From: Charles Weber [mailto:cswanweber@...]
Sent: Tuesday, July 04, 2006 12:28 PM
To: Danielle Chavalarias
Subject: Brothers in spirit and in truth
Dear Members of the Board of the Rosicrucian Fellowship,
Once again, some of you have chosen to be close-minded, irrational, and self-contradictory by setting up a Rays Gestapo to detect and presumably cull from the Rays Magazine any evidence of influence or information coming from Rudolf Steiner--an impossible task, short of withholding the complete issues. Not because there is so much Steiner in the Rays but because there is so much of the Cosmo in Steiner. The perspective you elect is vital to the Fellowship's health and prosperity, and your view of this matter can either release you from insularity to enjoy the freeing sense true Fellowship, or condemn you to misunderstanding and insecurity.
Forced amnesia cannot gainsay the fact that the Cosmo contains "much valuable information received" from Rudolf Steiner. Charles Weber did not say this. Charles Weber is not the origin of this statement. These are the words of Max Heindel, the founder of the Rosicrucian Fellowship. His superb text, The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, is dedicated ( in the first edition) to Steiner and employs these very words:
"To my valued friend, DR. RUDOLPH [sic] STEINER, in grateful recognition of much valuable information received..."
Make of it what you will, yet these words will stand for all time as written.
Elsewhere ("The Heindel-Steiner Connection"--www.zyworld.com/Jamus/NewAge.htm), ample evidence is given to show the commonality between much of what is contained in the Cosmo and the antecedent texts of hundreds of Steiner's lectures and books published before Heindel's visit to Germany, where, "From the beginning of November, 1907, to the end of March, 1908, the writer [Heindel] devoted his time to the investigation of the teachings of Dr. Steiner" (Cosmo, 2nd Ed., Preface).
These facts do not imply that Heindel did not contact an Elder Brother of the Rose Cross and receive the Teachings (dictated in German). We know he did. But they do tell us that Rudolf Steiner and his teachings are in concord with, indeed, in great part are of the same spiritual blood as what Max Heindel has given us in the Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception. That is to say, the Steiner opus is of Rosicrucian provenance and content. Thus: "It should be understood that the introduction of a correct esotericism in the West can only be of the Rosicrucian-Christian type..." (Letter, 1907, Correspondence and Documents, p. 18). And thus, "The Rosicrucian method of initiation is especially for modern people; it meets the needs of modern conditions....It will for long centuries to come be the right method of initiation into spiritual life..." (Supersensible Knowledge, 13 lectures, Berlin, 1906-1907, p. 149). And, finally, in the words of Christopher Bamford, editor of the Anthroposophic Press, publisher of Steiner's books, the following: "...mplicit in these lectures and writings [of Rudolf Steiner], is the affirmation of the primacy of Rosicrucianism both for Rudolf Steiner personally and for anthroposophy, the spiritual science that he initiated. Rosicrucianism, in fact, is the golden, unifying thread that runs through Steiner's life and work" (The Secret Stream, Christian Rosenkreutz and Rosicrucianism, p. 248).
Please, my friends, ask yourself, if Rudolf Steiner is not qualified to be quoted in the Rays Magazine, who is? Remember, much of what is in the Cosmo, like it or not, was spoken from various podiums in European (primarily German) cities before the Cosmo was written. "The Heindel-Steiner Connection" gives ample proof of this fact, for those who have not made this discovery by reading Steiner's work on their own volition. How does this commonality make Steiner a pariah, not to be quoted or mentioned in Fellowship publications, when Max Heindel set the precedent?
Were our recently appointed Steiner sleuths to be consistent, they should cull from Corinne Heline's books all references to Rudolf Steiner, of which there are numerous: After all, he is propounding Rosicrucian Philosophy.
I have aired all of this before, at great lengths, making every effort to be reasonable, objective, and fair-minded, being far more concerned by where the facts and my desire for truth lead me than by toeing party lines and subscribing to an exclusivist position advanced by a few Fellowship members. The Aquarian mindset is universalist in outlook. If the Fellowship is truly the herald of the Aquarian Age, as Max Heindel states in Rosicrucian Mysteries (p. 12), let it be demonstrated. If the core teachings, the essential significance of the contributions of Max Heindel and Rudolf Steiner cannot be seen as complementary and in concord, one is simply not sufficiently familiar with their work. In some instances, one has rushed to a skewed judgment to support a prior opinion or impression.
If, as Max Heindel writes in the preface to the Second Edition of the Cosmo, the "teaching given by the Elder Brother corroborated the teachings of Dr. S. along main lines," how can these teachings of Steiner not be Rosicrucian, not be worthy of quotation, not be freely alluded to and discussed, not be intellectually embraced? They are in such conformity with what Max Heindel gives us in the Cosmo that, he says, "it was thought better to dedicate the book to Dr. S. than seem a plagiarist." Why should Heindel have seemed to be a plagiarist? Because of this near identity of texts! Then again, it makes eminent sense: Both men are expounding Rosicrucian Teachings: One from his supersensible researches, one from his direct contact with an Elder Brother of the Rose Cross (and later from his own supersensible investigations). In either case, both men are giving forth from the same body of spiritual knowledge.
It is to be hoped that the fortress mentality, irrational fears, and reflex defensiveness of a few members who are making adverse decisions regarding this issue will have the spiritual fortitude and character to address the facts presented here, and far more fully elsewhere, and summon the courage and humility to rescue their beleaguered position and discover that where there were presumed adversaries there are friends, where there was seeming division, there is unity, where there was bad faith, there is good will.
The realities will not change. Our view of the realities, however, can, must, and will change.
In Fellowship,
Charles Weber
