Lectures given by Jesaiah
ben Aharon in Järna, Sweden for the Anthroposophical Society 20th and 21st
February 2004
Lecture Friday morning 20th
February 04: The World Situation at Present
Jesaiah began by describing
the method which we as anthroposophists should work with.
Our tasks come to us as the
actual world situation, from the outside world. We contemplate
and reflect inwardly on the world situation and transform objective
events into questions. Events and situations occur in the world
outside. Inwardly, we transform them into questions. But the
Answers do not come from inside us. The dialogue between external
events and inner questioning allows the spiritual world to speak.
We need to cultivate an active listening and questioning, which
creates a dialogue between us and the world, between the outer
and the inner. This leads to an inspiration, and objective supersensible
judgment,the truth of the matterat hand, ofwhat is needed. The
world situation today is shaped by the clash of civilisations,
the American Empire, by the anti-Christ forces, which are working
against humanity on the one side. This is described by Huntington
when he says: ” I can only love myself when I know who I
hate and I can only know myself when I know who I am not”.
A counter picture to this I described last night in my public
lecture on “Israel in he midst of the clash of civilizations”.
I shared this as an example of the new resurrection forces born
in those Israeli Christian and Muslim Arabs and Jews, and who
travelled to Auschwitz. Man makes a sacrifice and joins the Time
spirit.
This is an example of how
a group of dedicated Israeli people came to an inspiration and
took an initiative, because they created such a dialogue with
their world. This should be taken as an example by anthroposophists.
If the Anthroposophical society will adopt this esoteric way
of working, it will again become a vehicle for the Time Spirit.
All forms can be changed within the Anthroposophical Society
if they are based on a real dialogue as described above. The
point of departure should be the events which come to us from
outside and not texts from Rudolf Steiner’s books. Esoteric
means: working independently with your own “I” forces,
in and out of the given situation. Texts are study materials,
preparing us for meeting reality, and not substitution for the
meeting with reality. We devalue Steiner’s work constantly
if we don’t use it in this way. We must assimilate them
so deeply into us that we completely forget them when we approach
reality and begin the real dialogue with it as describe above.
During the 20th century and
its three World Wars (WW1, WW2 and the Cold War) we lived in
a Europe centred period. But the US was taking over step by step.
It is a “work in progress”, where the US first takes
over Europe and Asia in three stages, through three world wars.
Europe allowed this because it could not find its true mission
and goals. At the end of the 19th century the social question
arose within the proletariat in Europe, but the leaders/the elite
ignored this cry. They sat on a social volcano, but their ignorance
and lack of heart forces was huge. This led to communism and
Bolshevism in Russia, fascism and eventually to National Socialism
in central Europe.
Today the situation is the
same. We have a huge social question, which the leading elite
are totally irresponsible to. But today the question is global,
the volcano is global. The irresponsibility of the elite leads
them to believe that they can control the starving, poor, frustrated
with economic, cultural and military forces.
What we see today as terrorism
in Islam and elsewhere is a small beginning of what can erupt.
The polarisation between the North-West and the South-East is
pictured as follows:
· 1/6 to 1/5 of the
world is the Golden billion who use 80% of the world’s resources.
· 1/6 of world population
is starving – app. 1 billion.
· 2/6 of the world
population is between the rich and poor but struggle to join
the rich.
· 2/6 of world population
lives on app. 3 dollars a day.
So 20 % of the population
use 80% of resources
80% of the population use
20 % of resources.
The 400 richest have as much
wealth as 2½ billion people which is almost half the world
population. It is important to feel what this means – not
just to understand it.
This discrepancy between rich
and poor is even greater than it was in the old Egyptian times.
Today it is a global discrepancy
and not a local one as in ancient Egypt. What is more –
then the poor and simple people had very different experience
of society than the poor have today. The elite leaders were experienced
as god-like, as actually closer to the gods then to ordinary
humans, and the folk could still instinctively feel that their
fabulous riches are a part of their divine heritage and responsibility,
and that they are using them for the good of everyone.
