In my post of March 3rd 2016 I referred, rather rudely, to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as “the arsecheeks of Ahriman.” The implication was that the 2016 USA presidential election represented a Hobson’s Choice (ie a non-choice or no choice at all) between two routes to a place you really wouldn’t want to go to.
Upon further reflection, I’m not sure that this was entirely fair. The defeat of Hillary Clinton by Donald Trump could have at least one upside – it could signal the end of neo-liberalism, that pernicious doctrine that came in during the 1980s and 90s, signed up to by Reagan, Clinton, Thatcher, Bush, Blair etc and which marked a decisive end to the post-Second World War social contract that I had grown up with, and rather liked. Neo-liberalism brought us privatisation, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade and market “solutions” to problems we didn’t realise we had, and the ever-increasing enrichment of the super-wealthy 1% (who lied that this was necessary because it would lead wealth to trickle down to the rest of us). It also brought us the financial meltdown of 2007/8 and the realisation that as the banks were bailed out and hardly any bankers on either side of the Atlantic were prosecuted for their crimes, it would be the taxpayer who paid the price of their behaviour.
What neo-liberalism also led to, for most of us, was a stagnation or decline in our incomes and living standards and deterioration in our public services. In the USA and much of the Western world, the basic morality behind the idea that ‘if you work hard, you get ahead’ has broken down, because people’s wages and salaries have not kept pace with rising prices, and many of their jobs have disappeared. According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics in the USA, the hourly wage of blue-collar workers doubled from the 1940s to the 1970s, but has flat-lined ever since then. At the same time, the free movement of capital has allowed factory jobs to be lost to poorer countries abroad. Since 2000, the real median wage in the USA is down by 14% and the real low wage is down by an incredible 26%.
This wage stagnation took place during the sixteen-year period covering the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, so it became clear to voters that both Republican and Democrat parties were going along with it; and neither party was concerned enough to do something to reverse the trend. But Donald Trump, a man described by his son as a “blue-collar worker with a bank balance,” had noticed what was going on and spotted an opportunity. The image Trump likes to project is that of a man surrounded by bling and with a trophy wife, who eats fast food in front of a TV screen tuned to Fox News – the epitome of the American dream for a certain demographic. For white, working-class voters, Trump represents a break with the cosy arrangements between big business, big banks, big media and big politics that had shut them out from the dream and put them economically and culturally in retreat. The irony of looking to a billionaire with inherited wealth to rescue them from their predicament was presumably less of a factor than their hatred for the Washington machine-politicians who had brought them to such a pass.
These people suspected that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have continued the same old policies with the same old corrupt arrangements with big business and lobbyists, while failing to deal with issues such as illegal immigration which had done so much to undermine their own living standards. Why on earth would they vote for four more years of that?
How could Clinton offer hope when she helped create this situation in the first place? In fact, she systematically destroyed the candidacy of Bernie Sanders – the only politician in the US who really spoke to the anger of ordinary voters. This is why her Wall Street connections and her former position as a Walmart board member were so deeply resented. Trump may be a boorish billionaire, but politically and economically, he is less responsible than Clinton for what has happened. When he said, “Make America great again”, it resonated. When Clinton replied, “America is already great”, it seemed like a sick joke by someone from the elite to whom neo-liberalism had been kind.
From my perspective here in the UK, Hillary Clinton was, just like Barack Obama, fully signed up to the GMO/Monsanto agenda; she would have pushed for TTIP to be implemented; she would have put post-Brexit Britain at the back of a 10-year queue for a trade deal; and she would probably have got into a war with Russia. It might have been nice to have had a woman in the White House but that’s about the best thing you could say for Hillary – no-one was going to vote for her with any real enthusiasm, other than that she wasn’t Trump. So I can’t say I’m dismayed that her presidential bid has crashed in flames and the Clinton political dynasty has come to an end.
Now, that is not to say that I’m happy about the election of President Trump, either – far from it. What’s more, it seems very likely that he is bound to disappoint his supporters, who may believe that his promises should be taken literally (do they really expect a wall along the Mexican border paid for by the Mexicans, a total ban on Muslims entering the USA, Hillary Clinton in a jail cell, etc?). Their rage when he fails to deliver is going to be awesome to behold. The victory speech he gave after Clinton had conceded the result is a sign of compromises to come – instead of calling her “crooked Hillary” as he had done throughout the campaign, he called her “Secretary Clinton”, congratulated her on a very hard-fought campaign and said: “We owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.” His supporters, who just an hour earlier had booed loudly when her picture flashed up on the giant TV screens and chanted “Lock her up! Lock her up!” must have been puzzled by this sudden change of tone.
But, again from my UK perspective, with Trump there are going to be some moments to treasure. What, for example, will Boris Johnson (our new foreign secretary), say to excuse himself when he meets the new president? This is what Boris said in December 2015, as Mayor of London: “Donald Trump’s ill-informed comments (that there were no-go areas in London as a result of Muslim terrorism) are complete and utter nonsense. I would welcome the opportunity to show Mr Trump first-hand some of the excellent work our police officers do every day in local neighbourhoods throughout our city. Crime has been falling steadily in both London and New York – and the only reason I wouldn’t go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump.” And here’s our former prime minister, David Cameron, also in December 2015: “I think his (Trump’s) remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong. If he came to visit our country I think he would unite us all against him.” And what about Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, who had previously stripped Trump of his role as an ambassador for Scottish businesses on the world stage after he had called for Muslims to be banned from the US, and who was vocal in her support for Hillary Clinton? What on earth will she find to say to excuse herself when Trump next comes to Scotland to visit the birthplace of his mother and inspect his two golf course businesses? Oh, to be a fly on the wall when that meeting happens!
One of the few British political figures to have backed Trump is Nigel Farage, the man who beyond any other forced David Cameron into offering the Brexit referendum, and who said on November 9th: “Today, the establishment is in deep shock. Even more so than after Brexit. What we are witnessing is the end of a period of big business and big politics controlling our lives. Voters across the Western world want nation state democracy, proper border controls and to be in charge of their own lives.”
Of course, Farage is correct that there are several resonances between the situations in Britain and the USA. In Britain, those people who voted Remain didn’t do so out of any great love for the European Union (I’m not the only one who regards it as neo-liberal and anti-democratic), but because they liked the idea of having a passport allowing them to live and work anywhere in Europe. In the USA, I suspect most Clinton voters found it easier to find reasons to hate Trump than they did to cast a positive vote for Hillary.
As James Meek wrote in the LRB Blog:
“There are many similarities between the Brexit vote and Trump’s win. The reliance for victory on white voters without a college education, fear of immigration, globalisation being blamed for mine and factory closures, hostility towards data-based arguments, the breakdown of the distinction between ‘belief’ and ‘conclusion’, the internet’s power to sort the grain of pleasing lies from the chaff of displeasing facts, the sense of there being a systematic programme of rules and interventions devised by a small, remote, powerful elite that polices everyday speech, destroys symbols of tradition, ignores or patronises ‘real’, ‘ordinary’ people, and has contempt for popular narratives of how the nation came to be.”
And so it came about that a billionaire who has been characterised as a bigot, braggart, demagogue, idiot, liar, misogynist, narcissist, racist, sexual predator and sociopath was nevertheless chosen to become the 45th President of the USA.
Sixteen years earlier, The Simpsons predicted that Trump would become leader of the free world. In an episode, entitled ‘Bart To The Future’, broadcast in early 2000, Lisa Simpson, who had just been elected President in succession to Donald Trump, is pictured sitting in the Oval Office surrounded by advisers. “We’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump,” she says. Writer Dan Greaney told The Hollywood Reporter: “It was a warning to America. And that just seemed like the logical last stop before hitting bottom. It was pitched because it was consistent with the vision of America going insane. What we needed was for Lisa to have problems that were beyond her fixing, that everything went as bad as it possibly could, and that’s why we had Trump be president before her.”
Last month, the creator of the show, Matt Groening, told The Guardian : “We predicted that he would be president back in 2000 – but (Trump) was of course the most absurd placeholder joke name that we could think of at the time, and that’s still true. It’s beyond satire.”
Beyond satire it may be, but it has just happened. An era is ending and a new one is taking form. Despair, anguish, incredulity are expressions of grief for the lost era. But apart from the Blairites, Bushites, Clintonites and Goldman Sachs parasites who have enriched themselves, who else will really mourn the loss of the neo-liberal period?
This new era of politics, with Trump at its head, will probably be ugly. What it might mean for the future of NATO and the Baltic states, for European defence budgets, for the European Union, for the Paris climate change agreement, for Mexicans or Muslims, for relations with China, Russia, Iran, North Korea etc, for gun control and healthcare in the USA – who at this stage can say? What it might mean from an anthroposophical point of view, however, I will try to piece together in my next post.
anthropopper 
Wow, I enjoyed hearing your thoughts. PLease share more.
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Valuable overview-thanks.
Sent from my iPhone
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Will Donald Trump set an example that it is unlawful for the political sphere to own business interests:
http://voices.news24.com/robin-mun-gavin/2016/11/south-africas-relationship-with-a-trump-administration/
“I don’t profess to be an expert in foreign affairs – far from it – but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the US, under a Trump Administration, being a lot tougher, and a lot less tolerant, with African countries (eg SA) – especially those which are seen to be stealing/squandering US aid. I therefore think it’s quite likely that the US will start insisting that African countries “get their houses in order”, by significantly reducing the amount of fraud and fiscal wastage in their respective countries, before the US provides further aid to them.”
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Thank You, Jeremy, for a well-balanced analysis. I too, though having no love for Trump or Clinton, or Blair and all the fellow travellers you mention, have wondered if the Dynamis are at work, shifting what appeared to be set in concrete and opening up the way for new possibilities.
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Nice analysis. Looking forward to your next post about what it might mean from an anthroposophical viewpoint.
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Trump got less white votes than Romney, more Black support than another Republican in history & similar Hispanic support (30%).
The top issues were Trade, Obama’s Open Borders, Obamacare premiums, #DrainTheSwamp corruption, Law & Order (typified by Clinton’s FBI/DoJ investigations), political correctness.
MSM pushed Clinton’s agenda way too hard, WikiLeaks Podesta email releases confirming lies/corruption/primary rigging, Street Journalism like Cernovich & Project Veritas undercover exposes. Also the #spiritcooking scandal went down badly in the Christian/Catholic communities.
It was Trump’s force of Personality (effectively being a one man band at times) & Social Media that won it for Trump. He is the Alpha Male. After the failed metrosexual, men being men is back.
It was a change election. Trump was the change candidate.
I campaigned for Trump online. Glad he’s won. He’ll be the first “non-brought” politician in USA for decades. I hope he doesn’t waste this great opportunity to bring huge change, now he has no “pay masters” to offer favours to.
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The similarities with Brexit are:
(1) Desire for Sovereignty. In USA, from the Corrupt Washington system.
(2) Desire for control over borders.
(3) Polls being used a political weapons to supress the vote, demoralise the opposition.
(4) The broadcast media being pro-Status Quo.
(5) The same (mainly) unfounded Liberal attacks of Racism & ism’s in general.
(6) Celebrity endorsements for the status-quo.
(7) Enthusiasm gulf between Leave/Trump v’s Remain/Clinton. Trump’s average rally attendance was 7,000. Clinton’s 600.
(8) Desire for change with anti-establishment sentiment.
(9) Many of left voting for Trump/Brexit. Trump had a decent crossover vote, particularly Sanders supporters.
The main difference for me is on attitude to Trade.
Brexit was about Internationism, where as Trump does talk a good game on Protectionism. But, we’ll see.
I saw a lot of censorship, particularly on Twitter. It is not a free-speech platform anymore. Sad.
