Meaning in the Election

What forces are at work in "politics"?

Two Children, Pierre Auguste Renoir 1895

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We are embroiled in a war between determinism and inner freedom. It should be clear to us, if it’s not already, that great and mighty archetypes are at work here. In fact they are pouring forth all their power as we speak.

Humanity has passed the pinnacle of Earth evolution. Not the apex of human evolution, to be sure, but specifically of the Earth, the physical Earth development. During the past 4000 years give or take, the Earth blossomed as an organism; it solidified into the perfection of physicality. One could say it incarnated fully. The human body reached a perfection, and the outer world became truly concrete and lost the nebulous interface with the non-physical which had characterized more ancient epochs.

But what of the human spirit? Has it passed its pinnacle, or its low point? Is the human soul trying to emerge from a dark age and struggle upward toward freedom and truth?

You don’t need me to tell you that Tuesday’s election might be deeply significant, both in terms of consequences and in terms of people generally losing their minds over it. It is at least hard to find anyone who doesn’t have a strong emotional stake in the process. Lawn signs are being stolen (and booby trapped), wild and untrue accusations are flying on all media, and characters are being analyzed and dissected in routine conversations.

One candidate went so far as to drive to a political event in a garbage truck and give a speech dressed as a sanitation worker. We think this was a response to the president of the United States telling the nation that their supporters were “garbage” (apparently). So, one could be forgiven for asking; “Is this normal?”

Are we on another planet? I would say a good third of Americans believe, often after long and sober consideration, that should the election go the wrong way, the country will likely enter a phase of degeneracy and totalitarianism from which it possibly will never recover. And it could be true - what about that?

This is an enormous call to wake up. It is the culmination of four years of deception, gaslighting and censorship - beginning with the Covid fiasco - without which we would probably still be dreaming along. What I have noticed in this time is that the average person is far better, and smarter than we have been led to believe. “Half the country are complete idiots” - what? This is among the biggest lies we’ve been told, that people are bad. The next step is the idea that people aren’t really people, that you can make an argument for improving the body or even changing its sex, for euthanizing the infirm or even selectively breeding them out before they are born. This is what is actually at stake: people aren’t just bad, they are animals.

What they don’t teach us is the human kingdom is much older than the animal kingdom, the animals originated on the Earth. They represent the qualities we had to strip out of ourselves in order to become thinking beings.

Rudolf Steiner lived through the First world War. He spoke about how if there had been just twelve true meditants in Europe that war could never have begun. He described the way the war saw its terrible, destructive unfolding through thirty or forty figures - people whose consciousness was dulled or obscured.¹ You see, there is no hierarchy of value according to nationality, race, sex or class, but there very definitely is a difference in level of inner evolution and growth. The type of person whose consciousness is dulled may become a conduit for other forces, beings who exist in our environment and who do not mean us well.

I do an experiment when looking for this phenomenon. Even on a screen, you can still make many useful observations. Look at the body language and gestures, at the tone of voice, and above all at the eyes. When we confront another human being, we look into their eyes, and our “sense of the ‘I’” tells us we have met a human spirit. There is “somebody home”. Occasionally we meet a shallow, superficial person, whose eyes shift about, whose words contain little of meaning, or mean something other than what is said, and in that case our sense of the ‘I’ goes off much less.

It is an awful fact that these empty people are sometimes created in an organized way, for example by intelligence agencies, in order to raise an army of avatars for nefarious campaigns.

On the other hand, someone who seems human makes the impression they genuinely care. They are someone’s grandparent. People feel actual warmth and affection for them. They seem imperfect, but not fake. They respond to questions by thinking in the moment rather than rattling off talking points. You want unscripted conversations at least 20 min long for this experiment.

It is by making such observations, which often require serious efforts to set aside biases and see at deeper levels, that we can gain new understanding of public figures as souls. Assessments which are more useful than watching the news, which is mostly B.S.

Our two party system has problems. One of them is the tendency for the fringe to convince us that their extreme and distorted ideas are what everyone thinks - what every enlightened person should think. Just think back to the way being responsible equaled dis-inviting your relatives from Christmas dinner and wearing a mask in bed with your wife. The minority is often that loud.

But, these strange and often bizarre impulses find their fertile ground in the dimmed minds of human beings. They are the inspirations of fallen archetypes who manipulate us when we are less than fully present. In fact, what we are describing as sub-human beings “are controlled in their totality by higher Ahrimanic spirits and thus contain something which far surpasses their own nature and being. Therefore they show something in their appearance which, if it takes the human being captive, acts much more strongly, very much more strongly than that which the weak human being can control today, if he does not strengthen it through the spirit.”²

Interesting, isn’t it, that in order to be inspired by the true archetypes, Archangels who carry for us the design of human spiritual evolution, we must become more awake? More present in the moment, more open minded, more conscious of our thoughts and feelings… This is because the beings and forces which have our best interests at heart want us to be free, want us to grow into the inner freedom which is founded on discernment and leads to selfless acts of love.

Perhaps you’ve noticed a kind of bright light all around us as we run up to the election, despite the last minute rhetoric and hysteria? Here is what I see: with great strength our army of Angels is trying to form a new system. It’s not a one party system; it is a rights-protecting organization where the qualification is not alignment with beliefs but a willingness to serve the human being by taking steps to make us… more human.

Would this involve cleaning up our food? Getting politics out of education? Stopping the destruction of the sacred human body? Ensuring every voice can speak, no matter how unpopular? Bringing order to the movement of peoples in and out of communities? You can decide.

Both parties have become unrecognizable. The drive is toward no parties, just good individuals, and whatever is being born and growing here is going to embrace all who see the divine nature of the human being at whatever level they can comprehend it, and in their own way strive toward the true archetype of the human being - inner freedom and love.

We can all pray that the army that loves humanity gains the upper hand in this great battle.

1. Rudolf Steiner, 29 Nov 1919, The Mission of the Archangel Michael

2. Rudolf Steiner, Mission of the Archangel Michael, Anthroposophic Press 1961, p87