As I get older, I think quite often about extinction, not only my own but also the fate of wider humanity and life on Earth. I’m now 72 years old so if one imagines life to be divided into sections of 21 years, then given a reasonable life expectancy of 84 years, I am now approaching the second half of the fourth quarter of my life. My mother and father died at the ages of 85 and 89 respectively, so perhaps I may get a little more time than 84 years, depending on heredity and as Hamlet put it, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. But in any case, it’s clear that my death is not that many years away. This is a natural time to reflect on what one has experienced, to try to make sense of the state of the world and to prepare for what is to come.
As an anthroposophist, with a view of what it is to be a human being, including the cycle of incarnation and excarnation which each of us goes through over many lifetimes, I have no fear of my next death, although I hope not to have a violent end or a painful or protracted illness leading up to it. But it’s surely not unreasonable to be fearful of the forces lining up against life on Earth, including an increasingly unstable climate, nuclear war, mass extinction of species, and unregulated artificial general intelligence which is shaping up to be our equivalent of the asteroid that finished off the dinosaurs.
These forces lead many people to conclude that, although Planet Earth may come through the onslaught, it’s entirely possible that humankind will not; and even, that it doesn’t really matter. Nature will survive and that is the bigger picture. Articles such as these from the BBC Science Focus website and Scientific American assume that humans will join the 99% of other species which have become extinct over the history of the Earth.
Scientists who, in the main, tend to be rationalists and atheists, have only a limited view of what it is to be a human being and so they underplay the importance of humanity and our role on Earth. They believe that human beings evolved accidentally from some protoplasm in the primeval mud; if you were to say to them that matter in itself has no living quality and it is the presence of spirit that gives life to matter, they would regard you as an imbecile. They cannot see, or perhaps they prefer not to recognise, that there is order in the cosmos and on the Earth and that it is vanishingly unlikely that all of this is the result of accidental processes. What they do see is the utter irrationality of human beings and their leaders, who in our present time are bringing all of us and our beautiful home planet Earth to catastrophe. In the face of such folly, humans can be dispensed with, and the planet will get on perfectly well without us.
Anthroposophists on the other hand tend to be much more positive about the role of human beings on Earth. I’ve just been reading an interesting article by Dan McKanan, who is the Ralph Waldo Emerson Senior Lecturer in Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. One passage struck me:
“There is much less despair in the anthroposophical milieu than in other communities of environmentalists. One reason for this is that they don’t see humanity in itself as an environmental problem. They truly believe that human activity, if rightly directed, can make the world a better place for other creatures. Another reason is that they are radical believers in evolution. They don’t think the environmental goal is to remake some past Eden; rather, it is to help every individual and every species continue on its path of development, in relationship with everything else. Perhaps the most important factor, though, is that seeing the best in everything and remaining open to new ideas are integral to the spiritual practice of anthroposophy. They are, in fact, two of the “basic exercises” that Rudolf Steiner recommended all of his students to practice on a daily basis. Not every person connected to an anthroposophical initiative practises these, but enough do that they set a positive tone for everyone else. Since I spend most of my time in academic and leftist contexts, both of which can foster an ultracritical ethos, I treasure the opportunity to spend time with people for whom affirmation and appreciation are core spiritual disciplines.”
Whether or not the Earth needs humans is essentially a spiritual question. We know that every kingdom of nature embodies spirit, up to its own degree. For example, plants embody the etheric, although the conscious aspects of this are not incarnated but remain in higher worlds; and this is so, too, with the other kingdoms. Human beings, however, are the only ones in which Spirit/I or Ego incarnates on Earth and this is a wondrous miracle in itself – think of the magnitude of evolution that this took.
If humans were to be wiped out, so are further evolutionary possibilities for both Earth and humankind. It would exclude the possibility of that spirit coming to the Earth to develop even higher qualities, eg Spirit Self and the continuing evolutionary development of humans into completely spiritualised human beings. Nature, with all her astounding beauty and majesty, is not enough, and evolution would have to start again. Christ came to the Earth so that this Spirit/I or Ego in humans would find the path of upward evolution – would be Christianised, either consciously, or for many people, unconsciously. What would the Earth be if human beings die out? Nature would remain, of course, but with Spirit still locked up, coiled within matter, unable to express its destiny.
Nature is lifted up by human beings, as she cannot do this for herself, not even when assisted by the best intentions of the environmentalists. Only spiritually aware human beings can do this, with the abilities of Christ given to us to make it possible. Two examples out of many of how we can help the travails of the Earth: participation in the Act of Consecration of Man, one of the seven sacraments of the Christian Community, which can be experienced by those with clairvoyant abilities as sending deep healing right into the heart of the Earth; and the use of the biodynamic preparations by farmers and growers, which are of huge benefit to the soil and to the elemental world. But what if we were not there…?
If we were not there, the true purpose of human beings and the Earth in their evolution together could not happen in the way that has been envisaged by the community of cosmic intelligences. So therefore, despite the ongoing assault on humanity from the Asuric, Ahrimanic and Soratic forces, I don’t believe that these oppositional powers will finally prevail.
On a personal level, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when I was 11 years old, and at the height of the standoff between Khrushchev and Kennedy, I remember riding my bike through our local park and thinking that in a few hours’ time, I and everything I could see around me might be vapourised. All of my generation has lived with this fear throughout our lives; and each succeeding generation has had additional fears to worry about since then. A 2021 poll by the University of Bath of 10,000 16 to 25-year-olds around the world found that 56 per cent of them agreed with the statement that humanity is doomed.
This is the direct result of the work of the oppositional powers, whose influence on human beings has made the last century and a half the most terrible in all history. Anthroposophists believe that this is part and parcel of what it is to live in this age of the Consciousness Soul, when most humans are unaware of the reality of the spiritual world and have no conscious access to sources of comfort or reassurance at this time of deep trial in human evolution. They are therefore unaware of the unique role that human beings are called upon to perform in the joint evolution of the Earth and humankind.
As I contemplate my own mortality and the fading away of many certainties in daily life formerly taken for granted, I try to maintain equanimity in the face of all the horror that is happening in the world. It’s very worthwhile to read Matthew Chapter 24 in the Bible to gain perspective on these times. Verse 6 is particularly notable for this extraordinary statement: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”
anthropopper 
Greeting!
Thanks for putting this so plainly Jeremy!
I have been trying to point this truth out to various members of my
extended family,
but never succeeded in putting it into really adequate language…
Best,
Gabriela
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A beautiful and thoughtful article.
Thank you Jeremy,
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Dear Jeremy – thank you for this…it was just one of those depressing days and now it feels better…thank you, Eva X
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“The whole future of the Earth, as of religion, seems to me to depend on the awakening of our faith in the future.”
Click to access Future_of_Man.pdf
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Thank you Jeremy for sharing this warm and uplifiting article, wishing you many more wonderful years to come.
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Thank you.
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Hi Jeremy, it’s nice to hear from you again after such a long time. As always, you pick up on an important topic, so I’m tempted to respond.
