Esclareço que o texto abaixo, familiar para quem investiga a
ciência espiritual de Rudolf Steiner, contém termos muitas vezes
incompreensíveis. Então ativo a sua imaginação dizendo-lhe que o ser humano é
formado por corpo físico, corpo etérico, corpo astral (alma) e espírito
(EU-SOU), onde eterno é o espírito – o corpo astral por sua vez através da ação
da individualidade se desenvolve em alma sensível ou sensitiva, alma do
intelecto ou da razão, alma consciente da espiritualidade ou da consciência
espiritual (em setênios) e a atuação do Eu sobre o Eu, desenvolve em setênios o
Self-espiritual, a Vida-Espiritual e o Ser-Humano Espiritual (Menschengeist)
que conhecemos de eras anteriores como Mani, Buddhi e Atman, só que agora,
cristianizados pela Cristologia da Ciência Espiritual de Rudolf Steiner.
Cada investigador espiritual dá sua nomenclatura de acordo
com a área que desenvolve e portanto alguns discordarão de minhas
conceituações. Sem problemas.
Outra coisa, quando falamos de ”espíritos das trevas” não
podemos esquecer que nas tentações de Cristo, duas formas diversas de tentações
aconteceram, uma por um Anjo de muita luz, sem calor algum, Lúcifer, outra por
Ahriman, um Arcanjo das trevas, sendo que estes não são os únicos espíritos das
trevas, ainda temos Asuras e Sorat ou Sorath (depende da tradução).
Sonia von Homrich.
“Os espíritos das trevas estão entre nós, eles estão aqui.
Precisamos estar de guarda para que possamos vê-los quando os encontrarmos,
para que possamos compreender/entender onde eles estão. Porque o mais perigoso
em um futuro próximo será inconscientemente nos abandonar a tais influências
que verdadeiramente existem ao nosso redor. De fato, se o ser humano os
reconhece ou não, isto não faz diferença para a sua existência real. Acima de
tudo, é importante para estes espíritos das trevas trazerem confusão, dando falsos
direcionamentos no que agora (a partir de agora) está se espalhando pelo mundo.
Eu lhes disse que os corpos humanos se desenvolverão de tal
forma que haverá uma certa espiritualidade, mas esse pensamento materialista,
que é cada vez mais alimentado pelas indicações dos espíritos das trevas, operará
na forma que os oponha através de meios materiais. Eles inspirarão as vítimas das
quais se alimentam, os seres humanos dos quais eles vivem, até mesmo *in*ven*ta*rão*
uma *va*ci*na* para desviar desde a mais tenra infância, a tendência das almas
em direção à espiritualidade. Médicos materialistas estarão encarregados da
tarefa de remover a alma, da humanidade.
Como hoje vacinamos nossos corpos contra isso e aquilo,
assim no futuro eles vacinarão crianças com substâncias preparadas para
torná-las imunes ao desenvolvimento da “loucura” da vida espiritual, loucura
obviamente, do ponto de vista materialista. As crianças não serão capazes de
desenvolver inclinações para ideias espirituais, mas acreditarão por toda a sua
existência apenas na matéria física. Elas serão extremamente inteligentes, mas
não desenvolverão a consciência, seus pensamentos se tornarão como os de um
autômato. E este é o verdadeiro objetivo de certos círculos
materialistas."
Rudolf Steiner, 27 de Outubro de 1917 - texto extraído da palestra abaixo citada
′′ The
spirits of darkness are among us, they are here. We need to be on guard so that
we can see when we meet them, so we can understand where they are. Because the
most dangerous thing in the near future will be unconsciously abandoning such
influences that really exist around us. In fact, whether man recognizes them or
not, it doesn't make any difference to their real existence. Above all, it will
be important for these dark spirits to bring confusion and give false
directions in what is now spreading around the world.
I told you
that human bodies will develop in such a way that there will be a certain
spirituality, but that materialistic thought, the spread of which is
increasingly fueled by the indications of the spirits of darkness, will operate
in a way that opposes them by material means. They will inspire the victims
they feed on, the men they live on, even to invent a vaccine to deviate from
the very early childhood the trend of souls towards spirituality. Materialistic
doctors will be entrusted with the task of removing the soul from humanity.
