Wars

This topic page provides pointers to wars of various natures across epochs and ages, their origin and meaning, not limited to modern history but rather from an evolutionary perspective as part of the development of mankind.

Wars are conflicts between people, and represent the physical emanation of underlying conflicts - see Schema FMC00.059.

This can be compared to how in the human being, illness is the outcome of spiritual influences that work their way down through the Human I and affect the astral and etheric bodies before flowing in and becoming noticeable as physical or mental illness.

Contemporary history studies mainly the physical wars between peoples from a worldview perspective with cause-effect mechanism and mainly political, economical, sociological and religious reasons for wars.

Spiritual science looks for the patterns giving rise to the wars that are ultimately - by necessity - the outcome of what has to happen on the physical plane as a result of the waves that have been rising below and and ultimately have to collide (re: Schema FMC00.059).

Rudolf Steiner described 'spiritual wars' between various classes of spiritual beings, and used examples to link these to physical historical wars.

Aspects

• depending on worldview and belief, the outcome of a war can be seen as divine judgement as corresponding with historical necessity (what needs to happen). This view changed throughout centuries and millenia, but is currently also very different in the West versus the East. (1916-12-25-GA173B)

Spiritual wars

• War in heaven as a general term for spiritual wars, but also for the origin of evil as a result of what happened in previous planetary stage of evolution, between Old Sun to Old Moon.
• for the fight of 'Michael and the dragon' and the so-called 'fall of the spirits of darkness' in the 19th century, see topic page: 1840 and 1879

Indirect wars

• the opium war (between England and China, between 1770-1840 and 1860) and its impact on a timescale of centuries, affecting patterns of reincarnation between peoples and geographies, see Sixteen paths of perdition#Note .5B3.5D - The opium war. More in general, see also Model for hereditary physical body#Alchohol and drugs
• see also: worldview wars, and Contemporary worldview war

Physical wars

• Atlantean epoch
• Current Postatlantean epoch
  • second ancient Persian cultural age
    • the great war between Iran and Turan (which "lasted not decades but centuries"!) as an expression of duality, the antithesis between the North and the South (1910-09-01-GA123) - see more on Turanian stream
  • Current fifth cultural age
    • the 30 years war between 1618-1648
      • Jacob Boehme#Note .5B1.5D - Historical perspective - waves and counterwaves
    • the 20th century 30 years world war consisting of WWI and WWII
      • see oa Schema FMC00.489 on History
    • future war between East and West
      • Nostradamus#2.1 - War between the West and Asia and World catastrophy
  • Seventh cultural age
    • War of all against all

Various notes

• besides the 'war of all against all' at the end of the current fifth Postatlantean epoch, Rudolf Steiner also uses the term for a much more short term projection at the end of the 20th century (1921-08-06-GA206) - see War of all against all#1921-08-06-GA206
• wars and world karma between peoples

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.059 positions history 'as we are told' to what can be read clairvoyantly as objective truth in the akashic records, and how true history is an emanation and expression of spiritual impulses that are carried by waves of reincarnating human souls.

Lecture coverage and references

1915-05-09-GA159

lecture with title: The War as an Illness Process - Central Europe and the Slavic East - The Dead as Helpers of Human Progress

short extract

Thus you understand when I return to that which I said just now: our time had many reluctant forces, and if we call the war an illness - we can do this, this is an illness which was caused by something that took place long ago, and it is there to the recovery, so that something is eradicated that had to lead to the damage of the life of the whole culture gradually.

If we call it illness in this sense, if we look at the illness as a defence, we understand this war and the destiny-burdened events of the present, understand it also in its significant hints and admonitions.

We then experience it with all internal forces of our souls, so that we can surely take notice of those who have gone through the gate of death and look at the next future and really have learnt what they can inspire in the souls which they want to hear. That spiritual deepening which is necessary for the human welfare and progress in the next future must come into them.

If your souls can rightly take up that which I would like to say with these words, you are supporters of our spiritual-scientific world view in the right sense only now. If your souls can make the decision to become such souls which turn their attention to that which is murmured down from those who have gone through the gate of death because of the destiny-burdened events.

A connecting bridge between the living and the dead should be built by spiritual science just for the next future, a connecting line by which the inspiring elemental forces of those who have made the big sacrifices in our time are able to find their way to us.

1916-12-25-GA173B

Consider the following: We have gradually built up a picture for ourselves of the evolution of mankind and we now know how to assess the fact that, during a certain period in this evolution, wars came upon the scene, that wars were what fired mankind. But it was a time when mankind believed in war.

What do I mean when I say that it was a time when mankind believed in wars? What does it mean: to believe in wars?

