| GA Bondarev Events in the Ukraine and a Possible Future Scenario Book 3, Chapter 3 III. The Antagonism between the ‘Fathers of Darkness’ and the ‘Brothers of the Shadow’ Let us return to the first of our two hypotheses. Imagine that we experience as witnesses how all forces of evil in the world epitomized in the “West” have joined together in a single union, and how lines of infantrymen, storming the enemy trenches, propel us with wild brute force into the “earthly Paradise” of the global world of racial hybrids, which is for us a fate worse than death. In such a case, we would have no choice but to adopt the standpoint of the political theory of crude materialism, according to which the world is ruled over by a small group of super-rich capitalists – 300 families, who shield themselves off from the rest of humanity with the help of the Bilderberg club, the Trilateral Commission and other “protective screens” which make it easier for them to govern. But now they have decided to become richer still, so that they – the “rascals”, as they are called in the fairy-tale of Michael Saltikov-Shchedrin – “have a good time and can do what they like, while the others get upset”. But let us ask ourselves: Are there not other, more essential contradictions in the world? Where, for example, do revolutions come from? Are they simply the result of a revolt of the poor against the rich? But what, in this case, is the power of the super- rich worth if they are not able to bring to an end an uncontrollable chaos? If the worst comes to the worst, could they not simply bribe the rebel leaders who have sprung up spontaneously, as happens in the political operettas of our day known as the “Orange revolutions”? But what is one to say, for example, about the fact that one sort of person gives priority to knowledge, and the other to faith, the contradiction between Church and atheism, the centuries-old conflict between clericalism and man’s striving for knowledge of the spirit? If we still acknowledge the reality of a supersensible world where a cosmic antithesis between good and evil prevails, thanks to which evolution moves forward, we cannot avoid testing this hypothesis in relation to the working of the great laws of development – above all, in the sphere of cultural-social, political and historical life. Here it must not be forgotten that the global confrontation between the opposing sides manifests in many different ways. This is quite natural, just as it is natural in battle to shift from artillery fire to bombing attacks. In short: If we have no desire to become “firewood” in the world conflagration, we have no choice but to strive for knowledge of the laws that hold sway in today’s world of unparalleled crisis. There is raging in the world a battle between cosmic opposites, that is projected onto the social level of earthly man. And this is, above all, a battle for control of the human being. Let us give a graphic example, which confirms the truth of what we are saying. We have all heard of Frau Merkel’s statement, that if Europe does not receive an unlimited number of migrants the result will be war. Political scientists apparently view this as empty rhetoric – and in so doing make a big mistake. The chancellor made this statement on behalf of the forces that lead her. They know that a world war is being prepared according to the scenario described in Part I. If this war actually breaks out, its horrors will undoubtedly put into the shade everything we have seen before. But compassion is not entirely foreign to Frau Merkel’s “gurus”. Their actual chief goal is to breed a community with light brown complexion – like Egyptians – with which the pastors will have no problem, since the risk of a complexity of the human spirit will, in their case, be reduced to a minimum; it will then be possible to keep the human personality at the level of the consciousness of the third, Egypto-Chaldean cultural epoch. That, then, is the real problem! If the Europeans express their willingness, why should they be exposed to the terrible catastrophe of another war? Yes, this is what lies behind the chancellor’s “rhetoric”. But, let us ask further, why has it become possible to manipulate humanity in this way? It has become possible, because humanity has forgotten its duty to develop further; because it has forgotten that there is a world of Divine beings for whom a higher individual development of human beings is right and proper, but not the mass-infantilizing of them. This is the reason why civilization has plunged into crisis. The visible, material, violent prelude to this crisis occurred – as Oswald Spengler rightly points out in his book “The Decline of the West” – in the French Revolution. Only on one count was he mistaken: he thought that the end of Europe would come in 200 years, but we can see that it is right on our doorstep. And Spengler was also unable to recognize the nature of this decline or downfall and its true cause, because the word “spiritualism” was enough to rouse him to anger. Knowledge of the cause, however, is possible only with the help of spiritual science; through it alone can one grasp something particular in the history of Europe in the period of decline. In this period – thanks to the fact that many events repeat themselves – one can identify what may be termed three nodal points of decline. Two of them are already behind us, and an understanding of them gives one the key that enables one to grasp what is still to come. These nodal points are the following:
Let us try to understand how and why these nodal points of the greatest crisis in human history have arisen. This means that we must turn our backs for a while on politics and look at history, sociology and philosophy. The nodal points formed on account of the peculiar features of the emergence of the human individuality in the epoch of the consciousness-soul, and even earlier, from the time of the birth of Christ. The type of human being that came to manifestation ever more strongly during that period is called by Rudolf Steiner the “Faustian soul”. His main striving is to stand on his own feet in all areas of life, and this requires the development of an autonomous ‘I’ that severs itself from all forms of group consciousness. The emergence of such a personality type is an objective world-historic necessity. It was established with the appearance of Christ on the earth. He is the God of the human ‘I’. But in the course of cultural-historical development a ‘remaining behind’ also occurred, and everything connected with this adopted a hostile stance against such a personality because the latter means for it