As today we
vaccinate bodies against this and that, so in the future they will vaccinate
children with substances prepared to make them immune from developing themselves
the ′′ madness ′′ of spiritual life, madness, obviously, from a material point
of view. They will not be able to develop inclinations towards spiritual ideas,
but they will believe for their entire existence only in physical matter. They
will be extremely intelligent but they will not develop a consciousness, their
thoughts will become that of an automaton. And this is the real goal of certain
materialistic circles."
(Rudolf Steiner, October 27, 1917)
Fall of the Spirits of Darkness - LECTURE 13 - The Fallen Spirits'
Influence in the World
Dornach, 27 October 1917
We are going to continue on the same theme, as this will provide a
background for the evaluation of the significant events which now present
themselves to the human mind, events in which humanity is now caught up and
which are more significant than is often realized today. I have sought to show
that momentous occurrences in the spiritual world form the background to these
events. I have also spoken of the profoundly significant battle which took
place in the spiritual regions of the world between the early 1840s and the
autumn of 1879. This was one of the battles which occur repeatedly in world and
human evolution and are customarily represented by the image of Michael or St
George fighting the dragon. Michael won one such victory over the dragon on
behalf of the spiritual worlds in 1879. At that time the spirits of darkness
who worked against the Michaelic impulses were cast down from the spiritual
realm into the human realms. As I said, from that time onwards they have been
active in the feeling, will and mind impulses of human beings. Present-day
events can therefore only be understood if one turns the inner eye to the
spiritual powers which are now moving among us.
Inevitably the question must arise as to the actual nature of the battle
which raged in the spiritual regions between the 1840s and the 1870s, and of
the activity of the spirits of darkness since November 1879.
The story of what was behind this significant battle, or we might say
behind the scenes of world history, can only unfold slowly and gradually. Today
we shall first of all consider some ways in which a reflection of the battle
was cast on human regions. I have often drawn attention to the great
turning-point in the evolution of modern cultural spheres which came in the
early 1840s. This was the turning-point which brought the full impulse for the
development of materialism. Materialism could only develop in consequence of
major occurrences in the spiritual world which then continued in a downward
direction and gradually caused materialistic impulses to be instilled into
humanity. If we consider how events in spiritual regions were reflected here on
earth, two things are particularly evident.
The first is that the purely physical intellect and a culture based on
this showed a tremendous upsurge in the 1840s, 50s, 60s and 70s, much more so
than people imagine today — future observers will see this more clearly. It is
reasonable to say that anyone who studies the evolution of humanity and has an
eye for more subtle elements in human life will note that there has never been
such an upsurge in subtlety of conception, acumen and critical faculties for
the adherents of materialism as during those decades. All the thinking I have
characterized, thinking that leads to technical inventions, to criticism and to
brilliant definitions, is physical thinking and is bound to the brain. A
materialist who wanted to describe human evolution would have reason to say:
‘Humanity has never been as clever as during those decades.’ It really was
clever. If you study the literature — here I mean not only fine literature —
you will find that at no other time were ideas so well defined and critical
thinking so well developed as in those years, and this was in all kinds of
areas. We see a mirror-reflection develop in human souls of the aims certain
spirits of darkness were seeking to achieve in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s of the
last century, always hoping for victory.
They sought to get possession of an ancient inheritance of humanity.
This was something we referred to yesterday: Through millennia, the progressive
spirits of light guided humanity by means of blood bonds. They brought people
together in families, tribes, nations and races, uniting those who belonged together
on the basis of truly ancient human and world karma. With their feeling for
those blood bonds people then also had a feeling for missions which went a very
long way back in the world, missions designed to make the blood bonds — which,
of course, came from the earth — part of the general human karma. If one turns
one's attention to the spiritual world during the 1820s and 1830s, when the
souls which were later to enter into human bodies were still in that world, one
finds that the souls which were about to descend had certain impulses which,
among other things, were due to the fact that for millennia they had been bound
to particular families, tribes, nations and races each time they were on earth.
From the 1840s onwards these souls were meant to make the decision to enter
into particular bodies. For the spirits of light who sent their impulses into
human souls were, of course, guiding human evolution according to the old blood
bonds. And so the human souls in the spiritual worlds had certain impulses to follow
the ancient human karma on entering into bodies which were to be the population
in the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The
spirits of light were using the old measures of controlling and guiding those
souls.