Since the birth of the consciousness
soul, since the 15-17 centuries, this situation has changed.
The social question as a modern question arose only then. Today
we instinctively develop more and more a sense for equality and
individual freedom and we expect brotherhood to shape our social
life. We expect to share our fortunes and misfortunes with our
fellow human beings. Therefore, the masses will continue to revolt
against the elite and their measures of suppression will increase.
The Anglo-American domination
of the world – on purely power basis- dates back to the
end of the 19th century. Then you find the basic drafts and world
maps that describe how in the next century- the 20th- this world
hegemony will be achieved. The First World War itself was part
of putting this plan into praxis. The establishment of the Council
on Foreign Relations (CFR) in the US during and right after the
world was another step, as described in Jesahia’s book,
America’s Global Responsibility.
The Second World War was the
second step in the shaping of the new map of Europe and the world,
and with it also the transference of the external world domination
from the British Empire to the emerging US Empire. And as during
the first world war the CFR was established, as a long hand tool
to direct domestic and world affairs according to elite policies,
so also during the second world war, in 1941, the infamous Breton
Woods consultations took place during which the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and first elements of
the World Trade Organization (WTO) were formed to set the terms
of commerce, loan and development, according to the “Washington
consensus”, for the coming second half of the 20th century.
Today we see the result of this, how the three “evil brothers”
cooperate to control and parasitically suck the life forces of
the world. For example, the North-West dominated WTO requires
open boarders, “free market” and elimination of tariffs
and taxes in order to maintain their global economic hegemony.
The phrases speak about “free” market, “free”
flow of goods, services and capital, but at the same time subsidising
its own agriculture with a fantastic yearly sum of 600 billion
dollars, which is only exceeded by annual military expenses that
amount to 900 billion dollars. This leads to “rich”
country’s farmers dumping their products on poor countries
at prices which are unrealistically low, destroying poor nation’s
economies and social life.
The farmers in the poor countries
become desperate and many commit suicide, with 20.000 suicides
among Indian farmer alone reported for 2003. (In Cancun, a leading
Korean farmer committed an honorary suicide to show solidarity
with desperate farmers in the world).
Thus the WTO completely undermines
the basic social structures in poor countries, and so a vicious
circle may begin. Farmers cannot live of their farming, they
move to the city slums and become part of the huge urban problem.
This leads governments of poor countries to borrow money from
IMF in order to solve some of these social problems. But then
IMF imposes socially devastating so called “structural adjustments”
– imposing on poor nations sever budget cuttings, undermining
public education, health care, infrastructure etc. In other words,
undermining precisely all those things one wished to develop
further by taking the loan. Now, obviously, the poor country
cannot pay back the loans and enter the heavy debt burden. And
the same applies to many undertakings of the WB etc. etc. This
is a vicious circle where all revenues are needed to pay back
loans and even this is not enough. Meanwhile, the poor countries
did open their markets for foreign export and investment that
now buys cheaply all the public infrastructures and economic
assets which purchase the poor countries cannot defend themselves
against. (See JBA”s book, America’s Global Responsibility
for detailed example of this vicious circle that shows how the
Asian economy was destroyed during the economic crisis of 1997-8)
These “three evil brothers”
have been working for the last 50 years. The world has become
a sick social and ecological organism. The “head system”
(North/West, rich countries) is sucking all life from the “metabolic
system” (the South, poor countries) and the middle heart
and lung system had a “heart transplantation” operation
in the 20th century. The head cannot think properly because of
the overwhelming amount of unnecessary life forces. So we see
a dreaming, sleeping consciousness in the North, which is not
awake to what is going on in the world.
The South deprived of its
life forces is forced to awaken through the pain and frustration,
which they are subjected to. The middle heart and lung should
have been Europe. But Europe was taken over by the head forces
of the west so that even here a division between east and west
between rich and poor comes about, and no regulating, harmonizing,
breathing system exists globally.
This is the reason why the
21st century starts with a sick planetary organism. The poor
are all too conscious in their pain and seeing the rich wallowing
in wealth. The rich are stupefied by their affluence, their heart
forces decline and become stun. The proletariat is now not only
a Europe group, but a global situation concerning half of humanity.
