Covid-19 – where are we right now?

I’ve been wanting for some time to write a blog post on the theme of ‘Michael and the Cosmic Intelligence’ but whenever I try to do so, another egregious example of government Covid-19 stupidity or tyranny arises to deflect me. So it is at present, with almost daily examples of things that indicate how far and how fast our notions of society and stability and civilisation are falling, and it seems important to give them some attention. 

But to set the scene, with thanks to Annael Poet-Artist of the Judith von Halle and Anthroposophy Facebook group, here is a quotation from the great Bulgarian master, Beinsa Douno, also known as Peter Deunov (1864 – 1944), who brought us Paneurythmy among many other treasures. This excerpt comes from a talk with his followers during the 1920s, and it seems highly relevant to our situation now:

The “end of the world” manifests itself through the cleansing of the old humanity, so that a new humanity can come in that place. This cleansing and the end of the century has been carried out for a period of 45 years. This period began in 1900 and will end in 1945. You are all eyewitnesses to what happened during this period.

From 1945 will begin another period, which will also last 45 years until 1990. Such times come and such power comes, that whoever opposes it will lay his bones on the ground. A great dictatorship ensues, allowed to clear the stagnant mud. When a water is turbid, it must take a long time for the running water to clear. Turbid water will flow during this period. Some of you will not wait for the end of this period and will leave, but others will surely wait for it so as to testify the words of the Lord.

After this period there will be a short break until 1999, which will be the most spiritually favourable for the White Brotherhood. And then a new period will come, with an even more terrible dictatorship than the one that is to come. It will also last 45 years. It is also spoken of in the Revelation of John, ch. 21, v. 8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. 

Making due allowance for the archaic language, this sounds right to me; and it means that the manifestations of the Ahrimanic incarnation of which Rudolf Steiner so often spoke are happening all around and will be with us until about the year 2045.  Steiner described the ‘disorder’ in the planetary system caused by Ahrimanic powers, among others, and the resulting catastrophes. He relied entirely on humanity to take on the task of counteracting such powers, out of a sense of responsibility and in freedom (“…Only through strong human spirituality can a balance be generated to the disorder that will be contrived”: GA 346) 

How are we doing with that challenge right now? Here are a few random examples from around the world of what is going on:

In early August, Italy banned the unvaccinated from most forms of social life, then most forms of travel and now most forms of work. The unvaccinated have already been banned since 6 August from most indoor public places such as bars, restaurants and gyms, plus many outdoor ones such as football stadiums and the Colosseum. And since 1 September they are banned from planes, ferries, inter-regional trains and coaches, plus universities (staff and students) and schools (staff only). The vaccine has been compulsory for health workers since April.  More or less the only activities the unvaccinated are allowed to do outside their homes are shopping and going to mass.

In the US, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna launched their COVID-19 vaccine trials for children as young as 6 months old in March and expect to share results as soon as this month. I find this extraordinarily evil – to inject babies with these mRNA vaccines is almost beyond belief. Johnson & Johnson, meanwhile, is collecting data about their COVID-19 vaccine in ages 12 to 17 and hopes to start studying ages 2 to 11 soon. In this Land of the Free, the Biden administration has said most federal employees must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 no later than 22^nd November as it drafts rules to require large employers to have their workers inoculated or tested weekly. And last week Biden signed an executive order requiring federal employees who work in the Executive Branch to be fully vaccinated. In more shocking news from America, some American parents are lying about their children’s age to get under-12s vaccinated.

In the UK, the Scottish Parliament has voted in favour of vaccine passport implementation for nightclubs and other crowded venues. Negative tests will not be accepted; the Scottish government intention is to boost vaccine uptake. In both Wales and England, the governments have made it mandatory for care home workers to be vaccinated. Clubbers in Wales will have to show a vaccine passport to enter nightclubs and attend large events. From October people in Wales will also need a NHS Covid Pass to prove they have been double jabbed or show a negative lateral flow test result. In England, Boris Johnson’s government has flip-flopped wildly on the introduction of vaccine passports for visits to nightclubs and large events before ruling it out for the time being (more on the situation in England below).

Here is an excellent and really chilling account of how the Covid vaccine passports are being implemented in Lithuania: https://txti.es/covid-pass/images (Hat-tip – Robin Hall).