The spirits of darkness wanted to gain control over this. They wanted to
drive the impulses of the spirits of light from those human souls and bring in
their own impulses. If the spirits of darkness had won the battle in 1879, the
relationship between human bodies and souls would have been utterly different
from what it actually has become in people born after 1879. Different souls
would have been in different bodies, and the plan according to which human
affairs on earth were ordered would have been according to the ideal of the
spirits of darkness. But it is not. Thanks to the victory that Michael won over
the dragon in the autumn of 1879, this could not happen.
During the 1840s, 50s, 60s and 70s, the battle was reflected on earth in
the particular acumen, critical faculty and so on, which I have described. As I
have said before, mere speculation does not get us anywhere; it needs genuine
spiritual observation. Speculation could never show that the very qualities of
the physical intellect which I have mentioned are a reflection here on earth of
the battle over reproduction, over the way in which generation follows
generation. These things have to be observed. Anyone who thinks that the right
connections between the physical and the spiritual worlds can be found by using
the physical intellect is very much in error. This approach will normally give
the wrong result, because the rules of logic used are those of the physical
sciences. These apply only to the physical world, however; they do not apply to
the relationship between the physical and the spiritual worlds. This, then, was
one way in which the battle for the blood was reflected.
The other way — this again is something I have mentioned before — was
the emergence of spiritualism in the 1840s and later. Certain groups, and they
were far from small, sought to explore the connections with the spiritual world
by using mediums, that is essentially by physical means. If this had succeeded,
if the spirits of darkness had been strong enough to gain the victory over
Michael's adherents in 1879, spiritualism would have spread enormously. For
spiritualism gets its impulses not only from the earth, but is also governed by
influences coming from the other world. It is important to be very clear that
this is not a matter of choice; it is not possible to be easygoing and say:
‘Either we accept such things or we refuse to accept them.’ It certainly is not
like this. The things that happened in spiritualistic circles partly
represented a significant intrusion of the spiritual world; they certainly
arose from impulses which came from the spiritual world and were often closely
bound up with human destinies. They were nevertheless a mirror-reflection of
the battle which had been lost in the spiritual region. This is also why spiritualism
lost momentum and became so strangely corrupted after that point in time. It
would have been the means by which people's attention would have been drawn to
the spiritual world, and it would have been the only means if the spirits of
darkness had gained the victory in 1879. If they had won, we would live in a
world of indescribable acumen which would apply to all kinds of different
spheres in life. Speculations on the Stock Exchange, which are sometimes quite
dimwitted nowadays, would have been made with incredible acumen. This is one
aspect. On the other hand, people far and wide would have sought to satisfy
their spiritual needs by using mediums. So there you have what the spirits of
darkness intended: physical acumen on the one hand, and a way of seeking
connection with the spiritual world based on reduced consciousness on the
other. Above all else, the spirits of darkness wanted to prevent spiritual
experiences, living experience of the spirit, from coming down into human
souls; this was bound to come about gradually after their fall in 1879.
The kind of spiritual experience which is utilized in the spiritual
science of anthroposophy would have been impossible if the spirits of darkness
had been victorious, for they would then have kept this life and activity in
the spiritual regions. It is only because of their fall that instead of merely
critical, physical intelligence and the mediumistic approach, it has been and
will increasingly be possible to gain direct experiences in the spiritual world.
It is not for nothing that I recently told you how the present age is dependent
on spiritual influences to a far greater extent than people believe. Our age
may be materialistic and want to become even more materialistic, but the
spiritual worlds reveal themselves to human beings in many more places than one
would think. Spiritual influences can be felt everywhere, though at the present
time they are not always good ones.
People often find it embarrassing to admit to others their knowledge of
spiritual influences, but many things they do, or initiate, are done because
something appeared to them in a dream which was a genuine spiritual influence.
Ask poets why they have become poets. Speaking of the time when they first
began to be poets they will tell you that they had spiritual experiences which
came as in a dream, and this gave them the impulse to be creative. Ask people
who have started journals why they did so — I am giving you facts — and they
will speak of what they call dreams, though this was actually the transmission
of impulses from the spiritual to the physical world. And there is much more of
this, also in other areas, but people will not admit to it, for they think if
they tell someone: ‘I've done something or other because some spirit or other appeared
to me in a dream,’ the other person will call them idiots. This, of course, is
not a nice thing to hear. It is the reason why we know so little about what
really goes on among people today. The things which now happen sporadically in
one place or another are merely the vanguard of what will happen more and more:
spirituality will come to human beings because Michael won his victory in 1879.
