IX. Errors of Spiritual Research

In our studies of spiritual research, as they now try to engage in the spiritual cultural life of the present, we call this spirit, which lives in matter and works there as a force that darkens man's view of the spiritual world, the Ahrimanic spirit. This spirit is the same one that Goethe portrays in Faust as Mephisto, who accompanies Faust, who accompanies every human being, because every human being has to deal with the material world. This, then, is the power that darkens our view of the spiritual world. Materialists can indeed deny the spirit with their concepts, but it would be a serious mistake to believe that they can do any harm to the reality of the spirit. It takes revenge on them and obscures their views. This is the peculiar effect in the soul of the materialist, that this spirit erects a wall, that man cannot see the spiritual world; so the materialist denies the spiritual world because the spirit of matter inspires him to do so. You can deny him, but you cannot escape him, and what is buzzing around in the world as materialism is actually the inspiration of the [Ahrimanic] spirit. Goethe was right when he has Faust confront the mothers in such a way that Mephisto presents the spiritual realm as a nothing. But Faust says: “In your nothingness I hope to find the All.” – The materialist should admit to himself that he belongs to a certain group of people about whom Mephisto says: