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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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This is a very mysterious matter and can only be
understood by scrutinising what, exactly, it was proposed to prevent, against
what, exactly, these defence measures were taken. Spiritual Science penetrates
here into things deeply connected with the impulses of human life in the present
and in the future and of which it is extremely difficult to speak because they
everywhere run counter to certain naive and even justifiable interests of men.
The matter becomes comprehensible only when we take into consideration the fact
that all these attempts by means of assassinations of which I have spoken up to
now, were amateurishly directed, were not under �expert� guidance. They were
attempts made without thorough knowledge of the occult connections; they were
defence measures born of fear, and they were not under united leadership. They
become intelligible only when we study the plan which they were actually
intended to avert, and which was itself being pursued and staged with much
greater insight. In the nineteenth century, a remarkable Order was still in
existence over in the East: the Order of the �Thugs.� This Order, which
flourished in a certain region of Asia, did not arise out of mere desire - the
desire, I mean, of its members - to gain their ends. The members of this Order
were charged with the task of murdering certain persons named by very secret and
unknown superiors. It was an Order of murderers, so to speak, with the task of
putting certain individuals to death. Evidence of its activity filtered through
from time to time in news announcing the murder of such and such a person. The
murder was committed on the orders of unknown superiors who had charged some
member of this Order of the Thugs to carry it out.
In the places where this was undertaken, the aim was well
understood. By arranging circumstances of the physical plane in such a way that
the establishment of this Order of the Thugs was possible, and then by directing
its activities as required, the plan was to bring about the violent death of
such persons as would be equipped after their death with the faculty for
learning certain secrets. The individuals who managed all this also organised
corresponding conditions here, on the physical plane, to act as �mirrors�
� �mirror events� as they are called in occultism. Such was the intention:
to organise the appropriate �mirror events.� Certain events of this kind �
if only a few � have actually been organised on the physical plane. It is done
in this way: certain suitable personalities are trained to be mediums, put into
a mediumistic condition and by certain machinations the currents from the
spiritual world are directed to the medium. The medium then divulges certain
secrets which can only be disclosed by this means, namely, that in yonder world
a person killed by a deed of violence, turns to account here, on the Earth,
those forces which owing to his violent death can still be made use of; as
souls, they fathom certain secrets and then instill them into the medium. And it
is possible for those interested in such research here, on the Earth, to
investigate what these souls are instilling by such means.
What is investigated in this way is a sort of �premature
spiritual birth� � if I may use this expression. The souls who passed
through the Gate of Death in the normal way and are concerned with such things,
know that they must be preparing themselves now � and they make it plain that
they are engaged in this preparation � in order, later on, when humanity has
sufficiently matured, to bring down many things to the Earth and inject them
into the Earth by rightful means. This, indeed, is an important task devolving
upon a number of human beings now passing through the Gate of Death. Having
attained the requisite maturity for certain secrets at the right time � not
prematurely, as is the case when forces generated by violent deaths are put into
operation � the task of these souls is to use and apply the normal forces. It
is actually the task of thes |