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Trump is an autocrat now, only tempered by the republican majority in House and Senate. The end of neo-liberalism, of the political establishment, and of globalisation concords exactly with Putin’s anti-liberal, autocratic, traditional, nationalistic program in 1999 (his Millennium-speech). He cynically called it ‘the turn towards stability and civil accord’ (http://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/Putin.htm). Putin’s post-truth disinformation campaign has succeeded all over the world ever since. Autocracies (‘guided democracies’) could determine the ‘new era of politics’ with all its consequences.
(cf. http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/10/trump-election-autocracy-rules-for-survival/).
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Ton, for those that study the intricate workings of the east-to-west
migration of Soradt that encompasses the historical years between
666 to 1998 AD, and in which three specific series are identified as
occurring in the years 666, 1332, and 1998, it is most important to
find a hidden ‘666’ in the year 1999.
Now, the questions is this: Has Vlad Putin found his master in Donald
Trump? Anyone who has read the lecture-course GA200 knows that
it reveals that Soradt has achieved a dominant position in America, and
that this dominance goes back to the first beginnings of a European
colonial expansion beginning in 1607. Ever since, America has been
building its power-structure to rule the world one day, and all owing to
Francis Bacon’s notion of a “New Atlantis”, which he saw as the practical
element of his “Novum Organum”.
Those who study these matters know that Bacon had a huge influence on
James I beginning in 1603. What could not be achieved while Queen Elizabeth
was alive, was rather easily met with James, and the founding of the so-called
“New World”.
Steve
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Yes, one can discern the incarnation (West) and inspiration (East) of different evil beings according to Steiner in GA 200 (The New Spirituality, 1920), but that need not include the so called incarnation or appearance of Ahriman in the west itself.
In 1919 (The Mission of Michael) Steiner expressed it thus, differentiating Mysteries of the Earth/North (which includes north and middle Russia), of Light/East and of Space/South:
‘The Anglo-American world may gain world dominion; but without the Threefold Social Order it will, through this dominion, pour out cultural death and cultural illness over the whole earth; for these are just as much a gift of the Azuras as lies are a gift of Ahriman, and self-seeking, of Lucifer.’ (GA0194/19191215)
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In contrast to Ahriman, Steiner (1917) seems to describe the apocalyptic Sorat proper as ‘… another individuality who has never yet [nicht einmal irgendwann, i.e. never ever] appeared in the flesh but only as an etheric individuality … securing the rulership of the earth …’ (GA0178/19171118).
cf. Nesfield-Cookson (1998), p.219 f. (books.google, mQv4y_TNTUoC)
and Prokofieff (2012), p.67 f. (books.google, lSBJNohu1moC)
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Dear Jeremy,
Yes, Donald Trump is President-Elect of the United States, and if we go back to your first comments from the post on March 3, 2016, about these two “arse-cheeked” representatives of Ahriman, it seemed pretty clear back then, as it does now; yet, the victory has now been established, even though Trump has lost the popular vote of the American people. He has won the electoral college, as George W. Bush did in 2000, but lost the popular vote; and everybody knows what GWB did in the aftermath of his victory in 2000.
So, whether he can heal a divisive nation on this account is sincerely suspect,
although it will assuredly become a record of history that the historians will pore over some day in the future.
Now, here is my fundamental comment to your essay, in which you say:
“One of the few British political figures to have backed Trump is Nigel Farage, the man who beyond any other forced David Cameron into offering the Brexit referendum, and who said on November 9th: “Today, the establishment is in deep shock. Even more so than after Brexit. What we are witnessing is the end of a period of big business and big politics controlling our lives. Voters across the Western world want nation state democracy, proper border controls and to be in charge of their own lives.”
If Farage forced Cameron into offering the Brexit Referendum, which had nothing to do with Cameron remaining as PM for the duration of his election, why did Cameron resign? Why did not voters insist that Cameron remain as PM, regardless of outcome? This would have been meaningful, rather than his resigning the next day, and putting it all in the hands of the “greasy pole climber”, Theresa May. You see, she has no such allegiance to “Brexit”, while David Cameron did.
Thus, Theresa May can be likened to Angela Merkle of Germany. How will they both respond to the incentives of Donald Trump, the new POTUS?
Regards,
Steve
This will remain a divisive factor for the next four years,
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Dear Steve,
I do not think that history will be kind to David Cameron, who in my view was one of the worst prime ministers Britain has ever had. What he did was to try to solve a Tory party problem (i.e. division over the EU, with many of his MPs wanting to leave it) by calling a referendum and getting the British people to express their view. He was confident that the majority would vote to Remain. As we know, he was wrong about this. Having made such a disastrous and (from a constitutional point of view) entirely unnecessary misjudgement, his position as prime minister became untenable. It would have been impossible for Cameron, having campaigned so hard for Britain to Remain, to have then said he would lead the negotiations for Britain to Leave. You should be aware that in Britain the prime minister is not chosen by the voters but by the members of his/her own party, who elect a leader, who then becomes prime minister if the party wins a majority of parliamentary seats at a general election.
Theresa May, like almost all other national leaders, was wrong footed by the election of Trump. She had expected Hillary Clinton to win. Before the election, she criticised Mr Trump’s claim that police felt afraid in parts of the UK, saying: “I just think it shows he does not understand the UK and what happens in the UK.” Referring to his comments about banning Muslims from entering the US, they were “divisive, unhelpful and wrong,” she said. So she now has ground to make up – perhaps this explains why she didn’t get a phone call from the president-elect until he’d called nine other leaders first, including Egypt, Ireland, Israel, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea, India, Japan and Australia – or perhaps he was just going through his phone directory in alphabetical order and “UK” was near the end. 🙂
Regards,
Jeremy
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Sounds like Nigel Farage is on the spot in supporting Trump’s transition. Why not?
http://www.nbcnews.com/card/brexit-architect-nigel-farage-meets-president-elect-trump-n683066
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Jeremy, I think it is a key consideration that Farage, “johnny-on the spot”, comes over here in order to be a part of Trump’s transition. He seems to see the success of Brexit, for the British future in Europe, as hinging on the Trump presidency. You wrote:
“Of course, Farage is correct that there are several resonances between the situations in Britain and the USA. In Britain, those people who voted Remain didn’t do so out of any great love for the European Union (I’m not the only one who regards it as neo-liberal and anti-democratic), but because they liked the idea of having a passport allowing them to live and work anywhere in Europe. In the USA, I suspect most Clinton voters found it easier to find reasons to hate Trump than they did to cast a positive vote for Hillary.”
and;
“And so it came about that a billionaire who has been characterised as a bigot, braggart, demagogue, idiot, liar, misogynist, narcissist, racist, sexual predator and sociopath was nevertheless chosen to become the 45th President of the USA.”
Why do you think that Nigel Farage overlooks these allegations in his support of Trump? Can’t Brexit make it on its own initiative?
Steve
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I don’t think that Farage is starry-eyed about Trump. Before the election, he said something along these lines: “Trump is at worst a boor and actually, at best he’s a boor, too.” But he clearly sees Trump as someone who is going to break with the broad consensus in favour of globalisation and neo-liberal economics that has obtained in politics for the last few years, and he sees himself as being in a similar mould. In addition, Farage says that Trump is not going to do what Obama threatened the UK with, which was to put us at the back of a 10-year queue for a trade deal with the USA. So Farage sees that Brexit will give opportunities for the UK to develop good trade relationships with the USA, and indeed, with the rest of the world.
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So, what do you think needs to take place in order to make a more perfect union? If Britain has to hang on the coattails of the USA, and what it offers for the future, than it likely demonstrates why Cameron resigned, and May shows a very weak commitment. Only a new PM, committed to Brexit, would make it possible, and yet, your parliamentary system allows the next conservative, i.e. Theresa May, to be named as PM by her party, and wherein she declares no general election until 2020.
So, you get what you get for the foreseeable future. If a new election had been demanded, then you might have the right person right now leading the charge of a free Britain. Wasn’t there somebody up for that ?
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Odd though it seems, in the UK there is no constitutional requirement for a general election to be held when the leader of the governing party changes, as when Theresa May succeeded David Cameron. Theresa May’s real views on Brexit are not known. As a member of Cameron’s government, she said that she was for Remain; but she took hardly any part in the Remain campaign, so it is possible that her real sympathies were for Brexit. Since she took over from Cameron, she seems to be committed to carrying out Brexit, but does not seem to want any help from Nigel Farage (who is of course from a different party, UKIP, which threatens the Conservative Party). This comment piece in The Sun today is interesting:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2178831/theresa-may-will-have-to-rethink-her-attitude-towards-nigel-farage-now-hes-best-buds-with-president-elect-donald-trump/
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November 9th
the day Trump was elected. Nov 9th indeed is an important, very specific date.
According to Johanna von Keyserlingk Rudolf Steiner said that Nov 9th is the day of „Der Gang zu den Müttern“, the day the elementals pass the gate to the great, old primeval mothers.
After that passage the world, nature is different, when you wake up on the 10th, nature, the world has changed.
Interestingly on Nov 9th much happened in history, especially in Germany: the end of the Kaiserreich and the proclamation of a republic in 1918, in 1923 the failed coup d etat of Hitler in Munich, 1938 the burning of the synagoges, 1989 the fall of the Berlin wall, in 1620 the Bohemian king fled after the battle at the White Mountain (which meant the end of the rosicrucian-friendly nobility), in 325 the consecration of the Lateran Basilika which was the centre of christianity until the 14th century, but also in France 1799 Napoleon ended the French revolution with a coup d etat.
So November 9 is a „magical“ date indeed.
GReetings from Lake Constance, Germany
Otto
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That’s really interesting, Otto – thank you.
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Otto wrote:
“According to Johanna von Keyserlingk, Rudolf Steiner said that Nov 9th is the day of „Der Gang zu den Müttern“, the day the elementals pass the gate to the great, old primeval mothers. After that passage the world, nature is different, when you wake up on the 10th, nature, the world has changed.”
As well, according to Rudolf Steiner, November 9th represents the last measure of the Sun in the sign of Libra, and passes into Scorpio beginning on the 10th and ending on the 30th, the last day of November.
In secret inwardly to feel
How all that I’ve preserved of old
Is quickened by new-risen sense of self:
This shall, awakening, pour forth cosmic forces
Into the outer actions of my life
And growing, mould me into true existence.
Ref. Calendar of the Soul – Week 34
Armed with the CoS, the week-by week changes in nature are meant to be both felt and cognized as a soul experience.
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For an illustration, with September 24 and November 9 in a Festival hexagram, see:
The Birth of a New Agriculture: Koberwitz 1924, books.google IhKwMKcExV8C, p.88
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SH: Ever since, America has been building its power-structure to rule the world one day, and all owing to Francis Bacon’s notion of a “New Atlantis”, which he saw as the practical element of his “Novum Organum”.
Those who study these matters know that Bacon had a huge influence on
James I beginning in 1603. What could not be achieved while Queen Elizabeth was alive, was rather easily met with James, and the founding of the so-called “New World”.
TM: The end of neo-liberalism, of the political establishment, and of globalisation
I would say rather the end of socialist “democracy”. The difference between Francis Bacon, incarnating again from the court of Haroun al Raschid as Amos Comenius in Middle Europe, was his belief in the “pan-sophia” of the natural world. Whereas, the consciousness soul initiate, James I was a liberal Nationalist.
GA185, 18/19 October 1918
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA185/English/RSP1976/19181019p01.html
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA185/English/RSP1976/19181018p01.html
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Bacon and Comenius were formerly Raschid, and his counsellor, Jafar. Together, they established the Baghdad Empire in the 9th century by bringing in the noted academics and priests of the Academy of Gondhishapur, which resided nearby. In the 17th century, they combined again in order to effect arabic influences into the developing modern world, especially Comenius’ principles of education, which stressed sense perception of the external world alone. Bacon’s view of nature was always against Aristotle, and he gave birth to scientific materialism as the goal of “controlling nature”.
