“We need serious, profound ideas to look ahead to the future. Anthroposophy is not a game, nor just a theory; it is a task that must be faced for the sake of human evolution.”
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Full Lecture
Summary
Lecture 6 | The New Spirituality
Steiner introduces us to the world of thoughts—some are impulses of the Elohim, and some are Ahrimanic. The physical body was created as a reflection of higher cosmic hierarchies (we are divine), but was debased by Luciferic impulses. Through purifying our lower natures, and activating the inner Christ, we prepare the body to receive higher cosmic information.
Lecture 7 | Working from Spiritual Reality
Spiritual understanding gives us the ability to see past maya (or illusion). Steiner discusses the future of educating our children, and the importance of working in reality, as opposed to abstract concepts.
Lecture 8 | Abstraction and Reality
When we think in purely abstract ways, we lose touch with reality. To truly understand an idea, we must be willing to make the effort in all areas (thought, feeling, will to experiment, and the desire to understand). There’s a need for us to deal in reality.
Lecture 9 | The Battle between Michael and “The Dragon”
Ahrimanic powers entered the earth realm once the battle in the spirit world was resolved; this is the cycle of spirit and earthly realms. Ahrimanic influence takes the form of materialist thinking, and bacillus/tuberculosis diseases.
Lecture 10 | The Influence of the Backward Angels
Dark occult groups have been quietly influencing mass belief systems. We overcome the dangers of material science through comprehension (a lack of ignorance) and spiritual wisdom.
For more summaries:
Steiner introduces us to the world of thoughts—some are impulses of the Elohim, and some are Ahrimanic.
The physical body was created as a reflection of higher cosmic hierarchies (we are divine), but was contaminated by Luciferic impulses.
By purifying our lower natures, and activating the inner Christ, we prepare the body to receive higher cosmic information.
The world of thoughts—the elemental world
The world of thoughts is what Steiner would call the elemental world—and it is just as real as the physical world.
Not only is it just as real, but as inhabitants of that world, we are constantly swimming in a space filled with the thoughts that we create:
“When you walk on earth as an ordinary physical human being, you are also a breathing human being, walking in a space filled with air. And in more or less the same way, you move in a space filled with thoughts. Thought-substance fills the space around you. It is not a vague ocean of thoughts, nor the kind of nebulous ether people sometimes like to imagine. No, this thought-substance is actually what we call the elemental world.”
“Thought-substance fills the space around you. It is not a vague ocean of thoughts, nor the kind of nebulous ether people sometimes like to imagine. No, this thought-substance is actually what we call the elemental world.“
Steiner goes a step further and explains that the thoughts we think become like ‘corpses’ once we have formed them in our minds. They enter the space around us as separate entities, capable of being felt and seen by others on a psychic level:
“To get the right idea of how your own thoughts relate to the thought-entities out there you have to visualize the difference between a human corpse which has been left behind when someone has died and a living person who is walking about.”
“Our own thoughts are actually thought-corpses. This is the essential point. The thoughts coming from the world we perceive with the senses and drag around with us when in waking consciousness are thought-corpses—thoughts that have been killed. Outside us they are alive, which is the difference.”
In other words:
We are swimming in a sea of our own and others’ thoughts. This sea is also the elemental world.
“Thought corpses” are the conclusions we have drawn from the the outside world
Not only do we create thought-corpses by way of thinking, we also jeopardize true thought whenever we think in abstract ways:
“We are part of the elemental world of thought in so far as we kill its living thoughts when we develop ideas on the basis of what our senses have perceived in the world around us. Our thinking consists in having those corpses of thoughts inside us, and this makes our thoughts abstract. We have abstract thoughts because we kill living thoughts.”
As a result, whenever we think abstractly, we start a battle with the realm of truth. This, in my opinion, is the basis of the spiritual battle we call World War III.
Whenever we think abstractly, we start a battle with the realm of truth. This…is the basis of the spiritual battle we call World War III.
