In May 1906, Rudolf Steiner came to Paris with a number of students to give a series of private lectures to a small circle of friends. I myself had never seen him and did not even know of his existence, but I had begun correspondence on the subject of one of my dramas (The Children of Lucifer) with his friend Mademoiselle von Sivers, who later became his wife and his most understanding colleague. She brought her teacher to my house one happy morning.

I shall never forget the extraordinary impression made upon me by this man when he entered the room. As I looked at that thin, powerful face, at the black mysterious eyes flashing light as if from unfathomable depths, it struck me that for the first time in my life I was facing one of those supreme seers who have direct vision of the great beyond. Intuitively and poetically, I had described such seers in The Great Initiates, but I had never hoped to meet one in this world. The impression was instantaneous and irresistible, unexpected as well as already known. Even before he opened his lips, an inner voice said to me: Here is a true master, one who will play an all-important part in your life.

Our subsequent relations would prove that this first impression was not an illusion. The program of the daily lectures, of which the speaker told me in advance, aroused my keenest interest. The lectures would cover the whole field of his philosophy, although it was possible to develop only

xvi Q An Esoteric Cosmology certain outstanding points. One would have said that the teacher’s purpose was to offer a vista of the general plan from its own heights. His fervent, convincing eloquence, irradiated by invariable clarity of thought, struck me at once as possessing two outstanding and unusual qualities.

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                                  Edouard Schuré

The Story of My Life

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DEAR FRÄULEIN M—

SCHLACHTENSEE, 22. Sept. 1903.

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There was no time left yesterday for what I should have liked to say to you: that your last letter was deeply gratifying to me. You will not misunderstand me: it is not because of your kind and good words to myself, but on account of the whole way in which you relate yourself to our cause. For a long time I have known that you love the truth; it has been a joy and satisfaction to me that we have found one another in this love for truth, and your recent letter confirms and strengthens this feeling. I can only say to you that this love for the truth has always been my guide. I have been much misunderstood, and shall no doubt be much misunderstood in future, too. That lies in the very nature of my path. Every imaginable role has been ascribed to me - not least, that of a fanatic in one direction or in another. Fanaticism is the one thing of all others from which I know that I am free. For it is the greatest tempter into illusions. And it has ever been my principle to keep out of the way of all illusion. You write that I make manifest the Spirit in my life. In one respect, I assure you, I strive to do so: I never speak of anything spiritual that I do not know by the most direct spiritual experience. This principle is my guiding star, and it has enabled me to overcome illusions. I can see through the illusions. And I can truly say that for me the spiritual is absolutely real - not a whit less real than is the table at which I am now writing. Whoever is ready to look into all that I have said and done will discover harmony, where by not looking at the whole he only finds contradictions. I can but say: The same kind of experience which has taught me the truth in science has also taught me the “mystical fact” in Christianity. Moreover, those who know me well know that I have not unduly altered in my life. Of one thing I can assure you: I do not force myself, I put

myself under no kind of strain, when I relate the truths of the spiritual life just as I would relate the realities of this world of the senses. We shall speak of these things again, no doubt, another time.

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     Your devoted RUDOLF STEINER