And the rich and powerful in the North-West dream away their
responsibility for humanity in their affluent clouds far from
realities of the poor.
We need to create the heart
lung system everywhere in the world in order to heal the sickness
of the world. This is the task of the 21st global spiritual movement,
of which global Civil Society is a part, from the point of view
of spiritual- science.
Friday evening 20th February
04: Impulses of Resurrection at the End of the 20th Century
As we saw, the situation in
the world today is not a chance happening, but a result of well
planed strategy. – It is portrayed as chance and chaos by
the media, but this is but a mask created behind which one can
allow the strategies to develop undisturbed by public interference.
However enough is published and discussed openly to reveal what
the real plans are.
Of course, the good forces
also have their divine long term plans. RS describes these forces,
and how they can be used for the best of humankind as a whole.
The same knowledge is possessed by those that use it in order
to benefit only a small group of human being, on the expanse
of the good of the whole. There is enough of everything for everybody
if we only worked in a balanced way. These good forces could
hardly find a hearing, let alone doing, during most of the 20th
century, until its very end. The ruling elite felt extraordinarily
triumphant the more we drew close to the end of last century.
They saw their work of global dominance near completion and felt
they could progress undisturbed. After Europe’s spiritual
defeat in the first third of last century, the west had its chance
during the 60s. There have indeed been a few disturbances in
the 60s with reactions to Vietnam, student revolts etc. But the
elite came back on line fast in the 70s and 80s, after their
“errors” of the 60s. They did away with the two Kennedy
brothers who entertained – at least in their higher selves!
- Some other ideas about the war in Vietnam, relations with Russia
and East Europe and some social issues. “Ich bin ein Berliner”
declared JFK in his famous 1962 speech in Berlin, upsetting his
elite mentors a great deal with his suggestions that the cold
war may be over soon, quite contrary to their plans to continue
it until the end of the century. They also did away with Martin
Luther King who could have become a candidate for presidency.
The good forces were suppressed brutally. But, of course, the
law is that impulses from higher spiritual and moral forces cannot
be suppressed – only postponed. These moral forces would
have changed plans for the rest of the 20th century from the
century’s beginning, in each new third, but they were suppressed
again and again. They came back in much greater and more mature
force in the 90s – one Saturn cycle later, at the end of
the 3rd third of last century. Also here we can discern an important
spiritual-historical law in operation: what is suppressed in
one point or centre, resurrects in the periphery in many places.
In Anthroposophical development
RS’s untimely death was a result of (resulted in) central
Europe’s collapse, of Germany’s catastrophe. But the
suppressed centre is coming back and is resurrected in the periphery
in many, mostly unexpected, because not “central” places!
One symptom of this global resurrection is that the Spirit of
our time and historical Anthroposophy begin to meet again after
long separation. This was not possible in the 30s and 60s. Today
it is increasingly possible and will become increasingly so in
the coming time.
The fist seeds that sprout
after the long 20th’s winter come from the periphery and
not from the “mother field” (Anthroposophy), who was
still asleep/dormant in the 60s. These seeds developed somewhat
in the 60s but without the support of the mother field they can
hardly survive. They came back in the 90s and there for the first
time in the whole 20th century began to find connection to historical
Anthroposophy. You know that according the former Michalic plan,
described by Rudolf Steiner in 1924, it was planed that Anthroposophy
and the Time Spirit should converge on a grand scale by the end
of the last century. But this did not happen. What did happen
was that small but vital and vibrant peripheral seeds of this
hoped-for mighty transformation, did become operative. It was,
however, not the formerly planed global culmination of the 20th,
but at first glimpse, a beginning of the second Michalic plan
for the 21st century. Being small as they truly are, these seeds
are yet incredibly potent, and have already changed the course
to human history for the better. They are so powerful because
they are the true Michaelic Anthroposophical seeds for the 21st
century.