The fact that we have a science of the spirit is also entirely due to this.
Otherwise the truths concerned would have remained in the spiritual worlds;
they could not have come to dwell in human brains and would not exist for the
physical world
You have been given images which may serve to demonstrate the intentions
of the spirits of darkness in the 1840s, 50s, 60s and 70s when they fought the
followers of Michael. These spirits have been down here among human beings from
the autumn of 1879. They have failed to achieve their aims: spiritualism will
not become the general human persuasion; people will not grow so clever from
the materialistic point of view that they fall over themselves with their
cleverness. The spiritual truths will take root among human beings.
On the other hand, the spirits of darkness are now among us. We have to
be on guard so that we may realize what is happening when we encounter them and
gain a real idea of where they are to be found. The most dangerous thing you
can do in the immediate future will be to give yourself up unconsciously to the
influences which are definitely present. For it makes no difference to their
reality whether they are recognized or unrecognized.
It will be the main concern of these spirits of darkness to bring
confusion into the rightful elements which are now spreading on earth, and need
to spread in such a way that the spirits of light can continue to be active in
them. They will seek to push these in the wrong direction. I have already
spoken of one such wrong direction, which is about as paradoxical as is
possible. [ Note 1 ] I have pointed out that while human bodies will develop in
such a way that certain spiritualities can find room in them, the materialistic
bent, which will spread more and more under the guidance of the spirits of
darkness, will work against this and combat it by physical means. I have told you
that the spirits of darkness are going to inspire their human hosts, in whom
they will be dwelling, to find a vaccine that will drive all inclination
towards spirituality out of people's souls when they are still very young, and
this will happen in a roundabout way through the living body. Today, bodies are
vaccinated against one thing and another; in future, children will be
vaccinated with a substance which it will certainly be possible to produce, and
this will make them immune, so that they do not develop foolish inclinations
connected with spiritual life — ‘foolish’ here, of course, in the eyes of
materialists.
A beginning has already been made, though only in the literary field
where it is less harmful. As I have mentioned, [ Note 2 ] learned medical
experts have published books on the abnormalities of certain men of genius. As
you know, attempts have been made to understand the genius of Conrad Ferdinand
Meyer, Viktor Scheffel, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Goethe, by showing them to
suffer from certain abnormalities. And the most astounding thing in this field
is that people have also sought to understand Jesus Christ and the Gospels from
this point of view. Two publications are now in existence in which the origins
of Christianity are said to be due to the fact that at the beginning of our era
there lived an individual who was mentally and psychologically abnormal; this
individual went about in Palestine as Jesus Christ and infected people with
Christianity.
These, as I said, are the beginnings in the field of literature. The
whole trend goes in a direction where a way will finally be found to vaccinate
bodies so that these bodies will not allow the inclination towards spiritual
ideas to develop and all their lives people will believe only in the physical
world they perceive with the senses. Out of impulses which the medical
profession gained from presumption — oh, I beg your pardon, from the
consumption they themselves suffered — people are now vaccinated against
consumption, and in the same way they will be vaccinated against any
inclination towards spirituality. This is merely to give you a particularly
striking example of many things which will come in the near and more distant
future in this field — the aim being to bring confusion into the impulses which
want to stream down to earth after the victory of the spirits of light.
The first step must be to throw people's views into confusion, turning
their concepts and ideas inside out. This is a serious thing and must be
watched with care, for it is part of some highly important elements which will
be the background to events now in preparation.
I am choosing my words with great care. I am saying ‘in preparation’
because I am fully aware that to say ‘in preparation’, after the events which
have taken place in the last three years, is something significant. Anyone who
is able to see more deeply into these matters knows them to be preparations.
Only superficial people can believe that this war, which is not a war of the
old kind, will tomorrow or the day after be followed by a peace of the old
kind. You have to be very superficial to believe this. Many will believe it, of
course, if outer events appear to be in accord with the notions some people
have; they will fail to realize what actually lies dormant beneath the surface.
