Lincoln Steffens is hardly a household name these days, though perhaps he should be. Born in 1866, which makes him a near-contemporary of Rudolf Steiner, he was a highly influential American journalist during the early years of the 20th century. He knew and interviewed most of the famous people of his time, and was a campaigning and muckraking journalist, whose investigations of corruption in Wall Street helped lead to the creation of the Federal Reserve System.
But Steffens had his blind spots, and the most egregious of these was his embrace of Lenin and the Soviet Union. It was Steffens who reported his first impressions of the Soviet Union with the notorious phrase, “I have seen the future, and it works.”
Lincoln Steffens (photo via New York Times)
The anthropopper has now come across the Lincoln Steffens de nos jours, and he is an historian called Yuval Noah Harari. He has written a book called Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow and it is my contention that Harari is doing for the coming incarnation of Ahriman what Steffens did for Lenin – in other words, in the term invented to describe people who blindly supported the likes of Lenin and Stalin while they committed atrocity after atrocity, he is a useful idiot.
Not that the world at large seems to regard Harari in this light – his book, first published in 2014, has become an international bestseller, endorsed by Barack Obama and considered by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg as essential reading. All the most glittering prizes of contemporary fame have been showered on him – TED talks, public lectures, a dedicated YouTube channel, an online course as well as speeches to the futurologists at Google and the Singularity University in Silicon Valley.
Yuval Noah Harari (photo via Wikipedia)
In Harari’s book, you can see how in our current time the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic influences are working together to deceive human beings about their true nature and their true future. Humans, says Harari, have done great things already and unimaginably greater things are going to be done. Our lifespan, for example, the Biblical three score years and ten, will double to one hundred and fifty as we humans become masters of our own fate and shapers of the natural circumstances of our own existence. The gods once made sport of us, but the future will “upgrade humans into gods, and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus.”
According to Harari, scientific and technological innovations issuing from the minds of a visionary technical elite will be writing the story of our future: “History is often shaped by small groups of forward-looking innovators rather than by the backward-looking masses.” (You can see how this might appeal to people like Gates and Zuckerberg.) If humankind of the future is still assailed by new strains of disease or with viruses resistant to all antibiotics, it won’t be because of inadequate science and research, but because of a failure of political will or inadequate resources.
So medicine, if the political classes allow it to get on with its job, is part of the good news. Climate change, environmental collapse and mass extinctions are, of course, part of the bad news; but “we could lessen the danger by slowing the pace of progress and growth”, and as for nuclear weapons, they have compelled the superpowers “to find alternative and peaceful ways to resolve conflicts.” Harari’s vision for the future, however, is not species annihilation but species transformation through science and technology. We will become new kinds of human beings as our bodies, minds and relationships with the environment and with mechanical devices become altered in fundamental ways.
Harari’s prediction is that we human beings will become more god-like as we become more machine-like and as the capacity of machines becomes more god-like. We are nothing special in the animal kingdom, we have no immortal soul, there is no essential human self and our thoughts and emotions are the product of electrochemical impulses which can in the future be modelled by algorithms. Our future lies in the hands of technical experts – in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, cognitive and computer science. New tools will become parts of our bodies. We will have bionic hands, feet and eyes, while nanorobots will move through our bloodstream looking out for disease and repairing the damage of age and injury. We shall have wearable and implanted devices to expand our senses and alter our moods, while biological tools will enter our cells, remodel our genes and give us new and better flesh, blood and neurons.
Harari says it is a fact that the “last days of Homo sapiens are fast approaching, and that our species will be replaced “by completely different beings who possess not only different physiques, but also very different cognitive and emotional worlds.” Ordinary human beings will become surplus to requirements, as wars will be waged by drones and work will be done by robots: “Some economists predict that sooner or later, unenhanced humans will be completely useless.” Algorithms embedded in silicon and metal will replace algorithms embedded in flesh, which as Harari points out, is what biology and computer science tells us is all we really are anyway. Things have apparently gone so far that some in Silicon Valley already refer to human beings as “meat puppets.”
Things are going still further: Harari says that human beings will cease to be free agents, that their autonomy will be taken over by algorithms – written at first by human beings but ultimately by algorithm-writing machines. As this happens, liberal society will disintegrate as we will no longer be able to sustain belief in the uniqueness of the free human being as the basis of liberal social order. “We – or our heirs – will probably require a brand new package of religious beliefs and political institutions.”
This new religion will be called Dataism. It will be accompanied by the dissolution of the boundaries between animals, machines and social systems, all of which will be seen as algorithmic information processing systems. The concepts of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ will be replaced by the primacy of the free flow of information. The “cosmic data-processing system” will be what God once was: “It will be everywhere and will control everything, and humans are destined to merge into it.”
One can see how all of this appeals very much to the would-be masters of the universe, such as Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Tim Cook (Apple) and all those who believe that human beings are just commodities to be manipulated by those who control the algorithms. It reinforces their sense that they have got it right and that they are the leaders of evolution.
I think enough has now been said to indicate that Harari is completely under the influence of Ahriman and Lucifer. What is disturbing is that his vision is so obviously already well under way, as we move inexorably towards the time of the incarnation of Ahriman. I’ve written before about Rudolf Steiner’s warnings concerning the forthcoming unique incarnation of Ahriman, of which Harari’s book is an obvious precursor:
“Just as there was an incarnation of Lucifer in the flesh and an incarnation of Christ in the flesh, 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.”
Steiner’s advice was that, although we cannot avoid this incarnation, the best thing we can do is to wake up from our complacent materialistic sleep and observe what is happening all around us:
“Whenever preparation is being made for incarnations of this character, we must be alert to certain indicative trends in evolution. A being like Ahriman, who will incarnate in the West in time to come, prepares for this incarnation in advance. With a view to his incarnation on the earth, Ahriman guides certain forces in evolution in such a way that they may be of the greatest possible advantage to him. And evil would result were people to live on in a state of drowsy unawareness, unable to recognise certain phenomena in life as preparations for Ahriman’s incarnation in the flesh. The right stand can be taken only by recognising in one or another series of events the preparation that is being made by Ahriman for his earthly existence. And the time has now come for individual human beings to know what tendencies and events around them are machinations of Ahriman, helping him to prepare for his approaching incarnation.
It would undoubtedly be of the greatest benefit to Ahriman if he could succeed in preventing the vast majority of people from perceiving what would make for their true well-being, if the vast majority of people were to regard these preparations for the Ahriman incarnation as progressive and good for evolution. If Ahriman were able to slink into a humanity unaware of his coming, that would gladden him most of all. It is for this reason that the occurrences and trends in which Ahriman is working for his future incarnation must be brought to light.”
I suppose we owe a debt of gratitude to Harari for showing so clearly what the incarnation of Ahriman will have in store for us, unless we wake up to what is happening and start to work towards some different outcomes. Outcomes are not necessarily independent of the prediction; and if enough people believe that certain things can happen or will happen, they may devote resources and technology to making them happen. So let us try to focus on what the real, intended future for human beings ought to be.
In doing this, we shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty of changing course, nor should we ignore the role of our present model of capitalism, which will prevent us from hitting the brakes and steering the car away from Harari’s predicted future. We already have a situation in which Jeff Bezos is ‘worth’ $85 billion, whereas an Amazon delivery driver is just a disposable part in a machine, a component to be thrown away without a moment’s thought as soon as he can’t perform to the standards demanded by the algorithm.
Let us leave the final word to Rudolf Steiner:
“To the extent to which people can be roused into conducting their affairs not for material ends alone and into regarding a free and independent spiritual life, equally with economic life, as an integral part of the social organism — to that same extent Ahriman’s incarnation will be awaited with an attitude worthy of humanity.”
anthropopper 
The cell-phone addiction, which is becoming ever more prevalent, is a foretaste of what you lay out in your article, Jeremy. Technology now creates ‘reality’ – the virtual becomes real, the real becomes superfluous – and this leaves little hope that “Ahriman’s incarnation will be awaited with an attitude worthy of humanity.” It’s a nightmare scenario. Increasingly technology can be compared with the thorns among which the seeds fell in the parable of the sower, thorns ‘which grew and choked the plants’.
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I hadn’t heard of Harari. The quotes you offer are very disturbing and I fear already well on the way to becoming reality.
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Thank you, Jeremy.
Excellent insight into frightening possibilities, fast turning into some kind of reality….
The point of prophecies is to change them.
Good courage to us all!