In their after death lives, Bacon and Comenius influenced the pre-birth destinies of two historians of the 19th century, von Ranke, and Schlosser. Both, of course, were the typical pragmatists so evident in historical analysis today. See here for further details:
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA236/English/RSP1974/19240412p01.html
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Hi Otto, good to hear from you again. Obviously our two posts were sent through together but it does look like my post is commenting on your post. You see; I was commenting on the political scene whereas you were commenting on the cultural life and they are two different areas.
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So Caryn, who would Otto be, since you seem to know him? Is it because he represents himself from Lake Constance? Or is it because he has such a perceptive recognition of the date of November 9th?
Steve
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oh is it not the Otto who briefly wrote on your site?
Hegel would have loved the dialect of it 🙂
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Here is a thought-provoking blog by Tobias Stone “History tells us what may happen next with Brexit & Trump”
View at Medium.com
This struck me as being relevant to many of the posts above.
It shows how the archetypal situation which led to Donald Trump’s meteoric rise to become POTUS has played out many times in different guises before.
There is also a link in the blog to another blog which shows that PLATO also saw how such a situation can occur in the biography of a democracy.
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That’s a very sobering blog post from Tobias Stone – thank you for the link.
I was struck by something Francis Fukuyama wrote in today’s Financial Times: he was suggesting that maybe Putin has some kind of hold over Trump, perhaps by way of hidden Russian money covering a large amount of debt from Trump’s various failed business ventures. I was also alarmed to see that Newt Gingrich, who seems to be lined up for an important role in Trump’s new administration, was saying that Estonia is so close to St Petersburg that no-one would notice if it went. Trump and Gingrich are clowns, but dangerous ones.
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Yes – Trump’s advisors, whether he listens to them, and whether they have the courage to face him down will be a key factor in how the future American policies develop.
Who are they ? Only limited information so far, but a pattern (with neoliberalist outlines ?? ) is emerging.
Many members of the team working on economic policy are out and out lobbyists,
His transition-team advisor for the Department of the Treasury policy is David Malpass, who also worked for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush before spending 15 years with Bear Stearns. He was the investment bank’s chief economist before its near-collapse in 2008 led to a firesale to JPMorgan and signalled the start of the financial crisis. Trump’s headline economic pledge was to double annual US GDP growth to 4% or more. Malpass wrote a chapter in a 2012 book on this very issue, The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs, claiming that “fast growth isn’t rocket science.” All it takes is a strong dollar backed by higher interest rates, lower taxes, lighter regulations, and a limit on debt.
A name in the frame for Treasury secretary is Steven Mnuchin, the Trump campaign’s chief fundraiser. Mnuchin spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs—as did his father, a prominent Goldman partner—with key roles in the investment bank’s mortgage operations, before starting a hedge fund with backing from George Soros. Isn’t it interesting that Goldman and Soros were both called out in Trump’s final campaign ad as part of the “global special interests” out of touch with common people !
Also, re the Newt G connection, its worth having a listen to Roger Scruton’s “a point of view”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b081tkmc
One of the several thought-provoking points he raises is that Putin currently has a military build up around former Soviet satellites such as Poland and the Baltics, and that essentially these countries do not have a viable or effective army because a large proportion of the young men in these countries have migrated to the West for a better economic life. He could, if he wished, over-run these countries in days. Couple this with Trump’s stated wish to disengage from NATO, and his reluctance to spend American money to defend Europe, then this could provide Mr P with a big temptation to claim back Russia’s former empire.
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Good article on neo-liberalism by George Monbiot in today’s Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/14/neoliberalsim-donald-trump-george-monbiot
My instinct is that Trump is not a fan of neo-liberalism but is more what one might call a pluto-autocrat. We shall see.
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Trump – China
Rudolf Steiner spoke of he inevitably coming clash between China and the west. The west today of course means the USA. Then it was the question whether this clash would unfold across the landmass of Asia(Russia) and Europe, today it is clear that the line of confrontation will be across the waters of the Pacific.
Well there are two nations that are led not by archangles (like most countries in the world) or by a number of big elementals (like Switzerland, India), but 2 are led by irregular Archais, China and the USA. They both feel they have a mission far beyond their nation and national boundaries. (Many more characteristics show the exceptional way they see themselves, but I want to keep it short.) You can also read pictures: there was one of the last meeting of Obama and XiJinping, where they sat next to each other, not talking: the Chinese sat there, self content, smiling inwardly, a bit buddha-like while Obama was very awake, looking around, much aware of what was going on. Pictures often tell more than the words politicians say.
The question now is: Will that clash of the two, China with its luciferic archai and the USA with the ahrimanic archai be of only diplomatic nature or also economic, show of military force of actual employment of military force? Next question is: When will that be? In a „normal“ course of events this should be in a couple of decades or even further away but as we know ahriman wants to hasten the course of events. Might Trump be an instrument in this scenario?
Otto
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“White humankind is still on the path of absorbing the spirit deeper and deeper into its own essence. Yellow humankind is on the path of conserving the era when the spirit will be kept away from the body, when the spirit will only be sought outside of the human-physical organization. Etc.”
Present European-American and Chinese populations can’t be equated with archaic European (white) and Asian (yellow) ethnic groups. These ethnic modifications were changed by Christianity’s ‘personal impulse’, or have preserved their traditional culture for the future, according to Steiner’s notorious lecture in GA 174b (1915) on their violent future battles.
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There is nothing notorious about this lecture from 13 February 1915, if one takes it in its full scope of 18 pages. As such, it is a deeply relevant analysis of the world situation at the time, and always seeing the work of the opposing powers as the threat in hindering the advancement of the fifth cultural epoch to the sixth, which if successful, will have a disabling effect on Soradt, who Michael has already put under foot. It takes us humans to catch up to the idea.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_iULOfwjOZFV2oxMlQyY3Bhb1U/view
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Indeed Steve, Steiner (1915) declared: ”ancient forces must again be united with progressive forces” (p.7), ‘It must prepare itself for an external receiving …‘. Cf. Rose (2013) p.134 f.
But at the same time, Steiner ascribed these ancient forces to a specific (Chinese) culture, as atavistic forces which stay behind in development, have a demonic character (p.8), are rigidity (p.10).
This cultural stereotyping or stigmatizing is reinforced by the terms ‘yellow’ and ‘white’, which however in this case refer to different cultures (‘humankind’), not to (Atlantic) ethnic groups.
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“But at the same time, Steiner ascribed these ancient forces to a specific (Chinese) culture, as atavistic forces which stay behind in development, have a demonic character (p.8), are rigidity (p.10).
This cultural stereotyping or stigmatizing is reinforced by the terms ‘yellow’ and ‘white’, which however in this case refer to different cultures (‘humankind’), not to (Atlantic) ethnic groups.”
Tiananmen Square incident of 1989 is a good example of young people in China trying to catch up to the idea of freedom and democracy, and it was violently suppressed by the ruling backward forces that occupy China. Thus, Steiner is only calling out the lingering conditions of regression that battle the forward progress of evolution. What he saw in 1915 was only the beginning of the battle that is now our recently completed century, and second millennium.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Tiananmen-Square-incident
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The progressive counterparts of the Asian peoples in these battles are the ‘European-American peoples’ (GA 174b, p.6), who are Christianised (carry down the spirit, impregnate the flesh with the spirit, p.7). They are not to be equated with the ancient Indo-Europeans (‘Jupiter men’ or Jupiter humanity’ in GA 121), though to Steiner the stereotype ancient Europeans had already possessed a ‘sense of freedom’ (GA 105).
‘Let us try to enter into the feelings of these ancient Europeans. They said: “I am indeed connected with the Gods.” Through consciousness of this a strong sense of personality developed in them, a special sense of the divine worth of the human personality, and, above all, a strong sense of freedom.’ GA 105/19080813
The same distinction between white ethnic group and ‘white humankind’ was made in Steiner’s controversial GA 349 lecture as stereotype white ethnic group (ancient Europe) and post-glacial ‘stream of white people’ (India, Europe, America), the spirit working ‘through the skin-color’ and penetrating ‘into all other parts of the world’.
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Today, Putin relies more on hybrid warfare (information warfare, virtual politics) against the democratic West to change borders and enlarge his autocratic sphere of influence, which he has been creating since 15 years. Trump and his new American elite of oligarchs comply.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-american-oligarch
Putin (1999): ‘In the present world the might of a country as a great power is manifested more in its ability to be the leader in creating and using advanced technologies, ensuring a high level of people’s wellbeing, reliably protecting its security and upholding its national interests in the international arena, than in its military strength.’
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If you read the PDF through you would have understood the meaning Ton:
“When nations confront each other, it is no longer a matter of that part of human nature which transcends all differentiations of mankind. When nations confront each other, then it is not merely men, but spiritual worlds; those beings in spiritual worlds confront each other who live in men and work through them. To believe that what holds good for man must also hold good for the complex world of demons and spirits which work through men when nations engage in war – to believe that through simple human logic one could reach some conclusion as to what drives the demons against each other, this means that faith in a concrete spiritual world has not yet been found.” Page 4
Ton can you see how your above post on president-elect Donald Trump and president Vladimir Putin is a good example of this “demonic” thinking.
Caryn
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Caryn, do you want to suggest I am ‘demonizing’ Trump and Putin?
Well, following Jeremy’s posts on hidden evil beings, I see it more like analysing Steiner on demonic beings (in GA 194 and 200), on the visible physical Ahrimanic incarnation in 1999 (in GA 191, 193 and 195; see my earlier posts on Putin and the three apocalyptic beasts in Revelation 13) and lately on the hidden etheric appearance of Sorat in 1998 (in GA 178 and 346). And, I have applied e.g. the expression `before even a part of the third millennium of the Christian era has run its course’ to the year 1999.
Since the beginning of the 21st century Putin and his intellectual circle (Surkov, Dugin) manipulate public opinion in Russia, Europe, Britain, America, Asia (and probably Africa too) with a postmodern, virtual disinformation approach: nothing is true and everything is possible, instead of with overt lies (see e.g. Pomerantsev). Trump, holding a bachelor degree in economics, seems to be their puppet, clown, useful idiot and unwilling agent. The autocrats of the world divide the world in their own spheres of influence, like they did in the 19th century, and call it ‘guided democracy’.
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Ton, thanks for the reply. Yes, it must be quite shocking for someone who has been led by the hand like a child and not given a thought to the spiritual worlds over the ages especially the fourth.
I have yet to see the date 1999 mentioned in a lecture – could you supply the exact lecture.
As for the politics; do you live in Russia? It is obvious that you have not actually met president-elect Donald Trump in person therefore it has to be said that your opinion is based on someone else’s opinion.
Caryn
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“Putin and his intellectual circle (Surkov, Dugin) manipulate public opinion in Russia, Europe, Britain, America, Asia (and probably Africa too)”
– how could one avoid question this statement that Putin managed to manipulate public opinion through virtually impenetrable curtain of western mass media propagandistic narratives?
Steiner teaches us to try at all times to detect where certain information come from, with what intention and goal/agenda to whom it serves and so on.
Well, how can we detect Putins ´´manipulation´´ in all those places where main western media last ten years or so try hard to project something like this:
Doesn´t it look more like someone trying hard to project certain demonic appearance onto Putin? Who would try to do that and why is a logical question?
Is it then Putin himself doing that, but how since he has a single media outlet (RT) in that west which he supposedly manipulates?
I believe clear observation of the presented symptomatology should lead us to a very opposite conclussions than that in which Putin somehow magically manipulate opinonon of 80% of the civilised world, while at the same time honest and truth- loving mass media in the west try to warn us on “something demonic” going on over there in wild Russian lands..
From where I stand it seems obvious that more and more people in the west start seeing through fear and, actually, very real warmongering propaganda coming through irresponsible and corrupt media.
Views presented by eg. Paul Craig Roberts consistently show in which direction penetrating understanding of events by western thinkers and observers evolve, and it is not the direction described in above comment. Quite the opposite is the case.
Same is valid if we take into account even more subtle analysis presented by T. Boardman or G. Bondarev.
