The Karma of Untruthfulness v2 by Rudolf Steiner tr by Johanna Collis.pdf

The Karma of Untruthfulness

- Volume 2 -

By Rudolf Steiner

Translated by Johanna Collis

GA 174

Out of his research into the spiritual impulses of human evolution, Steiner reveals

the dominant role secret brotherhoods played in the events culminating in World

War One, and warns that the retarding forces of nationalism must be overcome if

Europe is to find its new destiny. He emphasizes the urgent need for a new social

structure to emerge out of the insight of spiritual science if humanity is to progress

into the future with confidence. This volume is a continuation of Karma of

Untruthfulness, Volume One.

These 12 lectures are from the lecture series entitled, Historically, The Karma of

Untruthfulness, Part 2 of 2 , published in the original German as, Zeitgeschichte

Betrachtungen. Das Karma der Unwahrhaftigkeit. Zweiter Teil. Kosmische und

menschliche Geschichte . Translated by Johanna Collis and edited by Joan M.

Thompson, we present them here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner

Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

This e.Text edition is provided with the cooperation of:

The Rudolf Steiner Press

CONTENTS

Contents

Introduction

Lecture Fourteen January 01, 1917

The karma of untruthfulness. The effect of poisons in man's higher components.

People who lag behind evolution fill their being with a poisonous phantom of

formative forces, the source of emptiness of soul, hypochondria, aggressive

instincts. If spiritual life is possible, it must also be possible to go astray.

Untruthfulness is the counter-image of Imagination. Evil comes about through the

misuse of higher forces. Those who fail to accept the spirit develop poisons instead.

Richard Grelling's J'accuse and Romain Rolland's John Christopher as examples of

failure to find the spirit.

Lecture Fifteen January 06, 1917

Nationalism, imperialism, spiritual life. The mechanical world of material progress

is non-national, like a body which is to receive non-national spiritual science as its

soul. Nationalism arises because soul development lags behind material progress.

Profusion of ideas in the age of German Idealism. The power of slogans which are

divorced from reality. The abstract idea of ‘eternal peace’. Which countries could

have embarked on disarmament? British imperialism. The puritanical and the

imperialistic stream in England. The importance of absolute truthfulness.

Lecture Sixteen January 07, 1917

Tragedy and guilt among nations. How the folk soul works into individuals. An

individual belongs to a nation as a result of karma. Nationality as something

karmic is above logic, nationality as something belonging to the blood is below

logic. ‘Justice and freedom’ are concepts which cannot be applied to nations. Rise

and fall of nations. Hebbel's definition of what is tragic. Seeley, the historian of the

British Empire. Prophetic writings. Treitschke, Cramb, Kuropatkin. Untruth in

the guise of truth. The importance of actual facts.

Lecture Seventeen January 08, 1917

Exhortation to members not to misrepresent these lectures. The Austro-Serbian

conflict and the World War. Russian and British imperialism. Russia's attention

drawn away from India and towards the Near East. The chain reaction: Britain in

Egypt, France in Morocco, Italy in Tripoli, the Balkan War. The Grand Lodges as

implements of occult impulses. The democratic trend in the world paralleled by an

aristocratic trend in the Lodges. German Idealism transforms the mysteries of the

Lodges into a purely human matter. The spiritual life of the Lodges originated in

Central Europe: Fludd, pupil of Paracelsus; Saint-Martin, pupil of Jakob Böhme.

Sir Oliver Lodge: materialistic view of spiritual matters. Fichte: Reden an die

deutsche Nation . Polzer-Hoditz: Thoughts during Wartime .

Lecture Eighteen January 13, 1917

Materialistic history; history revealed through following one's karma. Wilhelm von

Humboldt and Heinrich von Treitschke. History revealed through symptoms. Need

to cultivate a sense for truth. Treitschke's love for the truth. Humboldt's work on a

concept of the state; his successors Edouard Laboulaye and John Stuart Mill.

Treitschke's Freedom . Treitschke as a representative of the German people.

Treitschke not an exponent of the principle of power, but a teacher for his people.

The note from the Entente to President Wilson. The meaningless term ‘Czecho-

Slovaks’. Kramar and Masaryk.

Lecture Nineteen January 14, 1917

The subconscious soul impulses. On self-knowledge. The solar plexus as the point

of contact for ego-activity. The ego as bearer of evil forces which are held in check

by the abdominal nervous system. Liberation of the ego: madness. The nervous

system of the spinal cord as the point of contact for the astral body. Liberation of

the astral body: madness, volatility of ideas, manic conditions, depression,

hypochondria. The brain as point of contact of the etheric body. The liberated

etheric body has chiefly ahrimanic characteristics: envy, jealousy, avarice.

Psychiatry will have to learn to distinguish between the abnormalities caused by

the freeing of the different components. The earth works on man through the solid

element, the angeloi through the fluid element, the archangeloi through the airy

element, the folk spirits through the system of ganglia. The working of the folk

spirits is removed from consciousness and therefore demonic. This is utilized by

secret brotherhoods who pursue the egoistic aims of their groups.