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Thank you, Jeremy.
I can only agree with you, Liliana and Sophia.
“It would undoubtedly be of the greatest benefit to Ahriman if the vast majority of people were to regard these preparations for the Ahriman incarnation as progressive and good for evolution”…
My warmest greetings to all of you and let us not forget that Christ won Ahriman neither in the desert nor during the next three years but on the hill of Golgotha.
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Steiner’s text does not say: ‘when only a part of the third millennium of the post-Christian era has elapsed’, but ‘before only …’. So, the moment of incarnation of evil is not imminent, but has already passed.
As you said, the ahrimanic influences (in the past seventeen years) would not only comprise a materialistic sleep but also a new religion (partial truths, illusions, statistics and ‘the Gospel alone’).
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The incarnation of evil has already had a long history. Pinpointing the Ahrimanic incarnation will likely involve all of present-day humanity. It first began when the horizontal line was placed here, and wherein the potential to sink below it became possible. Christ averted the descent into the Abyss, but we can now choose our path in freedom of will:
“Between the Atlantean flood and the great War of All against All man has had to renounce for a time the power to see into the spiritual world. He has had to content himself with seeing only what is around him in the physical world in the so-called waking consciousness. This is now the normal condition. But in its place it has become possible for him fully to develop his self-consciousness, his individual “I,” during this time, to feel himself within his skin as a separate “I”-personality, so to speak. This he has won. Now he also retains this individuality when he again rises into the higher spiritual worlds, and this ascent will be possible to him after the great War of All against All. But this ascent would not be possible if he had not taken part in that great cosmic event in the middle of our epoch which runs its course in the physical world,. Man would have been obliged to sink down into a kind of abyss had he not been preserved from it by the entry of Christ into our world. We must keep in mind that man has descended completely into the physical world in this epoch of ours.
Let us represent the physical plane by this line; above it what is called the spiritual, the heavenly world, and below it what is called the abyss.”
GA104, 24 June 1908
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Steiner would go on to express, some seventeen years later, how the Abyss still exists as a tangible entity and value. Just look at this last entry in the Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts on the warning about “Nature and Sub-Nature”.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_c29.html
Is this not where we are today? Small-minded little self-enclosed technocrats, living within their personal [hand-held] universe. This is the ahrimanic incarnation. Stop looking for one particular personality. It is embedded in the culture of our day.
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In this same entry Steiner pointed to regression as another danger besides technology: “Of course what is here meant is not any sort of return to earlier states of civilization, but rather that Man should find his way to bring the new conditions of civilization into right relation with himself and with the Cosmos.”
In the previous thread Jeremy referred to Polanyi’s view of land, labour and money as “fictitious commodities”. In our post-truth society we have to deal with new religions, conspiracy theories, fictions and alternative facts created by ordinary civilians like ‘John William Smith’.
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I think you have this backwards. From what I have read, Harari was warning against this Dataism and all that it implies. He wasn’t endorsing it. In fact, Harari doesn’t even have a smart phone and he meditates two hours a day and takes at least one month off every year to disengage from the modern world and everything electronic. It is apparently his way of staying in balance.
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Herb, here is the issue. Harari is a Jew. As such, he sees the world as a material entity, without the force of Christ. He also is a homosexual, which could not be consecrated in Jerusalem, but in Canada. Yet, the issue of the homo sapien, or homo deus, is one that requires the acquisition of supersensibile knowledge. As such. Steiner gave a perfect lecture here on the matter of what to believe:
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA124/English/RSP1985/19110313p02.html
I won’t read it for you, but I will tell that it says that the Jews, as well as the Muslims, are both aligned in materialism; and so, their conflict.
The Europeans and Americans, they see the Christ in their future. And so it goes. Harari is a wimp, whether he meditates or not. He refuses the Christ, just as his predecessors did long ago. Just go ask him. Yet, he gets to be a bestselling author today. Why not.
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I can only say that there has always been some anti-Semitism among anthroposophists, and this is an unfortunate example of it. Is this because it has existed in Christianity for so many centuries? Perhaps. But one would hope that at least anthroposophy would leave it behind in the trash where it belongs.
As for Europeans and Americans seeing Christ in their future, I would like to see the evidence for that. Most Europeans have become atheists and agnostics. Churches are closing as fast as mosques are opening. Most Americans have no idea of the Christ though they may think they do.
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Steve, that’s absurd and stigmatizing. You can’t ascribe (alleged) abnormal group characteristics to an individual. All human beings receive a normal development by the Spirits of Form in the first place.
The One Particular Personality didn’t live in Steiner’s time, but according to Steiner (1919) would be a source of materialism, nationalism, abstract thinking and Christian piety in our time. Why not be aware of this one evil in person, when it has appeared in our times?
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Ton, I wasn’t attempting to ascribe anything abnormal to Harari. Rather, his freedom to be is noteworthy, and his creative accomplishments only lack what spiritual science makes clear about the destiny of “home sapien” and “homo deus”. Jeremy’s article seems to be an incendiary attack on Harari, and yet, the issue that is important for this blog is the influence coming from someone entirely ignorant of spiritual science. We need to point this out, and why it is so.
Now, as to “The One Particular Personality”, who didn’t live in Steiner’s time, but exists now, well take your pick. Many people today combine those attributes of:
Materialism
Nationalism
Abstract Thinking
Christian Piety
So, why does it have to be one single person? And if it is based on these attributes, then Ahriman has many followers already, doesn’t he?
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Steiner’s characteristic of the Jahve-religion in this lecture was ‘preparation’ (i.e. Messiah expectation), not rejection.
The issue with the One Single Person is the need for a source, an authority, an impulse, comparable to the pagan wisdom of the Luciferic Incarnation, even an initiation school.
Steiner foresaw the post-truth society with its smart phones for every one in this way:
“… the clairvoyance of each individual would be strictly differentiated. What one person would see, a second and a third would not see. Confusion would prevail and in spite of being made receptive to clairvoyant wisdom, men would inevitably fall into strife on account of the sheer diversity of their visions. Ultimately, however, they would all be satisfied with their own particular vision, …” (GA0191/19191115)
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He has also warned about the ethics of industrial farming.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/25/industrial-farming-one-worst-crimes-history-ethical-question
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Harari’s piece on the treatment of animals is very moving. One doesn’t have to be a vegan to feel compassion for the animals. Just as many animals form part of a food chain, some humans still need to be in that chain and get their protein from eating another animal, but this does not mean that we should take away everything else in an animal’s life. Just as the Angels are our guardians, in the next incarnation of the earth we will have an angelic role to play in relation to the animal kingdom. Harari is one of those people who has begun to understand this already in this life.
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I agree with Steve when he says, ‘Stop looking for one particular personality. It is embedded in the culture of our day.’
I do believe that seeking the ‘one person’ is actually playing Ahriman’s game, i.e., trying to bring into the sense world something which we know as a spiritual reality and belongs in the spiritual world.
What significance could it have, to know, for example, that Mrs. Jane Doe, a systems architect living in Punxsutawny, a borough in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, is the incarnation of Ahriman?
Knowing this would be a temptation to some people to act wrongly, to try to change destiny, to do evil.
This desire to know who the individual is comes of curiosity, a trait which Steiner warns against .
If Rudolf Steiner is right then the incarnation of Ahriman is an essential part of the evolution of humanity.
All we need to know is –
1. that it will or has taken place,
2. how the Ahrimanic impulse works in human development. There are very clear indications about how this impulse works in the lessons of the First Class.
It disturbs me when I read sentences like this one in Steve’s posting – ‘Small-minded little self-enclosed technocrats, living within their personal [hand-held] universe’.
I think. ‘Who is he talking about?’. My son is a technocrat, he very much enjoys the ‘[hand-held] universe’ – yet he is not the least small-minded, little, or self-enclosed.
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Tom wrote:
“It disturbs me when I read sentences like this one in Steve’s posting – ‘Small-minded little self-enclosed technocrats, living within their personal [hand-held] universe’. I think. ‘Who is he talking about?’. My son is a technocrat, he very much enjoys the ‘[hand-held] universe’ – yet he is not the least small-minded, little, or self-enclosed.”
Certainly, I agree. But I also have children who engage in such beahviour, and know nothing about what it means. This lecture is a good example of what it means today to see people interacting with their smart phone, and ignoring everything else. I witnessed this the other day, as I often do. Steiner warns here about individualism, and its inherent anti-social consequences. The goal, of course, is to become a social being that extends itself to others. “No Man is an Island”.