Civil Society matured over
30 years and began to change world affairs in the 90s. Many of
the leaders of Civil Society were of the 60s generation –
not flower children anymore, but mature and serious bearers of
the voice of humanity’s moral conscience.
1992 – World Summit in
Rio – Civil Society first visible appearance and influence
on a large scale – bringing world powers to sign the Kyoto
agreement, then came Seattle 1999 as a result of careful preparations
and sacrificial activity of millions of dedicated civil society
individuals and organizations. The collapse of the WTO in Cancun
last year was the final result of the whole powerful impulse
of the 90s. The poor countries have had enough of lies and empty
promises. 22 countries walked out of the meeting and thanked
Civil Society for their support and help.
One little known but immensely
important victory of global civil society took place at the very
end of the century, right before the victory of Seattle. This
was the stopping of MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment).
This secret processes, directed by the most influential circles
among the OECD countries, should have given unlimited legal power
for foreign investors over national sovereignty and legislation.
It would have cemented the power structure lid over world investment
and finances. Work on MAI was totally secret with no reporting.
All concerned of course knew, as well as those controlling the
so called “free” media. It was necessary to keep it
secret because the elite knew that MAI would not be accepted
by all who could see the consequences of such an agreement. In
1941 where plans for the preliminary WTO, IMF and WB were worked
out, it was not necessary to keep such secrecy because everyone
was engaged with the war. Now the situation is of course totally
different and top secrecy was seen to be essential. But, God
interfered, speaking through the voice of conscience. Only because
a high official felt moral shame for what was going on and “leaked”
the plan of the MAI to a Civil Society organisation that the
relevant information was spread widely. And this was the death
blow for the MAI, of course, because free access to information
and knowledge is what these powers detest the most. Now the fatal
flaw for the elite is the Civil Society with its conscience and
morality, and the feeling of shame in face of the global injustice
and corruption.
In the period between 95 and
99 when the MAI should have augmented the WTO, it was global
Civil Society which put on the breaks. Now precisely in this
very crucial time, in the mid 90s was also the battle against
the emerging WTO in the Philippines and south-east Asia in which
our friend and colleague and this year’s Alternative Noble
Prize winner Nicanor Perlas played a central role. This was the
first conscious spark in which historical representation of the
mother field, met and reached a certain, relative, but already
so potent, mutual integration with representative of the Time
Spirit working via global Civil Society. About this we will speak
in greater detail tomorrow.
Another aspect of this time
must be mentioned here as well, because it is directly connected
to any phenomenological historical study of the end of the last
century. At the beginning of the 90s a study paper delivered
at the Prince of Wales Economic Forum introduced Threefolding
via the concept of “tri-sector” society, for the first
time into the world of elite circles and organizations. In this
study, civil society was represented as the third, cultural-spiritual
sector. Soon the UN adopted the Tri-sector approach and created
a vast network of “tri-sector partnerships”. The WB
followed suite, and since then James Wolffenson will not give
a public speech without proclaiming the gospel of cooperation
between business, governments and civil society, and the WB has
invested large sums in such plans and projects ever since.
I the 90s the “good”
forces did come to stop total catastrophe. C.S. was asleep in
Yugoslavia but awake in the economic sphere. The elite wished
to seal the work – cap it with a stone to ensure it went
as they wished. But the grave is open, the stone is not there,
and new possibilities are open - possibilities for resurrection.
A personal note from Jesaiah.
At the end of 97 and in winter 98 he sat with a heavy heart.
Knowing well for some time that RS’s hopes for a culmination
of Anthroposophy will not take place, he was still aware of the
fact that resurrection was taking place in the spiritual world,
since the middle of the 20th century. But he also knew that some
other manifestations, even most preliminary, of this resurrection
must show themselves as first, but powerful, new Michaelic impulses.
Where were signs of this happening on earth? Where did Anthroposophy
become influential externally, in world affairs, changing history?
