Jewish power and the Illuminati (Page 8 of 10)

The Spiritual Configuration
of Europe
By Gennady Bondarev

Translation from the German
by Graham Rickett

The National as a Factor of Development

The time has now come for us to shed light on the purely esoteric background that permits us to speak of a spiritual mission of Middle Europe. But as this concerns the archetypal, 'Ur'-phenomenological foundation of the cultural-historical process, the many-faceted social-political phenomenology of life today will receive, for the purposes of its comprehension, a certain methodological form (Gestalt), which will take the place of an ideological, speculative, subjective and consequently false approach.

A materialistically-minded politologist will undoubtedly pay no attention whatsoever to what is presented here, or will dismiss it as a form of occult-political error. But it has already been sufficiently demonstrated here that a politologist of that kind is not taken seriously by any of the deeply occult, mutually-opposing powers. The most patent confirmation of this fact is the making public of their own occult, even deeply occult, positions by the Soviet 'Eurasians' - those who yesterday were, without exception, Marxists, atheists and materialists. Thus it is left to the reader to decide whether he chooses to remain on the level of superficial political gossip, or to penetrate the esoteric depths of life. It must be borne in mind that even in the latter case we will encounter a broad palette of ideological doctrines - of the 'occult kingdom', the occult Eurasian-Atlantic conflict, etc. - whose most important ideological credo is based on the principle of 'he heard a ringing but does not know where the bells hang', because, as a rule, it is the work of Philistines.

Owing to the all-encompassing character of anthroposophically-oriented spiritual science, which has proved beyond question to be the universal methodology of knowledge - of the senses as well as of the supersensible - and thanks to the fact that Anthroposophy in the truest sense of the word is a doctrine of the nature of knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) - ignorance of this fact is not sufficient reason for its denial - we have the possibility of penetrating to the archetypal phenomenological depths of the social-political sphere, thereby avoiding occult indoctrination, which in its essence is more dangerous than any superficial political gossip.

A single, short chapter does not of course allow us to present all the spiritual-scientific foundations that provide the basis for the forming of political judgments. But no science can expect to demonstrate its entire content at every point. When working on new problems it refers back to what already exists as content. We will proceed in the same way, in the hope that the interested reader will call to mind again what has been said in this book, and will himself turn at least to such fundamental works by Rudolf Steiner as - Occult Science, Goethe's World-View, or some of the lecture-cycles on the social question.

Rudolf Steiner bequeathed to us a great deal of material to enable us to understand the course of the spiritual development of humanity. The most important factor in this development is the destruction of the forms of consciousness pertaining to the group, and the emergence of the self-cognizing autonomous personality. The evolution of earth and man passes through a number of different stages, which are under the influence of a variety of spiritual cosmic forces. These spiritual forces are the Divine Beings, the Hierarchies, who bring about a periodical densification of spiritual substances down to the state of matter, followed by its spiritualization. Life thereby continuously renews its forms, so as to become in the course of evolution an ever more suitable vessel, or bearer, of the individual spirit, i.e. thinking, object-consciousness. As the life-conditions change, so also do the form-conditions of being change on the path of metamorphosis. Within the framework of the spatio-temporal evolutionary cycle closest to us, spiritual-scientific teaching speaks of a sevenfold chain of metamorphoses whose elements are called 'Root Races'. The word 'race' appears here in its older, original meaning, rather than that which it is given today. The concept of 'root-race' (which has long been used in occultism) indicates a certain stage in the development of earth and man, where, together with the spiritual, an essential part of the biological evolution of man takes place. The root-race also represents one of the forms of differentiation of the universal human group-consciousness.

According to the world-embracing plan of Divine creation the human being was, we might say, conceived as a unified form that was to extend over the entire earth. A hierarchy of spiritual beings of immense power - the spirits of movement (Dynamis) - who did not wish to be involved in the temporal development of the world (and thus remained in a certain sense faithful to eternity; but it is not possible to go into this in more detail here) - held aloof from this development and assumed a luciferic character. They spurned a creation of man that presupposed his descent into matter. But since these spirits acted from various planets of the solar system, the unitary human form became differentiated, with the result that the various races spoken of by modern science formed out of the unified humanity (cf. May 13, 1912, GA 136).