And yet, in my own experiential universe, I see it coming. I watched it the other day. Everyone had a hand-held device, and was completely interacting with it with no regard to any other living being. So, maybe Steiner meant something here that he saw coming on the horizon. I know that I saw it myself.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/SocFor_index.html
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In Steve’s last post I find his way of speaking about Harari, Jewish and Muslim people to be demeaning and destructive. Steve says, ‘Harari is a Jew. As such, he sees the world as a material entity, without the force of Christ’. This is an extraordinary assumption to make about an individual on the basis of their parentage or race. Steve risks slandering all people who own to Jewish heritage, and also demeaning Harari’s divine essence.
Steve goes on, ‘He [Harari] also is a homosexual, which could not be consecrated in Jerusalem, but in Canada. Yet, the issue of the homo sapien, or homo deus, is one that requires the acquisition of supersensibile knowledge.’
What has Harari’s sexuality to do with anything in this discussion? It seems as if Steve only mentions it because he wants to use that as a way of demeaning Harari.
Steve says, ‘Harari is a wimp, whether he meditates or not. He refuses the Christ, just as his predecessors did long ago.’
I do not believe that this is a Christian way to speak about any human being.
It makes me sad and troubled to find remarks like this on a blog which is inspired by Anthroposophy.
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Tom, I have nothing against ethnic, or sexual orientation. Yuval Noah Harari is the one being excoriated here by Jeremy’s tirade against what appears to be Ahriman’s greatest invitation in the recent work of Harari.
Herb made comments that caused me to lift an eyelid on the matter and look at Yuval’s easily obtainable wikipedia biography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari
Yet, your attempt to excoriate me is misplaced, although I understand the sentiment. Being homosexual is really nobody’s business, and being Jewish on a cultural level simply goes with the territory. So, let me ask you Tom, what do you see that this guy is doing that makes him so persuasive? It likely has to do with the modern viewpoint that technology has no limits, and the human mind has now the power to replace the fictional ‘god’ with its own omniscience.
This is the viewpoint that Harari’s book, and its popularity, finds disturbing to a morally conscious anthroposophist. I can’t help it if I blurt things out that appear socially incorrect, but a moral outrage is involved here. It has nothing to do with the Jewish or Muslim cultures in themselves, or any personal sexual orientation.
Rather, it has to do with the fact that for two thousand years, these two cultures, which fight each other every day for their particular version of supremacy, both have rejected the entry of Christ into earth evolution. The Jews rejected Christ directly, as we know, and the Arabs bypassed the whole issue for some 666 years. They have nothing but materialism now, and all that goes with it, on a crumbling and dying earth.
Read the lecture I sent, Tom. Could you just take 20 minutes to read it, and gain some perspective? This lack of perspective is really the issue here. I know you like the idea of being a secular humanist with social democratic views, and a cosmopolitan spirit, but that is weak when a definite plan of spiritual evolution exists to be comprehended.
Just look at all those people with their smart phones, and easy ‘google’ lookups, and the tweet-world, where every opinion could possibly get some traction time. Now, mix in all the lies and propaganda coming from the various media outlets, and what do you have with today’s younger generation?
Do they see a future in someone like Yuval Noah Harari, or possibly in someone named Rudolf Steiner? I doubt they see anything with the latter, although I expect a few lookups, easily obtainable.
Steve
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I tend to take a lofty position on this blog because it purports to be about Anthroposophy, and the anthroposophical world conceptionI tend to take a lofty position on this blog because it purports to be about Anthroposophy, and the anthroposophical world conception
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Dear Herrman (or Michael Eggart of the Egoisten blog, as I suspect you to be),
I can’t see the point of your comment, even if your intention was to take the piss out of Steve Hale. Perhaps you were drunk when you wrote it? Anyway, if you’re going to attempt to be satirical in the future, do please try at the very least to be amusing as well.
Regards,
Jeremy
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Personally, I would call this type of display, a “cheap shot”, coming from both Herrmann’s repetitive nonsense, and you, Jeremy, in considering its intentions to take “the piss out of steve hale”. How rude.
I often stick my neck out, and I often get my head cut off for it. It goes with the territory. I admit to taking things on directly, but it is never due to being angry, or “having a bad day”; no, it is because these issues you bring up are very relevant, and have an anthroposophical orientation that can help the matter.
Yet, it is always interesting to see the responses of those that resist this orientation in favor of typical rational-logical, and feeling, sentiment. This is not lost on the one that would have it ‘be all’. In fact, I would further suggest that the issue of “killing the messenger”, is being exacted right here on this blog, and with the very one writing this post.
Steve
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Now I’m sorry that I didn’t comment positively at the time on Steve’s comment “Stop looking for one particular personality. It is embedded in the culture of our day” since I thought it exemplified the most genuinely productive and positive way to work with Steiner’s indications.
It was followed by “Harari is a Jew. As such, he sees the world as a material entity, without the force of Christ,” which exemplifies the exact opposite.
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You might have taken a word or two out of context, but my response to Tom is worth looking at. While the force of Christ is definitely here, it is also a matter of perception, even though it is often denied. Remember, Christ represents evolutionary power; real power to change things at the midpoint of earth evolution. While the Buddha brought a very worthy teaching some five hundred years before Christ, the Christ brought real power, which is why a crucifixion and death occurred.
Where did the body go? Did the earth need this body at that time?
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Steve,
You write to Tom that “for two thousand years, “these two cultures [Judaism and Islam], . . . have rejected the entry of Christ into earth evolution. . . They have nothing but materialism now, and all that goes with it, on a crumbling and dying earth.”
The way you write, you make Steiner’s conception of the atonement and its relationship to a “crumbling and dying world,” equal Christianity. It is believed by, perhaps, 100,000 people, if that many. The vast majority of Christians believe nothing of the sort. There are a lot more global warming denying Christians doing their best to speed up the process of the world crumbling and dying than there are anthroposophical ones.
If you had written something along the lines of how everyone who does not believe in Steiner’s idea of Christ and the atonement has nothing but materialism, which is what you seem to be getting at, you would have at least avoided coming off as an anti-Semite.
Maybe you really do believe that everyone who is not a professed Christian has nothing but materialism. But I find that hard to imagine.
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I tend to take a lofty position on this blog because it purports to be about Anthroposophy, and the anthroposophical world conception. Thus, at the heart of the matter is the Christ Event. Maybe I should take a moment to say that while possibly there are a hundred thousand people in the world who follow this conception with a fair degree of understanding, there are certainly millions more who don’t.
Certainly, this includes all the fundamentalist Christians, who would scoff at the idea that Christ is the Sun Spirit, and the Earth is on the way to becoming a Sun in its present transformation. The two thousand year history of the earth and its human population since the Mystery of Golgotha has been a solid mineral evolution, and materialism has been the progressive and natural outcome of this evolution.
Thus, Materialism goes with the territory because Ahriman, the so-called “ruler of the world”, has also followed this evolution with the power that he offered to Christ. Christ refused by saying: “Man does not live by bread alone”. Humanity truly lives by spiritual perception and cognition. Yet, Ahriman supports every possible means to drive human beings into the Abyss. This is the present threat, and we should be looking at every indication of it, and the ahrimanic authors enticing it along.
This is what this current thread is about, and not accusations of anti-semitism. What might appear so can be easily explained to the overly sensitive judgment of those who find certain words offensive. Rudolf Steiner is still considered to be an anti-semite by his opponents, no matter what defenders like me say on his behalf. The Gospel of John is considered to be an anti-semitic gospel for its characterization of Jews, and so maybe it should have been written more gently.
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It seems to me, Steve, that you don’t understand what being anti-semitic or homophobic are.
Jeremy certainly expressed great discomfort over Harari’s writings but Jeremy doesn’t mention Harari’s ethnicity or sexual orientation. That is because they have nothing to do with Harari’s prophetic speculations unless Harari himself declares them to be relevant.
You say my standpoint as, ‘a secular humanist with social democratic views, and a cosmopolitan spirit,’ is weak.
Is that how you judge other people?
I see my values springing from Christianity and out of Rudolf Steiner’s and other developed soul’s revelations of the spiritual world. If that makes me weak – so be it.
This will be my last comment on this particular issue.
I would be interested to read other contributor’s views about Herb’s comment that Jeremy has the wrong end of the stick – where Herb says, “I think you have this backwards. From what I have read, Harari was warning against this Dataism and all that it implies. He wasn’t endorsing it.”