This was his burning question in these years. Then he received
an e-mail from Nicanor Perlas with an invitation to participate
in a conference in Manila, remarkably entitled: Globalisation,
Threefolding, and Anthroposophy! Nicanor wrote that Jesaiah’s
book “The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century” had
made clear for him what he was trying to do with Threefolding
and civil society. Jesaiah could now see real seeds for the forces
of resurrection. In October 1998 the Manila conference took place.
At the same time the MAI was collapsing.
In the last years of the 20th
century hope was there for the connecting of the mother field
with its peripheral offspring, expressing themselves also in
Civil Society. Globe Net 3 was founded with the goal of helping
to bring a close cooperation between the historical Anthroposophy
and Michaelic elements in the world at large. Both must learn
from each other the need to be transformed. Anthroposophy needs
to address once more the global challenges and civil society
will learn to understand the spiritual language needed for our
time. We anthroposophists need to see the many Michaelites active
everywhere, in all fields of life, also within global civil society.
We need to learn a common language and to speak Threefolding
out of the needs in the real world. What divided into two streams
in the 20th century will become again one stream working in the
periphery as unity of centre and periphery in the 21st century.
*******
Some answers to questions
which arouse after we broke into groups.
Transformation of WTO, IMF
and WB
WTO should become a global
economic association, in which consumers, traders, producers
should regulate economic life.
IMF and WB both belong to
the spiritual and cultural sphere.
Handling banking/capital is
a spiritual, moral matter, and must be trusted to the free, third
sector of society. Because now in Europe and elsewhere the third
sector has become totally a state supported appendage, and most
anthroposophical institutes became state supported institutes,
we must look for free human spirits, that can again begin to
think and act in the original sense of threefolding. New moral
forces are needed in order to decide what to develop for human
existence (Lola fund as alternative to IMF will not work as long
as it is within the political framework. It must be made free,
go into the cultural sphere). World Social Forum shows the weakness
of the Civil Society. There is still a strongly inherited tendency
towards Marxist thinking, which is twofolded with politics as
the ruling force and civil society as mere social “superstructure”.
*******
Saturday morning: History
and Counterfactual History of the Anthroposophical Movement in
the 20th Century
Jesaiah again emphasised the
esoteric method that should permeate our exoteric work. We should
let realities speak to us and our inner should try to reflect
and contemplate in order to transform realties into questions.
Our questioning activity becomes a dialogue with the world, preparing
the ground for an objective spiritual activity and judgment that
come neither from “outside”, nor from “within”,
but from the spiritual world. But we should be aware of the preparatory
work, the study, etc. the old concepts, which keep popping up
in us and speak through our heads and not through our hearts.
We should put them aside and let experience speak; thinking living
entrance and delving into the situation becomes “Wahr-nemung”
– not conceptual reflection on what we already know in theory.
Anthroposophy is new and so
we make mistakes time and time again. But we can learn to do
it better with each new Michael century. So now we have a new
opportunity to learn how to work with the basic forces and dynamics
of Anthroposophy. Historically the consciousness soul is new,
the global situation is new, and Anthroposophy as a spiritual
path is new. Therefore we have a long path of learning ahead
of us and it is no wonder that we do things wrong. We are all
as little children learning to walk. But are we aware of this
fact? Do we know that we are children exploring a new territory?
Because children also learn very fast, and are open and fresh,
seeing the world constantly with new eyes and hearts…
We can compare the 300 years
of Michaelic time to the first three years of a child’s
life: the first three earthly stages of the development of the
consciousness soul. Seeds of all future development are planted
there and this time ends with the first experience of the spiritual
independent individuality. When the Michaelic age ends, humanity
should have developed the strength of spirit filled and inwardly
guided self, consciously connected to the spiritual worlds. This
will be needed in the coming age because between the 23rd and
26th centuries the Time Spirit will be Oriphiel which is the
very opposite of Michael. Michael is the Christ Sun Power. Oriphiel
is a Saturn power, wholly separating humanity from any external
spiritual guidance and revelation. He is the darkening spirit,
which eclipsed the sun at the time of the mystery of Golgotha,
a force of complete darkness. The only power we human beings
will have in his age is that which we create within ourselves.
