Lecture V

Benedictus, after directing Capesius's attention to the nature of lonely, personal, inner thinking, said, Now let us look at something else. Consider what writing is: a remarkable factor of human civilization. When we look at the character of thought, we have to describe it as something that lives in the individual human being. It is accessible to Lucifer who wants to lead our soul qualities out of the physical world and isolate them. This solitary thinking, however, is not accessible to Ahriman, for it is subject to the normal laws of the physical world—that is, it comes to life and then passes away. Writing is different. A thought can be put into writing and snatched from destruction; it can be made permanent. I have sometimes pointed out that Ahriman's effort is to reclaim what is alive in human thinking as it goes toward destruction and to anchor it in the physical sense world. That is what typically happens when you write something down. The thoughts that otherwise would gradually disperse are fixed and preserved for all time—and thus Ahriman can invade human culture.