From Gondishapur to Silicon Valley Volume 1 Illustrated [1]

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FROM

GONDISHAPUR TO SILICON VALLEY

AGFJBIO EDITIONS

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FROM GONDISHAPUR TO

SILICON VALLEY Volume I

FROM PAUL EMBERSON

Translation by Stefania Stefani Editing: Ivo Bertaina Layout: Laura Alessandrello

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FROM GONDISHAPUR SILICON VALLEY Volume I

FROM

PAUL EMBERSON

AGRI BIG EDITIONS

INDEX Volume I

INTRODUCTION TO THE ITALIAN EDITION

9

INTRODUCING PAUL EMBERSON

13

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION IN ENGLISH

15

INTRODUCTION

19

CHAPTER I - IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH

21 30 34 36

What is meant by "evil"? Hands. Redemption from evil Gondishapur (The Appearance of the Beast) CHAPTER II - THE BIRTH OF THE BINARY SYSTEM

Harun al-Rashid The Synod of Constantinople The regency of Michael The Angelic Doctor Francis Bacon The universal code The Search for Wisdom The binary code - from theory to practice CHAPTER III - THE INFORMATION LOOM

The City of Light The Templars Darkness over Paris (The Victory of the Beast) Lyon in the Renaissance The Turntable of Freemasonry The "Canvas" that would become world An invention that will make history The aesthetic experience and the binary code

45 46 48 51 53 57 66 68 72 77 80 90 92 97 100 101 106 118

CHAPTER IV - FROM IDOLS TO COMPUTERS

The war between Michael and the idols "Mary had a little lamb ..." The Brothers of Light A People Rejoices in Its Strength CHAPTER V - The SPIRIT OF ARISTOTLE IN THE twentieth CENTURY

Dawn of the Age of Light Computers and the movement of Michele The new faculties in danger CHAPTER VI - THE BATTLE FOR A SUPERSENSIBLE CONSCIENCE

Computers and the Subconscious Rudolf Steiner's dilemma: universal society or closed brotherhood The school of life The fight started Death is a Change, Not an Ending Chaos and Computerization (The Triumphant Beast) CHAPTER VII - BEWARE OF THE ASURAS:

Dehomag - the machines of inhumanity Turing From truth to untruth The truth The Universal Machines The Intrinsic Fallibility of Computer Devices The End of Originality Adolf Hitler Negative superstition CHAPTER VIII - THE FALL INTO MATTER

The fall into matter Silicon Valley Internet The World Wide Web (Domination of the Beast) Electricity and the Erotic Forces A stream of bits at the speed of light... Connecting our brains to the internet NOTE

121 121 130 134 137 151 154 162 180 189 189 196 199 203 216 227 241 249 's machine 252 255 256 258 262 265 268 271 277 285 289 296 297 301 312 313 319

THE SPIRITUAL FORCES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF DATA PROCESSING AND THE FUTURE OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY

ITALIAN PRESENTATION FROM GONDISHAPUR TO SYLICON VALLEY

This wonderful and at the same time dramatic book on the complete understanding of computer technology, this unique text of conscience and knowledge that Paul Emberson has given us, should be read, studied and analyzed by every man who loves and you love humanity and consequently human beings. Anyone who reads and appreciates it should recommend it, read and comment on it together in groups, and give it to their closest friends and acquaintances. The author with a lucid, organic, scientific, historical, artistic and detailed analysis reconstructs in a clear, progressive and dynamic way all the events that have made us unknowingly, but much more than potentially, almost complete slaves of machines (computers, smartphones and various computer and electromagnetic systems) which are nothing more than means used by the dark beings who have warped and guided, in a deafening silence, the plot that has become increasingly clear over the last 15 centuries . Reading this book I realized my complete ignorance (in the sense of not knowing) about the existing technique in computers, but I was even more ignorant about the history of computers and given that the French philosopher Auguste Comte said that "You don't fully know a science until its history is known" never a more complete and exhaustive text than this can help us in the historical, scientific as well as spiritual knowledge of computers. The thing that appears very strange and at the same time disconcerting is that above all in the anthroposophical field no one has been able to grasp and highlight the more than dramatic gravity of this fact and we behave as if the thing itself did not concern us or even that this terrible attack on humanity (as you will discover by reading the book and its notes) is instead a "neutral" or even "useful" aspect to human evolution! But the answer is quite simple: to render the adversaries harmless it is always better to parasitize them than to fight them: it attracts less attention, and is more "democratic" and this is demonstrated by the always current and imaginative mythology of Cronos, a beautiful scientific story - Greek spirituality of a few thousand years ago. Rudol f Steiner, in 1919, asserted that even then a third of human beings were "men without a mind" and today, after a century, the percentage has certainly, evidently and considerably increased, also thanks to the planned, cold and studied destruction of millions of young people incarnations of conscious souls with devilish organization by a small group of people (R. Steiner said that

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who organized the First World War which were no more than 40 individuals) of the two terrible world wars and of all the connected events (often unknown or kept silent) that followed and continue today in a general indifference and guilty silence, as if the suffering of the others it does not concern us, indeed it must be fled and the feelings provoked must be buried in our soul; it is no coincidence that Rudolf Steiner said and wrote that "Every human being can never be happy until there is only one unhappy being in the world.'' The system for taking possession of the human being is apparently simple, but at the same time (not surprisingly) absolutely diabolical: today the processes of peripheral perception (soul) have specially increased exponentially with an unlimited and impressive series of (false) inputs and other soul possibilities at a very low economic cost from a very young age. But this fact means that our center (the IO), not yet having enough strength to recognize, digest and direct the continuous binge of false physical-soul perceptions, is rescued by Ahriman who " gives" us in a very interested way its help to "order" our unconscious soul greed by penetrating more and more into our ego, and all this is causing more and more this visible and dramatic detachment of every human being from his neighbor, a process that I would call "human mechanization": we should soon re-learn to spiritually recognize the needs and suffering of every other human being because the others are (also) us. One could say that in order to become a slave to Ahriman we isolate ourselves from other human beings, even by fighting each other: divide and conquer works like a god! Fortunately, a few hundred thousand human beings are still potentially awake, receptive, reactive, conscious and aware with their own capacity for judgment and analysis and have an extraordinary hunger for true Christian spirit and this should be the humus on which it will form and a new "scientific-spiritual awakening" will take shape which starts from direct interaction between free groups of human beings who act with the energy of a Christian spirit. The spiritual humus of these people can be nourished with the living and active anthroposophy given to us by R. Steiner and this text is certainly a very strong resonant nourishment which is fundamental for awakening and putting consciences into action towards the construction of a true moral strength. Today the human being actually resembles and behaves more and more like a machine: by dint of using them he is becoming cold, detached and sectorial like them and the feelings that remain are only those of the lowest and most egoic emotional level, while forming independent judgments and moral thoughts in us is by now judged by the clearly dominated Ahrimanic society as a "social disease" which must be cured and eradicated as soon as possible with studied and obligatory "vaccination treatments" and specific nourishment (dehumanizing (IO) media and spiritually castrating and lifeless mineralizing food). States and their increasingly inhumane politics that have progressively replaced the spirit with science are increasingly "cumbersome" and far from the real needs of man, with their incomprehensible laws created by less and less human beings: " people" who ostensibly speak well but have downright bad tongues: a reasonably heartless aloof appearance. To react to this current and terrible existential test concerning the future of humanity, there are only three decisions to make:

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1) accept the thing by telling ourselves that we can do nothing and go unconscious and heartless towards the abyss, 2) get angry and turn against them knowing that they are stronger and that violence is a being that feeds on it, generating only more violence 3) start rebuilding humanity together with other men who are not necessarily brothers and blood relatives but relatives by moral ideas, shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, placing our small and personal and sick egos to build a common I in silent harmony, allying ourselves with strangers but real friends who are just waiting to get involved. Already the fact that we (still) have a choice today is a unique, unrepeatable and very great opportunity not to be missed: so that however things go, and we are about to decide it irremediably, regardless of whether we participate actively or passively ; it will only be each of us, in absolute freedom, who will have the honor and the burden of deciding our own and also the future of others. Humanity is conquered only with action, and freedom is its most powerful, unique and invincible human instrument if it feeds on selfless love: LET'S USE IT.

Ivo Bertaina

li

PRESENTATION BY PAUL EMBERSON

With my heartfelt thanks to all my friends at the Anthro-Tech research institute for their constant support and practical help in any test, and especially to Rudolf Steiner, the founder of spiritual science modern: without his outstanding contribution to human knowledge, it would have been inconceivable to be able to write this book. The first version of this book was published by Les trois Arches editions, Chatou, in 1991 with the following title: De ]undi Shapur à Silicon Valley [From Gondishapur to Silicon Valley, NDT] The author has revised, expanded and updated the book for the English version published by Etheric Dimensions Press, 4 Staffa Cottages, Tobermory Pa 75 6PL in Scotland with this title: From Gondishapur to Silicon Valley _ _ NDT] The publication dates of the English version are as follows: First version 1997 Revised and updated edition 2000 Second revised and updated edition 2005 Third edition, entirely revised, considerably enlarged and published in three volumes: Volume 1 Volume II Volume III

2009 2014 in preparation

APRIL 2011 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION IN ENGLISH

Nearly thirty years ago I first picked up the pen in order to recall my research into the nature and spiritual background of the binary technology used by computers. Some developments predicted in that first essay seemed almost science fiction at the time, but they have become reality and are now a part of everyday life. Demand for this book, which has been revised and updated several times and translated into numerous languages, has far exceeded expectations. This new edition has been so thoroughly reworked that it is practically a new book. Rudolf Steiner used to say that what we read in history books is a "honeycomb the defendant". The more I dug beneath the surface of computer technology, the more I discovered that this is indeed the case. In fact, the generally accepted story of the evolution of computers is so far from the truth that when one searches for the facts, one wonders how those who wrote that story could have invented it. Computer technology is made up of two things. The first is the idea: the idea of data processing. It reveals how to reduce information of all kinds to a set of fundamental symbols, and defines how to analyze it, combine it, memorize it and find it again. This idea later gave rise to programming languages, to software in general, and finally to the particular set of programs called the World Wide Web. The other component of computer technology is physics: machines built to carry out operations of information processing. These include electronic circuits placed inside "boxes" (computers), input and output devices, transmission lines, etc., which taken together constitute the internet. The origin of the physical technology used in computers is different from that of the idea of information processing . This double origin is concealed in conventional relationships. My research into these origins arose out of my practical involvement in computer hardware and software, and my desire to understand what they really are. In my professional work, I was not only required to solve technical problems related to the material, but I also dealt with programming

P. EMBERSON

neither. I became aware of the fact that data processing in binary form has, to be honest, no connection with real-life situations. Furthermore, digital information technology has not only been shown to be deceptive, but also harmful. The electromagnetic radiation emitted by all digital computing devices with the formation of their non-natural "square waves" is very harmful to health. At the time, my first solution idea was to make a different kind of computer. With a friend, I conceived and built a decimal computer, which was destined to be put on the market. But, as the work was drawing to a close, I realized the problem ran deeper. Electronics, even analog electronics, are not the answer to humanity's needs (let me mention in passing that the digital electronics of computing are not only the leading source of electromagnetic pollution today, but they are probably also one of the primary culprits in the problem of climate change.In addition to producing immense quantities of toxic and dangerous waste, computer systems also generate more CO 2 emissions than airlines or fuel-hungry vehicles and cars.According to the report The Inefficient Truth born out of the "Global Action Plan", the increasingly numerous internet data centers account for a huge part of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, a part that is growing exponentially) . The more I reflected on computers, the more it seemed to me that the very idea of "data processing", so radically removed from human thought, was problematic. Where does this idea come from ? In the course of my research to find an answer to this question, I read numerous works dealing with the evolution of computing, ranging from familiar reports to specialized symposiums and scientific treatises. The idea of reducing information to binary digits and treating it in this form is generally attributed to the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Curiously, we never go back to its inventor, Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Yet, Leibniz encountered the idea in Bacon's books. Bacon is indisputably the spiritual father of information technology . He invented the binary code and detailed data processing in his most famous works, many years before the birth of Leibniz. It was Bacon's excellent treatment of the subject that led me to the spiritual quests presented in detail in this book. This is what the idea of information technology is. But what about the physical devices to make it happen? Here again, we encounter a firmly entrenched false idea, namely, the idea that the electromechanics of present-day computer systems developed out of calculating machines, and that computers are themselves a special type of calculator . In fact, this belief is so widespread and there are so many works arguing that one must look for the origins of computers in Babbage's Analytical Engine , in the first arithmetic machines, and even in the abacus, that I did not initially question this hypothesis. The computer name itself seems to indicate this kinship *.

*Looking at the English language, it must be said that the term "computer" derives from the verb "to compute", which means precisely "to calculate".

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Earlier versions of this book reflect that my doubts as to whether the physical "computer" is really a calculating machine had not yet crystallized so far that I undertook historical research into it. In reality, however, the computer is badly defined; it should have been called a "simulator ". The English word computing implies mathematics, and for the general public, mathematics still carries the halo of scientific certainty, of facts that can be proved. This halo characterizes the computer of later enlightenment, giving it unwarranted authority. The computer is not a calculator. The truth is that the technology used in computers (numerical electronics) did not develop from calculating machines at all, and Babbage 's machines played no part in its development. The origin of this technology is not even in an area associated with Bacon's idea of data processing. The presentation of his true story has been included in this new edition, considerably expanding the scope of the book, which is now published in two volumes. By the time the first version was written, few people had heard of the internet, and the World Wide Web didn't exist. From that moment on, the situation changed completely. In recent years mankind has embraced the technology of the internet and the World Wide Web without restraint, seemingly without concern for all the effects both have on the mind and body. You meet numerous technically knowledgeable people who were previously concerned with problems such as the well-known carcinogenic effects of cell phones and high-frequency radiation, but who got carried away by the intoxicating advertising campaigns about the latest generation of cell phones with an internet connection, web-based multimedia tools, web-based virtual worlds, and I don't know what else. He disdained caution, but the bill, when it comes, must be paid. However, the question of the effects of the computer on the user's bodily and mental health is not the major problem. The problem concerns the future of humanity. Long before the specialists in artificial intelligence laboratories began to get scared of their own creations, and warned the general public that machines would become more intelligent than humans before mid-century, the philosopher and scientist of the spirit, Rudolf Steiner, had warned that this could be accomplished. Starting in 1916, when binary computers were still in their first stutters, R. Steiner indicated that if we continued to develop them, in the space of three centuries, humanity would degenerate into a race of subhuman creatures wholly dependent on artificial intelligence . He exactly described the situation that some philosophers today call the postmodern hell. The internet exists because people use it. If nobody used it, it wouldn't even exist. Every internet client, using it, supports its existence and favors its development. Why do people blindly continue to use it, closing their eyes to the horrific prospects that await the human race? Is it because there is more than mere commercial hype to this mysterious power of attraction that ensnares even the most serious of the World Wide Web? An irresistible force seems to emanate from the internet, a force that fewer and fewer people are able to resist. So even a

17

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person who has interests perhaps far beyond the narrow bounds of materialism, and who has perhaps found a deeper understanding of life in a philosophy or a science of the spirit, will not often come close to computer technology with the same intensity of mind that he demonstrates to deal with other areas of life. The Internet with its software, the World Wide Web, is more than just a chain of a billion pieces of computing equipment. It's not a huge, huge computer made up of all these little pieces of equipment. It's about something different. Describing what the internet and the World Wide Web have become in the 21st century requires that the researcher and student approach deep occult truths that have not yet been made public. Nonetheless, the difficult time in which humanity finds itself demands that these questions be fully understood. It is for this reason that in this new edition we have chosen to deal with this theme. I have taken to heart the comments of friends who thought that, in previous editions, the wieldings of the forces of evil in the development of computer technology were disclosed bluntly, so accurately, that some readers might have almost lost hope in the future of humanity. There is no escaping the reality of the facts: the influence of computers on human life is so great today that it cannot be destroyed by ordinary means; intelligent machines are on the verge of running the world. But there is a remedy, a spiritual technique strong enough to free the human being from this harmful influence. I have added in volume II a new section describing how groups of humans can develop this technique the details of which were provided by Rudolf Steiner. Switzerland, March 2009

18

INTRODUCTION

“Superstition is the belief in spirits that do not exist; but one can also refuse to believe in spiritual beings that really exist. And negative superstition". The remark was made by one of the most outstanding thinkers of our time, the Austrian philosopher and scientist Rudolf Steiner 1 . R. Steiner was the first to apply the rigorous methods of exact science to the study of spiritual phenomena. The His innovative work made the researches presented in this book possible.R. Steiner pointed out that most people are particularly willing to indulge in "negative superstition" when it comes to technical products. If there is an area in which we are particularly subject to negative superstition today, it is undoubtedly the area of information technology and the relationship that man maintains with it. "Don't worry" , say the promoters of artificial intelligence, "they are just machines. They can't really think. They don't act on their own initiative, they just follow the instructions you give them". There is no truth in this statement. Renowned cybernetician Joseph Weizenbaum of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, who invented the first and most influential artificial person, Eliza, pointed out in his latest book that: «The statement "computers only do what we tell them to do" is not simply false, but it is much more than dangerous. You shouldn't drink all this» 2 .

Weizenbaum goes on to make it clear that neither manufacturers nor users of modern computer systems have the means to know what they actually do. "I can say that the vast majority of computer systems currently in use, the gigantic systems that span our planet - for example, military systems - are beyond our understanding. I don't mean simply that there is no longer anyone capable of understanding how they work, but I mean that the time in which we could do this has passed. It is no longer possible for us to understand them". Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Weizenbaum gives us some technical reasons to explain this situation. But these reasons are not the only ones. The very idea that computers are simple mechanisms that follow instructions is based on a flawed principle. Modern physics is already on its way to establishing a truth well known to spiritual science , namely: fundamentally, all matter is a manifestation of the interplay of primary forces acting under the guidance of an underlying universal intelligence. It is clear that this intelligence does not act only in a general way. Within organized phenomena and complex systems, it differs and takes on a more specific character. The more perfectly organized the system, the more highly evolved the corresponding character manifested by the underlying intelligence. The most striking example is the human being himself. But the principle is not specific to organic entities; the same considerations apply to inorganic systems, including technical products: machines, electrical appliances and other things of the same type. Universal intelligence takes on a specialized character in relation to the complexity and possibilities of the machines in question. The materialist thinker will perhaps be inclined to dismiss outright the idea of intrinsic "intelligences" in machines, believing that the only intelligence that machines can possess is the artificial intelligence that we allow them. Spiritual science shows us that this is not the case. A person without a priori, who does not know the research methods used by spiritual science will be ready to admit that he is unable to form a judgment on the conclusions of this science. If these people come to examine the methods employed by a researcher such as Rudolf Steiner, it is almost certain that they will be struck by the extreme care with which the latter applied the rigorous and impartial approach of modern experimental science to carry out his studies of spiritual realities. Throughout this book, reference is made to the facts uncovered by similar methods of spiritual research. Data processing and information technology have overwhelmed our civilization like a moving sea. In almost every area, the computer has taken over the practical aspects of life. This extraordinary development cannot be seen in its true light without an understanding of the spiritual powers at work behind outer events. As soon as one begins to perceive the activity of these forces , a vast panorama presents itself to our gaze. On the one hand, our attention is focused on little-known historical events of the early Christian centuries, and on the other, on the probable evolution of artificial intelligence as it will develop into the distant future. The author has made an effort to present this panorama in the following chapters. In volume II, he describes an alternative technology, completely different from electronics and the binary computer. It is based on the use of "etheric" forces to set machines in motion. For reasons that will become apparent, spiritual science calls it "the moral technique."

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CHAPTER I LOOKING FOR THE TRUTH

The human being lives as a spiritual being in a physical body. Looking with his eyes, he sees the external world around him. They look inward in their mind's eye, he looks at the world of his own experiences. Both are real to him. In the external world he encounters physical beings, objects and events. Other people can see the same beings, the same objects, the same happenings. Because everyone can make the same observations, things in the outside world are defined as objective and real. When you look inward, you see the shapes, colors and movements of the images in your mind. The latter may represent things from the outside world, memories of past experiences, or new things created by the power of the imagination. This inner world is called subjective, and sometimes erroneously, unreal, as we assume that in the course of ordinary life, no one but ourselves can see it. However, this is only true for a part of our inner world; the latter also contains elements that others can perceive. These elements are of particular interest to us here, as they are the subject of applied science within the technology known as artificial intelligence. Let's stop for a moment to ask ourselves what is real. If we leave aside the different schools of philosophy that attribute a particular meaning to certain words, we could say very simply that we usually test reality through our experience. If you question someone's claim by saying "Prove it to me!", the most acceptable evidence he can provide will be his way of presenting his claim in such a way that we can experience it with him. " I'll believe it when I see it" is a widespread and in many cases justified attitude. What does it mean? It means that, in everyday life, we test something to find out if it is real or not, by experiencing it ourselves : Experiencing the thing firsthand is evidence of its reality.Knowing this, we can reasonably argue that the internal world that contains our subjective experiences is just as real.

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Let people say what they will about the alleged "true nature" of the images in our minds: illusions, electrical processes in the physical brain, encoded binary information , etc. Luckily for those of the like mind, their actual experience is not of this kind. Few people would be happy to exchange the rich imagery of their real inner world for the meager experience of a series of silent, characterless, invisible electrical pulsations. Obviously the latter also exist, but they are physical processes that are part of the physical body. The human being, as a spiritual being who lives in a physical body from birth until death, perceives the spiritual reality of his inner world. The brain with its electrical processes serves as a physical instrument. A computer does the same thing, but in a different way. These considerations lead us to the objective elements in our inner world: those that other people can see. An example will better illustrate what I mean. Let us imagine a professor explaining to his pupils a fundamental mathematical operation . At the end of his lesson, all the pupils (let's assume there are twenty of them) have fully grasped the principle. Each of them "sees" it in his mind. But there is only one principle, not twenty (or twenty-one, if we count the professor ). They are all seeing the same truth as an inner experience. It is an objective fact, not visible per se in the external world, but universally perceptible to all people who see it inwardly. Consequently, we have distinguished the principle (the concept), which is not physical, from the innumerable material circumstances in which it is physically expressed. One could find dozens of situations comparable to those in which someone has placed two books on top of two other books to make a stack of four books, or added two apples to a bowl of fruit that already held two, or brought two additional glasses of champagne to complete a batch of four. They are all material examples of a mathematical concept: two plus two equals four. This concept is universal; and this strikes us as self-evident. But why is this so? By grasping the principle that two plus two equals four, we understand a logical truth. Whether or not this truth applies in the outward way is another matter. We just gave the example that two apples plus two apples make four apples. Well, that's right! But in reality, two apples are never identical, whereas when we say two plus two equals four, we assume that each of the "twos" consists of two exactly identical "ones" (units) . Each of them corresponds to the number "one" represented by the digit 1 in arithmetic. If either of our "ones" were, one way or another, greater or less than this figure, then "one plus one" would not equal "two." The result would be larger or smaller than "two". Real objects and beings of the external world never correspond exactly to our arithmetical concepts. When we count, we count numbers of things, not the things themselves. More than ever, common sense and sound judgment are needed in modern life to make a clear distinction between what is logically true and what is factually true. Computers are designed to perform electrical operations that represent logical operations. The "information" they deal with, and the "results" they give, do not necessarily have a relationship with external reality. What is logically "true" may be false in reality .

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If logical truths aren't necessarily true literally in the real world, why do we consider them truths? Since we have a basic understanding of arithmetic, we can see that "two minus four equals minus two" (2 - 4 = -2). However, we can't take four apples from a plate that contains only two, and we also can't take four objects or entities in the real world if we only own two. However, this does not prevent us from recognizing the logical truth of the corresponding thematic but operation. This logical truth has not always been apparent. In ancient times, men would not have understood the operation we have just mentioned. Humanity gradually approached mathematics. Then came a time when it was believed that mathematics had an objective external existence, that it was the very foundation of the universe, transcending the existence of humans and all other beings with the exception of God. This belief began to crumble in the 19th century, when Carl Friedrich Gauss and other renowned mathematicians began to doubt whether the traditional geometry of Euclid, which since Greek times had been considered the true geometric description of space, was anything more than a construction of the human mind. Some of these mathematicians worked out new systems of geometry, equally valid. Later, in the 20th century, the Austrian mathematician Kurt Godei showed that in any logical mathematical system there are proportions that such a system can neither find nor refute 3 . Even in arithmetic, we cannot be sure that the basic principles will not give rise to contradictions. Finally, at the turn of the millennium, Georg Lakoff and Rafael Nùnez, specialists in the cognitive sciences, established that all theorems proved by human mathematicians are part of a system of human mathematical concepts, and that it is not possible to know whether they correspond to some objective truth 4 . This doesn't just apply to math, of course, but more generally to logic. Logic would therefore appear to be a construction of the human mind. Within the mental realm of logic, we say that a conclusion is "true" when it is elaborated in accordance with the laws applicable in this realm. It can be true or false in daily life. Computers are said to embody logic: their electronic circuits are called "logic circuits." Their logic is a special category of logic which is generally called " Boolean logic". It is the English mathematician George Boole (1815-1864) who gave it its name. Boole considered his logic to be essentially that of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, expressed more symbolically and in mathematical form. It is a noteworthy fact that what is called logic was originally formulated by a single human mind. As incredible as this may seem to us human beings today, the fact is that logic was invented by one man, practically alone, by the one who must be recognized as the greatest thinker the world has ever known: Aristotle . The human mind seeks to understand the world, of which it is itself a part. It is not satisfied with simply observing the things and situations around it, it wants to know what they are, where they come from and what determines them. Through the multiple avenues of research and investigation that are offered to it, it acquires a vast amount of isolated information which

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it brings together and integrates into a coherent system of ideas and concepts. This forms his conception of existence. When a specific problem occurs, the mind tries to relate it to what it already knows. Let's imagine a very simple case - it may seem trivial, but it will serve to illustrate what we are talking about here. Let's imagine that, walking through a market, we observe a strange exotic fruit on a greengrocer's stall that we have never seen before. "Is it edible?", we ask the greengrocer. "Everything I'm selling is edible ," replies the man, who hadn't answered our question directly. However, having learned that everything he sells is edible, we deduced that the strange fruit that caught our attention is also edible. The deductive process we have undertaken is a fundamental process of logic. So basically we reasoned like this: 1. All fruits in the stall are edible. 2. The strange fruit is a fruit from the stall. 3. Therefore the strange fruit is edible. The three statements in our reasoning are called "terms" in Aristotelian logic . A set of three terms having the same logical relation to each other, as is the case in our example, in which the third term (the conclusion) necessarily follows from the other two, is a syllogism. Now, as we said, what we now know as "computer logic" is an organization of electrical processes that mimics the logic developed in the 19th century by mathematician George Boole, who based his mathematical theory of logic on Aristotle. Boole believed that he had actually translated, with some modifications, Aristotle's terms and procedures into a sort of algebra 5 . Computing logic is consequently regarded as a mechanized form of logic coming, ultimately, from Aristotle. The author of this book intends to show that this is not the case. To this end, he invites the reader to place himself for a few moments in Aristotle's logic, focusing on some of his properties that are of interest for our investigation. We will briefly approach the theme at an elementary level, without pretending to do a scholarly job. The first of its properties that interests us here is its tripartite aspect. The syllogism, as we have seen, consists of three terms. These terms are related to each other in a certain way. The first term informs us about a whole category of objects: "all the fruits of the stall". The second term mentions that the strange fruit that caught our attention belongs to this category of objects. The strange fruit is contained in the general category of "all the fruits of the stall". However, what we actually want to know is whether the strange fruit is edible or not. Having stated that the whole category of objects had this quality of being edible, we deduce that the strange fruit which is contained in this category of objects possesses the quality of being edible. Some may find it tiring to analyze our way of reasoning in this way and find that we insist in an annoying way. After all, if a greengrocer tells us that his wares are edible, is it really

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necessary to know Aristotelian logic and syllogisms to be able to conclude that we can eat the fruit we are interested in? However, this brings us right back to our question: how do we know the logical truth that two plus two equals four? What is this faculty of logical thinking that we possess? Since logic is a mental construction whose objective existence cannot be demonstrated outside the human mind, as we have argued , where does our ability to draw logical conclusions come from? Historically it comes from Aristotle. The next question might arise at this stage: did Aristotle really invent logic, or did he simply formulate for the first time something that was already present in life? But the question is deceptive. If logic is a construction of the mind, then it doesn't exist outside the human mind. So, if Aristotle didn't invent it, it was Plato, Socrates or other great thinkers who did. On this point, however , the history of philosophy leaves little room for doubt. Hugh Tredennick, in his introduction to his translation of Aristotle's Analytic Primes , comments: «The invention of the syllogism, or rather the systematic treatment of the laws of inference, was perhaps Aristotle's greatest and most original undertaking. It goes without saying that his approach to logical studies had to pass through the Dialectic of the Academy; but although we can see some of the practical application of Plato's theories in dialogues such as Theaetetus, Parmenides, Sophist and Politicus, there is little reason to suppose that they had already been fully developed on a formal level. Everything indicates the opposite. [...] Furthermore, it is intrinsically probable that the systematic treatment of the deductive process must be attributed to the excellent analytical powers of Aristotle. [...] The formulation of a logical system which, despite modifications (some of them are contestable improvements), remains the basis of any further logic, was such a

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great feat that criticism seems uncharitable, particularly when it considers that here as elsewhere we are obliged to judge Aristotle, so to speak "at second hand". If he himself had directed the publications of his works on logic, he would undoubtedly have suppressed the numerous imperfections and inconsistencies that can be observed in our text» 6 .

In the work in question, Analytic Firsts, Aristotle defines and demonstrates the laws of syllogistic reasoning, which constitute the laws of logic. As we have seen, the syllogism is constructed with three statements or terms. Furthermore, each of the three terms is itself made up of three parts. Looking at our example again: 1. All fruits in the stall are edible. 2. The strange fruit is a fruit from the stall. 3. Therefore the strange fruit is edible we see that the three parts of the first term are: (i) the subject: "All the fruits of the stall"; (ii) a specific property (called predicate) attributed to the subject, in this case the quality of being edible; (iii) a verb (called a copula) that connects the subject to the predicate. The example of an imaginary fruit used here serves to illustrate the relationships between the terms of the syllogism, relationships that apply to countless situations in life. This becomes evident if we reduce our example to a simpler expression of these relationships. Instead of writing: All the fruits of the stall (subject)

sono (copula)

commestibili (predicato)

we replace the words that define the subject (All the fruits of the stall) with only the letter F and, in the predicate, the word "edible" with the letter C. Thus we will write the first term: F are C or even more simply: F = C where the "equal" sign is not employed in the usual mathematical sense, but acts as a copula, simply indicating that the predicate applies to the subject. In our second term: "The strange fruit is a fruit from the stall.", we could replace the full name of the subject (strange fruit) with the letter S, and write:

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where S represents the "strange fruit" and F "a fruit from the stall". Finally, our third term, the conclusion, could be expressed as follows: S=C which indicates, that is, that the strange fruit (S) is edible (C). What we use here is a kind of shorthand, simplified for our proof compared to the one used by Aristotle. Thus we have thus reduced our syllogism to the essentials of the relations between its parts. We could say that the letters we have chosen for the terms of our syllogism: 1st term: F = C 2nd term: S = F 3rd term: S = C they could also represent other subjects and other predicates, for example: 1. All cheeses (F) are expensive (C) 2. Stracchino (S) is a cheese (F) 3. So stracchino (S) is expensive (C). Or, again: 1.1 French are European citizens 2. Stendhal was a Frenchman 3. So Stendhal was a European citizen A syllogism, in Aristotle's own terms, is: "...a discourse in which, given some things, something else different from those data results from the mere fact of these data. By the mere fact of these data, I mean that it is through them that one obtains the consequence; in turn, the expression is through them that the consequence is obtained, meaning that no extraneous term is required to produce the necessary consequence" 7 .

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But the terms of a syllogism must follow each other in the right order. This order is essential and must not be changed. If we inverted the second and third terms in our example, we would end up with meaningless arguments: All cheeses are expensive Cuttlefish is (F = C) expensive (S=C) So cuttlefish is a cheese (S = F) which is neither logical nor true. A syllogism can come to a conclusion that is logical, but not necessarily true: All French people drink wine Francois Martin is a Frenchman So Francois Martin drinks wine

The conclusion is logical but perhaps false, because the first term "All French people drink wine" is false. Conversely, a syllogism can arrive at a conclusion that is not logically acceptable, since the first term obviously does not make sense, but it can come true: All men named Nicolas are presidents Nicolas Sarkozy is a man called Nicolas So Nicolas Sarkozy is president'

At the time the book is written, this conclusion is found to correspond to reality, but not because of our way of reasoning. Syllogisms can lead to paradoxes, as when I say: All the people in this room are liars I am a person in this room So I'm a liar

In this logically constructed example, we find that if the first statement is true, then it is false, since if I am a liar, then my first statement will be a lie. In the five books of the Organon, Aristotle sets out clearly and exhaustively the laws relating to the admissible and inadmissible forms of the syllogism and of the construction * The different examples have been adapted for the French version. of its terms. It was a prodigious feat: the

creation of a system of logic so powerful and complete that, two thousand years later, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant pointed out that no significant progress had been made in this area since the time of Aristotle. His logic became an integral part of human thought .

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When a child learns to think and reason, the reasoning faculty which he acquires through imitation and nurturing is largely syllogistic reasoning. The latter is deeply rooted in our thinking today that we use it automatically †. It must be said that syllogistic reasoning is only one of several excellent contributions of Aristotle to knowledge and knowledge in general. However, it is the one that particularly interests us here . The syllogism is of a threefold nature when its composition in three terms is considered together, and the tripartite construction of the terms themselves. It's not arbitrary. Had it not corresponded to our way of perceiving the world, it certainly would not have become the universal tool of reason for all Western humanity. The human being himself (a being of body, soul and mind) relates to the world in three different ways: through objective perception and thought, through personal emotions and feelings, and through voluntary physical acts. Furthermore, in the Western Christian world, we feel that the spiritual foundation of existence is an expression of the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit, creatively working in a tripartite time: past, present and future. Thus the Aristotelian mode of logical reasoning reflects in its intrinsic form the triple nature of existence as experienced by man. In absolute opposition, the computer's binary electronics and its "logic" are implacably dual in nature. Another fundamental property of reasoning in the form of a syllogism is that it moves from the whole towards the parts, or from the universal towards the particular. The first term of a syllogism refers to a category of beings or things, for example: "All French people are...", or to an entire group within a category, for example: "Some French people are.. .". With the second term, we go from the whole to the part, for example: "Sten dhal was...". Again, all of this is in harmony with the creation of the world. If we take Genesis: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void," or the modern big-bang theory with its primordial and undifferentiated atom containing the world, we proceed from the whole to the set off. Here again, in total opposition to this, computer science and its "logic" take sides as a starting point, as we will see later. How did it come about that the nature of computer logic is so foreign to human thought? The inventors of the computer designed it to handle large numbers of "chunks" of information (bits). They believed that information - data (data) - consists of universal building blocks that can be processed using universal methods . However, the computer is not the result of the modern man's current search for new ways of understanding the world. On the contrary, the events that gave rise to its development were prepared and initiated more than a thousand years ago. Computers are usually considered as sophisticated tools that must allow us to be masters of life. Our study will reveal that (strange as the facts may seem when first encountered) the genius behind artificial intelligence is not human. The computer is the tool of

†There are obviously other systems of logic but certainly not comparable in importance to that of Aristotle.

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a particular spiritual entity who uses it to lead humanity into its power. The nature of this entity and the scope of its intentions can be understood with the help of modern spiritual science. As we look behind the veil of historical events, an extraordinary drama will unfold before our eyes; a drama whose first acts were performed in the seventh century of the Christian era, and in which we too are actors. The last act, which will take place in the future, will decide the survival of mankind. In order to understand the nature of this spiritual battle for the future of humanity, it will be necessary to clarify what we mean when we say that the spiritual entity behind the development of computer technology is an evil entity.

