“It is possible to be utterly logical and at the same time be far from reality.”
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Summary
Lecture 11 | Recognizing the Inner Human Being
The inner world must be developed, or Ahrimanic powers will overtake. The human being has planetary currents (i.e. sun, moon, etc.) running through him. Children should be taught through imaginative and lively narratives, as opposed to dry abstract concepts.
Lecture 12 | The Spirits of Light and the Spirits of Darkness
Spirits of darkness offered freedom and individuation, but humanity was not ready for it. Spirits of light introduced blood heredity to keep mankind grounded to the earth. Spirits of darkness created conflict and rebellion between blood tribes and nations. But in 1879, the tasks were switched—the spirits of light became in charge of independence, and the spirits of darkness, blood ties and nationalism.
Lecture 13 | Abstraction and Reality
Spiritualism (Luciferic impulses) and materialism (Ahrimanic impulses) are two end products of the spirits of darkness. True spirituality prevails because the battle was won in 1879. The battle must now play out down here on earth.
Lecture 14 | The Battle between Michael and “The Dragon”
Angels reside in the nervous system and blood, their influence becoming more direct in the fifth post-Atlantean era. Fertility will slow down in the sixth post-Atlantean period, and disappear in the seventh as we become soul and spirit beings. Spirits of darkness pushed humans in their twenties away from inner development, focusing on external realities. The fallacy of Darwinism and materialism. Understanding spiritual impulses is necessary to understanding history.
Steiner mentions awakening to global affairs and the media.
For more summaries:
The inner world must be developed, or Ahrimanic powers will overtake.
The human being has planetary currents (i.e. sun, moon, etc.) running through him.
Children should be taught through imaginative and lively narratives, as opposed to dry abstract concepts.
Whatever goes on in the outside world will have a corresponding occurrence in the inner world
We see this same concept iterated in the words of the Kybalion.
“…if a particular stream continues for some time in the outside world, an inner stream will run parallel to it (see Fig. 11a). This stream may be more material or materialistic on the outside, whilst inwardly it is more spiritual or spiritualistic.”
Ahrimanic powers use the human head in order to continue
“These powers are here, they are living among us. They seek above all to take possession of our heads, of anything we think and inwardly feel. They are angelic Spirits, I said, who cannot continue their development in the spiritual world and want to use human heads to continue to develop in the immediate future.”
If the inner spiritual world is not developed, it is easily taken over by Ahrimanic powers
“If it is not given attention, those Ahrimanic powers will take hold of this very process of growing inwardness. This is one thing we must take into account.”
a healthy inner life
“When people are able to live with themselves in such a way as to recall from memory the things they could not understand before, this will be the source for a healthy inner life.”
“There, souls which have remained empty and barren inside because education has failed to give them anything that can be recalled later on in life may be offered something from outside.”
sun and moon currents influence us
“Our present-day Earth has been eliminated from the Sun. These currents are remnants from the life of the Sun; Sun life is still present in the Earth.
“Yet the Moon, too, was one with the Earth in the past. And the Moon which orbits the Earth today also has currents within it. Those currents are remnants from a later time, from Moon evolution.”
“We thus have two kinds of currents and we may call them Sun currents and Moon currents. They take quite a different course, and they are a living reality.”
animals only have the sun current
“Animals are creatures which can only have the Sun current going through them. Imagine a four-legged animal: as it walks, its backbone is essentially parallel to the Earth’s surface. The Sun current, which has now become an Earth current, can continually pass through this backbone. This creature, then, is related to the Earth.”
humans have moon and sun currents (because their backbone is vertical)
“The human backbone, on the other hand, is lifted out of the currents which run parallel to the Earth, including the Sun current which has become Earth current. Being lifted out, human beings are in a position (this does, of course, depend a great deal on the geographical latitude and so on, but it is also what makes people different from each other) where under certain conditions the Moon current goes through them; not through the head, however, but through the backbone.”
thus, humans are intimately connected with the planetary spheres
“This is a basic reflection on the relationship between the human being and the whole universe. For just as the currents passing through the human backbone are part of the current which relates to the life of the Moon, so other currents in the human being relate to the other planets in our solar system. All these things are utterly real.”
how nature should be taught to children
“It will be particularly important to consider plant life in such a way that one has many stories to tell about the relationship of the rose to the violet, of shrubs to the weeds which grow around them, and long stories about the Spirits leaping above the flowers as one walks through a meadow, and the like. This is the botany children should be told.”