Thus we must seek the primary cause for the division of humanity into races not only in the processes of earthly development, but also in the cosmic forces. The luciferized Spirits of movement worked upon the ether-bodies of human beings, and as there are seven kinds of ether-forces seven races developed also (cf. Jan. 9, 1916, GA 165). They emerged in the course of an evolution which encompassed a time-span of four root-races. In this time the universal nebula differentiated out into a variety of planetary forces and planets, heavenly bodies, while man passed through a series of conditions of materialization - from the condition of warmth down to the mineral -, which is described in the Bible as the expulsion from Paradise.* {*Spiritual-scientific research of this kind provides the critics of Rudolf Steiner within the Anthroposophical Society with reasons to accuse him of racism. Their reasoning in truth is hardly more than an etymological speculation of the following kind: a scientist who works with the doctrine of races, is a racist. It then follows that people who study communism may be called communists; people who study capitalism are capitalists etc. The tragedy, however, lies in the fact that this is not a bad joke, but in the case of some particularly 'advanced' anthroposophists, is equivalent to a reality.}

A particularly intensive formation of races took place in the period of the Lemurian and Atlantean root-race. At that time the Malayan race formed through the working of the backward Spirits of movement living on Venus; the Indian (red) race arose in America, where the working of the spirits of Saturn was dominant; the forces of Mercury brought into being the black race in Africa etc.

Following the retarded Spirits of Movement, the retarded Spirits of Form also became active in the creation of races. They influenced the human physical bodies. Those among them who live on Mercury had a special influence on the glandular system, resulting in the formation of the black race. In the Mongolian race the Spirits of Form of Mars worked in a specific manner upon the blood. The spirits of Jupiter influenced the nervous system of the European and Arian peoples by way of the impressions of sense and feeling (cf. June 12, 1910, GA 121).

In the hierarchy of the spiritual beings through whom the divine creation is realized, on the levels below the Spirits of Form there stand the Spirits of Personality (Archai) and then - the Archangels (Archangeloi). Retarded, luciferized beings exist among them also. Through their working the differentiation of races into individual nations came about. The individual human being experiences the influence of these supersensible leaders of nations by way of the blood - blood-relationships and heredity. This is why the pathos, the passion, the emotion with which the human being feels his belonging to a nationality will appear with a certain elementary force. A man will not try to apply logical reasons or judgments, when it comes to establishing or experiencing his belonging to his nationality. The blood, and the heart, which is under the influence of the blood, unites man with his nationality (in the Mongolian race the working on the blood takes place in a different way, in the direction of his physical nature), brings him to live within his nationality. The impulses we are concerned with here are subconscious ... (Jan. 7, 1917, GA 174).

Until a certain stage, or a certain moment, the working of the spiritual beings mentioned above was, despite their luciferic character, lawful and necessary. On the path of evolution to individual 'I'-consciousness, the passage through the levels of the universal human, the racial, the national, the transition from the group-consciousness of the race to the group-consciousness of the tribe, the folk and the nation was a mighty advance for humanity. But from the moment that man learned to master 'I'-consciousness the previous conditions change fundamentally. The connection to the Folk-spirit through the blood now gives way, as mentioned above, to a connection founded on personal karma. Nationality becomes a part of the personal karma of the human being. Thus a man now inwardly experiences two streams: the one bears him from incarnation to incarnation, so that he is here concerned with his destiny and his individual task of development; the second stream determines his obligations toward the nation in which he incarnates. Of these he learns by way of his individual spirit-guide - the Guardian Angel - from the Soul or Spirit of the Nation (cf. June 9, 1910, GA 121).

Thus a human being who has acquired mastery of individual consciousness enters into a purely spiritual relationship with the spirit-guide of his nation (and also with another hierarchic being - the Genius of language). He understands that he is rooted in this nation only through one incarnation, but he bears in his own individual being something quite different, he bears infinitely more and also infinitely less than what is in the folk-soul. To identify with the folk-soul has no meaning whatever where reality is concerned, if it goes beyond what is contained in the words: love for the Fatherland, love for one's homeland, patriotism etc. (Dec. 17, 1916, GA 173). Within the context of this legitimate experience of his national connections he devotes himself to cultural, spiritual activity in order to serve man on his path towards 'I'-consciousness.