Just a small footnote about Dan McKanan: I was fortunate to hear him once at a Camphill facility on Lake Constance. On that occasion I bought his book Eco-Alchemy. McKanan certainly has great sympathies for anthroposophy, but he is not an anthroposophist, but a follower of a religious community in America. It certainly does not contradict anthroposophical intentions “to make the world a better place”, but this is just not the main intention of anthroposophy, as one can easily see from your article.
A main question of your article is: can mankind disappear (prematurely) from the earth, caused by circumstances brought about by man himself? Yes, this question is really very serious!
Can we use the following analogy here?: Rudolf Steiner emphasizes that the temptation of Jesus in the desert was a real temptation, that the passing of this temptation was not certain beforehand, that there was definitely the possibility that Jesus would not resist the temptation. This was a real test, not a formality, not an automatism. Is humanity also facing a test, a temptation, that will not be passed “automatically”, “as a given fact”? I think this is the price of the “freedom” that we as individuals and humanity have.
We have the consolation, the certainty that “God does not let go the work of his hands”. “Somehow” it will surely go on. When asked what will happen if the impulse of the Christmas Conference is not realized, Steiner replied, “Then the impulse will be taken away from the earth and realized elsewhere in the cosmos.” This shows that the situation for humanity is indeed more than serious.
I feel this existential, extreme involvement, anguish in your words. This fundamental shock is cooled down a little by putting these things into reasonable words. But just as at the grave of a loved one the shock cannot be fully expressed in words, so also in your words there remains a “surplus” beyond all intelligent explanations. This “surplus” is, after all, the most important thing in your contribution. This surplus can make us go our spiritual way with even more strength, even more determination. For me, that’s what it’s ultimately about, not more esoteric explanations.
“And ye shall hear” … “ye” certainly means all people, but Mt 24 as a whole addresses spiritually striving people and explains their destiny on this earth.
Ottmar
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Thank you, Ottmar. I’ve now found your post, which was hidden away in WordPress and for some reason did not come into my Inbox.
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Hi Jeremy,
Here is a really excellent alternative description of what Rudolf Steiner said in so many ways from 1900 to 1925. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin also suffered persecution, and this has to be accepted
as what it means to suffer what Christ spoke about in the 9 Beatitudes in Matthew 5. We know what it means to experience persecution for our efforts. Pierre also saw the future union with Christ.
“The laws of creative union have been abundantly verified in the field open to our historical or experimental research. In consciousness gradually rising up on an ever wider and taller pyramid of animate matter, we see the most objective and most satisfactory expression of the real to be found in the whole range and depth our senses can attain. But what the human mind delights in is to try to extend around itself the harmony of its outlook upon things, beyond the circle of direct vision. The law of recurrence represented by creative union lends itself with wonderful flexibility to this blessed enterprise. And the main lines of the organisation it introduces into the dim mass of the most distant past and the most ultimate future may be described as follows.
At the lower limit of things, too deep for any of us to penetrate, it discloses an immense plurality—complete diversity combined with total disunity. This absolute multiplicity would, in truth, be nothingness, and it has never existed. But it is the quarter from which the world emerges for us: at the beginning of all time, the world appears to us rising up from the Multiple, impregnated with and still bedewed with the Multiple. Already, however, since something exists, the work of unification has begun. In the first stages in which it becomes conceivable to us, the world has already been for a long time at the mercy of a multitude of elementary souls that fight for its dust in order that, by unifying it, they may exist. There can be no doubt about it—what we call inorganic matter is certainly animate in its own way. Complete exteriority or total ‘transsience’, like absolute multiplicity, is synonymous with nothingness. Atoms, electrons, elementary particles, no matter what they be (so long as they are something outside ourselves) must possess the rudiments of immanence; in other words, they must have a spark of spirit. Before physical and chemical conditions on earth made possible the birth of organic life, the universe either had no existence in itself, or already constituted a nebula of consciousness. Every unity of the world, provided it be a natural unity, is a monad.
In the world of matter, monads unite to an inconsiderable degree or imperfectly. That is why they are so inordinately stable in comparison with living beings properly so called. In animals they unite to a more marked degree—sufficiently to become extremely fragile, but still not enough to resist the disintegration that lies in wait for them. Only in man, so far as we know, does spirit so perfectly unite around itself the universality of the universe that, in spite of the momentary dissociation of its organic foundation, nothing can any longer destroy the ‘vortex’ of operation and consciousness of which it is the subsisting centre. The human soul is the first fully formed purchase point that the Multiple can fasten onto as it is drawn up by the Creation towards unity.
Such, all around us, is the position in the universe. Like a sphere that radiates from innumerable centres, the material world can today be seen by us as suspended from the spiritual consciousness of men. What has creative union to teach us about the balance and the future of this system? It gives us formal warning that the world we see is still profoundly unstable and incomplete. Unstable, because the millions of souls (living or departed) now included in the cosmos form an uneasy multiple, that, for mechanical reasons, must have a centre if it is to hold together. Incomplete because, while it represents a weakness, their very plurality is a strength and a source of hope for the future—that being the demand for or the anticipation of a later unification in spirit. In consequence, the whole weight of past evolution forces us men to look higher than ourselves in the series of spiritual development. If it is our own souls that give solidity to the infra-human world, the human world, in turn, cannot be conceived except as supported by conscious centres vaster and more powerful than ours. Thus we are gradually introduced (from the more multiple to the less multiple) to the concept of a first, supreme centre, an omega, in which all the fibres, the threads, the generating lines, of the universe are knit together. From the point of view of the completion of the movement it governs it is a centre still in formation—a potential centre; but it is already a real centre, too, since without its attractive force operating here and now, the general stream of unification would be unable to raise up the Multiple.
The picture, then, is perfectly clear: in the light of creative union the universe assumes the form of a huge cone, whose base expands indefinitely to the rear, into darkness, while its apex rises up and concentrates ever further into the light. Throughout the whole, the same creative influence makes it- self felt, but always in a more conscious, more purified, more complex form. Initially, it is only vague affinities that set matter in motion; soon, however, the pull of the living can be felt: in lower forms it is an almost mechanical process, but in the human heart it becomes the infinitely rid and formidable power of love. Finally, at a still higher level, the passion is born for the realities that lie above the circles of man, realities in which in some vague way we feel we are immersed. Science is necessarily chiefly concerned with studying the material arrangements that are successively effected by the progress of life. In so doing, it sees only the outer crust of things.
The true evolution of the world takes place in souls and in their union. Its inner factors are not mechanistic but psychological and moral. That, as we shall again have occasion to note, is why the further, physical, developments of mankind—the true continuations, that is, of its planetary, biological, evolution—will be found in the increased consciousness obtained by the activation of psychical forces of unification.” .
I know this was long, but it does give at least a hint of what Pierre also perceived as a Christ-centered evolutionary system. He had the Jesuits against him, just as Steiner had the Catholics. This discourse proves that we are all on Point Omega. Cheers.
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Thank you Jeremy, for yet another thoughtful and considered essay, which speaks clearly to the worries and hopes of many people currently incarnated in the physical realm.
It seems as though we are cursed to live in these “interesting times”, where fear confuses the senses and we so readily forget the teachings of wise.