a death-sentence. Therefore it also came about, that Christianity, once it had assumed the form of Roman Catholicism, began to conduct a relentless campaign against the “Faustian soul”. A detailed consideration of this question would lead us too far from our theme. Instead, we will quote two lengthy passages from Rudolf Steiner’s lectures – one of which was, in part, included in Vol.2 – explaining this phenomenon in detail, right to its central core. It appeared on the external plane for the first time in the 3rd and 4th century A.D. – Augustine recognized the “Faustian soul” very clearly. To begin with he was captivated by it – and the way it “wishes to prepare from out of the human being himself a sense for the form of the future”. But then he shrank from it in fear, from its striving to enter boldly into the supersensible world, to develop a world-view independently etc., to which the Church had objected from the beginning. And Augustine returned to the protection of the Church. The Roman Church which had, fundamentally, reawakened within itself the spirit of the old Roman Empire, continued its fight against spirituality and opposed the ascent of the human being to the consciousness-soul. Already with Constantine this antithesis was manifested between the Church and the free individuality. It came to practical expression in the “battle of the Catholic church against the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, Albigensians, Cathars and so on. They were all eliminated from the physical plane, but their inner life works on. The antithesis returns later in a weakened, but still powerful form in two streams, themselves born of a Western culture, as Jesuitism (Augustinism) and Freemasonry (Manichaism). Those who wage the battle on the one side are all aware of this – the Catholics and the higher degree Jesuits; of those engaged in the struggle on the other side in the spirit of Mani, only very few are aware, only those of highest rank in the movement are aware of it. Thus, in the later centuries Jesuitism (Augustinism) and Freemasonry (Manichaism) stand over against one another. They are the offspring of the old spiritual streams. You therefore have in both Jesuitism and Freemasonry a continuation of the same ceremonies in initiation as in the ancient stream. The initiation of the Church in Jesuitism has four degrees... The degrees of initiation in genuine occult Freemasonry are similar. They run parallel to one another, but pursue quite different tendencies” (GA 93, 11.11.1904). In another lecture Rudolf Steiner carries the theme further; he says: “And the remarkable thing is that from among the heretics people gradually emerged who looked at Christianity independently, and were able to see that what proceeds from Rome is actually something different from Christianity. This was a new element in the struggle, which you can encounter particularly strongly if you follow the battle that the Kings of France who were allied with the Popes had to conduct against the Count of Toulouse, who was a protector of the heretics of Southern France. And you find something like this in all areas.... So that while the situations I described to you were taking shape, there were everywhere heretics of this kind, but who were actually Christians, who were fiercely opposed and who often remained silent, formed communities of all kinds, hiding everything under a veil of secrecy.... That which had become purely political [the Church] needed to arouse an artificial enthusiasm and, basically, the way the Crusades were cultivated from the side of the Popes was designed to instill new enthusiasm into people.4 But now there were people who actually came from the heretic communities and are in a direct line of descent from the heretics. Especially characteristic, representative of these heretical folk who had examined Christianity, was Geoffroy de Bouillon. For, Geoffroy de Bouillon is always misrepresented in history. He is always presented in history as if Peter of Amiens and Walter von Habenichts had gone first, were unable to achieve anything of importance, and then, following the same tendencies, Geoffroy de Bouillon and others had journeyed to Asia Minor, wishing only to continue the same as what Peter of Amiens and Walter von Habenichts were meant to do. However, this is not the case at all... Geoffroy de Bouillon and the others connected with him stemmed – even if they did not declare this outwardly, for reasons I have explained – from the ranks of the heretics. And for them the aim was, initially, a Christian one: they wanted with the help of the Crusades, by founding in Jerusalem a new centre over against Rome, to put a genuine Christianity in the place of the Christianity in Rome. The Crusades were directed, by those initiated into its true secrets, against Rome. And the secret battle cry of the Crusaders was: “Jerusalem against Rome”. This is something touched on very little in external history, but it is a fact... However, this did not succeed. The Papacy was too powerful. But what came about, was that people’s mental horizon was widened. The Crusaders widened their horizon enormously; they were able to connect onto what had been forgotten, and they therefore gained knowledge of many a mystery, which they guarded carefully. The consequence of this was that, because they were not powerful enough to achieve the plan “Jerusalem against Rome”, they had to carry on treating the things as a secret. And so all kinds of Orders, Societies came about, which preserved certain Christian matters – under a different guise, because the Church was powerful – in Orders and the like, which are hostile to the Church. It was actually at this time that the disagreement emerged, which you will now only encounter if you visit a church, say, in Italy, and someone in there has been preaching against Freemasonry: you see the people standing there, to whom Freemasonry is a matter of complete indifference; they have not been told any names, but the priest up in the pulpit is venting his spleen against Freemasonry. This opposition between Church and Freemasonry – which nevertheless developed out of heretical circles – came about, essentially, at that time. One could cite this and many other phenomena, if there is a real wish to know concretely what actually happened at that time.” Connected with the antitheses between the Church people and the heretics, “many of whom were, in fact, Christians in the best sense of the word”, are also the things that led later to the Reformation. (GA 180, 17.1.1918) *** In the course of time, Freemasonry achieved great success in its struggle with the