It is interesting to consider the decades from the 1840s onwards, both
in general and in detail. We have had a general characterization of them in
these last weeks, and I have to some extent gone over this again today. A study
of representative figures — the spiritual impulses which power evolution come
to expression in such figures — will show that the general insights gained also
prove true in individual instances. Let me give you an example which may seem
to be a minor one. It is something I also mentioned last year. [ Note 3 ]
Numerous commentaries have been written on Goethe's Faust. Oswald
Marbach's [ Note 4 ] commentaries do not lack depth; they are in some respect
profound. It is fair to say that the people who have been least profound are
the literary historians, for it is their academic duty to understand such
matters, which, of course, tends to be an obstacle to real understanding.
Oswald Marbach wrote well about Faust because he was not really a literary
historian. He lectured on Goethe's Faust, mathematics, mechanics and technology
at Leipzig University, and at the present time the mysteries of the cosmos are
easier to penetrate by studying Marbach's mechanics and technology than by
applying the ‘modern science’ of historians and literary historians. However,
we do find something quite peculiar in the case of Oswald Marbach. He spoke on
Goethe's Faust during the 1840s but had ceased to do so by the end of the
1840s, nor did he speak about it in the 50s, 60s and 70s. He only started to
lecture on Goethe's Faust again in the late 70s. In between he spoke only on
mathematics, mechanics and technology, that is he devoted himself to the
sciences which offered the best opportunity, especially at the time, to foster
one's acumen and critical faculties. It is most interesting to see how he
refers to this in his preface: “Thirty or forty years ago, I used to lecture on
Goethe's Faust at Leipzig University — the book was published in 1881 — but I
have only taken the subject up again in recent years (1875). Why such a long
interval? Many factors were involved, outer and inner ones, both subjective and
objective. I grew older and finally old and so did my students: semester by
semester they grew more and more morose. (People were getting more clever, but
for anyone who looked more deeply also more morose!) Open interest of the
spirit in the spirit was getting less and less and we lived in an age when
usefulness counted more than beauty. For thirty years I yielded to necessity
rather than to my own inclination and put philosophy and poetry aside, teaching
the exact sciences of mathematics, physics and mechanics instead.”
This was the time of materialistic acumen. One sentence in the preface
is tremendously interesting, for it points directly to what mattered at this
time. Marbach states that in his conscious mind he always thought he was doing
exactly what he wanted to do in the past, whether interpreting Faust or
lecturing on technology. However, when he took up Faust again to interpret the
work, he had to confess he had been under an illusion, for he had merely obeyed
the spirit of the time. It would be good if many people could realize the
extent to which they are under illusions. For it was the ideal of the spirits
of darkness before 1879, and has been even more so since they walk among us in
the human realms since 1879, to spin a web of illusion over human beings and
into human brains and let illusions stream through human hearts.
Something else is of interest when one considers such an individual who
is representative, as it were, of the influences which heaven brought to bear
on earth. He says — and this is in accord with history — that in the 1840s he
would mostly speak about Faust, Part 1 at the university, for there was no
interest in Part 2. When he started to lecture on Faust again — and we can now
say this was after Michael's victory over the dragon — his exposition would
mostly be on Part 2. The age of acumen and critical faculties was indeed a time
when access to Part 2 of Goethe's Faust was difficult. Even today this work,
which is one of the greatest affirmations of Goetheanism, is relatively little
understood. Efforts at understanding are, of course, liable to make us feel ill
at ease, for nowhere else is the atmosphere in which people live today treated
with such humour, such irony, as in Part 2 of Goethe's Faust. People live in a
social atmosphere today which has been gradually evolving since the sixteenth
century. They hail everything which has been achieved from the sixteenth
century onwards as great and glorious achievements of our time and positively
wallow in those achievements. Goethe was not only a man of his time; he was
inwardly able to look ahead to the twentieth century and wrote Part 2 of Faust
for the twentieth, twenty-first and later centuries. This will be only
understood in the future. Hidden below the surface is a humorous and ironical
look at developments since the sixteenth century, written in grand style.
Consider the way Goethe lets the much admired advances on which civilizations
live today be presented to Faust as a contrivance of Mephistopheles. Thus not
only the paper spectre of the golden florin, [ Note 5 ] but all the glorious
developments from the sixteenth century onwards were the creation of
Mephistopheles. In time to come, humanity will see the magnificent irony with
which the creations of that time are treated in Part 2 of Faust. On the one
hand, we have Faust in his quest for the spirit, and on the other,
Mephistopheles, representative of the spirits of darkness, who invents
everything humanity has come to depend on and will depend on more and more,
especially in the twentieth century.