“And they should be told of how certain green-coloured crystals which dwell in the earth behave towards colourless crystals, or a cubic crystal to an octahedral one. Instead of the abstract crystallography which is dished out to children who are still quite young, much to their detriment, we should have a symbolistic presentation of the life of the crystals down in the earth.“
“It will not be enough just to list items; these things must be the stimulus and give us ideas, so that we can tell many stories about the life shared by diamonds and sapphires, and so on.”
the dangerous and empty route of abstract intellectualism
“One is tossed hither and thither in the typical fashion of all abstractionists who know no better than to wallow in a few impoverished notions, having nothing to do with the real world. Here you have a typical instance of the abstract way of thinking which must be overcome, when people live with notions that have little real thought to them, yet are positively smacking their lips with pleasure because they imagine they are saying something really outstanding when they put it in a particularly abstract way.”
what results is a disconnection from reality
“This does, of course, have quite specific consequences. People’s limited ideas make them unable to wend their way through the river of life. Their ideas are too limited to encompass the reality of life.”
Roman Boos’ essay in Wissen und Leben (Oct 15, 1917) is a good example of cultural analysis that does not veer into vapid abstraction
“If, on the other hand, you study Roman Boos’ beautiful essay on the key issues in Swiss national policies — I do recommend it, for it will show you how connections can be made between political life and other forms of culture, and how our ideas can really come alive and the life of ideas be enriched, how you can find an exemplary study here concerning the future of Swiss politics…”
Spirits of darkness offered freedom and individuation, but humanity was not ready for it.
Spirits of light introduced blood heredity to keep mankind grounded to the earth.
Spirits of darkness created conflict and rebellion between blood tribes and nations. But in 1879, the tasks were switched—the spirits of light, in charge of independence, and the spirits of darkness, blood ties and nationalism.
A recap of the 1840s spiritual battle: their casting down into the earth had infused society on all levels with Ahrimanic impulses
“The battle started in the early 1840s and ended when certain spiritual entities, which had been acting like rebels in the spiritual world during those decades, were vanquished in the autumn of 1879 and cast down as dark spirits into the realm of human evolution. They are now among us and the effect of this is that they send their impulses into our view of the world, not only into the way we think about the world, but also into our inner feelings, our will impulses and even our temperaments.”
The spirits in more detail: they were the same ones that served during the Atlantean and Greco-Roman times
“The spirits of darkness now walking among us are of the same kind as the spirits of darkness which had been cast down from the spiritual world, that is from heaven to earth, in earlier times; they had specific tasks to perform during the whole of the Atlantean age and right into Graeco-Latin times.”
These spirits originated from Lucifer and Ahriman, who ultimately served humanity’s interests by offering ultimate freedom and individuation (but humanity was not ready)
“As you will remember, the ‘luciferic temptation’ of old held major significance for human evolution. It did, of course, arise from Lucifer’s specific aims — and from Atlantean times onwards Lucifer was in league with Ahriman. These aims gave rise to counter-aims of, let us call them ‘good spirits’, the spirits of light. Fundamentally speaking, the spirits of darkness also wanted the best for humanity in those early times, they wanted human beings to have the capacity for absolute freedom; but humanity was not ready for this at the time. They wanted to provide humanity with impulses which would make every human being an independent individual. It was not to be, however, for humanity was not yet ready.”
Spirits of light brought balance to Luciferic independence by introducing the mechanism of heredity (inheriting traits from ancestors), keeping humanity grounded to the earth.
“A counter-force had to be set up by the spirits of light; this was done by taking human beings from the heights of the Spirit and putting them on to the earth, which is symbolically described in the expulsion from Paradise. In reality, human beings were being placed in the stream of hereditary traits.”
“Human beings were to be educated on earth, brought to full development through the forces of the earth. This was achieved by placing them in the stream of heredity, where they would physically descend from others. In this way they were not independent, but inherited certain traits from their forebears. They were weighed down with earthly qualities which Lucifer did not want them to have.”
Ancient religions reflected the spirits of light in their teachings of procreation and tribal community
“This is the reason why we find so many symbols of procreation and earthly heredity in the ancient religions. The laws of Judaism — which was to prepare the way for Christianity — as well as those of pagan religions, clearly show the importance attached to regulating everything to do with the laws of heredity here on earth. People had to learn to live together in tribes, nations and races, with blood relationship as the signature for the way affairs were ordered on earth.”
Spirits of darkness were responsible for conflict and rebellion between tribes and communities
“…the spirits of darkness which had been cast down from heaven to earth with humanity, made it their concern to work against anything connected with heredity through blood relationship. They were the source of all rebellion against ordinances based on blood relationship in those ages”
Beginning in 1879, the work of the spirits of darkness have been rectified and reversed by the spirits of light; it is now the appropriate time for the establishment of independence in humankind.
