"GOTHEANUM" BURNT

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 56, 7 March 1923, Page 16

"GOTHEANUM" BURNT

HOME OF. A QUACK RELIGION^

Aa the old year passed into the new a tremendous' conflagration lit up the country around Dornach, to the south of Basel, states the Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." It w&s the Grotheanum, the temple of anthroposophy, the 'Mecca /of the followers of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, which lighted it is said by a malicious hand, was going up in flames.

The destruction of this monumental building will be a grave blow to the numerous adherents of one of the new religions which have gained strength from the spiritual chaos left in Europe by the disillusionments of the war and peace. Dr. Steiner was,' of course, a recognised leader.of European theosophy some time before the war, and his large circle of admirers included people of such prominence ,as Count Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, who, according to a theory of wide vogue in this country, lost the Battle of the Marne through attending one of his spiritual master's lectures when he should have been busy with strategy. It was, however, only after Germany's collapse that the ideas of this gifted son of a petty Austrian railway official found really fertile soil in this country. At the time of the revolution here, Dr. Steiner issued a manifesto setting forth his theory of a "tripartition of social organism." What he proposed was nothing short of a complete reconstruction of human society on' a triple "basis of law, economics, and intellectual labour. This project, which came at a time when men's minds were unusually open to new political ideas, in its turn attracted attention to Dr. Steiner's more specifically religious ideas. These appear to be an elaboration of the familiar theosophist doctrines, and to contain a very strong esoteric mystical element. The hierarchic structure of the Anthroposophic Qhurch were said to resemble that of masonic orders, there being rings within rings of the faithful, graduated according to degrees of initiation, with a smaller inner circle of the elect in closest communion with the leader, who occupies the position of Grand Master. Last year Dr. Steiner appealed to his sympathisers for twenty-five million maxks (then quite a considerable sum) with which to put into practice his social theories. The money was to be used to finance a share company called "The Coming Day," which was to manufacture machinery, preserved foods, and patent medicines, work farms, run hotels, maintain a hospital, and carry on research work. One of the first enterprises started with' the money collected is said to have Been a cigarette factory. This development brought Dr. Steiner's undertakings into the full light of criticism, and since then he has been one of the- most hotly controverted personalities in Germany. The devotion of hits admirers was equalled in intensity by the aversion of his enemies, arid, according to a Stuggart telegram which brings the news of the destruction of the Dornach sanctuary, it was one of the latter who deliberately started the disastrous fire.