Much which will help us to be on our guard may be found hidden in Part 2
of Faust. It is a profoundly significant symptom that someone who had used
physics, mechanics, mathematics and technology to learn the secrets of the age
felt drawn to speak about Part 2 exactly when the victory had been won over the
dragon. For decades before this he would speak only of Part 1, which alone
could be understood at the time.
We have seen, especially also in the course of last year, that
anthroposophy is gradually helping us to bring life into things which Goethe
was only able to present in images, and to discover their deeper meaning in
Part 2 of Faust. [ Note 6 ] Anthroposophy clearly cannot be derived from a
study of Faust, but it is certainly true that anthroposophy throws a new and
much clearer light on the impressive images Goethe has given in Part 2, and in
his magnificent discourses in Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years.
Here we touch on a trend which will have to gain ground under the
influence of the progressive spirits of light as time goes on, to counter the
efforts of the spirits of darkness; and it will gain ground if human beings are
on their guard against the spirits of darkness. These last three years have
been a challenge to be watchful and on our guard, though the numbers of souls
able to perceive the call are as yet far from adequate. We have been able to
see the opposite trend at work here, there and everywhere. It is particularly
when spiritual life is beginning to be possible that the spirits of hindrance
are very much to the fore. We have seen characteristic things and we shall see
more of them. Even just to hint at such things is liable to create continuous
misunderstanding. The spiritual atmosphere in which people live today is
impregnated with the will to misunderstand to such an extent that one's words are
immediately interpreted as something different from what they actually mean to
convey. One has to use human words, and these have all kinds of associations.
Today, so many people base their judgement on national passions that if
one has in some way to characterize someone who belongs to a particular nation,
simply as a human individual who is here on earth, this is taken amiss by
people who also belong to that nation, despite the fact that something said
about individuals who are involved in current events, for example, has nothing
to do with one's views of some nation or other. The belief that the tempest now
raging is caused by the things that everybody is talking about today is
especially harmful because it is especially senseless. The causes are much more
deeply hidden and initially have really nothing to do with national aspirations
in some respects — please note I am saying in some respects. National
aspirations are merely made use of by certain powers, but the majority of
people are so superficial that they do not want to know about this. It will be
some time before an objective view is taken in this area.
Large sections of humanity find it easiest to ascribe greatness and
far-sightedness to ideas which have arisen in a brain as limited as that of
someone just out of teacher training college who is let loose not just on a
class of school children, but in this case on the whole of humanity. As I said
on a number of occasions, it did not need this terrible time which has come
upon us to form an objective opinion on Woodrow Wilson from the point of view
of spiritual science. I spoke of this in the lectures I gave in Helsingfors in
1913; you can read it up in The Occult Significance of the Bhagavad Gita. [
Note 7 ] There I spoke of the world schoolmastery of Woodrow Wilson and the
shallow superficiality of the man. In those days, however, you were outside the
Spirit of the time when you spoke about Woodrow Wilson like this, for his
grammar-schoolboy essays on independence, culture and literature were then
still being translated into European languages. It will be a long time yet
before people will feel embarrassed at taking seriously the grammar school
level policies of Woodrow Wilson.
Spirits of darkness are at work everywhere to befog human minds. One day
people will waken from the mists and vapours in which they are now asleep and
they will find it hard to understand how people could have allowed themselves
to be kept on leading-reins by Woodrow Wilson and his wisdom in the early
twentieth century without feeling embarrassed. A moment of waking will only
come when people begin to feel embarrassed at policies which are possible
today.
It is difficult to say truth-inspired things today because they sound
too much in opposition to the ideas which have been inculcated into people's
heads. And it is difficult to form an independent judgement in the atmosphere
which has been produced not only during the last three years, but also through
everything I have called a social carcinoma in the lectures I gave in Vienna. [
Note 8 ] It is necessary to take these things with profound seriousness and not
apply to them the concepts and ideas which people have been in the habit of
using as their criteria. It will be necessary to realize that the present time
demonstrates the inadequacy and indeed the utter uselessness of the ideas
humanity has come to accept, and that in terms of world history it is indecent
for people to base their judgement on the very ideas which have led to present
events when those events clearly show them to have been wrong. Do people think
they can cure the ills of the present time by applying the same principles
which have brought them about? If so, they are utterly deceiving themselves.