Papacy, with Rome. The need to remain in an “illegal position” came to an end, to some extent. This could not be otherwise, since the “wind” of history, of progress, was filling its sails. But already in the 18th and 19th century Freemasonry was confronted with other difficulties. The reason for this was that the human being needed, in the process of cultural development, for the unfolding of the stage of the lower, abstract ‘I’-consciousness (which is the precondition for the acquisition of a higher ‘I’), to pass through the epoch of materialism, of material culture, the period of complete loss of a connection with the supersensible. In dead, intellectual but rigorously-ordered thinking, he had to develop an “I” that lives by virtue of this thinking. Freemasonry was unable to cope with this difficulty. It fell into deep crisis. To understand this, we must again consult Rudolf Steiner, because no-one beside him has spoken of it. Knowledge of all this remained hidden in the centres of the secret societies. Thus Rudolf Steiner explains to us that the dawn of materialistic culture began under the motto: “Have the courage to use your reason!” This appeal was made by Kant, the philosopher of Königsberg, by Voltaire and Rousseau. “It is on this attitude that the whole of materialism, the entire culture of the 19th century and all that was achieved for liberty, equality and fraternity, was based. Great was the restricted intellect of the 19th century, and it is a profound law of spiritual development, that materialism and spiritualism are like two weights of which, as soon as the one gets bigger and the scale sinks, the other has to fly upwards.... And at the end of the 18th century, like radiant stars at their setting, a number of great spiritual individualities had emerged. Individualities who were not understood and of whom one did not know what they meant when they spoke of a spiritual world, but who also bore witness to the fact that there is such a world. They shone forth like meteors. But they were not understood. One such personality was the much-misunderstood St. Germain. Those who knew something of the spiritual life had to keep it hidden behind external symbols. The spiritual sources from which the stream flowed through Rosicrucianism for centuries, were hidden... It was said that the Rosicrucians had migrated to the Orient [where spiritual life was still preserved – G.A.B.], and had united with the great Brotherhoods of the East. If in this period of the 19th century anyone felt a longing for a spiritual life, a longing for higher spiritual knowledge, then he had to turn to the East... The European and the American brotherhoods... for certain reasons did not have the strength, nor was it their task, to rein in the stream of material life... Anyone who sees behind the scenes of outer material life, knows that in the times in which such things were happening as in the middle of the 19th century, a truly stormy, a really tumultuous life prevailed behind this scenery. And a life burdened with care prevailed among those spirits who had still retained spirituality; an apprehensive gaze into the future prevailed among all the spiritual brotherhoods when, through material culture, the spiritual life ran completely dry. Even among those who were most deeply initiated into the Mysteries it was not at all easy to see what should be done under the calamitous signs of the times. The big question began to circulate in the occult societies: How can it be explained to the human being, that the space that surrounds us has spirituality underlying it in its workings? It is not only necessary for humanity always to look upwards to the world of causes. It is also dangerous... particularly at a time when material culture, way of thinking and attitudes have so profoundly taken hold of human souls.” A trial was undertaken with spiritism. But “soon those who keep watch over time had to recognize the fact that something different is needed...” (Lecture of 5th May, 1904; not published). As a result of all this, a profound split occurred within Freemasonry: “Those members of these brotherhoods who wished above all to take into account the demands of the time, were to some degree inspired with the best intentions, and they were the ones who cherished the misguided impulse of going along with the materialism of the age; they were the ones whose main intention was to teach human beings, who actually only wanted to know anything by physical means, something of the spiritual world, but in a materialistic way via this physical path, so to speak. Thus, it was well-meant when in the forties spiritism was launched into the world. In this period of struggle in which, as I have indicated, there should prevail on earth the critical spirit, the intellect that is directed solely to the outer world, it was necessary to give people at least a sense, a feeling that there is around human beings a spiritual world. And so, in the way that compromises come about, this compromise also came about. The members of the brotherhoods that were totally opposed to the communication of certain spiritual truths to humanity saw themselves outvoted, so to speak, and had to accept the decision. It was not their original intention to put out into the world these things connected with spiritism. Wherever one has to do with corporate bodies and the will of corporate bodies, then we are dealing with compromises. But of course, just as it is in life externally: when something is decided within a corporate body, not only do those who took the initiative from out their own intentions expect something from what has been decided, but also those who originally opposed it expect to gain this or that from it once it has been decided. Thus, well-meaning spiritual members of the brotherhoods were of the mistaken opinion that, through the use of mediums, people would grow convinced of the existence of a spiritual world around them; then, on the basis of this conviction they could be taught higher truths.... For, those who let themselves be outvoted were, of course, extremely troubled at the fact that in the spiritual séances one could speak – sometimes justifiably – of manifestations of the spirits of the dead. The well-meaning progressive initiates did not expect at all that one could speak of the dead; they expected that one would speak of a general elementary world; they, too, were disappointed. And now we have – in addition to the members of brotherhoods already mentioned – those members of other or, in part, also of the same brotherhoods, in which minorities and sometimes even majorities can form; we have to take account of