THE SECRET LODGES OF THE WEST
and their sinister plans with the world population
Is the political world development controlled by secret occult lodges in the West? Are these lodges also interested in manipulating culture, religion, feelings and instincts in the average human being?
Why a secret conspiracy?
People have an unquenchable fervor for conspiracy theories, for speculations about some secret elite or another, whose clandestine activities are the very causes of much that appears wrong, unjust, intimidating, and suppressive in the global community. For this reason, everything that is not wide open for public scrutiny is perceived as highly suspect, from the Freemasons and the Vatican to national intelligence services and closed city council meetings.
Revelations do however tend to disappoint us because they don't satisfy our expectations, which tend to be apocalyptic. One discovers corruption and abuse of power, but rarely confirmations of the more advanced theories that have been elaborated for years, even decades. A classic example is the assassination of president John F. Kennedy in 1963. The Oliver Stone movie JFK reflected a view held by many people, that a carefully planned coup d'etat involving the most powerful agencies and offices in the United States was behind the act, plus an equally well coordinated and murderous cover-up after the fact. When the secret parts of the Warren report were finally published because of the pressure generated by Stone's film, the real reason why those pages had been kept secret by the FBI was their desire to conceal their own ineptitude. They might have prevented the tragedy by paying just a little attention to the writing on the wall, the many hints and warnings that were simply flushed down the toilet.
Later on, an interview with a former Russian KGB agent revealed that much of the evidence against the CIA and the FBI that had been used by Stone, had actually been planted by Soviet intelligence for the explicit purpose of throwing suspicion in that direction.
So the JFK assassination still remains an unsolved mystery, leaving us back to square one. This demonstrates not only that there are riddles we don't know the answers to, but that there may be many equally valid theories. And the JFK assassination is, after all, an exoteric mystery, not an esoteric (occult) one. The latter type is in a class all by itself, and the more advanced occult mysteries, especially the conspiratorial ones, involve an entirely different kind of time frame, and they involve concepts, struggles, and purposes that require a great more effort to grasp than when we're dealing with exoteric conspiracies.
Personally, I will venture the claim that the need for advanced or apocalyptic conspiracy theories is due to subconscious instincts - instincts that are endeavoring to tell us that somebody, preferably a superintelligent elite, is manipulating society and its evolution in a manner that is harmful to the gullible majority. This is apparently a persistent suspicion flickering in the depth of our souls. We are facing the challenge of arriving at conspiracy theories that are more enduring and sustainable than those that have dissapointed us in the past.
The problem with most conspiracy theories is that they've been much too simple, short sighted, and materialistic. Others have been of a strict sectarian nature. American protestants have been leading the pack in the latter case. Occult conspiracy theories in this vein have flourished mostly in fringe, kooky evangelical church gatherings. In these circles, conspiracies consist of incomprehensible combinations of e.g. cannabis, Buddha, Satan, Charles Darwin, the Pope, Illuminati, and alternative medicines. UFO's keep repeating themselves as part and parcel of a pattern typical of most contemporary theories.
With this point of departure, I would like to introduce and recommend a lesser known conspiracy theory that has several advantages. First off, it has not been disprovable to date in spite of having been presented almost a century ago. Secondly, it stretches so far into the future that if the predicted consequences in question should fail and thus disprove the whole thing, this will happen long after our own lifetime. Thirdly, the theory is very demanding in terms of intellectual and cognitive capacities on behalf of the reader - an absolute precondition for making an advanced, superintelligent elite credible.
Islam and occult history
There can be little doubt that at the time this is being written (May 2003), Muslim aggression against the West is a major problem. There are other problems, of course, such as the military-industrial complex represented by the Pentagon, against which president Eisenhower uttered a historic warning in his 1961 farewell speech. It is interesting to note that after the Muslim attack against Manhattan on September 11, 2001, this very military-industrial complex has become more powerful than ever, literally taking over the entire U.S. foreign policy, plus a great deal of domestic issues in the name of homeland security. In other words, the threat of militant, explosive Islam on the one hand, and the rise of military authority in the West on the other, are interactive and interdependent. In this article, we shall endeavor to do some digging behind this mystery of modern terror and warfare and try to suggest a theory about who the so-called "movers and shakers" may be.
When we try to understand Islam, its origin, and its role in contemporary world events, it is frustrating that Rudolf Steiner says so very little about this religion (in his 6000 lectures and 50 written books). On the other hand, he says a few things about "Arabism" prior to the prophet Mohammed, and about the role of this impulse in modern times, without mentioning Islam specifically.
When the Christian church came to power in Rome and transformed the empire into a theocracy, a hierarchy based on priesthood, a very brutal campaign was launched to stamp out heresy in any shape or form. One of the consequences was the total destruction of the irreplacable library in Alexandria. The fanatical church fathers also attacked every remnant of Greek wisdom, including the works of Aristotle.
I have written an article about this topic based upon a play by Eduard Schurè entitled Children of Lucifer.
At the time in question, an academic center had emerged in Jundi-Shapur in Persia. This academic center was very advanced and - judged by today's values - way ahead of its time with regard to science, knowledge, learning etc. - in other words, intellectual skills that evolved in Europe a millennium later, in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Athenian philosophers who were cast out by Justinian were welcomed at this Persian academy by Khusraw I (531-78), who had modelled it on the great Academy at Alexandra. The same curriculum was followed, and a vast body of knowledge was gradually accumulated.
