Bibliographic Remarks and Links

For a quick overview of Rudolf Steiner's lifework see A. P. Shepherd's Scientist of the Invisible [Inner Traditions; New York; 1983]. This work provides only the barest introduction; the serious investigator will need to probe deeper. Steiner left a stupendous, vast body of work in German; not all of it is available in English.

Most of the publications bearing his name are not his writings, but his lectures, preserved in stenographic records and published without his review and corrections. Most of these lectures were given to audiences who were familiar with his basic teachings, and he spoke directly to the particular needs of his listeners. He only reluctantly allowed (most of) the stenographic records to published, with the disclaimer that they might contain errors and could be rightly judged only by those who already had a thorough understanding of the basics of spiritual science.

Thus the investigator might best begin by studying Steiner's basic writings, which he intended for the general public, and which systematically set forth his fundamental concepts. Chief among these basic works are Theosophy [1904] and Occult Science, an Outline [1910]. These are indispensable for an understanding of Steiner's spiritual anthropology and cosmology, and give condensed expositions of the "path of knowledge".

The chapter by that name in Theosophy should almost be memorized by the serious truth-seeker. An extended exposition of this Path is given in Knowledge of Higher Worlds [1904-5], also in a new translation: How to Know Higher Worlds.

Steiner's basic work on the enlivenment of thinking itself is The Philosophy of Freedom [1894]. (Other translations: The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.) This book can be hard reading; we can get some help from Otto Palmer's compilation: Rudolf Steiner on his Book The Philosophy of Freedom [Anthroposophic Press; 1979] and from Georg Kühlewind's Stages of Consciousness, "Chapter One" [Lindisfarne Press; 1984].

Steiner gave many lecture cycles expounding his clairvoyant insights into Christology, but his basic written treatment of that subject is the early work Christianity as Mystical Fact (another translation: Christianity and the Occult Mysteries of Antiquity).

For a reading guide to Steiner's works, see Robert McDermott's The Essential Steiner, which also contains introductory essays by McDermott and selections form Steiner's works.

The primary sources for the foregoing essay are Steiner's lectures published as The Ahrimanic Deception, The Influences of Lucifer And Ahriman, Three Streams in Evolution , and Inner Realities of Evolution. Another source, which I have used almost to the point of plagiarism, is Carl Stegmann's great work The Other America (two volumes, typescript; 1975), a deep study of Americanism in the light of Anthroposophy.

Stegmann lived almost 99 years, dying early in 1996. His efforts, stemming from his feeling for America's true spiritual destiny as the battleground in the war to turn Ahriman's influence to the good, culminated in 1976 in the founding of Rudolf Steiner College near Sacramento, California.

The Other America has just been published, at long last, by the Rudolf Steiner College Press. [Bookstore: 9200 Fair Oaks Blvd., Fair Oaks CA 95628; (916)961-8729; FAX (916)961-3032] If people will meet their responsibility for wakefulness, this book should have a press run in the millions.

Some other sources relevant to this essay include: (Here mention of a source should not necessarily be taken as an endorsement of everything therein.)

Ere the Century Closes; Peter Tradowsky; Camphill Books; 1995

(Another work by Tradowsky, Kaspar Hauser, The Struggle for the Spirit [Temple Lodge], has a deep discussion of the spiritual destiny of Central Europe and some more indications pointing to the year 1998. Well worth reading.)

Also by Tradowsky, first published in EEEnglish in 1998: Christ and Antichrist, Understanding the events at the end of the century and recognizing our tasks [Temple Lodge.]

In the Name of the New World Order by Amnon Reuveni [Temple Lodge; 1996] -- This is a very interesting series of essays on the workings of the "Anglophile" secret societies from the Second World War to the Yugoslavian break-up. Includes information on the cooperation of the "Anglophiles" with the Catholic Church in shaping present-day Europe.

Apparently the Freemasons and the Jesuits are not always implacable enemies; Steiner said that the Freemasons and Jesuits have been cooperating somewhat since around the turn of the Nineteenth Century, at least at the higher, more esoteric levels. Reuveni's book also contains an interesting discussion of the inter-relations of Sorat, Lucifer, and Ahriman, based on Steiner's lecture cycle Apokalypse und Priesterwirken.

(This cycle has more recently published in English as The Book of Revelation and the Work of the Priest; Rudolf Steiner Press; London; 1998. The text of this publication is not an exact stenographic record of Steiner's words, but it does contain much material on the theme of the manifestations of Sorat and Ahriman, with especial reference to the years 1933 and 1998.)

Also in the same vein as Reuveni's workkk, with emphasis on the machinations surrounding the First World War: Mapping the Millennium, Behind the Plans of the New World Order by Terry M. Boardman [Temple Lodge].

