About Rudolf Steiner - “A Seeker of Truth”

Marginalia on Rudolf Steiner’s Life and Work No. 38.

The physician and cardiologist Max Asch was friends with August Strindberg, Edvard Munch, and the Polish writer Stanisław Przybyszewski. He always did everything in his power to support all of his companions. He had a gift for bringing people together—including introducing many to Rudolf Steiner. But he himself remained in the background, an unknown.

Max Asch (Schneidemühl, now Piła, Poland, August 10, 1855–March 17, 1911, Berlin) came from a Jewish family but left the Jewish faith. He studied medicine in Würzburg and Berlin before settling in the German capital as a practicing physician. There, in 1892–93, he moved in the literary and artistic circle known as Das schwarze Ferkel [The Black Piglet], where members enthusiastically engaged in “torpedoing bourgeois norms of behavior” and indulged in “music, poetry, song, and scandal,”¹ along with excessive drinking. This illustrious circle was frequented primarily by Scandinavians living in Berlin, foremost among them the writer August Strindberg and the painter Edvard Munch. Asch became friends with both and also supported them financially. When an exhibition of Munch’s work at the Architektenhaus in Berlin had to be closed after just one week in November 1892 on account of the outrage of older Berlin painters, Asch organized new exhibition spaces for him. Together with his friend and colleague, the well-known and multi-talented physician, poet, and philosopher Carl Ludwig Schleich (1859–1922), he visited Munch’s exhibition on January 2, 1893.² In early 1895, Munch created a portrait drawing of Asch.³

Asch also became close friends with the Polish writer Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868–1927), so much so that at times they would meet on a daily basis. In his memoirs, Przybyszewski describes Asch as “a highly interesting person, an extraordinarily intelligent physician”—albeit “more of an artist than a physician”—with “broad intellectual horizons”⁴. “Nothing interested him more than the long debates about Stirner and Nietzsche that we had,” says Przybyszewski.⁵ This must have been around the time when Steiner was also deeply interested in the two philosophers. Przybyszewski owed his career as a writer to Asch. Asch brought Przybyszewski’s manuscript Chopin und Nietzsche to the writer Franz Servaes, who secured its publication with the renowned Fontane publishing house. At Asch’s house—who “was on good terms with almost the entire literary scene of the time”⁶—Przybyszewski often met John Henry Mackay, whom Steiner would also frequently associate with during his early years in Berlin. Asch was also close friends with Maximilian Harden, Else Lasker-Schüler, and Melchior Lechter. Frida Strindberg describes him in her memoirs (without naming him) as follows: “And that gaunt, tall man, resembling a Persian king, standing next to him, is a doctor and a misogynist. He likes to play the role of Mephisto.”⁷

Asch’s personal life was eventful. He first married Henriette Kantorowicz in 1885, and they had two children together. He divorced her in 1894 and married Flora Bertha Röther in 1895. But this marriage ended in divorce in less than a year and in 1899 Asch remarried his first wife, Henriette. His witnesses at the wedding were the art critic Willy Pastor and the physician Berthold Lasker—husband of Else Lasker-Schüler. Irma von Gürgens (married name Hass-Berkow), who came to know Steiner through Asch, describes Asch as a “captivating personality.” “He was always surrounded by a circle of young people who asked him questions. He was full of sparkling spirit, wit, and ingenious vitality. On walks, he often stopped to speak with old, poor, and frail people, asking them about their destiny and trying to help them. He inspired enthusiasm through his conversation. He would delve relentlessly into the depths of a subject so that everyone fell silent. He stopped in front of every bookstore and bought many books that captivated him.”⁸

Intermediary

As Steiner noted in his eulogy, Asch “had to endure many things in his eventful life that can make it difficult for a person to join a purely spiritual movement.”⁹ It is not possible to determine exactly when Steiner and Asch first met, though probably as early as the pre-theosophical years in Berlin’s literary circles, since they had so many mutual acquaintances.¹⁰ In any case, on October 1, 1904, Asch joined the German Section of the Theosophical Society. Although overcome by doubts, he must have soon resigned and taken a job as a ship’s doctor,¹¹ as Irma Hass-Berkow reports. After his return, he eagerly attended Steiner’s lectures and asked for readmission, which was granted to him because he was “a seeker of truth,” as Steiner is said to have remarked. He suggested to the doctor that he and Marie Ritter “develop anthroposophic medicine with his help.” Asch tried for a time, but soon doubts returned.¹² And so he accepted another offer: work at an X-ray institute. The constant exposure to radiation, however, took a heavy toll on his health, and he had to spend many months at an institute for radium treatment. He died on March 17, 1911.