From a certain point onwards the nations are led by the Archangels of rightful development, whilst the luciferic Archangels or even the retarded spirits of personality appear in the role of their shadow-like doubles (there exist also ahrimanic doubles of the rightful spirit-guides of nations). So long as a man remains true to the rightful Archangel, the spirit-leader of the nation, he will not conflict with other nations but will strive to serve the interests of the whole world. Thus Rudolf Steiner told the Russian anthroposophists that you have this task, to show yourselves worthy with regard to the Russian Folk-soul ... You should come to know the yearning of the Russian Folk-soul for impersonal Anthroposophy ... Do not ... hesitate ... to seek the way ... to your own Folk-soul. Regarding the sense of responsibility towards mankind, he said: The Folk-soul has already taken on this responsibility towards mankind on your behalf. You only need to find it, this Folk-soul. You need merely let it speak through your thoughts, feelings and impulses of will, and if you feel the responsibility towards your Folk-soul, you will at the same time fulfil your obligation towards humanity (Apr. 11, 1912, GA 158).

It should not be difficult to imagine how fateful and irreparable a mistake a Russian makes, who abstractly declares himself to be an Internationalist. We live in the epoch of the consciousness-soul. Next to the descending movement toward the individual, objectively thinking spirit, an ever stronger upward movement is taking place. Whoever is unable to distinguish between them will not be able to tell the difference between a justified feeling of nationality, and nationalism or even racism. Only spiritual science can give us the help we need. The doctrine elaborated within it concerning the races and nations promotes the understanding of a development that frees the human being from the tribal principle arising from blood relationships, and has nothing to do with incitement to nationalism, as the authors of the Flensburger Hefte, who call themselves anthroposophists, wish to believe. It is the task of the friends of Anthroposophy to foster an understanding of the world and man as a creation of the Divine, which has arisen from the good and is led towards the good, up to the moment when he becomes himself an autonomous source of good and no longer needs any kind of leadership from the outside.

The Individual as a Factor of Development

Within the sevenfold chain of metamorphoses - which has been described from many aspects in other works of the present author - the entire earth was, during the first two Root Races (called in Occultism the 'Polarian' and 'Hyperborean'), in a half-spiritual condition. Substance first densified to the state of warmth, then to that of air. Then man remained in a stage between animal and actual human being. It would be absurd to speak of the existence of any occult centres of earthly human development during this time.

Earthly substance condensed in the third, Lemurian epoch to the watery state. The earth was covered with a world ocean that was the home to human beings who bore no trace of an individual consciousness or of individual purpose. This whole development was guided from the outside by the Divine Hierarchies and their helpers - the elemental spirits of nature, as well as humanoid beings who were so far ahead of general development that Divine leaders could incorporate (but not incarnate) in them. The entire spiritual aura of the earth had at that time an unusually strong influence on all life-forms. The physical forces leading to mineralization of substance worked predominantly from North to South. For this reason the continents lie mainly on the Northern hemisphere. The etheric or life-forces worked predominantly from the South. The astral aura of the earth worked most strongly from East to West and West to East; the cosmos of astral forces worked into the earthly aura, accelerated the individualization of the human monads and led to the development of an individual consciousness.

The Lemurian root-race concentrated where today we find the wide expanse of the Indian Ocean. There were no continents, but the state of the surface of the watery sphere was not homogeneous. The human being had a cartilaginous spine and did not yet master the upright posture.

The next, the Atlantean, root-race developed where we find the Atlantic Ocean today. Continents began to rise out of the ocean for the first time. Man emerged from the watery element and settled on the land. In the process, and this is of particular importance, his spine assumed a vertical posture relative to the earth's surface, man became an upright being. Man's uprightness, according to Rudolf Steiner, is due to the migration from East to West, from the realm of the Indian Ocean to the region of the Atlantic Ocean. He had to move counter to the astral forces of the earth, so that their effect could multiply and could alter the as yet plastic, easily moulded reciprocal interaction of the sheaths of man, his physical, etheric and astral bodies.