The East in Light of the West, Part 1: Agni Yoga; Sergei O. Prokofieff; Temple Lodge; 1993. A deep work on the occult influence of the "mahatmas" of "Shamballa", with emphasis on the Roeriches. (See also Stephen E. Usher's review of this work in the Newsletter of the Anthroposophical Society in America; Summer 1994; pp. 32-35.)

Two more volumes on the "Mahatmas'" movement are published in German. Prokofieff is probably the most popular living Anthroposophical writer; he has many very influential volumes in print. He has recently become a member of the Executive Council (Vorstand) of the General Anthroposophical Society. In his first publication, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries [Temple Lodge], Prokofieff makes a strong case for identifying Steiner as the reincarnated individuality of Aristotle/Thomas Aquinas. -- (However, many aspects of his work are, in this writer's opinion, dubious. For a critical look at Prokofieff's work see this book advertisement.)

For a more mundane account of the "Anglophile" support of Bolshevism (and more) see the works of the late Antony C. Sutton, especially America's Secret Establishment; Liberty House Press; Billings, Montana; 1986. Sutton had no apparent background in spiritual science, but he did, through normal journalistic research, document some "smoking guns" in this stupendous crime story, and did as well discern a hint of the occult background of the story, and gave a fairly accurate account of the twisted Hegelianism behind the "Anglophiles'" support of both opposing sides in conflicts.

For some Anthroposophical elucidation of Christianity, see Steiner's many lecture cycles on the subject -- as well as any and all books by Emil Bock, especially The Three Years, St. Paul, and The Apocalypse (Floris Books; Edinburgh).
 

For some excerpts from the book The Crisis of Civilization (Anthroposophie auf der Kreuzung der okkult-politischen Bewegungen der Gegenwart; ANTROPOSOFIYA na skryeshchyenii okkultno-politichyeskikh tyechyeniy sovryemyennosti), by the somewhat controversial Russian Anthroposophist Gennady Bondarev (Gennadij Bondarew), go to http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1105/BondarevExcerpts.htm.

This webpage also contains a short introduction to Bondarev's work and links to four complete chapters from this book. -- Bondarev's books are published in German by Moskau-Basel-Verlag at http://www.lochmann-verlag.com.
I regret that I cannot cite chapter and verse for the metaphors of Bacon and Goethe. I may have read about them in Rudolf Frieling's Christianity and Islam (Floris).

For some of Steiner's insights on occult conspiracies, social decadence, linguistic decadence, and future destiny and renewal, see, for example, his lecture cycles published as: The Challenge of the Times, Spiritual Science as a Foundation For Social Forms, Ideas for a New Europe, Social Issues: Meditative Thinking and the Threefold Order, Materialism and the Task of Anthroposophy, and The Karma of Untruthfulness.

For some information on the occult background of the Theosophical Society and the "Anglophiles", see Steiner's cycle The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century and a recently republished work by an "Anglophile" sympathizer: The Transcendental Universe; C. G. Harrison (Lindisfarne Press; originally published 1894). This last, rare work let some of the truth slip out about conspiratorial preparations for the First World War and the "socialist experiment" in Russia.

For some profound insights into the detailed inter-workings of individual and world destiny (karma), including the karma of the Anthroposophical Movement, see the series of volumes of Steiner's lectures called Karmic Relationships, especially Vols. III and IV.

Bernard Lievegoed's deathbed message, born out of a long lifetime of Anthroposophical service to mankind, is published as The Battle for the Soul [Hawthorn Press; 1994]. It gives his deep considerations on the interweaving of Anthroposophical and world karma, with special reference to the coming crisis. He also identifies Rudolf Steiner as the reincarnation of the Nature-man Enkidu, storied in the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh; then as Cratylus, the priest of the Ephesian Mysteries and teacher of Plato; then Aristotle; then Schionatulander, the tragic character in the Grail saga; and then Thomas Aquinas.

David Black's basic work on the "macrocosmic" incarnation or Ahriman is The Computer and the Incarnation of Ahriman; (St. George Publications; 1981.) Black has also published a more recent essay on the same subject in the Newsletter of the Anthroposophical Society in America -- in which issue, unhappily, I don't remember.

The 950-year Saturn-cycle in connection with the Ethereal Christ is mentioned in the works of Willi Sucher. He gave the basics of modern "astrosophy" -- astrology raised to a higher level -- in his published works, especially Cosmic Christianity. The contemporary writer Robert Powell is attempting to develop astrosophy further; his Chronicle of the Living Christ [Anthroposophic Press] also points to a crisis around the turn of the Millennium.

Through some calculations assuming that mankind's life as a whole recapitulates the Incarnation, with one Saturn orbit corresponding to one day of Christ's life on earth, he points to the year 869 AD as the start of mankind's "40 days in the wilderness". (And Steiner many times also named this fateful year as a major turning point in history: the Eighth Ecumenical Council's "outlawing" of the Spirit as heresy.)