Lecture Twenty January 15, 1917

Recapitulation of previous lecture. The battles of the fifth post-Atlantean period as

expressions of the conflict between materialism and spiritual life. The spiritual

world-view of the sixth post-Atlantean period. Echoes of the third and fourth post-

Atlantean periods in the peoples of Europe. Italy-Spain; France. The British

element as representative of the fifth post-Atlantean period. Development of the

commercial, industrial element. This strives to dominate the world. The contrast

between western commercial thinking and eastern (Russian-Slav) spiritual

inclinations. Central European impulses: Luther, Huss, Wyclif, Zwingli, Kepler,

Copernicus, Galileo-Lomonosov as bridges between East and West. Central

Europe strives to find the spirit through the soul. The West seeks to prove the spirit

through experiments. Bacon, Shakespeare, Jakob Böhme, Jakobus Baldus, King

James I of England. ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Theocracy, monarchy,

industrial elements to be replaced by the general human element which seeks no

form of domination. ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.’ Attacks on

Anthroposophy. The Central Powers' call for peace.

Lecture Twenty One January 20, 1917

The destructive power of untruthfulness in the relationship between the living and

the dead. When the living work on spiritual science this gives the dead the

opportunity to work in the physical world. Secret brotherhoods bring about

ahrimanic immortality by means of ceremonial magic which leads to an illegitimate

relationship with the dead.

Lecture Twenty Two January 21, 1917

Orientation of the human body according to the stars. The threefold structure of

man — head, breast organs and abdominal organs — in relation to life after death.

How the dead intervene in the world of the living. Materialism as a barrier to a

healthy relationship between the earthly and the supersensible worlds.

Lecture Twenty Three January 22, 1917

Consciousness in sleep and consciousness after death. Work of angeloi, archangeloi

and retarded spiritual beings on the dead. Retarded archai as opponents of Christ.

Occult impulses for egoistic group purposes. Concepts which could provide the

foundations for peace. The spiritual significance of Central Europe.

Lecture Twenty Four January 28, 1917

Measure and number. The Platonic Cosmic Year. Goethe's studies on the

breathing of the earth. The links between speech and the rhythm of breathing.

Sleeping and waking and their importance for man's contact with the spiritual

world. The constitution of folk souls; the Italian and Russian folk souls. The lack of

concrete concepts. A brochure by Hungaricus.

Lecture Twenty Five January 30, 1917

History of the Anthroposophical Movement. Saint-Martin. Ancient wisdom and the

etheric clairvoyance of the future. The flood of ‘occult’ literature compared with

the wisdom given by spiritual science. Bridges to be built between the physical and

spiritual world. German Idealism as the spiritual life of Central Europe: Novalis,

Schlegel, Steffens, Schubert, Troxler, K. C. Planck. W. and J. Bolyai and the

question of parallel lines. Honesty in forming concepts. The element of general

humanity in Central Europe in contrast to the one-sided elements in the periphery.

The necessity for concepts to be in accord with reality. Parting words at a time of

utmost difficulty.

Notes

The Karma of Untruthfulness

Volume Two

INTRODUCTION

The first volume of these lectures was published in an English translation in 1988.

In Anthroposophy Today No. 8 I wrote a short article in which I said that they

needed a careful introduction and extended notes if they were not to baffle the

English-speaking reader. Recently I was asked to write such an introduction for the

second volume. It became clear to me that I was insufficiently prepared for this

task. I am not a professional historian nor have I access to any large library. The

circumstances of my life make it impossible for me to supply the factual notes

which I should have liked to provide. I also doubted whether the introduction I

could write would really be helpful. My hesitation disappeared when I read in

Lecture Eleven:

‘One who possesses the sense for truth is one who unremittingly strives to find

the truth of the matter, one who never ceases to seek the truth and who takes

responsibility for himself even when he says something untrue out of

ignorance.’ [ Note 1 ]

I have occupied myself with these lectures for the last thirty years and have

discussed them with friends. I have read fairly widely some relevant literature and

often changed my mind in the light of new facts and with, I hope, more mature

judgement.

The English-speaking reader might be disturbed by three particular aspects of

these lectures. They present a description of the causes of the War of 1914–18

which differs fundamentally from what had been learned at school; they seem to

reveal a pro-German bias; and they repeatedly portray Rudolf Steiner in an

emotional mood to which we are not accustomed. It is these points which to some

extent I hope to clarify. This will involve a brief study of the lecturer himself and

also the question as to what extent subsequent historical events have borne out

Steiner's main contentions.

There are two underlying contentions: the existence and aims of certain occult

societies; and what is called the Karma of Untruth — in contemporary language the

conscious manipulation of the media by power elites which may or may not be

influenced by these societies. Today, the second contention can hardly be disputed

by any thinking woman or man. Some of us still remember the late Dr Goebbels. All

of us can ask ourselves what information we were fed day by day during the Gulf

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