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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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There are still many people who say: �Oh, well,
in all good time we shall discover what transpires after death; why trouble
about it now? Let us attend to the requirements of life and when we reach yonder
world we shall soon discover what it is.� Well and good, but if it is true
that in yonder world a man becomes what he has pictured himself to be, then
something else is also true. Take the idea that is not at all uncommon nowadays.
Somebody dies, leaving relatives behind him. Although thought may not be
entirely lacking in these people, they may be materialistically minded, and
then, quite inevitably, they will think either that the dead man is decaying in
the grave or that what still exists of him is preserved in the urn. Only if
thought is entirely absent can men be materialists and not hold this
view. If materialism were to triumph, the conviction would still further
increase that all that remains of the Dead is disintegrating in the urn or in
the grave. This thought is, however, a real power; it is an untruth. When those
left behind think that the Dead no longer lives, is no longer there, this is a
false thought � but it is real and actual in the souls of those who form it.
The Dead is aware of this thought-reality, is aware of its significance for him.
And it is by no means a matter of no consequence but, on the contrary, of
fundamental importance, whether those left behind cherish in their souls the
thought of the Dead living on in the spiritual world, or whether they succumb to
the woeful idea that the Dead, well, he is dead, he lies there decaying in the
grave. Far from being a matter of no importance, there is a very great and
essential difference.
Coming to Zurich nowadays one can hardly fail to
be attentive to what is known here � and also elsewhere, but here it is
pursued very actively � as Analytical Psychology, Psychoanalysis. It is of
course the case that the psycho-analysts have become alive to many things
pertaining to the realm of soul-and-spirit; they are indeed beginning to think
of the soul-and-spirit simply because it confronts them so insistently. Let me
here say a word or two about one characteristic feature in this Psychoanalysis.
A patient suffers from symptoms of hysteria. The
forms taken by these manifestations of hysteria are very typical at the present
time and for this reason attract attention. Illnesses particularly common at any
given period are always a matter of concern, and efforts are made to discover
where the causes lie. Psychoanalysis has actually reached the point of stating
that the causes of these frequent manifestations of hysteria lie in the life of
soul. As it is quite impossible to look for them in the material domain, or in
the field of physiological or biological processes as such, they must lie in the
Psyche � in the life of soul. The tendency of the times is to seek in the
subconscious life of soul for causes of the various forms of hysteria. The
psychoanalysts say: �Such and such a man shows signs of hysteria; the cause is
that something is working in him below the threshold of his consciousness and is
constantly surging upwards like waves from subterranean, sub-psychic depths �
and that is what we must look for.�
This is where the dangerous game begins. The
psychoanalysts try to find all kinds of happenings which constitute an isolated,
subterranean, hidden province of the Psyche, as they put it; in an hysterical
subject of the age of 30, they look for �perversions� at the age, perhaps,
of 7, which were not fully lived through or satisfied then and of which he must
be made conscious again, because this will cure him and so forth. It is a game
with extremely dangerous weapons, my dear friends! Out yonder on the physical
battlefields, war is being waged with very dangerous weapons. Here, in many
domains, with weapons of knowledge no less dangerous, a game is being played
because people are not willing to deepen their thought in the sense of Spiritual
Science and so to acquire a true understanding of these phenomena. The problem
is approached with inadequate means of knowledge and it is a very dangerous
game. It is, of course, perfectly true that the Subconscious works in many
people today, without ever rising into consciousness. But what the
psychoanalysts believe they have unearthed is usually of the least significance
of all and, for this reason successes so far as cures are concerned are in most
cases highly dubious. When hysteria in a lady of 30 is put down to some sexual
perversion which occurred, say, at the age of 14 and has gone on simmering in
the Subconscious � this is probably the most unimportant factor of all. In
some few cases it may actually be correct and then, if its importance has been
wrongly estimated, it will be all the more misleading. But it is absolutely true
that countless factors lurk within human beings today, trouble them and give
rise to the diseases of modern civilisation.