Actions based on natural impulse come from the Elohim
“If you get up without giving it a thought, out of sheer habit and training, you are following impulses given by the Spirits of Form, the Elohim…”
Actions based on subjective thought come from Ahriman
“If you were a terribly lazy person who really did not want to get up at all, if it really was not in your nature to get up and you would only get up on reflection, against your nature, out of purely subjective thought, you’d be following Ahrimanic tendencies; you would be following only your head, and therefore Ahriman.”
The development of the head goes against cosmic hierarchies
Man’s development of the head is representative of an earlier stage of cosmic development (more specifically, the phases of Saturn, Sun, and Moon). While crucial to our evolution, it is not the most advanced aspect of our human potential:
“…though the head has, in fact, come down through Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution.”
“The human being which has evolved from the time of Saturn emerged against the background of the cosmic hierarchies.”
What is more advanced, in terms of our human capacity, lies in the realm of spirit. In other words, there is a hierarchy to the elements of human life—our spirit being higher-ranked than our mind:
“The rest of the human being—let us call it ‘b’ and to begin with let us simply consider it to be this elemental, airy principle—is a manifestation of the higher hierarchies, from the Spirits of Form downwards. The right and only way of seeing the human being is to realize that everything shown here as ‘b’ has been created by the cosmic hierarchies.”
…there is a hierarchy to the elements of human life—our spirit being higher-ranked than our mind.
Luciferic impulses have condensed (and corrupted) the human body into flesh
The human form always had a blueprint of divinity. But during an early phase of development, Luciferic forces caused the form to condense or densify, becoming flesh:
“However, Luciferic seduction entered into the whole process of evolution. The outcome was that this whole, more elemental, body condensed to become the rest of the human body, which of course also had an effect on the head. This will give you an idea of the true nature of the human being. Apart from the head, which is their own, having come from earlier evolution, human beings would be an outward manifestation of the Elohim if their bodies had not become sensuous flesh. It is entirely due to the temptations of Lucifer that this outward manifestation of the Elohim has condensed to become flesh.”
The human organs (and human body) were destined to be divine/godly, but were debased by Lucifer
Steiner reveals a sacred truth about the body—the organs associated with our ‘lower natures’ were originally intended to be the most divine:
“What has happened is that the human being has become the image of the gods in the very organs which are normally called the organs of his lower nature. This image of the gods has been debased in human beings as they are on earth. The highest principle in human beings, the spiritual principle coming from the cosmos, has become their lower nature. Please, do not forget that this is an important secret of human nature. Our lower nature, which is due to Lucifer’s influence, was actually destined to be our higher nature.”
Conclusion:
Using our sexuality in immoral or debased ways plays straight into the hands of Luciferic powers.
There is a secret to begin embodying our divine nature, by treating the “lower” elements of our body as godly and sacred.
Thoughts that are alive are coming from the higher realms. This can only be made possible through the embodiment of what Steiner calls a “whole essential human being.”
“…if thoughts…come to us—they are living thoughts, not abstract, dead ones that come from the head—they must be coming out of the whole human being.”
These types of thoughts are an overcoming of Lucifer:
“…when a thought which marks a real change arises in the world history, this thought is given by the gods and through the whole human being. It flows through the human being, overcoming the Luciferic element, and only reaches the head out of the whole human being.”
When we embody a ‘whole essential human being,’ we represent a higher, more evolved version of man:
Steiner describes “…the whole essential human being…[as] the image of the hierarchies.”
The key to the kingdom of heaven lies in bringing the spirit world into the physical world
“People will have to realize that they must now prepare themselves to make a connection again with the world of the spirit, so that they may bring into the kingdom of this world a kingdom which is not of this world but is present everywhere in the kingdom of this world. Only then will salvation come for a social sphere where chaos now reigns.”
In other words:
What Christians believe to be ‘salvation’ is truly an active participation with the spiritual world—something we must actively pursue, instead of passively waiting to be saved.
