Initiation and initiative : an exploration of the life and ideas of Dimitrije Mitrinović

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The two men began a correspondence, and in a letter to Upton Sinclair of December 16th 1910 the Dutchman confided that he was preparing a manifesto which would call for the “Noblest of all Nations” to unite. The rallying call of “Proletarians Unite” was fruitless, he explained, because a “united mass of proletarians is a body without a head. But the Free and Pure, the Kingly and Powerful minds ought to make a stand.”2° The outcome of the joint endeavour with Gutkind was the publication of a short book entitled Welt-Eroberung durch Helden-Liebe (World Conquest through Heroic Love), consisting of two essays: “Heroic Love” by van Eeden and “World Conquest” by Gutkind.”’ This was to be the manifesto for the proposed group of “kingly spirits” who, by their moral and spiritual example, would lead the rest of humanity out from the morass of materialism and selfish greed into a realm of freedom and cooperation—the Blut-bund.

Mitrinovié’s visit to Jena during July 1914 provided Gutkind with the opportunity to assess the Serbian’s potential contribution to the group. He was impressed. He wrote to Kandinsky concerning the visit: “We had three marvellous days and all is going well.” A copy of “the little blue book,” as Gutkind referred to World Conquest Through Heroic Love was also given to Mitrinovic.

The book explored many of the ideas first raised in Sidereal Birth. At the core of both essays was the belief that the most significant division in society lay between the minority who were attuned to the new age and its values, and the mass of folk entrapped within the old. Gutkind wrote:

Economic oppression is no more the root of misery than prosperity is the ground from which genius springs. The unelectric life of the masses and the lack of transcendence and reality are the one root cause of our meagre life. The secret but real rulers of the world must with their heroic love conquer the peoples and make the world as electric as it has always been in decisive moments in order that God may be.#8

Van Eeden described the “kingly of spirit” as one:

Who feels mankind’s need in himself . . . he feels the fault which the multitude, because it is unconscious, cannot feel... He knows that he bears what the multitude does not possess, but what it needs. His kingly pride lies in this, that he will not lower himself but will stand fast in order that the human mass may follow him and raise itself up.29

By thought, word and deed and personal example such exceptional persons would guide the world towards unity. According to van Eeden,