“The power of the old rebels, of the continuing stream of spirits of darkness who had their tasks to perform from Lemurian and Atlantean times, is gradually dying down as the powers of their brothers begin to take effect. This means that from the last third of the nineteenth century the situation has been completely reversed.”
“The spirits of light who have been continuing in their activities have done enough where the establishment of blood, tribal, racial and similar bonds is concerned, for everything has its time in evolution. In the general and rightful scheme of things, enough has been done to establish what needed to be established through blood bonds in humanity. In more recent times, therefore, the spirits of light have changed their function. They now inspire human beings to develop independent ideas, feelings and impulses for freedom; they now make it their concern to establish the basis on which people can be independent individuals.”
Conversely, the task of perpetuating blood ties was handed over to the spirits of darkness in 1879 onwards (impulses have been switched)
“The function which was right in the past or, better said, belonged to the sphere of the good spirits of light, was handed over to the spirits of darkness during the last third of the nineteenth century. From this time onwards, the old impulses based on racial, tribal and national relationships, on the blood, became the domain of the spirits of darkness, who had previously been rebels in the cause of independence.”
Essentially, the spirits of darkness want to hold humanity back from progressing organically, or introduce information too soon before they were ready for them (to remove humanity out of natural progression).
True progress will have to happen in the realm of spirit (not biology)
“Nothing is more likely to prevent human progress than proclamations of national ideals belonging to earlier centuries which continue to be preserved by the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers. The true ideal must arise from what we find in the world of the spirit, not in the blood.”
We have to be knowledgeable of Luciferic and Ahrimanic impulses over ages of time (and not avoid their presence altogether)
“We must have a feeling for life on the upward and life on the downward trend. Do not fall prey to the foolish inclination to escape from the downward trend, saying, ‘I will have nothing to do with Lucifer, nor with Ahriman.’…We shall only be able to judge human affairs if we are able to take a broader view of the impulses of life in the ascendant and also in the descendant.”
Awareness of both good and evil thinking is paramount
“It is not Darwinism which is the problem, nor Goetheanism, but the fact that people want to follow one or the other rather than one and the other. This is what really matters.”
Spiritualism and materialism (Luciferic and Ahrimanic impulses) are two end products of the spirits of darkness
True spirituality prevails because the battle was won in 1879.
The battle must now play out down here on earth.
Materialism came as a result of degradation of the spiritual impulse
“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.”
Occult spiritual circles in the 1800s reflected the battle lost (if the spirits of darkness won, there would have been widespread spiritualism)
“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.”
Dreams are transmissions from the spiritual world
“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.”
Spirituality prevails because Michael won the battle in 1879
“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.”
“…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.”
Spirits of darkness will want to bring confusion
“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.”
Steiner mentions vaccines in the future will bring more materialism into the human body, causing a disconnect from spiritual concepts
“…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 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.”
“…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…”
People are unaware that their beliefs are tied to the events of the times, and will inevitably change as the world changes
“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.”
Into the Future
Angels reside in the nervous system and blood, their influence becoming more direct in the fifth post-Atlantean era.
Fertility will slow down in the sixth post-Atlantean period, and disappear in the seventh as we become soul and spirit beings.
Spirits of darkness pushed humans in their twenties away from inner development, focusing on external realities.
The fallacy of Darwinism and materialism.
Understanding spiritual impulses is necessary to understanding history.
Steiner mentions awakening to global affairs and the media.
1413 marked the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch
“the transition from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period of civilization came in about 1413, that is in the fifteenth century.”
Angels have increased their direct contact with human beings, beginning in the fifth post-Atlantean age
“Angelic spirits belonging to the hierarchy of Angels served the higher hierarchy of Archangels; they did this in such a way, however, that the relationship between members of the two hierarchies was entirely above the earthly and in the spiritual realm, hardly touching on human life. This changed with the coming of the fifth post-Atlantean age, for then the members of the hierarchy of the Angels became more independent in their task of guiding humanity. Thus humanity was more under direct guidance from the Archangels during the fourth post-Atlantean age and will be under direct guidance from the Angels during the fifth age”
“In the fifteenth century the earth held the greatest attraction for the regular Archangels who were seeking to make the transition from the blood to the nervous system.”
“We might say the Archangels were directed by higher spirits to love earthly existence most of all during the fifteenth century.”