other initiates: those who are called within the brotherhoods “the Brothers of the Left” – those who, above all, exploit in terms of considerations of power anything that is incorporated as an impulse into human evolution. And of course these brothers of the Left were, for their part, also expecting all kinds of things from what manifested through spiritism. I remarked yesterday that it was primarily the brothers of the Left who operated with the souls of dead human beings” (and who, through spreading of the materialistic world-view and through certain manipulations, prepared many human souls in such a way that they remained within the earth sphere after death and came into the sphere of influence of the Brotherhoods of the Left). “What interested them most of all was to see what would emerge from the spiritist séances. They took control little by little of the whole field of activity. The well-meaning initiates gradually lost all interest in spiritism and felt, in a way, even ashamed because those who from the start had not wanted spiritism told them that one could have known all along that nothing positive can now come from spiritism. It was as a result of this, that spiritism entered into the power zone, one might say, of the Brothers of the Left” (GA 178, 19.11.1917). In the outer world spiritism was discredited, also by the “Brothers of the Left Path”. But, for themselves they held on to it and – this must be emphasized – the medium remains for them to this day the only way of connecting practically with the supersensible. And it is the brotherhoods of this kind which stand in a relation to the top right-hand angle of the reverse pentagram, as we showed in Part 2. But what about the well-intentioned initiates? First they realized that those who “became convinced by spiritism did not (grow) morally better with this attitude, thus they were not raised morally. But, secondly, a world-view of this kind proved to be... unfavourable – after death. The state in Kamaloka became not easier but more difficult. For, on top of everything else they brought with them the desire to see all that is spiritual satisfied by way of the senses, because such a world-conception arises as a Kamaloka attribute. It was an oppressive, leaden heaviness that weighed down upon the dead. This was the reason why the initiates said to themselves: We can’t go on like this. So the initiates made a mistake – one will object here. But even initiates have to gather experience and try things out. And it was decided with near unanimity in the great community of occultists, after this external approach had proved unsuccessful, to tread a different path, an inner one, the path of Theosophy. What is its aim? Its aim is to gain knowledge of what lives as spirit within the human being himself” (GA 97, 25.4.1906). A “mediating person”, so to speak, was found by them, who had the ability to understand her own time and the tasks confronting her. This mediator, so it transpired, was Helena Blavatsky: “Through her the gateway was reopened, whereby spirituality was able to reach through to us. But there were enormous difficulties that confronted her on her path” (Lecture of 5th May, 1904). Anyone who has crossed the threshold to the supersensible world, explains Rudolf Steiner, knows what forces then assail the human being. Moreover, Blavatsky did not feel herself equal to the task that faced her – to give the world spiritual knowledge in full openness. The “Brothers of the Left” started to play an underhand game with her. When she threatened them with exposure, they enclosed her in a kind of “occult prison” (a black magical manipulation), which made her connection to the outer world enormously difficult. She was to some degree released from this prison by “Brothers of the Left” of the Indian initiates, but she then fell into dependence upon them. Helena Blavatsky’s impulse had been thwarted, but the task of bringing humanity a new spiritual revelation was taken up by Rudolf Steiner with new and, this time, incomparably greater intensity. He, too, was attacked by the “Brothers of the Shadow” and, naturally, also by the “Fathers of Darkness” in a terrible way. And today the question as to the entry of Anthroposophy into the wider world of civilization and culture remains open. There is hardly anyone left who brings this impulse to humanity, since all Anthroposophical initiatives are pervaded with members of brotherhoods and Orders, which fall ever deeper into decadence. We should also mention the fact that Helena Blavatsky lived at the same time as Albert Pike. They even died in the same month of the same year.5 Pike was viewed as the reformer of the “ancient and accepted Scottish rite” in which he rose to the 33rd degree. He was “Commander in Chief of the Supreme Council of the Southern jurisdiction”. In other words, he played virtually the leading role in American Freemasonry. And we believe that, without his knowledge and his involvement Blavatsky would not have become the target of shameful occult attacks. Pike was actually a notable representative of the “Brothers of the Left”. When he had reformed the “Scottish rite” he seems to have adapted it to the goals of the occult-political manipulations of humanity carried out by the secret societies. (It is not by chance that he was the only General for whom a monument was erected in the U.S.A.) On this subject one can also read the following in Rudolf Steiner’s work: “Blavatsky came into contact with the rituals of Western brotherhoods. They had an enormously deep effect on her... The wish arose to accept her (into the Grand Orient de France) despite the rule, hitherto strictly observed, that no women should be admitted. But she was an honest soul. They realized that, through her, the Grand Orient would be brought to an end, and her admission did not come about. The same thing happened to her in an American brotherhood. If she had been accepted, through her with her tremendous spiritual forces it would have come about, despite her errors and shortcomings, that the dark powers in these brotherhoods would not have retained the upper hand, with the result that the terrible events of our time would not have been possible.” Rudolf Steiner also points out that the centre from which all these harmful influences radiate is not the Grand Orient, which is completely externalized; this centre is to be found in England (the lecture was held in winter 1916-17, unpublished) and – so we would add – also in the U.S.A., where the “Brothers of the Left” were, already then, competing and at the same time closely collaborating with that centre in Britain. It is there that