Humanity has a certain sum total of cultural achievements which come
from older times. These are now being used up. Every day brings evidence of
their being used up without anything new taking their place. People are so
little prepared today to understand and see through such things in their full
seriousness. Many are still thinking exactly the as they did in 1913, in the
belief that the understanding they had in 1913 will also be adequate for 1917;
they do not have enough sense of reality to see that this kind of thinking has
a great deal to do with the events of the year 1917, having brought them about,
and that it cannot cure the ills we experience now, in 1917.
The need of the present time is that we go deeply into the events which
have occurred since the fall of the spirits of darkness; we must gain as much
insight as possible into the events of the 1880s, 1890s, and the first two
decades of the twentieth century. People are utterly confused in their
judgement with regard to them.
Neither do they have a real idea of the radical difference in the way
people felt and reacted after 1879 compared to the way they did before 1879.
Going into something like Part 2 of Goethe's Faust will also help us to
progress; this work could not be understood in Goethe's time because it is a
critique of what Goethe perceived to be the content of the twentieth century.
Characteristically, someone like Oswald Marbach only found access to Part 2
after the fall of the spirits of darkness.
These are the insights and impulses which will help us to grow inwardly
so that we may meet the needs of our time. Many of the needs sown before 1879
have not come to fruition, and in connection with this there is a significant
question which should really cast its shadow on every human soul. Today I want
to put it merely as a question.
The events in which we are caught up today indicate where humanity
stands now. What matters now is not merely to understand them, but to find a
way out of them. Yet while there is so little will to penetrate the deeper,
real impulses which have led to the present age, practical minds will not be
able to understand these matters. It is wrong to think that no one has
sufficient insight into the current situation. People simply do not want to
listen to them, just as they do not want to know about such a thing as
Goetheanism, which is also like the voice of the twentieth century. Yet this
voice will only be rightly understood if people seek to understand, seriously
and in all dignity, the profound significance of the fall of the spirits of
darkness in the autumn of 1879. To understand the present time, it will be
necessary to understand the spiritual evolution of humanity. That is why I
spoke of Oswald Marbach, whose poem I gave you last year to let you see how he
looks at the past and ahead to the future. He wrote the poem to mark the
anniversary when Goethe found entry into communities then called Masonic or the
like, though in the eighteenth century this meant something different from what
it means today. Goethe's viewpoint allowed him insight into many of the
mysterious impulses which go through the world, things that people are too
superficial to want to see. Oswald Marbach wrote these verses to mark the
anniversary of Goethe finding his way to the world of the spirit:
With you, my brother, father, sublime master,
We now join hands across a hundred years
To mark the steadfast love which does unite
And closely bind all independent minds;
Greatest of spirits, mind most independent,
All our endeavour is to reach your heights;
We dedicate ourselves to you! We dedicate our sons,
So that one day achievement be the crown.
You strove as we now strive; yet the soul of your endeavour
To gain self-knowledge that will lead to wisdom
Was always life itself with vigour lived,
Was power creative, actively progressing
To works which rise into the light,
In glorious beauty for eternity:
Like Israel you struggled against God
Until you won the victory o'er yourself!
The mystery which now for ever binds us
Will not be told to unenlightened souls;
Yet make it known to all the world
In deeds of purest love that never tire,
In the clear light which spirit gives to spirit,
In life eternal which shall never fade.
Lead on then, Master! Where you went before
We're drawn to follow in most ardent longing.
Such is the mood that must unlock the ‘gates of fulfilment’.
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19171027p01.html
NEXUS>>>>>>https://www.nexusnewsfeed.com/article/spiritual-psychic/in-1917-rudolf-steiner-foresaw-a-vaccine-that-would-drive-all-inclination-toward-spirituality-out-of-people-s-souls/
In 1917
Rudolf Steiner foresaw a vaccine that would ‘drive all inclination toward
spirituality out of people’s souls’
If you’ve
felt at all like you’re in a spiritual war right now, you’re not alone.
Many of the
world’s greatest scholars, philosophers and ascetics understood the world to be
multi-dimensional and co-inhabited by non-physical beings both good and evil,
always at war with us and each other.
It’s not
something that can be rightly explained with language or science. One must
cultivate such sensitivity that the existence of spiritual beings can be
directly experienced.
