The Coronavirus Pandemic II

The Fundamental Problems of the Present Situation from a Spiritual Viewpoint

From a spiritual point of view two fundamental problems appear as the main factors in the present situation, both in regard to the “behavior” of the virus and in regard to our human reaction to the virus itself, as well as to the measures applied or required.

The first of both fundamental problems is the gravest, and it is also the cause of the appearance of the coronavirus in the human sphere: It is the lack of super-sensible knowledge and therewith the extensive lack of spiritual-scientific insights.

The second fundamental problem is a direct result of the first: ignoring the actual challenges of the present by being distracted by external “battlefields.”

Of course such things must be worked on. They may not be ignored. The social, economic and political consequences must be addressed. But they can only be wholly and sustainably addressed if the first fundamental problem is addressed, or rather has been addressed. For these battlefields are provoked and produced by an opposing spirituality in order to fetter the forces of human consciousness which are urgently needed in the field of psychical-spiritual training. The more commitment there is to exterior fields without at the same time an at least equally strong commitment to the psychical-spiritual field, the quicker the efforts of the opposing spirits are realized. The lack of psychical-spiritual awareness was also, as explained in volume I, the cause of the virus's appearance directly in humanity's living space.

The first of the two fundamental problems is therefore a spiritual knowledge-problem. And this extends, as stated, to the nature of the virus as well as to the spiritual relationships of the events resulting from the occurrence of the virus.

That spiritual knowledge of the actual nature or character of the virus will be sought in the natural-scientific world, which currently mostly has an agnostic, purely materialistic view of the world and the human being, is not to be expected. That it will be sought from the anthroposophical side, which has a spiritual view of the world and the human being, is self-evident. But on which foundations are these efforts based?

The majority of articles and appeals which have circulated since the outbreak of the coronavirus and increasingly during the past months (and the related measures mandated by governments) coming from the ambit of the anthroposophical movement rely upon taking Rudolf Steiner's quotations and transferring them to contemporary events. That they are transfers is of great importance here.

For it must be admitted that during Rudolf Steiner's time a coronavirus interacting with humanity in the present way did not exist.

I don't mean to say that it wouldn't be legitimate to include certain statements by Rudolf Steiner about medicine or the efforts of the so-called black lodges (from Rudolf Steiner's time) in the future in judging present-day phenomena. On the contrary. Sound spiritual-scientific knowledge can and should be useful to us! However, we should always be aware of the fact that the transferred statement was not made against the background of contemporary events. Besides, the effort of quoting and coming to one's own conclusions based on these quotations is of course not enough to identify a work as anthroposophical research. Especially since such a procedure can hardly do more than deal with the quotations selectively.

Meanwhile lists of all Rudolf Steiner's quotations have been prepared, in which for example the words “black lodges” or “bacilli” appear (the latter word, by the way, being happily transferred to viruses mostly without mentioning it). But as a rule not all quotations can be mentioned in one report and handled according to their actual context. And — as we realize when reading the numerous articles and essays currently appearing in anthroposophical publications — often people do not want to. In mentioning quotations by Rudolf Steiner one proceeds for the most part selectively, consciously or sub-consciously.

This is especially noticeable in articles about the vaccination question. When one's own standpoint seems supported by Rudolf Steiner's statements apparently critical of vaccination or immunization, the fact that Rudolf Steiner had himself and all his close associates, including children, vaccinated against smallpox, is gladly ignored. Unfortunately, such an approach weakens what might have been essentially justified arguments.

With this example (Rudolf Steiner's smallpox vaccination), it is easy to see how the evaluation of a phenomenon by spiritual-scientific knowledge, as Rudolf Steiner always did when new questions arose, is an individual one, and that spiritual-scientific statements which refer to a specific circumstance can basically not be generalized.

Gathering quotations and building thoughts on them cannot replace what anthroposophy wishes to help people have: the independent ability to gain reliable spiritual knowledge from the phenomena that surrounds us.

Now it's certainly no disgrace today to have not yet achieved such higher capacities of consciousness which could give one the desired clarity about the factual causes and circumstances of the phenomena in question! For to achieve this, a longer path of practice and trial must be completed, and since the conditions for mastering a path to consciousness enlightenment have been available to us for a relatively short time, it is not to be expected otherwise than that many puzzles which are assigned to us today cannot yet be solved in the dreamed of way.

If, however, in the absence of such capabilities (as they are given for now only to certain individuals — for which we may confidently assume the reasons to be the responsibility of wise divine guidance), one thinks to apply spiritual-scientific statements from other times and contexts to the present phenomena, then one should openly and honestly admit that the results arrived at in this way do not necessarily correspond to reality. For if we apply a spiritual-scientific statement to an event that at the point in time when this statement was made was not the object referred to — simply for the reason that the statement was made decades before the event to be analyzed —, then we are doing something which is actually not foreseen in spiritual-scientific procedure: we are generalizing.