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Caryn, who is the child you mention? The ‘simple human logic’ in the quote? Steiner’s expression ‘before even …’ (‘ehe auch nur …‘) stems from Nov. 1, 1919 (GA 191), and can be read as December 31, 1999. We all have seen and heard Trump, but the opinions differ on how he can be moderated by his daughter Ivanka or by the Republican elite.
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Vistor, your questions seem to exemplify the post-modern disinformation (‘it’s all relative’ and ‘everyone has their own truth’) that is worldwide used by Putin et al. (on RT, Sputnik, …):
“This equaling out of truth and falsehood is both informed by and takes advantage of an all-permeating late post-modernism and relativism, which has trickled down over the past thirty years from academia to the media and then everywhere else. This school of thought has taken Nietzsche’s maxim, there are no facts, only interpretations, to mean that every version of events is just another narrative, where lies can be excused as ‘an alternative point of view’ or ‘an opinion’, because ‘it’s all relative’ and ‘everyone has their own truth’ (and on the internet they really do).”
(Pomerantsev (2016) https://granta.com/why-were-post-fact/)
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1999 is, indeed, a very relevant starting-point for the ahrimanic incarnation. By shifting it from west to east, only proves how clever Soradt has become in the dominating western global conquest. Steiner is quite clear and definitive about this is in GA200. You see, after pondering for years during WWI how the 30-40 European leaders could have had their consciousness diminished in order to agree to oppose each other and go to war, he finally realized that this power was being transmitted from the west. And that is why Steiner so strongly opposed the U.S. intervention in 1917 by President Wilson. He knew this was the source of the war in the first place. WWII carries the same interventionist logic in the European theatre. Relative to the Japanese invasion, it was merely the pretext for harnessing the atomic-asuric bombs, as the nuclear initiative.
So, these quotes are firm, and even in GA346, Steiner refers to 1998 as the third measure of the soradtic trinity of 666 – 1332 – 1998. He warns about 1998, and how by that time the cleverness of ahriman will be rather incomprehensible to normal human logic. Why? Because ahriman serves soradt, the anti-christ.
And soradt resides in the westernmost region, which is why we should concern ourselves with the founding of the so-called, “New World” in the early 17th century.
“so, before only a part of the third millennium of the post-Christian era has elapsed, there will be, in the West, an actual incarnation of Ahriman: Ahriman in the flesh. Humanity on earth cannot escape this incarnation of Ahriman. It will come inevitably. But what matters is that people shall find the right vantage point from which to confront it.”
“But now that we are facing an incarnation of Ahriman in the third millennium after Christ, Lucifer’s tracks are becoming less visible, and Ahriman’s activities in such trends as I have indicated are coming into prominence. Ahriman has made a kind of pact with Lucifer, the import of which may be expressed in the following way. Ahriman, speaking to Lucifer, says: “I, Ahriman, find it advantageous to make use of ‘preserving jars.’ To you I will leave people’s stomachs, if you will leave it to me to lull them to sleep — that is to say to lull their consciousness to sleep where their stomachs are concerned.”
GA191, 1 November, 1919
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A detailed example of Russian hybrid war in: BBC Magazine (2016), Conspiracy Files: Who shot down MH17?:
‘… the major TV networks, such as Russia Today, “are operating as an arm of the Kremlin and designed to put out a Russian propaganda line”. … the goal “is to put out lots of different theories to raise smoke, to raise dust and to raise confusion and hopefully persuade people that there is no truth here”.’ (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35706048)
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Who shot down MH17, and how, could be the big obfuscator of the larger issue, which is “Why” was it shot down”?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/top-aids-researcher-and-others-in-field-perished-on-mh17/2014/07/18/2aa31972-0e85-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html
68% of the passengers on board Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17, originating from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, were Dutch, including Joep Lange, the former president of the International AIDS Society, who was headed with many other associates to Melbourne, Australia, for the 20th International AIDS Conference, scheduled to begin on 20 July 2014.
68% of the passengers means 193 of the total 283 passengers on board. Thus, 193 Dutch citizens died on the way to Melbourne, Australia, by way of Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, wherein another connecting flight was to take them the rest of the way to Melbourne.
Of course, this will be considered merely coincidental, but Soradt, and his human agents under the guise of the CIA, like to create stratagems that have dual purposes and results. The first goal was to keep leading-edge AIDS researchers from appearing in Melbourne, and the second goal was to continue to increase the tension between Russia and the Ukraine, which is the mounting strategy on the world scene today.
Either way, the forces of evil care nothing for human lives.
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Steve, it must have been a missile-accident, but Putin has put it there, because of your second goal:
‘The Russian-backed forces had already downed a Ukrainian transport at high altitude with a SAM missile before the MH17 attack. The BUK missile system cannot distinguish between friend and foe. The system requires months of training of a complex crew. Therefore the “crew” mentioned in the intercepts would have been a specialized Russian military unit. Thus, a Russian crew shot down MH17 with a Russian missile by mistake.’ (forbes.com)
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Visitor, you wrote:
“Steiner teaches us to try at all times to detect where certain information comes from, with what intention and goal/agenda to whom it serves and so on. Well, how can we detect Putins ´´manipulation´´ in all those places where main western media last ten years or so try hard to project….”
and:
“Same is valid if we take into account even more subtle analysis presented by T. Boardman or G. Bondarev.”
If you really understood Boardman and Bondarev, especially Bondarev, you would know where the evil beast resides. Media is the easy manipulator of propaganda, as it costs only paper and ink, unless you subscribe to the internet version, which only costs logging in 😉
American interventionist history goes back even before the Spanish-American War of 1898, which also signaled the last 100 years of Soradt’s second incarnation, which ended in 1998, and easily passed over to the initiatives for the present ‘war on terror’.
As such, it only makes sense to impute to Putin the Ahrimanic incarnation, and especially after all the effort to dismantle the USSR by 1991. That coup was realized when Gorbachev chose to betray his country, and align with the west, i.e., Reagan/Bush. I realize that he got the Nobel Prize for it, but that was also propaganda. Today, many people wish the old regime was still in place. Why? Because it should be. The Soviet Union was the necessary second supreme power in order to balance the goals of the west. In other words, if the USSR existed today, there would be no ‘war on terror’. Why? Because they control their own theatre of operation, and the Muslims would have been kept in check.
But America wanted a third world war to advent the third millennium, and even make it another Hundred Years’ War, in honor of Soradt’s second incarnation, c. 1332.
This is what we have today. “Steiner teaches us to try at all times…..”
To connect the dots is what he had in mind.
Regards,
Steve
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Steve, Steiner’s descriptions of the two-horned beast imply that Sorat never incarnated:
It originates from other world periods; it has acquired the tendencies of other world periods … (GA104/19080630)
“… another individuality who has never (…) appeared in the flesh but only as an etheric individuality, who is of a strong Ahrimanic nature … having never (…) incarnated during earthly evolution. This other being is one who has only reached etheric embodiment …” GA 178 (1917).
Cf. Prokofieff (2012), lSBJNohu1moC, p.69
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Soradt has had three evolutionary phases, periods, or “surges”, if you will. Incarnation assumes physical form, but, indeed, here we must look at agents of Soradt taking on human bodies.
“Indeed, the aim of those brotherhoods I have spoken of, who wish to confine human souls in the material realm, is that the Christ should pass by unobserved in the twentieth century; that His coming as an etheric individuality should not be noticed by men. And this endeavour takes shape under the influence of a quite definite idea and a quite definite purpose. These brotherhoods want to take over the Christ’s sphere of influence, which should spread out more and more widely during the twentieth century, for another being (of whom we will later speak more precisely). There are Western brotherhoods who want to dispute the impulse of the Christ and to set in His place another individuality who has never appeared in the flesh — an etheric individuality, but a strongly Ahrimanic one.”
GA178, 18 November 1917
“Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon. He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.” —-Revelations 13
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Rudolf Steiner spoke about this before WWII
Fall of the Spirits of Darkness
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA177/English/RSP1993/FalDar_index.html
The spirits of darkness were cast down from heaven to earth in 1879.
World War II
Started September 1939
1939 – 1879 = 60
Ended September 1945
1945 – 1879 = 66
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Yes, that was November 1917. A few years later (1920) a third influence, besides Western Anglo-Americanism and Jesuitism, had entered the world stage: Leninism (see GA 197, Polarities). In 1924 Steiner connected Bolshevism to soratic intellectual forces, and predicted the release of the Beast from the Abyss at the end of the 20th century (see Revelation 21 and GA 346).
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In Karma of unthruthfullness Steiner clearly points to hidden hand that moved things in direction of war, and that hand was not in the East.
Main motivation, strategies and even perfected political techologies can be clearly seen today for those who want and dare to see clearly. Boardman only extrapolated on the basics that were already delineated by Steiner in mentioned and many other lectures.
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Yes, that is 1916/1917. You will find Russianism and Tsarism there, but not yet Bolshevism and Leninism …
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Still can’t believe that people who read Rudolf Steiner have such a dim consciousness and get easily manipulated by western media.
You should check Russia’s flag and maybe read a sign that Archangel Michael is balancing trough Putin and Russia the beast from the west.
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Asmir, Indeed, no wonder anthro views are ingnored and irrelevant when already insights of average ´´ordinary´´ informed person in the west shows signs of awakeing on what´s going on behind the smoke screen created by western mass media. But that kind of inversion seems to be quite symptomatic through history and led to great wars, now we can see it in real time.
Obviously, seeing through ´´invertin and perverting´´ propagandistic techniques is still great challenge and obstacle for too many peoples.
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Steve Hale, Pasic and Visitor, I tend to see things from your perspectives. I sometimes have to avoid watching the BBC and CNN because the lies are so disturbing.
It’s obvious that NATO has encircled Russia – it’s obvious that the US, with its hundreds of military bases all over the world, is the expansionist, not Russia. It’s obvious that the change in Ukraine’s government was a coup orchestrated by the US [remember the phone call between Victoria Nuland and the American ambassador in Ukraine in which they were discussing who to place at the head of the new government!].
And all the fuss about Russia invading Crimea – which Khrushchev had ‘gifted’ to Ukraine less than 60 years ago in gratitude for Ukraine’s support in his election to the head of the USSR! The people of Crimea voted over 90% in favour of returning to be part of Russia and thus escape the bunch of crazies ruling in Kiev. The US and its puppet allies all cried that borders must no longer be changed – as if the break-up of Yugoslavia by the Clinton administration lay in the remote past.
Not to speak of the ‘bringing of democracy’ to the Middle east and all the suffering it is causing to those poor people, as well as the chaos of the mass migrations into Europe at a time when the economies of these countries are still struggling following the crash of Wall Street!
In the meantime, Saudi Arabia, the worst violator of human rights after North Korea, is not invaded for the sake of democracy, but has been elected to chair a panel of independent experts on the UN Human Rights Council!!! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/anger-after-saudi-arabia-chosen-to-head-key-un-human-rights-panel-10509716.html
William Blum, author or many books, has written one with the title “America’s most dangerous export: Democracy”. I am so grateful for Americans like him, Paul Craig Roberts and many others who speak up from inside the dense morass that is corporate media in the west.
It seems to me that the aim of US foreign policy is to deliberately create as much chaos as possible – a condition that Steiner says is conducive to the early incarnation of Ahriman.
And another factor to remember is that the 6th post-Atlantean culture needs the Russo-Slavic souls for its development – something that the secret brotherhoods of the Anglo-Saxon 5th post-Atlantean are determined to prevent. Putin has prevented the invasion of Russia that seemed so promising under Yeltsin and all this ‘foaming at the mouth’ vile anti-Putin propaganda is just their attempt to stultify the thinking of people in the west.
What, if anything, will change with Trump as POTUS is anyone’s guess. Qui vivra’ verra’, as they say in France
Pasic you say “Still can’t believe that people who read Rudolf Steiner have such a dim consciousness and get easily manipulated by western media” – well, you’re not the only one.
