Ukraine Caught in the Conflict of Eastern and Western Ideologies
STREAMING LIVE SATURDAY, MAY 28, 2022
SUBSCRIBE & GET MORE EPISODESWe shall review the currents at work in the Ukrainian war, including the spiritual forces that inspire Putin and drive him to stand in opposition to the West. Since the middle ages a spiritual battle has been raging between the Spirits of Personality (the Archai) and the fallen Spirits of Form (the Exusiai). That conflict has accelerated in the modern age, and is manifesting in today’s Ukrainian conflict. As human beings are increasingly pushed towards the threshold of the spiritual world in the modern age, the Apocalypse predicts what forces and beings we will face. Those beings include the “Beast and False Prophet.” Ukraine is on the front lines of this major spiritual battle of our time and in this conflict we will learn what this rising beast means for our human destiny.
Daniel Perez is a Computer Scientist in the Boston area, and an Anthroposophist since 1980 when as a Waldorf high school student he attended his first youth conference. He is president of the Center for Anthroposophy, the teacher training and Renewal non-profit, and CEO of Threefold Strategies Fund that seeks to return capital from the financial markets to the Cultural domain. His spouse is a fellow spiritual scientist, and his son is a Waldorf teacher in San Francisco. His daughter is a writer and a deep sea fisher-woman. While Daniel is not an historian, he is deeply engaged in world-events and derives research from his exoteric, meditative life, and is a regular speaker and writer.
DANIEL PEREZ IS THIS YEAR MYSTECH CONFERENCE PRESENTER. FIND OUT MORE AT EVENTS.MYSTECH.ORG
This was an sensitive and diplomatic presentation. I am grateful to have been introduced to the ideas of Alexandr Dugin and reintroduced to the idea of transfer of spiritual guidance from the Elohim to the Archai and the problem of retarded being of each type.
Dugin has many video interviews on YouTube and is just so full of wonderfully provocataive and living thoughts.
Thank you for another contribution to understanding the times in which we live.
Hi Rick,
I am so glad you were able to attend, and thanks for the thoughtful comments. I realized in preparing the talk how difficult it is to present the spiritual forces at work in such a conflict, where there is necessarily a judgment at the end, at least some kind of judgment or perspective while appreciating the nuances of the issues. There are always multiple viewpoints in any conflict. And so I am not certain that my own perspective was entirely clear through all the ways of perceiving these various issues.
When it comes to Dugin, I appreciate his thinking through the Russian perspective and giving us such a clear insight into how Putin and Orthodox Christianity perceive these conflicts. In the end, however, I feel that he represents the fallen Spirits of Form. The quote I gave points to his desire to recreate ‘Eden’ in contrast to Steiner talking about our forward evolution with the Archai as the rightful owners of the Cosmic Intelligence.
I am glad you are acquainting yourself with Dugin (or re-aquainting) because he is worth listening to. He gives voice to the Russian spirit even if we (or at least I) feel he is being held back in a certain way.
Dugin gives a global point of view not just a Russian one. Of course there are higher personalities and forms expressed from the Angelic however these lower forms are far from being completed and still yearn for a cosmic intelligence. Anthroposophy should reconcile with that Volk perspective. It did once.
I am so grateful to find a place in the Anthroposophical Community where current events and concerns are being openly discussed – balancing out what is found in the various media outlets. Looking forward to Mystech Conference for more spiritual insight – thank you!
Thank you, GD for your comments. I hope you will be able to participate in the Mystech conference as I am very much looking forward to live discussions in that forum after years of Covid lockdowns.
To continue with the analysis on Dugin: In an interview in Feb 2015, Dugin was discussing his view of human individuality from an Eastern perspective. He was a panelist on the show, “The Agenda with Steve Palkin” along with Francis Fukuyama (Stanford University) and Ivan Krastev (fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna). He stated that the Western ideal of human individuality is limited to the West. In the East, the human being is part of a society or church or even a state and individuals are not what matters, but the “whole.” He, therefore, finds truth to be relative as well. Truth is relative if you are of the view that the collective is paramount.