WHAT IS MEANT BY "EVIL"? Good and evil appear to us as the opposite poles of a duality that colors all of existence . More has been reflected on the nature of good, considered as an objective reality personified in God the Creator, than on its negative counterpart, namely evil . However, if the powers of good necessarily exist (and the great majority of human beings consider it so), then, it must be the same for the equivalents, the powers of evil. This opinion, shared by the author of this book, is fundamental for the entire development of the theme. Good and evil are not considered from the point of view of a religious denomination, but as active principles that operate in all spheres of existence . The scientist who studies spiritual reality is obliged to take them into account, just as the researcher who deals with material phenomena takes into account the polarity of electricity and magnetism. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of modern spiritual science, characterizes evil as a good that is out of place, a good out of place. He often illustrated this principle with the following example. Something that is good in one era can no longer be so if it is transferred to other eras. The longer it lasts beyond its time, the more it can become harmful, until finally becoming an evil. And the work of laggard spiritual beings it does that a good becomes an evil in this way. We have here a reflection of the Zoroastrian principle of evil that the ancient Persians knew in the person of the God of darkness, Ahriman. For the sake of greater simplicity, and in accordance with what is usually practiced in the spiritual sciences, we will adopt the term "Ahrimanic beings" to designate the powers which strive to transform good into evil. It may happen that a good thing from the future is prematurely transplanted into the present. The world is then not ready to welcome it and cannot find a relationship with it. A modern example is the premature development of nuclear technology. Nuclear forces aren't necessarily dangerous in themselves if you handle them right. But they were introduced into concrete applications long before the preparatory research was not finished. In this case,

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something that could have been beneficial at the desired time becomes harmful. Since the beginning of the Christian era, ahrimanic beings operate essentially in this way. Spiritual research, confirmed by external events, allows us to see how these beings make sure that the future is precipitated in the present. Researching the historical origin of this hidden force that is expressed today in computer technology, let's see how this same technology could cause a great disaster for Earth's evolution. However, the theme of good and evil is deeper and more complex than the simple duality these considerations suggest. There are, we could say, two kinds of evil. They are very different from each other; in fact, they are diametrically opposed. This was felt most clearly in ancient times when life was simpler and fundamental realities stood out in more obvious relief. In Biblical times, these two princes of evil were personified in Lucifer, the fallen angel, and Satan, the prince of hell . Spiritual science, in the absence of appropriate modern designations, uses the ancient names Lucifer and Ahriman, but specifies the exact meaning it attributes to them. With the expression "luciferic principle", we designate the pernicious influence through which the human being is separated from concrete life and aspires to live in the ivory tower of the dreamer, indifferent to the things of this world. He becomes estranged from earthly matters and forgets his duties as a citizen of the Earth towards his fellow citizens and towards the planet. His inner life is filled with pleasant illusions and passionate dreams. We use the term "Ahrimanic" for the opposite principle, which affects man in such a way that he becomes deaf to his own higher nature (his soul and spirit), believing that nothing exists beyond physical matter and of physical energy. He thus becomes a pure and rigid materialist, convinced that we are nothing more than biological mechanisms that cease to function with the arrival of death. He is not interested in the divine spirit world, as for him it is only a figment of the imagination. Concepts such as freedom , morality and human dignity cease to have any real meaning in his gloomy conception of existence. He considers the human being as a product of a combination of chemical elements due to chance within a Universe in the form of dissipated and shapeless heat. His picture of the world leads to despair. Until the 20th century, the Luciferic principle was most visible in Eastern culture. The eastern soul directed its attention inward, yearning to cast off its ties to earthly existence and return to the divine source of all being —what Buddhism calls nirvana. It dreamed of dissolving like a drop of water in the primordial ocean of the creative mind. In many respects it was a noble pursuit, but if all souls had achieved it, it would have led to the total collapse of earth evolution. The Eastern soul did not question the divine creation of the world. But paradoxically, if God's creation of terrestrial humanity had a purpose, the return of these souls to nirvana would have robbed creation of its purpose. In the West, humanity turned its attention outward on the exploration of physical matter and energy. Western civilization built machines and developed the techniques for industry,

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while it began to have only a vague idea of the creative mind. Religion became nothing more than a Sunday habit. More than one Christian physician, to name but one profession, went to church on Sundays to pray to his divine creator to save his soul. But from Monday to Friday, he treated his patients with a totally materialistic approach to medicine, despising the very idea of the presence of spiritual forces in Nature. In our age, these two kinds of evil (for they are really evil) have become extremely powerful. On the one hand, there are fears that youth and our children are becoming totally estranged from life by taking drugs or getting lost in the artificial worlds of networked computer games. They are scrambling for something 'higher', something 'better' than the depressing external reality of a polluted environment and a civilization built on greed and injustice. However clumsy and ill-inspired their attempts may be, it is an escape from reality into the realms of the imaginary, and this bodes ill for the future. It's a dangerous luciferic flu. On the other hand, our culture has also become materialistic to an extreme. Man is no longer simply regarded as a "naked ape" as he was a century ago. He has fallen even lower than his true rank, and today he is considered a biological computer programmed unreliably by his genes. Many argue that he will simply end up being connected to the internet via chips implanted in his brain (which will surely happen , one way or another, on a massive scale), and that he will either become a component of this gigantic machine, or it will be uprooted by its electronic masters whose artificial intelligence will have far surpassed the meager powers of the human mind. Our best chance will then be to be a good member. This grotesquely materialistic vision is instilled in us by the evil principle we call Ahriman. To try to get a fair idea of the relationship between these two types of evil, one could use the analogy with physical nutrition. If we are fed wholesome food, the health of our physical body is strengthened. But if we take poison, the effects on us are harmful. Some poisons paralyze the body consciousness, pushing us out of ourselves, so that we become delirious or faint or even die. Other poisons have just the opposite effect, heightening the body consciousness to the point of causing intense pain and even extreme suffering, and our attention is completely absorbed by the pains of our body. This too can be fatal. The Luciferic and Ahrimanic principles are like poisons for the soul. Lucifer draws us out of ourselves, while Ahriman binds us too strongly to physical existence. These are two extremes, two excessive deviations from the normal state of health of the soul. This image is only an analogy, but it helps us to see that the question of good and evil is not limited to a simple duality. Here too the forces that influence the human soul are triple. Just and healthy evolution follows a central, balanced path which leads to this supreme ideal of human development, of which Christ is the example for Christians. Spiritual science, through its investigations in this area, confirms that the Luciferic and Ahrimanic principles are active

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powers that have their place in the existence of the world. They are found on each side of the path of normal development, and try to prevent man from following them. They are not blind forces, but supremely intelligent beings possessing a degree of consciousness far beyond that of a human mind. Their consciousness is a cosmic consciousness. We will be led to examine in detail the action of the ahrimanic principle of which certain aspects have already been evoked. There is a particular way in which the good, through Ahriman, can be misplaced and transformed into its opposite. Evil appears when good spiritual forces are misused . It is the essence of black magic and the reason why those who practice its rituals, even profane ones (the black mass for example) try to desecrate the holy places and make illegal use of sacred objects. The greater the forces of good misused, the more powerful the resulting evil is. The highest good can be transformed into the blackest evil. Let us examine what spiritual science can tell us about the way in which these occult (that is, hidden) powers operate, whose influences have led to the development of computers . Here we will adopt a point of view which will perhaps be unusual, even surprising, for many readers. But they will want to follow the development of our theme, and we believe that this point of view will explain certain aspects of our world that would otherwise be inexplicable. We will start from a little-known historical situation, in which an attempt was made to divert the spiritual action of a very great individual, Mani. HANDS. REDEMPTION FROM EVIL Among the Christian esoteric currents, of which modern spiritual science also belongs , the least known and the most profound is Manichaeism. Rudolf Steiner has sometimes expressed himself on the subject of the Manichaeans, who are preparing today to work in the future with great healing power, when, as servants of Christ, they will try to save souls that will have had to succumb to evil. The purpose of Manichaeism is to learn to turn evil into good. Although the origins of the Manichaean impulse go back to the distant past, the movement that bears the same name was founded in the third century of our era by Mani, a very great Christian initiate. As we will see shortly, knowledge of this act is crucial to understanding the momentum currently manifesting itself in computer technology. According to the somewhat sketchy historical traces discovered to date, Mani was born in or around 216 AD. He appears to have been Persian, although accounts of his birthplace differ. We find certain historical traces on this aspect when, at the age of about twenty-five, he began to teach his doctrine of good and evil, and the transformation of evil into good. The place where he enunciated this doctrine and founded the spiritual movement that bears his name was a city called Beth Lapat in the Persian district of Khuzistan. His life and work are beautifully expressed in a five-act drama by the Swiss writer Albert Steffen entitled Mani's Death Experience 8 . His earthly destiny, like that of many other spiritual leaders of humanity,

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ended with his execution. He was flayed alive and his skin was hung over one of the city gates, which has since been known as the "Gate of Mani". Spiritual research, which uses a modern form of clairvoyance developed from the systematic training of the faculties latent in all human beings, is primarily concerned with the spirit in man. Rigorous clairvoyance of this kind allows the investigator to perceive the human soul, just as physical sight allows him to perceive the body in which it lives. When the soul leaves the physical body at the moment of death, it does not necessarily become invisible to super-sensible perception. Exact clairvoyance, capable of perceiving the human soul during its earthly life, can follow its new activity for some time after death. In reality, the limitations encountered in spiritual perception are not inherent in the phenomena perceived; they depend on the degree to which the investigator has developed his clairvoyant faculties (it is for this reason, among other things, that the author frequently refers to the work of Rudolf Steiner. R. Steiner possessed an uncommon perception, the accuracy of which has been verified an incalculable number of times in practical life. The following descriptions are drawn abundantly from his research). The soul activity of Mani, which continued after his death, is related to our theme. Mani continued his work in the spirit world. He reincarnated rapidly and repeatedly, such that he was almost constantly on Earth from then on. In the fourth century of our era, he summoned three of the greatest human beings, Zarathustra, Scythian and Buddha, to prepare the future of humanity. Rudolf Steiner describes this pivotal event in these terms: "History still mentions a fourth individuality behind which, for numerous spirits, resides a still higher, still more powerful being than the three entities we have mentioned with the names of Scythian, Gautama Buddha and Zarathustra. And Mani, regarded as a high messenger of Christ by those who see in Manichaeism more than is usually done.A few centuries after Christ had lived on earth, they say, Mani gathered around him three great personalities of the fourth century, for one of the most important meetings that have ever taken place, closest to the Earth, but in the spirit world. This imaginative vision traces a seminal event in spiritual civilization. The purpose of the meeting was to consult on how to revive the wisdom transmitted across the turning of the ages during the post-Atlantean era and to return to it an ever greater and more glorious influence in the future.Which are the personalities that Mani has brought together for this memorable meeting, that only spiritual vision can achieve? The first is the one in which Scythian had once lived, the reincarnation of Scythian in the time of Mani. The second is a physical reflection of the Buddha who reappeared at that time, and the third is Zarathustra, reincarnated at that time. This is how we have a college around Mani, Mani in the centre, around him the Scythian, the Buddha and Zarathustra. In this college the plan was established whereby all the wisdom of the Bodhisattvas' of post-Atlantean times was to pour more and more into the future of mankind. And the plan which they established for the future evolution of the culture of the Earth was preserved and transmitted to those European Mysteries which are the Mysteries of the Rosicrucians" 9 .

We will see later that the plan of the future evolution of the civilizations of the Earth adopted by Mani, Scythian, Buddha and Zarathustra is of particular importance for our era :

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the 20th and 21st centuries. The city of Beth Lapat, from where the deepest Christian occult current has spread throughout the world thanks to the work of Mani, developed to become a thriving city. To the north rose the high peaks of the Zagros. Before it wound a tributary of the River Diz. The fertile plain in which it had dug its bed was richly cultivated with cereals and date palms. For a time, the city was the royal city of Persia. Shapur and his immediate successors had their residence there. During Mani's lifetime it was renamed "Gondi Shapur" in honor of the Persian king.

* Sanskrit name for an "enlightened one" or divinely inspired spiritual guide of humanity.

GONDISHAPUR (THE APPEARANCE OF THE BEAST) During the year 529 d. C., the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, concerned with enforcing what he considered to be the orthodox doctrines of the Church, decreed that pagans, heretics and Samaritans would be forbidden to teach in any place of knowledge. He expelled all the pagan philosophers of the Greek schools, which he immediately shut down. Even the great Academy of Athens, where Plato had taught, did not escape his draconian purge. Justinian's actions had consequences for world history (we'll come back to Emperor Justinian later, in a context that eerily relates to our own). A number of prominent philosophers fled to Persia, where they were welcomed by the king, Chosroes I, who was an ardent patron of learning. Some settled in the royal city of Gondishapur, which gradually became one of the greatest centers of learning the world has ever known. Numerous schools were established there, in the wake of what was done in Greece, and from them a famous and mysterious academy was born. Without the research undertaken by Rudolf Steiner, we would not have known the profound influence that the Gondishapur Academy was to exert on history up to the present day, and beyond. Since the Gondishapur Academy is of particular importance for our study , we are going to gather some information about it. In a footnote accompanying the English translation of Rudolf Steiner's series of lectures entitled Three currents in the evolution of humanity (in OO 184, Polarity between duration and evolution in the life of man Vol. I, II, III), Charles Davy writes the following: «The city of Jundi Sabùr was founded by a Persian king, Shapur I (224-241 AD). It was there that in 276, Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, was executed. The first of the events that led to the emergence of the Academy of Jundi Sabùr took place in 455, when the bishop of Edessa had the

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decrees of the council of Chalcedon against the Nestorians applied in his diocese; some of them emigrated to Persia. A new purge of Nestorians took place in 487, and in 489 the emperor Zeno finally closed the school at Edessa. However, the Jundi Sabur Academy was not formally opened until the Greek schools of philosophy had been closed by the Emperor Justinian in 528-529, during the reign of the Persian king Chosroes I (531-576). Dr De Lacy O'Leary, in his book How greek science passed to the Arabs, Routledge, 1949) said of Chosroes I: "He was a great admirer of Greco-Roman culture and particularly desired to introduce Greek science into his empire. It was he who offered hospitality to the philosophers who had been left to fend for themselves when Justinian closed the schools of Athens, and to provide them with safety and assistance when they wished to return to Greece. He wished to have in Persia a great Greek Academy like that of Alexandria, and he established such an Academy in the city of Jundi-Shapùr. teaching programs of Alexandria and even the same books of Galen were read and studied". The Academy became particularly famous for its medical teaching; Other major subjects studied there were said to be astronomy (the remains of an observatory have been found) and mathematics. Dr EG Brown mentions these various events in his Arabian Medicine (Arab Medicine, Cambridge University Pres, 1960): "The extraordinary development of the school of Jundi-Shàpùr was [...] the unforeseen and unexpected result of this Byzantine intolerance which, in the fifth century of our era, he expelled the Nestorians from their school in Edessa and forced them to seek refuge in Persian territory.In the following century, the lover of wisdom and enlightened Khusraw Anusharwan, protector of the exiled Neoplatonist philosophers, sent his physician Barzuya in India. The latter, together with the game of chess and the famous book of Kalila and Dimna, brought back to Persia works of Indian medicine and also, so it seems, Indian doctors. The school of Jundi-Shàpùr was then, in moment of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed, at the height of his glory.Greek and oriental knowledge converged there : the former was partly transmitted directly by Greek scholars, but mostly by the Syrians, assimilators and workers, who compensated with the they detail their lack of originality"» 10 .

It is a particularly interesting and important fact for our study that the game of chess was brought from India to Gondishapur by Barzuya (Burzoe), court physician. The game was a considerable success and took on the form it is known today at that time. It must be said that the game of chess has played an important role in the development of artificial intelligence. When IBM's Deep Blue computer defeated then-world chess champion Gary Kasparow in May 1997 , it caused a sensation among the general public. The world suddenly became aware that machine intelligence is a force to be reckoned with. It was the first major victory of an artificially intelligent machine over a naturally intelligent human being. Kasparow had a defiant reaction, as for him, one could not really conclude that the intelligence of machines was superior to that of a human being. But when the German computer Deep Fritz crushed the new world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, in Bonn in December 2006, it became clear to all that human players could no longer rival the intelligence of computers in the most advanced games of chess. Solving problems that arise in the game of chess is the perfect illustration of the kind of

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operations for which artificial intelligence was created. The goal to be achieved is clearly defined: to checkmate the opponent. There are innumerable possible shots to achieve this, each of them will have different consequences and at each level of the game there must, in theory, be an ideal next shot that the player must discover if possible. Deep Blue was capable of analyzing 200 million shots in one second. Deep Fritz it's faster and even more powerful. Analyzing the situation precisely and determining the best possible shot requires intense concentration and rigorous, highly trained logical thinking . Indeed, the game of chess in its definitive form is precisely the fruit of this type of thinking which, apparently, a machine can exercise in its own way, as well as a human being can do it, and indeed even better. Mental training of this type, based on Aristotle's logic, was practiced at the Gondishapur Academy, where rational thinking acquired, in that era of excellent thinkers, the highest degree of precision possible. In the minds of the brightest Arab scientists who lived there, the sharpest thinking was combined according to Rudolf Steiner with a certain gift of imagination which developed on strictly logical foundations and came to reach a form of inner perception. This was the key feature of the culture that flourished in Gondishapur. It is in this context that a singular event would shortly take place destined to change the entire course of evolution and to deprive humanity of its future . Rudolf Steiner talks about it as follows: "Take an event that has not much interested the official history of mankind, but which is extremely important: take the fact that in AD 529 , the emperor Justinian forbade the schools of Greek philosophers to continue their work. The schools of philosophy jewels of Antiquity, are affected by the prohibition, so much so that all the immemorial science that had entered it, that had produced an Anaxagoras, a Heraclitus, later a Socrat and, a Plato, an Aristotle, was banished from the world in 529 by this edict of the emperor Justinian.Of course, on the basis of the data of history, one can get an idea of \u200b\u200bthe reasons that prompted Justinian, so to speak, to wipe out ancient science from the soil of Europe; but if one reflects honestly on these things, one remains dissatisfied with all the explanations that have been proposed. One senses that unknown forces are at work. And it is strange that this event coincides - not exactly, but historical facts sometimes separated by a few decades, appear with detachment, going together - with the expulsion of the philosophers of Edessa by the Isaurian, Zeno the Isaurian; so that the best-known scientists were driven out of the highest cultural places of the time. And these scientists who had preserved the ancient science, the one that Christianity had not yet influenced - therefore had to go into exile, in the fifth and sixth centuries of our era. They emigrated to Persia and founded the Gondishapur Academy. In reality, even among philosophers, little is said about this Academy of Gondishapur. But if we do not know the nature of this Academy founded on what remained of Greek antiquity, we understand nothing of the whole evolution of modern humanity, since this ancient erudition brought to Gondishapur by the sages expelled by Justinian and by Isaurian formed the foundation of a major teaching later dispensed to seventh-century students. And it was in Gondishapur that Aristotle, the ancient Greek sage, was translated . And this singular thing happened: Aristo Tele - which otherwise would probably have been lost - was initially translated into Syriac in Edessa, by the scholars who were later expelled from the Isaurian. The Syriac translation was taken to Gondishapur and there, the Syriac Aristotle was translated into Arabic. And this transposition of Aristotle from Greek into Arabic

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through the intermediary of Syriac entailed something very singular. Anyone who manages to discern the modifications that thoughts undergo when one actually translates them from one language into another, when one tries to translate them, will be able to understand (I will formulate this in the form of a hypothesis) that one could somehow put part of the Greek Aristotle freely , for the benefit of the Aristotle drawn into Arabic via Syriac. And if then, with the translation of Aristotle, a basis was established where the Aristotelian concepts appeared in the light of the Arab soul as it was then, this singular soul of the Arabs, in which the most rigorous thought was linked to a certain imaginative spirit however, he followed logical paths and rose to clairvoyance. And then, in the light of this particular conception, a powerful worldview developed in Gondishapur. It was in Gondishapur that in the seventh century what I have mentioned here took place" 11 .

It is in this particular situation, in which the nobler fruits of Greek thought, subtly altered by translation, were combined with a special faculty of spiritual vision, that a most important Ahrimanic impulse appeared. Spiritual research reveals that one of the greatest powers of evil, the adversary of Christ, tried to appear to those men of science. It was the being known as Sorat: the most powerful of all Ahrimanic demons, who in the Apocalypse of St. John is called the Beast with two comas. His intention was to divert the spiritual forces from the Manichaean esoteric current, to reverse them. The noblest good was to become the greatest evil - an aim which was to be achieved in the following way. In normal times, human consciousness develops gradually over millennia. In ancient times, the Egyptians possessed a consciousness very different from ours. They also knew many secrets that have since been lost, and they used techniques that we no longer understand today. In fact, the experience that the Egyptian had of himself and his environment was not the same as that of a modern man today . He lived directly in the sensations that entered his soul through the doors of his senses. He did not analyze them with his intellect as men of later civilizations did. Modern man is somehow a spectator of his own life of the soul. His mind keeps its distance in relation to everything that comes to it through sight, hearing, touch, and so on. He examines his sensory perceptions, reflects on their content, arrives at reasoned judgments, and acts on the basis of them, or refrains from acting, as best suits him. This region of the mind in which man reflects on the meaning of his sensations is called, in the terminology of spiritual science, the rational soul. The ancient Egyptian lived most immediately in his sense perceptions - in that part of the soul which is called the sentient soul. However, humanity is now moving towards a higher level of consciousness. With the rational soul, we learn about the meaning of the external world and our reactions to it. But we do not yet know what we are in our spiritual reality . Today it is possible to glimpse this reality. If, for example, we turn all our attention to what lives in us when we say "I" to ourselves, we approach a new sphere of consciousness. We must immerse ourselves in what is expressed when we say "I". We will perhaps do this more easily in a calm environment, in which we can focus our consciousness on the experience of the "I am". Perhaps we can pronounce these

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words inwardly by letting the content of the word "I" resound in our minds. All who do this with sufficient concentration will begin to perceive that within the "I" there is a whole world, the world of our spiritual being. Spiritual science calls this innermost region of the soul, within which the "I" can thus live, consciousness soul. Since about the middle of the 15th century, man has approached the realm of the conscious soul. When he gets there, it will allow him to bring the things of the world to a new level . At the same time, he will be aware of his own spiritual identity. If we reflect on this, we shall fairly judge the enormity of the plan concocted by Sorat. Rudolf Steiner described it as follows: "In AD 666 there could have come a being of importance, visibly to outside humanity, especially to western humanity, a being who would not have appeared on the physical plane, but who would have made himself perceptible to humanity in a very sharp, even outwardly, so much that men would have fallen into his power. If this being had appeared in the form that he himself had designed , today we would not write 1918, but 1918 minus 666, i.e. 1252; for this being would have inspired the men in such a way that they would have adapted their chronology to this event. If he could have appeared as he had foreseen, this being would have caused something very strange. Here is how the facts present themselves: 333 years earlier, therefore in the year 333 AD , it was in the middle of the Graeco-Latin period. [...] The process which had to be undertaken for the human evolution by this being, Sorat, the Beast, was as follows: having already fully developed the soul conscious, while man had still only reached the rational soul, he wanted to benefit the latter, prematurely, of all the psycho-spiritual conquests beyond the reach of the rational soul, proceeding hand in hand with the conscious soul. And according to the cosmic conjuncture, 666 was the most favorable moment; this being could then have exerted such an influence on the earth that he could have said: I now teach men the totality of what they can find with their consciousness soul. I instill in them right now, in the age of the rational soul , what the other gods, whom I fight, only wanted to give in the following age of civilization. To unjustifiably mix the rational soul with the conscious soul, that was their project" 12 .

In this quotation, Rudolf Steiner refers to the dates usually taken for the fourth cultural epoch, that of Greece and Rome, which began approximately in 747 BC. C., and which ended in 1413 d. C. The center of this fourth epoch therefore falls in the year 333 AD. C. - at the time when the great meeting of Mani with Scythian, Buddha and Zarathustra, which we spoke about earlier, took place. Each cultural epoch lasts approximately 2160 years. Ours, the fifth epoch, began in 1414 and will last approximately until 3574. "It would certainly have been difficult to lead all of humanity right now, which is obviously located at different levels of evolution, to integrate the content of the conscious soul into the rational soul, but for many people, this undertaking could have succeeded This means that, if this being had really achieved its goal, a considerable number of geniuses would have appeared, especially in the educated circles of the West. Because it is precisely the geniuses that have appeared. Just imagine what life will be like in the middle of our epoch, which follows theirs and which began in 1413 (if you add half of an epoch of civilization, i.e. 1080 years, to 1413, we arrive at 2493 ). humanity in 2493, would have arisen in 666, not really in men as they were by nature, but by virtue of the ingenious

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forces of the inspired prophetic imagination, and they would have revealed themselves to Western humanity who would have suspected nothing" I3 .

As citizens of the third millennium, we are familiar with the techniques that would have seemed incredible in the seventh century: the conquest of space, nanotechnologies, genetic genius, cloning, robotics, artificial intelligence, the creation of alternative cyber worlds, etc. However, even with this knowledge, our imaginations tremble to see where these techniques will lead us in the next five hundred years. We can be sure that new inventions, new discoveries will change our environment completely. Moreover, man himself is changing. Between now and 2493, he will be clairvoyant by nature . Occult powers latent in your organism will have been discovered and will be utilized. He will be able to work magically upon the processes and substances of the mineral kingdom . He will have acquired many new faculties. All that humanity will thus learn over the centuries will have been given to it as a shower of gifts from Sorat: “Singular phenomena were planned. If you think about current scientific ideals, if you listen to people describe the wonderful progress of the last few decades, you can imagine the representations these people might have of the future aspect of terrestrial humanity in 2493, they who are already so intelligent in 1918 ! Men therefore would not have manufactured machines, etc., they would not have had scientific experiences, they would not have taken the slowest path of progress, but with ingenious forces, they would have intuited everything and at least passed on to the stage of realizations . This year 666 was destined to flood humanity with cognitive activity and a culture that the gods linked to humanity from the beginning had reserved for it only for the third millennium. One cannot imagine and this is not necessary - what a situation the so-called civilized world would have reached if it had been so submerged by this knowledge of 666! Men would die from lack of self-control. In fact, open the history books, which always present only the one-sided aspects of the state of mind of men in 666: you can well imagine then how men would have behaved if, instead, they had had geniuses among them. They have pushed progress already so far with what they developed in 1914; where would they have gotten if they had been overwhelmed by all this wisdom of the Beast! But all this was planned by some higher spirits, in particular by a being of Ahrimanic nature, who was to be the guide of these spirits , who would then appear, not on the physical plane, but really. It had to be prevented. And whatever the number of those who believe that humanity should not be deprived of anything if such a thing can be given to it, since this did not go in the spiritual sense of human evolution, it had to be prevented. And this could be prevented by establishing the balance. Do you think that 333 was the central period of the fourth post-Atlantean era; 333 years later, it was 666 ; the Ahrimanic powers would then have brought to its culmination all the pride of the materialistic spirit, but with ingenious forces. The balance can only be established because 333 years earlier, therefore at the beginning of our era, the being had appeared who introduced his own substance into human evolution to act as a counterweight, and prevented that 333 years after 333 from appearing that other being of which I spoke. [...] But the being who wanted to intervene in 666 wanted to elevate himself to god. He said: "Men will come who will no longer turn their gaze towards the spirit, the spirit will not interest them . I will make sure - this being has still been able to achieve this goal - that in 869 a council is held in

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Constantinople where the spirit will be abolished. Subsequently, men will no longer concern themselves with the spirit, their interest will turn towards Nature, they will invent phantom representations of nature. Then, and men will not notice it, since they will not know each other as beings true human beings, but as ghosts, then I will gain all power over the soul of conscience. I will mislead man about himself; I will make sure that he can only understand himself as a ghost, and then I will pour into his rational soul all the wisdom of 'conscious soul. At this moment, I will possess him, I will have possessed him"» 14 .

Such was the impulse that was to spread throughout the world from Gondishapur. Rudolf Steiner speaks of the year 333, the central part of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, as a crucial moment. As we have seen above, it was also the time when Mani summoned Zarathustra, Scythian and Buddha to agree on a plan "for pouring more and more into the future of mankind all the wisdom of the Bodhisattvas of the post-Atlantic age ". Sorat sought to seize this future and catapult it into the seventh century in order to take control of human evolution and become God. Strange as these events may appear, Rudolf Steiner leaves us in no doubt that their preparation took place: "What I have evoked is not an imaginary event, something that absolutely would not have happened on Earth; in Gondishapur, what I spoke of yesterday was actually taught: which, if one considers its intimate nature, is the most imaginable opposite of what has developed since the Golgotha event. And the sages of Gondishapur directed their efforts towards a certain goal. They aimed - and that was exactly what I said yesterday and alluded to today - at a global science which would have had to replace the efforts of the consciousness soul, but which would have turned the human being into a mere earthly man, which would have cut him off from his true future, from entering the spiritual world. thinking in a materialistic way, pure terrestrial men. Their gaze would have been deep enough to perceive the spiritual dimension of the terrestrial world, the supersensible terrestrial; but they would have been cut off from the evolution foreseen for man by his creatures, which it would lead him to Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man. And he who has any idea of the wisdom of Gondishapur will certainly regard it as eminently dangerous to mankind, but at the same time as a prodigious phenomenon. And the intention was very real: to submerge with this erudition not only the region, but the whole civilized world known at the time, everywhere towards Asia and Europe" 15 .

Fortunately, this intention has not come true. It was prevented by another spiritual event. In 610 AD, in Arabia, the young Muhammad received the visionary revelations that would become the doctrine of Islam. Muhammad's message gave the Arabs a new faith. Believing that it was the only true religion, to which all peoples must convert, the Arab warriors mounted their horses and camels and set out to conquer the world . Departing from Arabia to the north, they swept over Persia and beyond. In 641, just twenty-five years before the appearance of Sorat on Earth, Gondishapur was taken by the Arabs. The leaders of the Academy (Sorat's disciples) were left with no choice: embrace the Muslim faith or die: "The first steps in this direction were taken. But what was supposed to emanate from Gondishapur was damped down, held back in a way by retarded spiritual forces, which were still

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tied to, even if they constitute a kind of polar opposite, the sphere of influence of the impulse in relation to Christ. What was supposed to emanate from Gondishapur was initially dampened by the appearance of Mohammed. By spreading a fantastic religious doctrine, especially in the regions where the gnostic wisdom of Gondishapur was to be spread, he occupied the ground so to speak at the place of the latter. When the ideas of Gondishapur followed that trail, they could not superimpose what had been done by Mohammed. It is in a certain way the wisdom of universal history; Mohammedanism is known well only if one knows, in more than other things, that it was intended to dampen the Gnostic wisdom of Gondishapur, to neutralize the strongly ahrimanic tempting power that it would have exercised on humanity.

Thus the Gnostic wisdom, through which Sorat intended to accomplish his ends, was repelled not by the power of thought, but by feeling: religious fervor. However, this Gondishapur wisdom has not totally disappeared. But one must carefully study the evolution of mankind from the seventh century to the present day if one is to understand what happened in connection with the Gnostic movement of Gondishapur. The designs that the great master, whose name has remained unknown, but who was Christ's greatest adversary, pursued in his teaching to his students in Gondishapur, have not been fulfilled, but another goal has been achieved . Except that in order to perceive it, it is necessary to carry out very detailed studies" 16 .

Such in-depth studies are possible thanks to the wealth of information contained in Rudolf Steiner's further lectures. We will now try to follow some paths through which the impulse of Gondishapur continued over the centuries up to ours. They are the pathways that lead to the emergence of the modern computer, the internet and the World Wide Web.

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CHAPTER II THE BIRTH OF THE BINARY SYSTEM

From Persia our study takes us to Iraq, where in 762 the second caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, Al-Mansur, erected the "City of Peace", Madinat al-Salam, on the western bank of the Tigris, to starve the new capital of his empire. For more than four years, one hundred thousand workers were at work building the three concentric walls that surrounded the palace and mosque, the military quarters, and the residential area. Quickly , merchants, attracted by the prospect of good business, set up their tents, stalls and barracks outside the walls, and the new city, which came to be called Baghdad, became an immense bustling center of the world . Arabic. During the reign of the Abbasids, Baghdad was renowned for its wealth, luxury and beauty. It was the fabulous city of the Arabian Nights. Opinions differ as to its actual size: according to A. Powell (The Expansion of Islam 17 '), it probably had up to two million inhabitants at the end of the eighth century, which made it the largest metropolis of the world. J. M. Roberts, in his widely acclaimed History of the World , made a more modest estimate of the size of Baghdad, but no historian leaves us in any doubt as to its size. According to Roberts: "A gigantic city, rivaling Constantinople, with perhaps half a million inhabitants ; it was the complete opposite of the ways of life brought from the desert by the first Arab conquerors. A great empire was there again, all over the Middle East " 18 .

However, the most important aspect of this "great empire" administered from Baghdad was its accumulation of knowledge. The Gnostic wisdom of Gondishapur, into which Sorat had poured his inspirations, was absorbed by Islam and imbued with the strongly determinist coloring of Mohammedanism. The extent of this phenomenon is rendered in the following commentary by Roberts: "One aspect of the Abbasid civilization is that it was a great era of translation into Arabic, the new lingua franca of the Middle East. Christian and Jewish scientists made available to Arab readers the works of Plato and Aristotle, Euclid and Galen, thus introducing the categories of Greek thought into Arab culture [...] These sources mainly influenced

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you the literary culture; Arab Islam has produced magnificent buildings, graceful carpets, refined ceramics, but its great tool was the word, spoken and written. Even the great Arab scientific works are often huge prose compendiums. The mass of this literature thus accumulated is immense, and a large part has not even been read by Western scientists. Very many manuscripts have never been examined" 19 .

In his book How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs , mentioned above, O'Leary writes: "When Baghdad was founded in 762, the caliph and his court began to enjoy good relations with their neighbors at Jundi-Shapur, and shortly thereafter generously paid offers of court employment began to attract physicians and Nestorian professors from the Academy, and the one who largely orchestrated all this was Harun al-Rashid's minister, Ja'far ibn Barmak, who did everything in his power to introduce Greek science among the Caliph's subjects, Arabs and Persians. [...] Thus, the Nestorian heritage of Greek erudition passed from Edessa and Nisbis to Baghdad, passing through Jundi-Shàpùr" 20 .

AP Shepherd and Mildred Robertson Nicoli in their appendix to the English translation of Rudolf Steiner's The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas complete the picture and describe how the wisdom of Gondishapur poured into Baghdad: "In the eighth century, the wealth and power of Hàrùn al-Rashid allowed him to procure Greek manuscripts, many of which were on medicine, and came from the Roman Empire. They were translated into Syriac and Arabic. A association had been formed with the Academy [of Gondishapur] at the Abbasid court when it was established not far from there, in Baghdad; and when Harun al-Rashid and his fervently pro-Hellenic minister, Ja'far ibn Barmak, a of Marw in Khorasan, set out in search of scientists to help carry out their mission of the Hellenization of Persian and Arab subjects, they drew much from this rich source.The pomp of the court itself was also enlivened by the presence of educated men of Gondishapur. The Abbasid desire for a brilliant culture was so strong that the winner of the poetry contest received 100 gold coins, a horse, an embroidered caftan and a pretty slave girl. However, it was in the scientific realm that Gondishapur excelled, and it was mainly from this center that Greek science passed to the Arabs" 21 .

HARUN AL-RASHID Rudolf Steiner spoke many times about the empire of Hàrùn al-Rashid. One time, in particular, he said: "He who wants, for deep inner reasons, to understand the historical development of our spiritual life, and who, in order to understand it, wants to resort to spiritual investigation, finds himself transported towards a phenomenon to which too little attention is paid when speaking of the becoming of Western civilization. He sees himself transported to direct his gaze towards the work of an institution that flourished in the East, parallel to the appearance of Charlemagne's activity in the West. I want to speak of this Eastern court over which he presided with truly oriental magnificence Harun al-Rashid. [...] All branches of spiritual life had been brought together in this court of Asia

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Minor. [...] It was there, moreover, that the Greek scholars had arrived who had had to give themselves fleeing because Greek philosophy had been eliminated from Europe. A large part of Eastern wisdom had survived. All that was possible at the time in the field of astronomy strongly imbued with mysticism, of architecture powerfully imbued in turn with inner plasticity , of other arts, also of poetry, and in matters of other sciences and practical manifestations of life, all this flowed to the court of Hàrun al-Rashid. [...] While in Europe everything was very primitive, over there, in Asia, in this sovereign whom Charlemagne greatly admired, in Hàrun al-Rashid, a powerful, splendid spiritual culture was embodied, but which knew nothing of Christ, and which did not want to know nothing even of Christianity [..,]" 22 .

The aversion to Christianity, which will become more tangible as we follow the path of this impulse in later ages, is understandable if we remember that it was the Gnostic wisdom inspired by Sorat that passed from Gondishapur to the court of Harun al-Rashid. This wisdom was drawn from the esoteric teaching of Aristotle. But his teaching had been intentionally and subtly modified by the triple translation from Greek to Syriac, then from Syriac to Persian Arabic, in which it was expressed according to the conceptions proper to the visionary logic of the sages of Gondishapur, and finally in the language of the Arab Islam, where it received the deterministic traits of Mohammedanism. In Rudolf Steiner's terms: the inner scientific and mystical knowledge from Aristotle had been put into practice . And all this had been worked out under the influence of the extremely powerful, but considered as revealed, as inspired, by Arabism" 23 .

Now, we are referring once again to events that are known to us only through the spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner. He describes how, after the death of Harun al-Rashid and his adviser, Ja'far ibn Barmak, these two souls brought with them into the spiritual world the desire to continue spreading their Gnostic wisdom, with the deterministic coloring that it had received from Mohammedanism. Both were well aware that they were deeply indebted to Aristotle and Alexander the Great, whose teachings had formed the very essence of their conception of existence , albeit in a subtly modified form. They longed to make direct contact with souls who had lived since Aristotle and Alexander the Great. "And this meeting took place and would have had a very far-reaching consequence. Hàrun al-Rashid and his wise adviser therefore continued for a certain time their circumnavigation in the supersensible world, mainly focusing their gaze on what was happening in civilization located more to the West, on what was taking place in Greece and in some district located north of the present Black Sea. I would gladly say: they lowered their gaze on this civilization, and among the events on which this gaze fell was also that of which I have often spoken in anthroposophical conferences and in another context: this event which manifested itself in the year 869 AD in the form of the eighth ecumenical council of Constantinople. This Eighth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople is of great importance for Western civilization;

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in fact, it is there that the trichotomy, which sees man constituted by body, soul and spirit, was declared a heretical doctrine, heresy, and that a true Christian could only speak of a man as composed of two entities, a body and a soul, where this soul was endowed with some spiritual qualities. It is for this reason that the tendency of Western Christian civilization towards spirituality was so insensitive: the knowledge of the spirit had been decreed a heresy in the eighth ecumenical council of 869" 24 .

THE SYNOD OF CONSTANTINOPLE The verdict of this eighth ecumenical council, which took place in Constantinople between 1869 and 1870, exerted and still exerts a profound influence on the cultural life of central and western Europe. The verdict was worded very cleverly. It was not easy to deny the spirit in man by ostensibly adhering to the teachings of the New Testament. While the legates presiding over the assembly, Stefano, Donato and Marino, were evidently well aware of the fact that the real issue concerned the spirit in man, the "I" (which the Christian faith recognized), their accusation qualified it as a "second soul". The accusation brought against these Christian thinkers (especially Photius, the patriarch of the Eastern Church), who taught that the human being is composed of a higher and thinking element of the soul (the spirit), of a soul of a lower nature and a physical body. The assembly accused them, in deliberately oversimplified terms , of endowing human nature with two souls. The topics were: "Although both the Old and New Testaments teach that man has but one soul, endowed with reason and intelligence, and in spite of the fact that all the Fathers and teachers of the Church who speak in the name of God profess the same doctrine, there are some who, in their relentless pursuit of evil, have strayed so much from the true faith that they boldly try to promulgate that the human being has two souls.With their illogical reasoning and their deceptions, they try to use wisdom, which they transform into madness, to support their heresy" 25 .