In the eighth century the wealth and power of Harun Al-Raschid procured Greek manuscripts, many of which were medical, from the Roman Empire and these were translated into Syriac and Arabic. According to Rudolf Steiner, whose interpretation of history is supported by T. Whittaker in his book "The Neoplatonists" (Cambridge, 1928), these Greek texts travelled some roundabout ways through such translations: From Greek to Syriac, from Syriac to Arabic, and finally back into Europe from Arabic to Latin. In other words, the works of Aristotle, that later became the indispensable key to Biblical understanding for medieval theologians, were banned from Europe, then translated into Syriac and into Arabic. Texts undergo a certain transformation when translated through several languages in this manner, and in this case, the Aristotelian texts aquired a more materialistic hue in their Arabic clothing.
According to Rudolf Steiner's occult history model, a spiritual impulse or social structure has a progressive influence when it emerges and remains active at its proper time in evolution (when spiritual evolution proceeds according to the blueprint designed by the progressive higher hierarchies). If such spiritual impulses or social structures emerge too early (when humanity is not yet sufficiently mature), or continue to be active long after their "justified" epoch, these forces become destructive and pave the way for evil.
The Muslims conquered Jundi-Shapur in 636 AD and took over the university and the hospital. Greek knowledge and wisdom came to Arabia through several channels. Christian writers, scientists, and scholars were carriers of these literary treasures to the Arab peoples of Persia and Iraq. Then the Arabs worked directly with the original Greek sources and edited what they had learned previously. There was also another channel coming indirectly through India with knowledge originating at Alexandria.
De Lacy O'Leary has written a book about this: How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs.
Steiner claims that the scoop of Greek wisdom to the academic center in Jundi-Shapur served the efforts of "opposing powers" (dark forces), and in this context he speaks about the mystical number in the Apocalypse of St. John, 666, which at that time represented the very year AD when the opposing powers had planned to capture the spiritual evolution of humanity through the premature emergence of intellectual knowledge in Jundi-Shapur and Bagdad - a mode of cognition that humanity would not be sufficiently mature to handle until almost a millennium later.
In the context of anthroposophically oriented occult history, concepts like "maturity" have a special meaning. The goal of humanity is to evolve individual self-dependence, social fraternity, understanding of the spiritual, the divine, etc. It is difficult to claim, for instance, that humanity was mature enough to handle the discovery of atom-splitting in the 1940's. When the intellect, which entails science and technology etc., evolves significantly faster than soul-spiritual abilities, this discrepancy may result in catastrophic consequences. According to Steiner, the emergence of Islam acted as a buffer, an intervention, against the most hazardous aspects of Arabic materialism.
Steiner claimed that when the prophet Mohammed proclaimed his revelation, which he did indeed receive from the archangel Gabriel, and established the Muslim religion, this was a spiritual impulse that intervened against the intentions of the dark powers and contributed to the spiritualization of Arab culture. For this reason, the claim may be made on behalf of anthroposophy that Islam was right at the time in that region, and that the revelation from Gabriel to the prophet was genuine. As already mentioned, exploration of Islam is almost conspicuously lacking in Steiner's works, although he has a great deal to say about Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. It is important to note, however, that Steiner's Weltanschauung rests upon the notion that all religions are true in the sense that they originate from higher powers. On the other hand, it must also be understood that all such religions may become corrupted and falsified beyond recognition, especially when they continue to be active far beyond their "justified" epochs.
Let us move on to the next act in this drama: The battle of Europe between Christianity and "Arabism". Islam confronted Christianity in Spain, and the exoteric (secular) reason for the end of Islamic rule in Spain was divisions among Muslim rulers.
The Roman Catholic Church still regards Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) to be its leading theologist and philosopher. Averroës was a contemporary of Aquinas with considerable influence on the spiritual evolution in Europe at that time. He represented the Greek-inspired Arabism by setting out to prove with razor-sharp logic that the Aristotelian method was incompatible with Christian theology, and that Christianity was, ipso facto, unscientific and absurd. Thomas Aquinas endeavored to prove the opposite. He succeeded in demonstrating that the philosopher Aristotle and his method held the very key to comprehending Biblical texts, including the Gospels, and that there was none of the discrepancy alleged by Averroës. In this way, it was Thomas Aquinas who prevented the invasion of Arabic materialism into Europe through Averroës.
To sum up the above in a nutshell: Theological control had reigned in Europe for six centuries after every vestige of paganism had been cleansed out by the church fathers. Then philosophy began to raise its head. The Crusaders had made contact with the culture of the Eastern Empire in Byzantium and the Arabs were bringing back Greek learning through Spain, with a pantheistic version of Aristotle which challenged the Christian faith.
http://archaeology.about.com/library/glossary/bldef_jundishapur.htm
Jundi-Shapur
Definition: Legendary town in the Susiana Plain of Iraq, built in the Sasanian period by Shapur I by Roman laborers, and so the town reflects a Roman plan. Also said to have had the first medical academy in the world, built during the 4th century AD.
What I have described above is the spiritual drama between Christian and Arabic thinking, between Thomas Aquinas and Averroës.
The anthroposophical theory of evolution should be understood in the following way: The materialism that was dangerous and harmful in the fourteenth century and earlier, has become a necessity in our present time. It should also be pointed out that in the context of Steiner's Christology, the Being called Ahriman or Satan ("The World Prince" in the New Testament), is the origin of our intellect, which is in turn the key to our self-dependence through thinking. (See my short article, Anarchosophy and Anarchism. A deeper exploration of the topic may be found in the following lectures by Rudolf Steiner: Exoteric and Esoteric Christianity and The Ahrimanic Deception.)