is to be found the source of the unspeakable sufferings of humanity in the last hundred years. At the same time, it also becomes clear where are to be found the forces of liberation from them. *** After many centuries of tragic struggle and immense sacrifice made by the “heretics” and brotherhoods for the sake of realization of the ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity on earth, they finally succeeded in the 18th and 19th century in gaining a dominant position socially, politically, culturally and economically. (The Inquisition was abolished in 1834.) The world entered a period of struggle for the final victory of liberalism and democracy. But the British lodges took advantage of this for national-esoteric purposes. Earlier, they had inspired the French Revolution, and from that time onward the evolutionary path of development had increasingly to give way to the path of revolution. Politicized British occultism took up the struggle for domination of the world by British imperialism. This should not be regarded simply as a trivial conspiracy. This intention arose from the inborn qualities of the English people, in whose midst the highest forces of the human soul – the consciousness- soul – is unfolding. But from an occult point of view the conduct of the British lodges meant a betrayal of the true goals of evolution; in other words, it was “black magic”. Rudolf Steiner says: “This is a reality, wherever occult secrets are applied, not in the service of earth development as a whole, but in the service of some limited entity that wishes to have no connection with the guiding powers of earthly evolution, with the serving of humanity.... If that which is meant to serve mankind as a whole is applied in the service of a distinct race, in order to elevate this race to supreme dominance on the earth, then this is black magic on a large scale; because it is not taking place in harmony with the guidance of earth evolution” (Lecture of 21.10.1907; not yet published). The universal triumph of this magic also determines the character of our world today. And in this connection it is not “unipolar”. The “Fathers of Darkness” may well be, on the outer level, no longer in supreme control of the world, but they have in no way yielded their position to the “Brothers of the Shadow”. They have merely changed the form of the struggle, which is, in its essential nature, also fought by occult-political means. The French Revolution was the prelude to an irreconcilable conflict between two models of world domination – i.e. of globalism. In these models a socialization of two cosmic antagonists occurred: Lucifer and Ahriman. The early social-political battle for the human being took on thereby a cosmic dimension. And only from this aspect can one really understand it. Whoever does not wish to do this will – through the most varied, partly crude and partly subtle, means of ideologies and propaganda, but also on the basis of his prejudices and his egoism – be drawn into his struggle on one side or on the other. In our time this battle has assumed five different colourings. It is not dialectical in nature. Its central contradiction can never reach a synthesis. The synthesis comes about from another direction – from that of genuine Christianity, which treads the path of collaboration of human beings with the Divine hierarchies. To become an adherent of this Christianity – that is, to follow the path of Divinely-willed evolution – one must of necessity acquaint oneself thoroughly with its cosmic opponents and with their socialization on the level of sensory reality. Their working reaches back into the infinite distances of the past, but so long as the human being still possessed group-consciousness and the Divine beings were guiding its development, they were essentially different. The situation changed abruptly when the earthly human being began to enjoy the prerogative of the pure spiritual beings of the highest rank – an individual, substantial ‘I’. This precious element in the world is so great, that retarded spirits could not but feel the desire to take possession of it. The temptation to do this increases, due also to the fact that, with man’s acquisition of the ‘I’, even in its lower form, the hierarchies are placing the guidance of earthly development, in part, into human hands. In order to gain control of the human ‘I’, the retarded spirits, who had previously furthered the atomization of the group-consciousness, intended to eternalize the act of man’s fall into sin by holding in a reverse position the pentagram of his etheric forces. This comes about, either through the halting and reversal of evolution or by means of an acceleration of man’s development that is unbearable for his earthly nature. It also finds its expression in left-wing radicalism which hankers after permanent revolution, and in right-wing conservatism, which opposes this in every respect. Thus Ahriman and Lucifer stand in confrontation with one another in political life. From this arises the law of the alternating victory of revolution and reaction. And this “roundabout” will never stop until humanity gets off it. But this is only possible if one turns to Christ through the power of the individual ‘I’, which can be developed with the help of spiritual science. In spiritual science we are told that “Luciferic life ... unremitting in its efforts, (exists) in certain historical periods in the expectation that their efforts will be crowned with success, and in ever renewed disappointment”. Here one may ask: And these spirits themselves, can’t they understand? Why don’t they draw any conclusion from this? This question, Rudolf Steiner replies, is an expression of human and not Luciferic wisdom: “So far, at least, the Luciferic powers have not done this; instead, they increase their efforts again and again, after they have experienced ever new disappointments” (GA 171, 17.9.16). Ahriman does exactly the same. And we ask ourselves: Is not this entire cycle of recent history in its full horror, especially in the 20th century, a literal repetition of what the patrons of the Luciferized and Ahrimanized leaders of humanity are doing in the spiritual world, only on the earthly plane? This can be understood by simple human beings, but not by these leaders. *** This is the nature, in brief, of the higher methodology of the socio-political process. And as we see, it makes sense to occupy oneself with it. The nodal points of the “Decline of Europe” are tied and released again in correspondence with it and for this reason there is a resemblance between them. As this proceeds, the polarization of its main