Kindling the Word

Kindling the Word - The Karmic Background of Marie Steiner-von Sivers

Review by Michael Vode

By Rahel Kern and Brien Masters; Temple Lodge, 2012, 179 pgs.

In this “study of an individuality,” the authors take on the formidable challenge of re-searching the life of Marie Steiner-von Sivers and her three previous, known incarnations because they are convinced that her “karma and mission hold something of vital importance for the spiritual and cultural development of the West.” In the preface, Mr. Masters states that their endeavor arose in part from an impulse to invigorate anthroposophical striving, keeping in mind Rudolf Steiner’s “core mission.” Their study offers many insights into all four incarnations, illuminating von-Sivers’s karma as Rudolf Steiner’s foremost coworker—and even anthroposophy’s cofounder—from the outset. The book has fifteen chapters, all of moderate length.

The introductory and concluding essays were coauthored; the other chapters were written by either Ms. Kern or Mr. Masters. The first eleven chapters comprise a comprehensive presentation of the four discrete destinies and their historical-cultural milieus. The authors painstakingly draw from myriad sources, including pertinent excerpts from lectures, letters, and personal conversations of Rudolf Steiner. Mr. Masters composed the foundational early chapters on Marie Steiner-von Sivers (1867-1948) and the following transitional chapter on Orpheus. Ms. Kern takes over in later chapters devoted to Pherecydes of Syros (6th century BC) and his teacher—the latter Marie Steiner’s first incarnation; Hypatia of Alexandria (370- 425 AD), the second incarnation; and Albertus Magnus (1200-1280), the third incarnation.

The last five chapters amplify the book’s historical-spiritual perspective. These ultimate chapters elucidate the extraordinary spiritual intentions of the entelechy that unfolded throughout four incarnations. They especially emphasize the calling of the human I since the Scholastic period to undergo consciousness schooling as a wakeful, soul-spiritual ascent.

In the introductory chapter, the authors lay out a number of probing questions: (1) Why in anthroposophical circles has there been a longstanding under-appreciation, and even “seeming neglect,” of the enormous part Marie Steiner von-Sivers played in the life of anthroposophy over decades; (2) What is the significance of her humble, supportive integrity, and is this characteristic traceable to prior lifetimes; (3) How can Marie Steiner’s lifetime mission be understood in connection with Rudolf Steiner’s 1924 statement that art will be instrumental in the reemergence of a spiritual outlook in the West; (4) How are we to understand Rudolf Steiner’s comment to Emil Molt that an autobiography of Marie Steiner would not be fitting since “she is a cosmic being,” and “has this remark…had an inhibiting effect on the full appreciation of Marie Steiner von-Sivers’s karmic stature?”

A review can only touch on the overriding orientation of the essays and identify a few essentials of the panorama presented. Orpheus, an initiate of a Mystery stream at the outset of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, represents the book’s starting point. A clairvoyant spiritual leader, Orpheus initiated the first stage in the gradual descent of the human being from the realm of pure spirit to that of earthbound senses. The teacher of a seminal Greek thinker, Pherecydes of Syros, was schooled in the Orphic Mysteries. Rudolf Steiner referred to this teacher, Marie Steiner’s first incarnation, as die Namenlose (“the nameless one”). She mentored Pherecydes, although his spirituality—unlike hers—transpired as a sort of pictorial-conceptual halfway house at one remove from the spirit. Her mediation thus initiated the onset of a wakeful mentation that eventuated in philosophical thinking.

Hypatia, born in Alexandria late in the fourth century and educated by her unconventional, learned father, attained an altogether singular moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social stature for a woman of her time. With her earthly personality, Hypatia rediscovered the macrocosmic inspiration of the clairvoyant teacher of Pherecydes. Alexandria, Egypt was a foremost city of classical learning and scholarship in the first Christian centuries, drawing together diverse cultures, traditions, and religions while fostering a community of Greek, Christian, and Hebrew scholars devoted to science, art, and literature. The death knell of this vibrant mecca, however, was tolled some decades after Christianity’s institution as the state religion when Constantine’s Edict of Tolerance was revoked by Theodosius in 391. Power politics and rigid dogma increasingly severed Christianity from its origins, and a misogynist, conformist religion distanced itself from the living word. During this constricted time, Hypatia, who was not a Christian, fearlessly stood as a widely influential thinker, scientist, and counselor who deepened the inheritance of a Neo-Platonism threatened by a domineering, decadent Christianity. A greatly sought-after teacher, she was greatly admired for her character, knowledge, and wisdom. Her brutal, Church-instigated murder at the age of fifty-five signaled the end of classical antiquity and its treasures of immanent spiritual enlightenment. Her violent death was a martyrdom of symbolic proportions.