According to Powell's scenario, the years circa 1960--2049 AD mark the last three "days" in the wilderness: the temptations by Lucifer and Ahriman. Also, Powell points to the year 2010 AD as the time of mankind's choice between Christ and the Antichrist: Pluto transits its sidereal position at the time of Christ's temptation. (Powell also gives many other correspondences from the turn of the Century to the time of the Incarnation.)

Caveat: Many of Powell's calculations are based largely on the dubious visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich, and his work has been questioned within present-day Anthroposophical discussions, for reasons not having to do with astrosophy as such. His readers might do well to get a different perspective from Prokofieff's The Case of Valentin Tomberg, Anthroposophy or Jesuitism? [Temple Lodge, 1997]. The influence of Tomberg is very much controversial within the Anthroposophical movement.

For some information on the occult background of Nazism, see Trevor Ravenscroft's work The Spear of Destiny (Samuel Weiser; 1982; and Neville Spearman; 1973), as well as one in German (which I haven't read): Karl Heyer's Wesen und Wollen des National-Socialismus; Perseus Verlag; Basel; 1991.

(I should note that some Anthroposophists have a low opinion of Ravenscroft's book. -- My opinion is that, while many of the details of Ravenscroft's narrative may be dubious, the book is still well worth reading, for it provokes many questions that need to be asked about many aspects of European and world history. In writing the book, he was apparently fulfilling a task that fell to him because of the sudden death of the man [Walter Johannes Stein] who was best suited to write it, and he was working under the disadvantage of not having the best information at hand.

Still, he has brought before a fairly wide public some knowledge of many previously unknown forces in the world, and to me that seems a considerable accomplishment. Hopefully, whatever deficiencies that may be contained in his writings will be corrected by further research. -- An effort in that direction was recently published [in its English language version] by the Rudolf Steiner Press: Light for the new Millennium [ed. T.H. Meyer].

This is a meticulously documented account of some of the deep forces involved in the beginning of the First World War and in further European destiny -- centering on the individuality of Helmuth von Moltke/Pope Nicholas I. -- One can find information on the deeper significance of Nazism in Bondarev's Anthroposophie auf der Kreuzung der okkkult-politischen Bewegungen der Gegenwart, in English: The Crisis of Civilization.)

Another, more recent, book by Ravenscroft (with Tim Wallace-Murphy) is Mark of the Beast. This work covers many of the same themes as this essay: the incarnation of Ahriman, the turning of the Millennium, Jundi Sabur, and more. It contains much, very interesting information that I have not seen elsewhere -- including some apocryphal statements by Steiner concerning upcoming disasters -- but, again, I wouldn't want to vouch for its complete accuracy. And again, hopefully, it could be a springboard for further research. (Thanks to Richard Metzger of DisInformation for bringing this book to my attention.)

For an well-informed account of the Krishnamurti episode, occult Jesuitism, the Maitreya, and more, see T. H. Meyer's The Bodhisattva Question (Temple Lodge). Creme's reply to Steiner's assertion that Christ will not reappear in a physical body goes as follows:

"Rudolf Steiner died in 1925. The revelation of Christ's need to come back to the physical world occurred only in 1945. the decision to come back took place indeed earlier, but the way in which He was to appear was still undecided at the time. Actually there were certain initiates in the world...who had been prepared as possible vehicles for the Christ. Altogether there were four, one of them [Krishnamurti] is known to all of us. Then, however, the plan to make use of that vehicle was abandoned."

(From The Reappearance of Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, quoted in The Bodhisattva Question)

Creme's remarks seem to ignore the deep, profound cosmological reasons for the uniqueness of the Incarnation, and seem to imply that these could be superseded "on the spur of the moment", and further, to completely ignore the appearance of the Ethereal Christ. But beyond this comment, I will leave it the readers to investigate Steiner's cosmology and Christology, and to evaluate Creme's statement for themselves. In the interest of fairness, I give a link to Creme's organization: Share International

And for some Anthroposophically enlivened explorations of the UFO phenomenon, weather modification by ethereal manipulation, and much more, see Trevor J. Constable's classic The Cosmic Pulse of Life, if you can find a complete edition. Try the Borderland Science Research Foundation.

[Thanks to Tom Corcoran for the following note on a relevant book (which I haven't read) in French: De Jundi Shapur a Silicon Valley.

"It really is an excellent book and deserves to be translated into English. The author is Francis Paul Emberson, head of Anthro-Tech in Suisse Romande.

 

Here's a list of the contents:

1. Good and Evil. Manes. Jundi Shapur

2. Harun-al-Rashid. Francis Bacon of Verulam. The universal code. In the quest of wisdom

3. The war between the disciples of Michael and the "idols" (from Bacon's opus)

4. The fall into matter. Silicon Valley

5. Beyond Silicon Valley. Future development of demonic technology. The 6th and 7th post-Atlantean epochs.

6. Spiritual Science and technology. Moral Force.

7. Moral Technology and the 5th post-Atlantean epoch. Moral Tech during the 6th and 7th.

8. Epilogue. The mystery of thought and electricity. Michael and the Solar Demon."]

[Emberson's book now has been published in English by Etheric Dimensions Press. A short extract from the book can be found here.]