A look into historical reality (and spiritual science) is necessary
“We need to consider historical reality, going back at least as far as the Mystery of Golgotha, and this will be possible if the study of external history is enriched by the study of spiritual science. People will simply have to make the effort to enter into a study of spiritual science.”
“People will simply have to make the effort to enter into a study of spiritual science.”
There is no shortcut to the path of human advancement, or spiritual enlightenment.
There is only dedication to self-improvement, self-examination, and a sincere study of spiritual knowledge.
Spiritual understanding gives us the ability to see past maya (or illusion).
Steiner’s thoughts on the future of educating children, the importance of working in reality as opposed to abstract concepts.
a need for spiritual connection (seeing past illusion)
When we only perceive the world through the eyes of materiality, we also become deceived. This is because true perception of reality requires fully engaging with the human senses: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Ironically, the path to reality can only be achieved by activating the spirit and the soul. The irony is that today’s concept of reality is so attached to the physical world, which couldn’t be taking us further from the truth:
“What does looking at objects provide? Illusion! If you regard the world with just one of the senses, you are deceived wherever you go. You only escape the illusion because you are unconsciously and instinctively drawing on experience. The whole world is really trying to deceive us, even in the world we perceive around us with the senses.”
When we only perceive the world through the eyes of materiality, we also become deceived.
While maya (the world of illusions) is heightened in art, it has helped us progress in a level of awareness
We cannot say the world of illusions (physical world) has never served an important purpose. Art, one of the more elevated forms of maya, has played a role in helping us develop our senses:
“Painters and sculptors, who aim to present something to just one of the senses, fail to realize that they are merely presenting maya, illusion; for the more you try and present something realistically for just one of the senses, the more you are presenting maya. This is necessary, however, for if it were not for this illusion we would not be able to progress in conscious awareness. We owe our progress in consciousness to this illusion.”
We’ve now reached the time to rise above maya
But society has reached a point in development that a new level of awareness must be reached. This new level is not physical, but spiritual:
“Necessary as it may be for illusion to be there for a time so that consciousness may arise, it is also necessary that when consciousness has developed we rise above the illusion, particularly in certain areas.”
“We are now facing the latter kind of period with regard to major world events as well as everyday events. We have to see through the things which seriously come into consideration in this respect.”
Innocence, proven by fire, was possible in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch (Greco-Roman period)
Proving innocence by fire is not just a myth. During the Greco-Roman period of the earth, humans still had a strong connection to the spiritual world. During one of these trials, a person’s astral body would be able to separate from the physical body, allowing them to walk over fire without dying:
“In the fourth post-Atlantean age—people only know tales about it today and of course they do not believe them—there was an ordeal by fire. To prove guilt or innocence, people were made to walk a red hot grid. If they got burned, they were considered to be guilty, if not, if they walked across without being harmed, they were considered to be innocent.”
“People consider this to be an old superstition today, but it is true. It is one of the abilities people had in the past and are no longer able to have today. In those days, human nature had this quality: Innocents who were utterly convinced of their innocence and knew themselves to be in the protection of the divine spirits at such a solemn moment, people who were so firmly connected with the spiritual world in their consciousness that the astral body would be taken out of the physical body, could walk across the embers with their physical bodies. It really was so in the past. This is the truth.”
“It is really a good thing for you to be fully and completely clear in your minds that this old superstition is based on truth—though of course it is not a good idea for you to go and tell the vicar all about it.”
This ability has transformed into clairvoyance today
This connection we had with the spiritual world has never left us, but has only evolved into a more internal relationship. Clairvoyance is one example of this transformed spiritual ability:
“But some of the power which carried people through the embers in those days has now become more inward in the sense I spoke of in my last lecture. The clairvoyance of the fifth post-Atlantean age, the connection with the world of the spirit, is based on the same powers, except that the powers which formerly enabled people to walk through fire have been transformed and become more inward.”