Therefore it is important that at the end of the Michael age
there shall be some human beings who can carry independently
a powerful reality of Spirit Self. Today we have the first 100
years of the present Michaelic age behind us, and we need to
clearly see what has happened and what we need to prepare for
the second and third- 21st and 22nd -Michaelic centuries.
Now anthroposophical history
of the 20th century has yet to be written, both for humanity
as a whole, as well as for the anthroposophical movement and
society.
We shall call what Anthroposophy
had to accomplish in the course of the 20th century, the first
Michaelic century, plan A of Michael. This plan meant: developing
Anthroposophy gradually from the centre towards the world
periphery until the end of the century, and then undergoing
a metamorphosis, and “Umstuelpung”, becoming a global
movement. Because this plan failed to materialize, and everything
froze down at the moment of RS’s death, we are still stuck
with remnants of plan As unfulfilled and untransformed centralism.
The centralized form of the anthroposophical society was good
and proper then for the first third of the 20th century,
with Rudolf Steiner himself creating a centre and leading a centre
under his central guidance. He himself was starting up, as any
foundation must of course do, with one teacher, one
geographical space, middle Europe, one chosen people,
Germany, one centralized social and spiritual structure
centred in the Goetheanum, etc. If plan A would have been realized,
this centralization would have been gradually and organically
transformed in the course of the whole 20th century, and today
we would have had a totally different form not to mention substance.
Anthroposophy was given with
the intention that it would grow and develop and increase as
social-cultural influence, from one third of the 20th century
to the next, reaching a stage of maturity and transformation,
termed by RS as “culmination”, at the end of the century.
But world karma has taken the worst course. This caused the premature
death of Rudolf Steiner and the development of the movement and
society, which was intended, stopped. It had been intended that
Anthroposophy should be a force that takes deep root in middle
Europe, becomes influential in guiding its course also in external,
social, political and cultural aspects. As I indicated in my
book, The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century, counterfactual
research of the history of Anthroposophy of the 20th century
reveals that RS should and could have reached his 72 year precisely
in the most significant year of the 20th century, namely, 1933,
enabling Anthroposophy to confront the new powers of evil with
the new Christ forces, and then, after his natural departure,
it could have continued to expand and grow within and from Europe
and reach a culmination at the end of the 20th century as planed
under plan A of Michael. At this culmination new impulses would
have been given for the 21st century, the movement and society
would have reversed, inside out and outside in, becoming orientated
towards the first truly global century of humanity.
It should have been the task
of Anthroposophy to prepare Europe for what comes up so powerfully
from the 30s on, to awaken and to understand what was happening.
Humanity was now already far beyond the threshold and the question
was whether we would become conscious of this fact or not. And
we didn’t.
If the threshold was crossed
consciously through anthroposophy and the Christ forces, then
one could confront the evil in oneself. This was the “Good”
Michaelic plan which RS has described in 1924. But human beings
in our time have a wholly new relation to the divine plan, because
we live in the Michaelic Age of freedom. We are free either to
understand and consciously work with God, or reject His ideas
altogether and do the very opposite of what He kindly suggests!
For the 20th century, we have chosen the wrong path. Humanity
rejected Michael’s plan with such overwhelming dedication
to evil, brining about catastrophes beyond the worst that could
have imagined in the past.
It is hard for Anthroposophists
to admit this, of course, because the Karma of our movement and
society became not a true alternative, but unfortunately largely
part of this karma of humanity. It may help if we consider it
more objectively, not only as the result of this or that person’s
failure, but really as part of humanity’s karma.
So it came to pass that in
1933 humanity confused entirely the moral judgment concerning
good and evil. Evil was called good and the good evil, not at
all in Germany alone, but throughout the whole world. In Germany
it was so painful and tragic, only because of the special mission
that this people should have had already in the 20th century.
But the German’s have chosen Hitler instead of Steiner,
to put it rather drastically but nonetheless accurately.
