III. East-West

No less significant than the tortoise is the two-faced hovering globe in the picture. This expresses the heightening of opposition and confrontation between East and West, manifesting outwardly today with particular acuteness in Arab terrorism.

This antithesis is quite an ancient one, and ultimately it is not economic, but spiritual. It comes about in the movement of cultural evolution from the East (ancient India) westwards, to Europe. In this as in any other evolution, in accordance with the laws of development, something moves forwards, but something else remains behind. Rudolf Steiner speaks of the law according to which, in general, any spiritual forward movement can only happen at the cost of something else, whose spiritual development is held back. Whatever moves forwards has the duty to offer help to that which remains behind, and do everything possible to balance out the discrepancy.

The East, as compared to the West, has remained to a greater extent within the old, traditional forms of group-consciousness, which enables it, to a certain degree, to preserve the ancient spirituality. Generally speaking, it lives more spiritually than the western world.

The progressive development of the West brought human beings acuteness of intellect and a strongly individualized consciousness. Thanks to this, western man has the ability to achieve the metamorphosis of consciousness and raise it to the spiritual world again, but on an individual basis. How this can be done is explained in Anthroposophy. And this should be offered by the West to the East, so that it can be reborn in a new way, in harmony with the tasks of modern spiritual development.

Instead, the West, sunk deep in materialism, tries to suppress the East by means of this materialism – industry, science, finance – and bring it under western control. This arouses in the East the greatest indignation. And “peace on the earth” – says Rudolf Steiner – “will not come until a certain harmonization has taken place between the great matters of concern in West and East... on the spiritual level.”

The material culture of Europe and America is like a hard shell of a nut. But inside, the nut is to be found. “And if this nut is found, then what follows will outshine all the light of oriental wisdom that once entered humanity” (GA 209, 24.11.1921). This wisdom of the West can be understood by the people of the East thanks to their own spirituality. Only when the light of the wisdom of the West shines towards the East will it be possible to resolve the East-West problem. Otherwise humanity can expect crises and warlike catastrophes, one of which seems to us to be looming on the horizon.

The decisive character of the confrontation between East and West is in some way in the consciousness of the power-centres that are so powerful, that they can determine the direction of human history, but are continually engaged in suppressing the spirituality not only of the East, but also the West. They create all imaginable blocs and unions, in the belief that they can carry on doing such things to humanity indefinitely. And no-one at all is willing to believe in the downfall of Europe; and what sort of downfall is that? Of culture? But where is it? Pop-culture? This will go on and on – for evermore! Economic “decline” is simply called a financial crisis, which always has a beginning and an end. And you mystics and fanatics, you need not scare us with the Apocalypse! – This is how the majority of our active contemporaries speak.

A way of solving, as it were, the problem of the relations between East and West was sought by Hitler. He tried by all possible means to divert the expansionist wishes of the Stalinists from the West and direct them eastwards. In Alexander Osokin’s book “The Great Mystery of the Great War of the Fatherland” (Vols.1-3, Moscow 2008-2013) the transcript of the conversation between Molotov and Hitler on 13th November 1940 in Berlin was published for the first time. Hitler said “that the territory of Asia as a whole ought to be divided into East and Central Asia. The latter extends southwards with access to the ocean [the Indian – G.A.B.]. And this will be regarded by Germany as a Russian sphere of influence” (Vol.1 p.479). In this way the Führer was flattering the lasting dreams and ambitions of the Soviet pan-Slavists and Slavophiles. And he also said: “I think we will have greater success if we stand back to back and repel outside forces than if we stand opposed and fight one another” (ibid. p.473-474).

One could therefore draw on that globe the faces of two leaders: Hitler and Stalin, who tried to resolve “peacefully” the problem of the organization of the Eurasian territory.

After reading the three-volume work of Osokin, one has the impression that Stalin shared Hitler’s idea, but did not have absolute power. In the Kremlin there was still a pro-British lobby, and not only a British one.