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Above I mentioned a lengthy BBC-article on maskirova:
One British author who worked in Russia for several years as a TV producer, has traced how the Kremlin has adapted the doctrine of maskirovka, or military deception, for the digital age. Peter Pomerantsev, author of Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: the Surreal Heart of the New Russia, claims President Putin has complete control over the Russian media and it now works like a cult, with non-stop conspiracy theories, designed to confuse and bamboozle Russians so that “critical thinking breaks down”.
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My esteem for the BBC has dwindled to a trickle, Ton.
Here is an interesting article on democracy, the press, etc. by Michael Warden, an anthroposophist:
http://www.wellspringbookshop.co.uk/articles/perspectives-on-syria/
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Liliana, we’re drops in an ocean. I have rather stressed the Eastern ‘sphere of influence’ of Steiner’s Threefold world (Eastern brotherhoods, Russia as part of the East), and his harsh criticism on 19th century Russianism, Panslavism and Czarism (Political Testament of Peter the Great), and from 1917 onwards, on Marxism, Bolshevism and Leninism (Lenin as counterpart of Wilson, Lenin’s and Trotsky’s Bolshevist Initiation). The German Pfeifer book on brotherhoods dates from 1982.
Alas, the Syria-part of Warden’s article seems to be a list of quotes from different internet sources. Iraq and Syria are the ‘bloodlands’ of the Middle East, like Poland and Ukraine are in Europa (Calvert, Snyder). Yet, Putin’s Russia seems to be a friendly brown bear here, and Putin not the popular late postmodern, autocratic leader strategically destroying Grozny, killing journalists and politicians, manipulating elections, enriching his new elite and hungering his people, since 1999.
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Steve, they may have been aiming at a bigger fish than the Aids specialist – this is from Paul Craig Roberts site:
“A European air traffic controller said that MH-17 and the airliner carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin were initially on the same course. Possibly Washington and its vassal in Kiev thought MH-17 was Putin’s plane and destroyed the Malaysian flight by mistake. In order to avoid the consequences of such a provocation, the Russian government would deny that Putin’s plane was on a similar course.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/07/17/mh-17-russia-convicted-by-propaganda-not-evidence/
However, from what I have read, MH17 was not travelling the normal route of all the other planes heading in the same direction. It was re-routed by the Kiev control tower when already in flight.
The final report by the investigators stated that a Buk missile launcher was sent by Russia into Ukraine the day before it was shot down then returned to Russia the day after. How could the Russians have known that MH17 was going to be flying overhead, when its normal route was changed after it had taken off!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/28/mh17-investigation-prosecutors-to-reveal-where-missile-that-down/
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Liliana, I had not heard that Putin was returning from his trip to Brazil at the same time that MH-17 crossed Ukrainian airspace. Reports indicate a matter of less than an hour that they crossed paths. Now, if MH-17 had its course deviated, after takeoff, into the no-fly zone, then this was obviously a planned maneuver. Yet, we also have Putin’s plane arriving nearly at the same time into almost the same unsafe zone. My understanding is that the black box recorder was recovered which could prove the details, but has not been made known.
To me, this is the most glaring evidence of complicity, i.e, evidence not revealed. If, as PCR suggests, “A European air traffic controller said that MH-17 and the airliner carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin were initially on the same course …..” then this seems to be a meaningful coincidence in itself.
Yet, Putin lives, and innocent humans die. How do we account for that fact? There are a number of other oddities to this story, e.g., bodies found that were already dead, and large amounts of blood serum and medications, which would indicate the research intended for the AIDS conference, which was to begin on July 20, 2014, in Melbourne, Australia.
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/08/08/was-putin-targeted-for-mid-air-assassination/
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The hybrid warfare in Ukraine clearly used rumors (Twitter), made up “facts” and created suspicion about what seems to have been a terrible blunder (Telegraph):
A “rumor” that keeps popping up on various websites is that the flightpath of MH17 on the day of the crash is significantly different than the previous 10 flightpaths of MH17. The image seems to originate from a Twitterer called Vagelis Karmiros who placed the following tweet on the 17th of July [2014]:
…
This “fact” is then used to create suspicion on why this particular MH17-flight was diverted over restricted air space and into the area between Donetsk and Luhansk. Whereas the previous flights allegedly flew far south from Donetsk, away from this area. …
When we check the flight history database of flightradar24.com, his claim doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Etc.
https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-mh17-10-previous-flightpaths-different-from-17-7.t4378/
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Steve, isn’t this ”evidence not revealed” an argument from ignorance? Also in this information war, the passengers didn’t simply ‘die’ on the flight, but were (accidentally) killed by the Russian army.
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My interpretation of “evidence not revealed” was the flight data recorder, which could have determined whether the flight was re-routed in midair. Otherwise, we have the mere assumption that it drifted off-course somehow into the restricted zone. Having Putin flying at the same time gives him an alibi, of course. As well, the previous ten flights out of Amsterdam, as indicated, were all safely south of the restricted zone.
This all gives further indication that MH17 was an intended target from inception, and planned to be shot down. It is the precise motive that is in question, i.e., why was this particular flight targeted? It was on a mission for humanitarian purposes, which was halted with the destruction and loss of lives. These things are well-known ahead of time to the strategic planners who monitor the world situation and occurrences. As previously, stated, Soradt loves to combine purpose in its quest to undermine and defeat humanity, i.e., the Universal Human. As such, the flight manifest indicated that this was the one to shoot down.
Of course, we can’t prove that motive, but we can prove that the forces of evil shot it down. Does anyone disagree with that?
Steve
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The link says this ‘’claim doesn’t stand up to scrutiny”. There wasn’t any rerouting.
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I guess it’s all about which version of the facts seems to be backed up with a plausible motive – like in an Agatha Christie novel we have to try to figure out who had what to gain from perpetrating the act. Ton, what would have been the aim of the Russian army if they were the ones who downed the flight?
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Liliana, that would be post-truth: ‘every version of events is just another narrative’. The general aim of the Russian leadership is to enlarge Russia’s Eurasian sphere of influence by hybrid warfare: occupying parts of Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine with ‘little green men’, controlling Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, and recently Bulgaria and Moldova, supporting Erdogan and Trump, and in Europa Farage, Le Pen/Fillon, Wilders, De Winter, Petry/von Storck, thereby distracting the Russian people from homemade problems and corruption. The direct goal of the Russian leadership would have been to stop Ukrainian military carriers in the Donbas-region.
Steiner has spoken with Polzer-Hoditz about the Panslavic, imperialist ‘spirit of the Testament of Peter the Great’ (GA 337a, cf. GA 173). Alas, Polzer-Hoditz private secretary Michaelis seems to have falsified some of his private political notes.
The first of the fourteen points in the 18th century ‘Will of Peter the Great’ was: ‘To keep the Russian nation in constant warfare, in order always to have good soldiers. Peace must only be permitted to remit the finances. To recruit the army, choose the moment favourable for attack. Thus peace will advance your projects of war, and war those of peace, for obtaining the enlargement and prosperity of Russia.’
And in point 9: ‘Establish dockyards in the Black Sea. Gradually obtain the command of this sea, as well as of the Baltic. This is necessary for the entire success of our projects. Hasten the fall of Persia. Open for yourselves a route towards the Persian Gulf. Re-establish, as much as possible, by means of Syria, the ancient commerce of the Levant, and thus advance towards India. Once there, you will not require English gold.’
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The short point 3 of the ‘Will’ describes the desired (and actual) situation in ‘all Europe’ (and point 7 England):
‘Take care to mix in the affairs of all Europe, and in particular of Germany, which, being the nearest nation to you, deserves your chief attention.’
http://www.politics.ie/forum/history/247050-russia-will-peter-great.html
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“I’m a Leninist,” Mr. Bannon was quoted as saying by a writer for The Daily Beast who met him at a party in 2014. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”
Prokofieff (_y3nDzXvcB8C), Ch.18 p.270 f., referred to the intellectual stream of Bolshevism-Leninism as a third, Soratic stream below the general level of earthly evolution (quoting GA 197).
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Bolshevism-Leninism is really no different than Capitalism-Wilsonism. They both espouse the same idea of freedom, whether it is “bread for the people”, or the “useful cow giving milk and butter”. What stands to align Lenin and Wilson is that on April 6, 1917, Wilson gained the approval of congress to bring the United States into WWI; four days before, on April 2nd, Lenin returned to Russia from exile in Sweden. From that point, Lenin worked vigorously to undermine the aims of Kerensky to establish a western-style democratic parliament. Kerensky’s was called the “White Revolution”, which had effectively overthrown the monarchy rule of Czar Nicholas II, who finally abdicated in favor of progress.
Lenin’s task was to undermine Kerensky’s plan for an orderly government of, by and for the people, with incendiary rhetoric designed to create divisiveness and chaos, which translates into “Bolshevism”. You see, Woodrow Wilson was advised that Russia was on the verge of creating a democracy that would effectively place it as the balance of power in the East. And so, the goal coming from the West, was to undermine this at all cost. Thus, Lenin’s precipitous return from exile.
Rudolf Steiner predicted all of this in the second private lecture to the Russians in Helsinki, Finland, on June 5, 1913. This is where he warned that a battle between respective supreme powers would develop throughout the next 80 years between Russia and America, and that America would rise to a brief period of brilliance, and then fall like a “house of cards”. Noteworthy, is that Woodrow Wilson had just been elected to his first term as POTUS, and yet, Steiner saw all the earmarks of what was to come.
So, his warning was to his private audience of fledgling Russian anthroposophists in 1913. One hundred years later, who knows how much exists to be salvaged of the present-day Russian Folk Soul, and the bombardment of misinformation/disinformation that exists in the easy industry of propaganda and lies.
Bannon might have been a “leninist” in 2014, but now he is a “capitalist” in 2016, and possibly working for president-elect Donald Trump. Thus, as Trump is finding out day by day, the establishment is the order of the day, and any kind of anti-establishment rhetoric is akin to Lenin’s Bolshevism. So, Bannon will clearly have to clean up his act if he is to be accepted in an orderly place.
Steve
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Steve, but if Bolshevism-Leninism is really no different than Capitalism-Wilsonism, why then has Steiner differentiated Anglo-Americanism (Freemasonry, materialism) from Leninism (Bolshevism, intellectualism, GA 197, GA 200, GA 346)?
“Lenin, Trotsky and others similar to them are the tools of these ahrimanic powers. That is an ahrimanic initiation. It belongs to a different cosmic sphere than our own world does.” (Polarities, RjwnjDEwcq0C p.44)
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Steiner realized that the ahrimanic influence was coming from the west, which is inherently ahrimanic, whilst the east is normally luciferic. Thus, by imposing an ahrimanic initiative at the very point that the United States enters WWI, Lenin’s return to Russia signifies the bolshevik allegiance to the American domination that would win the war on the side of the allies, invoke the provisions of the Treaty of Versaiiles against Germany, and allow Lenin’s rise to power to go unhindered until the 1930’s, when Stalin rose to power. By then, all the seeds of WWII in Europe were in place, and America, after funding the Nazi war machine, turned to Russia in order to provide western technology and military weapons, c. 1936-1945.
Antony C. Sutton, a fellow at the Hoover Institute, has written about how FDR funneled U.S. technology and weapon support to the Russian Communists in order to prepare to fight Germany in Operation Barbarossa years before it actually occurred. That fact should tell you something. Also, the record of Joseph E. Davies, Ambassador to Moscow, informs of the western pact on behalf of Russia; an offer that Stalin could not refuse. Its first phase, from November 1936 to March 1937, led directly to the beginning of the Stalin purge of his general staff.
Davies wrote a memoir of his ambassadorial assignment under FDR’s aegis, and it accounts for all phases of western support, and Stalin’s vicious purge as a result. So, what’s the secret to such a reaction coming from the west?
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“Lenin, Trotsky and others similar to them are the tools of these ahrimanic powers. That is an ahrimanic initiation. It belongs to a different cosmic sphere than our own world does.” (Polarities, RjwnjDEwcq0C p.44)
Here is something I wrote a few years ago now, but I think it is prescient
to what we are talking about today.