Rudolf Steiner in hot waters
The background for the anthroposophical conspiracy theory that will be presented in this article begins not in Jundi-Shapur or Baghdad fifteen hundred years ago, but with the organized opposition to Rudolf Steiner and his work as lecturer and occultist a century ago. This opposition increased considerably after the first world war, when Steiner spoke about the threefold social order after being asked to speak about politics because of the chaos reigning in Europe at that time, when the allied powers of the West made comprehensive and fateful decisions above the heads of the common peoples.
Guenther Wachsmuth, in his book, The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner, refers in several places to the scurrilous pamphlets and brochures directed against Steiner in connection with his lecturing activity: "One group of opponents asserted that he was a monistic materialist; others that he was a onesided spiritualist; one that he was a Jesuit; others that he was an anti-Jesuit; one that he was anti-Christian, others that he was Christo-centric. One said he was a Jew, others that he was anti-Semitic; one that he was non-German, others that he was a Pan-Germanist; one that his teaching came from ancient India, others that he was anti-Indian and purely occidental; one that he preached a 'mystical egoism,' others that his striving was for the 'conscious complete abandonment of the personality'; one that he had 'stripped from the conception of reincarnation its moral seriousness,' others that: 'It is clear that the decisive motives in this idea of reincarnation are moral.' Some said that he had not 'himself exercised the perception of higher worlds'; others that 'Steiner is a seer', a 'clairvoyant, an intuitive knower, a person possessing supersensible vision.' "1
Wachsmuth also quotes from a passage in a "so-called astrological magazine," in which the writer spoke of "spiritual sparks hissing" against the Goetheanum, and that "Steiner will have need of some of his cleverness, will need to work in a pacifying way, if a real spark of fire is not one day to bring about an end to the magnificence of Dornach." In Dornach near Basel in Switzerland stood Steiner's architectural masterpiece Das Goetheanum, and this was the headquarter for all anthroposophical activity.
The propaganda against Steiner reached a climax in 1922, when he participated in an East-West congress in Vienna with plenty of media coverage. The British newspaper The Patriot wrote an editorial September 14 1922 with a warning against "The Subterranean War". The author called himself G.G. (or Dargon), "a writer who has made a study of secret societies." His alleged intention was "to give a general and historical view of that complex of subversive organisation which is working for the destruction of Christianity, of Civilisation, and of the British Empire. The writer, who is a true Briton and a good patriot, has one purpose only - to warn the British public of the unsuspected danger which, as he believes and we believe also, imminently threatens it."
In his article, "G.G." asserts that Steiner is a right wing Jew who is practicing communist propaganda in direct contact with the Soviet government in Moscow, commercial activities etc. together with The Irish Republican Army, that his goal is to undermine the discipline in allied armies, and that his list of members include many famous politicians, scientists, university professors, and scholars in France, Germany, America, and England etc. This article was also distributed on English panphlets with the title, The Secret Machinery of Revolution. Rudolf Steiner translated a passage into German in a lecture given in Dornach on June 16th 1923, less than six months after the burning of the Goethanum on New Year's eve 1922. After reading it out, he pointed out that he was planning a tour in England for two months later, and that the pamphlet demonstrated that the opposition was well organized.2
It became common knowledge that Steiner's opponents were responsible for the arson, and that these people were probably connected with certain occult lodges that had reacted against Steiner because he had allegedly made public some "occult secrets", i.e. strictly guarded information about the evolution of the planets and of man's inner nature.
An odd phenomenon related to this fire is the fact that it appears to have affected Steiner's health. He was 61 years old and exceptionally strong and healthy. After the fire, one noticed that all his movements appeared strained with effort. In September 1924 he became seriously ill and died six months later. It is common knowledge that when the arson took place, Steiner's health suffered a severe attack at the same time, and it is tempting to assume, if the suggestion that organized occultists are capable of strange things, that Steiner died from an advanced, fatal attack by his opponents.
The primal motive these opponents had (apart from all the hatred), was to stop Steiner's habit of making public occult secrets. But when we read his description of activities attributed to so-called secret lodges during and after the first world war, it becomes clear that if there was only a hint of truth in his pronouncements about the power and influence of these circles, he must have been aware that he took an enormous risk by speaking out as boldly as he did.
When Rudolf Steiner was forced to handle the problems that ensued from slander and attacks, he did so according to certan occult codes, i.e. some kind of hidden laws for so-called righthanded occultists. "Righthanded" in the occult sense of the word, means that one's supersensible capacities are acquired through selfless love and self-sacrifice, in contradistinction to the "lefthanded" occult techniques that strengthen the powers of egoism. For Steiner, non-resistance against transgressions and abuses was the principle he adhered to when he decided that no effort should be made to catch the arsonist.
The Anthroposophical Conspiracy Theory
Steiner alleged that the political development of the world was controlled by small, secret circles in England capable of manipulating the instincts, thoughts, and feelings of the politicians, and of the general public as well. After the first world war had broken out, he began to say a great deal about these mysterious power centers of the West. In his opinion, these occultists were responsible for the outbreak of the war by lulling the European politicians to sleep and at the same time creating confusion among the European peoples by whipping up their nationalistic, hostile instincts. For this reason, he frequently reminded his audiences that "present-day events" forced him to reveal information about these lodges and their activities. In 1915 and 1916 he showed a map, and he insisted that he was able to prove that this very map, which showed the frontiers of Europe almost exactly as they were drawn after the armistice in 1918, had existed in England in the 1890's.
