Conclusion from the previous two lectures


He who acts against God’s Will, and thus commits a sin in Creation, is subject to the consequences of
this transgression. It matters not who he may be and on what pretext he acted. Be it an individual under
the cloak of the church or of the law... a crime committed against the body or against the soul is and
remains a crime! Nothing can alter it, not even the semblance of justice which is by no means always
what is right; for of course the laws, too, were made only by intellectual men, and therefore must bear
earthly limitations within.
Just consider the law in so many countries, namely in Central and South America. A man who today
holds power, and enjoys all of the honors associated with it, may even tomorrow be thrown into prison or
be executed as a criminal, if his opponent succeeds in seizing the reins of this government through an act
of violence. Should he not be successful, then it is he who, instead of being recognized as the ruler, will
be looked upon as a criminal and be persecuted. And all the public institutions serve the one as willingly
as they do the other. Even a world traveler will often have to change his conscience as he would his
clothes when passing from one country to another, in order to remain in good standing everywhere.
Something which may be considered a crime in one country will often be permitted or perhaps even
welcomed in another.
This is naturally only possible in the achievements of the earthly intellect, but never where the
intellect must occupy its natural place as a tool of the living spirit; for he who listens to the spirit will
never neglect the Laws of God. And where these laws are used as the foundation there can be no flaws,
no gaps, but only a uniformity that brings in its wake happiness and peace. In their basic features the
expressions of the spirit can always and only be exactly the same everywhere. They will never stand in
opposition to each other.
Also jurisprudence, the healing arts and statesmanship are bound to remain merely imperfect crafts
wherever the intellect alone forms the foundation, and the spiritual is lacking. It simply cannot be
otherwise. While naturally always assuming the true conception of “spirit”. —
Knowledge is a product, but spirit is life, the value and power of which can only be measured
according to its connection with the origin of the spiritual. The closer this connection the more valuable
and powerful will be the part which emanated from the origin. But the looser this connection becomes,
the more distant, alien, isolated and weak must be the emanated part, i.e. the human being concerned.
All of these facts are so simple and self-evident that it is impossible to comprehend how the
intellectual man, so gone astray, can pass them by over and over again as if he were blind. For what the
root provides, that also sustains the trunk, the blossom and the fruit! But in this as well, the hopeless self-
limitation in understanding reveals itself. They have toiled to erect a wall before themselves which they
can now no longer see over, much less see through.
However, with their conceited, superior and mocking smile, with their arrogance and looking down
upon others less deeply enslaved, they must sometimes appear to all spiritually alive people like poor,
sick fools who, in spite of all pity, must be left to their delusion, because their limited understanding even
allows facts that prove the contrary to slip by without making any impressions. Every effort to bring
about an improvement must simply prove as fruitless as trying to heal a sick person by hanging a new and
resplendent cloak around his shoulders.
Today materialism is already past its climax, and now, failing everywhere, it must soon collapse. Not
without also tearing down much that is good. Its devotees are already at the end of their ability, and will
soon become confused about their work and then about themselves, without perceiving the abyss that has
opened up before them. They will soon be like a flock without shepherds, one not trusting the other, each
pursuing his own way, and yet still proudly looking down upon others. Not thinking matters out carefully,
but merely following old habits.
With all signs of the outward semblance of their hollowness, they will end by blindly falling into the
abyss. They still regard as spirit what are but the products of their own brains. However, how can lifeless
matter produce living spirit? They are proud of their meticulous thinking in many things, but quite
unscrupulously and most irresponsibly leave gaps in the most important.
Every new step, every attempt at improvement, will ever again have to carry within it all the
barrenness of the intellectual work, and thus the germ of inevitable doom.
All that I am saying here is neither prophecy nor baseless prediction, but the unalterable consequence of the all-animating Creative Will, Whose Laws I have already explained in previous lectures . He who
follows me in spirit along the paths that are clearly indicated therein must also survey and recognize the
necessary end. And all the signs for it are already here.
People cry and moan, they see with disgust how the excrescences of materialism take on scarcely
believable forms today. They beg and pray for deliverance from the affliction, for improvement and
recovery from the unlimited downfall. The few who have managed to save some stirring of their inner life
from the tidal wave of the incredible happenings, who have not suffocated spiritually in the general
downfall that deceptively bears the name of “progress” proudly on its brow, feel like outcasts and
backward people, and are also regarded and ridiculed as such by the soulless followers of modern life.