Most of the works I have listed are, of course, translations from the German; the Lievegoed book from the Dutch, and the Prokofieff books from the Russian. Originally in English are works by Shepherd, Sutton, Harrison, Black, Usher, Ravenscroft, Powell, and Constable.

One could go on and on referring to important topics in Anthroposophical literature; at this point I will refer the reader to some resources available for independent investigation. Steiner's work touches almost all aspects of culture, and would, if it were seriously and widely assimilated, bring life-giving renewal to civilization. It is the wonder, or the crime, of the Twentieth Century that this did not happen.

(The power of the Adversaries has been that strong, even though they were working from the non-physical world. Of course they were working with their incarnated human accomplices, and with human indolence and just-plain-cussedness. Again, it is far beyond the scope of this essay to provide an overview of Steiner's work and its ramifications. Many of his (and his collaborators') works are available, and a number of independent organizations worldwide are applying and developing his teachings in practical ways.

Chief among them is the international headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society; contact:

Anthroposophische Gesellschaft, Goethaneum, CH-4143, Dornach, Schweiz. There are many national branches around the world. The Society in the USA can be reached at: The Anthroposophical Society in America, 1923 Geddes Ave., Ann Arbor MI 48104-1797; (313) 662-9355, (888) 757-2742, FAX (313) 662-1727.

The lending library of the Society in the USA is: The Rudolf Steiner Library; 65 Fern Hill Road; Ghent, NY 12075 -- (518) 672-7690; FAX (518) 672-5827. They have available many, many of Steiner's (and other Anthroposophists') works in both English and German, as well as catalog and research assistance. Books can be loaned by mail, and services are also available to non-members of the Society, for a reasonable fee.

A good online Anthroposophical resource is The Rudolf Steiner Archive and eLib. (That's where I lifted the background color for this page. No inference should be made that the views presented in this essay are necessarily those of the Archive, or of any of the links and references listed here.) This site has the texts of a number of Steiner's books and lectures, in English, ready for downloading.

Some more Anthroposophical links:

• The Anthroposophy Network -- The mother of all Anthroposophical link pages

• Anthroposophie Online -- Rudolf Saacke's renegade Anthroposophical site (in German); see also anthroposophie.pl .

• The Jaerna Bridge

• Planetary Qualities

• Info 3 (in German; some English)

• InfoSophy (in German; some English planned)

• Waldorfsidora

• Sune Nordwall's Home Page (has essay on occult background of European Union)

• anthroposophy.com (Frames only; in German)

• Perseus Verlag In German; some English; some French

• Projective Geometry Nick Thomas' presentation of ethereal mathematics

• Jos Verhulst Home Page

• rudolf-steiner.de Thousands of links re Steiner

• Vermont Sophia Leans generally toward Tomberg, but has essays both pro and con. Has some astrosophical essays by Robert Powell regarding the "Second Coming".

• Triform An astrosophical site

• Valdemar Setzer's Brazilian site; much in English

• Terry Boardman's socio-political site -- much good reading

• David Heaf's Home Page Good discussions, especially on genetics, and on the foundations on the Anthroposophiocal Society

• The Southern Cross Review

• Antroposophia en Argentina (in Spanish)

• Sun Logos Richard Distasi's site: stories, questions, and speculations

There some Anthroposophical bulletin boards at: The Steiner Archive and Discussion Forums.

The main publisher of Anthroposophical works in the USA is:

The Anthroposophic Press; 3390 Rte. 9; Hudson, NY 12534 -- (518) 851-2054; FAX (518) 851-2047 or (800) 925-1795 -- E-mail: anthropres@aol.com.

An annotated catalog is available. The Press also distributes books from other Anthroposophical publishers, including an important publisher in England: Temple Lodge Publishing; 51 Queen Caroline Street; London W6 9 QL; UK. (Phone) 0181-748 0571; (FAX) 0181-748 5451.

Many of the books listed above have bibliographies which can lead the reader to many more, relevant works. The books by Prokofieff, Reuveni, Tradowsky, Stegmann, and Meyer have especially informative citations and bibliographies. And of course, many of the Web sites will lead to other links, which will lead to still more links, and so on.

Steiner produced over 40 books and 6000 lectures. The complete edition is (still) in preparation (in German) by the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Schweiz. The total number of volumes is well over 300, and growing. A full and detailed Bibliographic Survey is available from the Nachlassverwaltung.

Back to Contents




Conclusion

To recapitulate some history, from a slightly different, panoramic viewpoint, using Steiner's insights into the interplay of individual and world karma:

The ruling Time Spirit, since 1879 AD, is now the Sun-Archangel Michael (the "Countenance of Christ"). His previous rulership encompassed the time of Aristotle and Alexander. Michael is the administrator of Cosmic Intelligence, and a promoter of cosmopolitanism. Ideas to Plato had been living spiritual beings, attainable in higher vision.