Think of what I said before. The thought of the
absent Dead dwells in some way in the soul although little attention is paid to
it; the thought dwells there because the soul today is still heedless � and is
rather susceptible to these heedless thoughts. According to an eternal law, the
Dead is then forced to dwell with these thoughts; the Dead haunts the soul of
the one who is still living. True contact with the Dead can only be established
by knowing: �the Dead lives!� And human beings on the physical plane will be
more and more prone to psychological illnesses as a consequence of the
prevailing disbelief in the existence of the Dead. The causes of these
hysterical manifestations are not, as a rule, early sexual troubles but
unbelieving thoughts. For thoughts in our age are destined to become powers �
in more senses than one. They work as powers of thought per se, in that
after death the soul takes on a stronger and stronger likeness to what, in the
body, it pictures itself to be; but in a higher sense still, thoughts become
real powers in that they fetter beings � the Dead in this case � in a
wrongful way to the living. Only by sustaining the thought that the Dead lives
on, can man guard himself, as well as others, against the link with the Dead
becoming a source of danger to those who have been left behind � and in a
certain sense the same applies to the Dead himself, who under an eternal,
wisdom-filled law is compelled to lurk in the survivor in such a way that this
influence remains in the Subconscious and manifests, ultimately, as illness.
Ask yourselves now: What will be the real remedy
for many of the phenomena confronting the psychoanalysts today? The universal
remedy, the universal therapy will be the spread of knowledge of the spiritual
world � not these individual treatments.
Life demands of us that we shall abstain from the
thought: here one has to devote oneself to physical existence only and the world
of post-mortem existence will reveal itself all in good time. For this also is
true: just as our life here is important for the existence into which we pass
between death and a new birth, so too the life of souls living between death and
a new birth is important for the soul living here on Earth.
What I have now said refers to one thought
� namely, the thought of disbelief in the existence of the Dead. But the Dead
are and should be connected by many links with the living. The link of which I
have just spoken is improper, but there are many true links which must be there
and which constitute the right connection with the spiritual world.
Anthroposophical Spiritual Science strives to establish the true connection, for
the life of men together on the Earth will only take its rightful course in the
future, if this true relationship is established with the spiritual world.
Failing this, it will become increasingly possible for certain individuals to
embark upon intrigues and machinations of the kind of which I spoke last
Tuesday, in order to usurp for themselves power over others.
Of one thing let us be quite clear. It is only
possible to understand the deeply symptomatic events now proceeding in the East
(of Europe) when we have a clear, inner conception of the nature of those lands
and peoples. Think of what we have been saying for many years about the
qualities of the peoples there as a basis for the Sixth Post-Atlantean epoch.
Only then can light be shed on all the difficult events and confusing influences
that quite inevitably come from those Eastern lands. For, in effect, from what
is happening there, something altogether different must in the course of time
evolve. This, which is destined to evolve, is not so easy for the people of our
time with their comfortable ways of thought to understand; no wonder they are
taken aback by what happens there from day to day. But the important point is:
to find the right way into all the streams and currents that are arising at the
present time and will arise in the future. And little by little the right way is
found when Spiritual Science is our guide to knowledge and understanding of the
spiritual world. Thereby, too, the right relationship with the spiritual world
is established.
In the last lecture here I told you of an
improper relationship to the spiritual world that it is the aim of certain
quarters to establish. I said that certain individuals are deprived of life here
and sent into the spiritual world as the outcome of deliberate machinations;
they have not, therefore, wholly lived out their life here and are still able to
turn certain forces to account in the world where they live between death and a
new birth. And then certain brother-hoods working with dishonourable motives,
desiring only to satisfy their own lust for power, can use mediums for the
purposes of receiving from the Dead the knowledge which the Dead have thus been
enabled to acquire.
Occult brotherhoods of this kind are also, as a
rule, those that lead men astray in regard to the events of greatest importance
in the spiritual world. When I tell you that in 1879, in November, a momentous
event took place, a battle of the Powers of Darkness against the Powers of
Light, which ended in the sense of the picture of Michael overcoming the Dragon
... then the point is not, simply to tell you: such and such an event took
place. For you can read in many books � it is not an esoteric truth at all �
that such an event is appointed in world-evolution. What I really want to bring
home is the significance of the event and the attitude that you should adopt
towards it. Eliphas Levi, Baader, Saint-Martin, all knew and spoke of such an
event � there is nothing really esoteric in the fact itself. But in our time,
endeavours are on foot to spread confusion about such events � wherever
possible, a confusion that makes men regard them as mere superstition, although
they have already been proclaimed by ancient learning. Here, again, is a reason
why correct and true ideas about these things are so important.
