VI. The Connection Between the Higher Aspects of the Human Constitution and the Physical Body — The Effects of Opium and Alcohol

There has also been a lot of abuse in these matters. If you were a bit of a life observer before the war, you could find the same thing over and over again in every hotel or wherever people pick up letters that are piled up where letters are usually piled up: something with the label of an American company. The same thing was everywhere. What had happened back then? Well, an American company had been founded that had branches. There was one in Berlin, in Frankfurt, in most of the larger cities. So business must have been good! It was announced that anyone who wanted to gain power over humanity would receive little books from this American company. All he has to do is send in a certain amount of money and he gets little books, and these little books contain instructions on how to gain power over humanity. Well, all the traveling salesmen, all the agents, they thought to themselves: “That's a nice thing, gaining power over people. Gosh, we'll sell a lot of those, no one will be able to resist us!” These little books immediately started to contain instructions on how the person concerned should adjust his eyes so that he does not look the other in the eye, but at the point between the eyes, he should stare fixedly; then the other person is magnetized and comes under his influence and does what he wants. Well, you know, the wine travelers and the other travelers have had all this sent to them. And you could see that, especially in hotels where such agents had stayed, these letters and things were always sent in bulk. Most of them didn't do better business because of that, but American society did do good business. It was of no use to most of them, but it might have been of use to a few; and they did something that no one should do under any circumstances, because it is a sin against human freedom. No person may aspire to get power over another person in such a way! And if nature gives it to him, as it did to that person of whom I told you, then it can indeed become bad enough under certain circumstances, but then it is nature that gives something like a special look; it is much less abused than with the person who wants to learn the matter. Now, during the war these follies have decreased and now they actually no longer exist. But one can say that one can learn from these things, on the one hand, how people themselves exploit the spiritual, and how the worst materialists – because they were mostly materialists, who allowed these things to come to them – also turn to the spiritual when it is a matter of making a profit with the spiritual. They do not believe in him, but they turn to the spirit when it is a matter of making a profit with the spirit! So I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that these things can be terribly abused.