I would like to address the topic of your central fear of human cataclysm in the hope that this will resonate with you on some level. To be clear, I am writing the following only as an expression gratitude for your perspective and the for offering a platform on which I can express mine.
Steiner did his level best to render the esoteric teachings and practices as accessible as possible without making them entirely exoteric – he alluded to this when he spoke of people being drawn to Anthroposophosy via karmic means. He was however, only one of many who have tried to lift the veil, if only a little, on the occult wisdom of The Mysteries. Max Heindel, Gurdjieff, Samael Aun Weor, Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, Dion Fortune, Alister Crowley and many others have committed their understanding to paper and given the world the fruits of their knowledge. Along with Steiner, these people offered notions of the evolution of man and outlined the path to knowledge of higher worlds or the inner planes, as I would know them.
These people lived in a time gone by, but they understood that man would pass through Seven distinct cycles of evolution – they knew it because they could see it and as I’m sure you are aware, there are countless nameless others, who have followed the teachings of The Way, seeing what cannot ordinarily be seen by the spiritually less advanced. Despite the different perspectives, their teachings are broadly consistent and should give us all hope.
We are in the 5th Epoch of the Aryan root race and those with the eyes to see can already perceive the 6th root race amassing in the Astral realms, ready to soon incarnate into physical existence. I would urge you thus to worry not about the future existence of mankind. Unless the Divine wills it to be so, human life will continue to incarnate upon this plane and continue to evolve, exactly as intended and exactly as reported by the great Esotericists, both of now and times gone by. Remember we occupy Maya, an illusionary realm, rendered convincingly in its tangible three dimensional brilliance by human consciousness. Did Steiner not note that the world would not be the world we know if there was not a human eye or mind to comprehend it and render it in solid form? We should worry not.
The thought of a world without people is undoubtedly quite the concern, it isn’t however your concern Jeremy, anymore than it is mine. The sun rises and sets, the moon follows its cycle and the stars continue to shine. The end is not nigh.
The concern you hold has been given to you, and you in turn have accepted this concern into your consciousness. Indeed, this climate catastrophe has been hammered into our collective conscious and subconscious daily by the various media outlets which so many of us choose to ravenously consume. We can, however, help ourselves to think more clearly on the subject without access to higher worlds by simply ridding ourselves of the programmed fear, calmly composing ourselves and objectively meditating on what we know to be true with our physical senses.
The News creates a notion of a problem in the mind, which generates a reaction, which necessitates an often profitable solution – which people generally wouldn’t have accepted without the “problem” being spelled out to them. Without trying too hard, we can recall from decades gone by examples of this type of play in action.
During the 1960’s, the News screamed of impending doom, if we weren’t to be fried in a nuclear fire, we were told that our Oil reserves were running out, there were only so many dinosaur bones and only so much Oil. The notion of extreme scarcity drove prices in one direction and it certainly wasn’t down. The 1970’s saw programming dedicated to concerns regarding the imminent arrival of the next Ice Age, the 1980’s saw the specter of acid rain destroying all crops within a few years – industry and the consumer would have to be taxed to fix the problem. Same in the 1990’s when we were told that the Ozone layer had a hole in it and during the late 90’s we were warned of melting ice caps and the subsequent rising of the sea levels consuming huge areas of land. Indeed, we were promised that the ice caps would be gone by 2010 unless serious economic and behavioural measures were taken to address the problem. The news media had barely got over the fear of us all drowning in icy floods when it introduced, for reasons not entirely clear at the time, the terrifying notion of the “anti Vaxxer”. For days and weeks were treated to images of a renegade doctor, a man apparently hell bent on returning us to the stone age medical practices with his mad vaccine related fears. To most people this wasn’t news, as surely anyone with any sense always got their shots for flu or whatever our doctors recommended would benefit our health? Could the news possibly have had an agenda here?
Of course it could!
Most recently, we have been treated to mathematical computational models created by “scientists” who were duly deified by our News media. These newly ordained lesser Gods amongst simple men, solemnly predicted a Tsunami of death, by means of the frightening Corona disease (Death rate equitable with seasonal flu). If only there was a Vaccine that could save us from our collective doom! Not to worry! A vaccine was to be delivered in short order, and for any fools who had any doubts as to the life saving qualities of the marvelous jab – for an illness that marked one of it’s symptoms as no symptoms at all – the news media was right on hand to support any hesitancy on the issue by promising that the unvaccinated were to be treated as “anti vax” social pariahs, who didn’t love Grandma, and were to remain that way until such a time as they arrived at the correct way of thinking.
Problem -Reaction – Solution. The Hegelian Dialectic – or the oldest trick in the Devil’s book, played to perfection as it always is. For man is weak willed and blind to the tricks of the realm he occupies during this physical incarnation. Ahriman must be well pleased to see 75% of adult populations vaccinated for an illness that never did live up to the hype, but so terrified the masses into unthinking action. He will be more pleased that many students of the Mysteries were duped into wrong action, despite the contrary teachings of their respective leaders. Did Steiner not warn that vaccination would be used to damage the spiritual being? Did Steiner not reflect on his ability to teach a student in the same room as a sickly mother with smallpox – noting that neither he nor the student were affected by this supposedly highly contagious illness? Did the same Steiner not articulate to those with the ears to hear that the two institutions we perceive as the greatest good – science and education – would, in all truth, be the source of the greatest evil. Did Blavatsky not pen an essay on Pandemics and their causes, concluding they are Astral in nature? Is it not the case that virtually all Esoterocists warn as to the errors of materialistic thinking when it comes drawing conclusions as to the true nature of things? Did Bailey not warn that the Shambhala force would be unleashed at the end of the age to eject the “unbelievers”? The wisdom was there for the taking but the fear of death and the thought of not going to the pub/going on holiday to Spain, bypassed the senses of those who should have known better.
The news is revered in our societies, by the still sleepy masses, as a great bastion of knowledge and truth, yet we know that it consistently lies, openly demonstrates biases and agendas which polarise a public rather than galvanize it and pushes an endless stream of fear into the imaginations of man.
When training to access the higher worlds the student learns to understand that certain qualities are necessary to proceed. An attitude of fearlessness needs to be assumed and a recognition of our own immense, divinely ordained power. Self discipline and devotion are key attributes to those from a culture not disposed to the art of meditation, as is an unwavering trust of both the teachings and teachers; an even temperament is to be assumed at all times; an understanding and exact comprehension of the Hermetic Principles is necessary, ensuring that we understand that treading the central path is always the best way to proceed – never too happy, or too sad, or too politically Left or too Right. The Neophyte never takes the word of anyone as truth until he has sought consul from the higher self – including the word of a professorial caricature in a lab coat, paraded on the evening news to deliver “facts” about illness or climate. These are called Wisdom Religions for a reason.
I would duly reiterate that your fears for the future of man, are unfounded and not based on the evidence of your eyes any more than they are based on any Occult teachings that you have undoubtedly read. The fear which concerns you and many more people besides, are the fears that have been given to you by those with the most to gain from your worry.