You can of course be lucky with this procedure and be on target. But it's no less likely that you will miss if you cannot guarantee that the results obtained in this way are supported by a current, independent spiritual-scientific investigation, with autonomous, super-sensible insight.

If an article were to be written in this way, on the coronavirus question for example, and indicated that the author was aware of the possible discrepancy between assertion and reality, the article would be, so to speak, a morally respectable one, morally acceptable and possibly even valuable for further consideration and investigation.

But often the contrary seems to be the case, when you perceive the voices in the anthroposophical movement that mostly stand out. My goodness, how sure they are! So sure that, in order to convince as many souls as possible of their view, do not even shrink from overshooting the mark by using methods that they criticize when used by the “opposition”; for example statistics (often very questionable ones), or by seeking the support of personalities who are far from having an anthroposophical view of humanity or from recognizing the reality of the creating spirit in the material world, or by making assertions which anyone who walks through the world with open eyes can easily refute, and will.

These include claims (which, by the way, are propagated by personalities who — unlike the representatives of the first-mentioned group — claim super-sensory research competence) such as the one that the cause of the many Covid 19 illnesses and even of many deaths, among other things, is to be found in the coronavirus tests and in the wearing of masks, but not in the classical virus infection. After a year and a half of pandemic regulations, when every one of us have often and at diverse opportunities worn a protective breathing mask, we will surely have realized that neither they nor their human companions have become ill or died because of wearing the masks. This by no means implies that wearing a mask does not have an incisive, burdensome social effect or that it can be felt as unpleasant — depending on personal sensibility (people with respiratory illnesses are of course not included). But that a coronavirus infection or even death could be caused by wearing a mask is simply an untenable assertion. Those who make such an assertion should ask themselves where all the people are who have become ill or died from wearing such protective masks, if not in their own ranks. There are professional branches, for example the chemical industry, biochemistry or medicine, in which thousands of people have spent their whole professional lives, decades before the coronavirus outbreak and the introduction of pandemic regulations, day in and day out, ten hours or longer having worn OP-FFP-2 and FFP-3 masks, and still do.

In all those decades no professional branch has become known for masses of people (or any at all) getting ill or dying from wearing a protective mask. On the contrary. They are called protective masks to protect the respiratory paths from illness in such risky professions.

It's similar with the assertion about the corona-tests. I have tested myself and have let myself be tested. And just as little as I have become ill or died from wearing an FFFP-2 mask, have I become ill or died of Covid-19 or any other ailment from using the corona tests. The same is true for many close or distant acquaintances. Nor have I been limited in my spiritual working capacity after the corona tests, and I have also not been manipulated or has my consciousness been controlled from outside by nanoparticles or nano-robots supposedly introduced through my nose and throat.

Such assertions do nothing for anthroposophy. Instead they are more apt to disparage not only the anthroposophical movement, but also Anthroposophy as such — and therewith Rudolf Steiner —, and do lasting damage to the impulse that has come into the world to help the psychical-spiritual path of training toward humanity's higher consciousness through the spiritual-scientific approach. Of course, it is not a matter of speaking to a materialistically minded world in a manner compatible with it by representing a worldview which is the opposite of Anthroposophy's, or one not recognizing the spirit at all! Rather by such behavior, by the spreading of untenable, absurd assertions, one undoubtedly drives away a significant number of people from Anthroposophy who are looking for serious spiritual orientation, because they must assume that the teachings of spiritual science and the anthroposophical path of training are similarly absurd and eccentric as some theses coming from the anthroposophical movement on the coronavirus question — as if the anthroposophical impulse did not have enough problems to get through already!

This is also a reason, as mentioned at the beginning, why writing this book so depresses me. That such things must be discussed at all is shattering. And feelings are so heated and thoughts and convictions so gridlocked that I fear I won't be able to make myself understood under these conditions.

For whether within the anthroposophical movement one depends on quotations (like the ones mentioned above about the testing and mask questions) or on one's own super-sensory insights, there is agreement on one point, namely that the “enemy” can be identified and named: the governments that impose unreasonable measures, as well as the representatives of science and the pharmaceutical industry, through whom people are driven to desperation and dependence and through whom a climate of fear is spread. (Whereby one is obviously unaware that by spreading horror stories about wearing the mask being the cause of innumerable sicknesses and deaths, an equally severe climate of fear ensures, yes, even a kind of mass hysteria. As a result of which people are disposed to interpret diverse sensitivities, which they would normally not consider worth worrying about, as the effect of wearing a mask, and are fully alert for any sign that seems to confirm the horror stories. — There are enough true horror stories, sense perceptible as well as super-sensibly perceptible ones! There is no need to invent more — neither on the side of the pharma-industry and the investigators and physicians or politicians dependent on it, or on the side of the alternative movement and especially not the anthroposophical one.)