There exists today a right and proper path of
approach to the spiritual truths, which since 1879 have been filtering down from
the spiritual to the physical world. It is the path indicated by Spiritual
Science. And if in the stream of Spiritual Science there is no deviation from
sincerity and purity of intention, Spiritual Science will lead to the
establishment of the right relationship between the physical and the spiritual
worlds. But what is attained thereby, and must arise among men, involves and
demands strenuous effort. Laziness in all its many forms must be put away.
Strenuous effort is essential. When mention is made of impulses which, coming
from the spiritual world, also work in the shaping of the future ... well, then
people come and say: �I want to know this or that specific detail.� What
they like best of all, nowadays, for example, is that one should give them a
detailed description of what will happen in 1920 as the result of the present
war. They do not understand that knowledge of the future ought not to be
burdened with such detailed delineations, although this knowledge of the future
can be absolutely reliable and effective. That is so terribly difficult to
understand.
Let me make myself clear by means of a
comparison. You will say: �Really that is unintelligible: he states on the one
hand that details damage knowledge concerning the future, and on the other hand
that one ought to pay attention to this knowledge because it speaks correctly
about the future.� I want to make this point clear by means of a simple and
trivial analogy. There are bad chess players and good chess players. Set a bad
player down in front of a board and he will make bad moves and lose the game. A
good player will get more opportunities and will win the game. The bad chess
player simply makes the wrong move and the good player the right move, at the
given moment. But does the good player apply his mind to detailed deliberation
of the actual moves that the other player will make later on? Is it necessary
for him, if he is a good player, to know now what moves the other player will
make in two hours time? No, it is not! But that does not mean that his skill �
the skill of a really good chess player � is ineffective. He will do what is
the right thing for the future, because he knows the right moves and, if he has
no such insight, he will make the wrong moves; but he is inevitably exposed to
the free will of the other player. One cannot, therefore, ask: What is the good
of being able to play chess really well, if the other player is always there? It
is a very great help indeed to be able to play chess well! If you will ponder
over this comparison, I am sure you will see what I mean.
The analogy will serve at the same time to point
the truth of what everyone versed in occult matters of this kind will tell you,
namely, that the moment a man draws his impulses for action in the physical
world, from the spiritual world, he must be prepared to encounter other
spiritual Powers; there are the �other players� to be reckoned with; there
is no open field before him where he can just do what he has planned. That is
the inconvenient fact! Suppose you have some knowledge of occult impulses, of
impulses deriving from the spiritual world and then try � in the world of
politics, let us say � to turn them to real account. If you are typical men of
the present day, you will prefer everything to run smoothly and automatically so
that you can have it all under control. But if you want to turn spiritual
impulses, occult impulses to account in the physical world, you will have to
reckon everywhere with the free will not only of men here on Earth, but also of
higher Beings. In other words, with conditions as they are at present, you must
not reckon upon having a free field before you; you must realise that the field
is already crowded.
And so it is a matter of acquiring through
genuine Spiritual Science, correct knowledge, for example of the character of
the Sixth Post-Atlantean epoch which is preparing in the East, and of putting
the right occult impulse into action at the right moment, just as the chess
player must make his move according to that of the other player. What is really
necessary is that a man shall deepen his understanding of the spiritual world
and learn to do the right thing in each individual case. A recovery of spiritual
vitality, unbroken effort and exertion � that is what is necessary, not all
these overlapping, abstract programmes. Humanity today likes to have abstract
programmes, likes best of all to condense into four or five paragraphs what
should be done all over the world, so that delegates appointed by all the
nations may vote in a kind of World Court of Arbitration on what has to come
about on Earth in accordance with a rule accepted once and for all. But what is
really necessary is that men shall seek for knowledge of the spiritual world,
shall seek lasting union with the spiritual powers.
But this is connected also with something else,
namely, that you must reckon with the other powers in the field. You cannot
merely rely on your own power; you must reckon with the others. The quest of
power as such is, of course, ruled out. Impulses truly derived from the occult
world will assuredly be right and will produce the right effects, but they will
never be at the disposal of mere impulses of power. That would be out of the
question.