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As well, I have nothing more to say other than what I wrote here:
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/i-have-seen-the-future/#comment-3456
except to say that simple references to “Jew’ and ‘Homosexual’ does not make one an anti-semite, or homophobic, regardless of how words are taken.
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A simple reference? Alas, no. Here is your first “simple reference”: “Herb, here is the issue. Harari is a Jew. As such, he sees the world…”
Clearly you are saying that that all you need to know is that Harari is a Jew. The homosexual part was also gratuitous. Sorry, this and what followed is not just a simple reference. You made his Jewishness the issue in a strictly determinist way. If someone writes “Here is the issue. Joe is a Christian. As such, he sees the world…” Fill it in however you like.
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Herb,
I’m not sure that the issue is simply determinism. I could fill in your dots as follows:
Joe is a Christian.
As such, he sees the world as fallen
That doesn’t seem to me to be a stretch of a starting assumption (it would have a given a couple of centuries ago), provided that I’m open to modifying it, once I get to know Joe better.
Steve’s chain of logic has two deterministic “as suches.” The first one, besides being dubious, is lethal.
Harari is a Jew
As such, he belongs to a people who rejected Christ
As such, he is a materialist
Steve’s starting “as such” is debatable, to put it mildly, for all sorts of reasons, even if you feel compelled to take the Gospel of John as straight history. Besides, the fatal consequences that Christians drew out of it for Jews over the last two thousand years again and again should give anyone pause before repeating it, especially when that person professes to belong to the religious group that was discriminating against and slaughtering Jews. Steve talking about the Jews rejecting Christ and then dumping Harari into the mix is owning for himself a lot of horrifically bad Christian history.
On top of that historically charged determinism is where you get to the grotesque “sees the world” determinism to which you rightly draw attention.
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Okay Herb, I understand how it appears to be. But there are other issues involved here. From an anthroposophical perspective, Yuval Harari’s books are utterly regressive, and why the discussion exists in the first place. Spiritless materialism can only exist for the atheists and agnostics, who likely number themselves in the billions, rather than the millions.
“Let us imagine race following race, civilization following civilization. The soul going through its earth mission in the right way is incarnated in a certain race; it strives upward in this race, and acquires the capacities of this race in order next time to be incarnated in a higher one. Only the souls which sink in the race and do not work out of the physical materiality, are held back in the race by their own weight, as one might say. They appear a second time in the same race and eventually a third time bodies in similarly formed races. Such souls hold back the bodies of the race. This has been wonderfully described in a legend. We know, indeed, that man progresses further in the fulfillment of the mission of the earth by following the great Leaders of humanity who point out the goals to be attained; if he rejects them, if he does not follow them, he must remain behind with his race, for he cannot then get beyond it. Let us think of a personality who has the good fortune to meet a great Leader of humanity, let us suppose such a personality confronting Christ Jesus himself, for example; he sees how all his deeds are evidence for leading humanity forward, but he will have nothing to do with this progress, he rejects the Leader of humanity. Such a personality, such a soul would be condemned to remain in the race. If we follow this thought to its conclusion such a soul would have to appear again and again in the same race, and we have the legend of Ahasuerus who had to appear in the same race again and again because he rejected Christ Jesus. Great truths concerning the evolution of humanity are placed before us in such a legend as this.” GA104. 21 June 1908.
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Wooffles analyzes the situation as such:
“Herb, I’m not sure that the issue is simply determinism. I could fill in your dots as follows: Joe is a Christian. As such, he sees the world as fallen
That doesn’t seem to me to be a stretch of a starting assumption (it would have a given a couple of centuries ago), provided that I’m open to modifying it, once I get to know Joe better. Steve’s chain of logic has two deterministic “as suches.” The first one, besides being dubious, is lethal. Harari is a Jew
As such, he belongs to a people who rejected Christ As such, he is a materialist Steve’s starting “as such” is debatable, to put it mildly, for all sorts of reasons, even if you feel compelled to take the Gospel of John as straight history. Besides, the fatal consequences that Christians drew out of it for Jews over the last two thousand years again and again should give anyone pause before repeating it, especially when that person professes to belong to the religious group that was discriminating against and slaughtering Jews. Steve talking about the Jews rejecting Christ and then dumping Harari into the mix is owning for himself a lot of horrifically bad Christian history.
On top of that historically charged determinism is where you get to the grotesque “sees the world” determinism to which you rightly draw attention.”
Steve says:
This must be why we have those who admit to being light on Lucifer and Ahriman, and those who admit the profusion of atheists and agnostics in our time. They likely acquaint very nicely with each other. They each know nothing, but acquaint very nicely. with each other. Thus, the chymical wedding of Herb and Wooffles.
I hope it germinates, although Herb could be the victim, considering that he knows nothing about Wooffles. OMG, what a laugh!
Yet, in a more serious note, bring it on you two. Please tell of what you think about things today. We should be getting it on as a world society today in success mode, shouldn’t we ?
Steve
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Steve,
Steiner is making a general statement about souls progressing through races (correctly or not isn’t the issue here) .
He gives as an example a “legend” (you know the difference between a legend and a historical account, I assume). The legend is about someone who has deliberately turned his back on evidence about Christ whose significance he has consciously comprehended (“sees how all [Christ’s] deeds are evidence”) and then, nonetheless, rejected. That particular person keeps incarnating in a particular race. Steiner says nothing about why individualities in general happen to incarnate in that race at any given moment, and he neither specifies the race nor says that what he is talking about applies to only one race.
Is your argument that all Jews alive today are descendants of people who encountered Christ on earth, comprehended that all his deeds demonstrated that he was the messiah, and nonetheless rejected something that they understood?
You would have a hard time getting to that position from Steiner’s actual words.
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Sorry, I wrote “descendants” where I should have written “reincarnations.”
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Steve, Steiner’s Ahasuerus-quote (from GA 104) is more likely a reference to the larger ‘epochs’ or ‘civilizations’ (Atlantean etc.), than to the smaller ‘ages’ or cultures. Steiner in his time didn’t use the term Homo Sapiens like Harari, but rather post-Atlantean population (and Atlantean bodies instead of Neanderthal man). Neither Steiner’s nor Harari’s ideas seem to be deterministic.
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Historical Ahasuerus personages everywhere in Europe during the 16th, 17th centuries were able to look back, just like looking in the Akasha Chronicle. They strengthened the faith of their fellowmen. Thus an even deeper sinking into materialism was prevented for the future:
“From spiritual worlds the seed of being able to look back to the event of Golgotha was lowered into psychically inclined natures. Through the peculiarity of their consciousness, the storytellers saw themselves as present in the pictures.” (GA 152, 3/30/1914)
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Tom,
Harari definitely does not embrace dataism wholeheartedly. He claims to be doubtful that life can be reduced to data flows (i.e., dataism), but also claims that he might be wrong. He acknowledges that dataism doesn’t have an explanation for consciousness and might never have one. On the other hand, it might find an explanation, and then that’s that.
He says his purpose is to leave the reader with questions:
Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing?
What’s more valuable-intelligence or consciousness?
What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?
But this is only from reading the Google preview.
Some nightmarishly messianic figure like Ray Kurzweil with his “singularity” might reinforce the general thrust of Jeremy’s posting more strongly.
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On the benefit, advantage and favourable working of Ahriman/John Smith:
“Now, it is essential for the favourable working of that which Ahriman will bring to humanity — he will bring advantageous gifts just as Lucifer did — that man shall take the right attitude.” (GA0195/19191228). Harari’s book is about these gifts and this ‘right attitude’.
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I feel that I want to be able to look at whoever is the incarnation of Ahriman, whether it be Harari, Kurtzweiler, Jane Doe, or any other candidate, with a compassionate eye, with an understanding that something lives in that person’s soul which has brought them to this crucial moment where they will play such an weighty role in the development of humanity – as I believe the Christ would look on them. I do believe the Christ walks beside every one of us.
(The Christ knew well what Judas was going to do and when the hour came He said to Judas,’Do what you have to do’.)
I am not saying I manage what I have described above but it is what I aspire to.
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Hello Tom,
I’m not implying that Harari (or anyone else, for that matter) is the incarnation of Ahriman. I’m simply suggesting that the vision he presents in his book is one that foreshadows the kind of future that Ahriman would want for humans, and it also clearly shows that Lucifer and Ahriman are working together to bring this about.