The anthroposophical conspiracy theory is tremendously interesting for several reasons. One such reason is the fact that the British parliamentary system with the ballot box etc. has evolved into a blueprint for all political systems in the world. Another reason is that it provides a unique explanation why English is the leading world language. Furthermore, the theory is fascinating even almost a century later because it claims that our hidden masters possess advanced occult knowledge what the future evolution of humanity is concerned, and that their plans are tremendously long-sighted, reaching into a very distant future. For this reason, the theory is very applicable to the status quo of today.
Islam's original cultural setting and historical role in the West have been mentioned because of the geopolitical and socio-political status quo at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The content of Rudolf Steiner's message below will make clear the possible connection between Islamic terror and the activities of Anglo-American secret lodges.
The following quote, with my editorial notes, has been excerpted from a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner on December 1, 1918, entitled The Mechanistic, Eugenic and Hygienic Aspects of the Future.3 It is important to remember that the message was given orally, and that Steiner had a habit of repeating things from time to time when the subject matter was demanding or heavy to digest. The reader should also be aware that he spoke to a "prepared" audience, i.e. anthroposophists who had been listening to his lectures for years. For this reason, I have inserted some comments and explanations in appropriate places.
We begin our quote where Rudolf Steiner is speaking about the political map:
"You will recall that I drew a map here two years ago that is now becoming a reality, and I did not show this map only to you. I presented the map at that time to explain how the impelling forces are moving from a certain side, since it is a law that, if we know these impelling forces, if we take cognizance of them, if we grasp them in our consciousness, they may be corrected in a certain way and given a different direction. It is important that this should be comprehended.
"But no one in a responsible position has taken cognizance of these things, or taken them earnestly in the real sense of the word. Present events certainly show that they should have been taken earnestly.
"Now the fact that must be taken into consideration in connection with these things is that, in regard to certain fundamental laws of world evolution, nothing is actually known in a comprehensive way such that this knowledge is brought into external application anywhere except within certain secret societies of the English-speaking peoples. This is something that is important to observe. Secret societies among other peoples are fundamentally only a matter of empty phrases. Secret societies among the English-speaking peoples, on the contrary, are sources from which truths are acquired in certain ways by means of which things can be guided politically. I may speak of them some time, but it would take us too far afield today. Thus we may say that those forces flowing from these secret societies into the politics of the West move actually in accordance with history. They reckon with the laws of historic evolution. It is not necessary that in external matters everything shall be correct even to the dotting of the last 'i'. What matters is whether the person proceeds in accordance with historic evolution in an objective sense, or whether he proceeds as a dilettante following his arbitrary notions.
"The politics of Central Europe, for example, were predominantly amateur politics, utterly without relation to any historical law. The politics that were not amateurish, that followed the facts - or, if I may use a crass expression, professional politics - were those of the English-speaking peoples, the British Empire and its annex, America. This is the great difference, and this is the significant point that must be clearly seen. Its importance lies in the fact that what was known in those circles is actually flowing into the world of reality. It also flows into the instincts behind those persons who occupy positions as political representatives, even if they act only out of political instincts. Behind these are the forces to which I am now referring. You need not inquire, therefore, whether Northcliff or even Lloyd George is initiated to one degree or another into these forces. This is not what counts. The decisive question is whether or not there is a possibility that they may conduct themselves in accordance with these forces. They need to take up in their instincts alone what runs parallel with these forces. But there is such a possibility; this does happen, and these forces act in the general direction of world history. This is the essential point, and it is possible to act successfully within the interrelationships of world history only when one really takes up into one's knowledge what is going on in the manner of the world. Otherwise, the other person, who is acting knowingly in accordance with world history, or causing such action, always has the power, while the one who knows nothing of it is powerless. It is in this way that power may master powerlessness. This is an external occurence. But the victory of power over powerlessness in these things depends, in the last analysis, upon the difference between knowing and not knowing. It is this that must be clearly grasped."
This lecture was given at the end of 1918, i.e. shortly after the Communist revolution in Russia. Steiner alleged that the secret lodges of the West had turned Russia into a theater for their social experiments, and it looks as if the political development in the East was a very important factor as to why Steiner felt compelled to speak about these lodges and their activities:
"It is important also to see that the chaos now in its initial stages in Central Europe demonstrates how terrible everything was that pretended to bring political order into this chaos but has now been swept away. But what is now happening in Central and Eastern Europe demonstrates that nothing but dilettantism permeates public life in this region. In the West, among the English-speaking population of the world, there is dominant everywhere by no means dilettantism, but - if I may be permitted to use a crass expression - an expert consideration of these things.
"This is what will determine the form of the history of the coming decades. No matter what lofty ideals may be set up in Central and Eastern Europe, no matter how much good will may be manifested in one or another set of programs, nothing will be accomplished in this way if people are not able to take their departure from the motive forces that are derived in the same or even in a better way from the other side of the threshold of consciousness, just as the motive forces of the West, of the English-speaking peoples, are taken in the last analysis from the other side of the threshold of consciousness."
