon was quite significant since Hiram and Solomon were lofty representatives of these two streams who did not, as a rule, work together. The Molten Sea can be seen as a sort of seal on the collaborative efforts of the streams of Cain and Abel heralding a new era of cooperation meant to be symbolized in the bronze durability of uniting the cool water of detached wisdom and the fire of enthusiasm for the good, which might be seen as the key to building all future temples for humanity. 4
4 It is symbolic also of uniting the seven metals found in the earth (according to Steiner, the molten sea consisted of the seven metals), which represent the seven planetary spirits and correspond to seven organs in the human body.
Rudolf Steiner came back from the Goetheanum fire with the same three gifts, the evidence of which can clearly be seen in the Foundation Stone Meditation which I will sketch very briefly below and which is elucidated in more detail in another essay entitled: The Foundation Stone Meditation as The Golden Triangle, the Mystic Hammer and the Lost Word: Some Results from Working with the Foundation Stone.5
The “golden triangle” represents the three higher members of the human being—spirit-self, life-spirit and spirit-man. The future of humanity is tied to the development of these three higher members. The key to their development lies in the first three stanzas of the Foundation Stone, which outline the method of their development by uniting the microcosm of the human being with its cosmic counterpart through three directives: “practice spirit recollection,” “practice spirit presence” and “practice spirit beholding.”
The “mystic hammer” is found in “grasping” the three directives “in the middle” as any carpenter who holds a hammer does—“practicing spirit presence.” A firm grip on the present is our “handle” on time: the past, present and future (the etheric), indicated by “spirit recollection,” (of the past), “spirit presence,” and “spirit beholding” (the future). The first three stanzas represent the teaching of the mysteries, the accumulated knowledge of tradition.
The final stanza of the Foundation Stone Meditation represents a “turning point” where the old mystery wisdom receives its full significance. It is turned from the horizontal to the vertical like the head of a hammer, in action. And its weight, its significance compared to the three preceding stanzas, is emphasized by the fact that Rudolf Steiner did not speak of this last stanza until the 7th day of his unveiling of this central motif of the refounding, on the morning of December 30th. He did so with the following weighty words:
* Rudolf Steiner, The Christmas Conference, pp. 193-4, Anthroposophic Press, 1990.
We can feel the force and cadence of hammer blows in this “turning point” stanza. The beginning (or upper section) refers to the “Light Divine” the “Sun of Christ,” as if lifted upward. Then uniting in the center section “in human hearts,” and descending (incarnating), ending finally, with forceful blows—“That Good may become/ What from our hearts WE found/ And our heads direct/ With single will.”
An all-important “we” occurs here (“What from our hearts WE found”) making the personal imperatives, which are addressed to the individual “Human Soul” in the first three stanzas, into a social imperative demanding a unifying “ethical individualism” from “universal human beings,” in the final stanza. Building a temple for humanity with the tools of a master builder would need to be founded on a social imperative—an imperative that requires joinery driven home by the blows of a faithful hammer inspired by initiation wisdom.
The “Lost Word” is the power to speak the unspeakable, to render alive, active, and visible the invisible. This is done by creating a language of spirit to communicate the powers that ordinarily lie mute across the threshold, that are usually inaccessible—to make the inaccessible accessible. This is to enliven the word, to render it a tool of spiritual powers that must be active in the world to build the temple of humanity. (Steiner preferred to call the Goetheanum, “The House of the Word.”) This is a capacity with language that Rudolf Steiner demonstrated to a high degree throughout his life in giving the spirit a voice through his making available a spiritual, scientific terminology, giving clothing—a tangible vesture—to the spirit of the time. But beyond all that, it was the inspiration for the Foundation Stone Meditation that appeared after the fire had burned away the chaff to reveal the seedthought of the future of the mysteries. This seed-thought was expressed in mantric verse uniting cadence, tone, and concept (will, feeling, and idea) giving a voice to the good, the beautiful, and the true at once through the Founda6 tion Stone—giving further evidence of Steiner’s recovery of the Masonic “Lost Word.”