forces continuously intensifies. Really, they “increase their efforts again and again”. And this leads to a barbarization of life. Human beings come to power as the result of a selection of the worst. Therefore, Rudolf Steiner warned, already in 1918: “This is something that belongs to a healthy sense of reality and also to healthy commonsense: namely, to recognize this selection of the worst” (GA 185a, 2.11.1918). Admittedly: “Today it is still difficult to make it clear to people that their leaders are, from top to bottom, their worst enemies; that they are pests. But people need to be taught this, little by little” (GA 217a, 16.10.1920). For the last six months life in Europe has been showing this with particular clarity. To free oneself from the illusory belief in the good intentions of those in power, one must take account of the fact “that State organization in the West cannot be understood – and France and Italy are totally infected by it – unless one bears in mind the pervasiveness of the Lodges just as much as one must bear in mind the pervasiveness of Jesuitism in Middle Europe” (GA 185, 3.11.1918). Whoever has come to know this, will perhaps say: Well, in that case the situation is utterly hopeless! Fortunately, this is not the case. The reason for this is, that all retarded spirits are of secondary rank in relation to the spirits of goodness and of light; in terms of strength, there is no comparison between them. Their power over the human being is upheld only by his lack of knowledge, his ignorance in matters of spirituality. His situation remains hopeless so long as he remains voluntarily in the prison of materialism, or listens to the “siren song” of a completely Luciferized spiritualism, which reveals itself in the last resort as no more than a masked form of materialism. To understand all this means to lay the foundation stone for one’s own freedom. *** One cannot claim that the metaphysical transformation of the earthly battle for the human being was anticipated by no-one at all. In certain works of art such presentiments have been expressed on many occasions. Although in the present time materialism wishes to firmly shut all windows to spirituality, the world of higher beings tries to help humanity by inspiring many authors who, nevertheless, have only a very imperfect understanding of what flows from their pen. One fruit of these inspirations is, without question, the novel “1984”, written in the prison of materialism – whose author unfortunately did not realize that his work leads him out of this prison. George Orwell exposed the character of a global world that has fallen completely under the domination of Ahriman, although it still retains a number of Luciferic features. There is a law that underlies this, too, because it will never be permitted to Lucifer and Ahriman, despite their cosmic antagonism, to destroy one another or for the one to exclude the other from the universe. A global world controlled by Lucifer has been portrayed in a work of genius, the utopian novel “The Earthly Paradise”, by the Russian biologist Konstantin Mereshkovsky. As we know, the idea of building a Paradise on earth is part of the Ahrimanized ideology of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky etc., but the “people of Lucifer” also intend to create one, even if they have an entirely different picture of this Paradise. Nevertheless, the two models of Paradise share something in common: in both of them an unfolding of the free personality is out of the question. Mereshkovsky’s novel appeared in Berlin in 1903, simultaneously in Russian and German. It was completely ignored by the Press, and by some miracle a number of copies of the original edition have survived into our own time. The novel is particularly enigmatic, above all because of the precision with which its author foresaw the events of the 20th and 21st centuries. Allow us to outline at least the main elements of this utopian world-view for the benefit of readers, as there is in our opinion no other text that reveals so clearly and exactly the nature of the “right” globalism, which the “Fathers of Darkness” aim to establish. According to Mereshkovsky’s statements it was on the basis of his own reflections that he hit upon his plan for the transformation of the world, and he regards it as the best that human beings have conceived so far. He thinks that only the Jesuits were able to realize in practice a plan of this kind. The account of this plan in the novel is a really striking illustration of all that one can learn from Rudolf Steiner’s communications on this subject. We are not so entirely convinced that the author was such a simple person as he makes out to be. In the Foreword to his novel Mereshkovsky describes himself as an adherent of a world-view that he calls “Terrism” (from terra – earth). He says that everyone, regardless of his personal opinions, must subscribe to this world-view – the idealist, the Theosophist etc. According to Mereshkovsky, human beings “have not only the right, but also the duty – a duty that springs not only from reason and logic, but also from the feeling of compassion of their fellow-men – to be interested only in earthly things and to occupy themselves exclusively with earthly things; concern with heavenly things should be left to the dwellers in heaven – if such beings exist”. The organization of earthly things must be placed in the hands of a few. This social order is called by the author “paternalistic”. The novel is written in the form of a utopia, which allows the author to develop what existed as ideas already in his own time to their logical conclusion and elaborate the final consequences. In our time they crawl, so to speak, out of every corner; they assume a thousand different forms – in philosophy, sociology, art, politics and, finally, in social activities. The hero of the novel is close to drowning in the sea; he loses consciousness and when he has come to again he finds himself in the world of the future. He has been transported into the 27th century in which, to put it simply, globalism of the “right” has triumphed throughout the world. For the sake of convenience, the number of human beings has been reduced to a few million, and the whole of humanity now inhabits the equatorial zone with its warm climate, where living conditions require no complicated technology and mass production and it was therefore permissible to bring technical progress to an end. The people are completely infantile. They do nothing but play the whole day; in their appearance they are young and childish and, in their behaviour, direct and trusting like