We fear the spirit world like we feared fire in earlier times
Fire represents a purification, both internally and externally. People now fear spiritual purification in much the same way we feared fire in earlier time periods:
“If one wants to be in touch with certain factors which belong to the world of the spirit, one has to overcome much the same reluctance as had to be overcome when people went through fire. That is the reason why many people fear the spiritual world today as much as they fear fire.”
“We cannot really say people are just speaking figuratively when they say they are afraid of getting burned; they really are afraid.”
we must gently move toward spiritual matters
“The new inwardness of life of which I have spoken has many factors which demand that we gently draw closer to the world of the spirit — gently for the time being; later it will be stronger and stronger — in all spheres, but especially in the field of education.”
thoughts on childhood education
There’s a reason why children need an external authority during their early phases of education:
“I have frequently pointed out that children cannot understand everything. From their first to their seventh year they cannot understand at all; they imitate everything. And if they do not imitate sufficiently they will not have enough in them later which they can use. From their seventh to the fourteenth year they must believe, they must be under the influence of authority, if they are to develop in a healthy way. These things have to be made part of human life.”
children aren’t being taught how to think or reason, but only how to perform mechanically
Steiner warns us that many modern education methods risk shaping children “into calculating machines rather than sensible people.” What these methods inherently do is keep our children stuck in the “elemental world,” or the physical realm. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the hyper-materialized society we see today.
“Such an approach makes children into calculating machines rather than sensible people. They are supposed to accept the intellect which is in the elemental environment of which I have spoken, rather than develop their own understanding. This happens a great deal nowadays. Instead of helping the mind of the individual to develop, efforts are actually in progress to make it the ideal to inculcate the elemental intellect which is outside the human being, so that children are caught up in the elemental world. Many instances can be seen today where we can actually say: These people are not thinking for themselves, they are thinking in the general thinking atmosphere, as it were.”
intelligence is cultivated by finding our way to reality and life
In the earlier stages, children should be given the mental skills needed to eventually become intellectual beings later on. Focusing too early on intellectualization itself is not necessary:
“People will, in fact, be intelligent only if they are not given intellectual training too early. It is often necessary to do the opposite of what we want to achieve in life.”
“You cannot make people intelligent by cultivating the intellect as early as possible, but only by cultivating in them when very young the faculties which will later have them prepared to be intelligent. The abstract truth is: the intellect is cultivated via the intellect. The living truth is: the intellect is cultivated by healthy belief in rightful authority.”
“Consider how comfortable it is to have a goal and to believe this can be achieved by doing exactly what the goal says. But in life one has to do the opposite. This is certainly awkward. It is the challenge of our time that we must find our way to reality and life; this is what we must eminently make our own.”
More important than abstract concepts are the concepts of “living reality”:
“People have no idea today of how immensely abstract they are, with everything forced always into the same mould. But the reality is not produced in the same mould, for it is in constant metamorphosis.”
“In anything we do, we must relate to the immediate, living reality and not let ourselves be ruled by concepts.”
“What matters is to consider carefully what lives in reality and what one has to have by way of convictions in the sphere of concepts.”
teachers in the future
The future of teaching will tap into a deeper level of human awareness, requiring teachers to become psychically adept:
“The important thing will be for them to get to know human nature and the different ways in which it comes to expression; they have to become psychologists in a most subtle way and really know the human soul. The relationship of the teacher to the pupil must in future be something analogous to clairvoyance.”
“Teachers may not be fully conscious of this, and it may only live instinctively in their souls, but they must instinctively, at a level close to prophecy, have a picture of what wants to emerge from the individual who is to be educated. Then a strange thing will happen, peculiar as it may sound today. The teachers of the future will dream a great deal of their pupils, for the prophecies will be wearing the garment of dreams.”
“The teachers of the future will dream a great deal of their pupils, for the prophecies will be wearing the garment of dreams.”
a better way of thinking (to be able to hold two sides)
Living in reality means being able to think paradoxically:
“Humanity must learn to live on two levels at once, in dualism — to enter into profound thought and, where reality demands this, to pour ourselves out over reality.”