His pupil Aristotle put this pictorial wisdom into conceptual thoughts, suitable for the age of lost clairvoyance; Alexander carried this Greek thought-culture into the wider world -- both in the service of Michael. But this ancient Greek thinking was not experienced as coming from within the Man; it was rather experienced as coming, like perceptions, from the outside, a cosmic Pan-Intelligence. Later, this Aristotelianism was carried over to Jundi Sabur, and thence into Arabian/Muslim culture.

Perhaps the most brilliant and influential proponent of this Arabian culture were the Caliph Haroun al Rashid and his associates, in the Eighth Century AD. This culture was, as indicated above, brilliant in a way, but was also anti-evolutionary in that it failed to appreciate the Christ-Impulse and was infected with the Sorat/Ahriman influence from Jundi Sabur.

Around this time the cosmic Intelligence began to "fall to earth", out of the rule of Michael and in the "heads" of Men; the Pan-Intelligence becoming individualized, personal intelligence. This process was a preparation for what was to culminate after the dawn of the Consciousness Soul Epoch in the Fifteenth Century: that Men were to experience their thoughts as coming from out of themselves, as a personal intelligence in individual freedom.

In 869 AD the fateful Eighth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople declared to be heretical the doctrine of "trichotomy": that the Man is body, soul and spirit -- thus effectively "outlawing the spirit" in Western Christendom, and plunging West-European mankind ever more deeply into material experience. While this Council was happening on earth, in the soul/spirit world Haroun al Rashid and his associates, who had recently died, conferred with the individuality of Aristotle and associates: Alexander and the "Aristotelians", together with the "Platonists" and the Knights of Arthur's Round Table.

In this meeting Aristotle and his associates resolved to bring to earth a renewed and Christianized wisdom suitable for the epoch of individualized intelligence of the Consciousness Soul, but al Rashid and his party remained opposed to this Christianization. Subsequently, on earth, the Arabian impulse was carried forward by philosophers such as Avicenna and Averroës, who upheld a decadent and retrogressive quasi-Aristotelianism, which denied human-spiritual individuality surviving death.

And the Platonists descended to earthly incarnation, up through the Twelfth Century, as teachers of the Christianized Nature-wisdom of the School of Chartres. (This wisdom later inspired Bruno Latini, and consequently his pupil Dante.)

In the Thirteenth Century the Aristotelians incarnated into the Dominican Order, wherein, with the help of the Platonists then in the spirit-world, they upheld the doctrine of human-individual intelligence and immortality, in the subtle conceptual thinking of the Scholastic "Realists", as against the Arabian philosophers.

The greatest of the Scholastics was Aristotle himself, incarnated as Thomas Aquinas, the proponent of the reality of Pan-Intelligence in the form of concepts -- the "universals" -- and of the reality of human-individual experience of intelligence. -- After the end of Medieval culture and the beginning of the Consciousness Soul Epoch, al Rashid himself incarnated as none other than Francis Bacon, the fountainhead of modern, Ahrimanic scientism. (Paradoxically, Bacon was inspired by a high Initiate, who also inspired Shakespeare, Jacob Boehme, and Jacob Balde. [Karmic Relationships, Vol. II]

Again: evolution is not a simple, two-sided conflict between "good" and "evil" -- in a way, a nominalistic-empirical science "had to" enter cultural development.) Ahriman intends to make the now-earthly human intelligence entirely, overly individualized and personal, so that it degenerates into mere cleverness, driven by lower instincts and divorced from universal reality. But while Baconian science gained ground on earth, in the spirit/soul world the Platonists and Aristotelians convened in a "school" under the leadership of Michael.

This school prepared the impulses which were to appear later on earth as the renewing and enlivening of culture in the coming Michael Age.

(Meanwhile, in the Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Ahriman had convened a "school" of his own, for the purpose, among others, of preparing his human acolytes for their coming incarnations, especially those in our time. This school was "sub-earthly" in the sense that it was beneath the earth's surface, and in the sense that it was "sub-sensible" -- the opposite of supersensible.)

This heavenly gathering, around the turning of the Eighteenth/Nineteenth centuries, culminated in a mighty Ritual, while on earth the Romantic Movement brought life into culture, before the deep descent into the materialism of the later Nineteenth century. (Goethe in a previous incarnation had been a sculptor associated closely with Plato.)

After 1879 the Aristotelians were in incarnation (led, as Prokofieff and Lievegoed maintain, by Aristotle/Thomas himself as Rudolf Steiner) and brought to earth the content of the Michael School as Anthroposophy ("spiritual science"). (Plato himself had been incarnated toward the end of the Nineteenth century as the Goethean scholar Karl Julius Schröer, teacher of Rudolf Steiner at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna.)