The assembly of Constantinople, in reality, was absolutely not an ecumenical council, but a synod of the Roman Church, whose decree was not recognized by the Eastern Church. Indeed, no mention is found in the Byzantine canons of an ecumenical council in Constantinople . No record of its deliberations and verdict was ever made by the librarians of the Byzantine Church. As for Western Christianity, it was necessary to wait until the 11th century before the status of an ecumenical council was retroactively granted to the synod held in Constantinople. Curiously, the main accused, Photius, who was deposed by the synod in 870 but did not abjure, was fully reinstated in 879. The more one examines in depth the particular circumstances surrounding what happened between 1860 and 1870, the more one can get the feeling that something very important to humanity has been sneaked in, so to speak. in Western Christian thought. One of the gravest consequences of the "abolition of the spirit in man" was that human intellectual capacities were no longer considered capable of grasping higher truths. The latter could therefore not be acquired except by divine revelation. The whole field of knowledge was

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thus divided into two worlds: a lower world accessible to human observation and thought and a higher world, which goes beyond the intellect of man, the content of which was revealed, in part, in the Holy Scriptures and which could therefore be delivered to mankind through the further revelations received from the saints of the Church.Such revelations transcended the human intellect and had to be accepted by faith, even if they sometimes seemed to contradict the sane judgment of ordinary thought. , there was no longer any common ground in which human thought and divine inspiration could meet and interpenetrate. It was a striking victory for Sorat, the two-horned Beast, whose intention is always to destroy what is the trinity, reducing it to a duality. Thus he had endeavored to deprive man of the development of the conscious soul by pouring the content of this into the rational soul. In place of a soul of a triple nature (feeling soul, rational soul and conscious soul), man would have had only a soul of a binary nature, where the two highest elements would have merged into one. The Beast project had failed in the seventh century, but this time, two hundred years later, Christian civilization was to lose sight of the spirit in man. The repercussions of this victory continue to be felt in our age. It happens very often that people of the Christian faith have a correct conception when they express themselves on God the Father. He is the creator of heaven, earth and man. Of course, all our ideas about Him cannot necessarily include His true nature. But at least there is content in our concept when it comes to God the Father. Likewise, we have at least some sensitivity to the nature of God the Son, which we recognize in Christ. Reading the Gospels, we can forge a certain image of Him. But when asked about the specific nature of God the Holy Spirit, many discover, with dismay, that their concept of the Holy Spirit no longer has any content. The abolition of spirit in man (who was thus reduced to a binary nature, as it were) deprived mankind of an understanding of the Holy Spirit. In a sense, even the Trinity was reduced to a duality as far as human thought was concerned. Questions of this kind may seem uninteresting in our disenchanted modern world, except if you are a student of theology. However, on a deeper, subconscious level, they have a profound influence on us. In the Middle Ages, the practice of religion was not a mere habit. Man's desire to maintain a direct connection with God was a living and burning aspiration in his soul. The separation of the field of knowledge into two separate realms: faith and reason (two realms that could never meet), was at the origin of a deeply painful situation for the pious human soul in search of truth. The content of the revelation had to be accepted without reservation. It was a dogma, a matter of faith, which transcended the powers of reason and understanding. However, some articles of the dogma seemed to contradict the conclusions of holy human reason. Christian thinkers were increasingly locked into a terrible dilemma and felt compelled to say to themselves: it is possible that something is theologically true but philosophically false. It was the tragic result of this apparent gulf that separated revelation and thought. It was one of the great problems with which the scholastics were soon to confront: the doctrine of the "double truth". Rudolf Steiner expresses himself thus on the topic of this dilemma:

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"It is perfectly possible that some things which are transmitted by dogma, for example the Trinity , and that reflection on this same question leads to the opposite result. It is perfectly possible that reason leads to results other than the content of faith" 26 .

How can a human being truly believe what his thinking rejects? The soul cannot find any coherent meaning to life in the face of such profound contradictions (a quite similar, though more prosaic, dilemma faces humanity today. The new God, the computer, uses a logic foreign to human thought and , however, his conclusions possess an authority equal to that attributed to divine revelation in the Middle Ages). At a time when religion was still fervently perceived as the very source of the Christian life, and philosophical thought was the instrument man needed for the search for truth in external existence, such contradictions were intolerable . they tore at the soul. But let's go back to the moment of Sorat's victory. While the alleged Eighth Ecumenical Council was taking place on Earth, another event of capital importance took place in the spiritual world: "It is rightly then that the meeting between Aristotle and Alexander on the one hand, Hàrun al-Rashid and his wise adviser, Ja'far ibn Barmak, on the other, took place. It was a far-reaching confrontation in the spiritual worlds, since one must imagine that confrontations in the supersensible world are not simply discussions, exchanges of words. [...] At that moment, on the one hand Aristotle and Alexander manifested themselves by saying: what was once founded must be directed, in the strict sense of the term, towards the kingdom of Michael . In fact, it was well known that Michael would resume his regency in the 19th century. [...] Of all this, neither Harun al-Rashid - nor, despite minor opposition, his wise adviser - wanted to hear. Above all, they wanted the impulses that had become so strongly rooted in Mohammedanism to dominate the world. Among those who were faced with this spiritual battle of the ninth century AD. C. sided vigorously on one side Hàrùn al-Rashid and his adviser, and on the other Aristotle and Alexander, i.e. the individuals who had lived in them. The fighting that took place then had extensions in European civilization, and it still does today. [...] Hàrùn al-Rashìd, reborn, became Francis Bacon" 27 .

What does the reference to the fact that the Archangel Michael was about to assume his regency again in the 19th century mean in this quote ?

MICHAEL'S REIGN Each era has a different character. Ours is characterized by an unprecedented broadening of cultural horizons. Telecommunications, mass media and rapid transport over long distances have largely triumphed over regional and national borders. Man is well on his way to

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becoming a citizen of the Earth. Until the 20th century, principles such as the universal rights of the human being were observed only by small circles of enlightened thinkers. For the man on the street, foreigners remained foreigners, and did not necessarily receive the same consideration as a compatriot. The current zeitgeist is a spirit of universality, as can be seen in all areas of life. In spite of religious conflicts, racial violence and the world of politics with double standards, humanity is heading towards an international community . But what exactly do we mean by "zeit spirit"? Spiritual research reveals that, among the powers of good that guide evolution, there are sublime beings who, for a given period of time, cause certain ideas and intentions, certain feelings, to pour into human life. These give the period its specific character: the zeitgeist. The sublime beings in question are well known by different religions; in the Bible, they are called Archangels. Seven Archangels in turn assume the direction of the seven periods of approximately three centuries which constitute an epoch of civilization. The Christian tradition refers to the Archangels by their name: Raphael, Gabriele , Samael' and so on. Each of these regents operates differently, arousing The diaeresis (Samael in French is written with the diaeresis on the "e", NdT), placed here on the last "e" to indicate that it is usually accentuated when pronouncing the name belonging to a superior being. The ending -el" denotes the divine nature of a being.

different qualities in the human soul and instilling in it different ideals. The Archangel who is the spirit of our time is traditionally called Michael. It is he, Michele, who stimulates universality in thought and incites man to eliminate ideological barriers and national limits. Its action is particularly powerful in the area of thought. Michael resumed the lead of Western civilization in the late nineteenth century, his previous period of regency having been during the last pre-Christian centuries , at the time of Aristotle and Alexander. This era also knew the desire for universality and world community. Traditionally, the Archangel Michael has been perceived in different guises by Western and Eastern humanity. For some oriental peoples, it is, above all, the glittering prince of thought, the solar Archangel, who directs the cosmic intelligence. We meet in Aristotle, for example, an exceptional disciple of Michael who works in the field of thought. Western humanity , particularly in England, saw in Michael the cosmic warrior: the fierce opponent of the dragons. In this martial aspect, he is also known as Saint George. Brandishing his great sword or his meteoric steel spear, he overcomes the inferior and immoral impulses in the human soul and calls man to develop altruism, brotherly love. King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table (who were historical figures) fought under the aegis of the Archangel Michael. The souls who had lived since Aristotle and Alexander wanted to lead human intelligence directly under the rule of the Archangel Michael. Indeed, it was known that Michael would

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resume his regency in the 19th century. Neither Harun al-Rashid nor his adviser wanted to accept this. Above all, they wanted the world to be dominated by the impulse which was firmly rooted in Mohammedanism. Thus we see the protagonists of this spiritual battle in the ninth century confronting each other in intense and resolute opposition, an opposition which Harun al-Rashid will carry with the greatest vehemence in his further incarnation in Francis Bacon. Before turning our attention to Francis Bacon, the father of the computer, let us follow for the moment the destiny of the soul which had lived in Aristotle and had transmitted to humanity the marvelous method of reasoning in the form of syllogisms. It was his fate to see how this tripartite tool of logic was altered by Arab thinkers and finally, as it were, "castrated" by the decree of the synod at Constantinople in 869-870. Aristotle (or more accurately, the human spirit that had operated as Aristotle) saw that human thought needed to be strengthened and revitalized. And even more than that: it needed to be revived by the spiritual power of the Christ. THE ANGELIC DOCTOR The fate of the world led this human spirit in the Middle Ages to the place where the fierce battle for the future of human thought raged, to the place where Christian theology fought to overcome this split between reason and revelation: to the University of Paris. And so the spirit that had worked in Aristotle came back to life on earth in 1224 in a young man of a family who lived in the castle of Aquino in Roccasecca, Sicily. He was educated at the Benedictine abbey of Montecassino. Having become a young man, he completed his studies at the University of Naples before entering the Dominican Order. Against the advice of his family, the young theologian set off for Paris to continue his studies. Here he met the greatest theologian of the time, Albert the Great, and became one of his closest disciples. Eventually he rose to become the highest authority of Roman Catholic doctrine: the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas. To this day, the teachings of St. Thomas are recognized as the supreme exposition of the Catholic faith and constitute the obligatory theological treatise for students aspiring to the priesthood. In a bitter irony of fate, Islamic philosophers had come to be regarded as representatives of Aristotelian thought. Because these philosophers were taken to be enemies of Christianity, Aristotelian philosophy was anathema to the Church. This was the situation within which Aristotle's soul was born. Thomas Aquinas threw himself with all his being into the battle for the tripartite nature of man's faculty of knowledge and for the recognition of the spirit in him. Stone by stone, he built this monument of Christian doctrine, which is at the same time the rehabilitation of true Aristotelian philosophy, now united with the living force of Christ: the Summa against the Gentiles (Summa contra gentiles') and the Summa theologiae (Summa theologiae).

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Before Thomas Aquinas, the main Arab philosophers, by adapting Aristotelian thought to Islamic beliefs, had given an image of man that was essentially double . According to Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126-1198), who was considered the greatest commentator of Aristotelianism, the individual is composed of a body and a soul. It depends on the spirit through reason and intelligence, but the latter do not belong to it. The intellect is immortal and impersonal, it is a unique universal spirit. It is reflected in the heads of individual human beings during their lifetime, but their link with it is severed with the death of the body. Therefore, there cannot be an individuality that can continue its existence beyond death. The soul cannot claim to achieve immortality. The decree of the "ecumenical council" of Constantinople abolishing the spirit in man had deprived Christian thinkers of the means to fight Averroes. Of course, they were not allowed to question this decree. It was a dogma, an article of faith that had to be accepted without question. Sorat had therefore managed to break the framework of Christian thought and to impose on Western humanity the belief in the double nature of man, whose individual soul is extinguished with death. Thomas Aquinas strove to demolish this dualistic vision of existence piece by piece. Anyone who thinks that these philosophical conflicts are only of historical interest, and that they do not concern our life in the modern era of space flight, genetic manipulation and the Internet, is making a grave mistake. These conflicts are the first major clashes in a battle for the survival of the human spirit, a battle that has taken on a planetary dimension in the 21st century. It is even more terrible today than it was then. Sorat is no longer simply trying to deny the existence of the spirit in man. If this were the case, there would surely have been another Aristotle, another Thomas, to demolish the dualist theories of the Beast piece by piece. But this is not the case. The problem is more dramatic today. Since modern scientific thought does not recognize spirit, and since thinking itself has become passive to the point of apathetic, it becomes possible for Sorat to extract the spirit of human beings and incorporate it into the future development of artificially intelligent machines. . We should have no illusions about this, such a thing is not only possible, but will certainly be achieved to some extent (indeed, some steps have already been taken in this direction). The crucial factor is knowing to what extent this will be achieved. The purpose of this book is to show how this development is taking place. The battle we must wage today is one we cannot afford to lose. To win victory, however, we need to understand as fully as possible the processes that Sorat has activated and the physical and spiritual forces that he directs. These processes have their roots in the events we describe here. It is for us to remember that we ourselves, in times past, were present in earth life , and that we have experienced events in the past which were influenced by the actions of Sorat. We carry these experiences of past existences deeply into the subconscious life of our soul. Sorat knows how to take advantage of these unconscious memories, using them to guide human spirits

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towards his purpose. We can better understand Sorat's malicious strategy when we begin to shed light on how he laid the groundwork for what he plans to accomplish in our age. In the work of St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, the authentic philosophy of Aristotle revived. Thomas vigorously rejected the "double truth" doctrine. Human intelligence can understand the things of the world in their essential nature. Now, the things of the world receive their essential nature from God. It is therefore impossible that the truth given directly by God to man through divine revelation should be in contradiction with the truth discovered by the human spirit in the created world, since, even this , comes from God. God does not contradict himself. The primary truths on the subject of the divine cannot be acquired by human beings except through revelation. But human understanding can penetrate the innate principle of created things and can grasp the creative idea that is expressed in them. Even the creative idea comes from the divine. Thus the field of divine revelation descends and human understanding can reach such heights that the two meet and interpenetrate. There is absolutely no need to create a chasm between the direct divine revelation of the Holy Scriptures and the fundamental nature of divinely created external existence , which can be grasped by man's faculty of understanding. The human spirit is itself the common ground where revelation and reason converge. Through thought, the spirit is united with the eternal truth. To the extent that the individual soul, through its thinking activity, becomes one with the eternal truth, something appears in this soul which is imperishable, something which is not subject to death. Thomas Aquinas had acquired the certainty of the imperishable nature of this part of the soul which in modern spiritual science is called spirit. It is for this reason that he was able to reject the doctrines of Averroes and his Muslim predecessors. In this way, Thomas Aquinas restored to man his triple nature of body, soul and spirit, and re-established his tripartite relationship with the world. In providing this brief overview of how human reason was shaped by Greek philosophy and was saved, for a moment, in the Middle Ages, by leading theologian-philosophers, the author is naturally not suggesting that Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas were the only protagonists in the great battle against the infernal machinations of the Two-horned Beast. Thomas Aquinas, it is true, reached an even higher pinnacle of precision than his renowned professor, Albert the Great. However, they go hand in hand in the annals of philosophy; in fact, Alberto, as much as his pupil, was committed to the rehabilitation of Aristotelian thought. Great spirits had preceded them and prepared the ground for them. Out of the ordinary, the 9th century Irish theologian and scientist, John Scotus Eriugena, stands out from the fray, Scotus Eriugena whose translations of Greek thinkers into Latin gave access, for the Western world, to many treasures of philosophy , and whose major work, De division naturae (On the division of nature, 865-870), paved the way for the doctors of theology of the University of Paris for the centuries that followed.

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When the "ecumenical council" of Constantinople decreed that man's nature was dual (body and soul), Scotus Eriugena proclaimed that the human being is made up of a body, a soul and a spirit, and that this spirit is eternal. It does not fully clothe itself in a body in a particular incarnation of the soul, says Scotus Eriugena, but passes through several successive incarnations on its way to perfection. He does so in accordance with the divine laws that regulate man's development. After the decree of 869, Scotus Eriugena was accused of heresy and, according to popular tradition, while he had become Abbot of Malmesbury, he was finally condemned by his own pupils, who killed him with the strokes of their pen. Thomas Aquinas' victory must also be seen in the light of the works of the philosophers of the School of Chartres in the 11th and 12th centuries. The last and greatest of them was the Doctor Universalis, Alanus ab Insulis (Great Dane of Ireland ‡), much admired by St. Thomas. His treatise against heretics, Tractatus contra haereticos, prompted Thomas to write his own Summa contra gentiles. Anthony Kenny, the editor (Oxford) of The Illustrated History of Western Philosophy, asks in his preface to this work which thinkers would be cited by modern philosophers if they were invited to designate the six greatest Western writer-philosophers 28 . He believes they would all name Plato, Aristotle, Descartes and Kant. There would be differences of opinion on the last two. Kenny, for his part, would have chosen Thomas Aquinas and Wittgenstein . Many would certainly agree with him. If we add the results of spiritual science to this traditional philosophical opinion , we see that the same human spirit that had lived in Aristotle is active again, centuries later, in the soul of Thomas Aquinas. There are therefore solid reasons to consider this individuality as the main protagonist in the battle for the victory of human reason over the machinations of Sorat. But after all, is human reason so important, since we said that the laws of logical reason are a construction of the human spirit? Shouldn't we rather direct our attention towards what is objectively real in the world? These questions put their finger on the heart of our study: what is intelligence - universal , human and artificial? Before we turn to this central issue, let's gather a few more facts. We have seen the intimacy that was born in the soul of the Abbasid caliph, Harun al-Rashid, on the occasion of his confrontation with Aristotle, whom he had so deeply admired. This hostility erupted in the capital meeting of souls in the spirit world in the 9th century. Harun al-Rashid was born again in the 16th century as Francis Bacon.

‡The correct translation of his name, according to Rudolf Steiner. The usual appellation Great Dane of Lille is incorrect.

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Lord Francis Bacon of Verulam (1561-1626)

FRANCIS BACON Francis Bacon is truly a fascinating personality whose impact on modern times is infinitely greater than historians imagine. He has been called the father of true scientific thought, the inaugurator of the modern inductive method, but he is much more than that. Powerful forces of good and evil worked through him, so much so that his multifaceted personality was at times in the service of humanity and at others served the purposes of the Two-horned Beast. Let us try to discover the workings of this very singular spirit. Francis Bacon was born at York House in the Strand, London, on 22 January 1561. His father, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was one of the leading statesmen of the land under Elizabeth I and held the post of Lord Keeper of the Great Seal (Guard of the Great Seal), but died early and left the family with very modest means. Francis had a brother, Anthony, three years older, who became an accomplished diplomat. After being raised by their particularly religious mother, the two brothers were admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1573. Their natural talents led them towards law and politics. Francesco was enrolled in the bar in 1582 and became a

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member of parliament two years later at the age of 23 . As a young man, Francis Bacon still closely resembled Harun al-Rashid in his longing for the former glories of court life. Lytton Strachey, the insightful historical novelist, said of him: "He was extravagant; he knew it, and there was nothing he could do about it. It was impossible for him to lead a life closely tied to the meager financial means that poverty demanded. His exuberant temper demanded the satisfaction of material pleasures. He needed fine clothes, of music, and of a circle of a certain social standing. His senses were delicate; the smell of common leather was torture to him, and he fitted all his servants with boots of Spanish leather. He took great pains to obtain a peculiar sort of beer which his palate could tolerate.His naughty and delicate, nut-colored eye ("it was like a viper's eye," declared William Harvey) perpetually demanded to be refreshed by fine things . "

But it was in the context of knowledge that the excellent achievements of Bagdad's court materialized in Francis Bacon. Harun al-Rashid and his adviser had brought together the most learned men of their time, a brilliant assembly representing all fields of science, art and philosophy. The caliph had a particular talent as an organizer; connected the various fields of knowledge with each other. This talent shone brightly, at an even higher level, in Bacon: «Bacon wanted to devote himself to three objectives: the discovery of the truth, the prosperity of his country and the reform of religion; and of these three objectives, the first was always the most important in his thoughts. "I confess," he wrote to Burleigh about 1592, "that my contemplative aims are as broad as my civic ambitions moderate: for indeed of all knowledge I have made my ambit." The well-known last sentence is often taken up to say that Bacon made the absurd claim of possessing the totality of information, while his plans were simply to study the means and methods of any knowledge. As he said to Macaulay, "The knowledge in which Bacon surpassed all was the knowledge of the relations which all the disciplines of knowledge maintain among themselves"» 30 .

This is how George Sampson describes it in his Concise Cambridge History of English Literature (Compendium of the history of English literature). At a time when the leading philosophers of Greece and Rome were regarded as indisputable authorities, Bacon spoke of Aristotle and Alexander with a violent contempt . The revelations given to humanity by the alleged greats of the past, he said, were a source of errors and confusion. According to him, men should turn away from such unworthy teachers and discover the truth through scientific research. An odd mixture of emotions colors his remarks about Aristotle and Alexander. He cannot completely rid himself of the deep respect he had for them in his previous incarnation, but nevertheless, he now furiously tries to reject them. As Rudolf Steiner also points out: "Take every single line of Bacon [...] and you will find yourself faced with an enigma, you will not find it. [...] He is dominated by a real fury in the fight he leads against Arist Otelism . A true fury in everything, and of which it is seen that it also reaches the depths of his soul" 31 .

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Given all his exceptional skills, Bacon's rise to political power was slow. He was forced to resort to the wiles and intrigues of the court, and became a master of subterfuge; this aspect of his character was to have a decisive influence on modern history. But power could not escape him forever. He gradually worked his way up the ladder and attained the highest position in the state, becoming Lord Chancelier in 1618, aged 57 . We now come to a key moment in our theme which illustrates the development of the occult current unfolding from the thwarted machinations of the Beast in the 7th century Gondishapur Academy to the development of the modern computer in the 20th century. Bacon was a focal point through which opposing spiritual forces operated in the world. His fate was truly strange and terrible , and now we will try to untie the threads a little. We recall that in the 4th century of our era, Mani summoned three spiritual leaders of humanity - those leaders who were known in earlier times under the names of Scythian, Buddha and Zarathustra - to prepare future civilizations of the Earth, this project, we have said, was transmitted in the European Mysteries by the Rosicrucians. The leader of these Mysteries, who is named Christian Rosenkreutz, is mentioned in numerous works of esoteric literature as the founder of Rosicrucianism. Among the most important tasks proper to the Rosicrucian fraternity, two are of particular interest to us for our research: the introduction of true materialism into Western culture and the direction of the technological development of humanity. The freedom to think and the right to form our own judgments on matters that concern us have become an integral part of Western civilization, and we take them as self-evident. Historically, however, these qualities are new. Before the modern era, man's thought was directed by the divine revelations contained in the Holy Scriptures, or by the doctrines of the great philosophers of antiquity. Judgments that were not founded on these teachings were heretical and often liable to death. Divine revelations were not subject to discussion; they were absolute and had to be accepted without reservation. In Bacon's time, this was also the case with the doctrines of Aristotle, for example; it was considered that Aristotle had expressed himself from the highest points of wisdom, beyond the reach of the thinkers who succeeded him. The liberation of thought required the rejection of the divine spiritual world from which the revelations come. The unassailable authority of scripture and ancient philosophy had to be replaced by ignorance, since ignorance was the starting point from which each individual embarked on his personal quest for knowledge. A clean slate had to be made. From now on, science had to be based on easily verifiable observations and experiments. Only the knowledge acquired in this way would have been universally acceptable. To do this, the passage through materialism was necessary. As far as the development of technology is concerned, modern man has learned from experience that it is the driving force that shapes his world. In its essence, the development of

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technology is one of mankind's noblest tasks. Thanks to it, men learn to create. Tomorrow's world will be largely man-made. Ideas of this kind would have been unthinkable even at the end of the Middle Ages. Before the existence of steam engines, automobiles and other inventions of this type, it was practically impossible to conceive of what is now routine. First, someone had to present a seductive image of the technique to the world. There was a man who, having no faculty of spiritual perception, possessed the clarity of thought and broad-mindedness required to usher in the age of materialism and technology: Francis Bacon. The source of his inspirations was often (without his knowledge) the secret Brotherhood of the Rosicrucians. Had he been able to follow solely the path of his scientific philosophy and his vision of a technological civilization, he would certainly have been a great benefactor. But his crucial role in Western history meant that he was also chosen by Sorat to prepare for the latter's planned domination of humanity. Three impulses were given to Western humanity by Bacon. He broke the thread that unites man's thought with the wisdom of the past. He gave men a vision of an earthly paradise created by science and technology. And he did something of capital importance for our time and which, surprisingly, has escaped the attention of historians to this day. It is one of the mysteries of the 20th and 21st centuries that, with a few rare exceptions: no one seems to have established that he invented data processing, digital telecommunications and the computer. It was Bacon. Francis Bacon laid the foundations for a new method for acquiring and using knowledge. In 1605, he published The two Books of the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human in English . This paved the way for what was intended to be his masterpiece, The Renewal of the Sciences or The Great Reconstitution (Instaurano Magna} in six parts, written in Latin. Only the first three parts were nearly completed; of the other three parts Bacon left only a draft. But, even if incomplete, the Instauratio Magna is a monumental, epoch-making contribution to science and philosophy.Sampson comments in these terms: «Both for its style and for the importance of the ideas it conveys, the Novum Organum, the second part of the Instauratio, is considered Bacon's most important work. He devoted the most minute care to its composition and his stately style accords perfectly with the prophetic messages it contains . Bacon's aim was to establish or reconstitute man's power over nature. This power depends on knowledge; but in the human spirit there are certain obstacles to knowledge which predispose it to ignorance and error. The tendencies to error he calls "idols" - images or phantoms which lead the spirit into error. The name "idol" is taken from Plato and is used as the opposite of "idea". In the Novum Organum, a distinction is made between four categories of idols: the idols of the race, of the cave, of the square and of the theatre. With these imaginative titles, Bacon elaborates a doctrine that demonstrates both originality and perspicacity. What this whole part of his teaching implies is the importance of an objective attitude towards nature and the need to make inquiries . Starting from particular facts, men must pass to general truths by means of a gradual and continuous ascent" 32 .

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What exactly does Bacon mean by the term "idols"? Far from being a simple play on words, his doctrine is based on a profound understanding of the spiritual power of language. It is expressed with masterful clarity in his Aphorisms of the Novum Organum: "38 Not only do idols and false notions which, having already taken possession of the human intellect, are deeply fixed on it, besiege the spirit to the point that truth finds a difficult access to them ; but again, once this access is opened and granted, they will flock again, into the very reconstitution of the sciences, and will again act as a hindrance, unless men, having been warned, protect themselves from them, as far as possible. 39 The idols that besiege the human spirit are of four kinds. For the sake of greater clarity , I have given them precise names for didactic reasons, and so I have called the first genre idols of the race, the second idols of the cave, the third idols of the square and the fourth idols of the theatre. 40 Reaching the concepts and axioms by means of a correct induction is certainly the authentic remedy for fighting and removing idols; but nevertheless the indication of idols is of great use. The reflection on idols is aimed at the correct interpretation of nature , just as the meditation on the errors of the sophists serves for the commonly understood dialectic. 41 The idols of the race are based on human nature itself, and on the human tribe or race itself . It is false to say, as one does, that sensation is the measure of things; on the contrary, all perceptions , both those of the senses and those of the mind, must be taken in reference to man, not to the universe. And man's intellect is like a distorting mirror which, when it reflects the light rays coming from things, mixes its nature with that of things, distorting it and depriving it of truth. 42 The idols of the cave are those proper to each individual. In fact, regardless of the aberrations of human nature in general, each of us has a kind of cave or den which breaks and corrupts the natural light, due either to his own individual nature, or to education and conversation with others, or from reading books and their authority that everyone cultivates and admires, or again because of the difference with which the impressions occur in a preoccupied and predisposed mind, on the one hand, or in a calm and tranquil mind, on the other. Indeed, it is clear that the human spirit, insofar as it is distributed in individual human beings, is something varied, and highly disturbed, and almost random. And therefore Heraclitus says well that men seek knowledge in the smallest and most private worlds, and not in the greater one, that is, in what is common to all of us. 43 Then there are idols that come from the fact that the members of the human race mutually establish relations of alliance and contract: I call them idols of the square to indicate that they arise from trade and from the relationships of men with each other. Men in fact come into contact with each other through speeches, but words are imposed on most. Thus the very fact that words are badly and inadequately enforced besieges the intellect in extraordinary ways. And not even the definitions and

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explanations with which learned men got used to defending themselves and counterattacking fail to restore authentic reality. On the contrary, words clearly do violence to the intellect and mess everything up, leading men to innumerable useless controversies and comments. 44 Finally, there are idols that penetrated the human soul due to philosophical dogmas of the opposite sign, as well as the perverse laws of demonstrations. I call these idols theater idols, because I believe that everything that philosophy has understood or invented is nothing more than a set of fairy tales written and then performed on stage, fairy tales that have in turn created fictitious worlds similar to theatrical representations. ... Nor again do we understand this only of the universal philosophies, but also of the numerous principles and axioms of the sciences, which are esteemed only for honoring tradition and for pure faith. In truth, of each of these idols it is necessary to affirm, in the clearest and most decisive way, that the human intellect must pay attention to them" 33 .

According to Bacon, words are the scourge of science and philosophy. Words are improper vehicles for our faculty of understanding. Each person gives his own personal nuance to the words he uses, so that exact communication is impossible. While we try hard to define the words we use, we can only do so by using other words. Bacon therefore considers that: "59 The idols of the square are among all the most uncomfortable; they insinuate themselves into the intellect in favor of the alliance of words and names with things. Indeed, men believe that their reason commands words. But it also happens that words return and reflect their potency against the intellect; effect that made science and philosophy sophisticate and inactive. Now words are often imposed according to the learning of the common and dissect things along the lines most perceptible to the common intellect . But to the fact that a more penetrating intellect, that a more attentive observation would want to displace these lines, so that they more conform to nature, words loudly oppose it. Hence it comes that great and impressive disputes between scholars often degenerate into disputes over words and names; while it would be useful to show more reflection than to begin with controversies (according to the prudent use of mathematicians) and to bring them back to order by means of definitions. However, these definitions, for natural and material things , cannot cure this evil, since definitions themselves are composed of words and words beget words; thus, it is necessary to return to the particular instances, their series and their orders, as we are preparing to show, when we arrive at the process and method which allow us to establish the notions and axioms" 34 .

The following quotation from a series of lectures on education presented in England by Rudolf Steiner may help us to grasp the importance and historical impact of Bacon's doctrine: "If we place before our souls this mystery of the Word, the Word in his fullness, how he operated and was understood at the time when the significance of the Gospel according to John was still fully felt, we must say to ourselves: in the ancient conscience of man, the spirit was present in the word, even in the weak word used to speak. The spirit was poured into the word and constituted its power.

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[...] Let us imagine the darkness, as what lives as an impulse in the word gradually faded away when the phrase "In the beginning was the Word" is pronounced. Let us now think of the civilized humanity of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, which had to prepare itself for an increase in the inner strength of freedom. You see, one also has to appreciate elements that were absent at certain times; from a certain point of view, they must be particularly appreciated. Consider therefore that humanity had to conquer its freedom in full conscience and that this would not have been possible if the spirit had already impregnated and inspired the word as it once did. We will then understand how education in its ancient form was already possible, when Francis Bacon, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, presented an idea full of meaning, which, if it is perceived honestly, implies the cancellation of what is given in the word : In the beginning was the Word" 35 .

"The erasure of what is given in the word: In the beginning was the Word": this illuminating remark by Rudolf Steiner characterizes Bacon's complex work perfectly. On the one hand, he serves humanity by rejecting the spiritual power of words so that men can use them freely. On the other hand, however, it is the tool of Christ's greatest adversary, Sorat, the anti-Word, who makes him go too far. Indeed Bacon does not offer us empty words, but fills them with "idols": “Before this age, there was always a shadow of the spirit in the word, in the Logos. Bacon urges humanity to see in the word only an "idol", no longer the spirit, not to take the word with its strength, but to beware of the intellectualism of the word. Indeed, if one falls under the influence of the word, from which knowledge, civilization and strength were once drawn, then one clings to an idol with words - so thinks Bacon. With the doctrine of idols as found in Bacon, the complete change was accomplished in the 16th and 17th centuries, which consisted in moving away from the word. Where do we want to go? Towards things given by the senses. Things perceptible with the senses; there was this that had to be the basis of what man had to stick to. [...] This is how Francis Bacon asks that man no longer adheres to what pours into him starting from the gods, but to what is found in the outside world, in inanimate objects, or at all more in outwardly animated objects» 36 .

The continuation of our study of Bacon will lead us to see that his "idols" became real beings, spiritual realities, who had a considerable influence on the destinies of all those souls who later incarnated in Western humanity. But let's first look at the other aspect of Bacon's The Great Reconstitution , the new way of approaching science. “Immediately at the beginning of the 17th century something new is already evident in science. The changes then manifested constituted the second major critical shift in the cultural history of the modern world, as an intellectual barrier was overcome and the nature of civilization changed forever. A new, profoundly utilitarian attitude appeared in Europe, encouraging men to invest time, energy and resources to master nature through systematic experiments. When, later on, the forerunners of this attitude were sought, it was found to be this lofty personality, Francis Bacon, the Lord Chancelier of England, whom some admirers afterwards timidly regarded as the author of the comedies. of Shakespeare, a man of exceptional intellectual energy, with many unlikable personal traits. [...] Bacon advocated a study of Nature based on observation and induction in order to exploit it to accomplish men's purposes. "The true and legitimate aim of science," he wrote, "is to enrich the life of man

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through new discoveries and new powers. Through them, the sovereignty and power [...] which man had in the early days of creation could be restored and [largely] strengthened." It was indeed ambitious (nothing less than the redemption of mankind from the consequences of the Fall of Adam), but Bacon was sure that this was possible provided that scientific research was organized effectively; in this too he was a prophetic figure, a forerunner of the societies and scientific institutions of the future» 37 .

While philosophical-scientific studies inspired men of science, his description of an earthly paradise aroused an even greater infatuation. He wrote a novel called The New Atlantis, which must surely rank among the most important works of fiction . It is the story of the discovery of a secret civilization on an unknown island . A European ship leaves Peru for China and Japan. It is deflected from its course by violent winds, then stranded in an unknown part of the Pacific Ocean. Running out of food and drink, the crew are starving, but are saved at the eleventh hour when the lookout sees an island on the horizon. The island called Bensalem is unknown to the rest of the world. Its inhabitants, who have developed a civilization far more advanced than that of all other nations, take care that the existence of their island remains secret. Reading this novel, one gets the impression of seeing Bacon's dreams about the future . All the benefits that humanity could obtain by putting its new scientific methods into practice see the light in the wonderful civilization of Bensalem, the New Atlantis. But the book is more than a reverie or a flight of the imagination. Bacon describes a society whose form of government, with its different categories of scientific entities, is an image of the hierarchical structure of the Mysteries of antiquity. The story itself is full of allusions to the wisdom of the Mysteries. The State is governed by an institution called the House of Solomon, whose purpose is "the knowledge of the Causes and secret movements of things; and the enlargement of the limits of the Human empire that it may rule over all things." Solomon's house organizes the greatest imaginable variety of scientific experiments to wrest all the secrets from Nature. Bacon describes in detail how these experiments are conducted. Some researchers work in very deep underground caves, while others have laboratories atop extremely tall towers (space stations in orbit were not conceivable in the 17th century). All existing chemical elements are combined in all possible ways and under all possible conditions of altitude, temperature, pressure and so on. Bacon equally describes vast zoological gardens, where animals of all types are studied, crossbred with each other or subjected to selective breeding in order to obtain new species. Vivisection is widely practiced there. Then, there are also laboratories where instruments and machines of all sorts are built and where all the laws of mechanics are discovered. Thanks to his powerfully prophetic imagination, Bacon speaks of submarines, planes and even robots. Rudolf Steiner in a conference in Dornach in September 1916 said: "Humanity is already very advanced on the way in which it considers as idols all that is not sensorially perceptible. Bacon is the great initiator of the science of idols. It is for this reason that it must be understandable that the same head which was meant to indicate to men the character of idols

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of speech must have served the spiritual world in order to inaugurate from a practical point of view even what appears to some extent as a materialistic paradise on earth. heavenly, but a heavenly character in the sense of the materialistic mentality that was to appear in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. It is for this reason that the practical ideal had to be present as a 'counter-image.' language had to have as its ideal the search for what is mechanical even in the most directly accessible celestial spheres.It is for this reason that the same head from which the theory of idols emerged was to give birth to the ideals of materialism of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. In Bacon we find an ideal not yet realized today: artificially provoking meteorology. It will! Also this ideal of Nova Atlantis of Bacon will come true. In Bacon we first find the notion of steerable air vessels, in him we first find the idea of the submarine. And Bacon, Francis Bacon, who is the great initiator of practical materialism, up to those practical mechanisms valid for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch" 38 .

It should be mentioned here that some of the inventions foreseen by Bacon had also been imagined by Leonardo da Vinci, almost a century earlier. But even in Rudolf Steiner's time the set of notebooks of Leonardo's drawings had not yet been published. It is almost certain that Bacon did not know them. Such knowledge, moreover, would not have modified Bacon's historical mission in anything, as it has been described here by Rudolf Steiner.

THE UNIVERSAL CODE In Bacon's time, life at court was not all rest. Courtiers vied for the favors of their monarch. An out of place remark or an act done without thinking could attract the discontent of the king and be detrimental to the person's future. This meant, in the worst case scenario, the loss of his own condition and income. Precarious conditions such as these naturally incited intrigue and machinations of all sorts. Even if Francis Bacon felt above these miserable intrigues and petty conspiracies, he was nonetheless obliged to resort to secrecy and diplomatic strategy. An ambitious man such as he must but manifestly be well informed. Like many prominent statesmen, Bacon had his own information network that kept him informed of important events in England and abroad. Because of the permanent danger that a secret communication perhaps of a sensitive nature would fall into the wrong hands, Bacon used coded messages that could only be deciphered by his trusted friends. Encrypted secret messages weren't new, of course. But when Bacon, with his brilliant mind, began to reflect on the principle of codification, he went far beyond the mere idea of writing secret letters. The enormous potential of encoded information became clear to him . He elaborated different types of codes, refining and perfecting them. His final code was of elegant simplicity and epoch-defining importance. Bacon realized that he could use it for any kind of communication, but his ideas in this area were centuries ahead of their time. Nowadays, Bacon's code is the fundamental format of artificial intelligence that is used in all types of data processing and electronic transmission. The telephone, telefax, radio, television, optical discs (CDs and DVDs), video, missile guidance , flight simulation, measuring instruments, medical diagnostic apparatus, radios Telescopes, the internet, e-mails and so on are just some of the areas of electronics that are based on the application of Bacon's code,

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known today as the binary code. It is in the second book of his Advancement of Learning (On the progress and promotion of knowledge ) that Bacon deals for the first time publicly with the theme of codes as a means of communication. Chapter 16 deals with the theme of the "transmission of knowledge". After describing the role of speech and writing, Bacon briefly touches on the subject of codes and their uses: "Ciphering processes usually use letters or alphabets, sometimes words. In addition to simple ciphers, which proceed through changes, or which mix null or meaningless units, there are numerous ways of coding, according to the nature and rule of the text: the wheels, the keys, the doubles, etc. Three characteristics must guide the choice: the codes must not make drafting or reading laborious: they must be impossible to discover, and in certain cases that one cannot suspect that the encryption is encrypted.The highest degree of this art is to write omnia for omnia [everything by means of everything], which is certainly possible, bearing in mind that the text will be at most five times the encrypted message provided that there are no other constraints. The art of ciphering has as its correlate an art of deciphering , in principle doomed to failure, but in fact of great utility. If the processes of ciphering were properly applied, very many among we would be deprived of access for the decryptor. But, since they often pass through inexperienced and clumsy hands, the most important affairs are often transmitted in codes that are very easy to discover " 39 .

