The Inner Impulses Of Evolution: The Mexican Mysteries And The Knights Templar by Rudolf SteinerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Some insights I loved in this book:
The chapter where Steiner talks about a being who lived in ancient Mesoamerica from AD 1 to AD 33 and who ended a devilish cult and brought a long period of peace. As a Mormon, that's about the most exciting thing Steiner could say. Clairvoyance is awesome, and it's so real.
Moreover, there was a major transition that happened spiritually around the year 1840. (!!!) It has to do with a longing to know about worlds beyond this one.
Mediumistic ghosts are just the detritus of spiritual beings when seen in a sense-based way, as lifeless as our culture is lifeless. They are what is dead in the spiritual world. Spiritualism (seances, crystal balls) is a manifestation of the rampant materialism of the time, only in a "spiritual" mask. It is what happens when one follows the 1840 impulse but in an obsolete way.
A lot is released at death that mediums see, but it is not the person. It's only a shell-like image of them, not unlike the paintings in the Harry Potter universe. The actual person is much more dynamic and alive, and is perceived differently.
In this age of humanity, are supposed to focus our energies on (the spiritualization of) urges, on birth, on death, and on the problem of evil. But Ahriman makes the focus on urges a focus on indulging urges instead of transmuting them, and Lucifer makes the focus on evil into guilt-mongering than an actual transcendence of it.
Ahriman is the spiritual being that worked in Rome, in ancient Aztec rituals, in materialism and anything that cheapens and deadens life. Lucifer is the spiritual being that seeks to escape the material world to make a planet of his own, and he was more interested in the Greeks and the Mongols.
The Greeks and the Romans actually "beat" Lucifer and Ahriman, and those two spiritual beings are redoubling their efforts in the spiritual life of today.
Ahriman squeezes the earth like a lemon, making juice that Lucifer collects and keeping the dead husk for himself.
An active interest in other people is how we work past these devilish forces.
The whole disinterested character of Europe, and especially England, in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries (sweatshops with children, the potato famine, etc.) was initiated and spiritually prefigured by Henry VIII's divorces and the church he founded because he wanted to get divorced.
The Knights Templar were amazingly spiritual, but when they were tortured and killed, they released a force into the spiritual world that sustained us for a long time.
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