Rudolf
Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, educator, and spiritualist, and over the
course of his life he published numerous books and papers on the science of
spirituality. He viewed the human body as a spiritual vessel, open to
occupation by other entities.
To be
conscious of these forces was to have the power to reject their negative
influence. To remain unconscious of them was to be a leaf in their wind, and
spiritual cultivation was the key to developing conscious awareness of them.
“The
spirits of darkness are now among us. We have to be on guard so that we may
realize what is happening when we encounter them and gain a real idea of where
they are to be found. The most dangerous thing you can do in the immediate
future will be to give yourself up unconsciously to the influences which are
definitely present.” ~ Rudolf Steiner
If people
express the natural human inclination toward spiritual growth, they free
themselves from fear and anxiety, and effectively develop a sort of immunity to
the influences of negative entities. If not, our vibration attracts hostile
spirits and we fall unconsciously unto their influence.
“There are
beings in the spiritual realms for whom anxiety and fear emanating from human
beings offer welcome food. When humans have no anxiety and fear, then these
creatures starve… If fear and anxiety radiates from people and they break out
in panic, then these creatures find welcome nutrition and they become more and
more powerful. These beings are hostile towards humanity.
Everything
that feeds on negative feelings, on anxiety, fear and superstition, despair or
doubt, are in reality hostile forces in supersensible worlds, launching cruel
attacks on human beings, while they are being fed. Therefore, it is above all
necessary to begin with that the person who enters the spiritual world
overcomes fear, feelings of helplessness, despair and anxiety. But these are
exactly the feelings that belong to contemporary culture and materialism;
because it estranges people from the spiritual world, it is especially suited
to evoke hopelessness and fear of the unknown in people, thereby calling up the
above mentioned hostile forces against them.” ~Rudolf Steiner
With such
profound global fear, anxiety, and panic over the present pandemic, many are
exposing their own spiritual sicknesses and acquiescing to any recommended
behavior or intervention that might alleviate these emotions. Along with this
is the push to vaccinate 7 billion healthy people.
Nearly 100
years ago, in a series of 14 essays published under the title, The Fall of the
Spirits of Darkness, Steiner issued a warning to future generations about a
possible measure of mass control, quite similar to the visions presented by Orwell and Huxley.
Steiner foresaw a future when vaccines could steal our spiritual nature.
First, some
background:
“In these
fourteen lectures, given at the end of 1917 following four years of war in
Europe, Steiner speaks on the complex spiritual forces behind the World War I,
humanity’s attempts to build theoretically perfect social orders, and the many
divisions and disruptions that would continue on Earth into our own time.
Humanity in general was asleep to the fact that fallen spirits, cast from the
spiritual worlds, had become intensely active on Earth. This manifested mainly
in human thinking and perception of the surrounding world. ” [Source]
The fall
into such destructive slumber would be
marked by an age of materialism and centralization of power, during which the
influences of ‘spirits of darkness’ would inspire humans to devise new
technologies and new means of oppression. Steiner comments:
“I have
told you that the spirits of darkness are going to inspire their human hosts,
in whom they will be dwelling, to find a vaccine that will drive all
inclination toward spirituality out of people’s souls when they are still very
young, and this will happen in a roundabout way through the living body. Today,
bodies are vaccinated against one thing and another; in future, children will
be vaccinated with a substance which it will certainly be possible to produce,
and this will make them immune, so that they do not develop foolish
inclinations connected with spiritual life – ‘foolish’ here, or course, in the
eyes of materialists. . . .
“. . . a
way will finally be found to vaccinate bodies so that these bodies will not
allow the inclination toward spiritual ideas to develop and all their lives
people will believe only in the physical world they perceive with the senses.
Out of impulses which the medical profession gained from presumption – oh, I
beg your pardon, from the consumption [tuberculosis] they themselves suffered –
people are now vaccinated against consumption, and in the same way they will be
vaccinated against any inclination toward spirituality. This is merely to give
you a particularly striking example of many things which will come in the near
and more distant future in this field – the aim being to bring confusion into
the impulses which want to stream down to earth after the victory of the
[Michaelic] spirits of light [in 1879].” ~Rudolf Steiner
Steiner was
talking only about vaccines here. His comment does not consider the compounded
effects on human spirituality of the many myriad influences we have in our world
today, all of which work against spiritual connection on their own right.
Again, if
you’ve felt at all like you’re in a spiritual war, you’re not alone.