Well, a belief in wars is very similar to a belief in the duel, in the fight between two. But when does a duel have a real meaning? It has a meaning only when the two concerned are inwardly fully convinced that, not chance, but the gods will decide the outcome. If the two who take up their positions in order to fight a duel fully believe that the one who is killed or wounded will receive his death or wound because a god has sided against him, then there is truth in the duel. There is no truth in the duel if this conviction is lacking; then, obviously, the duel is a genuine lie. It is the same in the case of war. If the individuals who constitute the warring peoples are convinced that the outcome of the war is divine, that the gods govern what is to happen, then there is truth in the actions of war. But then the participants must understand the meaning of the words: A divine judgement will come about.

Ask yourselves whether there is any truth in such words today! You need only ask:

Do people believe that actions of war express divine judgements? Do people believe this?

Ask yourselves how many people believe that the outcome is divine! How many people truly believe this, how many honestly believe this?

For among the many lies buzzing about in the world today are the prayers to the gods, or to God, offered up — naturally — by all sides. Obviously, in this materialistic age there cannot be a real belief that a divine judgement is going to take place. So it is necessary to look seriously and soberly at this matter, and admit that one is doing something without believing in its inner reality. One does not believe in this inner reality, and one believes all the less in this inner reality the further westwards one goes in Europe — quite rightly, because the further westwards one goes, the more does one enter western Europe, which has the task for the fifth post-Atlantean period of bringing about materialism.

Things are different going eastwards, however. I am not in the habit of constructing theories about such things or of saying such things lightheartedly. When I say something of this kind it is based on actual facts. It is nowadays already possible to make a remarkable discovery. Coming from the West to Central Europe you discover that here there exists a sporadic belief in divine judgement. In the West this is impossible unless it has been imported from Central Europe. But in Central Europe there are isolated individuals who have a kind of belief in destiny and who use the word ‘divine judgement’. And if you go right to the East where the future is being prepared, you will, of course, find numerous people who regard the approaching outcome as a divine judgement. For Russian people are not averse — as are the people of the West — to seeing a divine judgement in what takes place.

Powell - The Solar system

describes how violence and war were key characteristics in the Lemurian and Atlantean epochs, ao describing the warlike nature of Toltec, Turanean and Primal Semites sub-races.

Illustrative extract from Ch 38 (XXXVIII)

Although earlier races had begun to fight with one another, it was the Atlanteans who first developed organised warfare. In fact the principle of strife was the fundamental characteristic of the fourth root race, and all through the Atlantean epoch war on land and sea was the order of the day.

So deeply rooted in Man's nature did the principle of strife become, that even now the most intellectually developed of the Aryan (fifth) root-race are ready to war upon each other. The fact that kings and emperors consider it necessary or appropriate, on state occasions, to appear in the uniform of one of the fighting services, is a significant indication of the apotheosis reached by the combative qualities in Man.

...

In the later days of war and strife they constructed giant air-ships, which superseded battleships for the sea, and which contained 50, or even 100 fighting men.

1943-01-01-BD - Beinsa Douno

The excerpt below is from the lecture "New Foundation", Sofia, January 1, 1943 (translated by Annael) and talks about why war has to exist.

also on: Meaning of life#1943-01-01-BD - Beinsa Douno

War is a contradiction, the reasons for which lie in the distant past.

Because God transforms evil into good, the war will bring some good to humanity. For humans war brings misery and death, but for the Great Beings it is a [kind] of show. Just as actors die on the stage and are "resurrected" behind the scenes, the same way the participants in the war will be resurrected. God will give them new bodies, healthier ones and more beautiful, with new and healthier legs, arms, eyes, and heads.

People go through great sufferings and will go through great suffering, but after [that], they will rejoice. Suffering is the material for building future human bodies.

Today's people live more for themselves than for their neighbors. They close themselves in their shells and think only for themselves.

The war will force them to open their coffers, to open their minds and hearts, to take out everything they have hidden in them. It will make them give up their selfishness. Selfishness is coming to an end.

The end of the caterpillars' life is coming. Until now, humans have been caterpillars, gnawing leaves and thinking only for themselves. This life is over. In four or five years they should hatch, they should become butterflies.

.."We want to indulge in life." ..

How do you want to indulge in life? As caterpillars, or as butterflies?

You can no longer live like caterpillars - the life of the caterpillars is over!

Related pages

• Worldview wars
• History
• Impulses from waves of reincarnating souls

References and further reading

• Friedrich Rittelmeyer: 'Christ und Krieg : Predigten aus der Kriegszeit' (1916)
• Theodor Fuchs: 'Vom Götterstreit zum Kampf der Ideologien : Menschheitsgeschichte im Spiegel des Krieges' (1987)
• Peter Tradowsky: 'Frieden durch Krieg? : Die Geisteswissenschaft als Friedensbewegung' (2005)

WWI

• Helmuth von Moltke: 'Erinnerungen, Briefe, Dokumente 1877-1916 : ein Bild von Kriegsausbruch, erster Kriegsführung und Persönlichkeit des ersten militärischen Führers des Krieges' (1921)

Drugs

• Walther Bühler, Leendert F.C. Mees, Wolfgang Schimpeler: 'Rauschgift : Krieg gegen das Ich' (1980)