In conclusion, for those who are drawn to the mysteries, I would urge an unwavering optimism for the future of man. Despite the serious issues coming our way, and they are coming, which the news will, of course, attempt to explain away by means of material “science”, the teachings of the ages are still there to be read and understood by those who can, and for those who have the will, there is nothing coming down the line that we cannot overcome in order to continue on with our evolutionary march.
We are in the midst of an awakening and whilst we may indeed hear of wars and rumours of wars, we shall not be troubled because we know that we are orders of magnitude greater than we are told by our fact checking friends from the news media and death is not a problem in the grand scheme of things, as you so rightly note.
Thank you.
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There is much attribution to these comments which would suppose that it is already laid into the plan of destiny that the human race will overcome these presently seeming travails working in the world and achieve what has already been ordained. In Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 19, this is given emphasis when Christ speaks to His disciples about what the future will bring, and His first remark is that the Temple that they marvel at will be destroyed. A portion of this prophecy occurs on Good Friday, April 3, 33 AD. So, it only merits consideration after two thousand years, that we are still here, and even after two world wars in which the plan of the Asuras is trying to play itself out. What is resolving, even as we speak, is the appearance of the Son of Man coming in and through the clouds with great power and glory! We only need to recognize it, and this requires Gnosis, which great figures like Rudolf Steiner, Sri Aurobindo, Gurdjieff/Ouspensky, Teilhard de Chardin, and others gave out as a kind of Spiritual Darwinism when materialism was seen as approaching its apex.
The key is to act on Initiative and be bold and straightforward. This blog has done extraordinary work along these lines, and particularly with exposing the Covid sham. As well, seeing through the Evil which tries to make us weak and helpless. Anthropopper has been a blessing to have in the world, and its Archives need to be preserved and encouraged for research in the domain of Spiritual Science.
A kind of diminishment of consciousness seems to be upon us again today, and Steiner first identified this with regard to World War I. He spent four years trying to figure out its source.
He said it came out of the Ahrimanic source found in America, and having the power to influence European thinking across 3000 miles of ocean. How about that? We know the real story of Woodrow Wilson, which Steiner could not reveal until March 1924, after he had died. This is a necessary protocol of esoteric knowledge. President Wilson epitomized the further exploitation of Arabism into America. The Asuric assault in the world begins here.
In the 21st century, this assault has only grown and cannot be overcome without Gnosis, which is the modern formulation known as Anthroposophy. Whatever helps the cause is written in these pages.
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Steiner’s final lecture in GA 177 is entitled, “Into The Future”, ref., 28 October 1917. Since this essay here on Anthropopper, and its thread of comments seems to be about the future of humanity, which is held suspect by modern science, which believes somehow that Nature, instead, has a future, it would be good to look at how Steiner expresses himself at the beginning of this final lecture:
“Before going on, I want to draw your attention to something of great significance which lies behind all these things. As you know, the transition from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean period of civilization came in about 1413, that is in the fifteenth century. This has been characterized in many ways, but let me add today that spiritual guidance of earthly affairs involved mainly members of the hierarchy of Archangels — you will find some of the details in the small volume entitled The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Humanity. As I said, they were mainly involved. Try with all intensity to gain an image of this: angelic spirits pursued their tasks in the spiritual worlds. Much happened on earth as a result. History, human life in the fourth post-Atlantean age, resulted on earth. Angelic spirits belonging to the hierarchy of Angels served the higher hierarchy of Archangels; they did this in such a way, however, that the relationship between members of the two hierarchies was entirely above the earthly and in the spiritual realm, hardly touching on human life. This changed with the coming of the fifth post-Atlantean age, for then the members of the hierarchy of the Angels became more independent in their task of guiding humanity. Thus humanity was more under direct guidance from the Archangels during the fourth post-Atlantean age and will be under direct guidance from the Angels during the fifth age — that is throughout our present fifth age, until the fourth millennium. We can therefore no longer say that the relationship is entirely unconnected with the physical world. This is how the fact can be presented at the spiritual level.
It can also be presented at a more physical level, for all things physical are in the image of the spirit. Looking for the indirect route by which the Archangels guided humanity by working with the Angels during the fourth post-Atlantean age, we can say: This was done via the human blood. And the social structure was also created via the blood, for it was based on blood relationship, on blood bonds. Both the Archangels and the Angels had their dwelling place in the blood, as it were. Truly, the blood is not merely something for chemists to analyse; it is also the dwelling place of entities from higher worlds.
During the fourth post-Atlantean age, therefore, the blood was the dwelling place of Archangels and Angels. This is changing with the fifth post-Atlantean age, for the Angels — I am referring to the Angels of Light, the normal Angels — will take possession more of the blood, and the Archangels will be more involved in the nervous system. This is putting it in the terms of the modern science of physiology. Using an older terminology I might also say: during the fifth post-Atlantean age the Archangels are essentially more at work in the brain and the Angels in the heart. You see, therefore, that a major change has occurred which can be traced all the way to the physical structure of human beings”.
These introductory words are very hard to grasp in our day and age, and even sound ludicrous to modern anthroposophists! Well, why not? Yet, it can be shown that Steiner was very close to the Hierarchies, and Their respective functions. He was like Dionysius the Areopagite all over again. This becomes our challenge to grasp in its full extent. Then, we can contemplate real heroes for truth and knowledge, like Francis Delaisi, who was simply ignored. Steiner always set up his pretext for a human biography, and especially when democracy is involved, which can be such a spurious term in our day and age.
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Crowley – no ! He was a clown and a monster, who abused his girlfriend’s son. (Phil Baker (in City of the Beast: The London of Aleister Crowley, Strange Attractor Press 2022) records that Crowley raped the then two-year-old Edward, calling him his “Ganymede”.)
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I suppose that if this blog can only muster a response about Crowley, then it proves something about wasted words over cheap sensationalism. Does anybody even listen anymore? Has Anthropopper diminished to the point where nobody cares anymore? I realize that 2014 to 2023 is nine years, and the entire planet has changed its configuration, which is now much more of a mental project built along the lines of Teilhard’s “Noosphere”, which equates to the more substantive world of Pure Thoughts. We have all aged by nine years. Some are not even here anymore, and some have simply given up. Yet, the doctrine of spiritual science remains to be grasped.
For example, there were two Jesus children, and not just one. When Steiner came upon this essential truth, he had to change all previous speculations. It was because the Akashic Records had opened further for him to receive Its Truths. His perception of Zarathustra being in a physical body in the fourth century made him investigate further. And, I know that nobody understands any of this. This is today’s Anthroposophy.
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More of a warning to casual readers, who – excited by certain notions – end up, like A.C., deluded by fantasies of power and dangerously misled. Nothing to do with sensationalism.
All the best, Steve.
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I agree. Crowley should not be included along with Steiner
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Thank you, Jeremy
Comfort, encouragement and strength can be drawn from the profound Manichaean principle: “the greater the evil, the greater the eventual good”.