Having said this, the reader should not assume that I do not consider the restriction of democratic basic rights to be an extremely serious matter (although I sometimes do wish that people would show themselves capable of accepting the necessary personal responsibility). Nor should he think that I do not consider the attempts at manipulation of journalism and the media that are being made ever-increasingly today to be a fundamental gambit on the part of the opposing spirits. Nor should the reader think that I do not see the terrible social and economic effects. And it is in no way meant or said that an ever stronger anti-spiritual, purely materialistic impulse of thought and will is strongly being exerted by those opposing spirits who are pursuing a goal contrary to the higher development of humanity in a systematic way, largely unchecked.

But if you want to make the effort to unravel the twisted threads a little, you cannot avoid and should not avoid calling the coronavirus an attack of the “anti-spirit-powers” and pointing a finger at the weak point of the argumentation, which does not emphasize the virus itself, but solely events about and around the virus. For what is being said (also by many in the anthroposophical movement) and upon which all subsequent explanations depend, is more or less the following: If the government, which restricts fundamental rights and makes public health the plaything of materialistic natural science and a predatory capitalistic pharmaceutical industry, holds the virus to be dangerous, then the virus must in reality be harmless.

But if one examines the interrelationships with spiritual-scientific means of cognition, this conclusion proves to be a “short circuit”! And this short circuit has two serious consequences: The first consequence is that one overlooks or underestimates the actual nature or spiritual quality of the virus. And the second consequence is black and white thinking, with which you look for faults in the outside world, that is, in “the others,” which leads to condemning thinking, emotional harshness, tendency to radicalization, suspicion and, finally, to social separation, and even to open aggression toward every fellow human being who merely supports a different opinion. But haven't we then come to exactly where the “counter-spiritual-powers” want us?

And isn't it logical that these counter-spiritual powers — which must feel particularly threatened by people who don't fall for the idea of a materialistic view of the world and of humanity — are not content with deceiving the gullible “masses,” but concentrate on the confusion of precisely such people who could become dangerous to their project?

In view of this easily recognizable fact, would it not be possible, especially by members of the anthroposophical movement, to be a little more cautious about the certainty of their own convictions, to periodically self-question and take a dispassionate step back from one's own opinions, in order to become aware of possible errors or “traps” into which one might have fallen?

Wouldn't it be downright catastrophic if the justified efforts of those who are attentive to the super-sensory knowledge of the world and humanity, and who are now engaged in writing articles and newsletters so that humanity may be aware of the influence and plans of the anti-spiritual hierarchies, should fade away like a discordance because of the “short circuit” mentioned above — or if they were even to point people in the wrong direction?

If one is to do justice to a legitimate effort concerning the coronavirus issue, more must be accomplished than conducting a trial based on circumstantial evidence. For (as has already been mentioned many times elsewhere) materialism has meanwhile crept into our way of thinking, and it therefore also threatens anthroposophy in that spiritual-scientific communications are often treated as matter, by making them into objects which we then try to use to confirm our own ideas and convictions, which must then lead to a “materialization” and there with, an “intellectualization” of spiritual science. Should we not therefore — as is practiced in any case on the anthroposophical path of training — take a step back and try, in complete freedom and from one's own point of view, to explore the real context beyond the threshold of what seems so evident in the coronavirus question? When we do so, however, it becomes apparent that the assessment that the Sars-CoV-2 virus is no worse than ordinary flu is a horrendous mistake!

This confirmation results from a purely super-sensory view, that is, completely independent of what a more or less materialistic scientific research says about the coronavirus; and independent of what virologists or politicians have to say about it. It results from the purely spiritual viewpoint that the encounter of the human being with the Sars-CoV-2 virus represents a real danger for human development — a danger which obviously has hardly or not at all been recognized until now by both the materialistically thinking and non-materialistically thinking sides.

If someone holds Sars-CoV-2 dangerous from a purely natural scientific standpoint, and if someone else holds Sars-Cov-2 harmless from an alternative or holistic standpoint, neither has recognized the spiritual dimension of Sars-CoV-2 (The latter one has also underestimated the purely physiological effects of a Covid-19 infection and simply refuses to acknowledge the factual and obvious differences in the course of the illnesses and the aftereffects of influenza and Covid-19 infections.)

So if you want to take the bull by the horns and allow the light of knowledge to shine into the confused circumstances and open questions, if you want to represent the spiritual facts to the world in the right way and strongly, you must do so differently than by pasting quotations together or by falling back on exaggerated or false assertions.

The strengthening of the anthroposophical standpoint begins with the spiritual-scientific consideration of the Sars-CoV-2-Virus itself, for at the present time powerful counter-spirit-powers are at work which intend to hinder the illumination of humanity's consciousness and thereby steal away the seed of inner freedom gained through the Christ deed.