Later, when he published De Augmentis Scientiarum in 1623, he expounded the subject of codes in detail, disclosing his binary code for the first time. He showed how to use the two letters "a" and "à" to represent all the letters of the alphabet (there were 24 in his time ). The code looked like this: Letter

TO b c d AND f g h THE k L m

Code

= = = = = = = = = = = =

aaaaa aaaab aaaba aaabb aabaa aabab aabba aabbb abaaa abaab ababa abb

Letter

No OR P Q R St T v w x Y Z

Code

= = = = = = = = = = =

bark abbab abba abbb baaaa baaab baaba baab babaa babab daddy babbb

Anyone familiar with the binary code used in computers and digital devices today will have

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recognized Bacon's code immediately. It is currently used to represent letters of the alphabet, digits and all the other signs which constitute "information". Today it is generally written today with 0 (zero) and 1 (one) in place of "a" and "b", although the letters are still used in certain contexts. According to Bacon (in De Augmentis Scientiarum), such a code has many advantages. It allows men to express and transmit their thoughts over considerable distances by means of visible or audible instruments, provided that the latter possess only two possible states (one state representing "a" and the other "b" ). As examples of these instruments, he mentions bells (either ringing or not ringing), trumpets, rifles, lights (either shining or not), and other similar devices. The modern computer technician will add an additional example to Bacon's list: electricity (the presence or absence of voltage). In fact, that's exactly how data transmissions and computers work.

THE SEARCH FOR WISDOM Before leaving Francis Bacon and facing our century, let's take a look at the earthly paradise outlined in The New Atlantis. The inhabitants of the island are healthy, hardworking and happy. Their well-being is ensured by the benevolent government, the "House of Solomon", whose main principle is the acquisition of ever greater wisdom. The House of Solomon has a hierarchical structure the precise details of which are described by Bacon: "Let us now see what are the different jobs and positions of the members of our Society. We have twelve colleagues who travel abroad and who bring us books, samples and examples of experiences from all regions of the world, and this by passing for people of other nationalities , as we hide ours.We call them the Merchants of Light. We have three that collect the experiences that can be found in all the books. We call them the Looters. We have three that collect all the experiences that concern the mechanical arts, the liberal sciences and the processes that are constituted in arts. We call them the Artisans. We have three who try new experiences, based on what they themselves judge good. We call them the Miners. We have three who organize the experiences of the first four groups into chronicles and tables, in order to better explain to us how to draw observations and axioms from all of this. We call them the Compilers. We have three who apply themselves to examining the experiences of others and seek ways to draw useful and applicable things to the conduct of life; to draw knowledge that can be used in jobs and various operations, but also in highlighting the causes; for further plots of natural prediction processes and clear and easy means of discovering what are the hidden properties and parts of bodies. We call them the Givers or Benefactors.

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Then, after our whole Society has consulted in various meetings dedicated to examining previous works and the collections of experiences which they have made it possible to bring together, three members of this Society are charged with proposing new experiences which, being illuminating to a higher level, allow you to better enter the secrets of Nature. We call them the Torches. We have three others who carry out the experiences ordered by the previous ones, and who then report on them. We call them the Grafters. Finally, we have three that take the discoveries that previous experiences have allowed us to make higher, transforming them into observations, axioms and aphorisms of a higher level. We call them the Interpreters of Nature. As you can imagine, we also have novices and apprentices, so that the turnover of the men who dedicate themselves to these researches is always ensured; I need not speak of a large number of servants and servants, men and women. And we also do this: we hold consultations to decide which are, among the inventions and experiences we have made, which ones will be made public and which ones will not be; and we are all bound by an oath by which we swear silence, so that the things which we believe should be kept secret, remain so - even if we sometimes happen to reveal some of them to the State, but at least not all." 40 .

The more we examine the hierarchy of the House of Solomon, the more we discover reflections of the hierarchical structure of the ancient Mystery temples. "Solomon" is, of course, the oldest form of the king's name from the Bible. The House is not his palace, but the temple in Jerusalem which contains the sancta sanctorum, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept: an ornate and gold-plated wooden chest which housed the two tables of the Law that God had given to Moses. Merchants of Light are emissaries of the temple, who travel the world to gather information . Above them are the eight grades of temple dwellers, the first four making up the orders of the outer temple and the next three higher orders making up the inner temple. Above them are the supreme initiates, the Interpreters of Nature. All are bound by an oath of secrecy; their knowledge is occult. And yet, how utilitarian all this is! There is no mention of a path of inner development, no mention of the spirit world. Let's take a closer look at what the House of Solomon really is. The organism at different levels is known as a human data processing system, fed with information gathered by the twelve Merchants of Light. The system operates as follows : 1st stage - data acquisition: Merchants of Light gather the largest amount of information imaginable (books, compendiums, data of experiences) and introduce them into the organism. 2nd stage - the data is recorded in the memory: The Looters extract all theoretical information from the books (the data taken from the books is entered into the system's memory);

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The Artisans extract all the practical information contained in the reports (the data of the reports are entered in the memory); Miners carry out new tests and new experiences (data obtained through new experiences are entered into memory). 3rd stage - data organization: Compilers select all the resulting information, classify it by categories , tables, etc. (creating a structured database that contains information selected by category). 4th stage - search and analysis of the database content and more detailed classification of information according to specific criteria: The Benefactors analyze the data from the categories and tables (the database). 5th stage - with the results of the previous analysis, appropriate models and procedures are established and tested to continue operations : The Torches elaborate new formulas starting from the analysis; The Grafters test these new formulas. 6th and final stage - all the data in the database thus reorganized are analyzed according to the models and procedures defined in the previous stage, and general procedures are formulated: From what precedes, the Interpreters of Nature deduce general laws. The reader familiar with computer programming will now have been struck by this idea: Solomon's House is a human computer. And this is actually the case. Bacon's paradise is governed by a living data-processing system, strictly utilitarian in nature. We have chosen this example to illustrate Bacon's inductive method which is described in great detail in his scientific works. There, he explains how to select and analyze information, calling the human spirit a "mill" that processes data. The greater the amount of information to be analysed, the better the result. As George Sampson also says: "Bacon despises both the old induction which, starting from a few cases, formulated general laws, as well as the syllogism. His new induction consists in progressing, gradually, by stages towards an increasing generalization, and must be based on a set exhaustive of examples" 41 .

Consequently, it is no exaggeration to say that Bacon is the father of the computer. He not only worked out the methods of data processing in great detail, but also invented the binary code by which all data can be reduced to a sequence of "as" and "b" (or 0 and 1) , to be subsequently processed by mechanical means. The fact that Bacon knew nothing about

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electronic circuits or Boolean algebra is irrelevant. Electric current was only discovered about two hundred years after his death. What he invented was the idea of the computer. The process used to incorporate it into a calculating machine was secondary. The first physical computer (built by Hollerith in the late 19th century) was electromechanical. Today's computers are electronic. Those of the future will perhaps work with other energies. So Bacon annihilated the spiritual power of speech, and gave humans the binary code used in computer programming and data processing languages. He directed men's attention to the external world of the senses, teaching them to gather information through observation and physical experiences. Starting from this information, through the elaboration of data, men would have been able to influence nature and to know the principles of anything. He made them dream of an earthly paradise in which the weather would be controlled artificially, with planes, submarines, robots, genetic genius, and many other prophetic visions. And he rejected all the teachings of the past, whether revealed or inspired, warning men against their containing idols. The spiritual world was to become, for human thought, a world of idols.

THE BINARY CODE - FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE It is undeniable that Bacon's binary code is of exceptional importance. Not only did it provide the foundation for binary data processing, it also opened up the field of digital communications. For example, the idea of using a tube to transmit information in binary form was ingenious. Of course, compared to what is done today, this practical application was primitive. This is all the more striking if one imagines one is conveying a message such as the title of this book. The first letters of the word Gondishapur are written as follows in Bacon's codex : G = aabba O = Abbab N = bark D = aaabb

The letter codes had to follow immediately after each other with no spaces between them, i.e.: aabbaabbababbaaaaabb

otherwise the code would have been easy to crack. If we chose that a lantern that gives light represents an "a", and one that is dark represents a "b", then we would send the beginning of the word Gondishapur: shed light, shed light, dark, dark, shed light, shed light, dark, dark, shed light, dark, shed light, dark, dark,

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shed light, shed light, shed light, shed light, shed light, dark, dark .

Now, we would need to send our message at a measured, regular cadence , otherwise the person receiving it would have a hard time distinguishing between the intervals and the signals. There would thus be a limit to the speed at which we could send intelligible "dark" and "make light" sequences. We can assume that a skilled and experienced operator could achieve a sustained transmission rate of one sign per second. In all likelihood, few traders could top this pace without getting bogged down in accuracy. The title of this book contains 27 letters, each of which is represented by a set of five signs (a and b). The shortest time required to send the title secretly, at night, using a lamp is therefore 27 times 5 seconds, or 2 minutes and 15 seconds. This might seem a bit slow, but still acceptable. Yes, for short messages . Conversely, suppose we want to send long detailed reports and even whole books. Just imagine someone who is sending the text of this book at night, with a lamp! Even if we had highly skilled operators, with such sustained concentration that they could transmit and receive at a rate of one sign per second, with no signs of letting up or stopping, four hours a night, five nights a week - a backbreaking task - all this would take more than six months to do! If the speed of transmission prevailed over the secrecy of the message, the system could easily be improved by using five lanterns instead of one, each with its own operator. Traders should perfectly synchronize their movements . Each common operation would then transmit the integer code of five numerical characters corresponding to a letter of the alphabet. However, with five operators, the risk of error would be just as great. One way to avoid or significantly reduce errors would be to mechanize the operations in a very simple way. Imagine the row of five lanterns with, in front of and above them, a large roll of fabric on an unwinder. The fabric can be lowered in front of the lanterns, which are thus in the dark. Now, assuming that holes have been cut into the fabric in such a way that by pulling the fabric down a few centimeters at a time, with each step, the holes are lined up in front of the lanterns you want to see lit - while the others are in the dark , - then a higher transmission rate could be achieved. Each time you pull the fabric, the five-character numerical code corresponding to a letter would be sent. This simple system would also allow the person sending the message to verify it (making sure the holes are in the right places) before transmitting it. Indeed, it is this method which was adopted throughout the world, albeit in a somewhat more sophisticated form, for many means of telecommunications such as for example the Wheatstone telegraph and its more modern successor, the Telex system which is still used today. The working principle of Wheatstone 's telegraph was as follows. The roll of cloth was replaced by a roll of paper - a narrow strip of paper with rows of punched holes and white spaces (i.e. dots with no holes). The strip was introduced into the emitter apparatus thanks to guide rolls which kept it in position and made it advance step by step. Instead of the little

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lanterns that shed light through the holes, a row of steel needles was lowered and rested on the paper after each step, and then raised again. Where there were holes, the needles went through them and made electrical contacts. Where there were no holes, the needles didn't pass and contact didn't happen. The electrical contacts allowed the current to propagate along the cables , from the emitting machine to the receiving station. At each step, the row of five needles thus electrically transmitted the five-character numerical code for a letter of the alphabet according to Bacon's system. Electricity had replaced light. Early Tele machines worked the same way; more complex and more sophisticated systems were developed over the years §, but they were all applications of the same fundamental idea of numerical coding. Simple Telex machines were capable of transmitting up to 400 letters, or other characters, per minute (they were more than thirty times faster than a skilled operator with his lantern). Therefore, as we have just seen, the principle consisting in communicating information in binary form comes from Bacon. But the idea of using a continuous strip of paper in which holes have been made (punched tape) and a set of pins to "read" the code, has another source. In fact , the process was invented long before the discovery of electric current - it was originally a purely mechanical process. Where did this idea come from, which fits perfectly with the principle elaborated by Bacon? This question is of great importance to our research, since the use of punched tape or punched cards "read" by a pin game determined the way computers would eventually work. Indeed, it was one of the most important inventions in history, as we will soon see. When we contemplate artificial intelligence invading our world today, we find essentially the combination of two inventions. Francis Bacon gave one of them: how to reduce all knowledge to a binary form and how to deal with it. It's half the story. The other half is the creation of physical technique which accords with Bacon's methods. We mentioned the curious fact that the origins of digital computing, which so massively dominates our world today, remained in obscurity. In general, historians who seek the origin of data processing in binary form do not go back to Bacon, who invented it. And yet Bacon is very well known. All the necessary evidence on the subject can be found in his published works. It was a different story for the genius who invented the punched tape reader. Genius it sure was. The first information about it and about the source of his inspiration, provided in the following chapter, are the result of research undertaken for the writing of this book. Some investigations had never been conducted before. Some fragments of information, sometimes inaccurate, about the brilliant inventor, had been revealed by the most accurate investigators in the history of the technique, among them Abbot Payson Usher ( A History of Mechanical Invention). NdT]) stands out for its seriousness and its reliability. But the story of the inventor §5- bit Baudot system , 7- bit ASCII system , etc.

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and his invention outlined in the following chapter is being told here for the first time. Still much remains to be explored. Curiously, the invention itself caused a stir in the inventor's industry. An improvement made later, by others, on his invention is known and is regarded as one of the factors which most of all influenced the industrialization of Europe. However, even those who knew the inventor personally, and who enthusiastically embraced his ideas, left very little information about him. Investigating these things, one gets the impression that the spiritual powers behind computer technology do not want men to realize where it comes from and its real nature.

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CHAPTER III THE INFORMATION FRAME

In the earlier chapters of this book we have seen how, from the seventh century, the sun demon, Sorat, sought to take control of human thought and pour it into a binary mold . Many outstanding thinkers fought against this dualism, defending the true conception of man as a being of body, soul and spirit. For a thousand years, the fate of the weapons in this intense battle fluctuated constantly. At times, Sorat had the upper hand; in others, lucid philosophers brought human thought back to the right path. When Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great and other scholastics with their temperament united Aristotelian logic with the Christian faith, one might have believed that Western humanity had won the victory. But the powerful solar demon is a formidable opponent: three centuries later, he influenced the brilliant spirit of Francis Bacon, the most influential philosopher of the time. Bacon furiously attacked the philosophers whom humanity regarded as authorities , rejecting Aristotle and all who thought like him with bitter contempt. By linking human aspirations for knowledge to information processing and the binary code, Bacon paved the way for a far greater victory: the advent of artificial intelligence controlled by Sorat himself . The influence of a demonic being on human thought would indeed bode badly for the future of humanity and the Earth. But thought is not the only driving force that determines our lives. Religious faith is often stronger than reason. Faith comes from a sphere of soul life that is more deeply rooted than thought: the sphere of feeling. For his part, Sorat does not have access to this deep level where we, human beings, feel reverence for the Divine. His own demonic nature is foreign to feelings such as love, pity and devotion. So true faith could protect Christendom from falling entirely under the control of Sorat. Through thought, we try to understand the world, we seek the truth. Truth is the goal of any philosophy, the ideal that it seeks to achieve in full consciousness. Feelings belong to a radically different realm, a realm of soul life that is much less conscious than that of thought. We don't organize our feelings the way we process our thoughts, classifying them and

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combining them according to the transparent laws of logic. Feelings are not sensitive to this; they are not directed by reason. Emotions, longings, affections and other movements of the soul of this kind are different from concepts and ideas. They do not have such sharp outlines and their nature is closer to the dream state. In thought, our consciousness is both more alive and more universal. The concepts we have, if they are objectively true, are valid for everyone. On the contrary, our feelings express our likes and dislikes, our personal relationship with the things of the world; they are valid only for ourselves. Deep sources arouse our feelings and inflame our emotions, even if some of these sources are not obvious: the beauty of nature, for example, or some great works of art can fill us with wonder . The child's innate capacity for veneration, before losing its innocence, is stimulated both by a religious office and by all that is authentically beautiful in its surroundings. We are all born with this ability to be amazed. Miserable, indeed, is he who finds no joy in poetry, who is incapable of being enflamed by listening to music, and is not inclined to commune with the sublime creations of Nature. All these things speak to our heart, to the aesthetic sensitivity of our feelings, and they can arouse emotions in us that become the engine of our most noble actions. Sorat had absolutely no illusions about the importance of religious experience for human beings. Wasn't his attempt to pervert Gnostic wisdom at the Gondishapur Academy thwarted by the religious fervor of the Mohammedans? And, furthermore, he wanted men to regard him as their God, to become himself the object of their worship. But there seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle to his project. How could the sun demon gain ascendancy over human feelings? How could he take control of it? There is no affinity with what springs from within human hearts, no understanding of what love, mercy and devotion are. These things are not part of one's nature: the sun demon is a being of hate. If Sorat wanted to direct the life of human feelings, he would have to somehow change their nature into something more akin to his own: to transform love into hate, pity into blasphemy and devotion into derision. This could only be done through an operation of black magic, through the transformation of good into evil on an extremely large scale. These reflections lead us to a new stage in our investigation. We have seen that any knowledge that can be expressed in words can be reduced to a simple sequence of "a" and "b" by Bacon's method. In this binary form, information can be processed by appropriate mechanisms and transmitted over long distances. If one adopts the materialist point of view, one could say that intelligent machines can think for us, and provide answers to our questions. But is it conceivable that these same intelligent machines could play an identical role in relation to our feelings? Could they "treat" these elements of life that address our emotions and affections? We thus come to a second stage of our investigation into the activity of the spiritual powers

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acting in the folds of the development of the binary technique of computers. Up until now , we have looked at this technology in terms of information processing : artificial thinking. We must now go deeper. The Two-horned Beast has the firm intention of becoming God. In order to achieve its goal, it had to divert - or rather completely "pervert" - the religious experience of the soul, transforming it into its opposite: hatred for the divine. Furthermore, it needed to find a means to mislead the aesthetic feelings of the human soul, by substituting what is beautiful and admirable with artificial denatured beauty. Only such measures as these could allow her to take hold of the life of the heart and to sully it with evil. It would thus have diverted the feelings of man as it already did with his thoughts. This project, consisting of perverting religious experience and corrupting man's love of beauty, was so vast and so malevolent that it could seem impossible to carry out, even for a being as powerful as the Beast. two horns. In reality, the Beast alone certainly could not have carried out this project, and the attempt would have been doomed to failure if Lucifer, the opposing power of evil, had not entered the fray, adding his seductive forces. The joint action of these two powers constituted an even greater threat to the future of humanity than the machinations of Sorat alone. A question immediately arises: through which perverse and unnatural procedures could these two adversaries of humanity collaborate - these powers which are by nature at the antipodes of the Moon with respect to the other -, how could they combine their action in view of this debasement of human feelings what was their purpose? However incongruous this idea may seem from the outset, Sorat envisaged that if human feelings could be linked in some way to the functioning of machines, then it would be possible to use binary techniques (such as future punchband systems) not only to mechanize thought, but also to arouse and control feelings. The main question was: how could human feelings be brought into the desired relationship with the functioning of mechanical systems? Was it possible that joys and sorrows, likes and dislikes, ardent desires , affection, amazement, devotion, love, etc., were subjected to the functioning of mechanisms? With men as they were in that era, that seemed impossible. After all, at the time there was no technology capable of playing the role necessary for the realization of Sorat's drawings. But the Beast knew that if the human being himself could be led to have a uniquely binary conception of existence, he could fatally develop a binary technique. To connect the human heart to future data-processing machines, two things were needed: first, to modify the feelings themselves so that they could be connected to mechanical systems, and, second, to perfect, develop and refine the technique binary so that it can be used to stimulate and direct feelings. That's what Sorat tried to do, and that's what was finally done . It had to proceed in stages. The latter are described in this chapter and in the following ones. To clearly understand how, with the help of Lucifer, Sorat was able to guide the

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development of the technique in the direction he desired - towards that of perforated band systems -, previously modifying human feelings to adapt them to this technology , we must once again examine in detail the spiritual background of the binary technique. In fact, the powers of evil always operate through the spiritual forces that underlie physical things and events. To find the source of these forces that relate to this second stage of our study, we must venture into unknown terrain and strive to bring into the foreground hidden aspects of human history that have not yet been addressed. This time, our investigation takes us neither to Persia nor to the East, but to that western part of continental Europe which, later, would become modern France. In the Middle Ages, the two main educational centers of this country played a leading role in the cultural life of Europe. These centers also became Sorat's chosen targets for his work to take control of the human heart. In Paris , with the help of Lucifer, he will try to pervert the religious experience of man and to modify his life of feeling by means of an operation of black magic of great importance. On the other hand, our inquiry takes us to Lyon, the City of Light: it is indeed there that the development of machines begins which, strangely enough, will allow the powers of evil to take the first step towards the mechanization of human feelings.

THE CITY OF LIGHT When in the middle of the 20th century, the first cosmonauts turned to look at the Earth from the distance of space, and saw it as a glistening, blue-green drop of water moving in the cosmic void, humanity became aware that it was necessary to think of our planet in a new way. The cosmonauts, deeply moved, described its beauty and its fragility. They realized that the Earth was not a lump of matter that simply revolves around the Sun, but a living, beautiful sphere of which all human beings are a part. It was a pivotal moment in modern history. The Earth is truly alive. Its different regions and geographical configurations have very precise roles within the vital, planetary processes , like the organs of any living entity. We can get a first idea about the nature of these vital processes by reading Rudolf Steiner's description of the teachings that Aristotle gave to his pupil, Alexander the Great, so that he could have an inner experience of these processes: "Thanks to Aristotle, Alexander learned that what lives outside the world, in the form of the elements earth, water, air and fire, which also lives inside man, and the human being, from this point of view , is really a microcosm: in him, in his bones, the earth element lives; in his blood circulation and in his humours, the water element lives; in the respiratory system and in the language, the air element lives, and in the thoughts the element fire lives. Alexander still knew that he lived in the elements of the world. But feeling that he lived in the elements of the world, he still felt the close kinship with the earth. Today, man moves towards the East, towards the West, towards the North and to the south, but he does not perceive everything that flows into him, for he sees only what his external senses perceive, only what terrestrial substances perceive in him, and not what the elements

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perceive in him.But Aristotle could still tell Alessandro: when you go towards the East, you penetrate more and more into an element that dries you up. You go into the dry. Don't think that going to Asia will dry you up completely. Of course, we are dealing here with very subtle effects, but effects that Alexander, instructed by Aristotle, felt fully. In Macedonia, one could say: I have a certain degree of humidity in me. When I go to the East, this humidity decreases. Thus, during his wanderings, he felt the configuration of the earth such as, for example, when you touch a human being, when you touch a part of his face, you feel the difference between his nose, his eyes, his mouth. A personality like the one I have described still perceived the difference between what she felt as she sank deeper and deeper into the dry and what she felt as she went westward, toward the wet. The other nuances, men still feel them today, albeit in a rather crude way. To the north, they perceive the cold, to the south the heat, the fire. But the play between the damp and the cold, when you go northwest, is no longer perceived by men. Aristotle revived in Alexander what Gilgamesh' had experienced during his journey to the West. Thus, the pupil was able to perceive through a direct inner experience what is experienced in the intermediate zone between the damp and the cold, in the direction of the north-west: the water. It was not only a possible expression, but a real expression for a man like Alexander, to say not: the expedition goes northwest, but: the expedition takes the direction in which the water element dominates. In the intermediate zone between the humid and the hot, the air element dominates . This was taught in the ancient chthonic Greek Mysteries, in the mysteries of Sam otracia. Aristotle Hero of the ancient and famous Sumerian epic, which describes the odyssey of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, in the far West, when he set out in search of Utnapishtim who knew the secret of immortality.

he taught it to his pupil. In the intermediate zone between the cold and the dry, therefore, starting from Macedonia, in the direction of Siberia, one perceived the region of the Earth where the earth itself dominated, the solid element. In the intermediate zone between the heat and the dry, therefore towards India, one perceived a region of the earth dominated by the element of fire. And Aristotle's pupil said, pointing north-west: I feel that the earth is under the influence of water spirits. Showing the southwest, he said: There, I feel the spirits of the air. Showing the north-east, he saw the spirits of the earth approach first of all, showing the southeast towards India, he perceived the spirits of fire in their element; he saw them approaching" 42 .

Such were the experiences of a person like Alexander (in whom a perception of the workings of elemental beings had been awakened by his teacher, Aristoteles ) when he looked from Macedonia in the direction of the geographical cardinal points and areas lying between of them. He internally perceived the work of elementary beings , not simply as vital processes that produce the different states of matter (solid, liquid, etc.), but also in relation to their moral qualities. In fact, states of matter and energy possess moral qualities, as we shall see later. In past times in which human beings observed Nature more intensely than they do today, this perception was common to all men when they were in central places such as Macedonia. They intimately perceived the general configuration of the vital body of the Earth. And as they

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traveled over the surface of the Earth, they more accurately perceived the regional configuration , the local differentiation of our planet's body of life. In fact, the life processes of the Earth, just like ours, are strongly differentiated and men observed these realities in ancient times, when they were still clear- sighted. There are places that can be compared, in a certain sense, to the energy centers of our own human vital organism. These places were chosen by the peoples of antiquity for their religious practices and rituals. It is known today that the places of the stone circles, of the ancient temples, and of many very ancient churches were not chosen arbitrarily, nor for external practical reasons, but according to the configuration of the natural life forces of the place, according to their particular spiritual qualities. One such place interests us particularly here: a place which is geographically the meeting point of two important waterways, the Rhône and the Saône. They meet in a plain, which in that area forms a wide corridor oriented north-south, limited to the east and west by mountain ranges. To the west, the limit is defined by the Massif Central, whose closest range is called the Monts du Lyonnaise in the area where the rivers meet. As for the eastern frontier, it is bounded by the southern end of the Jura chain, behind which the majestic Alps rise as a support . The source of the Rhône is located about 200 kilometers north-east as a bird's eye view, in the heights of the Swiss Alps: an icy spring of great purity fed by the source of the Rhône glacier, one of the last vestiges of the glacial that reigned over Europe. The small torrent swells with others and becomes a rapid river entering Lake Geneva in Switzerland, before exiting it and following its tormented course in France in a southwesterly direction, crossing the valleys of the Jura mountains towards the southern plains . In the place that interests us, it meets the Saone which flows more slowly in a southerly direction . The source of the Saone is located at an identical distance from the point of confluence , to the north: the Saone takes its source near Vioménil, southwest of Épinal, in the foothills of the Vosges massif, and follows a gentle slope towards the plain where it ends up meeting and being absorbed by the more agitated Rhone. In ancient times, the union of their waters flooded the region, creating mud banks and marshes where small islands and peninsulas were formed which continually collapsed . However, a few islets persisted, and became a feature of the region. Due to silting, the river bed was constantly changing; they did not yet follow today's route. It was a dynamic game between land and water. The place where the Rhône and the Saône meet is a spiritual crossroads, a meeting point of cultural and religious currents among the most important of antiquity. Following these currents, itinerant groups and travelers from various horizons established colonies on the higher elevations rising out of the marshes and mud fields in the confluence zone. The colonies coexisted more or less peacefully in the early days, even though their customs and religions were radically different. Then, in the year 43 a. C., the Roman proconsul Munazio Fianco

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founded the colony of Lugdunum on the hill where the temple of the Celtic god Lugh was located, and the villages became the neighborhoods and suburbs of a soon flourishing city , with aqueducts, baths, sumptuous villas with ornate floors from numerous mosaics belonging to wealthy merchants and shipowners, a forum that supplanted the temple of Lugh, an impressive amphitheater ( seating 5,000 ), and later, a 3,000- seat auditorium built by Hadrian in AD 120 The Latin name of the colony, Lugdunum, means "the hill of Lug". Lug (Lugh) was the god of Light, and Lugdunum-Lyon has indeed been a center of learning since those ancient times, sometimes taking the spiritual direction of continental Europe. Today, the immense sprawling city of Lyon, with its one and a half million inhabitants, unfolds over the entire confluence area. But the place remains a center of spiritual power. The Romans soon recognized the special importance of the place. Essoo became the center of Agrippa's extensive road system through all of Gaul, extending from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Atlantic to the Alps. Its four main thoroughfares, all starting from Lugdunum, roughly followed the road network which it had existed at a time when men still perceived the moral qualities of the Spirits of the elements acting in nature. The main axes pointed north-east towards the earth element, the rocks and ice masses of the Swiss Alps and the Alpine hills; to the NW towards the watery element, the English Channel and the British Isles; southwest to the air element, the sun-drenched atmosphere of the Pyrenees and the Iberian kingdoms of Spain; to the south-east, via Massilia (Marseilles ) and the road of the Mediterranean sea, within the fire element, towards Alexandria and therefore towards Egypt and Greece (the first section of this axis, from Lugdunum to Marseilles, it has overall a north-south orientation. This road was also extended from Lyon far north to reach the course of the Rhine at Cologne, then finally the North Sea). In the 2nd century AD, two religions arrived in Lugdunum from the southeast, each of which would play an important role in the life of the city. They carried a message that at first glance was similar, even though in reality they were fundamentally different. Both were brought from Asia Minor. The first was the cult of Cybele, the great mother goddess of Anatolia, who drove a chariot drawn by some lions. His main shrine was at Pessinus in Phrygia. However, around 205 BC, Cybele was officially adopted by the Romans who sent a squadron to Pergamum to bring the celebrated black stone as a representation of the goddess. She was ceremoniously placed in her new shrine on Mount Palatine. His cult was adapted and romanized to suit the Romans' fashionable tastes in religion. In Lyons, a shrine to the goddess was built on the Fourvière plateau, near the temple of Lugh. Now, Cybele had a son and husband, the young Attis, a figure of Adonis, whose death was celebrated every year. In the most ancient times, the cult was celebrated in the autumn , but when it was imported from Rome to Gaul, at the beginning of our era, the rites were completely decadent. Some elements of the cult of Mithras had mixed with it, and were no longer

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celebrated in autumn, but in spring. These rites of Romanized Cybele and Attis began on March 15 with the procession of rush bearers. Sacrifices in honor of Cybele were practiced there so that the crops were abundant. Then followed a week of fasting and purification. Then came the day of mourning; the portrait of Attis was attached to a pine tree (a sort of symbolic crucifixion) which was then carried throughout the streets of the city, where the faithful mourned his death . March 24 was Blood Day, in which the image was taken out and placed in a pit filled with the blood of a castrated **bull . The following day, Attis resurrected, personifying man's victory over the forces of death within the human animal nature. The priests announced to the happy faithful: "Take courage, oh faithful, for your God has found salvation. You too will be saved". These rituals were the last decadent echoes of what had once been the sacred rites performed in the Phrygian Mysteries. The other religion was, from this point of view, exactly the opposite; she was not yet two hundred years old. This young religion was, of course, Christianity, brought from Ephesus to Lugdunum by some bishops of the city of Smime. They had been disciples of the great saint Polycarp of Smime, who had himself been a personal disciple of the Apostle John, the author of the Gospel which bears his name. Their inflamed spiritual Christianity was very different from the further dogmatic religion which was becoming the doctrine of the Roman Church. Christianity and the cult of Cybele and Attis are religions which both have the principle of resurrection as their central element. Lugdunum was therefore imbued with the conviction that the spirit always ended up triumphing. Christianity was brought to Lugdunum by the venerable bishop Potino in 135 AD Potino would have brought a portrait of the Holy Virgin attributed, like other works of the same genre, to San Luca. A place of worship dedicated to the Virgin Mary was established on the plateau adjacent to the ancient temple of Lugh, near the place where the sanctuary of Cybele was about to be built. But the new religion was not warmly received. In AD 177 , Pothinus and his disciples were cruelly persecuted and led to their deaths. Later in the same year, Irenaeus, the foremost Christian theologian of the second century , became the new bishop of Lugdunum. From childhood, Irenaeus had been taught by St. Polycarp, the last known living link with the apostles (he had known more than one of them personally and was particularly attached to St. John in Ephesus). To his pupils, among whom was also Irenaeus, Saint Polycarp taught the true nature of Christianity. In these early times, the power of the Christian faith did not reside in the logic of its doctrines, but in the certainty of personal experience that shone forth from those who could say: "I saw the Lord when he was among us. I have been a witness since His death on cross. But I also saw the Resurrected One with my own eyes - I touched His hand, I heard His voice". Irenaeus, who addressed the Gauls in their language, emphasized the triple nature of God.

**An element of the cult of Mithras. Originally, the God had come down and immersed himself in the sea or in a lake.

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He was aware of the tripartite division of time into past, present and future, and he realized that if the Christian faith was to remain faithful to its foundations, it was not to be deprived of its roots which are found in the history of the Jews. It was St. Irenaeus who insisted that the sacred books of the Jews be an essential part of Christianity, and that the books we now call the Old Testament be included in the Bible. He also contributed greatly to the selection of texts for the New Testament, strongly rejecting the Gnostic writings which were then widespread. True, all ministries were permeated by this savage opposition to Gnosticism, an opposition which was expressed in his major work, the five-volume treatise Against Heresies (Adversus haereses). This work later inspired many defenders of the Christian faith. Like his predecessor in Lyons, Irenaeus died a martyr some fifteen years before the birth of Mani in Persia. But the powerful impulse of his personality and his teaching had penetrated the region around Lugdunum and lived on, despite the vicissitudes of life. Like many other cities, Ludgdunum was pillaged, devastated and rebuilt more than once over the centuries. It passed from Roman rule to the hands of Burgundians, Franks, Saracens and others, before eventually becoming the second most important city in modern France. And yet, despite all these upheavals, its basic qualities remained unchanged. We have to skip long stretches of this tumultuous story, and dwell only on moments that are of particular interest in relation to our study. Our aim is not to tell the story of the city in general, even succinctly. It is well to keep this in mind, since it follows that our account is inevitably partial. It deals only with the aspects and circumstances which form the background of the development of computer technology and the Internet. Other important historical facts are only evoked, or are not even addressed. This consideration applies to all the historical previews provided in this book. Over the centuries that followed Irenaeus, the teachings Mani had given earlier , in Persina, exerted an increasing influence on Lugdunum. These teachings, even regarded as having a Gnostic character, were in harmony on a deeper level with Johannine Christianity. The Manichaean Church had spread from Gondishapur with considerable force, establishing itself over a large part of the Roman Empire before the fourth century, and it became one of the three major Western religions of the day. By this time, the pulpit of the Manichaean pope had been transferred from Persia to Babylon. Manichaean churches flourished in southern Gaul of which Lyons was the capital. But the doctrines of Mani were strongly attacked in the fourth century, both by the Roman state and by the Catholic Church. A hundred years later, the movement had gone underground in Europe, while it continued to thrive in the East for a thousand years. St. John, the apostle whom the Lord loved, is sometimes represented on old paintings with his head resting on Christ's breast, he spiritually listens to the heartbeat of the world. John is the greatest of the Christian initiates; he understands the past, the present and the future. His Gospel recounts the creation of the world: "In the beginning was the Word..." and his Apocalypse describes the events that will have to take place with marvelous and symbolic

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images. In the Gospel of St. John, God's love for men is expressed in a magnificent way. In Revelation, the true nature of good and evil is brought vividly before our gaze. It was John who revealed this knowledge of the mysteries relating to the Luciferic and Ahrimanic natures of evil, even if in a still veiled way for popular thought. Thanks to John, Christian scholars learned the name, sign and nature of the Beast with two comas - Sorat. The teaching of St. John and that of Mani are complementary. Mani also knew the true nature of evil, and knew how it was possible to overcome it with kindness. In Lyons, Johannine Christianity of St. Irenaeus was enriched by the doctrines brought there by the Manichaean Church. Lugdunum-Lyon, where the Rhône and the Saône meet, had always been a place where spiritual and religious matters assumed particular importance, as we have just seen. This religious and spiritual quest was characterized by attempts to understand the great existential problem of good and evil. For centuries, this problem was at the center of the concerns of the city's most enlightened thinkers, up until the time of Luigi Claudio di San Martino in the second half of the 18th century. With the convergence in Lyon of Johannine Christianity and Manichaeism, the foundations for the particular destiny of this city had thus been laid. In Christianity the question of good and evil is linked to the biblical thesis of original sin. According to this doctrine, Lucifer, the fallen angel (the serpent in the story of heaven) gave man the knowledge of good and evil prematurely, against the will of the Creator. Men did not yet possess the experience and maturity to assume such knowledge, and they inevitably fell. The symbolism of these biblical stories should not prevent us from seeing that they describe a concrete reality. In one sense, the whole theme of this book concerns the temptation of knowledge offered to humanity in an inappropriate way . Don't Lucifer and Sorat tell us today: "Make no effort ! We will give you access to knowledge with the click of a mouse. We will create new worlds for you. Any experience is now within your reach. You will be like the gods"? Indeed, are we not on the verge of falling even further from our human condition, of falling into the subjection of artificial intelligence? We either resist, or like Eve, we succumb to temptation. In Lyons, leading thinkers approached the question of good and evil not simply in its biblical context, but in its inner and outer reality. They tried to understand the Luciferic temptation. As the twelfth century approached, in which the archangel Samael was to secure his regency as Spirit of the Ages, an aspiration towards spirit made its way into countless human souls. Samael, the Archangel of March, is a being of great power, who gives men the impulse to fight for the things they believe in. Thomas Aquinas triumphed over the Arab philosophers, in whom the dualist inspiration of Gondishapur still lived. He was a true warrior in the realm of thought, and in the paintings of the time, he is represented as the triumphant philosopher who tramples his pagan adversaries underfoot. In the West, the ideals of the Arthurian knights flourished again, to an even higher degree; their exploits were told in the songs and stories of the Quest for the Holy Grail. The knights of

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the Grail fought against evil, against the black magic of the terrible wizard Klingsor. Parsifal, the hero of the medieval Grail novels, presents himself as an invincible warrior, who, with his courage, his strength and his faith, allows a vast number of those who are led to evil, to turn towards the Christ. Thus he appears with the attributes of a Manichaean horseman , and indeed he was. Spiritual research reveals that the soul of the historical Parsifal (Peredur of the country of Wales) was the same soul that had lived in Persia, more than seven hundred years earlier, in Mani. Mani's teaching, brought from the East by the Manichaean Church, had disappeared from the European public scene, continuing to spread secretly through occult channels. But now, stimulated by the new impulse of the Grail knights, it revived in the most varied forms. In France, it was not expressed only in the heretical movements of the Middle Ages, such as the Omanic sects of the Cathars, Albigensians, etc., but also in the Crusades in the Holy Land. In Lyons a lay brotherhood was born, directed by a particular man, Pierre Valdès [called Pierre de Vaux], a wealthy merchant and praetor of this city, he suddenly felt the impulse (according to the external history) towards 1170, to give all the his wealth to the poor and to live according to the precepts given by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. He went to live among the poor and sick, distributing everything he owned and preaching a message of renunciation and brotherly love. His pious words and deeds shook many hearts, and a lay movement grew up around him: the Waldensians. For a time, the movement worked in apparent harmony with the Catholic Church: Pierre Valdès went to Rome and received authorization from Pope Alexander III to preach his doctrine. But the Catholic Church had formally forbidden one thing: to be in possession of the Holy Scriptures. This prohibition was the cause of many disputes. Pierre Valdès longed to know directly the words of Christ. And so it happened that in the city of Lyons, where Irenaeus had influenced the composition of the New Testament, Pierre Valdès translated the latter into French and began to offer the reading of the Gospels to his disciples. Later, the Waldensians were declared heretics, and were then cruelly persecuted, like the Albigensians and Cathars with whom they had much in common. They were forced into hiding and had to preach in secret. However, their communities spread rapidly through Spain and southern Italy, northward through France, Flanders, Germany, Hungary and Poland. This is the external history of the Waldensians in the Middle Ages. But what is the intimate spiritual reality? On November 11, 1904, Rudolf Steiner spoke of the deeper, more esoteric aspects of the Waldensians, indicating that their movement was actually a continuation of the one founded in the 3rd century by Mani in Gondishapur. "We have to talk a little about Freemasonry to respond to an expressed desire. But it is not possible to understand the latter before having studied the original spiritual currents that are related to Freemasonry, in the sense that it is from them that Freemasonry is born. An even more important

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spiritual current of the Rosicrucians is that of Manichaeism. [...] In order to coherently explain the things we are dealing with here, we must initially start from a spiritual orientation which, in history, appears to us for the first time around the third century. This is the orientation that his great adversary found in Saint Augustine, even though before entering the Catholic Church, he had adhered to this orientation. We must speak of Manichaeism, founded by a personality who called himself Mani and lived approximately in the third century after the birth of Christ. [...] This Mani founded a spiritual current that initially included only a small sect that became a powerful spiritual current. In the Middle Ages, the Albigenses, the Waldensians and the Cathars are its extension. Even the order of the Templars is part of it, and we need to talk about them separately, and likewise, due to a series of strange circumstances, Freemasonry. Freemasonry has its true position here, even if it is linked to other currents, for example to that of the Rosicrucians" 43 .