“It can be shown that the materialism that first arose in the 19th century was theoretical by nature because nothing had yet been applied. But what was the driving force of materialism was the fact that spirit had once and for all departed the forms of its creation. Thus, the human intellectual capacity had to stand in for what was before, still a spiritually-oriented perception and cognition. The 19th century signaled this vacating of spirit from the forms of physical apprehension. The human intellect had to find a value system of its own for what now existed in three-dimensional space and time.
Idealism waged a battle with Empiricism right up to the midpoint of the 19th century in attempting to maintain a spiritual basis to the world, and we have a particularly strong representative of this effort with Schelling’s Berlin lectures beginning in 1841. Hegel’s death in 1831 had caused factionalism to come rather immediately into his concept of absolute idealism, due largely to its incomprehensibility, and thus it became a political ideology with left and right-wing parties. This became a major thrust of materialistic thinking in the period 1831-1841. Schelling was called to Berlin in order to attempt to re-establish his originating ‘transcendental idealism’ from 1800, but by now it had evolved to nearly spiritual-scientific stature, and therefore, nobody could understand it due to the heavy emphasis being laid on a logical-empirical outlook. Again, this was due to the fact that spiritual beings had withdrawn completely from the forms of creation, leaving it up to the mind of man to make sense and value of what he saw and apprehended in terms of valuation and meaning.
Theoretical materialism then passed into its practical applications beginning in 1879, although we can find a huge sacrifice in this direction by the work of Michael Faraday, who was much more inspired bu the workings of cosmic forces but was rather forced to produce results for the British Royal Society along scientific lines involving electricity, magnetism, and its chemical affinities. He was eventually driven to a nervous breakdown due to having to compromise his etheric vision to an entirely empirical view of what could be exploited as useful and profitable forces for commerce and advancement in harnessing the forces of nature to the goals of technology.
Of course, it was Michael’s battle with the dragon from 1841 to 1879 that actually caused the transformation of theoretical materialism to its various practical variants, due to Ahriman being cast down to earth as a consequence of this defeat. Originally, theoretical materialism was to reach its high-point in 1850, and then recede. Idealism was to gain hold over empiricism, and a realistic world-view was to commence surrounding the preparations for a spiritual communion for mankind.
But Michael’s conquest averted this and practical materialism has become our lot in life. It is very paradoxical indeed to consider that Michael’s victory is also our slavery to Ahriman today. Especially is this so when we consider just how much of materialism and its manifold achievements has more than satisfied humankind in every way imaginable.
Now, we are on to the ultra-materialism stage wherein the etheric realm itself is being tapped for its commerce. Apparently, consumerism knows no bounds, and the astral world will be the next new horizon.
In short, distorting etheric vision through the means of interfering with the etheric world is the goal of all this increasing and demanding materialism. Forestalling Pentecost, that is the goal.
And it has been successful so far; since the 1940’s.”
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Sutton has discussed this spreading of western, Ahrimanic technology. But another Ahrimanic influence is coming over from the shamanic East, while Bolshevism was exported from Europe into Russia, according to Steiner (1923):
“Luciferic elements in the form of Bolshevism are striving to unite with the decadent [Ahrimanic] forces proceeding from Shamanic arts and coming over from the East. etc.” GA0225/19230715.
“The Western lodges thus have the dead who have been directly confined within matter; the Eastern lodges of the left have demonic spirits, spirits that do not belong to earthly evolution but who creep into earthly evolution by occupying the etheric bodies vacated by human beings.” (GA 178/19171118, cf. GA 200)
So, the never incarnating Sorat (Beast of the Earth) tries to influence earthly evolution through all the three categories of opposing spirits: Luciferic, Ahrimanic and Asuric (Prokofieff 1999). Cf. GA 194 (1919) and Prokofieff (2008) and (2012) Ch.6.
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“So, the never incarnating Sorat (Beast of the Earth) tries to influence earthly evolution through all the three categories of opposing spirits: Luciferic, Ahrimanic and Asuric (Prokofieff 1999). Cf. GA 194 (1919) and Prokofieff (2008) and (2012) Ch.6.”
It is certainly agreed that Soradt has the power to sway Lucifer, Ahirman, and Asuras to his bidding. Even the name, “Soradt”, is a compound derivation of ‘asuras’. Thus, in the same way that the Christ is the compound of the six Elohim of the Sun, and makes for the Pleroma, it can also be shown that an opponent also was designated when this event occurred.
We know that Christ first incarnated in a physical body, Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, there is no reason to think that Soradt was, “never incarnating”. Rather, as your references suggest. and especially Prokofieff’s clear indications of a “black initiate” leading the Academy of Gondhishapur, it seems clear that an actual physical incarnation did take place in order to inaugurate the opposition
of Christ, and bring evil into the world as an objective fact.
Please remember this:
“Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.” —-Revelations 13
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Steve: “it seems clear that an actual physical incarnation did take place”.
Prokofieff (2012) quotes Steiner (1918): ‘albeit not on the physical plane’. The ‘number of a man’ is also explained there.
“It was nevertheless planned by certain higher spirits, particularly by a being of Ahrimanic nature who was to lead these spirits, that this being should appear, even if not on the physical plane — but he was to appear.” GA0184/19181011
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Ton, it is a great thing to be talking to someone like you. You bring the fire and enthusiasm into every reference-point you make, and hopefully it does not exhaust this audience of listeners. You refer here to where Steiner gives his most concentrated depiction of how Soradt arose first in 666 AD at the Academy of Gondhishapur, and this particular notation:
“It was nevertheless planned by certain higher spirits, particularly by a being of Ahrimanic nature who was to lead these spirits, that this being should appear, even if not on the physical plane — but he was to appear.” GA0184/19181011
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA184/English/RSP1965/ThrStr_index.html
Yet, what if it can be shown that Soradt, who first arose at the Academy, is a man who is numbered in terms of “666”. This fact can be found, and it is quite expressly given in a book of the OT in which Balkis, the Queen of the South, woos King Solomon, whose own father, David, allowed a house of cedar to be built for him by King Hiram of Tyre.
I’m sure I’ve already said too much.
Steve
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And you’re a great story teller, Steve.
“In the year 666 there could have come — visibly for ordinary people, particularly for men of the West — an important being who would not have entered the physical plane, but would have made himself very clearly perceptible to mankind even in an external way, so that they would have become his victims.” (GA184)
With this objective: “An unjustified mingling of the Intellectual or Mind Soul with the Consciousness Soul was the object in view.” i.e. of the transformed etheric body with the transformed physical body, actually changing human perception.
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Steve, a great overview of the events in the 19th century leading to where we are today – thank you.
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Thank you. I am overwhelmed that someone actually took the time to read what was at one time a deeply felt thought-line. I still think it is an accurate depiction of what occurred at the outset of the 19th century, when abstract thinking began in earnest. All previously held knowledge was re-evaluated on the lines of what could externally be determined to be true. This is owing to the fact that the frontal lobe of the brain had reached the point of prominent maturity, as the Gabriel faculty Thus, we can establish a pre-frontal lobe era of instinctive/imaginative thought that existed right up to the end of the 18th century, and characterized very nicely with the Goethe-Schiller discourse, which eventually saw Schiller being won over to the Goethe side.
Steiner often mentioned key figures pushing the abstract line of thinking, like Holbach, who wrote a three-volume work on the ‘system of nature’, Buechner, and Vogt, and then said something very interesting as to why. Every 75 years, Halley’s Comet comes close to the earth, and inures materialism into the earth realm. In 1759, when Goethe was ten years old, a pass of Halley’s Comet occurred, and this began to inspire those abstract thinkers mentioned, like Holbach, who wrote a work on Nature that was utterly repellent to Goethe’s retained etheric perception, which is owing to his former life in Greece at the time of Plato and Aristotle.
Halley’s Comet, since 1759, has also come close to Earth in 1835, 1910, and 1985. Thus, the materialistic conditions that exist today also has a cometary influence.
Steve
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In 1924 (GA 346) Steiner commented on the disintegrated Biela’s Comet, that was expected to intersect the Earth’s orbit in 1933, in connection with the release of the Beast from the Earth (Revelation 20).
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The Buddha spoke about the inner being of man as an organ of thought-substance formed from Samskara and this forms his present individuality. Samskara is brought over from previous stages of existence in his Linga Sharira, in his etheric body and this is membered into the eye. “In primeval times when men still beheld the world lying behind physical existence they all, in a certain sense, saw the same objective world. But when the darkness of ignorance spread over the world each man brought with him individual capacities which distinguished him from his fellows.” (The Gospel of Luke)
`The etheric body is the bearer of thoughts. What is thought within man, is etheric outside, just as what is desire within him, is astral outside. But it is only when pure thinking begins that etheric substance is radiated into the astral impulses. As long as thinking is not yet pure thinking we have astral substance surrounding the etheric form. So thought-forms, as they are called, are made out of a kernel of etheric substance surrounded by astral substance.’ (Foundations of Esotericism, lecture 12)
Matthew 6:22-23
The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
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Yes, and Biela’s Comet was averted from directly striking the earth in 1933 by the force that caused it to begin to disintegrate and fall to the earth in fragments. Steiner remembers all the turmoil about it in 1872, when he was eleven years old.
“In 1872, when I was a boy living with my parents at a small railroad station, we were always reading in the papers: “The world is going to be destroyed!” — for the comet was due to appear again. Certain comets always do return, and this one, on its return, would now be nearer to the earth and therefore more dangerous. This remarkable comet had already come in 1845/46 and again in 1852 — but it had then split in two! Each half had become more rarefied in consequence of the split. And what was there to be seen in 1872? Something like a gleaming rain of shooting stars, a great number of shooting stars! The comet had indeed come nearer but it had split and was throwing off rarefied matter that came down like shining rain. Everyone could see it, for when such a tremendous array of shooting stars occurs in the night, they can be seen coming down from the sky. And some people who saw this happening believed that the Day of judgment had come. Again there was great alarm. However, the shooting stars dissolved in the atmosphere.
Now think of this: If the comet had remained whole, our earth would have suffered badly in the year 1872. As I said, papers reached our station announcing the imminent destruction of the earth. The astronomers had calculated the time. According to scientific reckoning this was quite correct. And it really would not do to put on record how many people at that time paid large fees to their priests — to be safely absolved from their sins. In 1773 too, in Paris, the father-confessors had made a great deal of money because the people wanted to be absolved from their sins immediately!
There was an astronomer called Littrow (see Note 37 ) who made a noteworthy calculation about what would have happened if things had remained as they were in the year 1832, that is, if the comet had not split up as it subsequently did. In the 19th century it was still thirteen million miles away from the earth, but every time it came it came closer. Littrow reckoned quite correctly that in September 1872 there would be the danger of the comet colliding with the earth. If the comet had then reached the point which as a matter of fact it did not actually reach in that year until November 27th, it would not just have been a matter of meteor showers but it would have been a serious matter. Such things do indeed happen. Littrow calculated that in 1933 (we are now in 1924), if the comet had remained as it still was in the 18th century, a collision would be inevitable and the earth would be demolished. The calculation was correct to the breadth of a hair. But the comet had not remained as it was! And so already at that time people could say: The comet has been merciful, for if it were still fiery, in 1933 it would be striking the earth in such a way that all the seas would surge from the equator to the North Pole and the whole earth would perish. Yes, the comet split up and it threw off the substance that had become too heavy for it, in the form of meteor stones that are not harmful.”
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA354/English/RSP1987/19240920p01.html
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Ton, you wrote:
And you’re a great story teller, Steve. 😉
“In the year 666 there could have come — visibly for ordinary people, particularly for men of the West — an important being who would not have entered the physical plane, but would have made himself very clearly perceptible to mankind even in an external way, so that they would have become his victims.” (GA184)
With this objective: “An unjustified mingling of the Intellectual or Mind Soul with the Consciousness Soul was the object in view.” i.e. of the transformed etheric body with the transformed physical body, actually changing human perception.