In a sense, he is correct about the nature of truth. If you find value in the idea of human individuality and ethical individualism, then you value societies that follow this premise. He is incorrect that this is a Western ideal only, as it is a spiritual-scientific ideal. I appreciate that he makes this difference so clear and affirms the Eastern perspective. He is correct that this is the Eastern perspective, however, I find this mode of thinking to be outdated. It had its place in the past, but the human being has evolved to embrace the work of the Archai. So Dugin is living in ancient times.
In the West many people, including many people in the USA where I live, subconsciously agree with Dugin. It is not generally conscious, but it lives in the subconscious. The thinking supports globalist ideas and institutions, even as they fail in practice.
Yes, I would like to know the lecture series you quoted Steiner from.
And Thank you!
Hi Stan,
The main source was from, “The Driving Force of Spiritual Powers in World History,” Steiner, seven lectures given in Dornach, 11th to 23rd March, 1923. Some of the other references: “The Fourth Political Theory” by Alexander Dugin. “THE MISSION OF THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL” by Steiner, GA 194. “SPIRITUAL SCIENCE AS A FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL FORMS”, Steiner GA 199. And a quote I did not use, but is deeply interesting and connected with what I hope to present at the Mystech conference in August:
“In terms of its substance, the double is a large part of the etheric body. We retain part of that body, but another part of it separates off and becomes objective. We look at it and see that it is part of ourselves, to which Ahriman has given our own shape. Ahriman tries to squeeze everything to make it conform to physical laws. The physical world is ruled by the Spirits of Form, who share this rulership with Ahriman. Therefore Ahriman can shape part of the human being into the double.” (SECRETS OF THE THRESHOLD, GA 147, Lecture VII)
The spirits of form are more powerful than Archai, and they have completed their spiritual evolution. The fallen spirits of form are almost as powerful as they too completed evolution but wish to retain the cosmic intelligence. It is no small matter to recognize the forces at work in someone like Dugin.
Hi Daniel
Thank you so much for such an interesting insight into this conflict.
My musings go along the lines that because we in the west have fallen to to such a degree into the thrall of the fallen Spirits of Personality ( this expressing itself in the corruption of individuality to selfishness and egotism and the denial of the spirit) we have lost our bearings and have become fair game to those powers from the east, even though they represent an old and retrogressive spirituality.
This could be seen as a healthy corrective to our own going astray…. if we can find the strength, courage and wisdom to rise and meet this challenge; if we can find each our own individual way back to the spirit and learn to create community out of our own free common striving.
I also wonder if, through all this conflict, Europe will be able to find herself once again, and be enabled to take on her rightful task as the Middle, the balance between the forces of East and West.
Thanks again
All the best
Colin
Hi Colin,
Thank you for sharing this insight. I fully agree that we can go beyond the impulse of the Archai in the West and harden it into selfishness and egotism. I didn’t want to get too complex in terms of the over-individualism that can take place as it is a topic all its own, so thanks for pointing this out. We share “interesting karma” with the East, as Steiner once said, as we pour our overbearing impulses into the spirit of the East. Marx of course developed Communism in the West and brought that into the East.
I wanted to address this question that we were not able to get to at the time. Tomorrow I will catch up on other questions that we missed as well :
From Mihail Mihalache: “So by free-thinking, we are aiding the normal spirits of personality to guide us back?”
We have to define ‘free-thinking’ and that is not an easy task, but yes, true freedom of thought, inner freedom is a path towards the work of the Archai, the Spirits of Personality, also called the Principalities. If the head is viewed as a machine, and if you think of Musk and the idea of permanent probes in the brain to interface with computers, then we have an impulse that is not in keeping with the Archai. Historically the Archai withdrew first from the human beings’ subconscousness. That is in keeping with what today must be the basis for reuniting with them. They withdrew from our subconscious so that we could remain free. Now is the opportunity to in freedom, full freedom that our age delivers to us (because we are not so carefully protected by the spiritual worlds with our fully rational consciousness), to reunite with these beings. And this is consistent with “ethical individualism.”
What about thinking about ‘free’ thinking as being a thinking that is free from the constraints of the materialist paradigm.
It is still logical and consistent,but with willed effort it is able to rise above and put in context the brute facts of matter that generally hold us in thrall.
Wrestling with an anthroposophical concept would be an example and this would put us on the path to re uniting with the Archai.
Colin