By "the threshold of consciousness", Steiner meant that somebody who is initiated in the occult sense, possesses powers of cognition, or states of consciousness, reaching beyond sleep and death, i.e. to "the other side of the threshold". An initiate like this retains his waking day-consciousness when he leaves his body during "sleep". It is obvious that this kind of initiation can be severely abused. If it is true that multiple initiated persons conspire to abuse power with global political consequences, there may be cause for alarm. In Steiner's opinion, however, the identity of the conspirators was less important than how the effects of their activities were handled:
"Those friends who have heard these things discussed that I have presented to you for years precisely as I am doing today, have always made a mistake in this connection and it is generally difficult to persuade even our best friends to abandon it. This is the mistake of thinking, 'But what good does it do to say to people that one thing or another has its origin in certain secret centers of the West? Surely it is necessary to convince them first that there are such secret societies.' It has often been thought that the most important thing would be to awaken the conviction that such secret societies exist, but this is not what should receive primary consideration. You will meet with little response if you undertake to convince statesmen of the calibre of a Kuhlman, let us say, that there are secret societies in possession of such impelling forces, but that is by no means the important point. Indeed, it is a blunder when this is considered fundamental.
"Within those societies dealing with such occult truths as have a bearing upon reality, the principle was observed, for example, that after the Empire of the Russian Czar had been overthrown for the benefit of the Russian people, a political course would have to be pursued that would provide an opportunity to undertake social experiments in Russia. People will not undertake them in Western countries because in those regions they are not considered advantageous or desirable.
"What has been developed in Russia is, fundamentally, only a realization of what has been purposed in the West. The fact that up to the present time only unskillful socialistic experiments are carried out by non-Englishmen, that things come to realization by all sorts of roundabout paths, is so well-known by these societies that they suffer no serious headaches because of them. They know that the important thing is to bring these countries to the point where socialistic experiments become unavoidable. If these are then conducted in connection with ignorance of the nature of a social order, one then actually forms the social order related to these lands and makes oneself the director of the socialistic experiment."
Rudolf Steiner died in 1925, i.e. before the Nazis came to power in Germany. It is however tempting to speculate whether German national socialism was some kind of social experiment as well, staged by the secret lodges of the West. It is clear from several of Steiner's statements that he viewed Germany as especially challenged and threatened by the powers that be. When he says below that "The real being of the German people cannot perish," this illustrates that Germany was completely on the defensive and in the claws of hidden manipulators:
"You see, the holding back of a certain kind of occult knowledge that is carefully practiced in these centers gives rise to enormous power. The opposite side cannot save itself in any way from this power except by acquiring this knowledge and confronting this power with it.
"In this field there can be no discussion of guilt or innocence. Here we must speak simply of the inevitable, of things that must come to pass because they already exist under the surface, because they are at work in the realm of forces that are not yet phenomena. They are already forces, and will become phenomena.
"Surely I need scarcely emphasize that I hold fast to what I have always asserted. The real being of the German people cannot perish. This real being of the German people must search for its path but it is important that it shall be able to find its path, that it shall not follow false roads in its search, and shall not search in ways where there is no knowledge. Do not interpret, therefore, what I shall now say in such a sense as to make it in the least contradictory of what I have asserted over a period of years. Things always have two sides and what I have indicated to you is, in large measure, a matter of the will. It is possible for this to be paralyzed if forces are brought into play also from the opposite side but these forces rest upon knowledge, not upon an amateurish lack of it.
"You see the essence of the thing is that if no resistance is raised from the East, and by the East I mean the whole region lying from the Rhine eastward even into Asia, British world domination will develop after the destruction of the Roman-Latin French element in the way intended by those forces that I have indicated once more today, as I have frequently done already, as lying behind their instincts.
"The really important fact is that in groups in the West who keep their knowledge secret the greatest pains are taken to see that things shall develop in such a way as to insure under all circumstances the mastery of the West over the East. Whatever people may say today on the basis of their consciousness, the goal striven for is to establish a caste of masters in the West and a caste of economic slaves in the East, beginning with the Rhine and extending eastward all the way into Asia. This does not mean a caste of slaves in the ancient Greek sense, but a caste of economic slaves organized in a socialistic way to take up all sorts of impossibilities in the social structure that then shall not be applied among the English-speaking peoples. The essence of the matter is to make the English-speaking peoples into a population of masters in the world."
According to Rudolf Steiner, these secret plans are so long range and sophisticated that they appear to be incalculable at first glance, rendering the motives puzzling. We are not only talking about some of these efforts by obscure groups requiring many generations to produce the desired results. The initiates of the secret lodges also work on the basis of the theosophical-anthroposophical theory of evolution. Steiner's theory of the threefold social order was based upon a threefolding in man's inner being that had unfolded in modern times as a result of comprehensive development through thousands of years. A more advanced aspect of this conspiracy theory is the idea that higher intelligences or cosmic beings stand behind such projects with the initiates as their servants, who empower themselves through their relationships to these higher intelligences - relationships that assume a religious character, given the circumstance that their secret sciences also function as a kind of religion. This is useful to keep in mind when we continue with Steiner's lecture:
"Now this is rightly thought out from that side in the most comprehensive sense. I now reach the proper place for the explanation of something that I beg you really to receive in full awareness of the fact that if such assertions are made today, they are made under the pressure and urgency of contemporary events and must really not be received except in an earnest sense. What I am here asserting is most carefully kept secret by the centers in the West to which I have often referred. It is considered obvious in the West that the people of the East shall not be permitted to know anything of these matters that these Western persons possess in the form of knowledge, as I have already said, through methods I may later discuss. They possess these things as knowledge in such a way that, since the others are not to know of them, world mastery shall be established through their help. This is the only possible method for attaining their ends.