Richard
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https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA074/English/PLH1932/19200522p01.html
Augustine’s Manichaeism:
“Manichaeism was already at the time when Augustine was growing up a world-current of thought which had spread throughout North Africa, where, you must remember, Augustine spent his youth, and in which many people of Western Europe had been caught up. Founded in about the third century in Asia by Mani, a Persian, Manichaeism had extraordinarily little effect historically on the subsequent world. To define this Manichaeism, we must say this: there is more importance in the general attitude of this view of life than in what one can literally describe as its contents. Above all, the remarkable thing about it is that the division of human experience into a spiritual side and a material side had no meaning for it. The words or ideas “spirit” and “matter” mean nothing to it. Manichaeism sees as “spiritual” what appears to the senses as material and when it speaks of the spiritual it does not rise above what the senses know as matter. It is true to say of Manichaeism — much more emphatically true than we with our world grown so abstract and intellectual usually think, — that it actually sees spiritual phenomena, spiritual facts in the stars and their courses, and that it sees at the same time in the mystery of the sun that which is manifest to us on earth as something spiritual. It conveys no meaning for Manichaeism to speak of either matter or spirit, for in it what is spiritual has its material manifestation and what is material is to it spiritual. Therefore, Manichaeism quite naturally speaks of astronomical things and world phenomena in the same way as it would speak of moral phenomena or happenings within the development of human beings. And thus this apposition of “Light” and “Darkness” which Manichaeism, imitating something from ancient Persia, embodies in its philosophy, is to it at the same time something completely and obviously spiritual. And it is also something obvious that this same Manichaeism still speaks of what apparently moves as sun in the heavens as something which has to do with the moral entities and moral impulses in the development of mankind; and that it speaks of the relation of this moral-physical sun in the heavens, to the Signs of the Zodiac as to the twelve beings through which the original being, the original source of light delegates its activities. But there is something more about this Manichaeism. It looks upon man and man does not yet appear to its eyes as what we to-day see in man. To us man appears as a kind of climax of creation on earth. Whether we think more or less in material or spiritual terms, man appears to man now as the crown of creation on earth, the kingdom of man as the highest kingdom or at least as the crown of the animal kingdom. Manichaeism cannot agree to this.
The thing which had walked the earth as man and in its time was still walking it, is to it only a pitiful remnant of that being which ought to have become man through the divine essence of light. Man should have become something entirely different from the man now walking the earth. The being now walking on earth as man was created through original man losing the fight against the demons of darkness, this original man who had been created by the power of light as an ally in its fight against the demons of darkness, but who had been transplanted into the sun by benevolent powers and had thus been taken up by the kingdom of light itself. But the demons have managed nevertheless to tear off as it were a part of this original man from the real man who escaped into the sun and to form the earthly race of man out of it, the earthly race which thus walks about on earth as a weaker edition of that which could not live here, for it had to be removed into the sun during the great struggle of spirits. In order to lead back man, who in this way appeared as a weaker edition on earth, to his original destination the Christ-being then appeared and through its activity the demonic influences are to be removed from the earth.”
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I am reading the book/lectures The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World right now. Which is leaps beyond Cosmic Memory. This is my first time reading this book. Sometimes it takes my breath. I have learned of the sacrifices of the Thrones to the Cherubim during ancient Saturn. I have learned the reason for humans. We are to develop Freedom and Love through our will and I. We are special and different from all of the other hierarchies except the Angels as we have freedom. Christ did not sacrifice for nought. Some humans will go forward others will not. And so it goes.
We live in the times of the Locust People. Book of Revelation and the Work of the Priest. Lecture 13 Dornach, 17 September 1924.
“but taken as a whole it is correct to say that in our time certain supernumerary people are appearing who have no ‘I’ and are therefore not human beings in the full sense of the word. This is a terrible truth. They go about but are not incarnated ‘I’s; they take their place in physical heredity, receive an ether body and an astral body and in a sense become equipped inwardly with an ahrimanic consciousness. They appear to look human if you do not look too closely yet they are not human beings in the full sense of the word.
This is a terrible truth and it is a fact. The apocalyptist is pointing directly at human beings themselves when he speaks of the plague of locusts in the age of the fifth trumpet. Once again we can recognize the apocalyptist by the manner of his vision. In their astral body such people appear just as the apocalyptist describes them: like etheric locust with human faces”.
There is more should you care to read. My point is millions of these ‘humans’ are here with negative energies. Along with dulled consciousness of the political powers it is an atmosphere of slime and mud.
Divine Love Becomes Divine Wrath which will put us back on track, but we will endure and persevere. We know the earth will pass away but we will not. Christ did not incarnate for us for nought!
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Good stuff. Yes, Spiritual Hierarchies was a lecture-course in April 1909, and only helped to prove us worthy of the task of continuing the work of the Thrones. Do we have the Will for it today? This is the most important question. We have to Act, and not just react to world conditions today. Thus, this is why we are considering the real nature of Mani, who was/is the Sun Oracle. Thanks Rose, for your offering. We are not alone when these discourses appear for real consideration.
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Yes, I need to ‘brush up’ on Mani. Has been awhile. I have a book, Mani & Rudolf Steiner by Christine Gruwez. Will revisit it and look in the archives. So vast………..no end………
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Yes, Christine Gruwez. Please tell me about that book. She was out here a few years ago, but I didn’t get to talk to her.
https://steinerbooks.presswarehouse.com/browse/author/821fcbd9-1c65-4acf-9d97-e4af4e9e210b/Gruwez-Christine?page=1
We are the ones, Rose, and you will find it so. All we have left are the words which still try to say, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Most people today scoff at such a notion. The propaganda mill. It means that it is still onward and upward. Take your oxygen tank with you 🙂 Regards
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I have briefly revisited the book and it is a well written historical
narrative along with Steiner’s writings/lectures.
Chapter 1, Mani and Manichaeism: The Historical Dimension
Chapter 2, Rudolf Steiner and Manichaeism
Chapter 3, The Mission of Evil: Rudolf Steiner and the Mani Intention
Chapter 4, Mani as Artist and the Significance of art in Manichaeism
Epilogue: Anthroposophy and the Manichaeism Deed
Appendix 1: Manu and Mani
Appendix 2: The Manichaean View of Jesus and Christ
I do not at this time feel I know enough to speak of the “Son of a Widow”. But will copy this from the book Ehrenfried Pfeiffer quotes Steiner.
“Mani will not incarnate during this, 20th, century, but intends to do so in the next century, IF he can find a suitable body. The ordinary kind of education does not provide any possibility for Mani to develop; only Waldorf education would do so. If the right conditions are provided he will appear as a teacher of humankind and take up leadership in matters of art and religion. He will act from the power of the Grail Mysteries, and he will instruct humankind so that they may decide even about good and evil.”
This is a brief, Mani is more powerful than Skythianos, the Buddha, or Zarathustra. A very high messenger of Christ.
The IF above is capitalized by me. We are coming to times where it will be hard to find suitable bodies. Surely Christ will have a hand in making sure his messenger has one.