But man owes not only his uprightness to the migration from East to West. In the process of settling the Atlantean continent (which took place over a sufficiently long time), the speech-organs of man developed - the larynx -, and in the course of the seven Atlantean sub-races (cultural epochs) he acquired the gift of speech, of language.

The Atlantean Root-race was followed by our own, the post-Atlantean (fifth) Root-race, which has no particular name. The Atlantean continent was destroyed by natural catastrophes, and most of its population migrated to the East. The new migration was not only unavoidable, but also necessary. For the astral aura of the earth could thereby work on the human astral body, so that the sense of thinking, the sense of mental picturing could develop (cf. Oct. 27, 1909, GA 115).

In the course of the post-Atlantean Root-race development turned westwards again and extended itself over the entire gigantic Eurasian continent as well as the North of Africa. The movement of the cultural epochs from East to West brought about a refined soul-spiritual working of the earthly aura on the human being. His bodily nature was already not very receptive to this kind of influence of the earth-aura, but meanwhile the cultural work within civilization had been added to the refined working of the cosmic forces.* {*The development within the Root-races also has the character of a sevenfold metamorphosis. In traditional occultism the parts are known as sub-races; Rudolf Steiner calls them Cultural Epochs, which is especially pertinent with respect to our own and the previous Root-race. [ ¶] All such phenomena of development can only be treated here in a very compressed form, whereby the overall pattern and the essential aspects are described with regard to the development of 'I'-consciousness as it shows today in the most advanced part of humanity, the Europeans. Some might object that part of the migrants from Atlantis (the Indians) moved to the West but also have mental picturing today, and that following the Lemurian epoch not all of humanity on earth settled in the West and yet all acquired uprightness. To this one can reply that it is precisely objections of this kind that should move us to come to clarity on the criteria that determine development. Indeed, with the passage of time everything that is acquired by the most advanced part of humanity becomes the property of all, but in a qualitatively different way - without individual effort, solely through the spirits guiding humanity. But the time will come when a development that is not based on 'I'-consciousness will be entirely impossible. But it is hardly possible to explain to a materialist that the intellectuality of a Japanese, for example, is qualitatively different from that of an English person or a German, although something of this could already be inferred from an analysis of the personal pronouns.} As a result man developed the threefold soul - the Sentient, Rational and Consciousness-soul. Humanity, says Rudolf Steiner, was not only to come to mental picturing, but also to concepts ... Humanity ... takes the direction eastwards in order to acquire pictorial thinking, while pure concepts could only be won by means of a movement back to the West (Ibid.).

A brief summary may be permitted. In Ancient Lemuria the development of humanity passed through seven sub-races; followed by the migration of the most advanced part of humanity to the West, whereupon man acquired uprightness and the ability to speak. The development of humanity also passed through seven sub-races or cultural epochs on Old Atlantis, after which a further migration occurred - eastwards. It took place in three streams - across North Africa, and through Southern and Middle Europe. The separation of the streams was due to differences in the occult-religious education that the groups of human beings had received on Atlantis through the various oracles oriented to the different planetary spirit-leaders - the spirits of Jupiter, Mars etc. The great Initiates received from the corresponding Atlantean oracles the impulses of leadership, which the Gods were at that time gradually beginning to place in the hands of human beings.

The stream of migrants who took the path through Europe and into the South of Russia were the Aryans. They spread as far East as Lake Baikal. Their vanguard reached India. In the region of today's Gobi Desert the great Initiate Manu, the leader of this entire stream of Aryan migrants, founded a new Mystery centre from which further Initiates arose, who became the founders and leaders of the post-Atlantean cultural epochs.

At the time of Old Atlantis the Aryan race was characterized by the fact that it lost its declining clairvoyant abilities more rapidly than the representatives of the other races. We must note that supersensible faculties constituted the main characteristic of the aristocratic elite on Atlantis. This is why the Aryans as a race were generally despised in times long past. The faculties germinating in them, all that we master as logic and conceptual thinking today, were not appreciated at that time, and so the Aryans were counted among the lower castes. After the migration some of them settled in the Southern area of the vast Siberian region, between the Urals and Lake Baikal (cf. Chapter VI, p. *). Others continued their migration further to the South. It would appear to be a result of this movement - against the stream of etheric forces of the earth - that the first post-Atlantean, Old Indian culture was passive and lived in a half dreamlike state. But in the course of this epoch man developed the individual ether-body and this meant the final overcoming of the animal-stage of human development. Seven Holy Rishis were sent from the Mystery centre of Manu to the Indian peninsula, in order to lead this culture.