Asch was a vaccine skeptic, as Steiner once critically noted: “For this fanatical stance against such things is precisely what I would not recommend at all—not for medical reasons, but for general anthroposophical ones. A fanatical position against such things is not what we strive for; rather, we want to bring about a different approach to these matters on a larger scale through insight. Whenever I was friends with doctors, I always regarded this as something to be fought against, for example where Dr. Asch was concerned, who absolutely did not vaccinate.”¹³

In April 1910, Asch warmly recommended the young Heinrich Goesch—a friend of his son-in-law, the lawyer Fritz Kalischer—to Steiner: “For about two weeks now, I have been engaged in a lively personal exchange of ideas with Herr Dr. phil. Heinrich Goesch, who, it seems to me, is predestined for occult training. He is among the most gifted people I have ever met, and about a year ago he had such remarkable inner experiences—which came to light during an eight-day state of ecstasy—that I am inclined to believe this case might also be of special interest to you. He has recently immersed himself entirely in the study of your writings—Theosophy, Occult Science, etc.—and the incredible speed with which he has grasped these things leads me to assume that he has already undergone some kind of esoteric training in a previous incarnation—it seems to me the specifically Christian kind, given the experiences during the aforementioned ecstasy. Herr Dr. Goesch will be attending the lecture tomorrow evening; if you wish, I will introduce him to you. He also wants to become a member of the Theosophical Society immediately.”¹⁴ For some time previously, Goesch had immersed himself intensively in psychoanalysis. Now he threw himself with the same vehemence into the works of Steiner and became an ardent adherent for several years—before turning into a likewise ardent opponent.

Asch introduced Steiner to a second acquaintance, even as he lay on his deathbed. In a letter dated February 9, 1911, he asked him to visit him at the sanatorium, where Steiner met the well-known physician Carl Ludwig Schleich. During this visit, he experienced something very interesting, as he recounted in a lecture in September 1924; he met Schleich in the presence of “another personality,” namely Asch: “I had known this other personality very well for quite some time; he always made a—I wouldn’t say exceptionally deep—but a thorough impression on me nonetheless. A thorough impression, for the reason that this personality took extraordinarily great delight in being together with people who, to the greatest extent, were specifically concerned with a somewhat outwardly conceived occultism. But this personality also loved to talk about his many acquaintances who spoke about all things occult, particularly about those things from the occult that relates to what today’s artist—lyricist, epic poet, or dramatist—is supposed to strive for as an ideal. And this personality was surrounded by a kind of, I would say, moral aura. I use the word ‘moral’ for everything connected with the soul qualities governed by the will. In the presence of this personality, whom I had actually come to visit, I now found the other man whom I knew of and greatly esteemed for his literary career and his medical practice. And what took place during this visit truly left a deep impression, which inspired me to take the whole matter into the realm of spiritual research.”

Although Steiner could not immediately examine Schleich’s personality “in terms of the connections of his life and destiny,” “he, as it were, cast a light upon the other person, whom I had known for a long time, and it turned out that the other [. . .] had lived in ancient Egypt and, strangely enough, had been mummified there [. . .].” This embalming as a mummy of the present-day Asch was carried out by two individuals whom Asch was to introduce to one another in his current life: “The personality with whom I met Schleich, of whom I spoke in such a way that he had indeed been mummified by Schleich himself in his ancient Egyptian life—this personality is indeed the same one of whom Schleich tells in his memoirs that he brought Strindberg to him, brought him back to him. There had been a collaboration on the corpse: this soul that was in this body—it was he who brought them back together.”¹⁵ Schleich mentions this in his memoirs: “It was in the early 1890s when one day my colleague Dr. Max Asch entered my study with a man unknown to me. ‘Here, I bring you Strindberg.’ It struck me as rather peculiar to be able to look so suddenly into the eyes of this man I had long shown reverence for and to shake his hand warmly.”¹⁶

Connecting Spirit and Matter

According to Irma Hass-Berkow, Asch apparently tried, even from his deathbed, to bring as many people as possible to Steiner: “Follow this path; every word of Dr. Steiner is true.” He is even said to have told Schleich: “You, old sinner, still haven’t come to terms with Steiner’s spiritual science.” On his deathbed, he confided to her that “he had not fulfilled his earthly task because he had not sufficiently connected spirit with matter and had not brought order to his life circumstances.”¹⁷

Rudolf Steiner paid tribute to the dear Section member “Dr. Max Asch” in a memorial address. He noted that Asch had “ultimately found his way to us in such a way that he, the physician, discovered the best remedy for his sufferings in the study of theosophical literature and thought. He repeatedly assured me that no other belief could spring up in the soul of a physician for any other remedy than that which can come spiritually from theosophical books, that he felt theosophical teaching flow like balm into his pain-ridden body. Truly, right up to his dying hour, he cultivated theosophy in this sense.” Asch’s daughter, Else Kalischer,¹⁸ asked Steiner to say a few words at Asch’s grave. For him, it was “a heavy sacrifice” that he could not fulfill her wish, “since my lecture cycle in Prague began on that day, and it was therefore impossible for me to render this final service to my theosophical friend on the physical plane. You can be assured that the words I should have spoken at his grave were sent to him as thoughts into the world he had then entered.”¹⁹

Asch’s son, Walter Erich Asch (b. 1889), was interested in spiritual matters and contacted Steiner on several occasions; he also had conversations with him and wrote a moving letter from the front in 1915. However, it does not appear that he developed a lasting connection with anthroposophy. Walter Erich Asch was deported to Auschwitz in 1943 and murdered.

Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image Edvard Munch, Max Asch, 1895, drawing, The Art Institute of Chicago

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Footnotes

August Strindberg, Briefe (Munich: Langen-Müller, 1956), 228; cf. Strindberg’s Letters, 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
The “Munch Affair” caused quite a stir and drew public attention to the Norwegian artist and modern art. Munch’s popularity was thereby established, and he moved to Berlin, where he remained until 1896. Later, he came into contact with the Lübeck ophthalmologist Max Linde, for whom he produced various paintings. His painting of Linde’s four sons—including the future eurythmist Lothar Linde—is considered one of the masterpieces of modern portrait painting. (Edvard Munch, Die vier Söhne des Dr. Linde [The Four Sons of Dr. Linde], 1903, oil on canvas, Behnhaus, Lübeck, Germany).
In the years that followed, they continued to meet from time to time, the last time most likely in Berlin, 1905. Munch’s lover, Tulla Larsen, was treated by Max Asch for a time.
Stanisław Przybyszewski, Ferne komme ich her . . . : Erinnerungen an Berlin und Krakau [I come from far away . . . : Memories of Berlin and Krakow] (Leipzig and Weimar: Kiepenheuer, 1985), 62.
Ibid., 70.
Ibid., 76.
Frida Strindberg, Liebe, Leid und Zeit: Eine unvergessliche Ehe [Love, sorrow, and time: An unforgettable marriage] (Hamburg: H. Govert, 1936), 153; cf. Frida Uhl, Marriage with Genius (London: J. Cape, 1937). Irma Hass-Berkow writes to Emil Bock that anthroposophy caused Asch to “completely change his view of women.”
Irma Hass-Berkow (née von Gürgens) to Emil Bock, 1957, The Central Archive of The Christian Community in Berlin.
Rudolf Steiner, Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sektion der Theosophischen Gesellschaft 1902–1913 [On the history of the German Section of the Theosophical Society], GA 250 (Basel: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 2020), 463, address in Berlin on Dec. 10, 1911.
It is rather striking how many people Max Asch associated with who were also acquainted with Rudolf Steiner or would later become so, such as John Henry Mackay, Franz Servaes, Otto Julius Bierbaum, Otto Erich Hartleben, Richard Dehmel, Paul Scheerbart, Maximilian Harden, and others.
It seems he no longer had a practice in Berlin at that time but instead practiced in various locations, including Hamburg and Bad Orb.
Marie Ritter repeatedly had to defend her remedies against government institutions. For instance, in February 1906, following a petition, her patent was declared invalid by the Royal Patent Office in Berlin; she challenged this decision in court, for which Max Asch wrote a brief in April 1907: “Around February 1906, I had the opportunity in Breslau to observe the effects of various neurodynamic remedies on patients who had been treated by Miss Ritter. Since that time, I have applied these remedies to a number of my own patients and have become convinced that the improvement achieved in a large number of cases is most likely attributable to the aforementioned medications. I was confirmed in this assumption when I treated some of my patients in Bad Orb in the Spessart region in collaboration with Miss Ritter. Various patients, with whom the healing factors of medical science had failed, proved to be receptive to the effects of the Ritter remedies to a not insignificant degree,” Archiv am Goetheanum (GoeA_B. 06.016.021).
Rudolf Steiner, Physiology and Healing: Treatment, Therapy, and Hygiene, CW 314 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2013), address in Dornach, April 21, 1924, p. 239. Max Asch’s book, Zur Hypertrophie der quergestreiften Muskeln, speziell des Herzmuskels [On the hypertrophy of striated muscles, particularly the heart muscle] (Berlin: Springer, 1906), is found in Rudolf Steiner’s library; see Martina Maria Sam, ed., The Library of Rudolf Steiner: Catalogue of a Book Collection, part 2 (Tiburon, CA: Chadwick Library Edition, 2024), RSL Me 12.
For more on Goesch’s opposition, see, among others, Rudolf Steiner, Sexuality, Inner Development, and Community Life: Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions of the Crisis in the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, 1915, CW 253 (Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks, 2014), which also includes a reprint of Max Asch’s letter on pp. 97–98.
Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies, vol. 4, CW 238 (Forest Row, East Sussex: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2017), lecture in Dornach, Sept. 7, 1924. In this lecture, the karmic paths of Carl Ludwig Schleich and August Strindberg are further elaborated across various lifetimes; initially, no further connections emerged for Max Asch. As Rudolf Steiner states, it is methodologically very interesting that during this research he was repeatedly led back in spirit to the room where he had met Schleich when he had visited Asch.
Carl Ludwig Schleich, Besonnte Vergangenheit [A sun-lit past] (Berlin: Rowohlt, 1922), 244.
According to Irma Hass-Berkow’s letters to Emil Bock. This may also refer to his relationship with her. He was still married, but he also had a child with her, Tordis Ludwig.
Else Kalischer, born in 1886, was married to the lawyer Fritz Kalischer for many years until their divorce and had four sons with him; in 1941, she was deported to the Minsk Ghetto.
See footnote 9, p. 454.