"Beginning with this fifth post-Atlantean epoch [i.e.. the cultural epoch beginning in the fifteenth century A.D. and ending some time in the fourth millennium A.D.], definite forces will become prominent in the evolution of humanity. Human evolution is, of course, moving forward. Within the limits of the brief span of time that comes under the survey of anthropology or history in the field of external materialistic science, it is never possible to form a judgement regarding the forces manifest in the evolution of humanity. Little in the external process of development has undergone any change within this limited span of time. On the basis of this knowledge no one knows, for example, how utterly different things looked, even in the second [post-Atlantic] epoch [the ancient Persian epoch before the third millennium B.C.], not to mention the first [post-Atlantic epoch, i.e. the ancient Indian epoch that may reach as far back as almost ten thousand years B.C.] or others [Atlantean and Lemurian epochs] still farther back. This can be known only through spiritual science. Only through spiritual science, likewise, is it possible to indicate the forces that will develop in future in a wholly elemental manner out of the nature of man. The fact that such forces, which will transform life on earth, will develop out of the human being is known in those secret centers. It is this that is concealed from the East by people in the West who intend to retain it themselves. It is known, moreover, that these capacities, possessed by man today only in their very first beginning, will be threefold in their nature. They will evolve out of the nature of man in the same way in which other capacities have come into existence in the course of humanity's evolution.
"This threefold capacity, of which every knowing person within these secret circles speaks - these three capacities that will evolve in human nature, I must make intelligible to you in the following way. First, there are the capacities having to do with so-called material occultism. By means of this capacity - and this is precisely the ideal of the British secret societies - certain social forms at present basic within the industrial system shall be set up on an entirely different foundation. Every knowing member of these secret circles is aware that, solely by means of certain capacities that are still latent but evolving in man, and with the help of the law of harmonious oscillations, machines and mechanical constructions and other things can be set in motion.
"These things are at present in process of development. They are guarded as secrets within those secret circles in the field of material occultism. Motors can be set in motion, into activity, by an insignificant human influence through a knowledge of the corresponding curve of oscillation. By means of this principle it will be possible to substitute merely mechanical forces for human forces in many things. The possibility will thus come about of rendering unnecessary nine-tenths of the work of individuals within the regions of the English-speaking peoples. Mechanistic occultism will not only render it possible to do without nine-tenths of the labor still performed at present by human hands, but will give the possibility also of paralyzing every uprising attempted by the then dissatisfied masses of humanity.
"The capacity to set motors in motion according to the laws of reciprocal oscillations will develop on a great scale among the English-speaking peoples. This is known in their secret circles, and is counted upon as the means whereby the mastery over the rest of the population of the earth shall be achieved even in the course of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch."
As previously mentioned, the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch began in the fifteenth century A.D. and will last until some time in the fourth millennium A.D. In other words, we're talking about a kind of occult conspiracy whose aims and purposes reach 1500 to 2000 years into the future. Steiner continues:
"Something else is known also in those circles. It is known that there are two other capacities that will likewise develop. One, which I shall venture to call the eugenic capacity, will evolve primarily among the people of the East, of Russia and the Asiatic hinterland. It is also known in those secret circles of the West that this eugenic occultism will not evolve out of the inborn potentialities of the English-speaking peoples, but only of the inborn potentialities belonging precisely to the Asiatic and the Russian populations. These facts are known in the secret circles of the West. They are taken into account and are looked upon as constituting certain motive forces that must become active in future evolution.
"By the eugenic capacity I mean the removal of the reproduction of human beings from the sphere of mere arbitrary impulse and accident. Among the peoples of the East there will gradually develop a brilliantly clear knowledge as to how the laws of population, the laws of peopling the earth, must run parallel with certain cosmic phenomena. From this information they will know that, if conception is brought about in accord with certain constellations of the stars, opportunities will thus be given for souls that are either good or evil in their natures to obtain access for earthly incarnation. This capacity will be acquired only by those individuals who constitute the continuation as races, the continuation in the blood stream, of the Asiatic population. They will be able simply to see in detail how what works today chaotically and arbitrarily in conception and birth can be brought into harmony with the great laws of the cosmos in individual concrete cases. Here abstract laws are of no avail. What will be acquired is a concrete single capacity in which it will be known in individual cases whether or not a conception should occur at a particular time.
"This knowledge, which will make it possible to bring down from the heavens the impelling forces for the moralizing or the demoralization of the earth through the nature of man himself, this special capacity evolves as a continuation of the blood capacity in the races of the East. What evolves as a capacity there I call eugenic occultism. This is the second capacity - the capacity that will prevent the evolution of humanity as regards conception and birth from taking its course according to arbitrary impulses, and more or less accidentally. I beg you to consider the enormous social consequences, the enormous social motive forces that enter here! These capacities are latent. It is well known in those secret circles of the English-speaking peoples that these capacities will evolve among the peoples of the East. They know that they themselves will not possess these capacities within their own potentialities bestowed upon them through birth. They know that the earth could not reach its goal, could not pass over from earth to Jupiter - [Jupiter is the designation for the next manvantara, i.e. incarnation, of our planet, after the pralaya or 'period of sleep' preceding it in accordance with the rhythmic planetary evolution, or cosmic breathing, that is depicted in the Vedic scriptures of ancient India] - indeed, they know that the earth would within a relatively short time diverge from the path leading to its goal if only the forces belonging to the West should be employed. It would gradually come about that only a soulless population could evolve in the West, a population that would be as soulless as possible. This is known. For this reason these people endeavor to develop within their own circles, through their capacities, mechanistic occultism. The endeavor is also made to establish a mastery over those peoples who will develop eugenic occultism. The English-speaking occultists know that they cannot depend upon the bodies that come out of the fundamental character of their own people, and so they strive to possess the mastery of a people who will provide bodies with the help of which the evolution of the earth may be carried forward into the future.
