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#41 Sasun

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Posted 05 August 2004 - 10:54 AM

Armen, does that mean all kinds of evil are combinations of A. and L. types? Suppose a man is simply evil, such as a serial killer, he is neither fanatical about any ideas nor has material gain. Is he under Ahrimanic influence or Luciferic influence, or both in measures?

#42 Armen

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Posted 05 August 2004 - 09:11 PM

QUOTE (Sasun @ Aug 5 2004, 10:54 AM)
Armen, does that mean all kinds of evil are combinations of A. and L. types? Suppose a man is simply evil, such as a serial killer, he is neither fanatical about any ideas nor has material gain. Is he under Ahrimanic influence or Luciferic influence, or both in measures?

Sasun, it will be very hard for me to explain this to you by simply quoting Steiner. And it will not be a good idea to present you isolated pharagraphs if you want to grasp the whole thing. And it is not good to quote his writings on the Evil first smile.gif

I suggest to read these:

Anthroposophical leading thoughts

The philosophy of freedom

A road to self-knowledge

He doesn't have comments on serial killers specifically. However, his lectures on Lucifer provide understanding of this. I would suggest you to read the "Parfume" by Patric Suskind. His general idea is that a serial killer accumulates a specific pattern of evil insticts of the society he lives in. I think Suskind is familiar with Steiners works.

#43 Sasun

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Posted 06 August 2004 - 12:16 PM

Armen, thank you for the links. I hope I can find some time to familiarize with Steiner's works. From the little that I read he seems to be largely in tune with Eastern spiritual philosophies.
I wanted to know whether Steiner meant that all kinds of evil in societies and individuals are influences of A and L, the example of a serial killer was the first thing that came to my mind that does not seem to have the influence of neither. The same thing can be said about malicious computer hackers I think, or any evil acts that do not come from any ideology and are not motivated by materialistic gains. I am just curious, normally I don't care about studying evil, its evolution, etc. it is not a worthwile thing to do. I believe if one can focus on good that's the best way to be rid of evil (gradually).

#44 Armen

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Posted 10 August 2004 - 09:39 PM

QUOTE (Sasun @ Aug 6 2004, 12:16 PM)
I wanted to know whether Steiner meant that all kinds of evil in societies and individuals are influences of A and L, the example of a serial killer was the first thing that came to my mind that does not seem to have the influence of neither. The same thing can be said about malicious computer hackers I think, or any evil acts that do not come from any ideology and are not motivated by materialistic gains. I am just curious, normally I don't care about studying evil, its evolution, etc. it is not a worthwile thing to do. I believe if one can focus on good that's the best way to be rid of evil (gradually).

Sasun, from his describtions of the true Evil computer hackers may prove to be some of the good inocent guys smile.gif
Anyway, the third and the most dangerous one is Azul (Azazel, Azazail), the evil that hurts the human beings "I" feeling. E.g. the Bolsheviks practiced that. Before they shot someone they made sure, with a number of despeakable tortures (Slozhenitsin "Arkhipelag Gulag") that person truly and sincerely believes that he/she is guilty although he/she was not.
I think we should idetify evil to deal with it.

#45 Sasun

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Posted 11 August 2004 - 09:36 AM

QUOTE (ArmenSarg @ Aug 10 2004, 11:39 PM)
Anyway, the third and the most dangerous one is Azul (Azazel, Azazail), the evil that hurts the human beings "I" feeling. E.g. the Bolsheviks practiced that. Before they shot someone they made sure, with a number of despeakable tortures (Slozhenitsin "Arkhipelag Gulag") that person truly and sincerely believes that he/she is guilty although he/she was not.

Yes indeed, for me too it has been the most disturbing type of evil - twisted representation where good is belived to be evil, and evil is believed to be good. In most cases it is easy to tell good from evil, but sometimes it is really hard to tell. It is not a matter of intelligence, a very intelligent person may be equally blinded as a fool to take evil as good and good as evil. It comes from spiritual ignorance. In my opinion the only way to sort out is practicing utmost spirituality.

QUOTE
I think we should idetify evil to deal with it.


Agreed, at least for the reason of not confusing good with evil. And focusing on good should set the standards for identifying evil.

#46 Armen

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Posted 23 September 2004 - 07:47 PM

http://wn.elib.com/S...lWld_index.html

The Balance in the World and Man, Lucifer and Ahriman
The World as Product of the Working of Balance
by Rudolf Steiner

Three lectures given in Dornach,
20th-22nd November, 1914
GA 158

Lecture II

.........Now the working of Lucifer and Ahriman is not the same in all parts of the human organism, and it is interesting to observe its gradation. Beginning from the head, we find that there Lucifer and Ahriman have thrown up fairly equal fortifications; the left and right halves of the head are very similar. This means that the forces of left and right have in the head not much possibility of interplay and the surface between them is left comparatively undisturbed. There in the middle is the surface, with Lucifer on the left and Ahriman on the right; and because the left and right halves of the head are so similar in form, Lucifer and Ahriman spring back from one another, and in between them man is able to develop a quiet surface activity. Thinking, pure thought as such, is very little disturbed by Lucifer and Ahriman; because in the head they recoil from one another. ..........