Now, the Manichaean spirituality which permeated Lyon had the consequence that this city became the international center of Freemasonry, when an extraordinary technical invention appeared there, an invention which is at the basis of information technology and the Internet. We will return to this event soon. But first, let's pick up the thread of our brief overview of the historical context. One might wonder, of course, if this historical and spiritual background really relates to the technical invention that interests us. We must answer in the affirmative. Because the Luciferic and Ahhrimanic powers had the intention of making the aesthetic sensibility of the human heart completely dependent on this new technology. To achieve their goals, they needed to link the feelings present in human souls to the technical processes that operated in this technology, and this primarily in the context in which this invention was made and introduced into everyday life . We should not forget that the powers of evil do not bring entirely new impulses into human evolution . They must work with the existing ideas, aspirations, and impulses that human beings have introduced into them, appropriating them and forcing them to enter into an unnatural relationship with things foreign to their true essence. The more they can distort thoughts and feelings in this way, the more dangerous the results will be. We have learned that the most fearsome of all ahrimanic demons is the Being whose actions we have followed here: the sun demon, Sorat. Just as this being had misled the noble forces of Manichaeism in Gondishapur, he now sought, with the help of Lucifer, to get his hands on their resurgence in the Middle Ages, not only as they arose in profane brotherhoods such as the Waldenses in Lyons, but even to a more extreme extent, in the Templars. In fact, the fate of the knights of the Order of the Temple plays such an essential role in our study that we will turn our attention, for a moment, to this military and religious Order, to see how its fate laid the foundations of what it is today. has become, in our day, the power of seductive illusion emanating from the World Wide Web.

The TEMPLARS Seldom has the world known a group of human beings whose actions in outer life were

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motivated by equally noble and equally courageous principles. Their order was founded around 1120, about fifty years before the Waldenses, by a small number of heretics led by Hugues de Payns. These heretics were nobles whose intentions were not only to protect Christian pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem and the holy places of Christ's ministry, but also to make Jerusalem a bastion of true Christianity against the world power of the Roman Church. "Jerusalem against Rome" was the secret maxim of the founders of the order, in whose fervent and devoted soul the echoes of Manichean spirituality still lived with an unusual intensity. A knight of the Order of the Temple took an oath to remain steadfast and firm in the face of the most extreme situations. Even though their opponents were three times their number, the Templars fought to the death; they gave up on running away. This courageous attitude aroused great courage in them, and for many they became the symbol of chivalrous courage. However, their greatest virtue was their total devotion to Christ . A true knight of the Order trained himself to feel that the very blood that flowed in his veins did not belong to him, but belonged to Christ. It was much more than a doctrine , it became a real experience. The crucifixion of Christ on the hill of Golgotha (the outpouring of His blood and His resurrection) became the essential thing in the life of the Templars. Their every breath, their every action, was for the Christ. Disinterest, intensified to such a degree, had remarkable consequences. Without having practiced the exercises and meditations that are part of the initiation path, the knights began to have the spiritual perception that one has by following that path. The mysteries of Christ's Passion, His death, and His resurrection were revealed to their now awakened spiritual vision. It was an extremely unusual development. In fact, it was the only time in human history that this occurred on such a scale. The integrity of the Templars was such that kings, landowners and wealthy merchants entrusted them with the administration of their property. As a result, the Order selflessly wielded great power in European affairs; in this sense, it was the very opposite of the Roman Church which, for its part, used riches to pursue its own purposes. Later, the Order became a more powerful force of Christianization than the Church itself. His noble ethics and the pure devotion of the knights to Christ spread through their actions in all sectors of the exterior life, becoming a formative factor of European history. They led Christianity to a new stage in its development. There are three fundamental spiritual principles of existence which expressed themselves admirably in the attitude of the Templars: Wisdom, Beauty and Strength. Gold is an outward symbol of Wisdom. The Templars learned to handle gold wisely, making it work healthily in the economy of the Western world. Their military strength enabled them to collect, store and transport gold safely to or from Europe and the Holy Land. Their network of treasure deposits and their efficient organization of transport gave them the ability to act as bankers for both kings and pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Genuine spiritual wisdom inspired their outer activities. In the piety of their chivalrous souls the principle of Beauty was also expressed . Beauty, like

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truth and goodness, is an objective factor in existence. The adage "beauty is found in the eye of the beholder" as it is used today is false. Beauty is a cosmic principle that has nothing to do with whims in general and personal whims. Pity and reverence are qualities which open the human soul to the experience of this great principle of the world of harmony which we call Beauty. The knights were able to perceive Beauty and let it guide their religious experience. The third fundamental principle of life is the Force. The Templars' loyalty to one another (the common unshakeable steadfastness they demonstrated in the face of the worst of adversity, not to themselves but to the Christ) was a living example of what is meant by the spiritual principle of Strength. Thus the knights introduced a triple impulse into European civilization, a ferment which could have lifted it still higher . While St. Thomas Aquinas waged the spiritual battle for the redemption of human thought , the Templars brought the forces of morality and selfless love that emanated from the heart into the external sphere of the state and administration. Was the world ready for such an outpouring of spiritual morality and selfless love ? Was it possible that in the Middle Ages administration, commerce, in fact the very structure of European life, were imbued with Wisdom, Beauty and Strength ? Rudolf Steiner didn't think so: "[This triple impulse] was somehow the star which was to illuminate the way of the Knights of the Temple in all that they thought, felt and undertook. Thus an impulse was given to the souls which, with its further action during the extension of the The order of the Temple of Jerusalem to European countries, should have led to a certain spiritualization, to a certain Christianization of European life. Given the immense zeal that animated the souls of the Templars, it can be understood that the powers that must curb the evolution, that they must orient it in such a way that human souls are diverted from the Earth, become alien to it, [...] that the powers that wanted this, wanted to attach themselves particularly to the souls they perceived and felt like the Templars. they wanted to fully devote themselves to the spiritual were easily approached by forces who want to eliminate the spiritual from the earth, who do not want the spiritual to spread on the earth, that the spirit penetrates the being of the earth. Indeed, the danger always exists that souls drift away and tire of life on earth, and that terrestrial humanity becomes mechanized. [...] We see here how the understanding that the Templars have of the Mystery of Golgotha as well as the action that derives from it penetrates the evolution of Europe. In a deeper sense, things must be considered as determined by a certain necessity. At the time of the Templars, humanity was not yet ready to welcome the impulses of wisdom, beauty and strength, as the Templars wanted. Furthermore, for reasons that we will see later, and which are linked to the spiritual evolution of Europe as a whole, it was necessary that knowledge of the spiritual world was acquired in a different way from that through which the Templars accessed the spiritual world. ritual. Otherwise this knowledge would have been obtained too quickly, as is the case in the Luciferic way. We see one of the most significant collusions between Lucifer and Ahriman actually taking place here: the first somehow pushes the Templars towards their misfortune, [.. .]" 44 .

Of what nature was the misfortune into which the Luciferic powers of evil carried the

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knights, using their own fervor against them? Lucifer caused a situation of imbalance which therefore entailed an extraordinary danger, the danger that the ahrimanic powers did not try to take possession of the spirituality of the Templars and transform it into evil. The year 1332 (twice 666) was approaching, a time when baleful forces would have great influence. The lofty idealism of the Templars, the second flourishing expansion of Manichaeism, spread the light of the Christ everywhere in the larger spheres of influence of European life. Then, the worst thing that could happen happened. From the dark depths of hell arose the hideous two-comatose Beast, Sorat. What he did was one of the most horrific acts, one of the most heinous acts of iniquity ever perpetrated on human souls. The very cruelty of this defies description.

DARKNESS OVER PARIS (VICTORY OF THE BEAST) As we have seen, the greatest Templars had come to spiritual perception through their morality and their immense selfless love for Christ. Like any human being who develops this perception in a healthy way, they were familiar with the awesome experiences that await the conscious spirit at the threshold of the higher world. They are told in symbolic form in myths and legends, where the threshold that separates ordinary waking consciousness from the higher consciousness of spiritual perception is often described as an abyss, a bottomless abyss, the crossing of which requires all the crumbs of courage . that the soul can muster. From this bottomless abyss monsters rise so horrible that all souls, except the most intrepid, are overwhelmed with terror and flee back to take shelter in the common everyday consciousness. And yet, these monsters are nothing but the evil that lives within our own nature, in the subconscious depths of our era. Psychology knows that in every normal human being there is a deep, subconscious level where there are propensities for violence, depravity, and perversions of all sorts. Fortunately we are generally unaware of these dispositions in ordinary life, though we may sometimes be shocked by indecent thoughts and impulses which arise from this dark part of our lower nature. One who follows a path of inner development (that is, the systematic strengthening of soul and spirit that comes with the awakening of spiritual perception) must have no illusions about this dark side of our lower nature. Every time he approaches the threshold of the supernatural world, the human being must meet and overcome those terrifying inhabitants of the animal part of our human nature . They must not be allowed to exert any influence, conscious or unconscious, upon the higher part of the soul as it reaches the threshold. The Templars were well aware of these things, which have been known in schools of occult wisdom since time immemorial. And Sorat knew them too. The wealth and fame of the Templars stoked in the hearts of greed of certain ambitious men of the time, in particular of a man who was at the top of the temporal power, the King of France

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Philip IV. He liked to be known by the name of Philip the Fair. But his spirit was obsessed by an immoderate desire for gold, a desire that burned in him every time he turned his greedy eyes on the great wealth administered by the Templars. The soul that lived in the King of France had been linked in the distant past to those Mexican Mysteries in which initiation into black magic of the worst kind was practised. But the intensity of her desire for gold (the symbol of wisdom) stirred up unconscious memories. Subtle and malevolent intuitions arose in him semi-consciously, guiding as he began to plot to secure possession of the Templar gold. Conventional history, while it may not take into account the hidden spiritual background of external events, nevertheless strongly condemns the actions of Philip the Fair. He fabricated baseless accusations of heresy against the leading knights as a pretext to get his hands on the wealth entrusted to them. Now, King Philip was well aware that those accusations would have been easily refuted, since the moral stature of the Templars was public notoriety . There were, of course, members of the Order who could not meet the very high demands established by the knights who were at the head of the Order; there are "bad apples" in any organization at this level. But Philip the Fair needed to bring his accusations to the most prominent knights, who were admired and respected by the population. The king had no illusions about his chances in the event of an open confrontation: the people would have sided with the Templars. King Philip the Fair was not alone in his machinations. The realm of black magic is administered by Sorat. And when the year twice 666 - the hour of the Beast - drew near, it came to pass that Sorat advanced upon the king of France and inspired in him a cruel conspiracy. The Order of the Knights of the Temple was recognized by the Church. However, Pope Clement V was a Frenchman and had moved Rome's papal residence to Avignon on the Rhone River, south of Lyon. The pope soon found that he was almost in captivity in his papal palace and that he had no choice but to yield to the king's wishes. He was forced to let the Church vouch for the king's allegations against the Templars. It was then that that appalling crime took place, which stands out in the spiritual history of mankind as one of the most abominable acts ever committed. Acting quickly and unpredictably, Philip the Fair had all the leading Templars arrested on October 13 , 1307, and sent to the torture chambers. Officially, they had to submit to judicial torture which was to extract "confessions" of their alleged heretical practices. But in reality the torture had to be extreme and had to be performed in a particular way. Guided by semi- conscious insights emanating from ancient memories of black magic rituals of human sacrifice, and inspired by the unseen Sorat standing beside him, Philip the Beautiful used torture techniques to arouse and engrave certain experiences into the souls of his souls. victims. Intuition told him that, with the suffering of unbearable pains , the soul is led to the threshold of consciousness, where under normal conditions, the human being faints and becomes unconscious. However, the main knights were initiates and had achieved a higher consciousness through piety and total disinterest.

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With the application of intense pains, the knights were taken to the limit of physical consciousness, to the abyss from which the monstrous figures of perversion rise: the monsters they had encountered and over which they had triumphed every time they reached the threshold . But now, in their terribly weakened condition and subjected to the excruciating pains of torture, they lacked the resources to overcome those evil forces that rose from the bottomless abyss. Time after time, they were brought to this point by torture, and it is under these conditions that they were subjected to interrogation. The interrogation was a litany, etching ever deeper into their defenseless souls their bond and awe to all that flowed from the abyssal depths. And little by little there took shape in their wounded spirits the vision of a mighty hideous Beast with two comas which eclipsed their inner yearning for the Christ, Beast which took the place of Christ in their souls. This terrible vision is described in the "confessions" of these noble knights, and was given the name of Baphomet. It was a vision of Sorat who had thus become their god. Hundreds of Templars, those admirable Christians who had many initiates and whose purity of soul and love of Christ had set such a shining example for the Western world, were tortured and broken by the skillful techniques of Philip the Fair, with the Sorat's inspiration. They were tortured into believing themselves to worship Baphomet, Sorat, and not Christ. They were led to believe that they were enemies of Christ, that they had soiled the cross and profaned the celebration of the Eucharist. Rudolf Steiner qualified all of this as one of the darkest hours in human history. When they were released from their prison cells, numerous tortured knights began to recant, but Philip the Fair put an end to it. Acting on his own initiative, without waiting for the pope's consent, he sent fifty-four eminent knights and the four highest dignitaries to the stake in Paris, including the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. As for the gold which had been entrusted to the Order, it was ostensibly transferred to the Hospitallers, but in reality it was confiscated by the King. Now, in the practice of black magic, the magician inflicts pain on his victim in a precise manner and with a particular purpose. We need not enter into matters here except to mention the following. When performed according to specific rules , the ritual of torturing and executing a human being confers malevolent power on the practitioner. The atrocious events of Paris have allowed Sorat to considerably increase his power to act in terrestrial life. His dominion over men strengthened. We have seen how great the Templars' devotion to Christ was, how much they also perceived that the blood that flowed in their veins belonged to Him. Through the moral quality of the work carried out by the Order and the pure love of the knights for Christ, the holy forces of the Mystery of Golgotha had poured themselves in a new way into the events of external life, becoming a formative factor in European history . But now, a second wave of influence of a very different kind was to spread from the events just described:

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"The torture had made the Templars lose sight of the spiritual worlds conforming to the human being. Their higher consciousness was paralyzed and the inner gaze of their soul, under torture, was directed solely on what they had known as something that it was necessary to win , that it was in them a temptation over which they had, in their souls, won victory after victory. It is there that arose in their conscience, their paralyzed conscience, obscured by torture. And so that the Templars, while they were subjected to torture, they forgot their connection to the Mystery of Golgotha, they forgot that they had dwelt with their souls in the eternal spiritual worlds, and what they had overcome, what lived in them as a temptation, appeared before them as a vision under torture: they then confessed as a custom of the Order what they had won, each individually.They confessed as a mistake what they had known, and won victory after victory. [...] The opponents knew it. It was known that when normal consciousness was paralyzed, what lived evil in this consciousness was exposed to be objectified and incorporated into the evolution of humanity, as had been the case on the other side, for good, of the Mystery of Golgotha. This had become a historical factor. It is thus that two currents have been introduced into modern history: one, what the Templars had experienced in their most sacred hours, what they had elaborated within the regular spiritual current of humanity, and the other , what which Ahriman-Mephistopheles had torn from their conscience, in order to make it objective, and in this objective form, to make it act in the further course of the centuries" 45 .

In Gondishapur, in the seventh century, Sorat tried to appear to the most advanced spirits of the Academy (the visionary masters of logic) and to pour upon them, by revelation, all that was otherwise to be discovered by the science of future times . In those moments, his plans were thwarted, but his disciples repeatedly intervened in the stream of human thought, imposing on philosophy and theology a conception of the world in which man, and existence in general, were intrinsically dual in nature. Through the brilliant mind of Francis Bacon, he managed to make all knowledge flow into a binary mold. Bacon's materialist philosophy swept away what Thomas Aquinas and the other scholastics had done and dominated human thought in the modern world. But the Beast was not satisfied with just taking control of human thought. It wanted to have all power over the spirit in man, in all spheres of soul activity. Performing the horrific deeds upon her victims, the Templars, she used the arts of black magic to take control of the human heart. The holiest and noblest sentiments of veneration and love of the knights were transformed into blasphemy and hatred of Christ, transformed into worship of Sorat, and permeated Western culture. Among the thinkers and scholars of the time, some viewed the "confessions" of the Templars with skepticism and realized that their confessions had been extracted under extreme torture. But the illiterate masses judged such matters more naively. Not only the king, but also the Church itself had condemned the Templars. So, they had to be guilty. It was simple. These great knights who had been considered as models of virtue were Satanists, infamous worshipers of Baphomet. What they had done right was wrong; their immoral morality. To live as the Templars had lived, to work as they had worked, was diabolical. A terrifying force of

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perversion had thus penetrated European culture. Human feelings had lost their proper orientation; it would now be possible to degrade them even further, making them dependent on machines. Sorat hadn't been able to accomplish all this on his own. He had been forced to use the other pole of evil: Lucifer. In the normal order of things, Lucifer and Ahriman act in diametrically opposite ways, causing normality to deviate towards the two extremes . They form an antithesis, pulling events in opposite directions. It is only on very rare occasions , when the stakes are very high, that they decide to act together in a way that contradicts their arrangements; a case against nature and extremely dangerous. In the transformation of the Templar heart forces into a malevolent element of European life, we witness, in Rudolf Steiner's terms, "an extremely significant convergent attack by the forces of Lucifer and Ahriman". Through this atrocious act, the violation of the spirits of the great initiates among the knights of the Order of the Temple in the torture chambers of Paris, the appearance of Sorat himself in an elementary form (Baphomet), the transformation of veneration and disinterested love into blasphemy and hatred of Christ, and the burning of the Templars, the aura of the city of Paris was permeated by the blackest evil. Paris, which with its universities and theological schools had been the most famous center of learning in the Middle Ages, was now following the fortunes of Gondishapur in another way. Paris became a center from which shone an influence even more harmful than anything that Sorat could produce on his own. The religious feelings of Western mankind were tainted by evil so as to achieve the gradual loss of the sacred aura that surrounds all that is holy. It was the desacralization of the heart. We have seen how, three centuries later, the idea came through Bacon that all Wisdom can be reduced to a series of "as" and "b" (This is exactly what we have launched into in the 21st century: the digitization of all information which, thanks to the ubiquitous mobile phone, must be available in order, everywhere and for everyone, obviously at a certain price). Bacon was smart enough to realize that what we reduce to binary form are nothing but written words, words that can have any meaning. They no longer have an intrinsic content. The apparent mine of knowledge available at the click of a mouse is only apparent knowledge. It is an illusion, like the fairy's gold melting at sunrise. It is something that has not yet been understood, although its effects on contemporary cultural life are quite evident. But what about the area of Beauty? Can Beauty be reduced to binary form in a similar way? Beauty cannot be grasped intellectually, it cannot be put into words. It speaks to the forces of the heart: wonder and veneration. Lucifer can approach these forces, but they are removed from the sphere of materialistic power of Sorat. However, now, with the terrible operation of black magic performed on the Templars, and thanks to the help of the evil art of Lucifer, the religious feelings of devotion and veneration were precipitated below, in the kingdom of Sorat. Thus the foundations were laid for the next stage: the deviation of the human experience of Beauty which would depend on binary technology. This operation was beginning in an

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apparently insignificant and vague way in the city of Lyons, but it was to have capital consequences. This too was destined to become an integral part of computer technology and the World Wide Web. Let us therefore resume the course of our reflections relating to what was happening in Lyon.

LYON IN THE RENAISSANCE The Renaissance was a time of rapid economic expansion and great prosperity for Lyon. King Louis XI had granted her the privilege of organizing four untaxed trade fairs a year. Foreign merchants flocked to the city, and starting around 1464 , important Italian business bankers established agencies there. The immensely powerful Medici family, already active in Lyon, moved its main foreign banking business from Geneva to Lyon in 1466. The Lyon foreign exchange quickly became the most important in all of France. At the time of these developments occurred another decisive event in the history of the world, which has engraved its character in our lives. Around 1455, Johannes Gutenberg published his famous "forty-two-line" Bible in Mainz. The era of printed books was born. Realizing the importance of the "black art" of printing, as it was called, merchants from Lyon invited a renowned printer, Guillaume Le Roy, from Liège, to spread printing in their city. Lyon became one of the most influential printing centers in Europe. The demand for printed works was such that in 1504, three Lyonnais booksellers created the first international book distribution network, La Grande Compagnia. In Lyons, spiritual questions had always aroused curiosity, and Lyons publishers launched themselves without hesitation into the production of works dealing with divination and prophecy (Nostradamus, for example), occultism (Agrippa of Nettesheim, and many others), of esotericism (Louis Claude de Saint-Martin) and the arts of magic. In Lyons, not only were many books by famous writers in these fields openly published, but editions falsely believed to have been printed in Germany, the Netherlands and even Great Britain were often actually produced. The glittering cultural life of the city, with its atmosphere of esoteric wisdom and magic, attracted freethinkers, mystics, magicians, fortune tellers and, inevitably, adventurers and charlatans of all stripes. And yet, the very Manichaean impulses that had permeated its history still resonated, inspiring noble purpose and aspiration. They prepared the ground for the expansion and flowering of Freemasonry in Lyon in the 18th century. In relation to the size of the city, the extent of Freemasonry's development was perhaps unmatched. The main lodges shared noble humanitarian ideals and, in some of them, deep spiritual wisdom was cultivated. Even if these lodges were only open to their members, their presence and their action in civic life were clearly perceptible and, in general, they found favor in the eyes of the population.

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The princes of Freemasonry who animated the best lodges in Lyons had come directly from Johannine Christianity as had been preached by Saint Irenaeus in this city a millennium and a half earlier. Over the centuries this current had been excluded - at least on an external level from that of the Roman Catholic Church: the Christianity known as that of the apostle Peter. In this current, blind faith in dogmas was expected of the congregations . The laity had no right to read the Holy Scriptures. The Eucharist was celebrated in a language they did not know. The feminine principle of the Holy Virgin assumed an ever more important position there. It was she and not Christ who interceded for the faithful with God. After all, it was the Church of Rome which, during the "ecumenical council" of Constantinople, qualified the doctrine of the tripartite nature of man as heresy. As for Johannine Christianity, it continued to flourish in the regions furthest from Rome, especially in the west of the British Isles where it was celebrated in the Celtic Church. Western and Central Europe was first Christianized by Irish and Scottish missionaries of the Celtic Church, the center of which was St Columba's Monastery on the Isle of Iona. But the Roman Catholic Church did not tolerate this new development of Johannine Christianity and undertook the work of converting all congregations to Catholicism , on pain of death if necessary. However , it was not until the 12th century that the last Celtic monasteries succumbed, and that the Church of Rome built an abbey at Iona, on the site of the ancient chapel of Columbanus. But the spiritual impulse of St. John did not disappear. On the contrary, it took on an even deeper esoteric form and spread secretly, little by little, throughout the entire Christian world. This spiritual current was always led by the same individual who had lived in San Giovanni and who reincarnated at very short intervals . From the 13th century it was known under the name of Christian Rosenkreutz. He worked with another individuality of exceptional stature: it is the individuality that had once lived in Mani (and in the knight Parsifal of whom the stories of the Holy Grail speak). In the Rosicrucian secret schools, Johannine Christianity was taught by means of esoteric symbols and figures. Later, it provided the content of the rites by which disciples were prepared for initiation . These rites were later modified and incorporated by those of true "Egyptian" Freemasonry. According to ancient traditions, Eastern or Egyptian Freemasonry is the original source of all subsequent Masonic currents. It was brought to Great Britain in the 12th century and from there it spread to continental Europe a little later. Its still pagan rites had been celebrated in Egypt in the pre-Christian era. Then, in 46 d. C., San Marco (the author of the Gospel) and his pupil Ormus introduced them into an esoteric Christian brotherhood, permeating the ancient rituals with the new spirit of Christianity. A millennium later, around 1150, these Christianised rites were taken up again by the Knights of the Order of the Temple, acquiring a Manichaean quality in the process, and they "walked" through them to Edinburgh 46 . "Edinburgh" was really the town of Rosslyn, which lies just south of the present city of

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Edinburgh, and was considerably more important than the latter at the time in question, both spiritually and in outward life. Rosslyn remained for centuries the center of spiritual Freemasonry, hand in glove with the Order of the Knights of the Temple. Its rites were later known under the name of "Scottish rites". It would appear that these Scottish rites ††were those introduced by Christian Rosenkreutz at the court of Prince Charles of Hesse, in the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, the center of esotericism in Germany, in the eighteenth century. Christian Rosenkreutz knew that true spiritual Freemasonry was capable of forming a solid bulwark against the powers of evil. (We mention the fact that Rudolf Steiner spoke several times of the Scottish rites of Misraim - an ancient name of Egypt -, or of Memphis-Misraim. He considered that they still constituted, at the beginning of the 20th century, the continuation of true Freemasonry He adopted them himself in his esoteric school founded in 1904, within the Theosophical Society in Germany). Thus, under the aegis of the two greatest Christian initiates, Christian Rosenkreutz and Mani, Freemasonry took the form recognized for it on the occasion of its introduction in Lyons around the eighteenth century. These Freemasonry rites, which also led to the high degrees of Christian initiation, clearly brought out the tripartite nature of the human soul. The lodges that practiced them in Lyons together formed a powerful spiritual bulwark against the actions of Sorat.

THE REVOLVING PLATFORM OF FREEMASONRY The Scottish Egyptian rites had been introduced into France in the mid-seventeenth century, and were practiced in certain Masonic lodges in Lyons in the eighteenth. There, they were encouraged by Grand Master Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, one of the leading Freemasons of the time, who was internationally known. Dr. Albert Ladret comments in his book but unfortunately remains on the surface of things, The Great Century of Freemasonry, as follows: "It must be admitted that at that time, Lyons was the capital of international Freemasonry and Willermoz was its uncontested, powerful and respected Grand Master. This prominent situation Lyons owed to its intellectual and mystical flowering. Lyons was a mystical center and meeting point for charlatans and adventurers, creators of secret societies: Casanova, Eteolo the fortune teller, Mesmer the hypnotist healer, Cagliostro the Egyptian magician.Some had been initiated like

††The currents of Freemasonry are numerous and varied, often without consensus on their origins and historical roles. Their organizations and teachings differ widely. Craft Masonry existed in England long before the Egyptian rites were brought to Rosslyn. In the beginning, professional masonry was reserved for men who exercised the professions of masons or builders in their outer life. There are also other more recent Scottish rites, sometimes known as the Rites of Kilwinning, which are widespread in speculative Freemasonry. As in professional masonry, they have little in common with the "rites of Memphis and Misraim" which concern us here. Kilwinning rites were also introduced to France in the 18th century and were practiced in Lyons, a confusing situation. This description deals only with Egyptian-Scottish Freemasonry.

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Casanova , Cagliostro and Mesmer.J 's strong personality .-B. Willermoz and his fame were to concentrate in Lyon the hopes of Freemasons in search of new secrets.It can be argued that the mystical Lyonnais Freemasonry, gathered around J.-B. Willermoz, had an important influence on the ideas of the eighteenth century and was the crucible of the High Grades" 47 .

In October 1784, entirely against the will of Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, the personality known in history as the Count Phoenix, or the Count of Cagliostro, with twelve members placed at the top of the Loggia of Wisdom (one of the lodges of Lyon older and more respected), founded a new circle with unusually exalted spiritual aims. They called it The Lodge of Triumphant Wisdom. It became the founding lodge of a version of Egyptian Freemasonry proper to Cagliostro. Other lodges were created later in Paris, St. Petersburg, London and other cities. Lyons could rightfully proclaim itself the European center of occult learning, a center from which the light of esoteric wisdom shone throughout the world. The Two-horned Beast, whose dominion over the spiritual aspirations of humanity in earth life was now immeasurably greater, would inevitably seek to turn this abundance of spiritual energy to his advantage. There was however one human being (one of the rarest) who saw exactly what was going on and how Sorat operated. This person, the Comte de Saint-Germain, an enigmatic personality with exceptional gifts, was none other than Christian Rosenkreutz himself in an "exoteric" incarnation. Saint-Germain did everything in his power to make the people occupying key posts aware of the danger of the situation. He understood the breadth of the risk assumed by Cagliostro by introducing such an exalted spiritual wisdom into the fragmented lodges of that era. He warned that unless actions were taken quickly, the whole situation which was leading France towards the Revolution could only end in the collapse of law, order and human moral sense, and the explosion of a regime of terror. In fact, France was in the grip of the dominion of Sorat. But even though many people in high positions had the deepest respect for Saint-Germain, his word was not heeded in time. People were drawn into ambitions and rivalries, into grand plans and lofty ideals detached from reality. And so, inexorably, Sorat, the Beast from Hell, steered events in France in the direction he desired.

THE "CANVAS" THAT WOULD BECOME WORLDWIDE Into this city of light, Lugdunum-Lyon, was introduced an ancient art developed long ago, secretly, in China, an art which, in its essence, is nothing less than the weaving of sunlight to serve as a mantle for human. It is the art of silk weaving. One of the most beautiful mysteries of nature is certainly that of the metamorphosis of the modest caterpillar into a radiant butterfly. Rudolf Steiner often spoke about this wonderful natural phenomenon. He once said: "See how a butterfly hatches an egg: a larva emerges, crawling; then this caterpillar spins a cocoon all around, becomes a chrysalis and the butterfly flies away. All these metamorphoses are described,

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but how! Without having the slightest conscience of the wonderful mystery on which they are based. The butterfly hatches its egg. What matters in this egg is initially the season of the hatching, and the fact that it is above all receptive to everything in nature that acts in what is terrestrial, solid or solid-liquid. The most important element for the development of the egg is salt. Then comes the moment when the liquid, and with it the etheric, becomes predominant beyond what is terrestrial. The liquid penetrated by etheric passes into the formation of the caterpillar which comes crawling out of the egg. When we have an egg, we think above all of the earth and what is physical. When the caterpillar comes out of the egg, we observe its shape: it is a watery being, made of liquid and penetrated by etheric, and it is this that makes a caterpillar, in fact, a caterpillar. The caterpillar must develop in the air. The essential thing for the caterpillar is that it enter into a relationship with the light, and that it lives in the air penetrated by light, thus entering into an inner relationship with the astral world, a relationship that allows it to absorb light. The essential thing for the caterpillar is that it is exposed to the sun's radiation and its light through the intermediary of its nervous system. And now what you can observe in an extreme way occurs when, at night, you are in bed in your room, with the light still on, and the moths fly towards that light; the moths are driven towards the light, they are driven to get lost in it, which seems inexplicable. We'll see why. The moths rush towards the light and burn themselves in it. Caterpillars feel this same urge to get lost in the light, but they can't do it; the sun is too far away. The caterpillar develops this impulse, goes out of itself, enters the radiation of light, renounces itself, draws the physical substance out of its body and weaves it in the solar radiation . The caterpillar offers itself in sacrifice to solar radiation, it wants to dissolve, it wants to annihilate itself, but any annihilation is a birth. During the day, it weaves its cocoon, its chrysalis, in the direction of solar radiation, and during the night, while it rests, all this hardens, so that those threads are woven according to the rhythm of day and night. . They are threads of materialized, woven light. With these threads formed by the light, which it materializes, the caterpillar weaves its cocoon in which it dissolves. It is through the medium of light itself that the cocoon is woven. The caterpillar cannot launch itself into the light, but sacrifices itself and creates a small room in which the light is enclosed" 48 .

In the silk industry, the wonderful metamorphosis is stopped at this stage. Normally, the sunlight, woven into the thread of the cocoon, impregnates the chrysalis. Its creative action, strengthened by that of the forces coming from the external planets, Saturn , Jupiter and Mars which shine in it, causes the birth of a delicately colored butterfly which emerges from the chrysalis. But in the silk industry, this ultimate sublimation is prevented. The chrysalis, or pupa, is killed by heating the cocoon , and the thread is then unraveled. It is intertwined with other identical threads to form a weaving thread strong enough to be stretched over the frame of a loom. The silk weaver is thus surrounded in his work by the substance of the caterpillar sacrificed to the Sun, which is then condensed into silk thread, but whose creative action has failed. Her supreme jewel, the butterfly, does not appear. What kind of butterfly would it be? It would have been the pale mulberry bombyx butterfly (Bombyx mori) native to China, which occupies a special place in the different caterpillar species that produce the cocoon. The single, whole, white or yellowish thread, spun in its cocoon from the sunlight, can reach a length of four kilometers. The cocoon itself consists of three layers. The outer layer, twisted, is

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used for the silk wad (ragna spelaia), the central layer is made of thread of the same thickness, while the inner layer is spun with variable thicknesses. The middle and inner layers provide the yarn used for weaving. The origins of silk production and weaving are very ancient and surrounded by legend. They seem to come from China, at the time of the last civilization of Atlantis . Over the millennia, the Chinese kept the source and methods of making silk secret, but in the first millennium BC, they had already begun trading silk clothes overseas. After a few centuries, caravans regularly transported silk to the Indies, Turkestan and Persia. According to legend, silkworm culture and silk weaving spread from China to India through the Silk Road around 140 BC In the 2nd century AD, India had become a silk-producing country full-fledged, and carried its silk and silk fabric by ship to Persia. By the time of Mani and the advent of Gondishapur, Persia had already become a center of silk trade between East and West, even though it did not have its own local production. The trades of silk dyeing and silk weaving gradually spread from Persia through the Near East, to Syria, Egypt, Greece and Rome. The workers used raw silk from the Orient, but obtained most of their threads by pulling the silk fabrics from the east. The culture of the silkworm remained a religiously kept secret for a long time despite the strong demand from Mediterranean countries to produce raw silk . History tells us that Justinian I (the same rapacious and smug emperor who had closed the Greek schools of philosophy, causing the migration of the brightest thinkers to Gondishapur) coveted the great wealth amassed by Chinese and Indian merchants through the trade of silk. His tortuous mind pondered how to break their monopoly and make Byzantium the center of silk production. He initially tried to alter the Silk Road (this splendid 4,000- mile caravan road that ran from Sian in China to the Near East), and to relocate its main supply point from Persia to Byzantium, but failed. Fate then offered him a completely unique opportunity: he was able to bribe two Persian monks who had spent a few years in China as Nestorian missionaries and who knew silk culture well. Taking advantage of the respect that the Orientals showed for their religious vocation, he hired them to return to China to steal some chrysalis, which they then smuggled to Constantinople in the hollow part of their bamboo sticks: in exchange, they received a large reward. The secret mission was crowned with success and the silkworms prospered in Byzantium, where their culture was preserved just as secretly as in China, but this time for purely commercial reasons. Thus, while Greek philosophy full of wisdom and inspired by the teachings of Aristotle had been driven to the East due to the intolerance of the Byzantine emperor, the silkworm had been stolen in the East and smuggled into the West to satisfy the appetites of the emperor himself. It is a strange course of circumstances, the spiritual meaning of which we will see later. These sturdy chrysalises stolen by the monks were actually the ancestors of all the varieties of silkworms that were cultivated in Europe until the 19th century.

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We have seen that in the Middle Ages, as the Manichaean impulse re-emerged in fervent heretical movements such as the Waldensians, an ardent yearning for Christ expressed itself outwardly in many different ways. One of them took the form of the crusades to liberate the Holy Land from the rule of the infidels. Wave after wave, knights, nobles, clergymen and soldiers rushed east to retake the holy places of the Christian faith. The Crusaders imported numerous mementos of their adventures (in many cases, more realistically described as booty). These loots involved mulberry silkworms, brought to Europe from the west via Constantinople. The mulberry silkworm needs both mulberry bushes and certain natural conditions to develop. Many attempts to implant its culture (sericulture) in our European countries have failed due to the climate which is not suitable, the bad qualities of the soil, etc. But there are some regions which, on the other hand, are propitious. Italy became the oldest center of sericulture and silk industry in Western Europe. Later, in the Renaissance, when wealthy Italian merchants, some of whom were in the silk trade, settled in Lyons, they naturally proposed to introduce silk manufacture as well. Interestingly, in some of the enlightened men of this city, there must have been a premonition of the dangers of sericulture for them - the Lyonnais resisted the idea and banned the cultivation of silkworms. The king, Louis XI, who wished to have silk production in France, was forced to look elsewhere for communities willing to revive the idea. The situation therefore remained thus, approximately until the time of Bacon, when Francis I circumvented the opposition of the Lyonnais, granting, in 1530, to a silk weaver from Lombardy, Etienne Turquet, a royal privilege to stall his art in Lyon. So the fates were sealed: Lyon was on the verge of becoming the European capital of the silk industry.

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All this series of events which led to the decisive invention towards which we now turn our attention bears a curious signature. The silkworm is stolen from the Chinese and taken to Byzantium, hidden in the bamboo sticks of the Persian Nestorian monks (most likely from Gondishapur). There, it is cultivated according to the wishes of the Emperor Justinian. Later, it was looted and taken to Europe by the Crusaders. Finally it is introduced in Lyons with a ruse, a stratagem desired by Francis I. After all this, the development of silk manufacture in Lyons was without precedent; it quickly became the main industry of the city. Freemason Lyon in the 18th century was dominated by silk workers, as the powerful silk manufacturers and merchants were called. Grandmaster Jean-Baptiste Willermoz was a silk worker.