"I must speak to you also regarding a third capacity, which is latent today but which will evolve. This is what I venture to call the hygienic occult capacity. Now we have all three: the materialistic occult capacity, the eugenic occult capacity, and the hygienic occult capacity. This hygienic occult capacity is well on its way and will not be long, relatively speaking, in arriving. This capacity will come to maturity simply through the insight that human life, in its course from birth to death, progresses in a manner identical with the process of an illness. Processes of illnesses are, in other words, only special and radical transmutations of the quite ordinary, normal life process taking its course between birth and death, except that we bear within ourselves not only the corces that create illness but also those that heal. These healing forces, as every occultist knows, are precisely the same as those that are applied when a person acquires occult capacities, in which case these forces are transmuted into the forces of knowledge. The healing power innate in the human organism, when transmuted into knowledge, gives occult forms of knowledge.
"Now, every knowing person in the Western circles is aware that materialistic medicine will have no basis in the future. As soon as the hygienic occult capacities evolve, a person will need no external material medicine, but the possibility will exist of treating prophylactically in a psychic way to prevent those illnesses that do not arise through karmic causes because karmic illnesses cannot be influenced. Everything in this respect will change. This seems at present like a mere fantasy, but it is actually something that will soon come about. Now, the situation is such that these three faculties will not come into existence equally among all the peoples of the earth. Indeed, you have already seen the differentiation. This differentiation has to do, naturally, only with the bodies and not with the souls, which always pass, of course, from race to race, from people to people. But with the bodies this differentiation has much to do. From the bodies of the English-speaking peoples the possibility of developing eugenic occult capacities in the future through birth can never arise. It is precisely in the West that these will be applied, but the manner in which they will be applied will be that a mastery will be established over the Eastern lands, and marriages will be brought between people of the West and people of the East. Thus use will be made of what can be learned only from the people of the East.
"The potentiality of hygienic occult capacities is present in special measure among the people of the Central countries. English-speaking people cannot acquire the hygienic occult capacities through their inborn potentialities, but they can acquire these capacities in their development in the course of time between birth and death. These can become acquired characteristics during that time. In the case of the population occupying the area approximately eastward from the Rhine and all the way into Asia, these capacities will be present on the basis of birth. The population of the Central countries cannot acquire the eugenic occult potentialities through birth, but may acquire them in the course of their lives if they become apprentices of the people of the East. It is in this way that these capacities will be distributed. The people of the East will have not the least capacity for material occultism; they will be able to receive this only when it is given to them, when it is not kept secret from them. It will always be possible to keep it secret, especially when the others are so stupid as not to believe in things that are asserted by a person who is in a position to see into them. In other words the people of the East and those of the Central countries will have to receive material occultism from the West. They will receive its benefits, its products. Hygienic occultism will develop primarily in the Central countries, and eugenic occultism in the Eastern lands. It will be necessary, however, for intercommunication to exist between people. This is something that must be taken up into the impelling forces of the social order of the future."
And then Steiner describes what should be striven for in our globalized community, and the dire consequences of failure:
"It makes it imperative for people to see that they will be able to live in the future throughout the world only as total human beings. If an American should wish to live only as an American, although he would be able to achieve the loftiest material results, he would condemn himself to the fate of never progressing beyond earthly evolution. If he should not seek social relationships with the East, he would condemn himself to being bound within the earthly sphere after a certain incarnation, haunting the sphere of the earth like a ghost. This earth would be drawn away from its cosmic connections, and all these souls would have to be like ghosts. Correspondingly, if the people of the East should not take up the materialism of the West with their eugenic occult capacities that pull down the earth, the Eastern man would lose the earth. He would be drawn into some sort of mere psychic-spiritual evolution, and he would lose the earthly evolution. The earth would sink away under him as it were, and he would not be able to possess the fruit of the earthly evolution.
"Mutual confidence among men in a profound inner sense is what must come about. This is manifest through their remarkable future evolution."
A little later on in the lecture, Steiner brings up a topic that is especially fascinating: Hatred against the West among people in the East. In the closing decades of the twentieth century and at the dawn of the twenty-first century, we have become acutely aware of this hatred through the actions of Al Qaida, especially the World Trade Center attack in New York City on September 11, 2001. It is therefore incumbent upon us to pay close attention to what Steiner said about hatred against the West in the East 80 years ago:
"Just consider that I have told you that three kinds of occult capacities will evolve and will intertwine over the entire earth, differentiated according to different peoples, in harmony with those of the West, of the Central countries, and of the East. I have said, indeed, that they will so intertwine that the people of the West will possess the potentialities of material occultism from birth, but will be able to acquire hygienic occultism; that those of the Middle countries will possess through birth primarily the potentiality for hygienic occultism, but will be able to acquire for themselves - if it is given to them - a material occultism from the West and a eugenic from the East; that those of the East will possess from birth the potentiality for eugenic occultism, but will be able to acquire for themselves from the Middle countries hygienic occultism.
"These capacities appear differentiated, distributed among the humanity of the world, but at the same time in such a way that they intertwine. Through this intertwining will the future social bond of community life be determined throughout the world. But there are hindrances against the development of these capacities. These hindrances are manifold in character, and their action is really complicated.
"For example, in the case of the people of the Central countries and the Eastern lands it is an important hindrance to the evolution of these capacities, especially their evolution in a knowing way, when strong antipathies against the people of the Western countries are active within them. Then these things cannot be viewed objectively. This is a hindrance in the evolution of these capacities.
