Occult imprisonment

Steiner's mentor was Helena Blavatsky, a founder of Theosophy. Steiner was bowled over by Blavatsky's book, THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Most of Steiner's teachings stem from Blavatsky's, although he increasingly distanced himself from her as he worked to create his own occult movement, Anthroposophy.

Here is an intriguing Q & A:

“What is occult ‘imprisonment’, and why was it inflicted on Madame Blavatsky?”

“There is a certain operation of ceremonial magic by means of which a wall of psychic influences may be built up around an individual who has become dangerous, which has the effect of paralysing the higher activities, and producing what is called the ‘repercussion of effort’, and the result is a kind of spiritual sleep characterised by fantastic visions. It is an operation seldom resorted to even by Brothers of the Left [i.e., evil brotherhoods], and in the case of Madame Blavatsky was disapproved of by almost all European occultists. [sic] On the American brotherhoods alone rests the responsibility for what has since happened.” — Rudolf Steiner, THE TRANSCENDENTAL UNIVERSE - quoted in Rudolf Steiner, THE OCCULT MOVEMENT IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1973), p. 102.

Perhaps the point needs amplification.

"H. P. Blavatsky...wanted to play the foremost occult role. She did not want to be just a higher medium; she wanted to direct the thing herself. She entered an American order where they told her many secrets which were only given to those in high grades. Nevertheless, this American order had a very definite intention and in time she received into her consciousness a great deal of knowledge. A whole new situation was now created. Here was a personality who knew much of the occult knowledge which the secret orders had preserved and protected. Here was a situation which had never occurred before ... [She] tried to set up certain conditions to which the American order could not agree, because if they had done so terrible confusion would have come about.

"Therefore, through very dubious means, they put her in what is called occult imprisonment which one achieves through certain ceremonial magic in which the soul which you are imprisoning can have ideas which go to a certain sphere and then are reflected back. Everything that develops in the person can be seen by themselves but it is not possible to share it with the external world. It only works within itself; it is an occult imprisonment. This particular ceremonial magic leading to occult imprisonment was done in order to try to make H. P. Blavatsky harmless. In the year 1879 there was an association of occultists of various lands and it was decided that an occult imprisonment was to be placed over Madam Blavatsky and she then lived for a number of years in real occult imprisonment. It then came about that certain [Asian] Indian occultists freed her from this occult imprisonment...." — Rudolf Steiner, THINGS IN THE PAST AND PRESENT IN THE SPIRIT OF MAN (transcript, Rudolf Steiner Archive), lecture 3, GA 167.

Steiner taught that Americans can scarcely comprehend true Anthroposophy. In America, he said, false forms of spiritualism thrive.