“Today, people want to take their thought-forms into everything connected with real life; and they are only prepared to put up with reality if it fits in with their own thought-forms. Uniformity is what they are after. But uniformity cannot be justified in the light of the spirit; this is impossible. The world cannot be easy and comfortable the way it is in reality.”
Observing the physical world does not bring us any closer to reality if we are only capable of viewing it from a material perspective (lacking emotional and spiritual intelligence).
Truly living in reality involves thinking paradoxically (holding two opposing ideas as truth).
We live in a world of duality, but forget that dual concepts must be recognized in unison, and not division.
When we think in purely abstract ways, we lose touch with reality.
To truly understand something, we must be willing to make an effort in all areas of the mind (thought, feeling, will to experiment, desire to understand).
The importance of dealing in reality
“The greatest defect and deficiency in our time is that people are literally inclined to think in abstractions. This takes them further away from reality.”
the importance of case-by-case understanding
There’s a tendency for us to search for generalized ideas and apply them to every situation. This doesn’t work because reality is inherently contradictory (or paradoxical):
“The natural tendency is to make our thinking incontrovertible, as free from contradictions as we can make it. But the world is full of contradictions, and if we really want to grasp reality, we cannot throw a general, standard form of thinking like a net over everything in order to understand it. We have to consider everything on an individual basis.”
What we can do instead:
Embrace contradiction.
abstract thinking takes us further away from reality
“The greatest defect and deficiency in our time is that people are literally inclined to think in abstractions. This takes them further away from reality.”
Steiner’s ingenious explanation for why we have social & political conflict (a result of differing opinions caused by abstract thinking)
When it comes to social conflict, chances of discord are exceedingly higher because social issues inherently involve the thoughts and beliefs of the people who are impacted. So much of human conflict stems from a mishandling of ideas, to the point of disconnection from reality. In these cases, both sides have created so much opposing abstraction over time that the very battlefield itself breeds argument, discord, and one-sided thinking:
“The situation is different, however, when it comes to social and political life. Here the human thoughts of every individual enter into the social structure. We do not come up against a reality that will not yield; in this case we create the reality. And if this goes on for a few hundred years the reality will be what you may expect it to be; it will be full of contradictions. Reality itself comes to realization in structures which do not have the power of reality in them; as a result there are upheavals such as the present catastrophic war.”
“Reality itself comes to realization in structures which do not have the power of reality in them; as a result there are upheavals such as the present catastrophic war.”
Conclusion:
Some arguments are not worth arguing about.
a loss of feeling for reality
Thinking abstractly causes us to lose sense of what really is true. This happens even when speaking about spiritual matters:
“Widely used ideas today are ‘the eternal’, ‘infinity’, ‘unity’, the ‘significant’ compared to the ‘insignificant’, ‘general’, ‘particular’, and so on. People like bandying these about—the more abstract the better.”
“This creates a peculiar situation with regard to reality. People no longer see the living reality in anything and lose all feeling for what reality really has to offer.”
true understanding takes effort
Even though Steiner spoke during the early 20th century, his guidance for how we must make effort to evaluate current events is equally relevant today:
“‘To understand the present time’—this phrase has been like a thread running through everything I have been saying to you since my return. It does, however, mean that rather than take it easy, we have to put in a lot of effort—effort of thought, effort of feeling, effort of will to experiment, in the desire to understand the present time. And we must have the courage to make a complete break with some of the things that belong to the past.”
“We must break with anything where the opposite has proved true. Reality is contradicting theory, and the life of the last three years, as it has been all over the world, is contradiction come to realization. We must take a new look at events, for the present time is challenging us to make a radical revision of our views.”
Steiner’s criticism of Theosophical Society’s being unrealistic and abstract
“High ideals were dished up liberally and internationally in the sweetest tones. All you heard was ‘general brotherhood’, ‘love of humanity’. I could not go along with this. We were seeking real, concrete knowledge about what went on in the world.”