These facts of history are important for us, as they have not lost their pertinence to this day. Even at the present time discussions are held on ways of creating the Eurasian space – whether it should stretch from Lisbon to Vladivostok (Parvulescu and others), or whether it should begin at the western border of Russia, as shown on a map published in “The Economist” in 1990 (it is also shown in this Part of our study). In this map a project is outlined, whose intention is to join Europe as far as its border with Russia onto the western bloc and America. The Asiatic bloc is to be divided up into three sub-blocs, as it were. Eurasia would in such a case extend from Brest to Vladivostok. Not everyone agrees with this version of the future world order. It is not just a discussion, the question is being fought over militarily, although limited to a regional scale for the moment. The events in the Ukraine should be viewed as an expression of this struggle. The war there has to do with what Eurasia should look like in the end.

When, on the initiative of the United States (this is, meanwhile, admitted openly in the U.S.A.), the legitimately elected government of the Ukraine was overthrown and the land thrown into chaos, it was anticipated that Russia would march in with troops and take possession of the Ukraine, which would have allowed the United States to revive the Cold War on a large scale and begin actively with the absorption into itself of Europe, which would have been terrified to death by the Russian move. It should be remembered that this is something like the partition of Poland in 1939. Russia is to take over the eastern part of the Ukraine, and the western part is to join the Western bloc. The attempt is being made today to realize this project in practice. No further proof of this is needed. It is confirmed on a daily basis by the actions of the United States. Indirectly, in a veiled form, Russia is being challenged by many prominent political figures in the West to take this step. We wrote about this in the first part of our study, but will give here another up-to-date example. In the latter part of 2014, the famous oligarch George Soros gave an interview to the German magazine Cicero. In it, he declared himself an ardent sympathizer with the Ukraine in its struggle against Russian hegemony. He recently said he was prepared to invest one billion dollars in the Ukrainian economy out of his own money (if he receives comprehensive guarantees that he will not lose the money!).

It is remarkable how in the interview he makes known his sympathy for the Ukraine. He said that the fate of the Ukrainians is of no interest to the “civilized world”. He explained his thought in a very specific way. He said: “Does anyone ask the opinion of the pigs on their way to being turned into cutlets?” (This is particularly insulting as people in the Ukraine are fond of pork.) The Ukrainians overestimate their own role.

The war is not being fought because of them, but by means of them (as instruments). Their business is just to fight – the longer and the more bloodshed the better! As the outcome of this war, the Ukraine can only be a gigantic funeral parlour, piled high with corpses. Russia, on the other hand – that is a different matter. It will save Ukraine and the Ukrainians, even at the risk of its own security. Such is the friend the Ukraine has found. Soros is known for his speculation with currencies, which have made him into a billionaire. He has now taken on the role, so it seems, of the Zhirinovsky of western politics. No-one cares about his authority – nor does he care himself – so he can allow himself to speak out things that the luminaries of western politics cannot afford to do. In this interview he was actually saying to the Ukrainians: If you are not complete idiots, join up with Russia as quickly as possible; only there have you got friends.

Soros, and not he alone, but many others, too, argue that in the Ukraine a battle is being fought over the existence of the EU. This is why the Ukraine needs to hold out to the bitter end. It is one part of the truth. But if we wish to know the whole truth we must understand that the battle is being fought there over the configuration of Eurasia. This is why military action is extending over a long period. This struggle is taking place more behind the scenes than on the battlefields.

Moscow refused to march into the Ukraine. On the side of Moscow, there are forces in Europe who do not want Eurasia to begin at Brest. Nor do they wish to merge together with the United States. This is why protest is growing against the sanctions placed on Russia. Italy and Finland even expressed the wish to withdraw from NATO. Particularly striking was the standpoint of these European powers in connection with the attack on the editorial staff in Paris who had published caricatures of Mohammed. (We mentioned this earlier.) After this, presidents, leading politicians, gathered for an open demonstration. Never before have presidents appeared on the streets to voice their protests.

The question arises: against whom is their protest directed? The warriors of Isis? But the heads of government ought to protest against them by military means. In the Islamic State, it is as if there is no political partner to negotiate with. It has no government as such. Leaders emerge momentarily and vanish again. There is a dark, wild, and especially aggressive mass of warriors. And here – enlightened heads of government! It must therefore be understood: They were protesting against pan-Americanism, against the U.S. policy that wants to force them into its camp by means of “Hack attacks”. (False Flag attacks ?) In this area, one cannot deceive presidents. So while in the Ukraine people are fighting and dying, the battle is being fought over the destiny of Europe. It seems that in this battle there is now a stalemate; the war therefore continues. With regard to Russia itself, an extension of the conflict is needed in order, in the event of a union with (parts of) the Ukraine, to bring about a rebirth of Stalinism in the whole of Russia. Were this to bear fruit, Russia would quickly, determinedly and unopposedly, slide into the Third World War.

