When 'spirituality' become merely materialistic - lessons in "defense against the dark arts" from Rudolf Steiner in 1917

One of Rudolf Steiner's deepest prophetic hints was from a series of lectures in late 1917 which were collected and published in 2004 under the title Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double. 

(All the lectures are also available free on the Rudolf Steiner Archive as GA 178, although these translations are less comprehensible than the 2004 collection.) 

I have been re-reading these remarkable works - as always sifting and reinterpreting Steiner's valid 'raw insights' from the (wrong) metaphysical schema and his frequent errors of overelaboration. 

Steiner's prediction was that through the twentieth century and into the next, the demonic powers, assisted by their human servants (i.e. the 'secret brotherhoods' of the book title - nowadays broadly corresponding to the highest human levels of component institutions of the global totalitarian System) would have the primary strategy of convincing the masses that this is a wholly material world. 

This is the ideology we may call leftism; but which is in essence identical with philosophical materialism/ positivism/ reductionism/ scientism. 

Indeed, so successful has this strategy been, and so dominant and habitual its world-view, that we do not have a generally-accepted name for it! Why name what (nearly-) everybody believes?

The reason behind this materialism project is demonic, in the sense that it is the most effective way of achieving mass damnation. 

In the past, it was necessary to induce Men to reject Christ and choose Hell in an explicit kind of way; but with global materialism Christ, God, creation, and the whole spiritual world are simply regarded as not-real, nonsense; a childish and foolish delusion.

The question of Jesus Christ has not been refuted by materialism, it has instead been rendered incomprehensible, meaningless, absurd! Which is far more effective.  

But the plan of materialism needed to account for Man's perennial seeking for 'spiritual' meaning; for something beyond the mundane - and Steiner perceived that therefore there would need to be ways of rendering and reducing 'the spiritual' to the material. 

So that people who regarded themselves as spiritual would actually conceptualize 'spiritual' in a materialist way - without realizing the fact!

And this is precisely what has happened with the New Age tendency in spirituality; which itself evolved and expanded from roots in 'Eastern' or 'Perennialist' Beat Generation in the 1950s, then 1960s Hippy spiritualties.  

What happens in such 'spiritualities' is that the spiritual is very rapidly 'operationalized' as something material. 

Most obviously there tends to be a focus on this world rather than life beyond death; thi world is seen as the most urgent, the most important, the most real - eventually the only really-real. Therefore, the New Age assimilated to mainstream Leftist political ideologies and projects...

Perhaps the commonest example is when spirituality or consciousness is interpreted as an abstraction therefore not as personal - and using terms from physics; as when New Agers talk - and think! - about spirit in terms of energy, light, vibrations and frequencies. 

Another spiritual reduction is when there is a focus upon Healing - and the bulk of New Age spirituality gravitates towards some model of Healing or Therapy - which is both this-worldly, and rooted in feelings, which are substantially material phenomena since they depend on the body and brain, and can be (to some extent) manipulated and controlled.

Thus we arrive at the typical New Age spirituality - rooted in this world, and in feelings; and spiritual practices (such as meditation) become a type of psychotherapy.  

Ironically, Anthroposophy has itself taken exactly this path into materialism; and (in its institutional manifestations) has consequently become assimilated into mainstream materialistic leftism. This tendency towards abstraction (including physics metaphors) is seem in Steiner's metaphysics, and his explanation of the nature of Christ. 

And the energies of 'Steinerism' became focused on the institution (Anthroposophical Society) rather the individuals; and on the 'applied' materialistic and this-worldly aspects in medicine, education, agriculture etc. 

Furthermore (and Steiner himself had encouraged this) the legacy of Steiner became materialistic - with 'expertise' being understood in terms of comprehensive and accurate scholarship of 'what Steiner said' on this, that and the other - regarded as de facto infallible. 

Therefore, Steiner's greatest 'disciples' - who are all more or less 'heretical' in terms of the materialist orthodox interpretations rooted in 'what Steiner said' - have been largely ignored, rejected or unnoticed - for example Valentine Tomberg (expelled), Owen Barfield (marginalized), or Joseph Beuys (unnoticed). 