AN INVENTION THAT WILL MAKE HISTORY Now we come to the invention that laid the foundation for digital technology and later , the Internet. To see how it works, we need to remember how a fabric is made. A simple fabric consists of threads running lengthwise, which are called the warp, and threads running across, perpendicular to the warp threads, which are known as the weft. In a simple weave, a weft thread can pass over the first warp thread, under the second, over the third, under the fourth and so on. The process for the following weft thread will be reversed: it will pass under the first warp thread, over the second, under the third, etc. This arrangement produces a regular and stable fabric. It is a current method for weaving most textile fibers: wool, cotton, linen, silk, synthetic fiber, and so on. As we all know, the fundamental machine used for weaving is the loom, one of the oldest mechanical appliances. The oldest looms discovered by archaeologists date from the beginning of the civilization of ancient Persia (in the 6th millennium BC). In its oldest and simplest form, the loom is a simple rectangular framework to which the warp threads are attached along its length. However, it must be equipped with a certain device to lift half of the warp threads at the same time. What does this mean? Well, it means that the set of warp threads can be considered as consisting of two games of threads. The first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth and so on threads make up the first game. The second game consists of the rest of the strings, namely: the second, the fourth, the sixth, the eighth , the tenth, etc. The weaving method consists in lifting a set of warp threads and pulling the weft thread crosswise in the space below the raised threads and above the others. The warp threads that were raised are then lowered, the other set of threads are raised and the weft thread is pulled the other way, back between the two. This method produces the simple configuration described above. The tool used to pull the weft thread into the space between the warp thread plays is called a spool. An easy way to lift a warp thread game is to attach a small piece of twine to each warp thread of the game in question, while the other ends of the twine ends are attached to a wooden bar. When the bar is raised, it lifts all the strings in the game. It's a somewhat inconvenient

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method, which has actually been used, but other more effective systems were developed from the beginning .' However, it is useful for our considerations to visualize this way of lifting the threads. Of course, the warp threads don't have to all be the same color. If different colors are used, a speckled or striped pattern is produced. If the weft thread is cut after a few passes of the loom, and a thread of a different color is replaced (and the procedure is repeated at regular intervals ), more complex patterns such as tartan can be obtained. It is possible to achieve very sophisticated motifs using variations of this basic technique. But there are limits to what can be produced. Suppose, for example, that a weaver is asked to make a piece of silk cloth with, say, a heraldic emblem on a white ground. One can imagine a simple emblem comprising three golden lilies (the lily in heraldry). A moment's reflection will suffice for us to see that this cannot be achieved using the simple weaving techniques we have just described. In order to make the woven image of a lily, we need to be able to remove only a few specific warp threads , and these may be different at each passage of the weft thread. We can no longer use a system to lift a full game of warps. In reality, we should be able to lift each thread separately, or in small groups that would change often. The whole weaving method becomes much more complex. Complications like these presented themselves to the silk weavers in Lyon when this industry was introduced there by François I in the 16th century. The pure silk thread is very fine, so fine that it can hardly be seen with the naked eye. When you twist threads together to make a stronger thread, you get threads that are the thickness of a hair. The finest silk fabrics are so thin that it's not easy to see the weave. If we have this in mind, then we can imagine the kind of problems that arise for weaving figures like heraldic emblems on a silk cloth. FIG. 1 shows in a highly simplified form an approximate representation of a woven lily. The fabric is represented by a matrix of small squares, where the twenty vertical columns are warp threads and the seventeen horizontal rows (from G to W) are weft threads. It is the columns and rows themselves - not the strokes that delimit them -

For example, what are called "heald frames" were used in pre-Christian times.

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Figure 2 The frame

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which are the threads (The top row of squares containing numbers is not part of the fabric, nor is the right column containing the letters G to W: they are simply there to help us identify the warp threads and weft threads in question). Our warp threads are light gray. This gives the fabric a light gray background. The lily flower is blue; a blue weft thread is used to do this (to illustrate the binary character of our figure, like Bacon's codex, the blue squares contain a blue letter "a" and the light gray squares a gray letter "b" ). The color blue must not appear on the first pass (row G) at all - as the tip of the lily only starts on the second row from the top ‡‡. We see in figure 1 that, on the second row (row H), the blue weft thread must be under the warp threads except for thread number 10. Only square 10 on row H is blue. And the same goes for the third row (row I). On row J, squares 9,10 and 11 are blue. This means that the blue weft thread is above warp threads number 9, 10 and 11. The same thing applies to the next two rows (K and L rows). On the seventh row (M), the colored weft thread must be above the warp threads 8, 9,10,11 and 12 and 16. The principle thus becomes clear: where there are blue squares on the figure, the blue weft thread lies above the corresponding light gray warp thread. On all other squares it passes under the warp threads. Readers familiar with how a computer screen works will perhaps be struck by the fact that images are produced on the screen in the same way. The screen is made up of a matrix of small squares called pixels. The screen is backlit. Where light shines through a square (pixel), we have the impression of a white background. If a square is hidden, we give you a black (or colored) dot at that spot. The image of a lily would be produced on a computer screen as if it were woven onto a silk cloth. In reality, as we are about to see, computer image processing developed from silk weaving. 1 again and ask ourselves how we would actually go about weaving our fabric. The top row of the matrix represents the first weft thread. Evidently , it must be underneath all the warp threads, as its blue color must not appear. Only the light gray warp should be visible. In a practical way, this means that we have to lift the set of twenty warp threads and pull the weft thread crosswise underneath them. For the second pass (row H), the blue weft threads must stay below the warp threads from 9 and 20, but must be above the warp thread 10. In other words, we need to lift the warp threads from 1 to 9 and from 11 to 20, leaving only warp thread 10 down. And the same goes for row I. To weave the fourth step (row J) z we need to lift warp threads 1 to 8 and 12 to 20. It's the same thing for the fifth and sixth steps. For the seventh step ( M ), we need to lift warp threads 1 to 7, 13 to 15, 17 to 20, and so on. The procedure becomes more complicated as you continue.

‡‡It should be added that to avoid a loose weave, a second weft thread of the same color as the warp thread is used this adds to the complexity of the weave.

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For example, the ninth step (row O) involves lifting warp threads 1, 6 and 7; 1 pm and 2 pm; 19 and 20. Readers who have perused this procedure may have been struck by the fact that some warp threads are always raised or lowered at the same time - for example, threads number 7 and 13. If the method used to raise the threads requires that some strings or cords are attached to the warp threads, threads 7 and 13 may be attached to the same cord. The other threads could be grouped in the same way. In real life, this would simplify the weaving considerably. Let us not forget , however, that FIG. 1 is an extremely simplified enlarged representation. In the royal silk factory, there would probably be a thousand warp threads in the space occupied by our twenty threads. Our lily is also very coarse - on the fine silk, you cannot see the individual squares. The patterns in the silk are sometimes even finer than the images produced on a modern high definition monitor of a computer graphics workstation. The silk weaving of the highly detailed figures and designs in different colors was one of the most difficult technical processes employed in the 16th and 17th centuries. How was it made? It was normally the master weaver who designed the exact motifs according to the customer's wishes. It was then necessary for him to define which warp thread - the thickness of a hair had to be lifted for each passage of the shuttle. To do this, he mentally cut the image of a matrix of small squares, as we did in figure 1. In principle, each square represented a crossing point, where a weft thread crossed a warp thread (although in practice more than one weft thread was used). He then noted which warp thread had to be lifted for each pass of the shuttle. If the design was in multiple colors, he had to weave it with multiple weft threads . When he had decomposed the whole image into a matrix, which he had to visualize mentally, he defined which warp threads could be grouped and attached to the same cord in order to lift them together. Having thus defined how many draw strings he needed, he took the cards, on each of them he drew a line with as many small squares as draw strings, and placed crosses in the squares of the strings which had to be lifted at each passage of the shuttle. He got so many cards as he passes the shuttle. His charts involved a series of crosses and blanks , a binary system very close to Bacon's code. Analyzing the motifs in this way was very arduous mental work. Only the best master weavers were capable of making intricate multicolored patterns. They were able to keep the complete matrix in mind as they proceeded with the analysis, a period of mental concentration lasting up to three weeks or more. When the papers were ready , they secured the warp threads to the loom and began attaching the clusters of threads to their draw cord. These warp threads were often so fine that the weaver needed a loupe to see what he was doing. Finally the border was installed and ready for the weaving to begin. All this was done by the master weaver, with the help of a card reader and that of the hoary, the string pullers. The card reader, often a woman, had to carefully but quickly read each card and shout to the white-haired which string they should pull. Extreme concentration was required. Mistakes

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could be disastrous. However, no time was to be wasted: the shuttle came and went, and the right threads had to be lifted at the most opportune moment. The hoary's work was repetitive, stressful and tiring. Some drawstrings could be connected to more than a hundred warp threads, and each hoary often had to pull several strings simultaneously, which required considerable force. Some gray hairs were actually girls and women, and many suffered from severe disfigurements or work-related injuries. Schematically, a 17th century loom can be drawn more or less as follows (figure 2): We see that the drawstrings attached to the colored warp threads pass over roller A and arrive behind the loom passing over rollers B and C. They hang (are filled) backwards, where the whites are. When a hoary pulls a rope down, it lifts the corresponding warp thread. The figure is only schematic and is simplified: each warp thread is drawn with its own draw cord. In practice, entire groups of warp threads could be attached to each rope. But we don't need to go into all the details. The diagram illustrates the basic principle of operation. Before the end of the 17th century, it was clear that solutions to two problems needed to be found quickly. Firstly, it was necessary to lighten the arduous and unhealthy work of gray-haired people, and secondly, solutions had to be found to avoid costly errors caused by card readers. As regards the first problem, several systems were devised. They used levers and other such techniques to reduce the effort required to lower the drawstrings. But they were not entirely satisfactory and often required a lot of extra work to bundle and attach the drawstrings to the levers, so that the master weavers refused to use them. The second problem was much more complex. How to build a mechanical device (electricity had not yet been discovered) which can read the crosses on the papers prepared by the master weaver, and select the corresponding draw cords? In the 17th century, the problem was unprecedented. The solution, when finally discovered, was a stroke of genius - one of the most brilliant and important inventions ever made. It has not only paved the way for the ap-

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Figure 3 Loom fitted with a comb, pearls and intermediate drawstrings

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universal application of Bacon's binary system in computing, but it also laid the foundations for machine control systems in general. Rudolf Steiner recognized the exceptional importance of the role that the mechanization of the weaving industry has played in modern history. Although the following comments are made by him, in connection with the mechanization of the woolen industry in the 18th century (an industry which was widespread in the north of England, and which had its center in West Yorkshire) , his observations also apply to the invention of the mechanical paper reader of the silk industry in Lyons. R. Steiner made the following comment: "And more than ever in our age the thoughts that swarm in human heads have been far from the great cosmic thoughts that dwell in things. What has driven men, one can say for one hundred and fifty years, to organize the world according to a certain model, are not the thoughts of freedom, of equality, of brotherhood , of justice, etc., but are the thoughts that have been linked, for example, to the appearance of the mechanical loom.The objective thoughts, the real thoughts that have given in the world its configuration today, from which the current catastrophic chaos was born, are linked to the appearance of the mechanical loom in the second half of the eighteenth century, to the historical replacement of the ancient manual weaving with the capital invention which was the loom mechanical, from which the modern civilization of machines was generated" 49 .

It is probable that the decisive invention which concerns us in this book was developed in stages, essentially during the second decade of the eighteenth century. It was a period of exceptional importance in the history of technology. It was the time when Thomas Newcomen , a Devon hardware merchant , built the first real steam engine near Dudley Castle in Staffordshire in 1712 , ushering in the age of motor cars and automobiles. About this time, our inventor, a weaver, Basile Boachon', working in Lyons, began to develop his own card reader and mechanical control system for the arm loom. The name Boachon is still very popular today in the villages of the valley regions bordering the Rhône valley around Lyon, where there are many farming families . Basile Gabriel Boachon's ancestors probably lived in one of these villages. Whether Basile Boachon himself came from a farming family or not, what matters is that he appears to have received training as a patterned silk weaver. It has not yet been possible to establish his year of birth. He was an educated and enterprising man , who set up more than one silk factory in the region, although he appears to have worked mainly by borrowing capital and having, at least once, gone bankrupt. However, he became a highly respected silk worker and survived two wives, marrying for the third time at a very old age. His invention, which * The name is also sometimes rendered with Bouchon, sometimes with Bouchou in all the historical accounts that we have found , but it appears in its correct form in some documents of 1737 and 1785 that we have found in the archives of the city of Lyon.

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Figure 4 Chassis with perforated paper band reader

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it provoked the sacking of the white-haired, it was regarded with suspicion by the lower working classes of the silk industry, and their discontent may have been the cause of the problems which contributed to its early commercial misfortunes. Basile Boachon's invention is so important that we must examine it in more detail . The reader will find that it is not difficult to understand, although some passages sometimes need to be read more than once until the principle of operation has been mastered. But we believe that the reader who is willing to take the time to walk around the matter will find it well worth it, for he will then be in possession of the key to understanding the technology which dominates civilization today. In short, the problem Boachon grappled with was to find a way to alleviate the arduous work of the hoary by making sure that the good drawstrings were pulled at the right time, according to the crosses marked on the papers by the master weaver. He considered attaching the drawstrings to foot-operated levers or pedals, a method already tested by other weavers. Thanks to specially designed pedals, considerable force can be applied, with relatively little effort, by an operator who is standing and using his body weight to step on the pedal. In fact, one pedal would sometimes have been enough to lower all the strings. But evidently that would not have helped, since most of the time the strings had to be struck separately or in groups. What was needed to make the foot pedal system practical was to find a way to quickly connect it to the appropriate drawstrings, or to release them before each pass of the shuttle. And what Basile Boachon managed to do (see diagram of figure 3). Vertical draw cords, attached in front of roller B to the existing system, hang in front of a plate which has teeth on its outer edge, a plate which we will call a "comb". The comb is connected to a pedal (not shown in the figure), so that when the pedal is pressed, it pulls the comb downwards. However, this mechanism alone would not be enough to pull the drawstrings downwards. But Boachon set large pearls on the strings just below the level of the comb. On the diagram , the strings, with their pearls still all hang outside the comb, out of reach of her teeth. But if a string is led towards the comb - in the corresponding space between two teeth - then, when the comb is pulled downwards, the latter hooks the pearl by pulling the string downwards with it. Then, when the pedal is released to its home position, the string that was engaged is released. It was a good system which worked satisfactorily, considerably easing the work of the gray -haired, who, at this point, simply had to push the appropriate drawstrings between the teeth of the comb and step on the pedal before each pass of the shuttle . Basile Boachon later ascertained that if the drawing cords hung sufficiently close to each

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other (the distance between the cords was equal to the distance separating the spaces of the master weaver cards), then the paper for the next pass could have been presented in front of the ropes, and the crosses in the squares would have indicated where the rope was to be introduced into the teeth of the comb. This would have greatly reduced the risk of error and would, indeed, have been a considerable advance. It was then that the stroke of genius came. After experimenting with ways to use the cards to indicate the strings that needed to be pulled, Basile Boachon asked himself: what if I arranged a row of horizontal rods that could be used to push the strings into the teeth of the comb? And let's imagine that I can modify the master weaver's cards by punching out the white squares (that is, the squares that have no crosses). If a card were held against the ends of the horizontal sticks, so that the squares align with them, and if the card was then pushed forward, only the squares with crosses would cause the push sticks to move forward, planting the drawstring in the teeth of the comb. Errors would be eliminated. It was a clever idea , even if that was easier said than done. To simplify things, Boachon replaced the series of cards with a continuous band of paper comprising rows of squares which either contained crosses made by the master weaver, or had holes where he had left blank spaces (see simplified diagram in figure 4). On the diagram, the paper band is placed on a wooden cylinder which itself has series of holes in the points corresponding to the squares on the paper. The operator can push the cylinder towards the die so that it comes against the ends of the pushrods (for the sake of simplicity, we have not shown all the details of the mechanism). When he releases the cylinder, it swings back and at the same time rotates just enough to bring the next row of squares on the paper in front of the rods. Each time the cylinder is pushed against the pushrods, the ends of the latter sink into the holes in the paper and cylinder. But where there are no holes in the paper (i.e. squares that have crosses on them), the pushrods move forward, driving the corresponding strings into the teeth of the comb. Thus, in a masterstroke, Basile Boachon eliminated the need for paper readers and gray hair. The master weaver needed only one assistant to operate the mechanical control system. His perforated card reader selected drawstrings and pushed them into the teeth of the comb that would pull them down when stepping on the pedal. Basile Boachon's system was later developed and perfected by successive generations of master weavers, the last of whom was Joseph-Marie Jacquard of Lyon. Jacquard garnered most of the glory and fortune: Jacquard fabrics and looms are known all over the world. However, as D. de Prat acknowledged in his authoritative treatise on Jacquard weaving , Treatise on Jacquard Weaving: "Finally, we come to Basile Bouchou [Boachon] [...]. It was roughly and barring reverses , the principle of the mechanics later in use. Its improvement was all the more of the model at each change of the design, it allowed to pass from one design to another by simply changing the perforated paper.

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Thus the weaver no longer had to suffer any loss of time since the design was prepared outside the loom" 50 .

Boachon thus played a historic role in industry, a role as important as Bacon's in science. He invented the digital punched card reader, or punch card, which was later perfected by Joseph-Marie Jacquard. It has been argued that the person we now know as Boachon ( also called Bouchon, Bouchou, etc.) got the idea of his system from the mechanism of the church organ or barrel organ. We have been informed that there is a statement on the internet by an anonymous user that Boachon's father was an organ builder. There is nothing to support this dubious claim, which turns out to be just a conjecture. Church organs were forbidden in Gaul in Boachon's time. Hurdles were first introduced to the region, starting in Italy, years after Boachon developed his punched card looms. From a technical point of view, the punched card reader is neither an adaptation nor a further development of the operating principle of an organ of any kind. The barrel organ has a fixed mechanism, operated directly and which derives from the mechanisms that rang the bells of the first clocks in Italy. It was introduced in France by Barberi of Modena, and its denomination derives precisely from an alteration of the inventor's name. As for the organ of traditional churches, it may be doubted whether Boachon ever saw one. The functioning principle of an organ is ancient: it dates back to the inventor of Alexandria, Ktesibios, in the 3rd century BC. In retrospect of a person of our time, there is a similarity between Boachon's finite system and a part of the mechanism of a church organ. But there is only this. The organ is a directly operated musical instrument, which is played "live" by a human being, it is not an indirectly operated apparatus for processing pre-recorded binary data (plays of holes and white spaces). Someone could object: "Absolutely! The organ is a data processing system , even if it is not binary. The organist does not use the organ mechanisms to convert pre-recorded data (the notes printed on the musical score) into a sequence of sounds?" Well, that's what it actually does. But if we looked at the matter from this point of view, we would have to admit that what Boachon invented was not a copy of the organ games at all, but rather a mechanical version of the organist himself. In fact it is the organist , and not the organ, which translates the musical notes into mechanical operations. It is true, however, that Boachon's punched card system was incorporated into barrel organs later, in the early 19th century. This represented the first step on the path that led to electronic sound synthesizers and digital keyboards on the one hand, and audio CDs and DVDs on the other. The papers of the barrel organs were prepared manually by the craftsman in a way identical to that in which a pattern for a silk fabric was solved on a series of perforated papers

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by the master weaver. Direct recording of sound waves had not yet been invented. The phonograph arrived much later, in the autumn of 1877; was the great idea of this master among American inventors, Thomas Alva Edison. We'll talk about it soon.

THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE AND THE BINARY CODE Our experience of beauty, or the beautiful, is generally associated with visual or auditory images . There are, of course, countless examples of metaphysical beauty, a beautiful idea, the beauty of the truly pretty, and so on, but if you ask people what they can say about their experience of beauty, most will probably remember a visual image of nature, or of a work of art, or of a poem, or of music heard. Without going into the more impenetrable considerations of aesthetics , it is fair to say that, according to common experience, beauty is most frequently expressed through shape, colour, movement and sound. The austere beauty of the Himalayan peaks covered in snow in winter; the superb colors of the Sun diving into the ocean; the majesty of the starry sky on a clear night; the beauty of the Sistine Madonna; the purity in the expression of suffering in Michelangelo's Pietà; the splendor of a great cathedral; the magical themes of the music of Beethoven or Wagner, many human beings have thus expressed their experience of beauty. We have therefore seen how Francis Bacon led men to believe that any truth can be expressed in a simple sequence of "a" and "b". Thus digitized, ideas and concepts (formerly the content of human thought ) can be processed and transmitted by machines. Was it now conceivable that beauty expressed as colour , as form, as movement, etc., could also be reduced to a binary form in one way or another? Could the content of the aesthetic experience, which addresses our feelings , also be digitized? Could the sublime painting of the Sistine Madonna be contained in a sequence of "a" and "&"? In the silk industry, the technique of decomposing images into a series of stitches formed by the crossing of threads (where the weft thread is above or below the warp thread), was perfected at the end of the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the 18th century, it was mechanized by Basile Boachon with the use of his system of paper or punched cards, which could be "read" by a device which commanded the ascent of the warp threads on an arm loom. A second dimension is thus added to the binary technique. Francesco Bacone's system that releases codified information is a one-dimensional system: a continuous series of "a" and "b". In Boachon's weaving system, a second dimension is added. We no longer have just a horizontal row of "a" and d. We now have horizontal and vertical rows: rows and columns, as in our simplified lily image. We have what in technical parlance is called a warp pattern of " a" and of "b". This allows us to generate two-dimensional shapes and figures. When shapes are produced in this way, they no longer come from the living, creative movement of the artist's

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hand. The image is created point by point, with mechanical means, according to a game of predefined codes. The result may be an image that interests people (some might qualify it as beautiful), but if the "beautiful" is digitized and plunged into the soulless sphere of mechanics, does it still retain its essential qualities? If beauty is not found in the eye of the beholder, if it is not subjective but a living, creative cosmic principle, it acts either through the inspired work of the sensitive human artist or through the blind mechanical workings of an assemblage. of ropes, pushrods and the like, wholly devoid of spirit? These are the vital questions to which we will return later.

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CHAPTER IV FROM IDOLS TO THE COMPUTER

THE WAR BETWEEN MICHAEL'S DISCIPLES AND IDOLS Archangel Michael invites us to clear and creative thought, a thought strong enough to be able to experience our own "I" in the conscious soul. It is the very opposite of standardized thinking that processes the data; Bacon's reductionist methods represent the antithesis of Michelian thought. During his visit to England in August 1924, Rudolf Steiner gave numerous lectures in London, the city whose history is deeply marked by the brilliant spirit of Bacon. For the first time, he spoke in detail of the events that took place in the spirit world after the death of the famous Lord Chancelier, three hundred years earlier, in 1626. These events were related to Michael's work in the same sphere of the spirit world. . At that time, the Archangel Michael was preparing for his current regency on earth, as described by Rudolf Steiner: "It was then that it took place in the fifteenth century - since until the sixteenth century the time conditions were quite different for the spiritual world - and in the supersensible, that powerful teaching comes from Michael himself and offered to his followers. A supersensible, spiritual school , was then somehow founded, a school in which the instructor was Michael himself, a school in which the corresponding human beings participated, who had been inspired in particular by the preceding Micheliana, and inspired later by the inner adaptation to Christianity which I have described. All the disembodied souls that belonged to Michael took part in this great supersensible School which existed in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. All the entities belonging to the hierarchy of Angels, Archangels, Archai and the current of Michael took part in it. Numerous elementary beings participated in it. [...] Thus we see, while Christianity traverses the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the supersensible, etc., the most essential evolution in the point of view of Aristotelianism, we see spiritually founded materialism on earth: founded in the conscience of Bacon, Hàrùn- reincarnated al-Rashid, founded in pedagogy by Amos Comenius, his reincarnated adviser , and both acted in concert" 51 .

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Materialism was about to consolidate. Indeed, if there was one man who understood the influence of thought, that man was Francis Bacon. It was he who said, "Knowledge is power." However, one has never asked what thought is. Before the age of artificial intelligence began, only a few serious studies of human thought were published. "Thoughts are not real, they are just thoughts" - this was the naive content of many theories. However , ideas of this kind had to be abandoned as soon as scientists got attached to the problem of building intelligent machines. If you want to build a machine that thinks, you have to find out what thinking actually is. At one time, computer builders were of the opinion that a thought is nothing more than the information it contains: the content is the thought. It wasn't a logical idea, but it was fascinating. If things had been that simple, it would have been relatively easy to build thinking machines. But this idea is not valid. Computer scientists were forced to admit that thinking is much more than just processing data. Data is perhaps the content, and data processing the application, of a set of rules according to which the content of one thought is linked to the content of another. But neither data processing nor the data itself is thought. Some scientists have come to admit that the human faculty of thinking is not physical , but is an activity of the human mind. The first major institution to launch a research program on spiritual thought activity was the Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry, MITE, probably the world leader in the development of flagship computers at the time. In 1992, MITI engaged consultants to gather information on research that was underway on supersensitive processes in humans, animals, and plants. Phenomena such as telepathy, intuition and communication between plants had to be taken into account. It had been envisioned that a research program some ten or fifteen years from now, beginning in 1994, would allow Japanese scientists to identify the supersensitive processes that underlie thought and related mental activities. Thought is primarily spiritual. Our experience teaches us that thoughts are perceptible on the mental plane, as we perceive them in our mind. Furthermore, we have seen that when a large number of people grasp a certain concept - we gave the example of an arithmetic operation (two plus two equals four) - there is only one concept, even if many people think it at the same time. In our example , we have also made the distinction between the principle, which is not physical, and its different expressions on the material plane. These considerations lead us to a very important question: what become universal concepts in the instants in which no human mind

* Ministry of Trade and Industry.

is he thinking about them? Whether they were constructs of the mind or not, there is no valid reason for saying that they cease to exist and then resurrect as soon as someone thinks of them. In reality, no affirmation of this type could be defended without first clarifying the kind of

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existence that the concepts lead. It is not our intention here to enter into purely philosophical considerations, but rather to raise questions that are related to our subject, and to see what spiritual science has to say about them. For spiritual perception, thoughts are realities, entities that, once created, exist on their own . Now, concepts are not made of matter. According to modern physics, matter is actually a certain form of energy. What our spirits perceive when we grasp a concept is also energy (or more exactly a complex of forces), but of a different nature. It is something akin to electricity and which is inwardly alive, something partly etheric, partly fixed in a form. We will call "etheric" force that which depends on the living part. All thoughts, not only universal truths, but also inaccurate thoughts, partial truths, misconceptions, etc., are electrical-etheric entities. However, they do not all have the same potential. Fleeting thoughts, passing ideas that arouse no interest or emotion are of little importance. But thoughts which are shaped with great intensity by a powerful spirit, and which are forcefully communicated to large numbers of people, are quite another matter. What to think then of Bacon, the father of materialism, who molded his precise and penetrating reasoning with the greatest intellectual energy that could exist? Bacon's thoughts (his elimination of the spiritual content of words, his inductive method, his ideas on information processing, his binary code) determined our Western civilization. They are thoughts of exceptional vigor and influence. What happened to these brilliant thoughts on Bacon's death, thoughts inspired , at least in part, by Sorat? According to Rudolf Steiner: "And when they passed through the vestibule of death, Amos Comenius and Bacon caused strange things in the spiritual world. When Bacon passed through the vestibule of death, it appeared, coming from his etheric body due to the particular nature of his thinking activity, that which he adopted in this incarnation of Bacon, it appeared that a whole world of idols, demonic idols emanated from him, filled the spiritual world of which I spoke, the one in which the consequences of this council of souls between the individualities that Michael taught were produced. Idols spread throughout the world. And exactly as my first Mystery shows: what happens on earth has powerful effects in the spiritual world. Bacon's terrestrial mentality produced a tumultuous effect in the spiritual world caused by a whole world of idols that invaded it. And what Amos Comenius had founded on Earth, actually a sort of materialist pedagogy , somehow gave shape to the base, the world, the sphere, the universal atmosphere corresponding to what Bacon's idols were. I would gladly say this: Bacon supplied the idols, and the other realms that corresponded to them, were supplied by Amos Comenius together with what had taken place on Earth. In fact, just as we humans have around us the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, these idols of Bacon now had around them the other kingdoms they needed" 52 .

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These demonic idols are violent electrical-etheric thought entities that Bacon's mind had fashioned under the inspiration of Sorat. Only the Beast has influence over them and can direct them as he wishes. Demonic idols are furious opponents of Christianity . At that time, they tried to destroy Michael's work in the supersensible world and a spiritual battle ensued, which lasted more than a hundred years: “Now, the individuals who were once on Earth under the direction of Alexander and Aristotle had to devote themselves to the fight against all this, against these demonic idols. And that was up until the time the French Revolution took place on Earth. The idols which could not be fought, the "idolic demons" who had so to speak escaped in the fight, came down to earth and inspired the materialism of the 19th century and all that followed it. They were the inspirers of 19th century materialism!” 53 .

The demonic idols, generated by the union of Sorat with the soul of Bacon, therefore descended to earth and became the forces that inspired materialism. At the beginning of the 19th century, the idols having then descended to earth, Joseph-Marie Jacquard and a team of engineers, following the directives given to them by Napoleon himself, undertook an in-depth study of all the versions, of the automated arm loom, that had been developed, tried and tested up to that point. By that time, several designs had already been used in Lyon: of course, Boachon's original design, but also another one, which he had considerably improved and developed later in collaboration with another master weaver, Falcon, as well as other looms made by other master weavers inspired by Boachon's invention. Inspired by the work of these predecessors (including an interesting but unfinished loom by Vaucanson, famous for his amusing automata), Jacquard and his team incorporated their best features of the ancient models into their prototype . While it contained nothing original, it was an outstanding example of quality design and was so well conceived that it remained essentially unchanged. The finished machine was presented in 1805. Seven years later, 10,000 identical machines were in use in France alone. The number of machines in operation soon exceeded 100,000 , and the silk weaving system was extended to other patterned textile fabrics. Binary punched card technology had begun its triumphal ascent to its supremacy over human intelligence. Programming a Jacquard loom often required extremely sustained concentration and total mastery of the technique. On Jacquard's death, his portrait was woven from the finest silk and a unique and very limited series was produced in 1834. To make this portrait, 24,000 cards were required , each of which had 1,050 holes and blank spaces . This equated to more than 25 million bits §§of data (of the 'as' and '&s') for the warp threads alone, plus the many modifications of multiple weft threads during weaving.

§§Name coming from English (binary digit) which characterizes an elementary unit of information which can take only two distinct values .

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People like to believe that the computer was invented in our day, in our day so much more evolved when compared to the technical achievements of the pre-Victorian era (the era of gas lighting and flasks) . This gives us a feeling of superiority over our simpler predecessors of this bygone era. What may make us more modest is that in our age of individual information technology and a century and a half after Jacquard's death in the 1980s in the 20th century , no personal computer [PC] would not have been capable of assimilating the information found on the punched cards used to make Jacquard's portrait.Personal computers were then unable to load such enormous amounts of information into their memory , and even less to display the portrait on the screen or to print it.In fact, it was not until the last decade of the 20th century that the most advanced personal computers acquired sufficient memory and power to handle graphic displays of such complexity ***. These graphics still exceed the capacity of today's computer screens. We would do well to realize that digital technology had already reached that advanced stage one hundred and seventy-five years ago, at the time when George Stephenson was building the very first steam locomotive, the Rocket, and in which Goethe, the great German playwright, finished his Faust. Goethe began work on his dramatic masterpiece at a time when the existence of electromagnetism was not yet known. It was Luigi Galvani, a doctor and physicist from Bologna, who discovered the electric current and electromagnetic induction in 1786. His compatriot, Alessandro Volta, built the first pile, and scientists began experimenting with these new strange forces. Progress was so rapid that before Goethe had finished putting the finishing touches on his drama, the brilliant experiences of Michael Faraday laid the foundations of modern electrical engineering. Faraday created the first truly functional electric motor in 1831. This invention marked the beginning of the electromechanical era which would soon be the dominant technology. The period during which Goethe wrote his Faust was full of exceptional technical advances. Technology using steam as motive power passed from James Watt's construction of the first stationary steam pumps in 1776 to steam vehicles and George Stephenson's famous steam locomotive. As for number technology, there were probably fewer than a dozen Boachon handlooms when Goethe began writing his weave on paper (in the work that has come to be known as Urfaust, the "original Faust"). By the time the play was in its final form in 1832, the textile industry had been revolutionized by the latest refinements of Boachon's invention, and looms controlled by digital card readers were in use all over the world. The spiritual power that counted on profiting from the incorporation of the binary principle into technique through the Boachon system (in which everything is reduced to a textured pattern of holes and white spaces , or of "a" and "b") he is the same great being we have followed in our study, from the time he tried to appear in Gondishapur in the 7th century to the ***In terms of modern high-resolution graphics, barely approaching the quality of beautiful woven imagery , Jacquard's portrait program (warp and weft threads) was equivalent to, say, an uncompressed folder of hundreds of megabytes consisting of from a textured graphic matrix of 64 bits of colored pixels.

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horrific destruction of the Order of the Knights of the Temple in the 14th century, and later when he inspired Francis Bacon in the 16th century. It is about Sorat, the most formidable adversary of Christ. Binary technology, in its initial form, appeared to be a brilliant and practical invention. However, we judge it correctly only if our gaze encompasses its further evolution - a gigantic expansion that has taken over all spheres of human life. And with Boachon's digital punched card reader, the age of artificial intelligence began. Luigi Galvani's discovery of electricity also led humanity to use a greater, more mysterious force: magnetism. In the 18th century, researchers had no idea that propagating "waves" of electricity are always accompanied by magnetic waves. It was necessary to wait until 1802, when an Italian jurist, Gian Domenico Romagnosi, observed that the flow of electricity circulating along a wire caused the needle of a nearby compass to deviate. His observation was reported in a little-known journal and remained ignored by the scientific community. Eighteen years later, in April 1820, Hans Christian Qrsted, professor of physics at the University of Copenhagen, observed the same phenomenon while lecturing on electricity. He began to experiment with this unexpected effect and quickly concluded that when electricity travels through a conducting wire , the latter is surrounded by lines of flux of magnetism, which disappear when the current is interrupted . The discovery was of enormous importance. It is difficult to say how long it would have taken scientists to fully explore the bewildering interplay of electricity and magnetism if, at that moment in history, the most gifted of researchers in the experimental sciences, Michael Faraday, had not appeared. "A great mind, one of the greatest minds of all time," said di he Rudolf Steiner. Modest, generous, ethical, talented, Faraday aroused the admiration and true friendship of almost all the scientists of his time. He laid the foundations of electrical engineering and electrochemistry practically alone. The quality we call human goodness reached a rare degree of perfection in Michael Faraday. However, Sorat was once again able to take the work of a noble human spirit and turn it to his own advantage. Electricity is condensed light, light that has been compressed and forced to remain imprisoned in a subnatural condition , thus giving it a Luciferic character. Through this extreme compression, the intrinsically moral nature of light is changed into its opposite: immorality. It becomes, to use an expression used by Rudolf Steiner, the bearer of the evil instinct. The idea that forces and energies are not neutral by nature, but possess properties of goodness and badness, is perhaps unusual. And yet, if we observe the world around us without bias, we will soon realize that there is nothing neutral in it. Today's science is interested only in quantities. Matter and energy are analyzed according to their quantitative relationships. The qualitative aspects of their nature are left to the study of the artists . Through his art, the poet reveals that qualitative side of things, which is as real, as precise as the height,

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weight, speed and potential that are measured by the physicist. Electricity, which is highly condensed light, has a certain relation to human thought, to the inner light-spirit of man's thinking activity. Magnetism is akin to his feelings, which are expressed in words and songs. Rudolf Steiner called magnetism "condensed sound". And like music that has been so crushed and compressed that it has turned into a silent and rigid force. By transforming itself into magnetism, living sound has been compressed, imprisoned in a subnatural sphere even deeper than that of electricity, thus acquiring an ahrimanic character. Shakespeare, England's greatest playwright, wrote inspiring words : "If music is the food of love, then play on!" Music actually speaks to our feelings, it feeds them. Magnetism , which is infinitely condensed sound, is also linked to the sphere of feeling in the human being, but it does not nourish love. Its intrinsic nature (at least as it is used in technique) is that of hatred and death. Statements of this kind are not fanciful. Spiritual science, which studies not only the quantitative properties of things but also their qualitative properties, approaches these questions objectively. The intention here is not to condemn electricity or magnetism, any more than one would want to condemn heat as such, simply because one has burned one's finger by handling a hot object. Every good force has its equivalent in evil, and both are needed in the great house of Nature. It is the balance between these two forces that is of prime importance. If death did not check the exuberance of life, Nature would be suffocated by overabundance and excessive vitality. The thoughtful use of electricity and magnetism in technology would not necessarily be a problem if it were counterbalanced by the corresponding use of these other forces, whose intrinsic qualities are the goodness of life. The problem is that modern technology almost exclusively uses the forces of evil, destruction and death. Outer nature and human nature have both dangerously lost their balance and can no longer resist †††. Magnetism can then be used to affect the life of feelings in human beings, just as electricity can be related to human thought. Electromagnetism (electricity connected to magnetism) is therefore the perfect tool for the concerted attack by Lucifero and Sorat against human nature. Through the incorporation of electromagnetism into mechanics, the terrible forces of blasphemy and hatred wrested from the tortured Templars could now, little by little, be drawn into the technique itself by means of the joint work of these two physical forces which, for them same nature, they can act as the carriers of equal impulses. Let the reader not imagine that the author, as he concentrates his study on such developments as these, is unaware of all the goodness and beauty to be found in the world! Do

†††Serious reflection on this issue raises serious questions about the use of technologies such as photovoltaic cells , which "convert" sunlight into electricity. Photocells (or photovoltaic cells) aggravate the already dangerous imbalance. Far from being a positive contribution to solving the world's energy problems, the conversion of sunlight, with its moral, life-giving properties, into its counter-force, death-bearing electromagnetism, reduces the chances of survival of nature. 127

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not think that his view of history is negative and one-sided. The theme of this book dictates that he concentrate on the impulses and chain of events that have led to the fact that our lives have come under the domination of Bacon's binary system and the products of digital electronics. A thorough study of this topic can only reveal a situation that weighs heavily on the soul. And if the picture that has emerged up to now is gloomy, what's to come will be even more so. The world is really in the grip of satanic forces. However, these forces can be defeated. Indeed, more, they must be defeated. In order to fight them, we must precisely know them and know how they work. Without this knowledge we would be powerless in the face of it. However, there is another story of humanity, a parallel story, so to speak. Its course runs secretly, disguised behind the events of outer civilization. It is the hidden moral counterpart of the triumphant march of evil in the outer life. In volume II, we will lift a corner of the veil that hides this other reality from the gaze of man, and we will look at how to use moral forces and life forces, to rebalance the scales and fight the two-horned Beast in a concrete way. People don't have a clue about these things today, and yet, however, they are not completely unknown. Like a momentary ray of sunshine piercing dark clouds, the moral utilization of life forces in technology was foreshadowed in the work of a notable inventor, John Worrell Keely of Philadelphia. In the 1870s, Keely sowed a seed that had lain dormant for a long time, but is reawakening today, and which will give humans, in the future, machines of an entirely new kind , a kind as noble and magnificent as the technology inspired by Sorat is today destructive and ugly. Later, we will broadly describe this new type of mechanical construction; but for the moment it is the destructive and dangerous technique which must continue to hold our attention. As electrical engineering progressed, different types of telegraph using binary codes were commonly used from the 1840s onwards. In 1837, patents were granted in England to Sir Charles Wheatstone and Sir William Fothergill Cooke, and in America to Samuel Breeze Morse, for telegraph systems operating throughout a country. Then came the epic age of laying wires and telegraph cables across continents, and even to the bottom of the oceans, until the planet was covered with wires in a web forming a worldwide network. Until then, the time it took to send a message from England to America, for example, depended on the speed of the fastest ancient liner. And it usually took several weeks. Messages to other more distant places could take several months to reach their destination. Suddenly, it was possible to send an urgent message halfway around the world and receive an answer within the next hour. Fields of activity such as military intelligence, world politics , international trade, etc., underwent a major transformation. International news agencies appeared, such as Reuters, founded by Paul Julius Reuter in Paris in 1849, then transferred shortly after to London, the Associated Press in the United States and Agence France Presse in France. Today almost all the information published in the daily press around the world comes from these three agencies. Some particularly lucid people began to realize the extraordinary power that these commercial companies and their auxiliaries, the newspapers , held to shape

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public opinion with their selective way of presenting "media" events. Thus arose a new one-sided global consciousness, almost entirely dependent on what we now call the mass media. Information became a perfect material and an ideal tool for power politics. Subsequently, the telegraph gave rise to an entirely revolutionary invention: the phonograph , as we are about to describe . "MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB ..." Thomas Alva Edison was born in Ohio, United States, in 1847. He possessed an inventive and creative spirit out of the ordinary. At the age of 16 , he became an apprentice telegrapher, and for a time, earned a living working night crews for Western Union and other major telegraph companies. In order to ensure that their night-time operators did not fall asleep and miss important messages, these companies adopted the principle of sending " wake-up messages" to their employees at regular intervals. The latter had to respond by sending a confirmation message, in Morse code (a simplified version of the binary code, still used today in some telecommunications fields). Edison, who often fell asleep, invented an ingenious device that broadcast the answer automatically whenever a "wake-up message" was received. He could therefore sleep peacefully, neglecting numerous messages. Sure, he ended up getting caught, but his employers were so seduced by the potential of his invention that he managed to escape any serious action that might have been taken against him. Edison spent several years improving and increasing the effectiveness of telegraph transmitters , as well as similar instruments. One of his most important ideas was for a system to pre-record telegraph messages in Morse code. This system could then automatically transmit them at speeds far in excess of what even the fastest human operators could achieve. He invented an operational system that used a cardboard disk on which the dots and dashes of Morse code were printed. In 1877, while he was perfecting his apparatus, Edison was suddenly struck by a completely singular idea. Spoken language produces vibrations in the air. Wouldn't it be possible to record these vibrations on a cardboard disc and listen to them again? Edison then had its research premises in Menlo Park in Middlesex , New Jersey, where it employed a team of talented mechanics and engineers. When he presented his revolutionary idea to them, they made fun of him. However, Edison was very enthusiastic about the idea of recording the human voice and asked his chief engineer, a Swiss watchmaker named John Kruesf, to build a simple mechanism, in which the cardboard disc would be replaced by a cylinder covered with a fine silver leaf. Kruesi replied to Edison immediately that the project seemed to him absurd and not at all interesting. It couldn't possibly work, he said.