And for the present, a stalemate. In this, Russia is weakened by the hostility of the West, but also rendered unable to wage a bigger war. On the other hand, the West’s friendship in this situation brings the war closer. It all looks as if there is no role left for a healthy solution to the problem.

Europe’s enmity towards Russia throws it into the arms of the United States, while her friendship with Russia leads to the formation of a great Eurasian territory from Lisbon to Vladivostok. But what part, say, Middle Europe will play in it, what the dominant ideology will be there, – that is still a big and impenetrable question. In part, tendencies are visible that lead to national socialism or rather national Bolshevism. Maybe we will live to see a resolution to the question in which Hitler and Stalin were able to reach a consensus. (Gorbachev loved this word.)

But how do things stand with the cultural and spiritual development of Europe, which is quite unique and represents the avant-garde of the cultural-historical development of humanity as a whole? It emerges that in the configuration of political forces today, the independent and original, unique existence of Europe is not envisaged! And this means that what is envisaged for evolution is that the wrong path should be taken, which threatens humanity with its downfall.

The construction of a world order as described by George Orwell in 1984 is looming. Prophetically three super-blocs are described in this novel, called Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. These came about, says Orwell, “when Russia had swallowed up Europe, and the United States Great Britain”. A stupendous thought! And is it not extremely relevant today? This is what the struggle we are experiencing is all about.

In one way or another, before or after the world war, Russia is to devour Europe. Supportive of this vision is a section of the occult political forces in the world – those that are generally placed to the right of the political spectrum. Another section, generally placed to the left, advocates what is shown on the map, where Europe including Britain is swallowed up by the United States. This alone is what the battle is actually about. The idea as such of three super blocs is supported by all parties in the struggle.

If this comes, globalism will assume the character of an endless military conflict between these blocks, with alliances of two blocs against the third. In essence, the ideology will be everywhere more or less the same. In Orwell it is called “abolition of the personality”.

In an interview with the Swiss magazine ‘Weltwoche’ (No. 7, 2015) Henry Kissinger says: “The Western idea of order (in the world) is based on two things: a multiplicity of states, although some played a more prominent role on this stage and, above all, a common ideology (emphasis G.A.B.) which held the many states together.”

“A multiplicity of states” – why should one not allow them to continue in the new world order, if they can be completely instilled with a suitable “common ideology” and there are no longer actual sovereign states? They are nothing more than extras on the world stage. If they were all taken away, the show would have to stop.

At the present time it is particularly easy for the dark occult political world-powers to cope with individual states, because objectively speaking, in accordance with the laws of development, the traditional state has lost its significance. In the above-mentioned interview, Henry Kissinger traces back the Western world order of today to the order that came about in Europe after the peace of Westphalia in 1648, and of course says nothing about the changed situation of the times placing quite new demands upon the social-political thinking of today.

Already in the first quarter of the 20th century, after the first World War, Rudolf Steiner said : “Europe has fallen apart like an old cupboard: Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Germany Austria, former Germany, former Russia, Ukraine – those are the pieces, the fragments of the cupboard. And the Western powers are struggling to hammer together these rotted fragments of the cupboard with nails that will not hold. People don’t realize that they are handling pieces that have rusted through. They want to glue together the old, while what is needed is to bring an entirely new substance into human development” (GA 196, 30.1.1920).

Exactly a year previously he said: “It is only an anachronism when, through lazy thinking, people talk of concepts that no longer exist, that are no longer there. Instead of awakening to the fact that they really have to turn to new concepts, people in certain circles shall talk of Russia, Germany, even of Austria which even externally no longer exists” (GA 188, 31.1.1919).

Development had arrived at that outcome already then, but what is one to say about it today? Then, it would have been necessary to bring in “new substance”, social threefolding above all, but instead Bolshevism and National Socialism were brought in.