Best wishes,
Jeremy
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Tom, I also was encouraged to write about how Judas took the morsel, and then Satan entered him and he went out into the night to do what he was to do. Christ acknowledges this, and then bids him farewell, with his destiny as betrayer intact.
Yet, there is another important event which needs to be acknowledged. This is the one wherein the Christ, after having been taken into custody, is brought before Caiaphas, the high priest of the Sanhedrin. After making His first remarks, He is slapped in the face by a royal official of Caiaphas, who says: “Is this any way to talk to the high priest”?
And this is where the ahaseurus concretely entered the Jewish cultural stream. The slap was the point of entry.
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Steve writes:
Yet, there is another important event which needs to be acknowledged. This is the one wherein the Christ, after having been taken into custody, is brought before Caiaphas, the high priest of the Sanhedrin. After making His first remarks, He is slapped in the face by a royal official of Caiaphas, who says: “Is this any way to talk to the high priest”?
And this is where the ahaseurus concretely entered the Jewish cultural stream. The slap was the point of entry.
I am left to wonder why this obsession with Jews? So now its is a God given decree that there will be the “wandering Jew” forever. I can even hear the drum roll and the ominous music as Steve writes “The slap was the point of entry.” This is a strange reading of Steiner. One irony is that the Nazis accused Steiner of being a Jew and his whole way of thinking was said to be Jewish. Had Steiner lived longer, he would have been rounded up with the Jews and sent to a concentration camp.
The fact is that some of the most prominent anthroposophists in Steiner’s time were Jewish as were some of his closest friends and colleagues. Followers have ranged from conductor Bruno Walter to the philosopher Hugo Bergman, from Saul Bellow to Karl Konig and many, many more. Gee, how did they ever manage to swim out of that awful dark stream and into the light of day?
I will grant that Steiner did say things,especially when he was young, that sound anti-Semitic, but that changed by 1900. He did believe that Jews should assimilate into the larger society, but for some reason Steiner didn’t seem to notice that German society didn’t want the Jews to integrate, perhaps because Jews were trying very hard to do so. Many if not most Germans wanted them excluded and in the end, exterminated.
Here is Hitler on Steiner in 1921:
“In the course of the London affair, there gradually emerged such mysterious circumstances that it has become not only expedient but indeed necessary to look somewhat more closely at this Minister (Simons), the intimate friend of the Gnostic and Anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, follower of Three-folding the Social Organism and whatever all these Jewish methods of destroying the normal frame of mind of the people are called: to see whether that mindless face, as Lloyd George described it, is really just the result of a deficient intellect, or if it is the mask behind which something else is concealed . . . (he continues with a protest against Simon’s political activity, and particularly the movement to disarm the German people) . . . And who is the driving force behind all this devilishness? The Jew! Friend of Doctor Rudolf Steiner, the friend of Simons, the ‘mindless’ . . .”
Adolf Hitler, Staatsmaenner ode Nationalverbrecher (“Men of the State or National Criminals”), in Voelkischer Beobachter, 35.Jg., 15 March 1921, S.2. (original German text)
Woofles:
Thanks for adding to what I wrote about the determinism. I agree completely. I was only trying to make my point as succinctly as possible.
We have gone away from the original idea of what are the views of Harari, but it has been a worthwhile and important side trip. After all, we are seeing the reawakening of anti-Semitism in Europe, and why should anthroposophists be excluded from these unfortunate events. It has been said that Jews are the canary in the coal mine.
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Herb, I have no obsession with the Jews. Carl Unger was Jewish, and it is likely for this reason that he was kept out of Dornach as Steiner’s successor. Yet, I admire him very much for what he accomplished on behalf of spiritual science, and his steadfast support of Rudolf Steiner. He was clearly the one most qualified to lead after Steiner’s death because of his emphasis on the epistemological principles.
Yes, Rudolf Steiner is still criticized by some opponents for being anti-semitic, and I have worked a great deal to dispel that notion. So, you see, I am against anti-semitism. For example, a lecture Steiner gave on the character of Judaism is excellent for the fact that the Hebrew cultural stream is the direct forerunner of Christ. This culture paved the way, although at the time of Christ it had become corrupt at its priestly level. Still, on the level of the Jewish people themselves, Christ drew them in ever increasing magnitudes. This is important because the Jewish power structure had authority to destroy this following, and did. The Caiaphas plot had huge consequences for the nation.
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“Carl Unger was Jewish . . . Yet, I admire him very much”
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Jeremy writes “In Harari’s book, you can see how in our current time the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic influences are working together to deceive human beings about their true nature and their true future.” I have only a vague sense of what he means in terms of working together, and I was wondering if anyone could have a go at elaborating it.
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Very briefly – Lucifer provides the impetus for humans to regard themselves as “Homo deus”, while Ahriman provides the impetus for humans to become more and more like machines, and less and less able to see what they truly are, with the potential to evolve towards becoming the tenth hierarchy.
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Yes, this is exactly so, and why Harari’s books are very disturbing. My local library has many ‘holds’ on both books. This fellow is deeply misguided, but sincere in his intentions.
Yet, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. I had been reading the lectures on the Apocalypse of St. John when this subject came up, and my eyes lit up like pinwheels. Oh My God [OMG], this fellow is so steeped in the Sorath-principle. It causes a disturbance in the soul.
So, for those that don’t know much about this situation, it is worth reminding that Sorath has the power to resurrect Lucifer and Ahriman, once lovingly brought down by Christ, to do his bidding as the adversary of the world, mankind, and especially the developing idea of Universal Humanity.
Thus, books like these are similar to the works of many other present-day authors, like Richard Dawkins. They all demonstrate an utter lack of spiritual-scientific knowledge, which makes them popular for some fatalistic reason; could be the ‘existentialist mentality’, which has gained as a worldview since the 1950’s.
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Jeremy,
Is what this article discusses what you mean by Luciferic impulses?
https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-the-language-of-transhumanists-and-religion-so-similar
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No, I would describe those as Ahrimanic impulses. I’ve written elsewhere about the differences and similarities between the Luciferic and Ahrimanic impulses:
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/rudolf-steiner-and-angels-the-potential-fall-of-humans-and-their-angels/
Best wishes,
Jeremy
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Jeremy,
You wrote that “Lucifer encourages the tendency in human beings towards expansiveness, inflation, egotism, sensuality, passion, and ungrounded spirituality; Lucifer is the being who tells us that we are like the gods, knowing both good and evil.” That was how I understood luciferic impulses.
The article I linked to, by my reading, is about how AI people cast, or have cast for them, a kind of luciferic glamour over what is a quintessentially ahrimanic impulse, which keeps them from seeing it for what it is.
Does that make sense, or am I still not getting the hang of how the two work together?
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I’ve now re-read the article you link to, and I think you’re right – there is a kind of luciferic glamour over what is an ahrimanic impulse, e.g. the idea that transhumans might live for ever, and that AI will allow us to transcend the human condition once and for all. I think you could also argue that transhumanists who attempt to set up their own churches are doing this under a luciferic influence, though paradoxically it would also delight Ahriman to see such delusional activities. The article has nevertheless given me an idea for a future posting on the persistence of religion, for which I’m grateful!
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Labeling Harari “misguided” and his books “disturbing”, and regarding his books “on hold” in libraries as deplorable feels a lot like “killing the messenger” to me. I think we’re bogged down in this discussion because we’re all afraid and don’t know how to deal with it.
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He’s worth reading, and maybe he is pointing out the inevitabilities of the near future.
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/yuval-harari-tech-is-the-new-religion/
On an anthroposophy blog, the anthroposophical world conception exists to be expressed as a form of determinism. As such, it would put Ahriman under its feet, as Michael has done.
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Kathy, I never said that the holds list meant that he was deplorable as an influence, or that his “sincere intentions” was designed to ‘kill the messenger’.
Rather, I see the impact of works like these, and how they influence the mainstream audience. What he says is certainly at the forefront of what has been called, “the new Gondhishapur of Silicon Valley”, according to Paul Emberson, who is an author with anthroposophical insight.
Nobody on this list should be afraid of tackling the situation. Jeremy has addressed it in admirable fashion by calling out Yuval Harari, and his books. If anthroposophical thinking responds, then what is to fear? It is simply taking responsibility for the moment, and this might offend certain people with typically reactive minds. Technology has gone overboard; way overboard, and it can be shown that it comes out of the sub-earthly realms. Below the surface of the earth are interior domains that are the exact opposite of the heavenly worlds.