Where angels take influence in the human being
“During the fourth post-Atlantean age, therefore, the blood was the dwelling place of Archangels and Angels. This is changing with the fifth post-Atlantean age, for the Angels — I am referring to the Angels of Light, the normal Angels — will take possession more of the blood, and the Archangels will be more involved in the nervous system.”
“I might also say: during the fifth post-Atlantean age the Archangels are essentially more at work in the brain and the Angels in the heart.”
“They therefore guided partly the blood and partly the nervous system in such a way that human beings began to go out from their centres of civilization to make the whole earth their own. Events like these must be seen in conjunction with spiritual activities, otherwise they cannot be understood.”
The angelic realms–not what we think
“The things people do and achieve here on earth are connected with the spirits which are at work in them. People tend to imagine — not always correctly — that Angels and Archangels are somewhere in Cloud-cuckoo-land. If we were to take the whole of human neurological life as a place, and the whole of the blood life as another place, and add what belongs to these when we are in the other worlds between death and rebirth, we would have the realms of the Archangels and Angels.”
“People tend to imagine — not always correctly — that Angels and Archangels are somewhere in Cloud-cuckoo-land. If we were to take the whole of human neurological life as a place, and the whole of the blood life as another place…we would have the realms of the Archangels and Angels.”
In the 1840s, Angels of Darkness were cast out of the nervous system and into the human blood
“…in the 1840s a significant battle developed in the way I have described and, if we consider its most material physical reflection, it took place between the human blood and the human nervous system. The Angels of Darkness were cast out of the nervous system and into the human blood, and now wreak the havoc in the human blood which I have described. It is because they are at work in the human blood that all the things I have described as due to the influence of retarded Angels are happening here on earth. It is because they are at work in the human blood that people have become as clever as I have said.”
Human fertility will dwindle in the sixth post-Atlantean era, and disappear in the seventh (humanity will be soul and spirit). Eastern Europe contains the seeds of the sixth era; America contains the seventh.
“In the sixth post-Atlantean period of civilization, the human fertility which depends on the powers of light for its impulses will gradually come to an end. The powers of darkness will have to intervene so that the affair may continue for a time. We know the seeds for the sixth post-Atlantean period of civilization lie in the East of Europe. The East of Europe will develop powerful tendencies which do not allow physical human reproduction to continue beyond the sixth period of civilization but, instead, let the earth enter into a form of existence in soul and spirit. The other impulses for the seventh post-Atlantean period of civilization, in which procreation will be guided by impulses from the cast-down Angels, will come from America.”
Direct observation of the spiritual worlds
“Consider the complex nature of these things, which can only be discovered — I have to stress this again and again — by direct observation of the spiritual worlds. Mere theorizing will generally lead to error,”
“It needs actual spiritual observation to enable us to observe the different currents which interact to produce the whole. You have to put a great deal into it if you are to arrive at significant insights and their interactions, such as those of which I have been speaking.”
Spirits of light become more present in the human at age 28
“It is therefore the intention of the normal spirits, the spirits of light, that the inner life should develop quietly, unambitiously and selflessly and only come into action when individuals have reached the age of 28, when the years of apprenticeship are behind them, as it were, and they become journeymen, and finally masters.”
Spirits of darkness desired to keep people in their twenties attached to the external world, and therefore unable to develop inwardly
“The spirits of darkness which had been cast down from the spiritual world rebelled against this. They wanted people to take an active role in life and be masters at using the external intellect in their twenties, rather than go through quiet inner development.”
Spirits of darkness do this by pushing people in their twenties out into the public prematurely (before age 28)
“The spirits of light only want us to reach maturity and be ready to take on an active role in public life after the twenty-eighth year. The spirits of darkness want the time put forward, so that it comes before the twenty-eighth year; they want to push people out into public life at an earlier time.”
The fallacy of materialistic thinking
“Materialistic thinkers will always be able to refute a spiritualistic thinker who knows that the driver is there as well. Here you see where the hairsplitting, astute, critical intellect could lead, which the spirits of darkness want human beings to have. It does not matter about getting things right, let alone complete; what counts is that one follows the model where the horse draws the cab. Logic can easily separate from reality and go its own way. It is possible to be utterly logical and at the same time be far from reality.”
“It is possible to be utterly logical and at the same time be far from reality.”
Steiner’s criticism of a university professor who taught criminal law:
“Well, he did not produce much by way of real reasons: ‘Gentlemen, freedom has to exist, for if there were no freedom there would be no criminal law. The fact is that I am a professor of criminal law; therefore criminal law must exist; it follows that human freedom also exists.’”
