Alfred Schuler - Influence

Influence

The influence of the "Cosmic Circle" on Stefan George and his entourage is apparent by his use of the swastika in some of his publications, such as the Blätter für die Kunst. The "cosmic" influence can also be traced in the article "The Seventh Circle" and in his later work. As there was, however, in 1904, a rupture between George and the Schuler circle, its overt influence was intermittent.

From about the turn of the century Schuler kept in touch with occultists such as Henri Papus, and later took part in spiritualist séances directed by Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. Schuler also held a large number of lectures on "ancient heathen mysteries"; and in the "salon" of Elsa Bruckmann a series of speeches (from 1915 to 1923) on the subject of "the eternal city". Rainer Maria Rilke is known to have been present during Schuler's speeches.

The research into Schuler's life has been predominantly concerned with the memetic influence he may have exerted upon certain progenitors of German National Socialism, spurred by his anti-Judaism, his distinct employment of the swastika and, above all, by Robert Boehringer's thesis that Adolf Hitler may have met Schuler in the "salon Bruckmann". Despite his anti-Semitism, Schuler was however neither a National Socialist nor a member of any political party and it may seem likely that he would have found the active, public agitation of a politician to be a sacrilege against his gnostic beliefs. He is also known to have criticized the "nationalist tumour", and the "Hitler group" as representing the "drunken torchlight of death, leading people into the slaughterhouse".

In later years Schuler has become the subject of some interest as a poet in his own right and as a forerunner of certain experimental practices of modernist literature.