And, shortly before his death, Steiner prophesied that the Aristotelians, together with the Platonists, would again be on earth for the battle against Ahriman at the end of the Twentieth Century.

"...those who stand with full intensity within the Anthroposophical Movement will return at the end of the century, and others will then unite with them, for by this means the salvation of the earth and earthly civilization from destruction must eventually be settled. This is the mission of the Anthroposophical Movement...."

[Karmic Relationships, Vol. IV]

The troops are mustering; the armies are forming up for battle: The hosts of Ahriman against the hosts of Michael.

Note: This struggle is further complicated by the fact that, besides the coming physical incarnation of Ahriman, a non-physical, ethereal manifestation of Ahriman will occur, with the aim of obscuring the appearance of the Ethereal Christ. This aim is being furthered by the supra-Masonic, occult "power groups" (or "brotherhoods") mentioned earlier.

Steiner says:

"These brotherhoods of which I have just spoken, whose aim is to banish the souls of men into materialistic spheres, are also making it their aim to ensure that the coming of Christ should pass by unnoticed in the twentieth century, that His coming as an etheric Being should not be noticed by mankind.

 

This aim is developing under the influence of a very definite idea, a very definite impulse of will, to win the sphere of influence which should come to us through Christ in the twentieth and later centuries, for another being -- to conquer that sphere for another being....These brotherhoods of the West do exist. They aim to thwart the impulse of the Christ and put in his place another individuality that has never appeared in the flesh -- an etheric being of a strongly Ahrimanic nature."

[lecture of 18 Nov., 1917; quoted in Tradowsky's Kaspar Hauser, pp. 198-9]

Prokofieff [in The Spiritual Originnns of Eastern Europe...], tries to explicate the inter-relations of Sorat, Lucifer, and Ahriman -- thusly: The ethereal Ahrimanic manifestation will be of a being still mightier than the "Ahriman" who will incarnate in the flesh, an ethereal "emissary" of the Sun Demon, Sorat. This "emissary" was the being who inspired the demonic impulse of Jundi Shapur, and might "temporarily incorporate" in the incarnated "Ahriman" in "the culminating moments of the earthly activity of the latter". (Sorat himself will directly enter earthly evolution only in the distant future.)

Further, this "emissary" works through Luciferic spirits to inspire Jesuitism, through Ahrimanic spirits to inspire the Western "brotherhoods", and directly to inspire Bolshevism [and perhaps Nazism]. -- And [in The Cycle of the Year...], Prokofieff tries to explain the present crescendo of phenomena surrounding "UFOs" as proceeding from these Western "brotherhoods" which seek to

"...conjure forth a spectral ream which will -- in accordance with the intentions of this [ethereal, Ahrimanic 'emissary'] Being -- be formed immediately beneath the surface of the Earth in the region of its solid and liquid elements.... That is, in that sphere where during the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries the sub-earthly Ahrimanic school began its operations....and from which [sphere] the many so-called 'unexplained' phenomena of our time, mistakenly ascribed to extra-terrestrial influences, proceed."

[pp. 299, 410]

As mentioned above, these "brothers" seek to so harden their ethereal bodies as to attain an "Ahrimanic immortality" for themselves in the environment of the Earth, and to so harden the Earth as to prevent it from passing over to the New Jupiter.

Tradowsky, in his more recent work >>Christ and Antichrist gives a somewhat similar, and perhaps somewhat differing, view: "...three stages [re Jundi Shapur] are defined: Sorath, the Beast, as the impulse-giver; and ahrimanic being as inspirer; a Man, who, so to speak, propagates and acts as the representative on earth of his doctrines.

With that an indication is given of the co-operation between Sorath and the ahrimanic beings, which have several characteristics in common." [pp. 21-2] Tradowsky seems to see the 666-year rhythm as pertaining more essentially to Sorat than to Ahriman. Here is an excerpt from the same book, quoting Steiner's lecture to priests of the Christian Community in Sept. 1924:

"We can say, as the writer of the Apocalypse would put it, that before the Etheric Christ can be properly understood by people, mankind must have passed through the encounter with the Beast, which will make its appearance in 1933....At the end of the century [1998] we come to the time when Sorath again rises his head most powerfully from the surrounding flood of evolution. He will oppose the vision of Christ which will appear in the etheric world to those who are prepared to receive it in the first half of the twentieth century..."

(It is startling that Steiner named the exact year of Hitler's [and FD Roosevelt's] accession to political power as the time of the direct intervention of the Beast Sorat in earthly affairs.)

Tradowsky comments:

"...the present situation [re Sorat] is far more dangerous [than in 1933], if only for the reason that people imagine that it is less dangerous....At present, however, the situation is the reverse [vs. 1933]. One is exposed to an inner undertow, which is so insidious because it gradually creeps up on the soul unawares in tiny steps, in such a way that truth and the reality of the spiritual world become ever more shrouded in oblivion. Truly, it is so difficult to tackle such an elusive foe because he does everything to remain unnoticed."