“‘You have to put coal in the stove, and put in wood and light the fire.’ And if you are involved in a spiritual movement you must bring in real, concrete ideas; otherwise you will go on year after year with sweet nothings about general love of humanity.”
“…if you are involved in a spiritual movement you must bring in real, concrete ideas; otherwise you will go on year after year with sweet nothings about general love of humanity.”
Not all spiritual concepts are created equal. Even with the right intentions, an idea that cannot go beyond abstract understanding will handicap our perception of truth and draw us further away from reality.
Abstract thoughts, therefore, are highly Luciferic.
What we can do instead:
Aim to speak, think, and receive information in its clearest form. Question information that appears true, but cannot be broken down.
Ahrimanic powers entered the earth realm once the battle in the spirit world was resolved.
This is the cycle of the spiritual and earthly realms.
Ahrimanic influence takes the form of materialist thinking, bacillus/tuberculosis diseases.
“…the crowd of Ahrimanic spirits has entered into all of us. We gain in human freedom, but we must be aware of this. We should not allow the Ahrimanic powers to gain the upper hand, as it were, and we should not fall in love with them.”
What is materialist thinking
Materialist thinking is the embodiment of Ahriman within our minds. It is a hyperfocus on data, elements that can only be measured; it is a judgment of reality from the perspective of lifelessness, or mechanization:
“a way of grasping dead, outer facts with the intellect, refusing to enter into living reality.”
A spiritual battle occurred between Michael and Ahrimanic powers during the 1800s
“a battle which continued for decades in the spiritual worlds, from the 1840s until the autumn of 1879.”
“the spirits who are followers of the spirit belonging to the hierarchy of Archangels whom we may call Michael fought with certain Ahrimanic powers.”
“human souls who were born exactly in the fifth decade of the nineteenth century actually took part in this battle between Michael’s followers and the Ahrimanic powers when they were in the spiritual world.”
“The battle thus took place in the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s and came to a conclusion in the autumn of 1879, when Michael and his followers won a victory over certain Ahrimanic powers.”
Ahrimanic powers entered the earthly realm (as materialist thinking)
In accordance with universal law “as above, so below” (Hermetic Principle #2), the spiritual battle between Michael and Ahriman in the heavenly realms eventually manifested itself on the earthly plane.
What was fought above, must now be fought within each of us:
“Losing the battle means they are no longer to be found in the heavens, to use the biblical term. Instead they are to be found in the human realms, which means that the late 1870s were a particular time when human souls became subject to Ahrimanic powers with regard to certain powers of perception.”
“From the autumn of 1879 onwards, these Ahrimanic impulses—powers of perception and of will—became the personal property of human beings.”
What was fought above, must now be fought within each of us…
bacilli is Ahrimanic
“After one of these battles, for example, the crowd of Ahrimanic spirits populated the earth with the earthly life-forms which the medical profession now calls bacilli. Everything which has the power to act as a bacillus, everything in which bacilli are involved, is the result of crowds of Ahrimanic spirits being cast down from heaven to earth at a time when the dragon had been overcome.”
“Thus we are able to say that tubercular and bacillary diseases come from a similar source as the materialism which has taken hold of human minds.”
The moon’s separation from Earth was influenced by a Michael/Ahriman battle
“The Moon was once part of the Earth; it was cast out from the Earth. As a result, certain Moon influences took effect on Earth, and this, too, followed a victory won by Michael over the dragon. We are therefore also able to say that everything connected with certain effects relating to the phases of the Moon, and all impulses which reach the Earth from the Moon, have their origin in a similar battle between Michael and the dragon.”
Ahrimanic thinking within the human mind
Those who find Ahrimanic thinking to be noble:
“Some individuals develop an irresistible hankering for intellectual materialism which arises from being in league with the fallen Ahriman. They gradually come to love the impulses which Ahriman raises in their souls and, indeed, consider them to be a particularly noble and sublime way of thinking.”