In Switzerland, since Monday 13^th September, people must show a Covid certificate, issued to those who have been vaccinated, tested or recovered from the coronavirus (but not to those who are healthy) to access indoor spaces such as restaurants, bars, gyms and museums, because of a fourth wave that is putting pressure on hospitals. Almost 53 per cent of the population have been twice jabbed; now plans are in motion to extend vaccines to the 12-plus age group.

Thousands of health workers across France have been suspended without pay for refusing to take a Covid-19 vaccine ahead of a deadline of September 15^th, Health Minister Olivier Veran has said. It comes just two days after doctors and health workers staged mass protests against mandatory vaccination measures which many view as being an attack on their civil liberties. France’s national public health agency estimated last week that roughly 12 percent of hospital staff and around six percent of doctors in private practices have yet to be vaccinated, leading the ministry to ban 3000 people from their jobs.

Australia is especially gung-ho in removing basic civil liberties. Apart from all the other violations of previously accepted rights, there is the Howard Springs quarantine facility in Darwin for Australians returning from overseas, who must go into mandatory supervised quarantine. In other words, the Australian government is forcing Aussies, who have already paid a fortune to airlines to get back home after having been kept out of the country during lockdown, into an internment camp where, among other sanctions, the inmates are not fed if they breach minor rules.

According to Reuters, there are similar situations in Greece, Indonesia, Fiji, Hungary, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Malta, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Turkmenistan and many other countries. This removal of basic liberties seems to be a worldwide phenomenon.

Here in England, Boris Johnson’s government is determined to prove that it can be just as tough and draconian as anywhere else in the world. I have written previously about how the law requiring care home workers to be vaccinated is affecting me and my colleagues. It’s a strange paradox of the situation that as a care worker I can’t even put a plaster (BandAid) on the grazed knee of one of our residents without getting his consent – but the government has completely over-ridden my rights to have a say in which medical interventions I receive and compels me to have an experimental vaccine which has not yet completed all its trials. 

This is especially sinister as despite much censorship, there is now plenty of evidence that there are serious levels of Covid vaccine damage recorded under the Yellow Card Scheme run by our watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It currently shows 1,632 deaths and 360,000 injuries since December 1, 2020, far more than any vaccine in the past.

Some care homes may be forced to close as their staff leave their jobs rather than submit to coercion to have the jabs. Many staff are now leaving to work in Amazon warehouses, where they are paid more than they get in the care sector and where they are being wooed with £1,000 ‘golden handshakes’. There is already a shortage of 120,000 care staff in England, so this new law will be turning a bad situation into an impossible one by (at the government’s own estimate) forcing 40,000 to 70,000 staff to leave. There are already reports of some care home residents not being reached by carers until late morning because of staff shortages and some care home companies are asking the families of residents to come in as volunteers to make up for the shortfall.  To add insult to injury, the government has told local authorities to redeploy library staff into care homes, as though anyone, whatever their background, can come in and take over from a skilled care worker.

And this is really strange – why is a government, which is supposedly Conservative and all in favour of family values, saying that 12 year-olds can go against their parents’ wishes and have the jabs without their parents’ permission? This is the State, in a move reminiscent of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, asserting that it can decide what is best for a child by taking away the rights of parents. If you are a parent of a child at school in the UK, there is a letter here from the organisation Lawyers for Liberty which you can download and send to the Head Teacher warning them of possible legal consequences if they facilitate the vaccination of your child without your consent.

All I wish to add now is that I have joined a crowdfunding campaign to bring a judicial review of the statutory instrument requiring workers to be vaccinated by 15^th November or be sacked, which according to the statement of claim put in by the solicitors Jackson Osborne, is incompatible with three pieces of primary legislation which should take legal precedence.

What is really going on? We can see several characteristics of what is happening to people across the world right now:

• A huge increase in stress levels
• A loss of faith or confidence in governments and public institutions of all kinds
• Personal rancour and divisions between families, friends and colleagues
• A collapse of the systems on which we all rely (the latest being the possibility of food shortages and energy supply failures during the winter)
• The gradual disappearance of all our old certainties

For anthroposophists, these phenomena indicate that what is happening is Ahrimanic, clear signs of the impending incarnation of the being that Christ called the ‘ruler of this world’. If Peter Deunov was right, we are going to be enduring these times for another quarter of a century.

