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Fall of the Spirits of Darkness
by
Rudolf Steiner. From Behind the Scenes of External Happenings,
1917
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Many years ago, when I was working in Berlin, the
news filtered into a theatre during the performance that the Empress of Austria
had been assassinated at Geneva by one of the �Propagandists by Action� �
so they were being called at that time.1 During one of the intervals
I happened to be standing near a man who was then a literary critic in Berlin
and has since written philosophical books which have gained a certain
reputation. This man voiced his astonishment at the news in a way that still
lingers in my memory. He said: �One can understand many things that happen in
the world without in the least justifying or approving of them ... one can
understand many things that happen ... but that a revolutionary movement should
instigate the murder of a sick woman whose continued existence could have made
no real difference, whose death anyhow can have no clear connection with any
political idea, this� � said the man � �is incomprehensible; it just
doesn't make sense.�
1Note
by Translator: The date of the assassination was 10th September, 1898.
�Propagandisten der Tat� seems to have been a phrase in current use at
that time. In modern books of reference, this assassination and that of Carnot,
of which mention is made later, are attributed to revolutionary anarchists.
I am sure this man was
expressing what must be the opinion of every right-minded, educated person in
the modern world. We are reminded that in the life of men and the course of
history, things do happen which seem senseless and purposeless not only when
judged by the normal standards but even when they are attributed to some form of
aberration.
But events of this very
nature � and many, many others might be cited � show that what appears
outwardly incomprehensible must inevitably do so because behind the scenes of
world affairs � if I may use this expression � spiritual forces and
spiritual deeds are playing to and fro both in the good and in the bad sense.
These spiritual deeds and happenings are only to be understood when the light of
Spiritual Science can be shed into those regions that lie behind the scenes of
life in the ordinary world of the senses. Things happen which become
intelligible only when they can be illumined by ideas derived from the spiritual
world and which, if viewed merely in their connection with the world of the
senses, inevitably seem devoid of meaning and purpose � either good or bad.
And if by what may be called chance but may also possibly have been a matter of
karma in symbolic garb, one has an experience | 