[p. 48-9]

Tradowsky apparently sees the present incursion of Sorat as distinct from the impending incarnation of Ahriman, though both are closely related. For some, this may seem a fine point, given the horrific and tremendously critical nature of the crisis. However, in the end it may not be a superfluous distinction; we may need all the understanding we can get, in order to face the crisis correctly. Again, I refer the reader to this excellent book, as well as to Steiner's 1924 lectures, both now available in English.

Steiner sums up the nature of the struggle between Michael and Ahriman for the formerly-cosmic and now-earthly Intelligence:

"...in Ahriman there stands before us a cosmic Being of the highest imaginable Intelligence, a cosmic Being who has already taken the Intelligence entirely into the individual, personal element. In every conceivable direction Ahriman is in the highest degree intelligent, over-intelligent. He has at his command a dazzling Intelligence, proceeding from the whole human being, with the single exception of the part of the human being which in the human forehead takes on human form.

"To reproduce Ahriman in human Imaginations we should have to give him a receding forehead, a frivolously cynical expression, for in him everything comes out of the lower forces, and yet from these lower forces the highest Intelligence proceeds. If ever we let ourselves in for a discussion with Ahriman, we should inevitably be shattered by the logical conclusiveness, the magnificent certainty of aim with which he manipulates his arguments,. The really decisive question for the world of men, in the opinion of Ahriman, is this: Will cleverness or stupidity prevail? And Ahriman calls stupidity everything which does not contain Intelligence in it in full personal individuality. Every Ahriman-being is over-endowed with personal Intelligence in the way I have now described; critical ... in the repudiation of all things unlogical; scornful and contemptuous in thought.

"When we have Ahriman before us in this way, then too we shall feel the great contrast between Ahriman and Michael. For Michael is not in the least concerned with the personal quality of Intelligence. It is only for man that the temptation is ever-present to make his Intelligence personal after the pattern of Ahriman. Truth to tell, Ahriman has a most contemptuous judgment of Michael. He thinks Michael foolish and stupid -- stupid, needless to say, in relation to himself. For Michael does not wish to seize Intelligence and make it personally his own. Michael only wills, and has willed through the thousands of years, nay through the aeons, to administer the Pan-Intelligence. And now once more that men have the Intelligence, it should again be administered by Michael as something belonging to all mankind -- as the common and universal Intelligence that benefits all men alike.

"We human beings shall indeed do rightly...if we say to ourselves: the idea that we can have cleverness for ourselves alone is foolish. Certainly we cannot be clever for ourselves alone. For if we want to prove anything to another person logically, the first thing we must presume if that the same logic holds good for him as for ourselves. And for a third party it is again the same logic. If anyone were to have a logic of his own, it would be absurd for us to want to prove anything to him by our logic."

[Karmic Relationships, Vol. III]

And, Steiner makes this concept of "Intelligence" more concrete: "What is Intelligence? These abstract generalisations do not of course exist in reality. `Intelligence' means the mutual relationships of conduct among the higher Hierarchies. What they do, how they relate themselves to one another, what they are to one another -- this is Cosmic Intelligence.

And since as Men we must first consider the Kingdom that is nearest to us, concretely speaking the Cosmic Intelligence will be for us the sum-total of the Beings of the Hierarchy of Angeloi. If we are speaking concretely we cannot say `so much Intelligence', but rather `so many Angeloi'. This is the reality."

Around that fateful year of 869 AD there was a split in the world of angels: the other six "Planetary Archangels", which until then had been led by Michael, "rebelled" against the Sun-rulership, taking with them their associated angels. Since the angels are the carriers of the reincarnating human individualities, this split brought human karma into "disorder"; much of the chaos in recent history is the result of this schism.

And those Men whose angels fell away from Michael,

"...receive their personal Intelligence as a complete matter of course. This means that it works in them automatically, through their bodily nature. It works in such a way that they think, think cleverly, but are not fully and deeply and humanly concerned in what they think."

[Karmic Relationships, Vol. IV] --

These now-earthly angels can "incorporate" themselves into Men, the cleverest ones who deny the spirit, when human consciousness becomes impaired or dull: a very real kind of Ahrimanic "possession":

"Ahriman's perpetual endeavor is to appropriate the intelligence of human beings and not allow them to realise what they can achieve through their own intelligence....Men must strive as time goes on to keep their intelligence under their own individual control, to keep unceasing watch over it.....Ahriman takes full advantage of moments when, in full waking life, a man falls into a state of vertigo or dizziness, into a kind of twilight consciousness, when he feels not quite securely anchored in the physical world and begins to yield himself to the whirl of the universe, when he does not stand firmly and steadily on his own feet as an individuality...