We know that Anthroposophy
should have been spread by then far enough in Europe and Germany
especially, in order to enable humanity to understand that if
one is on the other side of the threshold without conscious spiritual
understanding, one experience’s a fatal reversal –
things become their opposite. Christ is seen as evil and the
evil forces as Christ. The karmic task of the German people had
been to accept Anthroposophy for which they had the preconditions.
But they took the opposite course in the 20th and will have to
first come to real terms with it, in order to be able to approach
rightly their mission in this century.
In 1933 the second coming
of Christ was neither seen nor understood, and was transformed
into it’s opposite. But that which did not happen on earth
took place in the spiritual worlds in the second third of the
century, especially in the 12 years, 1933-1945 (See Jesaiah’s
book: The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century).
Until today, this anthroposophical
history and this history of anthroposophy, as I outline it here,
is not taken into account in general anthroposophical works.
Now this also means that the Michaelic stream, since RS’s
death, has been divided into two streams. The one has concerned
it self with survival – a continuation of the existing works
given by RS. The other stream is composed of those concerned
with the events in the spiritual world after 1925. The concern
for survival was justified in face of the huge world catastrophes.
We must see that much of this survival was based on sacrificial
and truly sincere anthroposophical deeds. But this must also
not mislead us to believe that survival is connected to the main
Michaelic plan. Survival is human necessity, not a spiritual
impulse or strategy. Survival for itself, necessary as it is,
must be distinguished from the life of the spiritual movement
of Michael then and today.
The task for Anthroposophists
now can be, first, to awaken from the last centurys sleep and
forgetting, to understand what actually happed during our sleep,
and second, to wake up in the real present, in order to find
out what are the basic outlines of the new Michaelic plan for
His second century.
Let us recapitulate again
in the sense of Neil Ferguson’s “counterfactual history”
what should and could have taken place according to Michael’s
and RS’s hopes for plan A: Anthroposophy was founded on
Earth as a centralized impulse: one founder, one place (middle
Europe) one leading spiritual-social organ. All initiatives start
that way – from a centre, but then they if they stay alive
and grow in the right way, they undergo organic metamorphosis.
Anthroposophy should have prospered, expanding its sphere of
influence and deepening its spiritual substance, until the culmination
and reversal of centre and periphery at the end of the 20th century.
RS should have worked until 1933 when the birth of the new Christ
experience came. Anthroposophy should have spread throughout
Europe with the good forces strengthened in real time recognizing
and transforming evil. In 1933 an unknown, improvised and mad
painter would have committed suicide in Vienna, and RS, after
completing his plans for the new formation of the society and
High School, would have given the Anthroposophical Society future
impulses and thereafter could have remain in supersensible contact
with it also after his death. During the second third of the
century already, there would have developed a consciousness of
the spiritual worlds, growing out of the new clairvoyant faculties
among many humans and also among anthroposophists. After 1966
the Society would have developed increasingly and organically
to become a world movement. This would have demanded and organic
change of structure and substance. The centralised organism would
not have been adequate as before, it would have become more decentralized
and modern as befitting a spiritual and social free association
of freely striving human beings in this age of freedom. It could
have accomplished first real meetings and mutual integration
with the real shaping forces of the world periphery already in
the 60s and the 70s.
But RS died in 1925 and the
forces of conserving and survival set in. But the spiritual world
does not stand still or conserve. The Time Spirit moves on, pragmatically
adjusting itself to human failures in the age of freedom, it
does not stand still at 1925.
RS described in the Karma
lectures of 1924 the hoped for plan A, the possibility that Anthroposophy
should develop further and further throughout the whole century.
He should have died in the late 30s in order then to reincarnate
back rather quickly with all the others to guide Anthroposophy
and create the hoped for culmination at the end of the 20th century
and the beginning of the 21st. At this point there also would
have incarnated the Platonic stream which had not yet incarnated
in the 20th century. It would have been a huge metamorphosis,
with RS and Alanus ab Insulis from Charters, and their thousands
of fine Michaelic fighters giving us a new impulse making the
society into a proper global society for the global tasks in
the first true global century of humanity. At this flowering
point of the 20th century metamorphosis would have taken place
as naturally as in the case of any flowering plant: spiritually,
powerful spiritual rejuvenation and fructification of Spiritual
Science from fresh supersensible research would have occurred,
and socially, periphery and centre would have been organically
reversed. Many mature fruits of the 20th would have become available
for humanity, and many new seeds and sprouts will have been coming
to life around the earth. The centre of the society would have
become peripheral, that is, spiritual, free and world active
and open, and social, economic and cultural impulses would have
been generated, directly changing and influencing world events
in external, day to day history.
