Rudolf Steiner and the ‘Headless’ World State

During World War I, theosophist and founder of anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), was often characterised by critics as an internationalist. In 1919, Steiner founded the Bund für Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus, in connection with which he proposed a radical economics and the idea of a transnational tripartite world state. This approach was interpreted as internationalist by the national chauvinists who formed the rightwing of German politics. As a result of such criticisms, Steiner and anthroposophy became increasingly problematic in a Germany headed towards a nationalist (and fascist) future. As Lionel Gossman has pointed out, among völkisch groups, anthroposophy and theosophy were regarded as too ‘rationalistic' and ‘intellectual,' and thus at odds with the emerging focus on blood (i.e. biology) and soil (i.e. embodiment) (Lionel Gossman, Brownshirt Princess. A Study of the ‘Nazi Conscience' (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2009), 32). In contrast to a distinct ‘Volk,' bounded by race and close blood ties, the ostensible aims of theosophy and anthroposophy were internationalist and universalistic. This is revealing, for it demonstrates how ideas marked as internationalist are deployed in a discourse, and how this usage changes over time. It further reveals how theosophy and anthroposophy, when placed in their proper historical context, can represent historical agents in a process of global integration.