Steiner drew particular attention to this in the lecture on “Etherization of the Blood”, GA130, 1 October 1911. The diagram has been presented before on this blog. So, when explanations are given, then a corresponding amount of courage should also occur. At least, this is what works with me.
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What is to fear if anthroposophical thinking responds? I fear my relentless tendencies to such an abstract thought. I fear I’m not adequately vigilant. I fear letting my “double” do my thinking for me. I fear being complacent/lazy and missing the mark and having to face the Guardian over and over again – same shit, new day. In one of Goethe’s plays, Mephistophiles asks God why He wants his demons to plague man. God responds: “Man is too fond, too soon, of unconditional rest.”
Clarification: by saying “kill the messenger” I meant the need to “call out” Harari, and to label him in multiple ways. Smells like fear to me.
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Anthroposophical thinking may or may not respond, but there are very few anthroposophists today (fewer than 50,000 members worldwide) and our response is neither here nor there in terms of global impact. What does concern me is the materialistic sleep in which so many of our fellow human beings seem to pass their days. It is this unawareness of what is truly going on and the passive acceptance of a gradually-tightening ratchet effect leading to outcomes that nobody would have wanted if they had been asked in the first place – that is what worries me. As an apparently trivial example of how these things might escalate: 1) dog owners are advised to microchip their pets so that they can be found if lost; 2) as of 2017 it is illegal in the UK to own a dog that is not microchipped; 3) soon each of us will be advised to get a microchip implanted in our wrists so that we can pass through ticket barriers easily; 4) then it will be made much easier to travel if you have a microchip in your wrist, while travel with a ticket or documents is made more difficult; 5) we will be told that if we have nothing to hide there will be nothing to fear in having a microchip implanted and life will be made easier and more comfortable for us; 6) you will not be able to travel if you do not have a microchip; and so on, and so on.
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I agree with your concerns. There is a book called Feed by a writer named Anderson. It is aimed at teenagers but is fine for adults, dealing with this adult subject of the mechanization of Man. In the book, the microchip is implanted in most infants soon after birth, and each human being is wired into a central feed, hence the title. It means instant internet connection for information and buying, buying, buying. Everyone becomes an airhead concerned only with fashion and shopping. We later meet a home-schooled girl who has evaded the feed and can think for herself. You get the idea. An Orwellian dystopia for our age and the future.
Since we are seeing this intensified technological society along with the liberal urge to centralize power and homogenize (calling it equality) humanity, it is easy to be pessimistic.
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Of course, the question is: what power does the microchip contain? Does it really have the ability to influence human behavior? This reminds me of Steiner’s warning about vaccine inoculations as a means to introduce the antibodies of certain elementary spirits of birth and death. This lecture has useful concern for today’s audience:
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA177/English/RSP1993/19171006p01.html
I am sure that many of us remember getting their first flu shot, and how its effects were felt. I certainly do. I felt rather listless for three days, and original spontaneity of naive childhood was impacted in a way. This is what I remember.
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Isn’t religiousness the opposite danger, especially to anthroposophists? Homo Deus would rather be the materialistic power.
Steiner (1919): Man must recognize that his true nature can lie expressed only by the picture of equilibrium, — that on the one side he is tempted to soar beyond his head, as it were, to soar into the fantastic, the ecstatic, the falsely mystical, into all that is fanciful: that is the one power. The other is that which draws man down, as it were, into the materialistic, into the prosaic, the arid, and so on. (GA0194/19191212).
Steiner countered the ideas of Karl Polanyi in the same Michael lecture series (19191207, German).
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Might it be that those more susceptible to “materialistic sleep’ are those who are the more thinking types among us – who fall more easily into abstraction based on a 2 + 2 = 4 mentality? (Ahrimanic influence) And those more susceptible to religiousity are the feeling types? (Luciferic influence). I didn’t know that there are barely 50,000 people in the world who call themselves anthroposophists. I’ve been reading Steiner’s lectures for 47 years and the few anthroposophists I know personally – who “speak my language” – are definitely among the more thinking types (and, some, who tend more toward falling into abstraction). On the other hand, I have friends rich in feeling, loving and service to others who do not resonate with Steiner’s language. Some of them also exercise spiritual/psychic faculties I think will be commonplace for mankind in future epochs – while some of my anthroposophic friends fear these faculties are simply holdovers from past ages.
I’m just now wondering: If the Ahrimanic influence relates to “thinking” and the Luciferic to “feeling”, is it the “purpose” of the Asuric influence for us to develop “willing”? Has Steiner written about this?
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You can link the inner aspect of the Asuric forces (beyond thinking) to the consciousness soul and the physical senses (’dissolute, sensuous passions’, GA 107/19090322); the outer aspect to willing (‘tremendous will power’, Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind, GA 197, p.44).
E.g. compare the different style of the three world leaders Xi Jinping (Asia), Putin (Europe) and Trump (America).
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Ton and Kathy,
It is also possible to link thinking, feeling, and willing with the results of the progressive descent into the underworld, which is the harbinger of technology, and its crisis today. From GA130, 1 October1911.
“Reflected as sub-physical world:
Astral World the province of Lucifer
Lower Devachan the province of Ahriman
Higher Devachan the province of the Asuras
So, Kathy, when you assert a possible relationship between asuric forces and the will, you are quite right. The human will exists to defeat these forces in reality. Whether it will actually take place is the question. Knowledge on an anthroposophical level will be vital for its possibility, don’t you think?
And yet, if only 50,000 active members of the GAS exist today, and maybe some 50,000 more that subscribe to the anthroposophical movement, without membership, than the percentage is far less than even the 2 % that we thought might be involved on a worldwide scale. See the dilemma?
It means that more than 98 percent of the world’s population today does not have a clue of what is really going on, and here we are, fighting amongst ourselves for the last word. Now, that should be the laugh 😉
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This talk about materialistic thinking and this whole Hullahballooh about Muslims and Jews and Jesus, for Jesus Christ. Steve Hale talks here constantly from an anthroposophical view and a Christian Moral view. No this is not an anthroposophical view it is a simple Christian Believe System out of the Middle Ages. Sorry Mr. Hale it is actually quite insulting putting your personal view in the Name of an anthroposophical view Point. Your thoughts and Elaboration on Jews and Muslims and talk about materialism….Jesus Christ Mr. Hale. This is embarassing and no wonder the Anthromembership is going down hill and maybe this is the best…Jesus Christ, Mr. Hale I am speechless by your elaborations….for Christ sake check your thoughts Mr. Hale…….
Yours sincerly Herrmann Finkelsteen
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Thank you. Since this blog has gone south for a couple of days in actually starting to look at the consequences that face us today, let me start by re-posting something that really needs to be heard. It concerns the so-called “man-god”, or ‘homo deus’, and its reality.
Wooffles wrote:
“Is your argument that all Jews alive today are reincarnations of people who encountered Christ on earth, comprehended that all his deeds demonstrated that he was the messiah, and nonetheless rejected something that they understood?”
No, that is not my argument for the simple reason that I don’t know. What I do know is that Rudolf Steiner elaborates further on the Ahasuerus here as the anti-type of Christ, or “Homo Deus”, which is Harari’s vision of the future, whether he supports it or not.
“When we speak of Christ we are speaking of the cosmic Being, the God Who became man. What, then, would constitute the antitype? The antitype would be the man who has become god. This would not, however, be an absolutely good god but, just as Christ descended into the world of men and took death upon Himself, that is, assumed a human form in order to be able to participate in human destiny, so we are led to the opposite pole — to the man who, having freed himself from death, having liberated himself from human bodily conditions, within earthly conditions becomes a god. Such a man would then cease to be mortal. He would wander about the Earth — not, of course, under the same conditions as an ordinary mortal human being who must pass from birth to death, and from death to a new birth. A man who had thus become a god would exist on Earth as a man who had unlawfully become god-like. As the Christ is a God Who has lawfully become man, we must seek His antitype in the man who has become god, who, mortal no longer, has unlawfully assumed the god-nature. Just as in the Christian tradition we have in Christ Jesus the God Who has become man in righteousness, so are we also directed to Ahasuerus, the man who has become god in unrighteousness, who has laid aside the mortality of human nature. We have the polar antithesis of Christ Jesus in Ahasuerus. That is the deeper foundation, the deeper significance of the Ahasuerus legend. This legend narrates something that is a reality, speaking of a man who wanders over the Earth. The figure of Ahasuerus is actually there, wandering over the Earth from people to people. This Ahasuerus figure exists — the man who has unlawfully become god.