In the world today, there are no longer national states, only accumulations of human and natural resources, industrial complexes and the military. These are made use of by certain international institutions that are uninterested in the fate of the “pigs” destined to become “cutlets”. In this respect, Soros is right. And it would be good to impress this thought upon those Ukrainians who stir up hatred against the Russians. One should say to them (and many others, the Poles for example): You claim that Russia represents a threat to the existence of your state? But Ukraine does not exist as a state. Even Soros told you so. Nor does Russia exist as a state, and Poland, too, is not a state. Free yourselves of these empty husks of thought! States, in the old meaning of the word – and we continue trying to cling fast to this meaning only – no longer exist. We will either fight for an understanding and full realization of social threefolding, which will remove all existing contradictions be- tween disintegrating states and the doppelgängers of the people who whip up nationalization to the point of national hysteria, and will for the first time allow the human individuality that is moving towards freedom to unfold with full vigour within the social organism, or a shared tragic destiny awaits us all.

All of us face the danger that another “substance” will be brought into the existence of the whole of humanity – the substance of an ideology that fixes everything in concrete and leads to the “extinction of the individual”. The “boot” of ideology is already “stamping” into human faces everywhere. Only, people have no wish to understand, because the boot is, as it were, smeared all over with the honey of unlimited rights, not only of the individual but also of the newborn infant and even domestic animals, and also with promises of material prosperity, an abundance of possibilities of indulging in instincts of any kind, etc.

The ‘boot’ exists, and it carries out evil with an occult grasp of the matter. This Orwellian image is a sheer stroke of genius. The ‘boot’ stands in relation to the sphere of the limbs, it clothes them, and in the limbs is the unconscious will of the human being. There is the striving to drown and suppress with this will that which in the head of man raises itself to consciousness and self-consciousness, that which makes him into an intelligent being. And this is done in every sphere – starting with, say, perversion in the operatic performances of the Bayreuth festivals and ending with the legalization of incest in Norway. Out of the same motive, ISIS destroys cultural monuments of antiquity.

Isis, incidentally, (Isis is the name of the great Egyptian goddess – she was actually the Madonna of the ancient pre-Christian world) follows in the footsteps of the “cultural revolution” of Mao Tse-tung, and does so with the enthusiasm of the first revolutionary masses in Russia – with their reckless cruelty.

The thought arises, whether this might not be the crowning point of the whole chaoticizing process brought about by the West in the Arab world. Whether Isis might not be leading the whole business to the formation of “Islamistan”, as shown on the map. If so, Isis has a future. Neither Iraq nor Iran, not even Saudi Arabia or Syria will be able to withstand it. And could Isis not be predestined to ignite the third world-wide conflagration?

If it comes about in the world that the Orwellian tripartite division of the super-blocs is implemented, then Eastasia will emerge through the joining together of Confuciana, Hindustan (Hinduland) and Islamistan. China will swallow up India, but only externally. This does not affect the leading role of the great Luciferic initiates of the East. And Japan will merge with China, entering the bloc as a militant ferment, since no-one else in the East is in a position to conduct a successful war on land and water. Japan has demonstrated this in practice.

Eurasia will unite Europe’s Latin world (Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, the German world (Middle Europe and Scandinavia) and the Slavic world (with the Caucasus and Asiatic border regions). Euro- America draws together the British, North American and South American (Latin) world.

On that map (as someone may have noticed) Africa and a part of South Asia are missing. We can explain this fact, too, with the help of Orwell’s novel. In Goldstein’s book, written by O’Brien – the priest of the Ahrimanic mysteries of black magic which are cultivated in the world under the auspices of “Ingsoc” – it says the following: “Between the borders of the superpowers, there is a region – belonging to none of them for a long period of time – lying within an irregular rectangle with its corners in Tangiers, Brazzaville, Darwin and Hong Kong ... In fact none of them had full control of this contested territory ... The possibility of taking over a given area through a sudden surreptitious manoeuvre is dictated by the endless shifting of alliances” of those waging war.

Could such a scenario really be put into effect in the future? Probably not. On the way there, everything would simply collapse into the abyss of nothingness. But it does not represent a solution for humanity.

Something needs to be placed over against it, which corresponds to the true laws of human evolution. And what that is exactly is well-known. We shall speak about it in the concluding essay.