“It is necessary to be fully and clearly aware of these things. Unless they are in our conscious awareness and we have clear insight, we cannot make head or tail of events.”
“We have to face them calmly. We shall only do so, however, if we are quite clear about the fact that a certain danger threatens human beings from this direction.”
“the crowd of Ahrimanic spirits has entered into all of us. We gain in human freedom, but we must be aware of this. We should not allow the Ahrimanic powers to gain the upper hand, as it were, and we should not fall in love with them.”
Ahrimanic humans will fail to evolve with the earth
“Today’s bacilli are merely the prophets, let us say, of what will happen to the whole earth in future. Then a time will come when those who cling to the materialistic way of thinking will unite with the moon powers and surround the earth, which will be a burnt-out corpse, together with the moon. For all they want is to hold on to the life of the earth and remain united with it; they do not want to take the right course, which is to progress from the earth’s corpse to what will be the future soul and spirit of the earth.”
spiritual entities influence our lives
“It is not at all uncommon to find people today who will tell you that a dream, or something like a dream…drove them to a particular course of events. Psychic influences of this kind play a much greater role today than materialists are prepared to believe.”
“Things go in cycles or periods. Anything which happens in the physical world is really a kind of projection, or shadow, of what happens in the spiritual world, except that it would have happened earlier in the spiritual world.”
the cycles of the spirit and earthly worlds
“Things go in cycles or periods. Anything which happens in the physical world is really a kind of projection, or shadow, of what happens in the spiritual world, except that it would have happened earlier in the spiritual world.”
“The dawn, the very beginning of this battle between Michael and the dragon, was in 1841. Things were particularly lively in 1845. It is thirty-four years from 1845 to 1879, and if we move on thirty-four years after 1879 we come to the mirroring event: You get 1913, the year preceding 1914. You see, the developments which started in the physical world in 1913 are the mirror-image of the prime reasons for the spiritual battle. And now consider 1841 — 1879 — 1917! 1841 was the crucial year in the nineteenth century. 1917 is its mirror-image.”
According to Steiner, dark occult groups have been quietly influencing belief systems in the background.
We overcome the dangers of material science with thorough comprehension (a lack of ignorance) and knowledge of spiritual wisdom.
“Precisely such a group existed in the eighteenth century and still continues today.”
Steiner reveals that a dark occult group knew about the Ahrimanic powers
“You can be sure that if this hypothetical group of people were to decide to use the power they are able to gain from such knowledge for a particular purpose, the group—and its followers, though these would tend to be unaware of this—would be extremely powerful compared to people who have no idea of this and do not want to know of such things.”
“Precisely such a group existed in the eighteenth century and still continues today.”
“In the eighteenth century this group decided to pursue certain aims which were in their own interests and to work towards certain impulses. This was done quite systematically.”
“Thus it also happened that in the eighteenth century a society spread certain views and ideas which were taking root in people’s minds and became effective in achieving the aims of such societies. The ideas entered into the social sphere and determined people’s attitudes to others.”
how subtle forces influence mass agreement (in this case, a book on the devil and animals)
“This was the case with a book published by such a society in the eighteenth century—perhaps not the book itself, but the ideas on which it was based; the book shows the way in which Ahriman is involved in different animals. The Ahrimanic Spirit was, of course, called the devil then, and it was shown how the devil principle comes to expression in different ways in individual animal species.”
“For it was important that the idea that animals were devils should exist in many minds by the time Darwinism came along and the idea would then arise in many nineteenth-century minds that people had gradually evolved from animals. At the same time, large numbers of other people had the idea that animals were devils. A strange accord was thus produced. As this really happened, it was perfectly real. People write histories about all kinds of things, but the forces which are really at work are not to be found in them.”
how to confront the issue
“The first thing we must know is that, seeing that these powers have come down to earth, we must live with them; they exist and we cannot close our eyes to them, for they will be more powerful than ever if we do this. This is indeed the point: The Ahrimanic powers which have taken hold of the human intellect become extremely powerful if we do not want to know them or learn about them.”