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* In most accounts, his name is anglicized to "Kreusi".

The mechanism was finished on Thursday 6 December 1877, an historic moment. Edison brought it and installed it on his work table. Slowly turning the crank that turned the cylinder, he spoke into the conical paper funnel and uttered the first words that came to mind, a nursery rhyme: "Mary had a little lamb, white as snow was her coat, and wherever Mary went, the little lamb followed her".

Then he repositioned the needle at the beginning of the furrow it had created in the paper and turned the crank once more. The result was so unexpected and so beautifully realistic that he nearly fell over backwards. He had the impression of hearing his own voice coming from the mechanism , and reciting the nursery rhyme. Edison later said that nothing in his life had given him as great a shock as this shattering experience. His astonishment is mixed with fear. As for the clerks, they stood there, staring at him in dismay. It is hard for us today who are so accustomed to falsely recorded sounds to imagine how distressing this first experience must have been. Edison, more than anyone else, was able to understand that his invention did not record the human voice, nor the sound of the voice. He knew that the mechanism simply wrote a groove, the depth of which varied, on the silver sheet rolled up on a rotating cylinder, as the stylus was shaken up and down by the vibration of the paper cone. Of course, this vibration was produced by the waves of air hitting the cone. Air waves are not sound, they are simply the ones that carry sound. Sound can also be conveyed by oscillations in liquids, by vibrations of solid bodies, and also by heat. The technique hasn't yet invented a means of recording sound itself. What then is the relationship between the human voice and the undulating groove on the metal sheet of the cylinder? Let's try to understand what it is about. When a human being wishes to communicate his thoughts to another person, he can do so in many different ways. A common way is to do it in writing. What does this imply? This first of all requires that the writer transpose his ideas mentally into words, into words of the language he uses. He then traces on paper the symbols of this language representing the articulated sounds he would produce if he spoke the words aloud. Now, it is unlikely that anyone would be tempted to say that the symbols contain a replica of the moving hand. The traces left on paper are neither the author's thoughts, nor the mental pronunciation of thoughts into words, nor the writing hand. They are stereotyped forms: they are predetermined symbols generated by movements, movements transmitted to the pen by the hand. When a person uses speech in the form of voice, they use the apparatus consisting of the

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vocal cords, tongue, teeth, lips and so on. It modulates the exhalation of its respiration, thus producing air waves which are propagated in the surrounding atmosphere . Some of these waves will perhaps travel as far as the outer ear of a hearer, who then guides them inward to the eardrum, where the air can go no further. Airwaves cease when they are stopped by the eardrum. But the impacts of their undulations cause the eardrum membrane to oscillate, sending impulses to the middle ear with its complex chain of small bones. A passage connects the middle ear with the throat cavity, allowing these impulses to generate a subtle resonance in the listener's vocal cords. Sensitive people feel this resonance. Starting in the middle ear, the internal vibrations caused by impacts from the outside world are finely modified and blended with the delicate resonance of the hearer's vocal cavity, then pass into the fluid-filled labyrinth of the inner ear. . Thus, the sounds, the tones have been freed from their external carrier waves and have taken on an almost ethereal character. The subtle ripples they produce in the fluids of the inner ear again elicit a resonance: this time in the cephalorachidian fluid . It is this ebb and flow of cerebrospinal fluid that is actually perceived as sound by the human being, while an auditory image "shadow" is transmitted along the auditory nerve of the inner ear to the brain. Listening is not as objective as seeing. In fact, we don't actually "hear" so much what comes from the external world, but we do hear our response to it, which arises from the depths of our being from our tone-creating activity. Edison's mechanism "recorded" only the vibration of a paper drum set in motion by air waves. There was nothing in the machine that could detect or write true tones, which are by nature immaterial, as we have just seen. Just as we don't regard the symbols on paper as a recording of the hand itself, so we shouldn't make the mistake of taking the grooves on a gramophone record for a recording of the human voice. And, since neither the voice itself nor the sound of the voice can actually be recorded, consequently, they cannot be reproduced by a phonograph or any other noise-generating mechanism. Now, the symbols on the card are perceived by the sense of sight and appeal to our conscious thought. When we think, we are very awake and would not easily take symbols for a moving human hand. On the other hand, sounds are perceived by our hearing which has a lesser faculty of discernment than our sight. Sounds speak directly to our feelings, in which we are half awake. If sounds take the form of words, our thinking takes them and interprets them. If they are music, they remain beyond the reach of intellectual understanding. The music unfolds over time as the musicians sing or play. It is ephemeral, and disappears from outer existence as soon as the last notes have died down. If we are to hear it again, musicians must play it. Each interpretation is a new creation. It's never the same twice - no concert can be repeated. We cannot take or possess music - it is constantly becoming.

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Recorded "music" is dead. It's absolutely not music. The air waves created by the original interpretation of the music have been recorded as an incision in the dense matter. The music itself is gone. When the recording is played, an airwave pattern is produced by the speaker membrane. These waves are not identical to the original ones, the cone of a loudspeaker cannot naturally produce the same sequences of waves as those, formed differently and much more complex, produced by a violin, a cello, the pipes of a cathedral organ, or the vocal cords and larynx of a human. There is only a superficial similarity here. This causes an auditory experience in the listener which his creative imagination covers with a dress of music . But there is no instrument here, no musician who reacts with emotion and puts his feelings into what he performs. There is only an anonymous machine that makes the loudspeaker cone vibrate in a precise way, according to the irregularities of the groove of a record or according to a series of "as" and "b"s in a database. Rudolf Steiner considered the invention of the phonograph to be one of the most dangerous discoveries of modern technology. He qualified the mechanical reproduction of music as an "imitation fraud", where the spiritual in art is buried in the soulless workings of a machine and takes on another character. Since it speaks directly to our feelings, music acts directly on us and is not subject to the discernment of our conscious thought. Speaking of the usefulness of mechanical inventions in general, Rudolf Steiner said in 1923: "The case is different (pardon me for closing by evoking something that may seem trivial) for the phonograph. By means of the phonograph, humanity wants to force the art to enter something mechanical. If humanity came to perceive a passionate taste for such things, where that which descends into the world as a shadow of the spiritual would be mechanized, if humanity therefore showed any enthusiasm for something of which the phonograph is an expression, it could not protect itself.Then the gods would have to come to their aid. Now, the gods are benevolent, and there is indeed hope today as regards the progress of the civilization of mankind, the benevolent gods will continue to come to their aid, even in the face of aberrations of taste of which the phonograph is the expression " 54 .

This hope has not been fulfilled to date; on the contrary, the situation deteriorated rapidly. The phonograph Rudolf Steiner spoke of was a mechanical phonograph, with a mechanical crown motor and a cornet with a large earpiece to amplify the sound. Development of the first electric phonograph began in 1915, but production models were not yet commercialized in Steiner's day. The first electric phonographs to be put on the market were manufactured in 1925 in Berlin by a British company, the Gramophone Company. The question might arise: Did people in those "crazy years" show enthusiasm for the kind of thing the gramophone represented? Was he passionate about it? Just answer that the recording of one of the hits of the time went platinum in no time, and was sold more than twenty-two million copies between 1927 and 1929. An incredible figure: twenty-two million records in those early years! The enthusiasm of the people was boundless. Consequently, the impact of

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recording on concert halls was enormous. Live performances simply could no longer rival the recordings. Today, the amount of "live" music that people listen to is almost insignificant compared to the "recorded" music that is ubiquitous - background music, film and video soundtracks, commercial refrains, church masses, discos, hit parade broadcasts, iPods, meditation music, and I don't know what else. Today, the music industry has gone digital, and falsely recorded music and speeches are encoded in simple sequences of "a" and di At almost the same moment in history, when Edison gave the world his method for "recording" sound, a German physics student in Berlin, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, envisioned a practical method for capturing moving images electrically, and for transmitting them to a receiving station located far away. It was the birth of television. Even though Paul Gottlieb Nipkow was unable to acquire the material needed to build the devices, he had his idea patented. The first real demonstrations of television, made by John Logie Baird in Great Britain in 1926, and a little later by Mihaly in Germany , used Nipkow's system. The television receiver soon found its way into homes all over the world. Later, it was adapted to computer systems, where it became the "monitor" or ubiquitous computer screen. To the "imitation fraud" of music was thus added the fraud of the imitation of visible events. This particular form of cheating by the imitation of visible events was heralded by another invention which, likewise, was to have an extraordinary influence. This invention was made in Lyon - an invention which, strangely, seems to embody much of what we have about the 'City of Light'.

THE BROTHERS OF LIGHT The invention in question was made by two brothers born in Lyon in the mid-19th century, whose surname was Lumière, and who were working on the means of using light to pro make images. Auguste and Louis Lumière were the sons of a painter who had become a photographer . Louis, after completing his studies in Lyons, where the two brothers obtained brilliant results in the sciences, threw himself into the problem of obtaining a satisfactory development of the photographic film used in cameras. At the age of 18 , his experiments were already complete and with the financial help of his father, he opened a factory for the production of photographic plaques which met with immediate success. Already in 1894 the production reached the number of 15,000,000 plaques per year. In the autumn of that same year, his father, Antoine, was invited to a demonstration of Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope on the Boulevard Montmartre in Paris. His description of the hole machine to his children on his return to Lyons inflamed their imaginations . Louis and Auguste began to research how moving images could be projected. Louis found the solution; it was patented in 1895. On December 28 , 1895, the demonstration at the Grand Café du Boulevard des Capucines in Paris was applauded by a large audience. It was the birth of cinema. 133

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The Lumière device consisted of a single camera that photographed and projected 16 frames per second. Their first film was made in 1896 and showed the daily life of the French: the arrival of a train at the station in La Ciotat, a person feeding soup to a newborn, soldiers marching, workers leaving the factory of the Lumière brothers, the effervescence in a city street . One of their first feature films was the famous Game of the Passion, shot in Oberammergau by some Czechoslovakian peasants. The Lumières soon presented their first newscasts, a film of the congress of the French Society of Photography, and documentaries on the Lyon fire brigade. Beginning in 1896, they sent teams of cameramen and skilled designers to cities all over the world to show movies and film new things. Soon we will return to the film industry, created in Lyon, and its importance for our theme. The conditions were now rhythmic for the marriage of electricity to the punched card reader, which gave rise in America in 1890 to the first electrical binary computer. As we turn our gaze towards this event, we recall an elementary fact . As we said, computers are information processing machines. That's how we use them today, and that's how they worked from the beginning. In essence, they are not and never have been arithmetic or mathematical calculators. We could say, without pushing the analogy too far, that the mistake people make on this issue is identical to what Darwin made with the evolution of man. Darwin assumed that humans are descended from apes. Ernst Haeckel, the German evolutionist , observed that evolution is more like a tree, whose central trunk is formed by the course of human evolution. Animals are deviant forms that have separated from this central line. Monkeys, too, are forms of verges. They constitute the most recent branch that has separated from the trunk which continues to grow. Humans were never apes, but apes share a common ancestor with humans. Modern arithmetic and mathematical calculating machines are specialized tools that broke away from the more general line of evolution of information processing during the 20th century. It's a historical fact. The abacus, often cited as the first ancestor of the computer, has nothing to do with calculators. It has no automatic elements or parts. And a decimal calculator (an extension of finger counting) that records our calculations manually. Some decimal calculating devices , such as Blaise Pascal's "Pascaline", were built in the 17th century, on the principle of clock gear systems. These devices were real mechanisms, but they did not contribute to the emergence of binary data processing machines. Books dealing with the evolution of computers consider that after the introduction of the Jacquard loom, the calculating machines of the British inventor, Charles Babbage , in the mid-19th century, constituted the decisive next stage in the development of the computer. Babbage 's machines , which fascinated and thrilled mathematicians and mechanical engineers alike, were certainly wonderful devices, but they played no part in the development of

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computers, as we shall soon see. As for the popular story that Lord Byron 's mercurial and beautiful daughter , Countess Ada Lovelace (who was an admirer and close friend of Charles Babbage), was the first person to grasp the potential of computers, and also the first person to write programs for them, at least has the merit of being romantic. On the other hand, it has nothing to do with the subject. The man who actually built the first computer in America had never heard of Charles Babbage and his calculating machines which, en passant, were abandoned before they were finished. He started directly from the mechanical punch card reader of the boom loom, a mechanism that he knew down to the last detail. He was also a self-taught and very competent electrical engineer. He imagined an electric version of the punched card reader using a system similar, in many respects, to Boachon's, as we shall see. Computers as such did not interest him at this time: he conceived and manufactured an information processing system which was the direct ancestor of today's computers. His goal was to find a solution to a major statistical data analysis problem: the population census of the United States of America. The company he founded on December 3 , 1896 in New York to commercialize his system later took the name of International Business Machines: IBM, the largest and most influential computer manufacturer in the world. A PEOPLE REJOICED IN HIS STRENGTH 1880 American census required such major work that it was hardly completed in 1890, just in time to begin issuing cards for the following decennial census. Worse still, it appeared that compiling all the statistics for the 1890 census would take more than ten years and would be completed by the time the 1900 census had already begun. The reviewers and census bureau workers no longer knew what to do; the situation was out of control. The census was not just a count of population. The government required a comprehensive analysis of every American citizen's personal details such as his individual and family circumstances , whether he was self-employed or employed, and so on. A "photograph" of the citizens was required, to know who they were and what they did. The government also wanted to know how the economy was doing, which branch of industry had the best prospects , and how many men were available for the army or for other things. In short, the census was an immense undertaking. Everything was handmade. Census sheets had to be filled out for every inhabitant, and the details transferred into huge, multi-column books, so that the information could be analyzed from all angles required. In the late summer of 1881, John S. Billings, head of the population statistics department of the Census Bureau, suggested a certain idea to a brilliant, recently graduated mining engineer of about twenty who was courting to his daughter. According to the young man in question, whose name was Herman Hollerith, Billings pointed out that a machine would need to exist to do the purely mechanical work of tabulating population data and other similar statistics. His 135

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words did not fall on deaf ears: Herman Hollerith was immediately enthusiastic about the idea. Hollerith was a resourceful and inventive young man of German descent. His parents had emigrated from Germany to the United States shortly before his birth. His mother came from a family of blacksmiths, gifted for precision mechanics. Her older sister married a silk importer and weaver, Albert Meyer, also of German origin, with whom Herman immediately became friends. Albert Meyer owned Jacquard looms and, as his business was flourishing, he tried to interest the young Her man in textile making. Meyer was also very keen on the idea of applying the principles of the punched card system used for Jacquard looms to a population statistics tabulating apparatus. For a time Herman Hollerith took a room in Albert Meyer's house, and the two men often reflected in the evenings on the technical problems that arose. It was the silk weaver who financed Hollerith's first experiments with card reader mechanisms. Billings suggested to the young Herman Hollerith in August 1881 was decisive. Billings then imagined only statistical classifications. Hollerith, likewise, tried to conceive a machine to automate the work of the Census Bureau , although he also sought to make some money in this venture. He soon realized that the operations of tabulating, sorting, analyzing information were common to many departments of government, in administration, commerce, industry, logistics and so on. His system would be used in many areas for very varied tasks. Now, no one would have imagined at the time that his invention would be of such magnitude. Who could have thought in 1881 that humans would come to fear artificial intelligence, predicting the time when machines would become more intelligent than humans? Who, then, could have imagined the numerical it has become in the 21st century, with its networked computer games played by millions, its fantastical alternate worlds absorbing the hearts and minds of younger generations? Surely no human in 1881 could have imagined where Hollerith's invention would lead. But Sorat, he, yes he could. It is Sorat who led these events. Herman Hollerith invented and built a tabulating machine (tabulator) ‡‡‡which was very successful. It dramatically reduced the time taken to take the 1890 census. Hollerith continued to develop and refine his system, increasing its capabilities and degree of automation, until it became to the general public the epitome of the triumphal development of the technique in America. Thanks to its versatility and its autonomy, this system gave the impression of having its own mind. As for the inventor, he became a millionaire and one of the most powerful industrialists of the time. His systems were used all over the world. His American company had numerous foreign subsidiaries, among which the most prosperous was the German machine company Hollerith, the Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, usually abbreviated to "Dehomag" . We will have the opportunity to look later, and more closely, at the terrible business activities of this baleful company. But first we need to find out what this Hollerith tabulator was, and how it worked.

‡‡‡The French verb "tabuler" is an Anglicism and means to select or classify, to place within specific frameworks.

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Some readers may wonder whether it was really necessary to go into all the details of the operation of the loom and whether, now, our study could not be conducted without being forced to visualize the operations of punched card tabulating machines. Couldn't these aspects have been simply summed up in a few words? The answer to this question will appear clear when, with our healthy human thinking activity, we push ourselves towards the functioning of the tabulator, the first true incarnation of artificial intelligence. We should understand its operation easily enough, since it is a modified form of Basile's punch card reader

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Figure 5 _ Imaginary tabulator using the frame principle

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Boachon (which we now know well). The latter controlled the ascent of the warp threads on an arm loom. Once we have understood the working principles of Herman Hollerith's first rudimentary tabulating machine, some indications will suffice to describe how the different actions of the human operator have been automated little by little , as they have passed under the control of the machine itself. Understanding this process of progressive automation is key to understanding what happened when Hollerith's simple card-reading tabulator turned into a programmable data processing system, an IBM computer. At this elementary level, we are able to understand what happens with the help of normal human thinking, which is the aim of our study. The computer-tabulator developed with extreme rapidity, soon surpassing that initial stage in which it could still be fully understood. The engineers and scientists working in that field found that a detailed and precise visualization of complex electrical and logical operations became too difficult. They began to use simplified diagrams and analogies to represent those complicated processes, and to explain them to new generations of engineers. These younger generations are getting used to taking similar schemes and similar analogies, which are nothing more than symbolic representations of processes and complexes of processes, for representations of what happens in reality. A typical example is the habit of imagining that "information" introduced one after another into a computer is "stacked" on top of each other and form, in fact, a pile of information. The first piece of information is at the bottom of the stack, and the last one above all others. Basically, it's a simplified way of imagining a sequence of complex electrical processes, and the idea of the pile stuck so well that many computer engineers will argue that it illustrates what actually happens. In reality, the computer does not contain any information , stackable or otherwise accumulable. Today, more than a century after Hollerith's first tabulators, specialized textbooks describing the inner workings of computers routinely employ only symbolic thought-patterns and their theoretical interactions. This is not meant to criticize, it is simply an observation. In fact, we will see in Volume II why it has become literally impossible, even for microprocessor manufacturers (from companies like Intel or AMD) to know in detail how their microprocessors work. The modern computer is absolutely not accessible to human understanding, let alone the Internet which connects millions of devices of this type. Therefore, no human being on earth could exhaustively describe the functioning of a modern computer , and even less that of the Internet, even if he tried to understand the birth of information technology in its germinal stage, in the first machines of Herman Hollerith . If we grasp this, we will have understood the fundamental nature of computers. Thanks to the study of Basile Boachon's punch card reader that we have made , we are now in familiar ground. We begin by first representing Boacho's system n once again, but with one important change. It is no longer part of a loom. However, it always has strings fitted with large pearls that can be pushed between the teeth of the comb and pulled downwards by it.

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When the cords are pulled down by the reed, they no longer lift the weft threads. Their upper ends are now attached to mechanisms that resemble clocks (figure 5). These watches have a large needle (the minute hand) and a small needle (the hour hand), but their face has 100 graduations instead of the usual 60. They are not really watches; they are counting mechanisms. Each time a string is pulled by the descending comb, the large hand moves one step on its dial . When the large hand has completed a full revolution and reaches the hundredth graduation, the small hand advances one notch (the large hand is actually the "units" hand and the small "hundreds" hand) . It is easy to see that this arrangement allows us to know, at any given time, just by looking at the calculators, how many times their respective pull strings have been pulled by the comb. Now suppose that instead of a continuous strip of perforated paper passing over a cylinder, we used perforated papers such as the old master weavers' perforated papers on which lines divided the surface into a certain number of squares. The cylinder would be replaced by a paper backing; but the principle would remain the same. The paper would be presented against the ends of the pushrods so that the squares aligned on the pushrods. If you then move the card forward, only the squares with no holes will push the pushrods forward. The other squares with holes, the ends of the rods will just go into the holes. Put another way, it is the card itself that will cause the appropriate pushrods to move, moving the corresponding drawstrings in the comb teeth. These strings would be pulled down by the reed by stepping on the pedal, and the corresponding calculator hands would advance one notch. Since this is no longer a frame, what do the cards now represent? We will answer this question by imagining a fictional scenario. Let's take a census. For every citizen, we use a card. Each card comprises a row of 7 equal squares. When the card is placed on its support, the squares are in extension of the ends of the pushrods. Each square corresponds to information about the citizen. Square 1 concerns, for example, the person's gender. If the citizen is a man, a hole is made in that square. If it's a woman, no holes are made (white space). Our census is very simple and very small. The population of our imaginary country is only about a hundred people. We interrogate each citizen, collect the requested personal information, and punch the cards into the corresponding squares . So, at the end of the day, we have a hundred cards with holes

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Figure 6 Principle of the hand-operated card reader as used in the Hollerith tabulating machine

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and ad hoc whitespace. We now introduce, one after the other, the cards into the paper holder and push it against the ends of the rods each time, then press the pedal. If there is no hole in square 1 , then rod number 1 will be pushed forward and sink the corresponding drawstring between the teeth of the comb. We then step on the pedal, the string is pulled down, and the large hand of counter number 1 moves one step. We said that the absence of holes in square 1 indicated a female citizen. If there had been a hole in square 1 (i.e. if the citizen had been a male), the pushrod would not have been pushed forward, the drawstring would not have been pulled down, and the counter hand 1 would have remained in the same spot. So we are really counting female citizens. When we have passed all of our hundred cards through the reader, counter number 1 will indicate how many citizens are women or girls. Is simple! The other six squares of the card contain other information: whether the citizen is an adult or a child, whether he is white or black, whether he was born in the country or an immigrant, whether he is educated or not, whether he works or is unemployed. , and so on. We saw that the counters had two hands: the large one counts the units and the small one counts the hundreds. When the hundreds hand has made one complete revolution, it has counted one hundred hundreds, or ten thousand. Ten thousand cards would be a large deal to deal with. But the population of a real country is naturally much larger. This is not necessarily a problem. Simply install a second row of meters directly above the first. We mentally visualize the resulting configuration. Counter number 1 now has an identical counter above it which is tied to it. When the small hand (hundreds) of counter 1 reaches and passes the 100 mark, it drives the counter mechanism above it, so that the large hand of the upper counter advances one notch. Each time the small dial 1 hand passes the 100 mark, the large dial hand moves up one step. We said counter 1 counted up to ten thousand. The large hand of the upper counter thus counts tens of thousands. When it passes the 100 mark , it will have counted 10000 times 1000, or one million. If it advances further, the small hand will move one notch. The small hand is the "millions" hand. The upper counter can count up to one hundred million. And if that weren't enough (the current US population is approximately 290 million, China's is 1.3 billion), we could always add a third row of meters directly above the second row, and so on. However ingenious our system is, the reader may get the impression that we are not actually processing the information, but merely doing the math. And that 's actually what we've done so far. But let's look at the system more closely. Suppose we have ten thousand citizens, and we want to know how many of them are women

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MALE FEMALE’ ' WHITE ’ COLOUR ’ ADULT CHILD ’

MALE FELCXLE’ ’

NATIVE’ FOREIGN MARRIED SINGLE’ ’ RICH ’ ' POOR /

’ NATIVE’ ’ ’FOREIGNI ’

7WHITE ’ ’COOUR ' ADCLT CHILD

MAFCRIED ’ SINGLE’ ’ ’ RICH ’ POR /

Figura 7b Stessa carta, forata

Figure 7a Simplified data card (in English).

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adults of white skin, born in the country, without education and with a job. This can be known by following a procedure that analyzes the information on the cards in such a way that they reveal what we want to know. This all works as follows. We will proceed in stages. The first step is to eliminate all cards relating to male citizens. To make things even clearer to us, we'll attach a bell to drawstring number 1. Next, set all the counters to zero, and get started. When there are no holes in square 1 (female citizen), the pushrod sinks , the string will be pulled down, the large hand of the number 1 counter will advance one notch, and the bell will sound. The card is removed and set aside. Every time the bell rings (that is, when it is a square without holes, that is the citizen is female), the card is put aside. When we passed all cards, we then pushed aside all female citizens. Counter 1 tells us their number. All other cards concern male citizens. We don't need them, so we put them away in a closet. Let us take our stack of female citizen papers and now proceed to the second stage of our selection procedure. We propose eliminating cards for all girls or women of color . Suppose square 3 represents being black: a hole means the person is white, and no hole means they are black. Let's transfer our bell from string 1 to string 3. The absence of holes in square 3 will cause the hand of counter 3 to move one notch, and cause the bell to ring. Each time this happens, we remove the card and set it aside. By the time we pass all female citizen cards, all colored cards will have been set aside. We no longer need it; we then put them in the closet. All remaining cards are for white girls or women. The second stage is over. If we take our white colored town cards, we could run them through the system once more to separate girls from adult girls (square 2), or educated from uneducated (square 4), etc. In the end, after numerous steps, we would have only the cards representing only the group of interest to us: white women born in the country, with no education, and who have a job. Once the management of these statistics is finished, we could take all the piles of cards that we had eliminated from the closet and put them back together with the others, ready to use for new statistical analyses. It is what is called data processing. Some may find the procedure cumbersome and lengthy, but it is certainly much easier to look in the logs, which limits the risk of errors. Our system is not at all like Hollerith's. In the latter, the paper was placed flat on a horizontal support. Instead of pushrods, vertical metal drawstrings, which were placed on squares above the cards. To read the card, the set of hands was lowered and leaned against it (figure 6). Where there were holes, corresponding hands passed through and made electrical contact with metal clamps below, which sent an electrical impulse through the wires to their respective meters; and the counter hands moved by a step. Where there were no holes (white

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spaces), the pointers of the reader reached against the card, went back compressing the springs on which they were fixed, and the electric contact did not take place. Hollerith's system was mainly electric, but the basic principle was the same as Boachon's. The machines were powered by batteries, a collection of large piles, since in these early days, industry power was not reliable. Hollerith soon made major improvements. One of these was a selection box, a large wooden box which was placed near the tabulator to which it was connected by electric cables. The box was divided into several vertical compartments into which the cards could fall. Each compartment had a lid which was held closed by a clip controlled by an electromagnet. When a card was read and there was a hole in one of the squares, the corresponding hand passed through and made an electrical contact. An electrical impulse traveled along the electric cable towards its counter, causing the pointer to move, while a similar impulse traveled along another cable towards the selection box, where it acted on the electromagnet which released the clip of the corresponding compartment. The compartment lid opened and the operator simply had to withdraw the card from the reader and place it in the compartment that was open, then close the lid again. Let us imagine the real work of an operator who is tabulating and selecting with a Hollerith-type system. Let's imagine simplified data cards with only twelve identical boxes lined up. The upper right corner of the paper is cut off (fig. 7a). The paper support of our machine, in which we place the paper to be read, has the same size and marries the shape of the paper with its right corner less. Thus the card can be positioned correctly on the support only if it is placed on the right side and in the right direction. This avoids handling errors. The twelve boxes of our card are used to record whether the individual is male (1) or female (2), white (3) or colored (4), adult (5) or child (6), native of the country (7) or immigrant (8), married (9) or single (10), rich (11), or poor (12). Figure 7b shows a punch card corresponding to an adult woman of color, who is immigrant , married, and poor.

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Hollerith tabulator with (left) rows of counters, (slightly right) a card reader, and (right) a 12compartment sorting machine

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When the card shown in FIG. 7b is placed on the holder, and the hands are lowered thereon, the hands 2, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 12, come upon holes and pass through making the electrical contacts. On each of the corresponding counters, the large hand will move one step. The other player hands will be stopped by the blanks and will go back by compressing the spring. They will not make any contact and their counters will remain unaffected. Now, suppose the pointer above box 1 is not only connected to counter 1, but also to compartment 1 lid of the selection box. Each time a card is read that has its first hole punched (citizen or male), counter 1 will add one unit and the lid of compartment 1 will open. In the same way, hand 2 is connected to counter 2 and compartment 2. If the hole indicating gender is not in the first box but in the second (female gender), counter 2 will add one unit and compartment 2 lid it will open (the other compartments are not used). When we have swiped all our cards in this way, all those corresponding to male citizens will be in compartment 1 and those relating to female citizens will be in compartment 2. As for the other counters - counters 3 to 12 - they will indicate how many white people, black people, adults, children , etc., did we count. But if we look closely at our system, we realize that it has limitations. If we have passed cards only once, counter 6 for example will tell us how many citizens are children. Let's say there are 5,000 children. Counter 3 will tell us how many whites there are in the population. But we have no way of knowing how many of the 5,000 children there are white. To know this, we would have to take all the cards of white citizens and pass them through the reader once more, to select those who are children. This limitation is due to the fact that this pocket of the card is read independently . After dealing the cards, we get an independent total for each square. We have totals for men, for women, for whites, for people of color, for adults, for children, and so on. But we don't know, for example, how many citizens are white and male. To find it in an operation, we would need to be able to count the information that would be combined from the two boxes, on a single counter. Herman Hollerith found a solution to this problem. He arranged for electrical wires coming from two contact points (or more) of the base of the paper to be connected together, and connected (by what he called a "relay") to the same meter §§§. For example, if we connected wires 4 (black person) and 6 (child) to counter 4, while this counter would have added one unit only when there would have been holes in boxes 4 and 6 of the card. In other words, it would count children of color . The same two wires could be connected to a compartment lid - let's say compartment 1 - which would only open for black children. The machine could also be wired so that any other combination opens compartment 2. Thus in Hollerith's terms: "Thanks to an adapted relay arrangement, any possible combination of data recorded on the cards

§§§Readers familiar with logic circuits will recognize in Hollerith's system what may be the first practical use of an electric ET gate.

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can be counted. However, when it is desired to count more complex combinations, special relays with multiple contact points are used. If you want to classify or distribute the cards according to a desired criterion or according to a combination of specific criteria appearing on the card, it is sufficient to connect the magnets of the sorting box exactly as described for the counters. When a card is subsequently placed in the press [the reader], one of the lids of the selection box will open, according to the data recorded on the card [...]. Thus, by structuring a sensible configuration, one will find that an extremely elaborate compilation can be done with only some card manipulation" 55 .

Selection then became faster and easier. It was possible to define "configurations ", i.e. which combinations of boxes on the card should determine the opening of the lid of which compartment. Initially, the machine had to be rewired if the configuration that opened the different covers was to be changed, but Hollerith soon adopted a much more flexible configuration process, analogous to that of an ancient telephone network standard, where connections were established by inserting cards into the appropriate holes. Now, any combination of mailboxes could be easily connected to any computer and any compartment. Later, Hollerith added a magazine (a feed magazine for punched cards) into which the operator could place the stack of cards to be dealt, and feed them one by one into the card reader. The reading procedure, i.e. the descent and ascent of the hands, had also become automatic. Hollerith later completed the automation by installing a system whereby a card that had been read was ejected from the reader and dropped onto a small belt conveyor which carried it to the sorter box . At the most appropriate moment, the paper was directed to the edge of the walking belt by an electrically driven guide rod so that it fell off the belt in the right place, in the desired compartment . The human operator simply put a stack of cards into the feeder, and the machine read them, counted the data on counters, and sorted them into the appropriate slots. The operator's most important job no longer consisted in manipulating the cards, but in wiring the tabulator according to the desired configuration, so that the right combination of holes forced the machine to count the required information on the corresponding counters and to distribute the cards in the right compartments . Today, the word program is used instead of "set up the wiring". The operator had now become a programmer.