If we wish to gain knowledge of historical truth we must turn our attention to such matters; we should observe how beings and forces from the super-sensible world work down into the physical world; how Christ came from the spiritual world into the physical world; and further how again the sensible world works back into the super-sensible. We must recognise in Ahasuerus a real cosmic force, a real cosmic being. A consciousness of this wandering of Ahasueus has always existed, though of course he can be perceived only with clairvoyant vision and not with physical eyes. The legends of Ahasuerus have a true objective foundation. We cannot understand human life if we only observe it externally, as it is described in history books.
Since the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ has dwelt in our inner being. Just as when we look inwards with quickened sight we can perceive Him there, so also when we look at human life and the eye of vision is opened there appears this figure of Ahasuerus — and this is the case in most of those in whom clairvoyance arises, as it may happen unawares to the person who steps across the threshold of consciousness. People may not perhaps always recognise him; he may be taken for something different. It is nevertheless possible for Ahasuerus to appear to us, as it is also possible when we look into our inner being for the Christ-figure to shine forth.”
GA211, 24 March 1922
So, Herrmann, please join in the fun, and tell me what bothers you.
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“Is your argument that all Jews alive today are reincarnations of people who encountered Christ on earth, comprehended that all his deeds demonstrated that he was the messiah, and nonetheless rejected something that they understood?”
Steve– “I don’t know”
Steve, the non-anti-Semitic answer is “No, of course I don’t sit around having fantasies about Jews that have been used for centuries to justify all sorts of violence towards them.”
To the extent that I can unpack your thought processes, which isn’t easy, your response seems to be that if you can find passages in Steiner that you believe justify your positions, that means that you can’t possibly be anti-Semitic, because Steiner can’t possibly be anti-Semitic.
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Wooffles, I realize that the “non-antisemitic answer ” is no, but where does that leave us in your discourse?
According to Steiner, the Ahasuerus is a fact. It involves the progressive conceptualization of the “homo deus” as a fact, which is the substance of Harari’s book. This is the important point, regardless of whether a Jew or a Gentile wrote it. The book states the fact that technology is winning over the human race, and its once coveted freedom to be and grow and develop to the spirit regions.
Let’s ask the question: What would Steiner think about it? He wrote PoF several years before he got into his esoteric dimensions, and I doubt he would react kindly on any of the further enslaving influences as seen in both of Harari’s books. In fact, his suggestion to Harari would likely be to write about the necessary alternative to this outcome, which would require a spiritual orientation.
So, you see, it isn’t about antisemitisim at all. It is about vision; vision for the future.
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Steve,
I don’t think anyone who has responded to you would dispute that a spiritual orientation is needed. The issue is that you keep talking about Jews without giving the impression that you know anything about the inner life of Judaism except what you have taken, rightly or wrongly, from Rudolf Steiner and that you don’t seem have any idea of how much you don’t know or why your lack of knowledge matters.
It might be helpful for you to read this article: http://www.southerncrossreview.org/33/anthro-judaism.htm
Also check out the collection of essays Judaism and Anthroposophy from RS Press.
As a general rule, a person who has lived a spiritual path, be it one of the many paths of Judaism, Islam, or Anthroposophy, for that matter, is going to have insights into it that a person who hasn’t will not.
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“it is easy for those who are conversant enough with Islamic thinking to conclude that historical materialism and Islam’s way of thinking are diametrically opposed to each other.” out of https://www.al-islam.org/man-and-universe-ayatullah-murtadha-mutahhari/chapter-27-islam-and-historical-materialism Just some Food for thought, Mr. Hale, enjoy reading! No Mr. Smith I wasnt drunk, I am sober as an Iman!
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If it was up to me, I’d bring you into the loop, and find out your qualifications, Mr. Finkelsteen. This would require the knowledge of what it means to directly face the Christ Event and reject it, c. the Jews, as well as bypass the Christ Event for some 600 years, and then reject, it, c. the Muslims.
So, what is the difference? Answer: Nothing. That is why they fight each other everyday for their little parcels of ground. Now, if that isn’t historical materialism, then I don’t know what is. Then, you have those that exploit these two factions, and what are they affiliated with?
Ah, yes. contemporary Christianity coming out of the west. Yet, here we have a strain of materialism that is the most insidious, and wherein the present technological vision of the future can be seen most clearly.
This is where we are at. Lucifer, Ahriman, Ahasuerus, all taking their slice of the pie, with little weakling humanity all falling in line. Just look at these recent comments about fearing this and that. Extraordinary.
Of course, there is always advocating Utopia, and this can be achieved in a kind of secular domain. But the world around us will always be in turmoil until we solve the problem of world unrest. This is a part of anthroposophical thinking. It takes responsibility for the world’s woes, even though it is peaceful and quiet. The divine silence would absorb it, and yet, it speaks out.
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“I am here to tell you that in classical Hebrew Jewish spirituality, there is only one world, that is simultaneously material and spiritual.” out of: http://explorefaith.org/livingspiritually/following_a_sacred_path/jewish_spirituality.php More Food of thought. Greetz form Mr. Finkelsteen
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Steve, on the basis of your reply to Jeremy concerning his phrase: ‘to take the piss out of Steve Hale’ I don’t think you are familiar with the meaning of this expression in the UK. This was not ‘rude’ on his part – this phrase means ‘to mock, ridicule or scoff at someone’.
By the way, judging from all the comments you are ‘provoking’ it would seem that the Thought Police from the Ministry of Truth is after you 🙂
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What I find amusing is when someone says:
“I don’t think anyone who has responded to you would dispute that a spiritual orientation is needed. The issue is that you keep talking about Jews without giving the impression that you know anything about the inner life of Judaism except what you have taken, rightly or wrongly, from Rudolf Steiner and that you don’t seem have any idea of how much you don’t know or why your lack of knowledge matters.”
This is a quote from our own Wooffles, who would have it that they know something about the “inner life of Judaism”. Yet, has that ever been evinced here? Yes, who knows about the inner life of Judaism.
Now, Steiner had a few words to say on the matter of the character of Judaism, and I find it still enlightening today. Yet, modern Jews might have lost this sense by now.
“I have told you that the mission of the Jews in human history was to spread the belief in the One Godhead, and it will be clear to you that it was necessary for them, as a people, to be prepared for this. Therefore it came about that when the Jewish people originally came into existence, the several Folk-Spirits, each of whom worked individually in a particular people, all concerned themselves with the Jewish people. Thinking of the different peoples, we say: Indians — Indian Folk-Spirit; Egyptians — Egyptian Folk-Spirit; then Greek Folk-Spirit, Roman Folk-Spirit, and so on. Each Folk-Spirit had to do with a particular people. (Drawing on blackboard.) But if we take the Jewish people, then, in that corner of the Earth called Syria where the Jews had their home, the influences and will of all the Folk-Spirits operated in this one people.
This strong and potent influence has in a certain respect made the Jews into a cosmopolitan people and accounts for the tenacity that has remained characteristic of them. No matter where they might be, they were always able to gather together and preserve Judaism, simply because they had everything within them.
It is very remarkable how Judaism has everything within it. In Orders or Societies of Freemasons, Oddfellows and the like, in which there is no new spiritual knowledge but an antiquated kind of knowledge they themselves no longer understand, you will find in the very words of the rites, elements deriving from all kinds of different peoples: Egyptian rites and words, Assyrian and Babylonian words and signs — but especially elements from the Jewish Kabbala and so forth.
In this respect Judaism is truly cosmopolitan; it adapts itself to everything but also preserves its original impulse which is still alive within it.” The same is true of the Hebrew language in which there is great richness of content, both spiritual and physical. Every Hebrew word is always full of meaning. It was a peculiarity with the Jews to write only the consonants; later on, the vowels were indicated by means of signs. The vowels themselves were not written; everybody might pronounce them in his own way, so that one man said: J-e-h-o-v-a … another said: J-e-h-e-v-a … a third said: J-e-h-a-v-e … a fourth, J-o-h-a-v-e. — The vowel sounds were pronounced as they were felt. And that is why such a designation as the name “Jehova” which had been instituted by the priests in this particular form, was called the “unutterable Name” … because it was not permissible to make arbitrary use of the vowels.”