A laurel wreath to all those who had the courage to refrain from joining the masses! Who have
proudly stayed behind on the steeply sloping path!
He who today, for this reason, still considers himself unfortunate must be a sleepwalker! Open your
eyes! Do you not see that everything that oppresses you is already the beginning of the sudden end of
materialism, which at the moment only appears still to rule? The whole structure is already collapsing,
without any assistance from those who have suffered and must still suffer under it. Intellectual mankind
must now reap what for thousands of years they have produced, nourished, reared and acclaimed.
In human reckoning it is a long time, but for God’s self-acting mills in Creation only a brief span.
Wherever one looks, everywhere, there is failure. It surges back and heaps itself up menacingly like a
heavy rampart that will soon topple over and crash down upon its admirers, burying them beneath the
ruins. It is the inexorable Law of Reciprocal Action which during this manifestation must have a terrible
effect, because in spite of the many kinds of experiences gained, there has never in thousands of years
been any change towards higher things; on the contrary, the same wrong road has been trampled wider
and wider.
Despondent ones, the time is at hand! Hold up your heads, which you have so often had to hang in
shame when injustice and stupidity were able to cause you such deep suffering. Just look calmly today at
the opponent who thus sought to oppress you!
Already the fine raiment worn until now is very badly tattered. The figure in its true form is at last
visible through all the tears. The exhausted product of the human brain, the intellect, which allowed itself
to be enthroned as spirit, less confident but no less conceited... looks forth uncomprehendingly!
Take the bandage confidently from your eyes and look about you more keenly. Even the perusal of
newspapers which are otherwise quite good reveals all sorts of things to the clear-sighted. There are
desperate efforts to continue clinging to all of the old illusions. With arrogance, and often very coarse
jokes, people seek to cover up the lack of comprehension that becomes more and more evident. A person
will frequently use absurd language to judge something of which in reality he has quite obviously no
shred of understanding. Today even people with quite good abilities helplessly take refuge in questionable
courses rather than confess that so many things are beyond the grasp of their own intellect, on which
alone they have hitherto sought to rely. They do not sense the absurdity of their behavior, and they do not
see the weaknesses which they only help to increase thereby. Confused and dazzled, they will soon stand
face to face with the Truth, and mournfully look back over their bankrupt life, at last recognizing with
shame that stupidity lay just where they thought themselves wise.
What have things already come to today? Muscleman is hero! Has a serious scientist, who after
decades of struggle found a serum providing annual protection and help against fatal diseases to hundreds
of thousands of people, young and old, ever celebrated triumphs as does a boxer who with purely
physical, crude brutality overpowers his fellow-man? Or like a pilot, who with only a little courage, no
more than any soldier in the field had to muster, completes a great flight only thanks to his excellent
machine? They practically throw a victory parade over that. Yet does this in any way benefit even one
human soul? It is only earthly, all earthly, meaning low in the whole Work of Creation! Entirely
corresponding to the golden calf of intellectual activity. As triumph over narrow-minded mankind by this
earthbound sham prince made of clay! — —
And no one sees this mad rush downwards into the gruesome abyss!
He who perceives this intuitively will, for the time being, remain silent in the embarrassing
realization that he will be ridiculed should he speak. It is already a wild frenzy in which, however, there is a dawning recognition of powerlessness. And with the growing awareness of that recognition people
become even more rebellious, out of sheer obstinacy, out of vanity, and last but not least from fear and
horror of the impending events. They simply do not yet want, under any circumstances, to consider the
end of this colossal error! Convulsively they cling to the proud structure built up over past millennia,
which closely resembles the Tower of Babel, and which will end in the same way!
This hitherto uncurbed materialism carries within it a foreboding of death, which becomes more
evident every month. —
Yet in many human souls, everywhere on the entire earth, something is astir! The radiance of the
Truth is still covered by only a thin layer of old, false conceptions, which the first gust of a purification
will sweep away, thus setting free the core, whose light will unite with that of so many others to unfold its
cone of rays, rising like a fire of gratitude to the Realm of Pure Joy, to the Feet of the Creator.
That will be the time of the much-longed-for Millennium, which lies before us in brilliant promise as
the great Star of Hope!
And with this, the grievous sin of all mankind against the spirit, which has kept the spirit bound on
earth through the intellect, is redeemed at last! Only that then is the right way back to what is natural, to
the way of the Will of the Creator, Who desires men’s works to be great, and suffused with living
intuitive perceptions! The victory of the spirit, however, will at the same time also be the victory of purest
Love!