The Old Indian cultural epoch lasted 2160 years (the time taken by the earth to move through a sign of the zodiac, as a centre of mighty forces that work down into earthly development). From there the cultural impulse went over to Persia-Iran (the earth moved from the sign of Cancer to that of the Twins). The great Initiate Zarathustra was sent from the initiation centre of Manu to the people living there. He taught them how to work metals and use the soil for farming, and sense-perceptions received a strong developmental impulse. The bonds of the astral body began to loosen and the human being acquired an individual astral body - the bearer of the individualized sense and feeling perceptions and of desires and passions.

In order to lead the third, Old Egyptian cultural epoch, a next great Initiate was sent - Hermes Trismegistos. Human beings now began to develop the individual sentient soul, and, bound up with this, individualized feeling and experience, and individualized tendencies and drives.

At the beginning of the fourth, Greco-Latin, cultural epoch the Mystery centre in the region of today's Gobi Desert had already lost its earlier importance (but the memory lived on in the tradition of Shambala). The cultural development, and that of history which had now begun, now had a momentum of their own. The Greeks partly took over the spiritual impulses from Egypt, but also developed them in part out of their own strength.

With the advent of the fifth, European, cultural epoch (in 1413 AD) cultural-historic development underwent a peculiar transformation. In contrast to the earlier cultural epochs, when the great Initiates came to those special regions that since the Atlantean migration were settled by people, now the population itself came to Europe and displaced its original inhabitants - the Celts, a deeply spiritual people which was, however, not suited to fulfil the tasks of the European culture. In the 2nd-1st century B.C. the descendants of the people who had once migrated with Manu to the Siberian region - the Germanic and subsequently the Slavic tribes - returned to Europe. For millennia they had remained as it were in a culturally static condition, untouched by the development undergone by other peoples through the course of three-and-a-half cultural epochs. At the same time the leadership of these tribes was so constituted, during the epoch of Old Atlantis, that out of the cosmos impulses streamed down to them, which prepared the coming of the Christ - the God of the human 'I' - to the earth. These peoples retain the forces with which they have been endowed, until the moment when the general cultural development of humanity, whose central motif is the elaboration of the threefold soul, is ready to carry its elements to a unity by way of individual 'I'-consciousness.

We have to point out again that the development of the cultures is in a certain way comparable to the spiritual development of the individual human being. In order to create new and independent cultural phenomena a people has to set to work the ether-forces given to it specifically, which, as we have described, are used up in the course of cultural activity, so that with its completion we have on the one hand a mature culture, on the other, a people or group of peoples who created the culture, but who are now weakened as to their life-content, and as though 'burnt out'. They offer themselves up as a sacrifice, as it were, on the altar of the spiritual development of mankind, and other peoples must take their place, men of a different constitution of spirit and soul, who are able to carry further the cultural impulse which, with the exhaustion of the final developmental stage, undergoes a profound metamorphosis.

Here lies the origin of the concept of senile, ageing and young nations. The Persians, Egyptians, Jews, Greeks of today are senile peoples. Their blossoming or, let us say, 'national youth' lies far in the past. The young nations link on to this past through the exercise of 'spiritual economy', so that they do not have to begin all over again. But it is they who will themselves create the new in the spiritual development of humanity and who will have to expend their life-forces, whereby in time they too will grow old.

In this way the senile nations serve the new culture solely with the spiritual values they have created. Any claim for spiritual leadership on their part, or the wish to create something fundamentally new, is the death of culture. Of necessity these nations must learn to follow others, for those who create the new culture have been prepared for this task through millennia by the higher spiritual leadership, and have an entirely different soul-spiritual constitution. An analysis of culture provides ample evidence for this fact, so long as it is not falsified by political and nationalistic doctrines.

