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Fall of the Spirits of Darkness
by
Rudolf Steiner. From Behind the Scenes of External Happenings,
1917
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Many years ago, when I was working in Berlin, the
news filtered into a theatre during the performance that the Empress of Austria
had been assassinated at Geneva by one of the “Propagandists by Action” —
so they were being called at that time.1 During one of the intervals
I happened to be standing near a man who was then a literary critic in Berlin
and has since written philosophical books which have gained a certain
reputation. This man voiced his astonishment at the news in a way that still
lingers in my memory. He said: “One can understand many things that happen in
the world without in the least justifying or approving of them ... one can
understand many things that happen ... but that a revolutionary movement should
instigate the murder of a sick woman whose continued existence could have made
no real difference, whose death anyhow can have no clear connection with any
political idea, this” — said the man — “is incomprehensible; it just
doesn't make sense.”
1Note
by Translator: The date of the assassination was 10th September, 1898.
“Propagandisten der Tat” seems to have been a phrase in current use at
that time. In modern books of reference, this assassination and that of Carnot,
of which mention is made later, are attributed to revolutionary anarchists.
I am sure this man was
expressing what must be the opinion of every right-minded, educated person in
the modern world. We are reminded that in the life of men and the course of
history, things do happen which seem senseless and purposeless not only when
judged by the normal standards but even when they are attributed to some form of
aberration.
But events of this very
nature — and many, many others might be cited — show that what appears
outwardly incomprehensible must inevitably do so because behind the scenes of
world affairs — if I may use this expression — spiritual forces and
spiritual deeds are playing to and fro both in the good and in the bad sense.
These spiritual deeds and happenings are only to be understood when the light of
Spiritual Science can be shed into those regions that lie behind the scenes of
life in the ordinary world of the senses. Things happen which become
intelligible only when they can be illumined by ideas derived from the spiritual
world and which, if viewed merely in their connection with the world of the
senses, inevitably seem devoid of meaning and purpose — either good or bad.
And if by what may be called chance but may also possibly have been a matter of
karma in symbolic garb, one has an experience of this kind in a theatre, then it
prompts the reaction that what is going on “behind the scenes” looks very
different from what is happening on the stage.
I have made these
preliminary remarks because I propose today to speak about matters which will be
further elaborated when we are next together — matters which it is important
for men at the present time to know about and which are connected with events
behind the scenes of the physical plane. These things cannot be understood if we
give way to the easy-going modern habit of merely generalising about the facts
of the spiritual world and their connection with human affairs on the Earth;
they become intelligible only when we penetrate as deeply as possible into the
concrete realities of the spiritual world.
You know from many
passages in the Lecture-Courses that the evolution of mankind is to be divided
into certain periods: the vast periods of the Saturn-, Sun-, Moon-evolutions;
the shorter periods of the Lemurian, Atlantean and our own Post-Atlantean
epochs; and again within these shorter periods which, however, extend over long
stretches of time, we speak of certain epochs of culture within the Post-Atlantean
period: the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the
Greco-Latin and our own Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch.
The reason for speaking
of these periods is that the faculties of humanity as a whole — in this case
more particularly the faculties of soul — change fundamentally from one period
to another; they change because a very real evolution takes place in every such
period — I am speaking now of the shortest. Every such period contains
something which mankind is obliged to undergo, something which may cause either
happiness or unhappiness, which has to be realised and understood, which is the
source of impulses of will leading to deeds, and so forth. The tasks devolving
upon the Egypto-Chaldean epoch of civilisation differed from those of the
Greco-Latin epoch — and our own age, too, faces its own specific tasks.
A really true idea of
the distinct tasks of the several epochs in regard to the development of certain
qualities — especially those of which we shall speak today — cannot be
formed without taking into account the experiences contributed by human life as
a whole to the external development of which history speaks and to which the
materialistic thought of today prefers to confine itself. No really adequate
characterisation of the successive epochs can, however, be drawn from these
experiences on the physical plane, for they, after all, constitute only one part
of that cycle of human life which stretches from birth to death and from death
onwards to a new birth. For in what actually happens, there is a constant
interplay and interaction between the forces that come down from the world in
which man lives between death and a new birth and those which are unfolded in
his life here, on the physical plane. There is an unceasing interplay between
the forces unfolded by human beings after death and those operating on the
physical plane.
Conditions throughout
the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch were such that certain things might safely be
withheld from the consciousness of man. Many things in respect of which men of
the Greco-Latin epoch might without harm be kept unconscious must, however,
enter more and more into the consciousness of those living in the Fifth Post-Atlantean
epoch. During this Fifth epoch, human beings must become conscious of much that
in earlier times could remain in the unconscious.