"But the potentiality of developing another occult capacity is also even strenghtened in a certain way if it is developed out of a certain instinct of hatred. This is a strange phenomenon. We often ask ourselves, and we are dealing here with something that must be considered quite objectively, why such senseless abuse has been practiced in the Western countries. This also comes out of the instinct leading toward these capacities. For what constitutes the profoundest impelling forces in Western occultism is fostered by nothing more powerfully than by the development of feelings that are untrue but are sensed as in some way holy, and that can represent the people of the East and especially those of the Central countries as barbarians. The potentialities of material occultism, for example, are fostered by the attitude of mind constituting the so-called crusading temperament in America. This consists in the feeling that America is called to spread over the whole earth freedom and justice and I know not what other beautiful things. Of course, the people there believe that. What I am saying here has nothing to do with fault finding. The people believe that they are engaged in a crusade, but this belief in something false constitutes a support working in a certain direction. If a person should consciously make an untrue statement, he would not have this support. For this reason, what is now happening is tremendously helpful on the one side and a hindrance on the other in the development of those capacities that we must assert to be still latent at the present time in the case of most individuals who bear within themselves the will toward evolution in the future and are destined to influence profoundly the social structure of humanity.
"Just think how everything that is happening at the present time is rendered luminous and transparent with understanding and insight when you fix your attention upon those backgrounds, and realize clearly that the subconscious instincts dealt with in our reflections lie back of everything that is constantly uttered today in a conscious way.
"The most important fact in this connection, however, is that it is precisely the English-speaking peoples who, by reason of quite special evolutionary processes, possess occult centers where these things are known.
"It is also known what capacities they will possess in future as members of the English-speaking population, and what capacities they will lack. They know how they must arrange the social structure in order that they may be able to subject to their purposes what is deficient in them.
"It is the instincts that work in the direction of such things, and these instincts have already exerted their influence. They have exerted an enormous influence, a highly significant influence.
"One especially useful means that can be set in motion by Western occultism when things are to be directed into the wrong channels consists in so influencing the East that it shall continue to hold fast in the future to its ancient inclination toward the development of religion alone without science. The leaders of Western secret circles will take pains to see that nothing shall exist in their own regions constituting mere religion or mere science, but that there shall be a synthesis of both, the reciprocal influence of knowledge and faith. They will also take pains to see that this science shall worl only in secret, that it shall permeate, for example, only the more important affairs of humanity and the political guidance of the world through the achievement of world dominion by the British. Contrariwise, if the East refrains as completely as possible from permeating religious conceptions with science, this will be enormously helpful in the spread of this world dominion.
"Now just consider how everything Russian favors precisely this Western effort. The aspiration to be pious still continues in Russia, but not an aspiration to permeate the content of this piety with a science of the spirit. The aspiration remains in a certain way within an unclear mysticism, which would constitute an excellent means for supporting the dominion over the East that is willed by the West.
"From another point of view, what is undertaken is to render science, which belongs to the earth, as theistic as possible. Just here the future of the English-speaking peoples has been most fruitful in recent times. They have achieved something tremendous by spreading throughout the world, in a fundamental sense, their scientific trend, that is, science void of religion, atheistic science. This has become the ruling power over the whole earth. Goetheanism, which is the opposite of this, quite consciously its opposite, could not develop, could not develop even in the country of Goethe himself. It is an almost unknown affair in Goethe's own land! The dominating intellect in science today is kept completely harmonious with what is intended to become publicly manifest as the external expression of that science practiced by those circles in secret. They are, however, practiced there as a synthesis between science and religion. Thus there is atheistic science for the external world, but for the inner circles that are to guide the course of world events there is a science that also constitutes religion, and a religion constituting science.
"The East can be kept in hand best of all if a religion without science can be manifested there. The Central countries can be kept in hand best if there can be grafted upon them a science void of religion, since religion cannot be grafted upon them. These things are aided in full consciousness by those who constitute the knowing ones within the circles we have mentioned, and instinctively by the others. Since the ruling powers of the Central countries, surviving from ancient times, have been swept away, there is nothing at present in the Central countries that can be put in their place. This makes it extraordinarily difficult, too, to form a correct judgement of the whole state of things at present in its world-historical setting. The whole world has been occupied with the question of guilt and of causes in connection with this war catastrophe."
Here we interrupt our edited excerpt from Rudolf Steiner's lecture, because from this point on, he goes into a comprehensive analysis of the outbreak of the first world war and its causes. In other lectures, he spoke about considerably deeper and more fateful and dramatic ends and means pursued by the secret lodges of the West.
Tarjei Straume
The complete original text from which the above excerpts have been taken (12 lectures from November 29 and December 1, 1918): GA (=Gesamtausgabe) #186: Die Soziale Grundforderung unserer Zeit In reänderter Zeitage: December 1, 1918: Die Entwickelung mechanischer, eugenetischer und hygienischer okkulter Fähigkeiten in der Zukunft.
Three consecutive lectures by dr. Steiner about the sinister activities of secret Western lodges are available online through this link.
1. Guenther Wachsmuth, The Life and Writings of Rudolf Steiner, (New York. Whittier Press, 1955.) This book recounts Steiner's life year by year from 1900 onwards. See also Chapter 11 in Rudolf Steiner: Herald of a New Epoch by Stewart C. Easton, where Wachsmuth's quote is borrowed from in this text.
2. See also my 1998 article About allegations against Steiner and Waldorf education.
3.Rudolf Steiner: The Challenge of the Times, GA 186
Vestens Hemmelige Okkulte Losjer
This article in Spanish