Looking back over the past century we can easily see that Steiner was profoundly correct about the way in which materialism has triumphed - explicitly in the realm of public discourse; and implicitly in a great deal of the 'spirituality' of today; which is characterized by abstraction, usage of 'scientistic' vocabulary and concepts, and a focus on 'therapy and 'making this world a better place'.  

What is needed is almost the opposite - and Steiner also said this in these lectures; which is to regard the universe as a creation populated with personal Beings - not abstractions; and therefore true spirituality as consisting in a personal relationship with the many spiritual-Beings - such as God, Jesus Christ, angels, the 'so-called dead', and indeed aspects of other Mortal Men.  

And, on the other side - the side of evil; the capacity to recognize that evil is also personal not abstract; therefore purposive, not accidental. 

From this comes our only genuine defense against the dark arts of evil which is recognition, understanding, and rejection - rejection by means of affiliation with God, which (as of 2022) must come through commitment to following Jesus Christ.  

Note: the term 'defense against the dark arts' is a reference to the Harry Potter series of novels; which I am currently re-reading with pleasure and profit. 

Why we need to think about what happens at death, and The (so-called) Dead

Rudolf Steiner had a remarkable prophetic era in his life, around 1917-19. At that time he seemed to have all kinds of insights about what was coming; including what was coming if Man did not re-connect with the spiritual aspects of the world (if - in a nutshell - Man did not take the path of Romantic Christianity). 

I have been reading some lectures given in Zurich, dating from November 1917 (significantly, Steiner seems to have made several of his best and most prophectic lectures to the Zurich Anthroposophical Society). 

These lectures are focused around the question of relationships with The (so-called) Dead; including how these relations can be good, or evil. 

But as a framework; Steiner makes a very important point (text edited by me):  

There are still many people who say: “Oh, well, in all good time we shall discover what transpires after death; why trouble about it now? Let us attend to the requirements of life and when we reach yonder world we shall soon discover what it is.” 

Well and good, but if it is true that in yonder world a man becomes what he has pictured himself to be, then something else is also true. 

Take the idea that is not at all uncommon nowadays. Somebody dies, leaving relatives behind him. Although thought may not be entirely lacking in these people, they may be materialistically minded, and then, quite inevitably, they will think either that the dead man is decaying in the grave or that what still exists of him is preserved in the urn. 

If materialism were to triumph, the conviction would still further increase that all that remains of the Dead person is disintegrating in the urn or in the grave. This thought is, however, a real power; it is an untruth. 

When those left behind think that the Dead person no longer lives, is no longer there, this is a false thought — but it is real and actual in the souls of those who form it. 

The Dead person is aware of this thought-reality, is aware of its significance for him. And it is a matter of fundamental importance whether those left behind cherish in their souls the thought of the Dead person living on in the spiritual world; or whether they succumb to the woeful idea that the Dead, well, he is dead, he lies there decaying in the grave. 

Far from being a matter of no importance, there is a very great and essential difference. (...)

This is illustrative of the way in which modern Man prejudges issues that he has not considered; makes up his mind about the fundamental, metaphysical nature of reality; meanwhile pretending that he is merely being 'common sensical', focused on 'what matters' and 'keeping an open mind'. However, common sense here-and-now is often the opposite of history, 'what matters' depends entirely upon what actually-is true and important, and keeping an open mind on one subject entails closing the mind on other possibilities.

Modern materialism conceals itself behind such assumptions as taking the attitude that we can (and should) defer dealing-with questions such as whether life, or human identity, continues after death; or whether The Dead have some kind of an ongoing relationship with the Living. These assumptions are reinforced by statements that 'we cannot know' such matters - or cannot know them with certainty, and therefore need-not/ should-not consider them. 

Yet at the same time, the same people behave in every way as if they were certain that (for example) 'racism' (undefined) is a great evil everywhere in the world today; or that 'science' (undefined) has proven that global warming is real, caused by CO2 and can be stopped or reversed by carbon taxes and 'green technology'. Or certain that the birdemic virus has already been a major cause of death, and is a major threat to global health. 

In truth, people refuse even to think-about death and The Dead - because they have already decided, they are certain, that the dead are annihilated and therefore there can be no genuine relationship between dead and living people.