These things unfold
according to certain spiritual laws, under a kind of spiritual necessity. It is
part of the destiny of the human race that certain faculties of comprehension
and also certain forces of will, shall unfold in a particular epoch. In this
Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch humanity becomes ripe for the knowledge of certain
things, just as in earlier epochs men became ripe in other respects. One thing
in respect of which humanity has become sufficiently mature in the Fifth Post-Atlantean
epoch seems highly paradoxical to the modern mind, because public opinion moves
for the most part in exactly the opposite direction, would prefer, as it were,
to lead men in the opposite direction. But this will be of no avail. The
spiritual forces with which men are, if I may put it so, inoculated, in the
course of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, will be stronger than the wishes of
certain people, stronger than the dictates of public opinion.
One of these things —
and it will assert itself most powerfully — is the guiding or directing of men
more deeply in line with occult principles than has ever before been possible.
It lies in the general character of evolution that during this Fifth Post-Atlantean
epoch, certain conditions connected with the exercise of power, of influence,
must pass into the hands of small groups who will wield great power over other,
large masses of people.
A certain section of
public opinion vehemently resists this trend; nevertheless it will assert itself
and for the following reason. During the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, simply
because of inner maturity and evolutionary necessity, a large portion of
humanity will unfold certain spiritual faculties, a certain natural capacity to
see into the spiritual world. This portion of humanity, which will indeed
provide the best foundation for the future Sixth Post-Atlantean epoch — this
portion of humanity, while in process of preparation during the Fifth epoch,
will show little inclination to be actively concerned with the affairs of the
physical plane. Such men will have little interest in physical affairs and will
be engrossed in ennobling the life of soul, in regulating certain matters
connected with the spiritual life. And because of this, others less spiritually
inclined will be able to seize for themselves certain factors connected with the
exercise of power — to get them into their own hands.
This is something that
arises with a kind of necessity. Among men who were cognisant of these things it
was the subject of much discussion throughout the last third of the nineteenth
century, and they always stressed the vital necessity that this potential should
be directed - not into evil but into good channels. During the last third of the
nineteenth century, especially just before its turn, one could hear occultists
on every hand insisting that precautions must be taken to ensure that such means
of power come into the hands of worthy men. Naturally, with the exception of a
very few groups, opinions differed as to who were really worthy; each group
championed the claims of those with whom the world had brought it into contact.
But the whole matter was the subject of almost day-to-day conversation among
occultists and, in a certain sense, has remained so to this day.
Simply because man
attains the requisite degree of maturity, other things, too, will emerge in the
course of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, will become known to men and also pass
into the sphere of the will. These are things which lead still further, so far
indeed that they cannot but cause grave anxiety to everybody who is cognisant of
them.
This Fifth Post-Atlantean
epoch confronts the fact that the physical apparatus of human thinking becomes
capable of understanding certain factors relating to illness and processes of
healing, connections of Nature-processes with illnesses. This causes anxiety to
those possessing real knowledge of these matters because their aim now must be
to ensure that those who will be chosen to bring the relevant teachings and
impulses to men will do so in the right and worthy way. For two possibilities
exist: information about these things will either be conveyed to men in a form
which does harm, or it may be imparted in a way which is for the good of the
world. These things are connected with the most intimate depths of certain
conditions relating to human propagation, with circumstances connected with
illnesses and with the onset of death, and when knowledge concerning them
spreads among mankind they give rise to thoughts and impulses of deep import and
significance. And the purpose of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is that men
shall become free enough to be enlightened about certain truths hitherto kept in
the more unconscious region of the human soul, and to master them.
Those who knew,
concerned themselves deeply with all the implications of these things and with
the steps that could be taken in one direction or the other. For everything that
can arise in this way bestows a certain power, enables a hand to be taken to a
very far-reaching extent in the shaping of human affairs. All these
considerations, as I said, occupied an important place in spiritual-scientific
movements during the nineteenth century, and still do so, to this day, in
connection with the evolution of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch.
Another fact must here
be considered, a fact that to anyone cognisant of it, is very significant, and
must therefore be brought into relation with many others. I have mentioned it
here and there in the Lecture-Courses. When, having crossed the threshold of the
spiritual world, a man begins to make observations there, peculiar facts,
essentially individual facts come before his soul's eye. And then a deeper
scrutiny of things which at first sight seem to have nothing to do with each
other, reveals that they are indeed connected, that they mutually illumine and
explain each other and in doing so greatly facilitate penetration into the
nature of the spiritual world.