Now, if we look at what you quote above from two very externally related facts, we can gain further insight into how Soradt, a supersensible being, influenced a human being on earth in 666 AD. Please remember, “666” is the number of a Man.
“But the aim of the being who hoped to intervene in 666 was to make himself God. He said: “Men will come who no longer direct their gaze to the Spirit — the Spirit will not interest them. I shall see to it (and this he actually brought about) that in the year 869 a Council will be held in Constantinople at which the Spirit will be abolished. Men will no longer be interested in the Spirit; they will turn their attention to nature and form ghostlike concepts of nature. Then I shall do something that men will not notice, because they will not recognise themselves as real men, only as ghosts. I shall get complete control of the Consciousness Soul. I shall lead men astray about their own nature; I shall let them go on grasping only the ghost of themselves and I shall pour all the wisdom of the Consciousness Soul into their Intellectual or Mind Soul. Then I have them — then I shall have caught them.” GA184, 19181011.
Now, here is the clincher to the connection: GA185, 19181018. This lecture is entitled: The Birth of the Consciousness Soul. As such, it speaks of a very unusual and important figure at the outset of the 17th century.
“Now there is a personality who is especially characteristic of the emergence of the impulse of the Consciousness Soul in Western Europe, both on account of his personal development and on account of the place he occupies in contemporary history. At the beginning of the seventeenth century he was involved in this differentiation between the French impulse and the English impulse, a differentiation that had exercised a widespread influence upon the rest of Europe. In the seventeenth century this differentiation had been effective for some time and had become more pronounced. The personality who appeared on the stage of history at this time was a strange individual…”
[…]
“Such was the historical personality of James I, who reigned from 1603 to 1625. Whichever point of view we take, in both cases the cap fits perfectly. In neither case do we know what he really felt or thought as a typical representative of contemporary evolution. And yet, precisely in the epoch when James I was King of England a hidden current rises to the surface and the symptoms manifested at that time are characteristic of the underlying reality.”
So, you see, the underlying reality is what makes for good storytelling because it goes into past incarnations, which Steiner made the focus of in his “Karmic Relationships” lectures. Thus, James’ significance has to be adduced from the given fact that Francis Bacon is the reincarnation of Haroun-ar-Raschid, who brought the academic influences of the Academy of Gondhishapur into his court in the 9th century, when he was the Caliph of Baghdad.
Steve
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Sorat (as an intellect, ‘below the general level of earthly evolution’ GA 197) is “…a source that is beyond the earth, but which is represented in the earthly realm.” (GA 196). Ramsbotham identifies this person in the earthly realm as James I (an initiate, GA 236/19240412).
Cf. Ramsbotham (2004) Who Wrote Bacon?: William Shakespeare, Francis Bacon and James I : a Mystery for the Twenty-first Century, books.google gcfOQOwnxZQC
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“Ramsbotham identifies this person in the earthly realm as James I (an initiate, GA 236/19240412).”
“If we observe Bacon as he stood in earthly civilisation — in his earthly life as Lord Chancellor in England — if we observe him there, we find that his working was such that an Initiate stood behind him. The whole Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, as it is outwardly pursued by the historians of literature, is appallingly barren. All manner of arguments are brought forward which are supposed to show that Shakespeare the actor did not really write his dramas, but that they were written by Bacon the philosopher and Lord Chancellor, and so on …
All these things — working with external methods, seeking out similarities in the way of thought in Shakespeare’s dramas and Bacon’s philosophic works — all these are barren superficialities. They do not get at the real truth. For the truth is that at the time when Bacon, Shakespeare, Jacob Boehme, and a fourth were working on the earth, there was one Initiate who really spoke through all four. Hence their kinship, for in reality it all goes back to one and the same source. Of course, these people who dispute and argue do not argue about the Initiate who stood behind, especially as this Initiate — like many a modern Initiate — is described to us in history as a rather intolerable fellow. But he was not merely so. No doubt he was so sometimes in his external actions, but he was not merely so. He was an individuality from whom immense forces proceeded, and to whom were really due Bacon’s philosophic works as well as Shakespeare’s dramas and the works of Jacob Boehme, and also the works of the Jesuit, Jacob Balde.”
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The London-based big data firm Cambridge Analytics (Aleksandr Kogan, Dr.Spectre) has backed Farage as well as Trump in their postmodern strategic campaigns.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/donald-trump-cambridge-analytica-steve-bannon
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/11/senator-ted-cruz-president-campaign-facebook-user-data
Cf. Steiner (1916) has spoken of mass suggestion in connection with the so called Testament of Peter the Great (Karma of Untruthfulness, GA 173):
”There exist ways and means in the world of carrying out what I might call ‘mass hypnosis’. To bring about a suggestion on a grand scale you have to place something in the world, that creates an impression. Etc.”
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So, new chauvinistic groups, accessible to specialised statistics, are forming in Europe:
“… For then man would grow together with the earth, that is to say with the particular territory on earth where he is born; and his cultural life would become completely specialised, completely differentiated. We can already see this tendency developing. It has taken root most markedly since the beginning of the nineteenth century; but the tendency to split up into smaller and smaller groups has been all too apparent as a result of the catastrophic world war. Chauvinism is more and more gaining the upper hand until it will finally lead men to split up to such an extent that at last a group will embrace only one single human being! Things could come to the point where individual men would again split into right and left, and be at war within themselves; left would be at loggerheads with right. Such tendencies are even now evident in the evolution of mankind. To combat this, a counterweight must be created;…” GA191/19191115 (Cf. new group souls, GA346/19240922)
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Dear Jeremy,
As you can see in this latest discourse, the discussion has gone far beyond what could be imagined in mere politics, and thanks to Ton Majoor.
“This new era of politics, with Trump at its head, will probably be ugly. What it might mean for the future of NATO and the Baltic states, for European defence budgets, for the European Union, for the Paris climate change agreement, for Mexicans or Muslims, for relations with China, Russia, Iran, North Korea etc, for gun control and healthcare in the USA – who at this stage can say? What it might mean from an anthroposophical point of view, however, I will try to piece together in my next post.”
Ugly is right. I wrote recently on another blog about how ugly it is going to get. England wants to exit from the EU, while Scotland wants to exit from Britain. So, what does that mean in the European theatre today? Nation against nation, much like the setting in the colonial “new world”, which England brokered in with the early 17th century.
I wrote about how Donald Trump, the celebrity reality show hero, was able to garner enough votes to become POTUS, and now already pushes the world around to the dictates of America, even before his election.
So, what is there left to say, even from an anthroposophical standpoint? The dual-party system works today in all nations precisely because it is dual, and not trinitarian. To be Trinitarian would require identifying and including the chronically missing middle term, which is the balance between left and right; the middle term, which equally gravitates from left to right from the middle point, and judges accordingly.
This is where the Christ exists to resolve all objections. Trump will soon force the objective, one way or the other. He comes from a Christian nation, and we are watching in order to see if he makes it true.
Steve
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POTUS has the connotation ‘omnipotent’, like the anonymous power in conspiracy theories. Not coincidentally, PUTIN in his dualistic-Manichaean view never fails to praise America as a great country.
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Yes, POTUS easily conjures up the vision and idea of “the potentate of America”, while PUTIN comes across more like ‘sputum’ in its false praise of the aforesaid. But, you see, the USA has a legacy of rulership long before Vlad P. came on the scene, c. 1999.
Whether you or anyone notices by now, we are attempting to trace the point where Soradt makes the passage across the pond of the Atlantic, to the so-called “New World” of Bacon’s ‘nova altantis’. As such, it is not without significance that Francis Bacon did not write one bit of science until James VI became James I, King of England, in 1603.
Steiner gave a lecture in which he first traced this east-to-west migration from Africa into Spain of Arabism here:
GA124/19110313, “The Moon Religion of Jahve and its Reflection in Arabism”.
So today, here is the challenge for all you Europeans suffering under the morass of your own consequences. In the mere span of 409 years since 1607 saw the first settlement of colonial America at Jamestown, Virginia, the Baconian experiment of “Novum Organum” now rules the world from the west.
Thus, Soradt has found his true comfort-zone and point of ultimate realization right here where I live. He dominates the world from this locale, and who would deny it today? Donald Trump is the biggest, brashest, and most arrogant representative of POTUS since Theodore Roosevelt, and ‘T-Rex’ is known for preparing the Spanish-American War behind the back of William McKinley, POTUS in 1898. This is where the official history of American intervention in foreign affairs started, c. 1898-1998. Soradt’s third incarnation began in 1998, with the Kosovo tragedy, and the bombings of the two African embassies, as precursors to the present “War on Terror”.
Europe needs to wake up to its challenge to face the American threat, and boycott it. Simply refuse to have anything to do with Trump, and make it on your own merits. I’m sure it is possible if people really want to save and protect their freedom.
If Europe was in my backyard, as in former times, I would be fighting to the death to defeat them. You see, this is what really stands for America, and it has nothing to do with the system of POTUS. It has to do with real freedom for the peoples of the world.
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Well, besides America, Christianity and Arabism also reached Eastern Europe and Russia from the south (e.g. From Beetroot to Buddhism GA 353, p.72 f., google ce0GELWHI5sC). Eventually, in the 20th century Europe tended to be divided between capitalist America and bolshevist Russia, and in the 21st century by a soratic desinformation war.
In general, division of countries is due to abnormal Archai (see Folk Souls lecture 3, GA 121).
B.t.w., to Steiner Moon religion can in fact be considered as Earth religion:
“Never willingly did the true initiate of Hebrew antiquity look to the stars when he wished for a revelation of the spirit. He had vowed himself to the Jahve-god who belongs to the evolution of the Earth and (as I have shown in Occult Science) had become a moon god only in order to help the Earth forward. In the moon festivals of the Jews it was made clear that the ‘Lord of the Earth’ shines down symbolically in his reflection from the moon.” GA0149/19140102 (cf. Occult Science, earth-moon beings)
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Ton wrote:
“In general, division of countries is due to abnormal Archai (see Folk Souls lecture 3, GA 121).”
Past Incarnations of the Peoples of the Earth, 6 January 1921, GA203,
“This brings us to the question — and the answer I shall give is the outcome of real and very strenuous spiritual research — this brings us to the question: Where were the souls of the greater part of the population of Western Europe, of Middle Europe and far over towards Russia in their earlier life on earth? If we investigate this problem conscientiously with the methods of Spiritual Science, the fact emerges that we are here concerned with souls whose life in the spiritual world since their last death and their present birth has been of comparatively short duration. Our investigation leads us over to the West, to lands in which, after the discovery of America, large numbers of Europeans founded colonies and exterminated or at all events kept the original population in a state of subjection. We are led back to the centuries of the conquests of America and to souls incarnated at the time of these conquests in bodies of the American Indian race.
Now you will not be able to understand what I have to tell you unless you have a true picture in your minds of the nature of these Indian peoples who were gradually exterminated by the colonists from Europe. They were not, of course, cultured people in the sense in which we think of culture today. But there was a certain quality in these souls which expressed itself in a universal, pantheistic form of religion. Their hearts were turned in aspiration to a great Spiritual Being and their religion was thoroughly monotheistic. I am speaking here of the leading stock, not of the more degenerate branches. These people had a living and vivid experience of one great Spirit Universal behind the world of nature and the deeds of men. We must try to understand this mood of soul and altogether get rid of the preconceived notion that these Indian peoples were the half animal savages which they are generally supposed to have been.