Characteristics of Judaism, GA353
So, supplant this viewpoint with modern-day Judaism, and then look at what the inner life of same has to say about where it is today. It is not about oppression, but rather, the maintaining of an archaic and obsolete belief system. This is owing to the culture itself.
No antisemitism is implied here, of course, but just the facts.
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Steve,
I know enough about the “inner life” of Judaism to know how little I know about it. Its a vast world, containing a huge amount of variety. Pretty much anything you can say about it, you can also say the exact opposite. You neither seem to know that nor want to find out.
If you want to find Jews today who appear to be deeply materialistic, you will find them. If you want to find deeply spiritual Jews, you will find them too.
If you want to find Jews who, you might conclude (as I do), maintain “an archaic and obsolete belief system” (while humbly keeping in mind that there are plenty of people who say not dissimilar things about anthroposophy), you will find them (while also keeping in mind that there are Christians about whom you can say the same thing). If you want to find Jews who are anything but archaic in their approach to Judaism, you will find them too, etc.
And that’s just among the Jews who identify as religiously Jewish.
Which, anti-Semitism aside, is all that I’ve been trying to get across to you, evidently without any success. That, and the idea that if one is genuinely drawn to learn about Judaism, one is best served by casting one’s net widely, also evidently without any success.
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Ancient Judaism itself was pluralistic. Steiner discussed the characteristic opinions of Essenes, Ebionites, Rabbi’s, Galileans etc., but he also conveyed the traditional Christian stereotypes (morality, tenacity, adaptability, monotheism, materialism, musicality).
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Hi, Liliana, I don’t think anyone is behaving like thought police here. The problem is with the way Steve stereotypes people – often negatively. One is left wondering what lies behind this and Wooffles has been patiently trying to get him to explain himself.
I was warmed to read your description of Lucifer, Ahriman and the Asuras as teachers. I feel it does not help to go in fear of them or what they might do.
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I have realised that my last sentence in my last post above actually refers to a comment by Kathy. My apologies to both Liliana and Kathy.
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Dear Liliana
Since i assume you would put me into the category of the Thought Police, I feel obliged to answer you. You got s.th. fundamentally wrong on the comments youve categorised as Thought Police. All those comments were friendly reminders and offers to Mr. Hale to rethink and reset his exclusive renderings and thoughts on what is anthroposophical thinking. My personal point of view is that Mr. Hale uses Anthroposophy as a figleave for his own personal out of date opinions on religions and Anthroposophy, but maybe I am totally wrong, but that doesnt matter. Anthroposophy is so much more than these conservative and politically rather on the extreme right views on the world. Next article here in Anthropopper. Are chemtrails the flatulence of Ahriman, Lucifer and the duke of darkness King Sorat? Some kind of esoteric yellow tabloid for whom? ( By the way I am still not drunk rather confused by what you labell as anthroposophy, but who cares Mr. Smith?)
Yours sincerly Herrmann Finkelsteen
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I think it would be good for Mr. Finkelsteen to offer his fundamental position on world evolution. He responds a great deal like Wooffles, where you really have no clue other than you must be wrong.
Now, the only thing I know about Herrmann Finkelsteen is that he responds to the Egoisten blog, and has his own blog concerning the ‘Uribistani’ notion of a kind of Utopia, which my earlier post referred to. This all comes out of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, which is interesting to note.
You see, Herrmann often takes the time on that blog to ridicule a certain anonymous poster who is fluent in the English language for what appears to be the very same anthroposophical thoughts that get written here. In other words, we are all aryan racists, and believe in ridiculous conspiracy theories, and condemn the Jews, which is why he is expressly identifying me. Yet, that is not my message at all.
I actually agree entirely with a kind of ‘uribistani’ culture on an ideological level, but, as seen, it has been compromised by Mr. Finkelsteen himself, who would rather take issue with the English-language audience for some reason. I suspect it has to do with the world-dominating position of Ahriman today, which comes out of the west, but we already know that and discuss it openly. Maybe Mr. Finkelsteen needs to hear about how hard this blog works on behalf of the truth, and not continue to assume the odd stereotypes that continue to come out of his German source in the Egoisten blog.
Then again, maybe it is owing to his own individual peculiarity. All in all, it is worth discussing because I see very little that should separate these two blogs in terms of motivation on behalf of anthroposophy.
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“he is expressly identifying me ” “it has to do with the world-dominating position of Ahriman today, which comes out of the west”
“So, for example, if we take these asuric forces from the lowest level of the sub-earthly, and relate them to the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II, what does it show?”
Mr. Hale I ask myself what do your words show me? I gave you feedback.
Other people on the continent are worried what comes out of the East or whats coming from the South or are worried how Brexit will change their lives I am more afraid of rising Nationalism and Fanatism than I am afraid of King Sorat which is worrying you a lot. So our fears are definetyl different.Woffles and me we just take you by your own words and try to understand them. Thats all.
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
With this concentration on the posts of one particular correspondent, I think that we have reached the blogging equivalent of the Law of Diminishing Returns – so I am now calling a halt and will not be posting any more comments, unless they are directly related to the topic of the original post.
Thank you,
Jeremy
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Jeremy, I can completely agree with this kind of cessation of conversation because when people hear what they feel sensitive to, on a political and social level, than chaos can occur. Thus, in order to keep this thread alive, and maybe only for a moment, I would like to reiterate what I feel is an important finding, and it concerns how amidst the resurrection of Lucifer, and especially Ahriman in our time, there is also the consideration for the Ahasuerus in our midst, which is the “man-god”, or ‘Homo Deus’ envisioned in the books by Yuval Harari.
Until now, these revelations of Steiner had no platform. Now, they do. That is why we must immediately add the name of Ahasuerus to the pantheon of Lucifer and Ahriman, and now becomes a trinity of sub-earthly influences, which was already designated long before with Trinity, New Mexico, c. 1945.
To answer how that is possible, all we have to do is invoke the name, “King Soradt”, who rules these sub-earthly domains, and sees the earth itself as falling into the waste-bin of evolution.
How can idealism not see what it is fighting against in the name of Freedom?
Regards,
Steve
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of course, but it is interesting what kind of comments this post into the future inspired. Thank you for the inspiration.
HF
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Ton and Steve,
,
Thank you all. Ton, I can see the Ahrimanic and Asuric in Putin and Trump, respectively. But Xi Jingping doesn’t seem firey enough to represent Lucifer. Is there another candidate? North Korea with its dazzling group stage shows and preoccupation with explosions?
And Steve, this may be a distinction without a difference, but on a feeling level, I tend not to think our will exists to defeat the Asuric forces – but that because of the Asuric forces we have something to push against so that we can develop will. Sometimes the only way I can get through the day with all the pain in this world is not to see the “dark forces” as enemies, but as (horrific) teachers – I don’t have to find it in me to vanquish them – just to stand up to them. I’m sure I read Steiner about this. Something about not having to stop/destroy Ahriman but to expose him so his efforts do not go unnoticed.
And Herrman, I, too, regard this world as both spiritual and physical but I don’t see it as the only one. As far as “Classical Hebrew Theology” goes, doesn’t the Kabbala refer to more than one world – not all of which are also material?
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Kathy,
I appreciate these thoughts very much. They show a heart-force, which does try to see what I am saying. I realize how I come off with the abstract words, but how else can it be said with little else in this domain?
As such, please let me say that it is the will itself that is the initiative influence today. That is why recent world evolution is so open to being scrutinized. It is because the will of man is asking these hard questions.
So, for example, if we take these asuric forces from the lowest level of the sub-earthly, and relate them to the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II, what does it show?
As well, what if it can be proved that Japan was willing to surrender because it knew it was defeated, and yet this surrender was rejected? Is it because of America?
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The Trump family has been compared to the Renaissance Borgia’s (Foreign Policy, 2016). To Steiner the personalities of the Borgia’s were examples of the effect of the Asura’s in the consciousness soul (GA 130).
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According to Chinese president Xi Jinping, “The greatest Chinese dream is the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”(The Atlantic, 2017). Xi has increasingly portrayed the communist party as the inheritor and successor to a 5,000-year-old Chinese empire. The party has created a renewed sense of national identity.
Steiner dated the Luciferic incarnation back to the third millennium BC, in an initiate ‘towards his fortieth year’ (GA 193). In old accounts the first Emperor of China, the Yellow Emperor Huangdi (27th century BC), is identified as a deity of light. “Most scholars now agree that the Yellow Emperor originated as a god who was later represented as a historical person” (wiki /Yellow_Emperor).
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