......Let us try to make a picture of it in our minds. From the left the Luciferic being fights his way through and throws up, as it were, his fortifications, and from the right Ahriman fights his way through and throws up his fortifications. And all that you can do is to stand in the middle between the two. The left part of you — your left man, as it were — is the fortification set up by Lucifer, and your right man is the fortification set up by Ahriman. And the whole art of life consists in finding the true balance between them. We do it unconsciously whenever we perceive with the senses. When we hear with the left ear and with the right ear, and then unite into a single perception the impulses that reach us in this way, or when we feel with the left hand and with the right hand and unite the two perceptions, we are placing ourselves into the surface that lies on the boundary of the conflict between Lucifer and Ahriman. As narrow as — no, narrower than — the blade of a knife is the space that is left to us in the middle, where we have to play our part. Our organism does not really belong to us; we are a battlefield for the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers — and for other powers too, of like nature with them, but into that subject we cannot enter now. ............

............There are, however, other directions in accordance with which man takes up his position in the world of space. Expressed in the language of occultism, this means nothing else than that he is placed in still other ways into the midst of the fight between Lucifer and Ahriman. Let us go on, then, to consider how man stands in space with a forward and backward orientation, looking before and behind. Instead of observing him as a being of left and right, we will now direct our thoughts to the front and back of the human form. From this aspect also we find that man is not the being of space he appears to be. For as from left and from right Lucifer and Ahriman do battle with one another across man, and what shows in space is really only the barricades they put up one against the other, so also from behind Ahriman is fighting and from in front Lucifer. From behind Ahriman thrusts forward his activity, and from in front Lucifer thrusts forward his activity in opposition. Man stands in the middle between them. In connection, however, with the forward and backward direction in man we discover that Lucifer and Ahriman do not succeed in coming so close to one another as to leave nothing but a surface between them. We find here a somewhat different state of affairs. Ahriman comes only as far as the plane which can be drawn through the spinal column, and Lucifer as far as the plane which can be drawn through the breast bone, where the ribs end and meet. In between these two planes lies a space which separates Lucifer and Ahriman one from the other, where the effects of their working are thrown together in confusion. There they stand and fight — not at close quarters, but as though shooting at one another across the intervening space. And there stand we in the midst of the fight. Thus, in respect of the direction before and behind, man is a being that has space..........


.........In the left-right direction the fight between Lucifer and Ahriman is waged principally in the sphere of thought. Thoughts are whirled across from left and from right and meet in the surface in the middle. Cosmic thoughts and cosmic forms of thought impinge upon one another here on the human surface in the middle. In the direction before and behind, Lucifer and Ahriman do battle more in the realm of feeling. And since here the opposing forces do not approach one another so nearly, in the space that is left between them we ourselves have room to be together with our own feelings. When we have thoughts that offer opposition to one another from left and from right, then we have the feeling that these thoughts belong to the world. With our thoughts we think the objects that are in the world outside. When we make our own thoughts, then these thoughts are a mere phantasmagoria; they do not any longer belong to the world. In our feelings, on the other hand, we belong to ourselves; for there Lucifer and Ahriman do not quite meet, there we have room to be active in between them. This is the reason why in our feelings we are so essentially within ourselves.........

...........We human beings are creatures of the beings of the higher hierarchies, and they have created us in accordance with the manner of their working. We are beings of surface between left and right because the higher beings have made us so and placed us so into space. It is they, the Gods, who do not suffer Lucifer and Ahriman to come together in man. We are in this sense creatures of the good Gods. The good Gods, working out of their creative thoughts and purposes, took as it were this resolve. “A conflict is going on,” they said, “between Ahriman and Lucifer. We must set up a wall and enclose a region which they will not be able to enter, where they will not be able to carry on their strife at close quarters.” We human beings have thus been placed into the struggle between Lucifer and Ahriman as creatures of the good Gods; and the better we stand our ground in the struggle, the more truly are we creatures of the good Gods.

In respect of the before and behind, there the good Gods do not allow Lucifer to enter right into us; they created a barricade in the place where the ribs meet in the breast bone. And the wonderfully constructed tower that encloses the spine and the brain is a fortification the good Gods have erected against Ahriman. Ahriman cannot pass this line; all he can do is to send his arrows of feeling across to Lucifer. There in the space between stand we ourselves, separating the two from each other. .............


#47 THOTH

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Posted 23 September 2004 - 08:07 PM

(Armen - in regards to this bit by Steiner that you are so obvioulsy infatuated by...) total drivel & gooblygook - what can i say? I fail to see the relevance of any of this to anything...but OK - if you get off on it - well....

Hope your not hurt/disapointed...were expecting some other reaction...don't know...but this doesn't at all do anyting for me - or say anything to me...

#48 Armen

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Posted 23 September 2004 - 09:05 PM

QUOTE (THOTH @ Sep 23 2004, 08:07 PM)
(Armen - in regards to this bit by Steiner that you are so obvioulsy infatuated by...) total drivel & gooblygook - what can i say? I fail to see the relevance of any of this to anything...but OK - if you get off on it - well....

Hope your not hurt/disapointed...were expecting some other reaction...don't know...but this doesn't at all do anyting for me - or say anything to me...


Thoth, Jesus was crucified by his own and did not get disapointed or hurt. If God is not getting disappointed by centuries of human stupidity, how can I get hurt by one guy fealing bad about some other guys book. I am just exchanging information. Thanks for the concern though.

#49 THOTH

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Posted 23 September 2004 - 09:08 PM

QUOTE (ArmenSarg @ Sep 23 2004, 10:05 PM)
Thoth, Jesus was crucified by his own and did not get disapointed or hurt. If God is not getting disappointed by centuries of human stupidity, how can I get hurt by one guy fealing bad about some other guys book. I am just exchanging information. Thanks for the concern though.


OK - good...peace...




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