children; they know nothing of clothing and are allowed to live out their sexual wishes with no restriction. Sexuality has become a normal, everyday need. The bearing of children, however, is exclusively the task of a special group of women with impeccable genetic make-up. All live in small communities under the supervision of a thin stratum of educators and teachers. There is also a caste of slaves who wait upon everyone. Overall, the way of life of these “happy people” recalls that in antiquity, only it creates no works of art, and music is only produced mechanically. The novel’s hero speaks with the teacher of a community, who tells him how they succeeded in bringing the world into this happy condition. The 19th century, he says, “bore the mark of uncertainty; it was a mixture of science and blind faith, industrial inventions and militarization, capitalism and socialism, the growth of national pride and the unfolding of cosmopolitanism.” From this, a striving for “equality in the education system” gradually crystallized out, and this lent a special colouring to the entire 20th century. “In the mid-20th century in many countries middle-school education became compulsory for all citizens. As a result of this, the working masses possessed, as time went on, “far more knowledge than bread”. Equality in education led to the wish for social equality. More and more countries shifted to a socialist order. Not all, however: England, America, Germany “wanted to put an end to these ‘dreamlike fantasies’, which did not happen without bloodshed”... As the upheavals that occurred in the world were based, not on ideas of morality, but on material considerations, “the inhabitants of poor countries” began “to migrate to the rich countries..., until the latter were so overpopulated and there was such an excess of labour available that [national authorities] began to reject the immigrants; further migration was subject to rigid restrictions, and in some places entirely prohibited” (all this was written in 1903!). A solution to the economic and other problems was prevented by human egoism which, in earlier centuries of hard struggle for existence, had been unavoidable, but was no longer appropriate under the new conditions. Particularly destructive was the spirit of individualism and the heartlessness in the Anglo-Saxon race, which “in the 20th century extended its control almost over the entire globe”. In place of the earlier struggle of individuals against one another, there now came the conflict “of human groups, each with its own interests, which could not be reconciled with those of other groups”, the battle of “economic units”. The world domination of the Anglo-Saxon race was based on the socialist principle, but in order to retain their power and force the others to work, they needed to make this power unlimited, which finally corrupted the wielders of power themselves. Everything returned to its old ways: of the socialist order nothing remained but a pile of fragments; banks, shares, bankruptcies, disorderly living, drunkenness etc. celebrated a joyful return. “And life passed by with no aim, no trust and confidence, and without hope that one might tread” the path to a better future, “humanity began to live ‘from bread alone’. But such a life was intolerable for human beings with a complex spirit; for such people it was worse than death”. Terrible times began. As people had, in the meantime, become aware of the hopelessness of their situation, they grew desperate. “And desperation is the mother of cruelty and, as time went on, all were seized by it. All concepts were turned upside down; hatred ruled, human beings became beasts... That time had truly come, of which the Apocalypse speaks... But there was no sounding of trumpets; one could hear only the sighs of despair and of the damned”. Then a secret society formed, which had decided to bring to an end the human race in its trial of suffering. The members of this “Society” blew up cities, poisoned rivers, spread diseases. At that time a substance “without odor, color or taste” was discovered, which made men infertile. The “Society of Annihilators”, which had renamed itself “Society of Renewers”, decided with the help of this substance to exterminate all human beings with an unfavorable genetic make-up. They decided to carry out the experiment first in a single country. So they purchased the Congo from the “Latin Union’ and openly started there “Experiments in the artificial selection of human beings”. The Anglo-Saxons, however, prevented this program from being carried through to the end. In the Congo (Paraguay?) a pogrom was staged, which actually caused the “Society” no significant harm. “Thanks to our wealth,” the teacher continues in his narrative to the hero of the novel, “and our internal solidarity we infiltrated ourselves everywhere, among our own people and also our enemies... We decided to exterminate all Asiatics without exception. Neither the Mongolian nor the Negroid race was to form a part of the new, renewed humanity.... Destined for complete annihilation were also the Semitic race, but also peoples such as the Armenians, Persians, Syrians etc., which had been totally corrupted ages ago, and whose character, formed through millennia-old genetic structures, could in no circumstances be changed through artificial selection.” (Let us note here, that we – made wise by the experience of a century where thanks to the “pipe dreams” of the progressive intellectuals, a society for promotion of a new science called “eugenics” was founded, first in London, and then eugenic-social experiments on a large scale were carried out, from Lenin to Pol Pot, where whole strata of society, the flower of the nation, were declared unsuitable for the creation of the “new human being” and were physically wiped out –, can no longer hide behind the claim that our author was “letting his imagination run riot”.) “The peoples of the world were shocked to the core,” the teacher continues, “when they had learned of our plans and saw that humanity was melting away like snow under the rays of the spring sunshine!
