5. The Nature of the Christ Impulse and the Michaelic Spirit Serving It—II

Of course, if we squeeze the facts a little it will be possible for us to become a philosopher, to some degree even a great philosopher—this we admit without reserve. It is possible to look at the machines in our age and start to consider this very mechanistic aspect as the most pernicious of all things, ascribing it specifically to our enemies. And one then has the inclination, even if one may be considered a great philosopher, to hurl abuse like a market woman. One can then do the same as the philosopher Bergson[^9] who only recently again managed to point out rather one sidedly—and many things tend to be perfectly correct if a one sided view is presented—how the mechanistic effect of the forces relates to the essential nature of the German people. But that is not the only thing we can point to—that German brainpower has achieved things in certain areas by applying mechanical principles—for something else may be pointed out as well. Nor is it necessary to hurl abuse like a market woman when discussing such matters, and instead we may say: Perhaps the very place where the intellect has the greatest powers to give form to the mechanistic and demonic element is also the place where these mechanistic and demonic powers can be overcome on the basis of our particular spiritual mission. Then however, a German may easily get himself misunderstood as he comes to see, in conjunction with the way the intellectual life has developed, that it is not his function to stop at the purely mechanical element that is of such great service to him also in the present day, with the challenges presented by the war. He must not stop at what is merely mechanism, for then he would merely create demons. No, he must develop powerful forces within him that can boldly face these demons. This means that we have to stand in the spiritual world, not blindly but in a way that arises from, and is guided by, conviction. If we set out to acknowledge that we are surrounding ourselves with a world of demons, a veritable hell, as we design and build machine after machine, we can of course understand why people speaking out of the materialistic spirit of the present age are saying over and over again that this scientific and materialistic age has taken us to the greatest height ever achieved by man. Of course we can understand this for it is in line with the materialistic thought of the present time, but we must know that with those machines we are introducing nothing but demons for mankind and we must know how to develop the right powers to resist these demons. We only gain the right attitude to the spiritual world by recognizing these demonic Ahrimanic forces, by knowing full well that they are present. For the harmful powers are harmful only when we remain unconscious of them, when we know nothing about them. Let me illustrate this by means of a comparison.