Having come this far, casting a dim light on the diamond that was created out of coal, out of the ashes of the burned Goetheanum, let us return to the question: What is the significance of the burning of the Goetheanum for the 100th anniversary of the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society?
Change seldom comes easily. In order to win the inspiration that Rudolf Steiner attained gazing into the flames, an inspiration that initiated a period of unprecedented productivity, we need to confront, like Rudolf Steiner, an impenetrable darkness. How did he achieve the surpassing inspiration for the Foundation Stone and the re-founding of the Society? How did he rise to even greater heights after more than sixty years of developing his initiate consciousness?
In the fire, Rudolf Steiner saw two conflicts raging in the spiritual world. One was an external enemy, the enemy that actually lit the fire. Certain inflammatory statements that were heard publicly from a pulpit* could easily be seen as inciting the heinous act, if it were not actually ordered in secret chambers.
* And were also found in a Masonic journal. The words of Father Kully: “Many spiritual sparks have flown against anthroposophy and its creator. It is therefore high time that an actual spark does away with this scourge on the hill of Dornach.” p. 722, S. O. Prokofieff, May Human Beings Hear It, Temple Lodge, 2004
The other enemy was internal: passivity, thoughtlessness, and more assertive forms of egotism within the Anthroposophical Society. In the fire, Steiner saw both of these conflicts raging against the spirit. But he saw what was earthly and weak in the Anthroposophical Society being consumed;*
* Steiner speaks of this: “And in spirit we see that in fact these flames glow over much of what we have been building up during the last twenty years.” The Christmas Conference, p.44
he saw the anti-social forces consumed; he saw the egotism that persisted in the Society as fuel for the fire; he saw the failures of the members and took them upon himself, saying something like this: “I have failed. What can I do? I have tried my best. My best is not good enough. I must have more. I must rise above myself and give birth to a higher I, lest the whole world go down in flames. I am powerless to do better without the help of a higher grace from the spiritual world.” He prayed from the depths what can be granted in the heights. He knew that he must experience the death of the impulse he brought into being, an impulse that had, in its failures, he felt, called forth the Goetheanum fire. He saw the fire as burning up the chaff of anthroposophy, the unrefined efforts of an earthly society. He must experience its death; he must follow the flames from the heap of rubble and grey-white ashes of the his beloved Goetheanum, like a Phoenix—to resurrection.
This is what a Christian initiate does. He drinks the bitter cup to its dregs. Brothers and sisters, higher inspiration is born out of weakness. The higher I is born out of our death. The way forward is not through our strength (we fail in our strength) but in our powerlessness, our powerlessness followed by resurrection. I believe this is how Rudolf Steiner received the inspiration for the Foundation Stone and the direction for re-founding of the Society. This is the secret of the unprecedented, spiritually productive activity of his last years.
Listen to what Rudolf Steiner says in his lecture “How Do I Find the Christ,”
As we approach the 100th anniversary of the refounding of the Anthroposophical Society, it is imperative that we take this great work we have been blessed with to a new level. I believe it must be reborn—to “inspire an awakening of the present civilization as a whole.” *
* Selg, Rudolf Steiner’s Life and Work, Volume 6
We must be willing, like Rudolf Steiner, to drink the bitter cup to its dregs. We must own our individual and community weaknesses and failures. And we must strive with all our might until we feel powerless; when we reach our limit we must go further; we must die that we might live—in resurrection. And let what lives in resurrection be dedicated to this Great Work we are called to. “That Good may become/ what from our hearts WE found/ and our heads direct/ with single will.”
Bill Trusiewicz is an inveterate student with wide interests. A love of beauty and experience and observation of life have been his primary teachers. On this basis he writes articles on spiritual topics, with an emphasis on the experiential, often related to language, anthroposophy, Rosicrucianism, esoteric Christianity, Sophiology and the Divine Feminine. His goal is to create a body of writing that is initiatory—that allows readers to grow beyond themselves.
