by Piero Cammerinesi
That this is a moment of fundamental historical transition, those who wanted to understand it have understood it for quite some time now, and those who do not want to understand it will probably never understand it.
On the other hand, as they say, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Those who know History -the one with a capital “H”- know well that there are facts that work invisibly under the surface of external events for a long time, only to manifest themselves abruptly.
This, however, does not mean that those who try to analyze outward events in the light of a broader vision are necessarily taken by surprise.
Certainly Jean and Marie, as they were running to the Bastille with flashlights in their hands to free the prisoners and get weapons in those fateful July days of 1789, did not know that they were protagonists of that French Revolution that would change the face of the world.
They -like most of us- were living in the ‘here’ and ‘now’, the chronicle, not the history.
To grasp the meaning of history requires something more than living in the present by being interested only in the external events, that -as those who are involved in esotericism know- are only the tip of the iceberg compared to the entirety of the historical scenario.
Just as the spiritual element -the thoughts- of each individual human being is transformed into actions causing consequences in his life and in the lives of those around him, the same is true for the life of humanity, where it is precisely the spirit -the impulses of men and beings acting behind the curtain of the physical world- that produce the external happenings.
It is always the invisible that determines the visible.
To understand this, then, it is not enough to be an expert in geopolitics; it is necessary to guess the Big Picture, that broader vision by which outer history can be enriched through investigation of occult causes.
Everything that happens externally on the physical plane is dependent on the underlying spiritual forces and powers.
So stated Rudolf Steiner in a lecture given in Dornach on December 9, 1916 (GA 173).
And it is not enough to content ourselves with understanding, for example, the causes of World War I -so brilliantly indicated by Rudolf Steiner in his three-cycle Considerations on the Present Historical Period– our task is to understand what is really happening here and now.
It is too easy to make exegesis of Steiner‘s cycles; our task is to pursue his path of unraveling the real.
Treasuring, of course, his indications and anticipations -truly prophecies- he left us now more than a century ago.
Such as that of the advent of what he calls an imposture in a big way:
It is possible to steer a force that lives in an individual person in a particular direction. This person may then be totally convinced of his deep love of peace; and yet he does what he does because somehow or other a suggestion has been planted in him. He is quite at odds with what he does. In the same way, with the right knowledge, similar things can be done to whole groups; it is merely a matter of selecting the appropriate means. You take a force that lives but has no particular direction, such as the force living in certain Slav races, and by suggestion on a grand scale you nudge it into a definite direction (Rudolf Steiner, GA 173).
What has happened in the last four years is exactly that, a global imposture. Just think of how institutions, media and ordinary people in words preach peace and then act for war.
Indeed, we even witness the blatant folly that in order to achieve peace it would be necessary to arm ourselves.
As in: hate if you want to be loved.
No,-Steiner reiterates- no, my dear friends! The ideal of perfect peace can never be achieved if even the smallest drop of blood is shed by means of an instrument of war. Perfect peace must come into the world in quite another way! And whoever says he is fighting for peace, and must continue to make war till the enemy is annihilated in order to achieve peace, is lying, even if he does not realize it, and regardless of who he may be! (Rudolf Steiner, December 18, 1916 GA 173).
Instead, we find that in 2023, nuclear-weapon countries spent $91,393,404,739 on their arsenals, equivalent to $2,898 per second. That represents a $10.7 billion increase in nuclear weapons spending in 2023 over 2022, with the United States accounting for 80 percent of this increase. Total nuclear weapons spending over the past five years has been more than $387 billion, more than the World Food Program estimates would be needed to end world hunger.
And the global imposture continues at a strong pace….
And how is this global imposture accomplished? Through fear, which, Steiner says, was also at the root of the outbreak of World War I:
I said that someone who has lived through recent decades in a state of spiritual consciousness must know that one of the main causes of today’s painful events is the fear in which the whole world was drenched, the fear that individuals had of each other, even though they did not know it, and above all the fear that the different nations had of one another. If people had seeing eyes with which to track down the cause of this fear, they would not talk as much nonsense as they do about the causes of the war (Rudolf Steiner, December 10, 1916 GA 173).
That today was 1917 and what’s going on in our today, in 2024?
We are faced with a real war on humanity, from the pandemic to the current fear-fueled by the bombastic headlines in the media-first of global warming and now of war, not to mention the next inevitable pandemics; all, of course, by manipulating consciences through lies and half-truths.
But how are these impulses to manipulate the masses managed?
Those who desire –Steiner points out- to work in this way are always concerned, not to stimulate just one stream but to make sure that one stream is always crossed by another, so that they influence each other in some way. Not much is achieved by simply running straight ahead with a single stream. It is necessary sometimes to throw a sidelight on this stream so that certain things become confused, so that certain tracks are covered up, and other things are lost in an impenetrable thicket. This is very important. Thus it comes about that certain secret streams which have set themselves some task or other also set about achieving the exact opposite. These opposing tasks have the effect of obliterating all tracks (Rudolf Steiner, December 9, 1916 GA 173).
Manipulation and distractive strategies, then.
Although, sometimes, for certain needs of power groups -more or less occult- some truths are publicized or, at least, hinted at.
Think, for example, of this cover of the Economist from June 17, 2020, just after the start of the pandemic imposture.
Sitting on the comfy couch, members of the typical family become spectators of the coming catastrophe.
