Sophie von Brockdorff

Countess Sophie von Brockdorff , née Sophie von Ahlefeldt , born April 14, 1848 in Damgård near Rødekro , Jutland , Denmark ; † June 8, 1906 in Algund , South Tyrol ) was a Danish-German theosophist .

Life

Marriage and children

She married Cay Lorenz Graf von Brockdorff on March 25, 1870 in Potsdam . The daughter Hedda (* 1871) and the son Cay Lorenz (1873–1918) resulted from the marriage, in 1879 the marriage was divorced. In 1885 she remarried her divorced husband, this time the marriage remained childless. Her husband had entered into a relationship with another woman between 1880 and 1881; from this marriage she had the stepson Ludwig (1881–1938).

As a theosophist

In November 1893 she joined the Theosophical Society together with her husband and was co-founder of the German Theosophical Society (DTG) in Berlin on June 29, 1894 . Later (before 1900) her husband became secretary of the DTG lodge in Berlin under Wilhelm Hübbe Schleiden , President of the DTG. She acted as his right hand and was quasi-secretary of the DTG lodge. In the Brockdorff library, lectures and discussions on theosophical and philosophical topics took place regularly in front of a small audience. In September 1900, she and her husband invited Rudolf Steiner to give a lecture in their library. This was followed in the next few weeks by a series of lectures on The Mysticism in the Rise of Modern Spiritual Life , and in autumn 1901 a series on Christianity as a mystical fact . Countess Brockdorff also recommended Steiner to other theosophical groups, so that the Hamburg Lodge invited him in 1901. She can be seen as Rudolf Steiner's “discoverer” for the Theosophical Society. In November 1900 Marie von Sivers , who later became Steiner's wife, became a member of Brockdorff's DTG lodge and met Steiner at one of his lectures that same month.

After her husband had given up his secretary post for reasons of age in January 1902, they moved to Algund near Meran in 1902 . From around 1900 she was the editor of the German edition of the theosophical journal Der Vahan . After her death, on June 8, 1906, the magazine had to be discontinued.

Web links

• Biographical entry in the online documentation of the anthroposophical research center Kulturimpuls