Hope this was enough description to help you. 😺
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Thanks for this. We know that Manes is highly regarded, and especially for conducting a Supersensible Council in the 4th century, c. AD 333. As Avatar of the Ego, he leads the other three Avatars in forming the basis for the School of the Rosy Cross as an interior version of Manichaeism. Please remember, Mani had been martyred to death in AD 277, on the site of the future Academy of Gondishapur. His Manichaean system was stamped out “root and branch”. Thus, the system had to go inward for about 1500 years, until Steiner’s Anthroposophy.
“There is a fourth individuality named in history behind whom for those who have the proper comprehension, much lies hidden — an individuality still higher and more powerful than Skythianos, than Buddha or than Zarathustra. This individuality is Manes, and those who see more in Manichaeism than is usually the case know him to be a very high messenger of Christ. It is said that a few centuries after Christ had lived on the earth, there was held one of the greatest assemblies of the spiritual world connected with the earth that ever took place, and that there Manes gathered round him three mighty personalities of the fourth century after Christ. In this figurative description a most significant fact in connection with spiritual development is expressed. Manes called these persons together to consult with them as to the means of reintroducing the wisdom that had lived throughout the changing times of the post Atlantean age and of causing it to unfold more and more gloriously in the future. Who were the personalities brought together by Manes in that memorable assembly? He called together the personality in whom Skythianos lived at that time, and also the physical reflection of the Buddha who had then appeared again, and the erstwhile Zarathustra who was wearing a physical body at that time. Around Manes was this council, himself in the centre and around him Skythianos, Buddha and Zarathustra. And in that council a plan was agreed upon for causing all the wisdom of the Bodhisattvas of the post-Atlantean time to flow more and more strongly into the future of mankind; and the plan of the future evolution of the civilisations of the earth then decided upon was adhered to and carried over into the European mysteries of the Rosy Cross. These particular mysteries have always been connected with the individualities of Skythianos, of Buddha and of Zarathustra. They were the teachers in the schools of the Rosy Cross; teachers who gave their wisdom to the earth as a gift, in order that through it the Christ Being might be understood. Hence in all spiritual Rosicrucian schools the deepest reverence is paid to these old initiates who preserved the primeval wisdom of Atlantis; to the re-incarnated Skythianos, in whom was seen the great and honoured Bodhisattva of the West; to the temporarily incarnated reflection of the Buddha, who also was honoured as one, of the Bodhisattvas; and finally to Zarathustra, the reincarnated Zarathustra. These were looked up to as the great Teachers of the European Initiates. Such presentations must not be taken in the sense of external history, although they elucidate the historical course of events better than any external description could do”.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA113/English/RSPC1940/19090831p01.html
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Yes, it was very impressive, and I thank you. I have written more, but it hasn’t appeared yet.
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It was based on the discernment that Zarathustra was in a physical incarnation when this supersensible council took place in the 4th century, that Steiner first received the revelation that there were actually two Jesus children to account for. This is why the Gospel of Luke lectures represent a paradigm shift of what was previously known and thought about Jesus as an only child. In the Kassel lectures on the Gospel of John, GA 112, Steiner had indicated that the great Persian Initiate, Zarathustra, received the Christ at the age of thirty with the Baptism at the Jordan. In the Luke lectures, this all changes, and becomes much more complex. Zarathustra would become the Master Jesus, and the Nathan Jesus would receive the Christ at the Baptism. This is the first paradigm shift in Anthroposophy. In January 1910, Rudolf Steiner would invoke the second paradigm shift when he announced the Second Coming of Christ as early as the 1930’s, ref. GA 118.
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Esteemed mr Smith, dear Jeremy,
I am a Dutchman, so please excuse me for my limited level of mastering the English language. I have been reading your postings and the comments from respected authors for many years and appreciate your effort so much. I would like to write to you, returning to your initial text from the 13th of august:
“See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”
I think that is the right attitude.
Bothering about catastrophes, is, of course, necessary. Help & assistance needs to be given to many people and all over the world & mankind. the earth needs to be given love & care.
To me the question comes to mind: what can we do except sending material help and giving comfort and love? The daily and lasting intentions of each and everyone are important to the being of Love himself, Christ, the Lord. Even the thoughts and actions of one single person do not leave him indifferent at all – as has been written in her diary from 1936 to 1950 by Gabrielle Bossis.
Recently a book was published in the Netherlands by the author Bastiaan Baan, priest in the Christian community, by the title: “Future of the earth.” He says and writes, referring to the New Testament: “with the lord of the earth has been dealt already”. Further on in his book, mr. Baan relates to the issue of the ‘end of time’ and explains, referring to the book of revelations, that te end of the time is not yet near, allthough it might appeal to some of us to think so.
To me the above mentioned has a meaning: whatever happens, the Trinity, the good spirits of will, wisdom and love, are constantly battling the adversary powers, containing the catastrophes induced and caused by humanity. The Trinity is waiting for and longing for our support of the Spirit by means of prayer, meditations, daily intentions and practical actions. There is still a lot of time for us with opportunities for us.
I would like to end this comment with the inspiring message that the Swiss youngster Christianne von Dreien gives in her email message today:
Ihr Lieben,
Egal, was draussen in der Welt gerade los ist – du kannst dort, wo du in deinem eigenen energetischen Raum bist entscheiden, ob du die Angst und die Verwirrung, die so verbreitet sind im Aussen, in deinen eigenen Raum hinein lassen willst oder nicht.
Du kannst dich dafür entscheiden, dass du in deinem eigenen Raum die Verbindung zu deiner Seele hältst und Klarheit behältst.
Sofern die Situation in der Welt draussen etwas in deinem Inneren antriggert und auslöst, so kannst du die Gefühle, die zu dir selbst gehören, anschauen.
Das, was draussen in der Welt erzeugt wird, muss man aber nicht in den eigenen Raum lassen, sondern du kannst dich für die Verbindung zu deiner Seele entscheiden.
So fällt es dir viel leichter, mit all dem Chaos und Leid, welches überall geschürt wird, viel besser umzugehen und mehr in deiner Mitte zu bleiben.
Denn nur, wenn du in deiner Mitte bist, kannst du auch wirklich für andere da sein.
Eure Christina
In translation:
No matter what is going on out there in the world – you can decide where you are in your own energetic space whether you want to let the fear and confusion that is so common on the outside into your own space or not.
You can choose to stay connected to your soul and maintain clarity in your own space.
If the situation in the world outside triggers and releases something inside you, you can look at the feelings that belong to yourself.
You don’t have to let what’s being created out in the world into your own space, you can choose to connect to your soul.
This makes it much easier for you to deal with all the chaos and suffering that is being stirred up everywhere and to stay centered more.
Because only when you are centered can you really be there for others.
Your Christina
All the best and good luck with everything,
From Ite van Til.
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Dear Ite, Thank you for your kind comments – your English is very good! As it happens, I am at this moment reading another book by Bastiaan Baan (Lord of the Elements), which I rate very highly. I will certainly try to get hold of a copy of ‘Future of the Earth’, but don’t know if it has yet been translated into English. I’ve not previously come across the work of Christianne von Dreien so am grateful to hear about her – her message very much resonates with me. All good wishes, Jeremy
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The journals of Gabrielle Bossis, from 1936 to 1950, depict the Etheric Christ experience. Also, the hymn, “In The Garden”, from 1912, speaks of an intimate, one to one relationship:
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
Paramahansa Yogananda came to America in 1920, and by 1933, was convinced that the Cosmic Christ was actively working in the world. He espoused the Kriya Yoga system for etherization of the blood.