But all this did not happen.
Michael had to draw up a new
plan for the next chance, his second century, as obviously it
was already clear at the time of RS’s death that plan A
is obsolete. Now, the 21st century is the first global century
and Anthroposophy should have become a global movement, directly
involved is shaping world history. It should have long been transformed
from a centralized central European society into a world society
and from survival to new Michaelic strategy. The result of the
collapse of plan A is that the 21st century has no living centre
to relate to, it has only periphery to start with. Therefore,
Michael’s plan B is to go out from the periphery, not as
it should have been as a fulfilment of plan A, connecting a vital
centre with world periphery, but as periphery without a centre.
According to plan A there should have existed at the end of the
20th century a strong, vital world centre, spiritually and socially
active and creative, connected in all directions to powerful
impulses in the world at large.
The new Michael movement has
no centre, only periphery- but what tremendous new Michaelic
powers are working in the periphery, if we open our hearts to
them! It must grow out of the periphery and then many centres
will be formed everywhere. There is no one centre, but
many, no one teacher, but many, and this is valid for all institutions.
It is a creative homelessness of the spiritual movement!
Describing a personal moment
in this connection of the history of the society at the end of
last century, Jesaiah told how he was asked by Dornach to found
a Society in Israel at the end of the 80s and be its leader.
Jesaiah declined, saying that this would contradict the real
demands of the time spirit, described above. He told the authorities
that since RS’s death, his seat should have been regarded
as the “peerless seat”, as in the round table traditions,
allowing free circle, peripheral, free spiritual movement to
develop.
As a result of Jesaiah’s
refusal to take the central seat, Israel indeed didn’t create
new forms- which are possible- but at least is free from the
burdens of the existing centralization. At least, and this is
not little, we can have an open free association work, which
is very alive, thriving and flourishing, with spiritual and human
freedom alone deciding what anthroposophists do. Real talent
and excellence has a chance to emerge, unique individual contributions
are not pushed aside and suppressed, no one tells and decides
for others what is “true” anthroposophy according to
his centralized power and interests.
Temporary centres arise out
of specific needs in the periphery and the best practices that
can answer those needs. The centre is alive as long as it acts
out of true impulse, and dies out when its time is over. Peripheral
centres like these are kept alive by a spiritual reality, and
not by outer form that subsists and are conserved long time after
the real situation and need have expired and changed. In such
peripheral centres, a spiritual intention clothes itself with
a physical, social and economic body, when it incarnated to do
its job, and this body dies when the spiritual intention takes
its excarnation when it has completed its allotted task. If the
outer form is maintained after its spiritual function has ceased,
there takes place an incarnation of an Ahrimanic being. This
is an elementary anthroposophical piece of knowledge. Churches
are an obvious historical example. Now RS created spiritual and
social forms (bodies), which suited him and the needs of existing
spiritual and human conditions, and these forms and bodies should
have died and been utterly transformed after he died. Both Marie
Steiner and Albert Steffen had an inkling of this in connection
with the society and High School substance and forms, immediately
after RS’s death, but the spirit of fear hindered them from
doing what they knew clearly was the right thing to do.
Now tremendous new Michaelic
impulses begin to flow and are increasing daily in the periphery.
The future spiritual and social movement is beginning to form
in so many places, and we all are called to be its planners,
doers, and co-workers. Also here in Sweden there are promising
new seeds and sprouts. Let human beings hear this!
*******
Notes taken by Hester Renouf.
Corrected by JBA
Jaerna Bridge - Järnabron antroposofi.org
Published by The Jaerna Bridge 12 April 2004
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