No one would argue that the way we think shapes the world we live in. What we believe to be true about ourselves, our neighbors, the entire world shapes our world because we exist in it, we do things in it. Even if we don’t think anyone notices. Few of us imagine, however, that our beliefs about God and Angels and Spiritual Forces also shape the world we live in.
In last month’s post, Steiner tells us that “Strange as it may sound to the ordinary, average people of today—order will not be created from the chaos of the present time until a sufficiently large number of people are prepared to recognize the truths of spiritual science. Such will be the karma of world history.” Really? How does a lack of interest in the spiritual world bring destruction to the physical world? This month we will see more clearly how our refusal to accept spiritual truths is contributing to the mess we’re in.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
A mysterious connection exists between human consciousness and the destructive powers of decline and fall in the universe. Each can, or indeed must, take the place of the other in the following way.
Let us assume there was a time, say during the last twenty or thirty years of the nineteenth century, when people put the same effort into their quest for the things of the spirit as they put into achieving material knowledge and material actions. What would have happened if they had endeavored to recognize the world of the spirit and used this to give a character, a foundation, to the physical world, rather than follow mere instinct and chase after more and more knowledge of a kind that has seen its ultimate triumph in the creation of instruments of murder and found its be-all and end-all in people enriching themselves with nothing but material goods? What would have happened if people had sought to gain spiritual knowledge and spiritual impulses for their activities in the social sphere?
It would have meant that the powers of destruction were paid off. If people had been more awake and not asleep in the last decades of the nineteenth century there would have been greater awareness and therefore no need for destruction in the first decades of the twentieth century. Spiritual awareness simply has to be greater than purely sensual and material awareness. If this had been the case during the last decades of the nineteenth century, the powers of destruction would not have had to intervene in the early decades of the twentieth century.
This is brought to realization most insistently, and perhaps most cruelly, to the perceptive mind when you meet many of the dead who have entered the world of the spirit either during the last decades of the nineteenth or the first decades of the twentieth century. Many of them have been caught up in the hustle and bustle and search for material values here on earth and never had the opportunity to let spiritual impulses arouse awareness. Many have gone through the gate of death without even a notion of the thoughts and ideas that point to spiritual impulses. If they had had the opportunity to take in spiritual thoughts and ideas before they went through the gate of death, they could have taken these with them. It would have been something they needed after death, but they were not in a position to have it.
Anyone who knows the history of ideas of the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century also knows that people actually no longer knew how to use the term ‘spirit’. It has been used to describe all kinds of things, but not the true spirit. Those souls therefore had no opportunity of knowing the spirit while here on earth and they have to take the consequences. Having gone through the gate of death and entered the world of the spirit, they are thirsting for—well, what are they thirsting for, these souls who lived in materialism here? They are thirsting for destructive powers in the physical world! Those are the dues and they must be paid.
There is no easy way of dealing with these things…
Order cannot arise from the chaos until people are ready to give room to such grave truths in their souls and also let these truths enter into the ideas that apply in the world of politics today. And if these truths sound pessimistic to you and make you think that humanity is still a long way from achieving all that is demanded, as I have indicated, you are indeed right. But let this justifiable pessimism become a challenge to be awake and to try, whatever your place in life may be, to awaken souls so that the science of the spirit can send out its impulses.
Again and again, we need to be really clear in our minds that the present time is literally challenging us every hour, indeed every minute, to wake up. Spiritual science can only be understood by those who are able to grasp that humanity is being asked to make a clear decision. Either the spirit is understood or the chaos continues. A papered-over chaos would be no better than the carnage we have today. If we are unable to come up with anything better than materialism and again materialism in the next few years, and if it were to happen that the events of the last three years (WWI) in which humanity has failed to wake up and take notice, were to lead to a new rush for material goods—many people are longing for this as something that comes with peace—then souls would once again go through the gate of death and thirst for destruction here on earth. There would be no end to the destruction.
Excerpt from: The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness, Lecture I: The Driving Forces Behind Europe’s War by Rudolf Steiner. Dornach, Switzerland, December 29, 1917.
At the dawn of modern science, we find that the leading scientists of that day, Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, were all devoutly religious men. Not naïve. Not superstitious. Scientists. You can find this out for yourselves. The dismissal of the spiritual world has been gradual but very effective. Consequently, most people nowadays have a hard time accepting that the spiritual world exists even though there are plenty of contemporary, prominent scientists who believe. This, too, you can find out for yourselves. Reality is infinitely more complicated than we want it to be. Steiner’s solution to the chaos of our times is to begin to learn about this other side to our reality.
Talking about war while we may be trying to filter out some of the daily madness seems cruel. However, because Steiner’s warnings about the future look ever more likely, this and the previous post seem necessary now.
Last month we ended with directing thoughts of love into the world. The more we have developed ourselves in light of the spirit, the more we can see how such a thing can be of real substance. After all, the way we think, what we believe in, shapes the world we live in.