They remembered how things had been and, filled with hatred, took steps to ferret us out... They regarded us as monsters and outlawed us.” But it was too late. The peoples died out, while the members of the “Society” continued to multiply unabated. Favourable to their cause was also the attack of Asia – China and Japan – on Europe, America and Australia. “Our bold, gigantic, grandiose conspiracy,” the teacher exclaims, “the conspiracy of a handful of people against the whole of mankind, was crowned with success!” Now we face the task “of creating a happy human race. Such a task must be tackled with clean hands”. It was necessary thoroughly to purge our own ranks, too, which had soiled themselves with the carrying out of the mass extermination. (A further riddle: this statement fits exactly the Stalinist terror of the years 1935 to 1939.) “It was also decided that humanity should consist of ‘childish human beings, simple and naïve creatures’”. Such beings cannot, of course, exist without adults, their protectors and guides. And it was decided to create out of completely retarded, “semi-animalic humans a special race of slaves, in whom instinct preponderates over consciousness and reason”. Theoretical principles of the “renewal” were developed; one of them was as follows: “Mankind cannot be happy so long as humans do not reproduce via the method of artificial selection and are not like children.” It is just as impossible for such a humanity to live happily without protectors as without a simplification of life, and without slaves, “because work was always the source of all evils on the earth”. But in the execution of their work the slaves must not be conscious of their (humble) status, etc. For the creation of a new humanity 650 women and 25 men of “Latin race” with a small addition of “Slavic blood” were chosen. But in the last resort they made do with one man only, from whom the whole of humanity arose through artificial insemination. (Just as in Genesis!) Mankind was not great in number and comprised no more than three million members. They received new commandments, of which there were ten: “1. Be simple and naïve. 2. On the earth, enjoy earthly pleasures to the full... 3. Love your protectors and obey them. 4. Do not make great efforts to provide yourselves with nourishment. 5. Do not bow to progress – hell is contained in it. 6. Do not reproduce beyond the aims of artificial selection,” etc. When our hero, a man of the 19th century transported into the future earthly Paradise and completely enthralled by it, has listened to all this, he also expresses doubts timidly: “Doesn’t it seem to you,” he asks the teacher, “that in this way you have lowered the level of the human spirit?” “O, most definitely!”, exclaims the teacher. “We have lowered the level of the human spirit! We have simplified it. The heights attained on occasion by the representatives of the earlier humanity can be reached by none of our friends (our pupils) and will never be reached by any of them – we will take care of that! All our past and present accomplishments, all our principles – everything, absolutely everything – is nothing other than the conscious implementation of that one fundamental idea, the greatest of all ideas that have ever appeared on earth – the idea of the simplification of the spirit... Who knows! – Maybe its power will grow and spread still further... and one day it will be cosmic in character... In earlier human beings this level [of the spirit] was far too high; such a spiritual ascent, such lofty spiritual achievements and feelings were unnatural for the human being, they were incompatible with life on earth, incompatible with a happy life on it.” Then the teacher says something that, for those with the ability to penetrate by spiritual scientific means behind the outer “curtain” of life, is extremely interesting and symptomatic. “You are mistaken,” he says, “if you accuse us of doing nothing to prepare people for a possible new existence. For, if it is all as you imagine it, our people, when they appear in another, spiritual world just as they are, namely, as innocent and good children, will be fully prepared for any new life whatever. They will be pure, unspoilt material from which one can easily make anything one likes, and our task is to keep this material pure and unspoilt... We are also right to change human beings into children, ‘for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’ as your great teacher said.” But if it should turn out that life in the other world is also no pure bliss – the Teacher concludes –, and that suffering exists there too, then, who knows? – “maybe we will have to do the same work there as we have done here; our task may consist, there also, in the simplification of life, in lowering the level of the spirit, with the aim of endowing it with an, albeit simple, but lasting happiness!” In long-winded postscripts to the novel, in which the author brings his own reflections on it, he speaks of the “Society of Jesus” – a “small group of bold and spiritually elected human beings”. In Paraguay the Jesuits once “built up a big community of several million perfectly happy people – they chased them with a cudgel into Paradise. Even Griesinger – a declared and prejudiced enemy of the Jesuits – felt forced to admit it. Of course, like all people nowadays who are hypnotized by the idea of progress and freedom, Griesinger speaks ironically of this happiness, because in their realm in Paraguay the Jesuits destroyed every fetish of modern man – they destroyed all freedom, all enlightenment, all progress and replaced this with one thing, one thing alone – happiness. But to this Griesinger attaches no special value; he would not exchange a single ounce of freedom for a whole ton of happiness. Poor, demented people! How do they benefit from this freedom, what do they gain from their enlightenment, their civilization and their progress if it brings them no happiness? Yes, indeed, the Jesuits were wise and clear-sighted people. If they had only seen things a bit more comprehensively, I would entrust myself to them without hesitation, saying: Take me by the hand and lead me directly to happiness. This is all I ask of life. And this brings me to a strange thought: It would not surprise me if my Utopia were to be realized by none other than the Society of Jesus.” But the Jesuits would need only to understand “that their weapon hitherto – religious feeling and prejudice – can no longer be effective in changed conditions; it has been blunted and must be replaced by a new one that is more crushing and direct.” And – we would add – it has already been replaced. By what, we will see later. And now we invite the reader to compare this Utopia with that of George Orwell and decide which of the two he prefers. It is with precisely this choice that humanity is being faced in our time, in which the world is changing with dizzying rapidity.
4 They also enabled Rome to arrange the departure and the death of people who had recognized its true nature. 5 In 1878 Blavatsky received American citizenship according to a “special provision”.
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