Possibly the most intricately woven arrangement came with the discourses that comprise the communications received by Helen Schuchman from 1965 to 1973, and form the work known as, “A Course in Miracles”. As such, Christ works in dialectical psychology to change present ‘anti-word’ thinking patterns.
Of course, with all of this kind of incentive, we live at a time when the Fifth Cultural epoch has arrived at the point where it can look directly toward the future, and see the apocalyptic times developing right before our eyes. Christ warned His own disciples of it, and here we are today.
That is why an intense discussion is to be found on the most previous essay. World history is a fable convenue, which Steiner often spoke of as a warning. To experience Christ is to speak of these matters, come what may.
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My father’s favorite hymn.
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Yes, and I am not surprised that he found it so:
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
What is a joy for me is to here how a father can perceive such a thing. You must be blessed. Mine was a “bull in a china closet”. Of course, he suffered greatly in WWII; the Battle of Okinawa. As such, he drew the sword in his own home for many years. Yet, he had a loving wife and dedicated children. Yet, they all wondered about him, and his errant behavior.
Hoping that Jeremy will post this. If not, then I am sorry. This blog once had some potential, and I thought it was still there. Everything counts for understanding.
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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin also showed a consistent belief in the Etheric Christ, although he was suppressed by the Jesuits, who refused to publish any of his writings. He was a Christ-centered Rosicrucian, which Steiner had outlined in the first lecture of GA 131, in October 1911. This is the course that got him into trouble with the Catholic church. As such, it is predictive of what Pere Teilhard would have to suffer at the hands of the Jesuits for many years. Thankfully, he had the good sense to put his literary legacy in the hands of someone who would see that his works would be published without prejudice. We have them all online here in beautiful pdf formation:
https://archive.org/details/TheDivineMilieu
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This might be of interest, Steve – discusses Barfield and de Chardin – http://owenbarfield.org/BARFIELD/Barfield_Scholarship/Sherman/Four.htm
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I will read this. Thank you. OB theorizes something called R.U.P. for Teilhard, which means: Residue of Unresolved Positivism, which means he held a subconscious relationship to materialism, while outwardly feigning a conscious spiritual intention. Yet, any serious look at Teilhard de Chardin, and the reason I see him as a definite and positive corollary to Rudolf Steiner, and especially concerning the Etheric Christ, is that he was a true Manichean, which embraces both spirit and matter at the same time. This is the essential thing.
I link here to a recent post concerning the real nature of Manichaeism, and Steiner’s definition of it. As such, Teilhard embraced every aspect of the world as Spirit and Matter, i.e., Geosphere, Biosphere, Noosphere. His issues were never about any kind of “unresolved positivism”, except the Jesuits refusal to allow him to publish, and sending him to China and Mongolia for 20 years in order to get him out of the way.
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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s letters, books, and essays, all demonstrate this abiding correspondence between Spirit and Matter. His Manichean outlook is likely a new revelation worth considering as his personal expression of Spiritual Science.
“Manichaeism was already at the time when Augustine was growing up a world-current of thought which had spread throughout North Africa, where, you must remember, Augustine spent his youth, and in which many people of Western Europe had been caught up. Founded in about the third century in Asia by Mani, a Persian, Manichaeism had extraordinarily little effect historically on the subsequent world. To define this Manichaeism, we must say this: there is more importance in the general attitude of this view of life than in what one can literally describe as its contents. Above all, the remarkable thing about it is that the division of human experience into a spiritual side and a material side had no meaning for it. The words or ideas “spirit” and “matter” mean nothing to it. Manichaeism sees as “spiritual” what appears to the senses as material and when it speaks of the spiritual it does not rise above what the senses know as matter. It is true to say of Manichaeism — much more emphatically true than we with our world grown so abstract and intellectual usually think, — that it actually sees spiritual phenomena, spiritual facts in the stars and their courses, and that it sees at the same time in the mystery of the sun that which is manifest to us on earth as something spiritual. It conveys no meaning for Manichaeism to speak of either matter or spirit, for in it what is spiritual has its material manifestation and what is material is to it spiritual. Therefore, Manichaeism quite naturally speaks of astronomical things and world phenomena in the same way as it would speak of moral phenomena or happenings within the development of human beings. And thus this apposition of “Light” and “Darkness” which Manichaeism, imitating something from ancient Persia, embodies in its philosophy, is to it at the same time something completely and obviously spiritual. And it is also something obvious that this same Manichaeism still speaks of what apparently moves as sun in the heavens as something which has to do with the moral entities and moral impulses in the development of mankind; and that it speaks of the relation of this moral-physical sun in the heavens, to the Signs of the Zodiac as to the twelve beings through which the original being, the original source of light delegates its activities. But there is something more about this Manichaeism. It looks upon man and man does not yet appear to its eyes as what we to-day see in man. To us man appears as a kind of climax of creation on earth. Whether we think more or less in material or spiritual terms, man appears to man now as the crown of creation on earth, the kingdom of man as the highest kingdom or at least as the crown of the animal kingdom. Manichaeism cannot agree to this.
The thing which had walked the earth as man and in its time was still walking it, is to it only a pitiful remnant of that being which ought to have become man through the divine essence of light. Man should have become something entirely different from the man now walking the earth. The being now walking on earth as man was created through original man losing the fight against the demons of darkness, this original man who had been created by the power of light as an ally in its fight against the demons of darkness, but who had been transplanted into the sun by benevolent powers and had thus been taken up by the kingdom of light itself. But the demons have managed nevertheless to tear off as it were a part of this original man from the real man who escaped into the sun and to form the earthly race of man out of it, the earthly race which thus walks about on earth as a weaker edition of that which could not live here, for it had to be removed into the sun during the great struggle of spirits. In order to lead back man, who in this way appeared as a weaker edition on earth, to his original destination the Christ-being then appeared and through its activity the demonic influences are to be removed from the earth.”
GA 74, lecture 1, 22 May 1920
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Hello jeremy,I got quite a surprise from the ukcolumn site these last few days. I know how you abhor the site, but what a treat it has been to discover that not only do they have an article about Rudolf steiner, but that Brian guerrish is a believer in Christ…!
Article about our times and steiner
https://www.ukcolumn.org/blogs/steiners-science-of-the-mind-and-cosmic-evolution
If you Care to know how Brian gerrish came to be what and who he is, you’ll find a fascination interview with him on the delingpod at the ukcolumn site
Regards
Pierrette
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Hi Pierrette,
One of the things that has been attempted here is to show how two people of the same era came to know of the spiritual evolution of humanity by way of separate, but related, paths. These two were, Rudolf Steiner, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. What linked them most prominently was the belief in, and practice of Thomistic thinking, which leads by its own disciplined path to the Realism of Aristotle, who had direct links to Archai Michael in the pivotal Greek epoch. Many examples of the parallel have been given here in order to assuage what Christ told His disciples, “See that ye be not troubled.”