 

The best way we can protect ourselves is to develop clear, exact thinking, not simply skimming over things in thought as is the general custom today. We should go even farther and try to avoid colloquialisms and current catchwords, for directly we use such words which come, not from thoughts but from habits of speech, we are not exercising thinking -- even if only for a very short time. These are particularly dangerous moments because they are not heeded. We should really be careful to avoid using words behind which there is not sufficient reflection."

[The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century pp. 170f.]

It really does matter how we use language!

[What is now happening in mankind is nothing less than a further Incarnation of logic (the Logos, "Word"), which is Cosmic Intelligence. The "Word" is "becoming flesh" in the individualities of Men on earth. The Christ (Logos/logic) is indwelling individual Men. Ahriman -- the Spirit of Lies -- seeks to falsify this intelligence by severing it from the Cosmos and making it, and mankind, entire earthly. But just as logic (Logos) is universally true for all Men, an entirely individual, subjective logic/intelligence is false -- a lie, an unreality. To think truly, as an individual being with universal Intelligence, is a deed important for the whole earth, for all mankind. It is an act in the battle for the future of the earth, for Michael against Ahriman, for the Cosmic Christ Who descended to become the Spirit of the Earth.]

Again, Steiner says that the time of decision is around the end of the Twentieth Century. We "will either stand at the grave of civilization" or we will turn toward a spiritualized culture. We may face a scaled-down "War of All against All". (This War is known to occultism as the catastrophe that will end the Post-Atlantean Age, as the Flood ended the Atlantean Age.)

We are given help through the present Second Resurrection of Christ -- in the consciousness of Men -- following the Second Crucifixion of Christ by the materialism in the souls of the dead from the Nineteenth Century onward. We can now think angel-thoughts, have Christ-thoughts and Christ-feelings on earth.

This ability prepares, but is not to be confused with the perception of the Ethereal Christ. This natural clairvoyance, which was hindered in 1933 may again become possible from 2000 AD onward, as a reflection of the Deed of Abraham around 2000 BC. He was the first Man to transform the old clairvoyance into brain-thinking: the reflection of this event will be the freeing of thought from the brain and transformation into free, conscious clairvoyance. [The date of 2000 BC for Abraham derives from Stegmann. Prokofieff puts the calling of Abraham around 2100 BC.]

There will be no real social healing unless Men allow the Christ into their souls.

To outward appearances, the Christ-influence might seem so weak, and the Ahrimanic influence so strong, that we might lose heart. But we can take heart by ever recalling that the greatest, most powerful event of our times is the coming of the Ethereal Christ. It is the unseen driving force behind the visible depredations of the Adversaries.

A new clairvoyance is coming as a natural development; Ahriman seeks to divert it into the earthbound, intellectual pseudo-thinking of the hardened ethereal body, so that the Ethereal Christ passes by mankind unnoticed and another (Ahriman) is substituted in His place. But cosmic wisdom in the human mind has power: Men permeated by this wisdom -- spiritual science -- instill horror into the Ahrimanic spirits. If we meet the Ethereal Christ and the earthly Ahriman consciously, with spirit-will, both events will serve the good of mankind and the world.

The battle against Ahriman in the West will require greater inner force than elsewhere (as indicated, because the "spiritual geography" of the American continent favors the Doppelgänger and Ahrimanic spirits generally), therefore the gain from the eventual victory can be all the greater. Ahriman can be defeated in America, just as the Mexican black magician was defeated by the Sun-being Vitzliputzli almost 2000 years ago.

And we have the prophecy from Steiner that, while the present American materialism is strong, it is youthful and childlike; it is destined to be outgrown, into a spiritualized culture -- during the sixth (Slavic) epoch. The power Ahriman is great, especially in America, but the power of Christ is greater. Yet the Christ and His hosts (with Michael in the forefront) respect and wait upon human freedom; and with freedom comes responsibility.

If Men will consciously take up the Christ-power, the earth can be won for the good.

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A note on some un-PC terminology:

The English language does not have as clear a word for human being irrespective of sex as does, for instance, the German language, which has Mensch in contradistinction to Mann, which means (male) man. I have decided to avoid, when possible, the use of the word human, for, as Terry Boardman has pointed out, human has the same root as humus, (soil, earth), whereas man has the same root as manas.

The natural English word man, of course, can mean either human being or (male) man -- or at least it could before the advent of PCism. The context would usually make the meaning clear, but even disregarding PC considerations, confusion still could sometimes happen.

So, one might use human being to mean man in the sexless sense, however, besides being awkward and cumbersome, this usage does deny the wisdom contained in the natural English language: that man means a creature having an inherent spiritual principle (manas), not necessarily a (male) man, still less a creature of the soil, of the earth.

So, I use Man, capitalized, to mean human being, and mankind to mean the aggregate of human beings. I usually use the Man to refer to the individual, so as to avoid confusion with the universal archetype, the Platonic Idea, MAN.

However, I do use the adjective human; somehow, Manly just won't do. But, after all, human is not altogether a "dirty word", it is related to the Latin homo = man.

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