Behind dad, mom and son -already equipped for chemical or conventional warfare- we see in order the images of possible coming catastrophes: from swine plague to volcanic eruptions, from melting poles to killer meteorites, from Armageddon watch to deadly viruses, from atomic warfare to solar storms.
A riot of terror to better conditionate, influence the people; there is no better means than fear, in fact, to control the people, as Goebbels had a way of theorizing and putting into practice, inserting, however, half-truths and also the anticipation, well expressed graphically, of the beginning of an era of global lies.
Here, too, Rudolf Steiner‘s guidance is valuable:
It is significant and important to take into account that much that is launched on the public from occult sources is not untrue, but half true, a quarter true, an eighth true, and just because it bears within it a part of the truth it can be used to achieve one aim or another in a one-sided way. That is why those who see through these things gain a significant impression from the fact that, on the part of America, the twentieth century is introduced by the launching of certain ideas in the world via some channels of the bookselling trade serving certain movements which make use of occult means (Rudolf Steiner, December 17, 1916 GA 173).
The fact is, Steiner continues, that.
I have already pointed out a number of times that people are, in a way, inattentive; they do not like looking closely at what is going on. Many of those who work with certain occult connections in order to bring something about in the world make use of this fact. Those of us who see the world, not in the usual way but with free and open eyes, will know that there are people who can be influenced by those who want to make use of such means. Someone who is intent on influencing people, someone who, as an occultist, is not entirely scrupulous, can indeed gain power over people in this way. (…) By pointing out these elementary matters I simply want to draw your attention to what you must take into account if you want to form a judgement; for the world is frequently misled by the way in which history is written (Rudolf Steiner, December 9, 1916 GA 173).
So here we are referred to those realities that are hidden behind external events but determine their course.
But for this -the founder of Anthroposophy tells us- we must develop our attention, certainly not turn away lest we be saddened by the painful events of the present, perhaps following the dramatically erroneous indications of those who theorize that we must only think about the development of our inner life.
On this subject, I do not think it is possible to misunderstand his words:
It is too easy to think that the wisdom-filled world order will sort everything out. If this were so, there would not exist in the entire wide sweep of the physical world something that in fact does exist: human freedom. (…) For if we investigate only the spiritual aspect of things we lack the basis on which to frame the right questions, and we then do not know how the spiritual happenings are mirrored below, on the physical plane (Rudolf Steiner, December 11, 1916 GA 173).
If in the aftermath of the outbreak of World War I he stated with absolute clarity the belief that one of the main reasons for that catastrophe was…
… the attitude that a blind eye can be turned to certain matters while others are discussed on the basis of an entirely false premise. Even in the face of large-scale matters of this kind, each individual should start from a foundation of self-knowledge. And a portion of self-knowledge is involved if we recognize that to claim no interest in these things and to want only to hear of occult matters is, in a small way, no different from all that adds up to the events we are experiencing today. For spiritual things are not only those which have to do with higher worlds. These, to start with, are of course occult for everybody. But much of what takes place on the physical plane is also occult for many people. We can only hope that much of what is occult and hidden on this plane may be revealed! For one of the causes of today’s misery is that so much remains occult for so many people, who nevertheless persist in forming judgements (Rudolf Steiner, December 16, 1916 GA 173).
What remains the same, unfortunately, is the human inability to learn the lessons of the past; here we are, in fact, gripped mostly unconsciously by the same vortex of lies, fear and sloth.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
wrote the Spanish thinker George Santayana.
And please don’t tell me that we should not look at the evil around us, for it is Steiner again who stated in a lecture given in Dornach on November 19, 1917 that…
Every era in the post-Atlantean age has its particular task. I have characterized in general the task of the fifth post-Atlantean period, indicating that it is humanity’s task in this period to come to grips with evil as an impulse in the evolution of the world. We have frequently discussed what this means. It cannot be otherwise than that forces that appear at the wrong place appear as evil (Rudolf Steiner, Novembre 19, 1917 GA 178).
In fact, this period of civilization presents humanity with very difficult trials with extremely strong temptations, since the gradual occurrence in history of evil powers will make mankind more inclined to indulge in evil rather than strive to transform that evil into good, thus putting it at the service of the spiritual world.
The fact that -as we know from Rudolf Steiner‘s revelations- since 1879 the spirits of darkness have been present on Earth is the basis of their action in human impulses.
There is no need to point out how recent events in the news and indiscriminate massacres indicate, beyond reasonable doubt, the progressive intensification of such impulses.
What then is our task in the face of this increasingly evident reality?
To recognize with our reason –Steiner tells us- the spiritual element through the forces of evil present in us.
I have said that, exactly because of this, beings that are close to man work in an invisible way among human beings, and man is held back from recognizing the spiritual with the intellect through the play of forces of evil. This is again bound up with the task of the fifth post-Atlantean period, because precisely through this many opportunities are given to the fifth post-Atlantean period to lend itself to dark illusions and the like. Man must accustom himself to a certain extent in this period to grasping the spiritual with his intellect (Rudolf Steiner, Novembre 19, 1917 GA 178)..
One of the things that, in my view, we must then understand is that, as we are facing a fundamental turning point in human history, it is essential, first of all, to understand the magnitude of that turning point, in order then to identify the most appropriate ways to bear witness to our spiritual militancy.
The time is now; when else?
