Erich Gutkind : as prophet of the New Age

ERICH GUTKIND AS PROPHET OF THE NEW AGE

Erich Gutkind was born in Berlin in 1877 of a wealthy and cultured Jewish family. His studies, both at home with a private tutor and at the University of Berlin, included history of art, religion, philosophy, psychology and science. He was therefore acquainted with all the most up-to-date thought of his time as well as having a wide background in many fields of learning. But he was not merely an academic. He was deeply concerned with what should be done for the future of mankind; and this concern brought him into contact with a wide circle of distinguished friends. In 1933 he and his wife escaped from Germany, where they were in danger from the Nazis, and went to the United States, where he remained until his death in 1965.

Many of the New Atlantis Foundation Lectures over the last twenty years have been devoted to the work of men of genius or men of outstanding significance who have been neglected, or to some essential aspect of their work which has been overlooked. Erich Gutkind has not merely been neglected. Although known in the United States to those who heard him lecture or have read his later books, he remains virtually unknown in this country. Here he was first heard of through Dimitrije Mitrinovi¢é, who had been introduced to him by the painter Wassily Kandinsky before the First World War and had, until the war broke out, worked closely with him and other advanced thinkers. In 1920 and 1921 Mitrinovié wrote a series of articlesin The New Age, of which A. R. Orage was then editor, under the pseudonym ‘M. M. Cosmoi’. These were

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