Steiner’s clairvoyance remains a major hurdle for people to accept today, and yet, Teilhard de Chardin’s vision has been more readily accepted due to its mystical character. Both were keen scientists, and both had a definite philosophical orientation. They do corroborate each other, and maybe this needs to become better known in order to increase the perspective of those columnists who write, e.g., J Paul Greenway. I see that Boardman has weighed in on the affair. https://threeman.org/?p=3147
When will Rudolf Steiner not have to be defended? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was suppressed by the Jesuits all his life, and was only published after his death in 1955. Then, he gained an audience that wondered why they couldn’t hear these things before, when they really needed to hear it.
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Steve, I encourage you to investigate the past lives of Teilhard. And to that end, I would like to provide you with 4 historical facts that I hope will stimulate and guide your search in its early stages.
1. Teihard died from a heart attack on Easter Sunday 1955. 26 days before, he had told a gathering of friends that he wished to die on Easter Sunday.
2. His residence at that time was in the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola located at 84th St. & Park Ave in NYC. The Church is part of a large Jesuit complex in that area which includes the elite Jesuit High School called Regis right across the street from the rear of the Church.
3. Just as Rudolf Steiner came within a whisker of becoming a Cistercian priest by dint of school choice, so did I come close to attending Regis HS but didn’t. Had I chosen Regis, I would very likely have become a Jesuit priest.
4. The most famous graduate of Regis HS is Dr. Anthony Fauci.
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Pierre was a Jesuit by his own dedicated admission. Research even shows that he was the rather close reincarnation of Emanuel Swedenborg, who had been Ignatius Loyola himself; the founder of the Society of Jesus. Prior to that, we have to go back to Mohammed himself. Mohammed is the one that told the Jews that Jesus was a fact revealed out of the Koran. They rejected this idea and made war instead. It has been going on now for 1400 years.
The truth is that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a dude of high repute. Wherever he died, he knew his legacy was in good hands. He honored the Jesuits in life, and the truth after death.
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When you were in grade school, you were bullied by the Nuns, and so it is highly unlikely that you would ever have gone to Regis HS. So, the best for you has been to be the ardent follower of a professor at a Jesuit college. This professor was totally against Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy. I’m sure you remember it.
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Hi Tom,
I originally wrote to say something rather controversial, which Jeremy rejected. It was about past lives of the figures of Teilhard, and his forerunners. One of these was the one who had been Mohammed before Ignatius Loyola. You had asked if anybody knew of what Steiner was referring to in the fifth lecture here in which Loyola had an agent, after his death. I thought this would be a good time to reveal your own concern from years ago.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA240/English/APC1953/19240824p02.html
I thought to include it here. Thanks to you and Jeremy for the continued discussion.
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Well, that was an interesting read Pierrette. Seems the author still did not ‘get it’. Something that was of great interest to me is BIAL Foundation/pharmaceuticals parapsychology research and UNESCO’s Julian Huxley, “argued that parapsychology should be studied in universities as part of the efforts towards global unity”.
Towards global unity!
Is this the open beginnings of Ahriman’s school of clairvoyance?
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Unfortunately, the UK Column appear to dislike, or at least distrust Rudolf Steiner. The latest article was written by someone with little knowledge of Anthroposophy and the previous one by J. Paul Greenaway was pretty much a hit piece.
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Yeah, I guess that sums it up. Whatever might have been said in support of Steiner, and even de Chardin, must mean little to nothing. Just like words mean little to nothing. It is good to have an Anthropopper perspective. Thanks.
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Even Owen Barfield in his “great war” with C.S. Lewis could not convince him about Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy. Yet, Lewis considered Barfield the greatest mind he ever knew.
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So many thoughts here in the comments.
The Karma of Untruthfullness 24 lectures
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA173/
are perhaps relevant to the conversation.
Heartfelt best wishes for the rest of your life Jeremy.
Patricia
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Thank you for your kind good wishes, Patricia!
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Steiner’s lectures on the Karma of Untruthfulness were based on spirit communications with Helmuth von Moltke after his death in June 1916. As such, they were meant to form a kind of appeal, coming in December 1916 for a peace accord, which even Kaiser Wilhelm II and President Wilson thought was a good idea. In the failure to achieve this initiative, Steiner spoke about it in the second volume, and why it would not happen.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA173b/English/RSP1988/19170101p01.html
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In October 1921, the French journalist, Jules Sauerwein, interviewed Rudolf Steiner about the circumstances that caused World War I. Steiner conveys, in no uncertain terms, that it was a “shit show” of near total confusion. Here, he indicates how all the prominent members were led by invisible strings to the ultimate act of war. This confession is why Steiner often spoke about how the 30 to 40 European leaders “lost their minds” in the lead-up to WWI, and especially, Helmth von Moltke, the younger. Well, no wonder, when Kaiser Wilhelm II had so little confidence. He ran him ragged.
https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA024/German/GA024_c48.html
This is available in English for those interested. It totally supports Steiner’s lectures on the Karma of Untruthfulness from 1916/1917. This is a ‘must read’.
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That description of politics and world affairs certainly stands the test of time!
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Steiner would go on to inscribe this indication given to Sauerwein in October 1921 a few more times. His message was this: “How did the 30 to 40 European leaders at the advent of WWI lose their minds at the same time”? Of course, Helmuth von Moltke was the target. The answer concerns the power of “action at a distance”, which involves Woodrow Wilson, the reincarnated Muhawija I. We know that America was monitoring the war from the beginning, and only took direct action in 1917, after the fall of the Russian monarchy. What should have taken place, if America was truly honest in its intentions, is direct intervention after the sinking of the Lusitania on May 15, 1915. This would have prevented the ensuing trench war of three years duration.
America still rules the world today, which indeed stands the test of time. Good to hear another Voice in this matter.
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Excellent article. I’d like to know where Wilson is described as the reincarnation of Muhawija I.
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[Note the spelling in the RS Archive is Muawiyah.]
Karmic Relationships 6, Lecture 5
April 9, 1924, Stuttgart, GA 240
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA240/English/RSP1971/19240409p01.html
Now a predecessor of Haroun al Raschid, one of the earliest successors of the Prophet Mohammed in the 7th century A.D. was Muawiyah. He was a remarkable personality who longed to make conquests in the West but achieved little; his inner longing for the West could not find fulfilment, but he was still aware of the urge towards the West when he passed through the gate of death, and this impulse continued through his life between death and a new birth. Then this individuality of one of the Prophet’s earliest successors appeared again, exercising a dominant influence upon the conditions prevailing in the 20th century.
[. . . ]
Muawiyah appeared again in our age as Woodrow Wilson, who carried Arabist abstraction in its most radical form into external civilisation. In Woodrow Wilson there appeared an individuality who brought Arabism to very strong expression in our time, particularly in the famous 14 Points. The calamities for which Woodrow Wilson was responsible can best be studied by comparing the actual phrasing of those 14 Points with certain passages in the Koran.
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