Yet people are wrong about certainties; and then their wrongness has consequences. If The Dead continue to live and seek a relationship with the living, and if this relationship (like other personal relationships) may be good or evil in nature; then this denial Will have adverse consequences - especially if evil persons abuse their knowledge of the continuing relations with The Dead for their own evil purposes. 

 

This abuse is the subject of other parts of Steiner's November 1917 Zurich lectures: the ways in which 'dark brotherhoods' manipulate the situation of The Dead to cause harm to human health and the development of consciousness. 

As always with Steiner, I find that reading these lectures requires considerable sifting, discrimination and modification; but I feel a solid ring of truth about the subject matter and his basic points. And I think it is very likely that something of the sort is actively happening among the Global Establishment at the highest levels - where (to all appearances, by action not words) belief in the supernatural is normal and regarded as vital (albeit deniable and denied); and where initiations, symbols and rituals of many types have such an important role (albeit shrugged-off as mere vestiges, artistic subversions, parody and 'fun').  

One point Steiner makes is that when 'initiates' of these dark brotherhoods die, they may consent to become what are essentially 'evil ghosts' (as a mode of live extension - a very popular goal among the 'elites', as 'transhumanism') --- dead, still tied to the earth, and able to cooperate with the dark brotherhoods, and to continue their work of opposition to God and creation. 

Indeed, Steiner regards the hope or promise of life-extension to be the materialist evil-inversion of the Christian goal of life eternal; with the promise that it can be obtained by technological-magical procedures. 

 

I am personally Not certain about all this, but I'm pretty confident that there is 'something in it'. And much more so now than a century ago, when Steiner was speaking - hence the prophetic insight on display here. And like all prophets (as contrasted with mere predictors) the future is seen as contested territory, subject to human free agency; and something we all help to decide, and contribute to making.

A comment for GunnerQ on "esotericism"

I cannot induce GunnerQ's Substack blog to accept an extended comment on his recent posting; so I shall reproduce it here:

@GQ - 

You seem to be working something out at present, using over-inclusive and scattergun principles and arguments that (I predict!) you will discover fail to discriminate between what you value/ want to preserve and what you (IMO rightly) abhor and wish to exclude. 

Thus, I think you are painting yourself into a corner; as you will realize sooner or later! 

And I am confident you Will realize this, since you are clearly honest and well-motivated. Nonetheless, speaking from experience, this "painting oneself into a corner" is sometimes the best way to learn - learn deeply, that is. 

I painted myself into a very terrible corner in the early 2000s (eg in my book The Modernization Imperative) but it was, apparently, necessary for me to plumb materialism to the very dregs before I could recognize its innate nihilism - and could choose to become a Christian. 

More generally, that has been the usual way for me to learn - throw everything in, trying to make something work, and only when it has collapsed (collapsed, that is, from my POV) will I abandon it. 

Anyway; I certainly agree that there is a kind of black magic cult near the top level of totalitarian control in the world - mostly western world. This is very important to recognize. I've written about this variously: https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/search?q=steiner+brotherhoods. 

But you notice that these insights came from Rudolf Steiner, who himself had an esoteric (albeit not secret) society - and, IMO, one with not a few undesirable aspects. 

(Plus, ninety-something percent of what Steiner wrote is, so far as I can tell from the large but minority sample of his writings I have read, completely - and sometimes perversely - wrong!) 

My point is that there is (I have found, and continue to find) a good deal to be gained from reading Steiner and other occultists who are on the Christian side, the side of Good (Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight) - while avoiding, completely - or almost so, those on the dark side, the Left Hand path. Indeed, these are some of only a handful of authors I would regard as personal mentors, to a greater (Steiner) or lesser (DF and GK) extent. 

Reading, as always, must be with discernment - because (speaking personally) there is nobody, not one single individual*, in the whole world, past or present, whose core views I accept in toto - and typically I reject (later, if not sooner) most of what anybody writes. 

In conclusion, occultism and esoteric organization is a method, not a goal; a means not an end; and well-motivated and real Christians may (or may not) choose to engage with esoteric/ occult material and methods according to preference. 