Broadly speaking, the souls once living in those exterminated Indian peoples are incarnated today in the men of Western Europe, Middle Europe and on towards Russia. We shall never get to the truth if we cannot accept what seems so strange and improbable a statement. These were souls who had had no contact with Christianity in former incarnations and because of this it follows that the souls of a large proportion of Europeans today had not received the impulse of Christianity before their present birth. Christianity is something that has been acquired from outside, assimilated as it were with the sounds of language and speech. Before we can understand the way in which Christianity lives in the souls of Europeans today we must realize that, broadly speaking, it was not a Christian impulse at all which lived in these souls in an earlier incarnation, but a pantheistic impulse, connected with the worship of one great Universal Spirit. Here and there among these European peoples there are, of course, other souls, whose earlier incarnations during the first centuries of Christendom were in the more Southerly regions of Europe and in Northern Africa. And of these two categories of souls, the present population of Western and Central Europe and the lands well on towards Russia mainly consists. The way to study these things is to observe how the souls of men express themselves in our present age, what their aspirations are and in what way they think. We shall never understand these European peoples until we realize that although the blood kinship runs back through the consecutive generations, say to the age of Charles the Great and even earlier, the souls now living in these European bodies were once incarnated in far-off America, in the bodies of a race which was conquered by colonists from Europe.”
Thus, Modern Europe is a quick reincarnation-karma trip from the very land that it decimated some four hundred years ago. If the concept of “instant karma” has any meaning on a cultural level, here it is. Nation against nation, language against language, drawing territorial lines. Yep, that’s today’s Europe within a so-called “European Union”.
I’m sure the new POTUS will help sort it out for you folks 😉
Steve
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Here is a map of the North American continent prior to the beginning of Western European colonization, c. 1607. It shows some 600 aboriginal tribes, having split off from the main sub-race that first went west from Atlantis, some thirteen thousand years before. What this indicates is that over time, when a race remains isolated, and without influence from other cultures, as occurred with the migration of the other six sub-races to the east of Atlantis disintegration eventually begins. This means division, sub-division, and overall fragmentation of the sub-race. History has shown that by the time the first European settlers came to America, the native Americans were well established in fighting amongst themselves in fierce tribal wars; having set their isolative boundaries in an attempt to be left to themselves. A study of the” Indian Wars” is good for understanding how this type of degeneration meant eventual annihilation and ultimate extinction of the native Americans if the Europeans hadn’t showed up.
Just helping to make the context for the present situation in the euro-zone theatre.
Steve
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There is another side to this division and splitting up of Europe, namely individuality:
“In the division of the collective German people into the smaller peoples, you have an interplay of the abnormal Spirits of Personality with the Archangel. Such peoples are not so much centralized, they pay more attention to the cultivation of the individualities. This has in certain respects its good side, because in this way a great variety, many different shades of folk character can find their expression.” GA0121/19100609
I would also like to emphasize Steiner’s ‘evolutionary monogenism’: over time, all of humanity was physically split into different populations eastwards and westwards.
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Ton wrote:
“I would also like to emphasize Steiner’s ‘evolutionary monogenism’: over time, all of humanity was physically split into different populations eastwards and westwards.”
Yes, and this is evidentiary proof that what began as race development in the Fourth epoch [Atlantis] , with its various strengths and weaknesses, became soul development with the largely eastern migrations of the races across Europe. As a result, and over large swaths of time, cultural amalgamation of the various races has occurred. As such, we are populations that now embody the human ideal, i.e., Universal Human.
The Native Americans, as the one sub-race [Toltecs] that went west, felt united with the ‘Great Spirit’ for many millennia, but then began to divide up, and set their boundaries as further evidence of isolation, and lack of cultural affiliation with the other races. Thus, extinction would have been the fate of these last descendants of the third sub-race of Atlantis. Then, colonization of the Western Europeans began in America, and saved the race of original Americans.
GA121 is a complex lecture series, and Steiner has been maligned for his assertions concerning race development, and maybe especially with the Saturn-inspired original Americans. But the European migrations had to occur as a destiny arrangement involving the Consciousness Soul, in order to beget the so-called “New Atlantis” project of Francis Bacon, which was inspired by his king.
As a result, the natives of America were saved from their own eventual extinction in order to remain and incarnate again, as seen with present-day Europe. It is quite a paradox if one considers the full ramifications of such an outcome.
So, here is a palpable question: Why is there so much resistance to a United States of Europe today? Europe did it before with what has become the United States of America. Is it because a certain karmic resistance exists in Europe from before? Yes; and now here is another paradox. The United States rules the world in a matter of just four hundred years, and it couldn’t have even remotely taken place without you Europeans!!
But, you see, you folks are not the original Europeans in the time of Bacon, Shakespeare, Bohme, and Balde. They had James I leading the true birth of the Consciousness Soul Age in the early 17th century, with a master plan.
All you have to do is recognize it, and follow it.
Steve
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Not only are we ‘populations that now embody the human ideal, i.e., Universal Human’ by cultural amalgamation, but genetically we already were one universal humanity, i.e. evolutionary monogenism, before the splitting up and migration out of Africa/Lemuria started (see GA 121).
Cultural amalgamation in Europe has already occurred by the original European population of the Old Celts, which seems similar to Steiner’s fifth Atlantean population:
“… that wonderful Celtic culture which really underlies all other European culture …” (GA 113 /19090827), ”… were still spread over a great part of Western Europe, as far as the present Hungary, across South Germany and the Alps … were also spread far up towards the north-east of Europe” (GA 121/19100612), “… a relatively peaceful population” (GA 353, p.72 f.).
We, Europeans, have got Merkel, May and Sturgeon …
See also, Steiner (GA 54) on the fifth Atlantean population “which was very dissimilar to today’s Jewish population, but which is legitimately called Semitic because of certain events.” (cf. idem GA0093a/19051105). The sixth Atlantean population (Scott-Elliot, and Steiner GA 11) however, was actually Semitic (Akkadians).
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Victory of the Sun-God over death.
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British scholar Fiona Hill on the U.S. and U.K. Elections:
The U.S. election came hot on the heels of the 99th anniversary of the Russian revolution (November 7, 1917)—the result was the contemporary American version of a Bolshevik revolution. Donald Trump rode a wave of popular anger against the establishment, promising to bring down the old guard and seize the White House. Like the Bolsheviks, his campaign was big on slogans and short on content.
The November 8 ballot, as Trump also understood, was more like the June 23 Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. In that case, the British people sought to “take their country back” from an out-of-touch establishment (ostensibly in Brussels) against a backdrop of bitter political divisions, a prolonged economic crisis, and alarm at the rapid pace of demographic and social change in the country.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/11/11/putin-and-the-kremlin-are-experts-at-reading-the-popular-mood-and-they-were-watching-america/
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Ton,
I suspect that this has been the most magnificent thread in the history of Anthropopper, although there have been many others to compete with it. What makes it special is its relevance for now. 2017 vs. 1917 is as palpable as was 2014 and 1914, which was dealt with on the Waldorf Critics list.
Someone today alerted that Germany advanced a peace proposal to the allied nations on 12 December 1916, and that Steiner remarked of its importance in a lecture from 21 December 1916, GA173. He felt that its dismissal would have grievous consequences for Germany. It did.
As previously discussed, the consequences of the failed peace proposal of late 1916 moved rather quickly in early 1917 to three significant events:
1) Germany removed its ban against attacking foreign vessels in the neutral zone.
2) The Russian government, seeking democratic rule, overthrew the monarchy of Czar Nicholas II.
3) President Wilson sought congressional approval to enter the war on behalf of the allied powers already fighting the war.
4) Lenin returns to Russia just four days before Wilson gained the approval from Congress to enter WWI.
Now, in 2017, what are we dealing with? Is it really that close and relevant?
Answer: no.
Why is the next great question!!
Steve
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Well, only the 4th point, abstract-intellectual Leninism-Bolshevism, was a completely new development then. The 100 years period is deduced from the 33 years cycle:
‘For the year 1914 we must therefore look back to 1881. All the actions of earlier generations, all the impulses with their combined activity, poured into the stream of historic evolution, have a life cycle of thirty-three years.’ (GA0180/19171223).
(Though a year earlier, on December 16, 1916 Steiner had remarked: ‘The events [of 1888 and 1914] are absolutely identical.’, see Karma of Untruthfulness, GA 173, p.109 f., BSq5byop0rwC).
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(Though a year earlier, on December 16, 1916 Steiner had remarked: ‘The events [of 1888 and 1914] are absolutely identical.’, see Karma of Untruthfulness, GA 173, p.109 f., BSq5byop0rwC).
Here is what he said five days later.
“Does it not cut to the very heart that we ourselves should be living at a time when men’s longing for peace is shouted down? (Note 3) It seems almost a mockery to celebrate Christmas in days when voices are raised in outcry against the desire for peace. To-day, when the worst has not actually befallen, we can but fervently hope that a change will take place in the souls of men, and a Christian feeling, a will for peace supersede these demonstrations against the desire for it. Otherwise it may not be those who are struggling in Europe to-day, but those coming over from Asia, who will one day wreak vengeance on this rejection of the desire for peace; it may be they who will have to preach Christianity and the Mystery of Golgotha to humanity on the ruins of European spiritual life. And then the indelible record will remain: that at Christmas time, nineteen hundred and sixteen years after the tidings of peace on earth to men of good-will, humanity came to shout down the desire for peace.
May it not succeed! May the good Spirits who are at work in the Christmas impulses protect luckless European humanity from such a fate!”
GA173, Christmas at a Time of Grievous Destiny, 21 December 1916
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Well, let me tell you something; the time of grievous destiny in 1916 led
to the events in early 1917. As previously described, the Russian monarchy
was overthrown in favor of a western-style democracy. This fact was the biggest threat to the west, i.e., Wilson, who wanted no kind of soviet government from the east to conflict with the western expansion of the frontier according to Horace Greeley, or even James Monroe’s famous doctrine, written by John Quincy Adams, his Secretary of State in 1825. JQA would have his own significant problems to deal with in his singular four year presidency just before Andrew Jackson advocated the beginning of the rape of the west.
So, Woodrow Wilson, early in his second term as POTUS, said that the USA needed to intervene in the war that he had previously kept America out of. How remarkable how easily it came down and ended after that. The same goes for WWII, when American intervention in the war in Europe only began in June 1944, the so-called “Normandy Invasion”.
The so-called “spoils of war”, that is what the United States wants. Just look at today with its total control. Vietnam was the litmus test in 1963, just after JFK was assassinated. His death ended his resolve, and started the present regime.
Steve
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Steve, and isn’t it commerce what an imperialist Russia wants?
Will of Peter the Great, point 7 (with England taking the place of America today):
“Seek the alliance with England, on account of our commerce, as being the country most useful for the development of our navy (merchants, &c.) and for the exchange of our produce against her gold; keep up continued communications with her merchants and sailors, so that ours may acquire experience in commerce and navigation.”
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Of course it is all about commerce. But Peter I had the notion that England would one day rule the world, and his foresight saw the importance of an alliance with England.
Yet, in looking at what Steiner had to say about Peter III, the focus shifts to Prussia, which was seen as even more important:
“The friendship which has existed between the Russian Imperial Court and the Prussian Royal Court ever since the time of Czar Peter I has lately suffered a setback merely through accidental changes in the constitution of Europe. The war which is a result of these changes can neither last forever nor destroy the advantage of a friendship which for many years proved to be a useful confederation and could be so again. His Imperial Majesty therefore proposes to the King of Prussia that they conclude not only a lasting peace, but a treaty of
alliance in their mutual interest and to their mutual advantage.
Please note the stroke of genius in what follows:
The reason for these deliberations on the part of his Russian Imperial Majesty is obvious and needs no lengthy explanation, as it is easy enough to demonstrate that no good can come of a general peace such as was concluded in Westphalia. Peace cannot be expected to last when there is an unending shifting of arms and such variety of intentions. Such a peace necessitates all conquered territories to be protected, as is the case in Westphalia. But now the matter hinges on pretentions which have only arisen out of the war. These can hardly be reconciled due to the eagerness early in the war to mobilize as many powers as possible with little consideration for possible consequences of hastily concluded treaties and amalgamations.”
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA176/English/AP1987/19170619p01.html
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