For those peoples who are approaching the challenge of new spiritual tasks the Divine Hierarchies create a special etheric-astral aura which corresponds to the entire physical-spiritual constitution of those who will be subject to their influence. This again is similar to the situation of an individual human being incarnating on earth. It is entirely justifiable to speak of the incarnation of a people into culture.

It is the special purpose of the development of the European cultural epoch to provide the human being with the possibility of unfolding the last and highest member of the soul - the consciousness-soul. But simultaneously with the development of all three soul-elements the divine world places the spiritual leadership of humanity's earthly evolution into the hands of man, who stands before the task of developing an individual 'I' that can be the centre of an autonomous, universal self-regulation, self-determination of the personality, which requires him to master pure thinking. In other words, the possibility is opened up for the first time in evolution, for the attainment of freedom by the individual spirit. And the third task of the European culture is that man, after development of the threefold soul has been accomplished, can begin to work individually on the threefold spirit, consisting of Spirit Self, Life Spirit and Spirit Man or, to use the concepts of Old Indian esotericism, Manas, Buddhi and Atma. The Germanic and Slavic tribes that came to Europe were prepared for the fulfilment of these three tasks.

None of the previous epochs had such a wealth of tasks to fulfil, and none was at the same time so full of changes. For the qualitative change of the course of evolution stands in relation to the quantity of tasks. Up to the 16th century A.D. man was only approaching the development of individual 'I'-consciousness. In our modern cultural epoch he learns to master it, not as an initiate, but as a simple participant in the cultural process.

The Primary Law of the Development of Civilization

The mastery of 'I'-consciousness is not only of cultural-historical, but also of evolutionary significance. This capacity belongs in a series of developmental stages, such as the learning of the upright gait, speech, and thinking. Consequently in the fifth cultural epoch changes are beginning to occur, that may be compared to those which accompany a change of root-races: The cultural process comes into close relation to a re-orientation of the working of planetary forces, of the forces of the entire earthly aura, in their influence upon human development. This is the reason why, already during Old Atlantis, the Aryan peoples were exposed to a special instreaming of the Christ-impulse, which came down from the cosmos at that time. They developed the inclination to make earthly experience their own, to think it through, and on this basis to develop a thinking consciousness, the autonomous 'I'. It should be noted that the Aryan race surrounds itself with the entire Indo-European family of languages, with its manifold variation with respect to geography, history, and religion and many other factors. It therefore makes little sense to give special emphasis to the racial origin of the folk-groups that migrated to Europe at the beginning of our era. Membership of the Aryan race is of significance only with regard to the starting-point, the initial predispositions with which it was endowed by the Divine leaders of humanity. One of these predispositions - the most important for our time - is that the Old Germanic and the Slavic peoples carry within them the seeds for the overcoming of every racial principle.

After their migration to Europe, the Germanic and Slavic tribes were separated in accordance with the three tasks mentioned above. They 'were separated' (passive, Trans.), for at that time they had neither an individual nor a national self-consciousness of any kind. From the spiritual leadership, those who remained in Central Europe received the task of developing the autonomous 'I'; or rather: Middle European cultural development had this character. That part of the Germanic tribes which went to the North-west - the Anglo-Saxons - was given the task of developing the consciousness-soul. The task of bringing about the transition from the development of the threefold soul to the development of the threefold spirit and thus, in the first place, the Spirit Self, is accomplished by the joint working of Middle European and Russian culture. All the other peoples of Europe have to fulfil secondary tasks relative to the three principal ones mentioned above.

Development is carried forward not only by mutual assistance but also by contradictions. Thus, what once arose from Central Europe created in time an opposition to it. In the course of history the group-egoism of the mercantile (Anglo-Saxon), the ecclesiastical (Latin) and the warlike (Gallic) principle grew. But these contradictions need not become irreconcilable. More important is what makes Europe into a unified, complex organism, not a 'Pan-Europe'. This organism cannot be understood if the racial and national differences are over-emphasized or denied. Either case leads to an absurdity comparable to the intention of a physiologist to examine a human organism while ignoring the difference between heart and lung etc. on the grounds that it is all made of cells; or alternatively, to examine single organs without studying their relation to the others.