As always, motivation is primary, and discernment is necessary - because discernment is just another name for taking the fullest possible personal responsibility for our spiritual life. 

Esoteric/ occult activity is neither more, nor less, dangerous than the far more pervasive and equally-deadly literalism/ Pharisee-ism and institution-worship/ obedience; to which too many Traditionalist Christians are not just prone but explicitly dedicated.  

*(Not even the Fourth Gospel, that greatest of all Christian texts... greatest of All texts, do I accept in its entirety - because I'm sure there are errors and later alien additions - even in the divinely-inspired "King James" translation.)

The evil doppelgangers in Mens' minds (and electronic devices): How Satan (Ahriman) uses materialism to recruit souls for Hell on Earth

What follows may be one of the weirdest things I have written! Nonetheless, I am sure that it is on the right lines and there is something behind it. 

It derives from my personal interpretation, my decoding, of Rudolf Steiner's lectures published in 2016 as The Electronic Doppelganger; and particularly a lecture from 16 November 1917. Steiner's speculative essay, and this one, addresses the question: What happens to damned souls in an age of materialism? Where do they go, what do they do?

 

The matter is interesting because this is an age of Materialism in which the dominant form of evil is 'Ahrimanic' - that is, coldly-cruel, materialistic, controlling, bureaucratic;  an 'Antichrist'-type of evil that pretends to 'good' (i.e. altruism) and does its work of damnation behind a facade of 'caring' (healthism, antiracism, environmentalism, sexual liberation and rights, etc.)  

So - Materialism is the dominant ideology in our world - indeed, the only working ideology in public discourse. And Materialism has it that there is no God, no soul, no spiritual, no afterlife, no Beings, no love; the really-real is only that which is perceived by senses and physics, and modelled by mathematical and symbolic abstractions. 

Materialism mostly says that death is annihilation. We die and nothing of our 'self' is left-behind. But there is another possibility, a 'loophole' - not offered to all, but aspired-to by groups with the character of initiates ('secret societies', one might call them). I mean the transhumanist project of the abolition of aging and death by technology, of indefinite 'life extension' of a material kind. 

This combines with another strand of transhumanism which aims to combine Man and computer - in a cyborg fashion;  which aims (in various ways - surgical, electronic, genetic etc.) to 'integrate' the electronic and digital world of the computer, with the living flesh of Men.

This technological pseudo-salvation has been taken-up by some strands of explicit transhumanism; and also, but without that name, is now (2020) mainstream, dominant, global public policy; being a strategy for the Ruling Establishment in their UN Agenda 2030, the Great Reset idea and others.  

This idea of what might happen to sustain 'life' (or personal identity) after death, has been propagated in various ways; such as the mind being like a computer, and therefore down-loadable onto a computer; the cryogenic idea of preserving a brain for future reanimation; and even the common Hollywood (hence presumptively evil-motivated) trope that 'we live-on' after biological death, 'in the memories/ hearts of those who remain alive'. This trope may - deceptively - have a literal meaning intended; behind the sentimental metaphor.

 

Ancient Greeks and Hebrews, and probably others unrecorded, had an understanding that death was (mostly) a matter of the spirit being severed from the body; and surviving in an Underworld (Hades, Sheol...) as witless, gibbering, demented ghosts without consciousness or free agency or sense of self - but not suffering. 

Perhaps those materialists who want to live forever in a material way, are offered a 'deal' whereby instead of going to the underworld (or to Heaven, which they usually disbelieve; and mostly wouldn't want if they did believe it) - they instead remain on earth and involved with earthly life in return for serving the Satanic agenda. 

This is achieved by these 'ghosts' living-on in the material 'minds' ('brains', 'hearts') of the secret societies, and of any other men who the secret brotherhoods persuade ('brainwash') into providing brain-space' to these spirits. 

This may be one actuality of Biblical Hell; which is often referenced to being on earth, with demons being ghosts of the evil-affiliated deceased, still active among living people - i.e. the 'principalities and powers' - serving the agenda of Satan who is thus a 'ruler' of the earth in a literal sense. 