With Albertus Magnus and the onset of Scholasticism approximately 800 years later, the approach to the world-creative Logos had to begin at a distinct remove from the spirit. The four chapters devoted to Albertus portray a groundbreaking adventurer in thought, word, and deed. These chapters strikingly highlight his philosophical-theological stature. As a young man, Albertus Magnus joined the newly-founded Dominican order. He wed vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty to a disciplined pursuit of truth, and was entirely devoted to Church, community, and world. The Dominican priest schooled himself in a cognition commensurate with a virtuous way of life that integrated faith-theology with reason-philosophy, which he understood as necessary complements of onefold reality. Christian thinkers including Dionysius the Areopagite, Origen, Augustine, and Boethius were formative theological and philosophical influences. The fourth-century BC Greek philosopher Aristotle, however, came to represent the starting point for the Scholastics inasmuch as his method was directed to sense-based consciousness. Convinced of Aristotle’s momentous importance for establishing a philosophical proceeding for a monistic worldview, Albertus Magnus translated all of his works and composed forty commentaries on them. He thereby laid the cornerstone for his pupil Thomas Aquinas, who incorporated and transcended Aristotle’s epistemology in his towering Summas. Albertus Magnus’s conception of reality as spirit-ensouled accorded with Thomas Aquinas’s refutation of the encroaching nominalist denial of the Word as theophany. The authors suggest that Albertus’s universal thinking helped prepare the human spirit for anthroposophy centuries later. His collaboration with Thomas Aquinas in building a Word-centered philosophy was transformed by Rudolf Steiner and Marie von-Sivers. In the fifth post-Atlantic epoch with the end of Kali Yuga and the commencement of the Michaelic Age, the anthroposophical Weltanschauung could unfold in the initiate’s fully awakened, meditative consciousness connected to Hierarchical foundations.

The first chapters sketch a sort of biography of Marie Steiner von-Sivers, accentuating her prescient wordgiftedness, charismatic presence, high idealism, and courage to forge a spiritual calling in a secular world. They discuss her soul-spiritual development in the context of seven-year cycles. She honed—especially during her years in Paris—a capacity for dramatic recitation steeped in a classical schooling. While in Paris she discovered the mystery plays of Edouard Schuré, but she was otherwise disenchanted with the pervasive naturalistic reduction of the word in poetry and drama.

Soon after meeting Rudolf Steiner, she resolved to abandon a worldly acting career to devote herself to what she soon understood to be her true calling. With Rudolf Steiner’s guidance, she soon awakened to heightened powers of dramatic recitation, experiencing a breakthrough “inner development,” especially connected to a mantric verse Rudolf Steiner composed for her. These chapters and the concluding essay expansively illustrate Marie Steiner von-Sivers’s importance for the emergence of anthroposophy. For instance, she wore many hats in the initial publishing company. At Rudolf Steiner’s request, she sat quietly at his side as an “inspiratrice” while he worked on the model of the first Goetheanum. Altogether paramount in their collaboration was her lifelong engagement with enlivened speech as a performer, actor, teacher, and director. Her spirit-ensouled, dynamic mode of declamation elicited from poetic texts revelatory power that revitalized listening. Speech as visible soul gesture was a ground for eurythmy. Marie Steiner was a foremost presence, as recitation and the performance of plays accompanied courses, lectures, congresses, and eurythmy tours. Rudolf Steiner was immensely grateful for his wife’s indispensable artistic participation. The precarious state of speech performance today, the authors contend, further justifies the attention given to her life.

The thought-provoking research of Rahel Kern and Brien Masters evocatively characterizes Marie Steiner von-Sivers and her karmic background. Each author has an individual approach and style, although collaboration clearly accounts for the book’s structure and breadth. The evolution of consciousness in consecutive lives separated by centuries represents one dimension of the book’s scope. This seminal study in English presents a ground for further research, reflection, and meditation. We can assume that our reading between and beyond the lines of this book is the authors’ ardent hope and intention.