“The Ahrimanic powers which have taken hold of the human intellect become extremely powerful if we do not want to know them or learn about them.”
the wrong way to confront scientific thinking (through denial or uninformed criticism)
You can do no better service for Ahriman than to ignore the scientific view or to fight it out of ignorance. Uninformed criticism of scientific views does not go against Ahriman, but helps him spread confusion in a field which really should be shown in a clear light.
material observation of the world is an observation of what has already expired
“Let me tell you a most important law of the universe: If you merely consider the world as it presents itself to the senses, which is the modern scientific approach, you observe past laws which are still continuing. You are really only observing the corpse of a past world. Science is looking at life that has died.”
“These laws do not relate to what is in there now, but to what has been there, what has been and gone and remains only in a hardened form.”
“You need to find the things that are outside those laws, things which eyes cannot see and physical ears cannot hear: a second world with different laws (mauve circle). This is present inside reality, but it points to the future.”
science and myth are interconnected
“The whole of modern science would not exist, especially where it has its justification, if people had not earlier thought in myths. You cannot have modern science unless it is preceded by myth; it has grown out of the myths of old and you could no more have it today than you could have a plant with only stems, leaves and flowers and no root down below. People who talk of modern science as an absolute, complete in itself, might as well talk of a plant which is alive only in its upper part. Everything connected with modern science has grown from myth; myth is its root.”
The evolution of thought
What we believe to be true today is merely a snapshot of the progress made thus far in man’s thinking—something that will inevitably continue to evolve as time goes on.
There’s an importance in understanding the past: what we used to know is intertwined with the belief systems that have already been established.
“Myth relates to our ideas just as the scientific ideas of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries relate to what will be a few centuries later. They will be overcome just as myth has been overcome. Do you think people will think about the solar system in 2900 in the way people think about it today? It may be the academics’ superstition, but it should never be a superstition held among Anthroposophists.”
“Anyone who considers mythology to have been wrong and modern thinking to be right, is like someone who cannot see the need for roses to grow on bushes, making it necessary for us to cut them if we want to have a bouquet.”
a bridge must be made between material science and spiritualism (aka spiritual science)
“Yet we must never forget that even people who have made a connection with the science of the spirit often have almost insuperable difficulties in building the bridge to the realm of Ahrimanic science.”
“They are not prepared, however, to build the bridge from one to the other. This, however, is the urgent need in our time.”
the potency of having spiritual wisdom
“‘When human beings are filled with spiritual wisdom, these are great horrors of darkness for the Ahrimanic powers and a consuming fire. It feels good to the Ahrimanic angels to dwell in heads filled with Ahrimanic science; but heads filled with spiritual wisdom are like a consuming fire and the horrors of darkness to them.’ If we consider this in all seriousness we can feel: filled with spiritual wisdom we go through the world in a way which allows us to establish the right relationship with the Ahrimanic powers; doing the things we do in the light of this, we build a place for the consuming fire of sacrifice for the salvation of the world, the place where the terror of darkness radiates out over the harmful Ahrimanic element.”
the importance of learning
“We are coming closer and closer to a time when people will need more and more memories of their youth throughout the whole of their lives, memories they like, memories which make them happy. Education must learn to provide systematically for this. It will be poison in the education of the future if later on in life people look back on the toil and trouble of their schooldays, on the years of education, and do not like to think back to those days. It will be poison if the years of education have not provided a source to which they can return again and again to learn new things.”
“When human beings are filled with spiritual wisdom, these are great horrors of darkness for the Ahrimanic powers and a consuming fire. It feels good to the Ahrimanic angels to dwell in heads filled with Ahrimanic science; but heads filled with spiritual wisdom are like a consuming fire and the horrors of darkness to them.”
the inner muse 