Memories of Rudolf Steiner by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz. Chapter 4

    

MEMORIES OF RUDOLF STEINER

by Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz

Chapter 4

With the holding of the large Anthroposophical Conference at Munich in August 1911, both my wife and myself who were present felt that a new conception of the significance of life was opened to us. We realized that Anthroposophy is not merely a philosophy of living, as is commonly understood by the term, but that when properly understood it plunges its roots into all phases of existence.

Until the date of that memorable conference we had many friends and relatives drawn from the nobility of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary, whom we visited and were visited by in turn. In the summer months we went on hunting parties on the various landed estates, and in the winter we renewed our friendship either in town or when travelling. It was a very vivid and crowded life that we lived in the different parts of the ancient Austrian Empire. Our whole circle of acquaintances had known each others’ families for generations, and thus one moved within a restricted set and felt bound thereto. Even when travelling, trips were rarely made outside of the Austrian frontiers, and even inside there were many foreigners who felt as Austrians. Since to within the second half of the nineteenth century Northern Italy belonged to Austria, many people journeyed to Venice, Milan, and other Italian towns. Only once in my younger days did I come across someone who was quite outside of our circle. She was a female member of the old English family of Tollemache. From then until her recent death she was always on the most friendly terms with our family, in spite of long absences, and as a result I visited England even before I became an anthroposophist.

Following on the Munich conference our friendships grew ever wider. Even though we maintained contact with our closer friends and more immediate relatives of the earlier period, yet we did not have sufficient time to maintain them as formerly, and we lost contact entirely with the younger generation. Common spiritual interests of a vital kind such as are created by anthroposophists are stronger bonds than those which are forged by tradition or on the basis of common blood. I soon felt that the people with whom I came in contact through the anthroposophists had undergone preparation in an earlier existence so that it was decreed that at a certain point of time they should forgather round Rudolf Steiner. These people came from all countries, from all sections of society, and were of all ages. There was a common destiny presiding over all of them which I was only to discover later.

It was almost impossible to become an anthroposophist in the fullest sense of the word and enter into the inner circle of experience if one did not participate in the common life of the pupils and disciples whom Rudolf Steiner gathered round him. Even though this communal life involved many difficulties and entailed the combating of many prejudices, yet these difficulties had an educational effect. Such a way of life precludes the normal bourgeois life, but in such a community one feels oneself brought nearer to the fundamental impulses of human evolution, and the real background of history is appreciated. Today, after twenty-five years, I may say this in all modesty since it corresponds to the facts. Rudolf Steiner used to say that it was the first duty of those who seek the spirit to understand the spiritual and mental evolution of mankind from the past to the present and also to have an idea of the main lines of development for the future. Only thus can the true spiritual nature of man and the real meaning of life be established.

Many of those whom I met for the first time remained bound in friendship to me, and with many I experienced a common destiny within the movement that gathered round Rudolf Steiner until his death. Even though temporary complications and misunderstandings occurred, I feel even today bound up with all of them in a common fate. Many have passed on to the other side, but their places have been filled by others. My wife and I remained in close contact with the leaders of the Munich branch of the movement, Countess Kalkreuth and Miss Stinde, until their death. We also came to know Frau Geheimrat Roechling and many others, to whom I shall always look back with gratitude and joy.

When naturally religious people become seriously acquainted with anthroposophy it makes a deep impression. I experienced this in the case of my wife. Since her childhood she had been of a religious disposition, and being brought up in the country was often left alone for long spells, and thus became deeply imbued with a love of nature. When she realized that by means of anthroposophy the comprehension of Christ can be enriched to an experience, her religious yearnings were intensified. The various religious sects nowadays are so deeply sunk in materialism that they have become abstractly moralizing administrative bodies from which true religion has long withered away. The majority of page are aware of this. Some still cling to an abstract belief, which, if they are honest, they cannot reconcile with their scientific knowledge. Often they solace themselves with an abstract, miracle-working philosophy which is devoid of common sense. There thus results a spiritual condition which will not permit itself to ponder over fundamental problems. Really religious people cannot make progress, and so often fall away. If they turn to anthroposophy the true religion in them begins to revive and rise above the sterility of ideas. I was able to make this observation in the earlier years of my anthroposophic life, but these observations were reinforced by later ones.

Continually in Rudolf Steiner I had to admire the kindness and forceful tact with which he overcame all the difficulties of the anthroposophical movement. In spite of their search after knowledge, his pupils were full of prejudices, errors, and backslidings which were the offspring of the existing spiritual decline caused by materialism. Rudolf Steiner overcame all these difficulties through tireless effort, until his final exhaustion. Thus he was able to lay in people’s hearts the foundations from which a future must arise based on spiritual knowledge.

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Source: https://rsarchive.org/OtherAuthors/Polzer-HoditzLudwig/MemoriesOfRudolfSteiner/Chapter_IV.html

Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz played a central part in the development of the anthroposophical movement from 1911 to 1925. He was a personal friend of Rudolf Steiner and one of his closest helpers. As such, these memoirs present a first-hand impression of Rudolf Steiner in daily life.

In 1913, Rudolf Steiner called him to Dornach so that he could be present at the laying of the foundation stone of the first Goetheanum. In 1917, Graf Polzer-Hoditz, whose brother Arthur was the Prime Minister and a personal friend of Kaiser Karl of Austria, belonged to a small circle to whom Rudolf Steiner gave the first indications regarding the Threefold Social Order.

As a member of Austrian aristocracy, Graf Polzer-Hoditz was very influential in cultural and political circles of the times, thereby enabling him to work for social reform during and after World War I. The Count was present at the burning of the first Goetheanum in 1922-23 and was also given special responsibility for the then newly-founded School of Spiritual Science in 1924. He vividly relates his memories of his travels with Rudolf Steiner and those who participated in the early anthroposophical movement.