What will one do on the other hand if one does
want to serve mere impulses of power? Then one will act quite differently,
trying to gain knowledge of the future by such improper means as I described
last time, where mediumistic revelations about the future were elicited from
souls who had first been precipitated through the Gate of Death in such a way
that they might still make use of earthly forces. In this way, certain occult
brotherhoods acquired knowledge concerning the relation of West and East, and on
the basis of this knowledge all sorts of machinations were set on foot, the
effects of which go on to this day. Knowledge of this kind, placed at the
disposal of the lust for power, always has some particular object in view. If
you acquire knowledge of occult forces in a right and honest way, all you will
do in human life will at the same time be reckoning with the Angel-Beings, with
every single Angelos of every one of the human beings concerned. You know the
human beings in regard to whom you apply occult truths are in relation to the
spiritual world. Every one of them, a living soul, has his connection with the
spiritual world. You look on them as living beings. So should the West be
dealing with the East � open always to what may arise, reckoning with the
�other players� as with living beings � reckoning in effect with the
Angels who guard the individuals concerned. This is found inconvenient. This
kind of influence the Ahrimanic Powers want to do away with; they want mere
power to prevail. And they can only achieve their end by such illicit means as I
described last time, whereby they seek to gain possession of the forces leading
on into the future. Our time is suffering great harm, in that the forces that
were acquired in this way play their part in events. Hence the first task of the
honest seeker after truth today is to convince himself of the existence of these
evil forces and moreover that a right working into the future can be achieved
only by finding access to these true impulses, which can be sought for in the
sincere, straightforward ways of Spiritual Science.
Truly, the service to be rendered by Spiritual
Science is by no means one-sided � for it is rendered both by the Living and
the Dead. This is a solemn, serious matter. And as friends in Zurich are
proposing to take steps to introduce spiritual Science in certain chosen
circles, I have felt it necessary, in our Society here, to speak of these very
serious aspects of spiritual knowledge in our time. That opposing powers are at
work in manifold ways is to be observed even within our own Society. Think, too,
of all that has been going on, really ever since this war began, in the way of
calumny, of suspicion as to my own intentions and those of a few others! Here,
too, of course, inimical powers are playing a part.
The very way in which we have spoken in these
lectures will show you that our age sorely needs a renewal of spiritual life,
needs to be wakened from a certain condition of sleep. There are so many who
think that peace will come after the war and then it will all be over and done
with. By no means! The events of the present time are portentous signs. To those
who will not deepen their knowledge of Spiritual Science these signs will remain
unintelligible. And because the times are so grave, because it will become more
and more difficult to fight even such a battle as friends here have to fight
before work can be done, I want to express my special, personal gratitude � it
is a gratitude which comes, too, from Spiritual Science � that friends in
Zurich have taken up the struggle so warmly and so effectively against
unfavourable conditions and have been undaunted in their efforts to find
opportunities for lectures. Thus it has actually been possible for the aim of
friends in Zurich to be fulfilled at this time, when on account of the
ever-increasing obstacles, such opportunities are hard to come by. I want to
stress the fact that these difficulties will grow. And as in the immediate
future we shall certainly have to think about making good use of the time still
remaining open to us for the arrangement of meetings, I do not want to leave
unexpressed my thanks for the great efforts made in connection with the public
lectures and these two lectures to the Members here. Later on, when we look back
over events, it will assuredly seem significant that now, at a time of such
tragic world events, we could be together and speak together as we have done.
And so, with the impulses of Spiritual Science,
we will continue to work, trying to make the best of what can be wrested from
the difficult conditions of the times, in the conviction which arises from a
true understanding of Spiritual Science, that, insignificant as it may appear
within the great stream of tragic, devastating happenings today, we are doing
something of great and incisive importance for the times. The things we do in
this way flow into the stream of events. Although this may still not be very
apparent today, it has significance, nevertheless. If we are filled with this
thought it will give us the strength to go further and it will contain in itself
the power to ray out into the times. Our age must assimilate such thoughts. Let
us live in this conviction as in a spiritual atmosphere! It can arise in us in
very truth if we understand Spiritual Science aright.
In this sense, my dear friends, we will remain
together.
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