“If you see a horse-drawn vehicle, a cab with a horse in front, the horse is drawing the cab. You will, of course, say that the driver is sitting on the box and guiding the horse with the reins. But if you ignore the driver, you will find it interesting to study what goes on in the horse to make it draw the cab; you can go into every detail of how the horse sets about drawing the cab, if you leave aside the fact that it is given its intention by the cab driver.”
“This is the actual basis of Darwinian theories; one simply leaves aside the driver, saying it is an old superstition, a prejudice, to say that the driver is guiding the horse. The horse is drawing the cab, anyone can see that, for the horse is in front. Darwinian theory is entirely based on this kind of logic.”
The spirits of darkness operate in the realm of rational mind and intellect, not the realm of emotions
“Something else has to be considered when we speak of human evolution. It is that the spirits of darkness have power mainly over the rational mind and intellect. They cannot get hold of the emotions, nor the will and, above all, not the will impulses. This touches on a profound and most significant law of reality.”
The will evolves slower than thought
“The will moves much more slowly in human evolution than do ideas. Please take this as a highly significant truth: the will moves much more slowly than do thoughts. For example, the patriarchal, solid-citizen-type habits of people who were not being rebels or revolutionaries in the 1830s and 1840s but were more inclined to follow the general trend, continued to live on into the decades of which I am now speaking. Their thoughts went ahead, however, and so there are continuous discrepancies between thought life and will life in evolution, discrepancies which do not show themselves in all, but only in some, spheres of life.”
Steiner illustrates an example—Marxist thoughts paired with older will impulses of the 1840s make up modern social democracy
“Modern social democracy does not compare, historically speaking, with the old slave rebellions; it is something entirely different, born out of theories produced by Lassalle, but mainly by Karl Marx, including his theory of the class struggle. A purely critical element, purely theoretical, based on ideas, set people going and made them into agitators. This was because the people who took up Marxism and became agitators still had the will impulses of the 1840s. They had not been able to catch up as far as the will was concerned. This discrepancy in will had the effect that, under the guidance of certain powers, a purely intellectual movement generated agitation among the masses.”
History cannot be classified as a science
“In materialistic thinking, sciences can only be called such if one has repeated instances which allow one to draw conclusions as to future developments. When a chemist does an experiment, he knows that if he combines certain substances certain processes will occur; combining the same substances again will result in the same processes, and the third time it will be the same again.”
“Modern thinking is based on premises according to which a science cannot be a science unless it rests on this type of repetition. Do think this through. History cannot be a science for people who take the materialistic point of view, for things do not repeat themselves in history, the combinations are always new. It is therefore not possible to draw conclusions by using the method employed in other sciences.”
“History is merely a product of transition. It only became a science in the nineteenth century. Before then, memorable events were described. You see, writing your family history is not considered to be ‘history’ either.”
Understanding spiritual impulses is essential to understanding history
“Generally speaking, however, the course of human evolution can only be known on the basis of its spiritual impulses. History is therefore embryonic and not what it is supposed to be; it will only finally be something when it makes the transition from its 100 years of existence to consideration of the spiritual life which is behind the scenes of what comes to pass at the surface level for humanity.”
When teaching children—avoid story or abstraction. Instead, “go into concrete reality.”
“…it might induce someone to write a children’s book on bees, or perhaps on ants. You would have to avoid any form of allegory, nor should you speak of abstract spiritual entities; you would really have to go into the concrete reality.”
Many today are stuck in abstraction and theories
“People think they are realistic and materialistic today when, in fact, they are the most abstract of theorists you can think of, stuffed full with theories, fast asleep in nothing but theories and not even aware of the fact.”
“It is quite easy to lull people to sleep with abstract concepts and make them believe the opposite of what is really true. This gives the powers of darkness the best opportunity to do what they want.”
“It is quite easy to lull people to sleep with abstract concepts and make them believe the opposite of what is really true. This gives the powers of darkness the best opportunity to do what they want.”
Waking up to the reality of world affairs
“For once, therefore, a man woke up and saw that what mattered was not to proclaim democracy but to see the full reality, not to follow slogans, but to see things as they are. This would be particularly important today, for people would then realize that the events which reign with such blood and terror over the whole of humanity are guided and directed from just a few centres. People will never realize this if they persist in the delusion that nation is fighting nation,”
Exposing the media
“And if someone does wake up, as Delaisi did, and writes about how things really are, how many people get to know about it? How many people will listen? They cannot listen, for it is buried by — well, by a life that again is ruled by the Press.”
“People think they are realistic and materialistic today when, in fact, they are the most abstract of theorists you can think of, stuffed full with theories, fast asleep in nothing but theories and not even aware of the fact.”
the inner muse 