Anthroposophists are not always the most psychologically self-aware of people, however; and although Steiner said that Ahriman is an actual being whose incarnation was unstoppable, we should also consider that human beings are threefold in nature and each of us has our own ‘inner Ahriman’ and ‘inner Lucifer’ whose efforts draw us away from the state of balance represented by the Christ impulse. In its effects, Covid-19 is surely forcing us to be aware of the shadow sides of our human nature and the consequent flaws in how we structure our societies. It is a combination of fear and the desire to exercise power that is driving these governmental responses to the pandemic and it is fear that is keeping so many of us in thrall to government diktat. But what about our own part in what is happening?

The writer Paul Kingsnorth, describing a family holiday in Ireland, summed up our situation in a nutshell:

“On this occasion we were in a small town – a nice little place, full of holidaying people like us. There were pubs and restaurants open, and the streets were full of tables and chairs (one of the unexpected benefits of the pandemic has been that Ireland has discovered outdoor dining). There were shops and markets. There were people in vans, like us, and other people hiring boats and other people eating and drinking. There were leaflets in the tourist information centre advertising country house tours and chocolate makers and cycling trips.” 

“It was a nice little place, and all of a sudden I saw it for what it was. I saw what was happening here, and by extension everywhere, and within me and all of us. I saw that everything around me was dedicated solely to the immediate gratification of the senses. 

There it was, all of a sudden, right in my face. Eating. Drinking. Buying colourful things. Boats, vans, bikes, beer, steak, new clothes, second hand clothes, burgers, chocolate bars, old castles, stately homes, cappuccinos, pirate adventure parks, golf courses, spas, tea rooms, pubs. Food, drink, fun, entertainment, games, probably some sex somewhere in the mix. All of it came together suddenly into a kind of package of sensory overload and I saw that this was what we were, what we had become without really thinking or planning it.” 

“Stimulating the senses, then reacting to the stimulus: this was what our society was all about. Feeding the pleasure centres, spending and spending to keep it all coming at us. It was a nice little place. A small, unremarkable town that became, just for a second, the centre of the whole world.”

Kingsnorth is describing what you might call the Amazon Prime nature of our times (I want it and I want it now) that is leading us towards the collapse of human societies and systems around the world. It is unsustainable and if left unchecked, it will kill us all.

Is it too late to do anything about this? Is there an antidote? 

As an anthroposophist, I hope that more and more people can discover what it truly is to be a human being; ie that we are beings with one foot in the material world and another in the spiritual world, that spiritual world to which we return between incarnations and which is our real home. Here on Earth, we have the privilege and the challenge of free will, something which allows us to experience both the good and the bad sides of our natures over many lives and through this process to grow and evolve in freedom through our own decisions. A future stage of our development, many, many years ahead, will be to evolve to what Steiner called the ‘spirit self’, the ability to do what we know, where knowing and doing are one, which is the state of consciousness of the angels. 

In a way, we should be grateful to the Ahrimanic beings who, in this spiritual evolutionary process play an essential part. Not only are they instrumental in the forming of the human being’s constitution in all its beauty and darkness, but they also play an important role in bringing us face-to-face with the consequences of our actions and decisions and hence also the forming of our destiny and karma, of which Covid-19 is currently making us so painfully aware. 

This brings me back to my original intention of writing about the Archangel Michael, who Steiner tells us is the time spirit of our age, which is the age of the Consciousness Soul. During this time, humanity has been left free to a great extent. It depends on us and our own efforts if we are to make the connection with Michael, who unlike the adversarial beings who live in our blood and nervous systems, has to wait for us to turn to him in freedom. Michael wishes to work with human beings to safeguard the direction of our future evolution and avert the future planned for us by the adversarial powers.  It seems appropriate to end this piece with a prayer from Ita Wegman:

“May a sufficient number of people become conscious of the active power that Michael is among humankind. May all those who have the strength and courage, not only to bring the Michael-thought to manifestation in their souls but to make it living in their deeds, become true followers of Michael and bring about his aims, and thus lead humankind over the great crisis with which it is now confronted.”