 

This would mean that the Satan and the demonic powers recruit not just living Men to their side - including in secret societies dedicated to evil; but that some of these same Men, when they die, desire or consent to become 'evil ghosts', remaining on earth and still active in this world, in a form of perpetuated, materialistic (but not embodied) life; a 'reward' for which they pay by being bound to the service of Satan. 

The idea is that these spirits of the evil and deceased are materially instantiated in the brains, minds, symbols, rituals etc of living Men. These 'evil ghosts' live-on in the minds and brains of Men of the secret societies - Men who believe-in, know, and side-with Satan: the servants of Satan, in other words. These Satanic servants are are aware of the doppelganger, consent to it; and use the evil-ghosts in their evil strategies - e.g. for gathering information and covertly influencing other men.

And the evil-ghosts also live-on among the masses of materialistic unrepentant sinners, who have taken Satan's side against God. These masses are unconscious of being hosts of evil-ghosts; indeed they do not believe in ghosts, do not believe in Satan - and are standard, unthinking dupes to the incoherent ideology of Materialism. 

These masses of un-conscious, ignorant, God-denying, Satan-affiliated yet Satan-Disbelieving Men; are therefore acted-upon by the evil-ghosts of self-damned Men. This is what Steiner meant by his term 'doppelganger' - he meant the evil-double, unconsciously hosted, and unconsciously influencing the minds of those who host it. These are the dupes of Satan, rather than his servants.

 

(As always, the spiritual 'law' is that evil must be consented-to, must be - like an archetypal vampire - be 'invited-in', invited to cross the threshold into the mind. This, at least, must be a conscious decision. It corresponds to what some people call 'taking the ticket' - the Faustian bargain which is presented to almost everybody, nowadays sooner rather than later; of knowingly consenting to do evil, in return for some worldly advantage. But then most people explain-away, bury and deny this decisive corrupting-event - saying to themselves that they 'did nothing wrong'; and therefore they never repent it and must take the consequences. Of course, repentance would immediately negate the damnation, and anybody can repent at any time (albeit on certain conditions); but typical modern people do not believe in the reality or possibility of repentance.)

 

Evil ghosts may also live-on after biological death by inhabiting electronic devices, such as computers and the internet. This is possible because of the pseudo-brain/ nervous system, quasi-intelligent, cognitive-processing qualities of modern electronic media.  

Of course, 'electronic media' are not distinct from (not separable-from) Men's thinking - indeed nothing is distinct from Men's thinking (except primordial chaos). In other words, God's creation is made by thinking, as well as from 'stuff'. Our thinking is inextricably part of the world. 

(This is another insight of Rudolf Steiner's - articulated in his early philosophical books Truth and Knowledge and The Philosophy of Freedom.)

What this means is that we should think of electronic media, computers, the internet etc as part of the web of human thinking, continuous with human thinking, and indeed sustained-by human thinking. 

And this is the inverse of the transhumanist ideology, which considers human thinking to be wholly a matter of brain activity; and brain activity to be wholly abstract mental processing, which processing can then be instantiated in electronic media. This ideology makes the possibility of its own validity.

 

To conclude, Hell on earth is the hosting of evil-ghosts (who are the post-mortal spirits of evil men) by the minds of Men who have joined-with the agenda of Satan; and by the electronic media that are manifestations of materialistic, hence Satanic, thinking. 

Hell lives in the mind of evil-affiliated (unrepentant) materialistic Men, who may well be a large majority of Men in this year of 2020.  

These evil-ghosts can only influence by consent; so the doppelganger must be 'invited-in'. A few Men (servants of Satan) are aware of this 'double' and manipulate it, for evil purposes; but most (dupes of Satan) are unaware or in denial - and are therefore open to manipulation by their doppelganger. 

The vast modern world of electronic media also provides a dwelling place for these evil-ghosts; but again they can only influence those who 'invite them in' to their minds, for example those who are willingly addicted-to, and who subordinate themselves to, the ideology, propaganda and manipulation of the mass media.

But those who know the reality of Satan, and can discern his influence, and who have chosen to follow Jesus and accept his gift of resurrected Life Everlasting in Heaven - such Men are immune to the evil doppelgangers of mind and machine.