The other fact, of which
I am now going to speak, will, at first, certainly not give you the impression
of being connected with what I have just said, yet the very contrary proves to
be the case. This other fact is the following: When one turns to the souls of
human beings who have died in our present age and learns the circumstances of
their existence, one perceives souls among them who feel grave apprehension at
the prospect of coming into contact with those human souls who, here on Earth,
met their death as did the Empress of Austria at that time in Geneva. One
discovers that human beings sent through the Gate of Death by, let us say, the
“Propagandists by Action,” are a cause of grave anxiety to certain human
beings who passed through death in a normal way and then have further
experiences in the spiritual world. One notices, as it were, that those who died
in the normal way and who may have occasion to contact these other souls, are
fearful of such contact after death, and shrink from it.
I beg you, in such a
case, to ignore the emotional paradox. Such innumerable possibilities of
association and contact are open to souls that it would be out of place to allow
oneself here to be swayed by feelings of compassion, however natural and
justifiable they may be. A case like this must be viewed quite objectively. It
is a fact that souls who have passed through the Gate of Death normally, feel a
certain dread of those whose death was brought about by violent means resembling
those adopted by anarchist propaganda.
Now there is a certain
very strange connection between this last fact and the other of which I spoke
previously. Closer scrutiny reveals that these souls who met their death by
violent means come into possession of certain knowledge in the spiritual world
after death, which the other souls do not wish to receive from them prematurely,
before it is right and healthy to do so. For the very reason that here, on the
physical plane, they were deprived of life in this way and sent with such
violence through the Gate of Death, these souls retain a certain possibility of
turning to account the powers and forces they possessed on Earth, for example,
the power of intellect. From the other side, from the spiritual world, such
souls can make use of the powers which were bound up with the physical body here
on Earth and achieve with them something quite other than it is possible to
achieve during life in the physical body. Thereby these souls are able to
acquire knowledge of certain things earlier than is really conducive to the
progress of human evolution.
It is very remarkable
that both meaning and purpose are revealed in this way in a number of deeds
hitherto seeming to lack all rhyme or reason. These deeds assume a strange
aspect to one who sees things as they really are. In the physical world, all
kinds of nonsense is talked; it may sound plausible but is, well just nonsense
to closer observation. Here, in the physical world, it is said: people like
these “Propagandists by Action” who murder others, are simply out to draw
attention to misery in the world; it is a means of active agitation, etc., etc..
But one who analyses the matter and tries to bring it into line with the laws of
social life will realise at once that, although such deeds appear to be
senseless, their meaning suddenly becomes clear in the light of the knowledge
that souls sent into the spiritual world in this violent way, acquire knowledge
which they really ought not yet to possess and of which souls who died a normal
death have a positive dread.
To investigate the
causes underlying assassinations committed at various times, like that of the
Empress Elizabeth of Austria, to discover the position of these souls who come
into the spiritual world with certain secrets in their keeping — with
consequences of which we shall speak — to investigate these things occultly
was of course the important thing. A merely external view of the series of such
assassinations may ascribe them all to chance; but if one analyses the matter,
if one considers who the individuals thus sent to their death really are, it
becomes clear that they have been selected, as it were — not, of course from
the standpoint of the physical world but from that of the spiritual world.
Investigation of this aspect of many of the well-known assassinations reveals
something very remarkable. In the cases of Carnot,2 the Empress
Elizabeth of Austria and certain others, the remarkable fact is revealed that
although the possibility of achieving something by their assassinations
certainly existed, it was, as a matter of fact, not achieved at all. It would
have been achieved if souls had been found to be their “customers,” if I may
put it so. If that had happened, both sides would have incurred transcendental,
supersensible guilt: those who had passed through death in the normal way would
have had experiences which would have driven them into blameworthy paths, and
those whose deaths had been caused by violence, by assassination, would have
been guilty of divulging knowledge before the proper time.
2Carnot
was the fourth President of the Third French Republic. He was assassinated at
Lyons on 24th June, 1894.
Higher Spiritual Beings,
Higher Hierarchies, prevented this from happening because of certain
consequences which would have ensued and which it was necessary to frustrate for
the sake of the well-being of a certain part of mankind. By the intervention of
higher Spiritual Beings, the harm that might have resulted was prevented. And so
there was evidence here of an attempt made with ineffective means, or rather,
with means that had been deprived of their effectiveness. It was an attempt made
in the spiritual world, behind the scenes of the physical world.
Probing into the deeper
foundations of such matters, we discover the source of the impulses underlying
them. And in the case of many of the assassinations which were news in Europe
and will be known to you, the impulses — they were spiritual impulses,
remember — were not really primary and original but were derivatives; they
were “defence measures,” if this rather trivial expression is permissible.
The purpose of these deeds was to put a stop to something else, to frustrate
other deeds, or, better said, to prevent the consequences of other deeds tending
in the same direction.
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