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CHAPTER V THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOTLE IN THE 20TH CENTURY

With Hollerith's remarkable inventions, the world moved into the era of artificial intelligence . Would human existence end up being directed by the binary logic of super-intelligent machines? Or, conversely, would individuals develop their inner faculties of knowledge to the point of becoming masters of their own lives? Or, it was possible that there would come a time in human evolution when humanity would split into two streams, one that would adopt binary technology and join the Internet, and the other that would oppose computerization. of human life and would he have followed a spiritual path? What had become of that ardent defender of human thought and of the immortal soul whom we know as Aristotle, after he had lived again in the person of Thomas Aquinas and returned once more to the supersensible world? We have seen that he threw himself, with the spirit of Alexander the Great, into a violent fight against the demonic idols engendered by Francis Bacon's way of thinking. The conflict began with the death of Bacon and ended only when the French Revolution broke out on earth. The idols that had not been vanquished, those who had fled the battle as it were, came down to earth and allied themselves with Sorat and his armies. They became the inspiring forces of nineteenth-century materialism with its many consequences, some of which have been described in the previous chapter. Some souls connected to the impulse of Michael, who with the help of the individuals of Aristotle and Alexander the Great had profited from the teaching of the Archangel, returned to Earth in the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th. And many of these souls lived in humans who later joined the anthroposophical movement. It is in a child born in Kraljevec in Hungary, on February 27 , 1861, that we find in earthly life the spirit that had acted here on earth in Aristotle and later in Thomas Aquinas. That child was Rudolf Steiner. After about eighteen months, his parents, who were Austrian, returned to their country and the little boy grew up in the quiet Austrian village of Pottschach, where his father was station master. The boy loved the countryside furrowed by

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valleys, verdant around the village, and the high peaks that lay behind. However, his insatiable curiosity was above all attracted by the seductive technical things to be found around him: the station master's telegraph, the powerful steam locomotives that managed to master the steep slopes of the Semmering line (the first mountain railway of the world) and many other remarkable fruits generated by the inventive spirit of human beings. What would his attitude toward computers have been as he grew up and became an adult? At first, R. Steiner received his primary education from his father, and later at the municipal school in Neudorfl, before going on to college in Wiener Neustadt. According to Pathemi's wishes, he subsequently entered the Vienna Polytechnic, where he studied the sciences and their practical applications. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Rostock. An important factor in Rudolf Steiner's life, a factor towards which he gradually adopted the attitude of the objectively observing scientist, was that, from childhood, he clairvoyantly perceived spiritual beings and the events around him . Instead of being content to live as a citizen of two separate worlds, as usually happens in these cases, Rudolf Steiner argued that spiritual reality and physical phenomena are different levels of manifestation of the same fundamental existence. St. Thomas Aquinas had accepted the dogma of the Church, according to which the divine revelations of the Holy Scriptures had their source in a world of the spirit inaccessible to human knowledge. He had tried to establish how human reason can strive to rise and how revelation can descend until the two come to interpenetrate. For the young Rudolf Steiner, the two levels of experience (the external world which we observe and which we try to understand, and the spiritual world which reveals itself to the higher senses) were in their essence one and the same world . What separates them into two apparently different levels of existence is the spirit of man, which uses different ways of perception for each of them. Man uses the physical senses to perceive the external physical world, and the awakened spiritual senses (which lie dormant in all human beings) to perceive the spirit world. The human observer who with these different modes of perception divides reality into two parts should be able to understand both in the same way, thanks to the same faculty of thought. In principle, this may seem self-evident enough, but the young Rudolf Steiner lived at a time when scientific thinking was intended to include external physical existence . The words, the concepts that people accumulated in their thoughts (the concepts they learned in school and read in books) were shaped to fit their outer life . Theories of science were related to external things. Rudolf Steiner realized that if he was to shape his thinking to grasp and integrate both physical perceptions and spiritual perceptions into a modern overall conception of life, he would have to expand the range of existing concepts and equip current thinking of new scientific ideas, capable of understanding spiritual reality. He did not want to do all this for himself alone, but for humanity . It was truly a colossal task. But the spirit that dwelt in him (the spirit that had lived in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas) was not one of those who drop their

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arms in the face of a challenge like this. Yes, the spirit that had once taught humanity Aristotelian logic now set about developing a way of thinking capable of uniting the fruits of material scientific research and those of spiritual research. From a very young age, Rudolf Steiner was interested in philosophy, and during his adolescence , he studied the classical thinkers and leading philosophers of his time so intensely and minutely, that by the time he became an adult, he had already acquired a vast understanding and exceptionally mature in the field of human thought. What had lived as Aristotelian philosophy and merged with Christianity in Thomism then flourished to a still higher level, and was brought to extreme clarity by the rigorously objective methods of modern science, and enriched by the latter's discoveries. . Thomas Aquinas was governed by the dogma of the Church. Rudolf Steiner was not subject to any such obligations; he was a free thinker. He found in the German idealism of Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, etc., a modern school of thought that sought to grasp the nature of the human spirit. It is what he chose as a starting point. The doctoral thesis in philosophy at the University of Rostock was: "The fundamental question of the theory of knowledge in particular relation to Fichte's science of knowledge". Among his early philosophical works , the most important is his Philosophy of Freedom, in which he directs all the power of thought to what thinking itself is, shows you that when thought takes the very activity of thinking as its object, then the spirit, free from any external constraint, works at the same time. "within a purely spiritual sphere of action. Thought thinks thought. It is a monumental work, in which R. Steiner also exposes once and for all the fundamental error of materialism. Life in Rudolf Steiner's time (as in our time) was divided into seemingly irreconcilable and separate spheres: science, religion and art. The separations were artificial, of course, and not real life. Rudolf Steiner had set himself a lofty goal: to re-establish the tripartition in human life by creating a harmonious relationship between science, religion and art. In his own terms: "To reconnect Science and Religion. To bring God back into Science and Nature into Religion. In this way, that is, to fertilize Art and Life again" 56 . Here, this would have been his philosophical way of proceeding. After the publication of his works very early in his adult life, Rudolf Steiner was rapidly recognized as a thinker of great logic, who had an indisputable understanding of the different fields of science and technology, which gave his judgments a additional authority. Despite his approach in complete opposition to the Kantianism that reigned at the time, his writings earned him recognition and a high esteem among his peers in German-speaking circles. Had he continued to follow the path he set out in his Philosophy of Freedom, he surely would have become one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. He would certainly have opposed the idea of linking the human spirit to artificial intelligence via binary electronics. But Rudolf Steiner had to turn away from the path he had imagined. Among the great spiritual guides who direct men's lives and whom tradition calls the Masters, it was perceived 153

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that Sorat and his hosts had acquired such strong dominion over human beings that the future of humanity was in danger. Just as in the 4th century of our era Mani had brought together three of the greatest human beings, Zarathustra, Scythian and Buddha, to prepare the future of humanity, in the same way, then, in the age of technocracy, the Masters asked Rudolf Steiner to counterbalance Sorat's influence. He had to do this by introducing into Western thought the basic elements of a spiritual knowledge relating to man and the world, in the form of a science of the spirit. Some of these elements had already been transmitted dogmatically by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky twenty-five years earlier in the theosophical doctrines. But these revelations were communicated in a trance state; theosophy was not yet a science elaborated in full consciousness, as were the works of Rudolf Steiner. Speaking later of his consent to this mission, Rudolf Steiner wrote to his closest friend: "All I can tell you is that if the Master hadn't succeeded in convincing me that, despite everything, our age needs Theosophy, I would have only written philosophical works even after 1901 , and I would have talked about philosophical and literary" 57 .

In response to what the Masters wanted and which he found justified, Rudolf Steiner then set about translating the teaching given in the supersensible school of Michael into terrestrial language, which became the modern spiritual teaching known as anthroposophy. The demons who had fought so long and so violently against Michael in the supersensible world then opposed his work on earth, threatening to engulf and destroy it. They were equipping themselves with a fearsome new weapon. Human thought, formatted in a binary mold by Francis Bacon, had already begun to bind itself to the inflexible, rigid binary logic of machines. But the outcome of the battle was very uncertain, as humanity was unconsciously entering a completely new period of its existence.

THE DAWN OF THE AGE OF LIGHT At the end of the 19th century, the course that had followed all human life for fifty thousand years turned around and swung in the opposite direction; an event of such capital importance that its full significance will not be understood until much later. This event

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it had already been a time foreseen by the sages and the prophets. It was known in Eastern philosophy as the end of the Kali Yuga, the dark age. Setting aside the life, death and resurrection of Christ, which depend on divine intervention , it can be said that what took place on the human level at the dawn of the 20th century was one of the greatest mutations that have ever taken place in terrestrial evolution. The very direction of this evolution was changed and the change was radical. Since time immemorial, humanity had followed a path which, starting from the primitive human state of consciousness entirely directed towards the spiritual world, had arrived at a new consciousness directed solely towards the physical plane. Eastern traditions saw this progressive loss of spiritual perception and the conquest of the corresponding external world as comprising four major stages. They were known by the following names: Krita Yuga: the golden age, which lasted from, say, 48,000 BC to 28,000 BC Treta Yuga: The Silver Age, which lasted approximately from 28,000 BCE to 13,000 BCE Dvapara Yuga: The Bronze Age, which lasted approximately from 13,000 BCE to 3,100 BCE Kali Yuga: The Dark Age, which lasted from approximately 3,100 BCE to AD 1900

Evidently, first dates are not to be taken rigidly by our modern way of counting time. The Krita Yuga dates back so far in prehistory that the Earth itself was very different at that time. But these dates give us an idea of the considerable duration of evolution that preceded the moment of transition between 1899 and 1900. It was taught that human beings of the Krita Yuga, the golden age, were clairvoyant and capable of contemplate the highest spiritual religions related to our world. There was no religion for them, as they had direct personal experience of the Deity. By contrast, they were barely aware of the external physical world. Their consciousness was essentially a common consciousness; consciousness of an individual identity was practically unknown to them. This primitive state of human nature lasted a very long time. When evolution entered the Tetra Yuga, the silver age, the direct perception of the divine world that men possessed began to weaken. But memory still reached back to the life of the soul before conception and birth, in such a way that human beings knew with the absolute certainty that personal experience confers, that the divine world existed, and that it was the divine world. original, from which the physical world was created. The physical world itself was still perceived as something mysterious and uncertain. Identity, for the silver age human being, was his racial and ethnic group affiliation. The individual personality was not yet developed. Then came the Dvapara Yuga, the Bronze Age (not to be confused with the Bronze Age of Archaeologists), during which the ancient clairvoyance gradually faded, although it was difficult for individuals who wanted to revive it . At the same time, awareness of their physical environment intensified. We could say that humanity was on the border between two worlds , and men could direct their attention to one or the other. Spirit seekers could be admitted into 155

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the temples of the Mystery centers that existed for that purpose . The others began to learn the rudiments of agriculture , eventually abandoning the nomadic life in favor of sedentarization, to cultivate plants and raise animals. The more the human being became aware of his physical corporeity, the more he perceived himself as an individual. Individuality results from living enclosed in a physical body distinct from all others. As mankind entered the Kali Yuga, the dark age, civilization began to take shape in the Middle East, in what is sometimes called the Old Babylonian period of Mesopotamian history , with the appearance of the Sumerian, Babylonian and Chaldean cultures, with temporary predynastic civilization of Egypt. Little by little, the last vestiges of the ancient clairvoyance were lost, although during the first half of the dark age, it was still possible to arrive at spiritual perception by means of rigorous training in Mystery centers or schools. But eventually, most of the Mystery centers themselves had become decayed. At that time, humanity had set out to conquer the outside world . Primitive science then made its appearance and men learned to use the wheel, the lever, the screw, the pulley, etc. The pyramids and other splendid monuments of antiquity were erected and tools were born in bronze, later in iron. The marvelous civilization of Greece, with its brilliant philosophers, flourished and withered, giving way to the Roman Empire in which ever greater emphasis was placed on the rights of the individual. Each human being essentially became a world unto itself. In the last phase of the Dark Ages, Europe emerged from its "barbarian" condition to become the cradle of modern science and industry. Evolution was accelerating: in recent years, the western world passed from the cart pulled by oxen to the steam locomotive and the first machines. It was almost as if humanity was rushing to complete all the long series of discoveries and inventions before time stopped. Nikolaus Otto built an internal combustion engine in 1878, and Benz drove the first car in 1885. Siemens introduced the electric station in 1879, a year after Edison demonstrated the phonograph. Bell had invented the telephone in 1876. He also demonstrated the semi-conducting properties of selenium crystals. Exploiting these properties, Nipkow invented the television in 1884. The idea of a mechanical calculating machine had reached an advanced stage: Babbage had been working on the conception of his "analytical engine" since 1833. The computer itself existed in rudimentary form: by 1890 Hollerith had developed his own electric tabulator using Boachon's punched card system and in 1896 founded the company that became IBM. In 1895 Rontgen discovered X-rays, and Becquerel radioactivity in 1896, thus completing the series of physical forces known to science. At the end of Kali Yuga, the conquest of the physical world was essentially complete. Evolution had achieved its purpose. But what exactly is meant by evolution? The Latin verb evolvere means to turn outward or, literally, to unfold outward. When used to describe the development of human consciousness, evolution means turning towards the outside world. This implies progressively abandoning the inner spiritual organs of perception (the organs of the soul, which are often called chakras or lotuses), in favor of the external physical senses: sight, hearing, touch, etc. . It is solely

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because of this that human beings have been able to explore the outer world of physical existence. Without evolution, humanity could never have mastered terrestrial existence and achieved the formidable conquests of modern technology. Western society then aspired to the ideal of the "self-made man", independent, free thinker, often merciless in pursuing his personal goals, disinterested in the needs of others. Selfishness the prominence of the self - had come to become the dominant trait of the modern world. The cult of personality largely replaced the veneration of the divine. The dark age, the Kali Yuga, is followed by our present period, the Age of Light, which began at the beginning of the 20th century. The early years were marked by enormous upheavals and rapid changes in the way men understood the outside world. Tangible reality began to slip through their fingers, and after a short time, it was completely lost. The scientific conception of existence underwent a series of mutations. The theory of the material atom had collapsed. The idea of particles of matter was replaced by that of discrete amounts of energy (quanta), energy that itself became increasingly elusive. Electricity (which Herman Hollerith used to operate the counters and selector boxes of his tabulators) came to be thought of as a flow of electrons. However, the electrons themselves were soon assimilated into entities that resided permanently in the physical world. Atoms were imagined as tiny solar systems, with a nucleus, the size of which , compared to the whole atom, was proportional to that of the sun compared to the solar system. This nucleus was surrounded by a more or less empty spherical space, in which some electrons (like tiny planets) revolved rapidly around the nucleus in elliptical orbits. The empty space around the nucleus was thought not to be uniform, but to be made up of multiple layers (a bit like the layers of an onion). An electron described its orbit in a particular layer, according to the amount of energy it possessed . If its energy increased or decreased by a sufficient amount, it moved to a higher or lower layer. However, the transition from one stratum to another in space did not exist, there was no crossing of the frontier, nor an intermediate position when it left one stratum to enter another. It ceased to exist in the stratum it had occupied and reappeared in another. Furthermore, it was not possible to know exactly where it was, at most one could ask what were its probable position and speed within its layer at a given instant. Finally, in 1927, the Nobel Prize-winning German physicist Werner Karl Heisenberg published an account containing his celebrated uncertainty principle ( also called the "uncertainty principle "), which effectively relegated the electron to the status of a mental construction: a mathematical equation. Electricity therefore had to be considered (if one respected the doctrines of the physical sciences of the time) as a flow of something that has no concrete reality. For scientific thinking, the physical material world no longer existed. He was forced to admit the spiritual foundation of existence. As far as the outside world was concerned, this situation was summarized by the most 157

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illustrious German theorist of modern physics, Max Planck - considered the father of quantum physics - in these terms: "There is absolutely no matter as such! All matter derives its origin and its existence from a force which imparts to the atomic particles their oscillations and which orders them according to the image of a small solar system. But since in the universe there is neither an intelligent nor an abstract force in itself - we are forced to recognize behind this force a conscious and intelligent spirit. This spirit is the foundation of all matter. [...] But since there can be no spirit which is solely spirit, since any spirit belongs to a being, we cannot do otherwise than admit that it is a matter of a spiritual Being f...]" 58 .

Such was the conception of external existence proposed to his colleagues in 1922 by the scientist who was the authority on physics in the first decades of the 20th century. As for the nature of the human being himself, what were the current ideas in this beginning of the Age of Light? Let us look at this question through the eyes of another brilliant scientist, a contemporary of Max Planck, who speaks very clearly on this issue. This is Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington. Eddington, the founder of astrophysics, was unquestionably one of the best scientific minds of the 20th century. His understanding of modern physics was unparalleled. As for his skills in mathematics, they were prodigious: at Cambridge, he achieved all honorary honors in mathematics and was the first sophomore in history to be awarded a Senior Wrangler (the one who is in the lead) to the tripos of maths. Later, almost single-handedly, he initiated the English-speaking Western scientific community into the ideas of Einstein's general theory of relativity. His exceptional talents allowed him to quickly master the difficult tensor calculus of Ricci and Levi-Cività, two of the leading mathematicians whom Einstein called on to help him formulate his theory. Eddington 's own treatise , The Mathematical Theory of Relativity (1923), considered by Einstein as the most successful presentation of the theme, made him recognized as an unchallenged expert in the field of relativity physics. In 1929, commenting on the dilemma facing science in these first decades of the twentieth century, Eddington declared: "We all share the strange illusion that the nature of a fragment of matter is easy to understand, while the essence of the human spirit is impenetrable. But consider how we arrive at our claimed knowledge of matter: some vibration emanating from it excites the extremity of a nerve which, by a series of physical and chemical modifications, transmits this shock to a cell of the brain.There, through a mysterious operation, an image or a sensation arises in the consciousness: this cannot pretend to resemble the stimulus which gave birth to it. Now, everything we know of the material world must have been drawn - in one way or another - from those excitations transmitted by the nerves. It is also extraordinary that by interpreting such indirect impressions, we were able build an orderly plan of knowledge of Nature.But it is clear that our senses cannot give us information on the intimate, real nature of the beings that impress them. Our knowledge thus gained is only a skeletal pattern. As for the entities to which they relate, we ignore their nature. This is why we represent them

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by means of signs, such as the symbol x which, in algebra, indicates an unknown quantity" 59 .

It was thought that man could not know "the thing in itself" by the methods of physics. Since he did not know what this thing was in itself, he represented it to himself by means of symbols. The same dilemma presented itself to the scientist when he turned to the terrestrial nature of the human being: "So if we try to reach the depths of the human being through the methods of investigation of the physical sciences, we will arrive at describing him only with symbols: physics energetically asserts that its processes do not penetrate beyond these abstract representations and refuses to build dogmas that would define the reality hidden under these signs" 60 .

But while modern physics cannot go beyond symbolism with its research methods, the individual human being can go further, since there is an area of life that he experiences directly: his own spirit. "Only the direct revelation to our conscience of our intimate spiritual being goes beyond the processes of physics and precisely allows us to interpret phenomena that science is unable to explain. If our intimate nature appears mysterious to us, it is precisely because we have a direct and real knowledge We reject as inadequate the scientific description that can be given, it is a simple symbolic representation that can only suffice to describe chairs or tables or other indirectly perceived phenomena.

Spiritual world or material world, which exists with more certainty? Remember, in answer , that the first and most immediate of our experiences is conscious spirit. All other knowledge is nothing but distant deductions" 61 . With clarity and perspicacity, Eddington then poses the fundamental questions that arise from the new position of science in his time, and logically draws the following conclusion: "What attitude should a rational being adopt in the face of this mysterious experience in which he finds himself involved? What conception of the world around him could guide him in life where there is a task to complete? He carries instincts within him contradictory ones, which ones should be developed, which ones should be rejected as false and deceptive ? Beautiful in Nature and in Art, this Inner Light that persuades and guides us, are all these intuitions as inherent to our spiritual being as sensations to our sensitive being?Science does not give me an answer to such questions. , it cannot prescribe a certain orientation for us in an area excluded from the physical world that it studies.It is already enough if it can deal with the sensations which are closely linked to our psychological activity and constitute an important part of it. For the rest, the human spirit must turn to the invisible world of which it is itself a part" 62 .

That is exactly what spiritual science did. Neither Planck nor Eddington had perhaps ever heard of spiritual science or of Rudolf Steiner, yet they invariably indicated the direction spiritual science was following. Eddington 's views , expressed in the Swarthmore Lecture from 159

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which the above quotations are taken and which he delivered in London in 1929, characterized the plight of the physical sciences at the beginning of the Age of Light. By now, the perceptions by means of man's physical senses had to be increasingly enriched and complemented by those acquired thanks to the spiritual organs of perception. Evolution had come to its end. The involution began . As humanity advanced into the Age of Light, it became less and less satisfying to learn about the world with only the physical senses. Man's thinking already went beyond the limits of this form of perception. If his sensory experience was to progress at the same pace as his thinking faculty, then man would need a more penetrating and direct mode of perception. The organs proper to the soul, the chakras, allow for this more direct way. And as we will see, modern man possesses, in addition to the chakras, a new organ of perception of the etheric, through which he can access the spiritual background of which Planck and Eddington spoke. Only spiritual investigation would allow human beings to see the formative energies and forces that shape the world and to have a complete knowledge of them, energies and forces whose outward manifestations are accessible to the sensory organs of the body. What the physical senses perceive is real, but it's only one side of reality. Humanity had reached the point where the perception of the other side was just as necessary. The perceptions acquired thanks to the chakras are not like a simple extension of what the eyes see and the hands touch, it is not just something similar that comes in more. They reveal another face of existence which is, in principle, completely new to the one who sees it. Not only what is perceived, but also how it is perceived differs from the usual impressions from the physical senses. A person born blind who, after undergoing eye surgery, suddenly gains sight is overwhelmed by strange new visual impressions flooding his spirit. It takes a great deal of time and effort for this person to properly integrate these impressions into his mental life. In fact, all of this can be so strong that some people who have acquired physical vision in this way lose courage, and prefer to close their eyes again and find their way in the world as before, thanks to the well-known sensations of hearing and of touch. The awakening of chakra activity is not an experience that imposes itself in this way. Spiritual perception does not fall upon the human being in one fell swoop. The first perceptions from the organs of the soul are intermittent - perhaps infrequent - and can be ephemeral. However, they require from the one who has to develop them a new orientation in his way of facing and interpreting what he sees. This is where spiritual science proves invaluable. The description that it makes of the chakras, of their ways of perception, and of the nature of the supersensitive phenomena encountered at the outset, helps the human being to adopt an objective and balanced attitude towards these experiences and to interpret them correctly. Just as the newborn must learn to use his physical senses and understand what they are saying to him, the modern person must learn to use the organs of the soul correctly and understand what they communicate . Many preconceived ideas and ancient habits of thinking need to be questioned or eliminated.

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The more penetrating, more direct perceptions acquired with the organs of the soul allow a person to see what lies behind the things and events of the external world. One aspect that often requires a rethinking of its fundamental principles is the discovery that what one believed to be the blind forces of Nature are actually the actions of supersensitive beings . To give a somewhat fanciful analogy, suppose we are in possession of a small vessel of such a shape and color that it could be mistaken for an object of Nature . We might also ask under the action of what pressure, what wind, what wave, such a shape could have been produced. Then, one day, we enter the workshop where the vase was made and we see the potter at work, intent on shaping the clay with his hands. The potter explains to us why he loves making vases with this shape and color. This throws a completely different light on the matter. We now see that our pot is not the product of anonymous forces, but is the result of the potter's work. Also, we know why he made it this way. Many things that were paradoxical to the early 20th century physicist trying to reconcile what his bodily senses were telling him with new ideas about energy and matter would have been easier to understand had he been able to glimpse the entities that are at work behind the outer phenomena. Instead of speculating and guessing , he would have access to the facts. For Sorat and his cohorts, humanity's entry into the Age of Light posed a grave threat to their plans. It is one thing for the powers of evil to mislead man when he is ignorant of their existence and intentions; another thing is whether man can see them for what they are. Unless he has an evil bent, man will vigorously resist their attempts to influence him. Sorat's only hope for keeping mankind unconscious was to divert the spiritual forces building up in men's souls by drawing them into other ways. But since man's thoughts had already reached the threshold of the world of the senses, this required the creation of an artificial world into which humanity in its totality could be drawn, a gigantic undertaking. It had to be all or nothing. Or would Sorat have succeeded in taking control of all the functions of man's spirit, all of his thinking and perception, and also his feeling life and will, or the natural process of involution which led the humanity to spiritual perception would have ruined his plans. Rudolf Steiner, in whom the new faculties of the Age of Light were fully developed, was able to see the Two-horned Beast and what it was trying to do. This is why he undertook the work of making human beings and spiritual realities conscious as much as possible, in order to try to safeguard their freedom of action. Archangel Michael had prepared wisdom and knowledge in the spirit world that was to be translated into the form of spiritual science for human beings on earth, in order to guide them and help them master their nascent perceptive faculty. The "translation" was undertaken by Rudolf Steiner, who had been given the mission by the Masters to communicate this wisdom and knowledge to Western humanity in a language they could easily understand. He and his associates knew that the Two-horned Beast would do everything in its power to stop them . 161

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They were determined to fight to the death to protect the future of mankind and enable human beings to come to the new stage of consciousness in the right way. For its part, the Two-Horned Beast intended to prevent all of this. To achieve his ends, the Beast intended to fully exploit the vast potential of the binary technology. Unbeknownst to mankind as a whole, the two camps engaged in mortal combat in the early 1920s, in a spiritual battle that played a decisive role in shaping the destiny of the 20th century. This battle will be described in the following chapter.

COMPUTERS AND MICHELE'S MOVEMENT Between 1901 and 1925, Rudolf Steiner gave the world the clear description of methods for developing the faculties of spiritual inquiry, as well as the fruits of his extraordinarily extensive investigations. It was also in these same years that Hermann Hollerith's tabulators developed towards progressive automation, from simple sorting and counting devices to what eventually became intelligent machines potentially capable of creating an artificial world. Let's clarify what such a thing causes. As we have seen , computers are multipurpose information processing machines , equipped with artificial intelligence. However, in professional fields, there has been no consensus on what constitutes a computer. Many authors of books on technology choose to reserve the name "computer" for electronic devices , as opposed to mechanical devices such as Babbage's calculating machines , or electromechanical systems such as those of Hollerith. However arbitrary this distinction is (it has no historical or technical justification), it comes from a subconscious intuition concerning Sorat's intentions. We will see later that the term "electronic" refers to a form of electrotechnics which uses the properties of an electric current which is not conducted by wires, but which acts in a substrate invisible to the physical path: a vacuum (as in the case of the valves), a gas, or the impurities in a semi-conducting crystal. When we mention valves or tubes in this context, we are talking about what we used to see in ancient radios: cylindrical glass ampoules that turned red when the radio was started. The operation of purely mechanical or electromechanical switches, such as those of Hollerith's machines, was visible. What happens in electronic switches, in a vacuum or inside a crystal is invisible. The operation takes place outside the field of events perceptible to the senses and it is for this reason that it has the potential to cause "virtual" phenomena, i.e. artificial worlds, as we will describe later . The appearance of vacuum tube digital electronics as a consequence of the First World War, and of solid state ( crystals) digital electronics as a consequence of the Second World War, does not define computers as such, but characterizes stages in developing their ability to create artificial worlds. Among those who maintain that only electronic computing machines are computers , there is a famous myth defended by American writers who affirm that the word "computer" was invented by ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computar) built in 1945 by John Presper

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Eckert in collaboration with John Mauchly and his colleagues at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, a faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, the name was already used before the war, in the world of data processing, as some documents attest. Alan Turing spoke of "computing machines" in his article published in 1936 Computable Numbers, perhaps the most famous document in the history of the computer. We will soon meet Alan Turing. From a technical point of view, if we look at the machine as a whole, we do not find a clear dividing line between pre-electronic machines and machines that define themselves as electronic . Long after the introduction of electronic components such as valves, all machines using them were hybrid machines: some components were electronic, some electromechanical, and still others purely mechanical. The first truly documented use of tubes in a digital electronic circuit dates from 1919 ****, although they are said to have been used in Hollerith's machines since 1915. Personal computers [PCs ], developed sixty he years later, in the 1970s, they are hybrid machines (a microprocessor by itself is not a computer). Early personal computers worked with punch strips: some older technical readers may remember that the first version of Bill Gates' programming language, Microsoft Basic for Personal Computers, came in the form of punch strips. Even today, only a few rare highly specialized computers are entirely electronic. But basing our definition of computers on considerations like these would lead us to miss the essentials. The fundamental point is that the notion of "computer" which, as we have said, was elaborated by Francis Bacon, is an idea. This idea can be embodied as a physical machine using different types of technologies. It is not the technology that defines whether a machine is a computer or not, but the fact that this machine does what the idea of a "com puter" requires it to do. This brings us to the other criterion usually presented for judging the difference between calculating and sorting machines and "real" computers: the criterion of what is termed "architecture." It is generally thought that the operations of real computers are controlled, not by a human operator, but, at least in part, by a predefined sequence of commands ( a program) stored in the machine itself. In this sense, commands are physical impulses in one form or another, which oblige the machine to carry out an operation. The holes and white spaces of a punched card are not only terms of information, but they also force the machine to perform certain operations; they are also commands. However, the punched cards are not stored in the machine and do not constitute a set of internal instructions which dictate the operation of the machine. But the wiring diagrams created by introducing the cards on the board of Hollerith's machines and which defined which combination of needles should be connected to which counters and which compartments of the selection box, were internal programs that effectively directed the operations performed by the tabulator . It can also be argued that it was the same for the analytical engine conceived by Charles Babbage around August 1834, as indicated by

****Two valves used as a bistable or rocker (a flip-flop) multivibrator. Described by Eccles and Jordan in 1919. 163

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Konrad Zuse, the pioneer of the development of computer science in Germany. The truth is that we are not so much dealing with technologies or architectures, but with a development process that began with Basile Boachon's punch card reader for silk looms, and which later, in Hollerith's tabulators, took an important step towards information processing in general. Some inventors who made major contributions to perfect it further worked in isolation, in different countries, knowing nothing of what the others were doing. But there has always been a guiding intelligence behind the whole of this evolution: the Beast with two comas. The author's opinion is that the essential progress which, from the first "quasi-computers" built by Hollerith in the late 19th century, led to primitive machines, but which were "real computers" in terms of their data processing capabilities and logical systems, took place during the first two decades of the 20th century. It is certain that Rudolf Steiner, who was manifestly well informed about what was happening in science and technology, was aware of the arrival of these machines. Dehomag, the German branch of Hollerith's company, settled in Berlin in 1910, at the time Rudolf Steiner was living there. The company was an instant success and was selling large quantities of its machines in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It had an energetic marketing strategy and its machines were often talked about. In the press were the inevitable sensational articles about artificial brain machines and so on. All new models equipped with the latest known improvements, manufactured by the parent company in America, were also distributed in Germany, and integrated in addition the numerous small improvements added on site, in Dehomag's own laboratories. Hollerith's machines were used all over the world to take censuses . They were used by Germany for military purposes during the First World War. Rudolf Steiner was fully aware of the progress being made in this area. By the 1920s, these machines had acquired all the attributes of the electromechanical computer. They were used for some years by railway companies in many countries for accounting, sorting and logistics . While Rudolf Steiner did not speak of the Hollerith-Dehomag machines by naming them directly, he was speaking of their use in sorting and logistics when he made this comment in 1916 : "We already have machines for adding, subtracting, etc.: it is convenient, there is no longer any need to calculate. We will proceed in the same way for everything. This will not be long in coming, one or two centuries and the game will be played; there will no longer be any need to think, nor reflect: you will press a button. For example, you will write "330 packs of cotton, Liverpool" - today you would think for a moment, wouldn't you? But then you would simply press a button and the question will be resolved. And in the future, so that nothing can disturb the status quo of social relations, we will pass by laws which will not say precisely: thought is forbidden, but which will have the effect that any individual thought will be eliminated. [ ...] You see that our current life is not at the

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ultimately so unpleasant in comparison . If you don't cross certain lines, you still have the right to think today, don't you? Of course, certain limits must not be exceeded, but if one remains within those limits, one can still think. What I have just described is immanent in Western evolution and, through it, will come without delay . Therefore the evolution of the science of the spirit must also be positioned in the whole of this evolution. It will need to see clearly and objectively what seems paradoxical today, but which will establish itself around 2200 and a few years later: the suppression of thought on a world level and on a very vast scale. With respect to this perspective, spiritual science must act [...]" 64 .

Rudolf Steiner expresses here his deep concern about the influence of artificial intelligence (machine intelligence) on human beings. Humanity will progressively stop thinking and there will come a day when a man who thinks will be an outlaw, for human thought will eventually be banned. In 1916, it was necessary for R. Steiner's audience to make a great effort to imagine what he was talking about. Many people still traveled in carriages, telephones were not the order of the day, radio broadcasts for the general public had not yet begun ; as for the idea of television, it existed in theory, but seemed impossible to implement in practice. In these conditions, how could it be imagined that machines could prevent human beings from thinking? Today we well understand R. Steiner's concern. A few years ago, the author was greatly impressed by an incident involving the young son of one of his friends, a boy with a lively and inquisitive spirit. The boy had spent his early years in a small private school which based its teaching methods on the principles given by Rudolf Steiner in matters of education. These principles favor the development of the child's learning faculties and aptitudes for acquiring knowledge, rather than stuffing himself with "information". They also tend to develop a lively imagination and to stimulate an original approach to the subject studied in each child. The boy in question, as is often the case in this kind of circumstance , was convinced that in larger "official" schools, pupils should be able to learn more than in a small private school. He was looking forward to entering the public secondary school where, it was said, he would truly understand modern science. The day came when he began his secondary education. He was burning with the desire to learn. But as the weeks wore on, his enthusiasm gave way to frustration, and later to a simmering anger. One afternoon, he returned from school with some important homework to do. He pulled a packet of questionnaires out of his briefcase and sat down to get to work. The questionnaires involved statements with boxes, and one of the boxes had to be ticked to indicate whether the propositions were 'true' or 'false'. There were also formulaic questions with a number of predefined answers, and you had to select the right answers by ticking the right boxes. As he worked, the resentment that the boy was repressing came to the point of exploding. He burst out abruptly shouting angrily: "Damned rows of boxes to tick! Who do they take us for? Monkeys?" She crumpled up her homework and threw it violently into the wastebasket, then stormed out of the room with tears of anger and disappointment in her eyes.

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There are many who complain today that the statistical methods of data processing adopted by governments and state departments - which have imposed them on industry, commerce , agriculture and the free profession in general - are transforming humans into a race of form fillers. This is done more and more on the Internet, and form fillers thus become mouse "clickers". And that is already quite sad! But when the child's education comes down to filling out forms and clicking a mouse, then things are really bad. Do educators themselves imagine that placing crosses in certain boxes stimulates the child's creativity and originality? Of course not. But education is increasingly programmed and standardized to allow students to continue their work and evaluate their progress via computer. Children are not formed in the activity of thinking, but in processing information. It takes little imagination to see what the long-term outcome will be if this trend continues, as it almost certainly will. Thinking will effectively be banned without anyone having to pass a law for it. You will no longer know how to think. It will be the machines that will do the thinking for us. When we reflect on what Rudolf Steiner said, we may perhaps be shocked to see how terrible this view is. In 1896, Hermann Hollerith had initially developed special tabulating machines, equipped with the functions of calculating machines, for the New York telephone exchange and the Hudson River Railroad Company . These new systems had been perfected, extended and automated over the following years. The machines supplied to the German railways were sophisticated calculating and data processing devices. Mentioning similar machines, used for sorting ("330 parcels of cotton. Liver pool"), Rudolf Steiner predicted that they would evolve so rapidly in one or two centuries that they would do all the work that human thought requires. The thinking activity of man will be suppressed two hundred years from now. What makes us human is rational thinking, it is through it that we distinguish ourselves from animals. The picture of the near future (from now to only a few generations) that Rudolf Steiner sketches is that of a population that has degenerated, that no longer knows how to think; she has become less than human. Machines have invaded the Earth. It's not science fiction, "it'll come sooner than you think," he said. We would be very naïve to imagine that our next descendants will be thoughtless but happy people, carefree, inhabitants of a material paradise, with machines to take care of everything for them. In reality, they will be an integral part of these machines: they will be the biological components connected and integrated to the electronic functioning of computer networks by means of brain implants. They will be subhuman cyborgs . It will be necessary for spiritual science to see these things clearly and objectively, said Rudolf Steiner. When you see the infatuation of the younger generation with the Internet today, it is evident that civilization is heading in this direction. Will a part of humanity remain human?

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A part of humanity will remain human only if some fight against the invasion of binary artificial intelligence in our lives today. R. Steiner's message is clear: "Faced with this perspective, spiritual science must act". Spiritual science has certainly taken actions under the direction of Rudolf Steiner to fight against this trend. He himself gave a profusion of details on the spiritual aspects of existence, not as revelations, but as an integral part of a rapidly developing discipline - the science of the spirit - and which could be integrated smoothly into other sciences, to the extent in which these did not isolate themselves by raising a barrier of stubborn materialism. Furthermore, the spiritual science that Rudolf Steiner was developing was totally in accord with the realities of external life, to which it could apply. The applications of spiritual science: the teaching known as Waldorf pedagogy , curative pedagogy, anthroposophic medicine, biodynamic agriculture , new techniques for building construction, social tripartition, new forms of economy applied art, the art of eurythmy, the movement for religious renewal which became the Community of Christians, and many other developments, began to penetrate the cultural life of Western humanity. Everywhere in spiritual science itself, and in all its applications , one found a fundamental theme: the tripartition of man and the world. It was much more than a doctrine, it was the objective result of systematic research, and a principle put into practice successfully in all walks of life . Rudolf Steiner fought tenaciously to triumph over the false idea that man is simply a being of dual nature endowed with a body and a soul, and to overcome the Baconian reduction of knowledge into a sequence of "a " and " b. He had against him not only many scientific thinkers of the time, caught up in the abstract materialism of particle physics, but also a race that rapidly evolves from machines inhabited by demons. From the beginning, all spiritual science was enlivened by the concrete knowledge of a superhuman reality: the knowledge that Christ walks as a Spirit among human beings. It was no longer an article of faith. The perceptive organs of the soul can see the Christ, who is true to his word: "See, I am with you forever, and to the end of time." The creation of spiritual science was not a theoretical activity, it was a struggle. With all their evil powers, the demonic adversaries violently attacked the birth of this new way of knowledge which leads man beyond the frontiers of materialism, to the rediscovery of his full spiritual stature. Their attacks, launched against Rudolf Steiner and those who fought with him, eventually vindicated his work. Ita Wegman, one of R. Steiner's closest collaborators, who many regarded as the reincarnation of the spirit of Alexander the Great, wrote to members of the Anthroposophical Society in October 1925, six months after Rudolf Steiner's early death: "One day I learned from Rudolf Steiner how the anti-Michael demons threw all their strength to suffocate and destroy Michael's work. These demons hide their intentions , and only human beings can wrest their secrets from them. Only men may have knowledge of the secrets of the demons. The

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gods await these secrets which men bring to them, and only the gods can reveal to men the meaning of the secrets of the demons. With such offerings of men to the gods of the secrets snatched from the demons, the dark deeds of these demons can be misled so that spiritual light may shine where darkness has reigned. These anti-Michaelian demons, to which Klingsor' and his hordes belong, worked hard and brazenly uttered threats, especially that they would win if Michael's impulses which had intervened so powerfully failed to break through. I anxiously asked a question: what will happen if this rift does not appear? And the answer was: then karma will reign. The worries which such declarations brought upon me were hard to bear , but the burden was inexpressibly greater, when the lecture given on St. Michael's Day proved to be the last, and Rudolf Steiner, ill, was forced to lie down. And so inexorably karma took things into hand. - We know all the events that followed and how they profoundly affected us. - Karma demanded the sacrifice of death" 65 .

Rudolf Steiner appears to us not only as the great scientist of the spirit, but also as a fighter for the future of humanity. His vision encompasses the highest human ideals, but also the practical aspects of life. Only he rose so categorically * Klingsor is an evil genius who uses black magic of great power. Figure in the legends of the Grail and in Wagner's sacred work, Parsifal. However, he is a real person, an initiate who has chosen the path of evil. He acts today as an earth bearer of the impulse of Sorat.

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against the type of technology used in our computers; only he gave such pertinent indications on the form that they should have taken a technique suitable for satisfying the terrestrial conditions of humanity. Throughout the year 1924, as he learned that his physical strength was weakening, he adopted a language that was more and more that of a warrior , of the iron-willed Michael knight, leading his comrades into the very heart of battle. . He had always said that the greatest challenge for Western humanity since the twentieth century, and for the rest of terrestrial evolution , was to find the right way to weld man and machine together. Because they will be welded together whether we like the idea or not. It is the fate of the world that demands it. The process has already begun. If we resist the invasion of binary computer technology and the internet, further developing our thinking ability and creating a good kind of machine, then this merging process can go on harmoniously - yes, even beautifully, and human beings will emphasize their spiritual nature - otherwise it will continue on the current path of dehumanization, according to Sorat's intentions. Rudolf Steiner understood technique, and the role it had to play, as few other human beings have understood it. Some will perhaps perceive that we are engaged in the fight for the future of humanity, we must do everything we can to understand more deeply the world of machines, not only its material aspects, but also its hidden, spiritual side. The purpose of this book is to contribute to this deeper understanding of the computer industry. Rudolf Steiner's position in relation to the various fields of technology is extremely revealing. He never used the technique simply because it existed, or because others used it. His approach was very selective. There were certain new inventions and certain processes which he immediately placed entirely at the service of spiritual science. There were other techniques, such as printing, that he reluctantly used; or others that he categorically refused. R. Steiner was enthusiastic about good technical developments and he gladly used them. The automobile is a typical example. And while he spoke of the Luciferic nature of electricity and the Ahhrimanic nature of magnetism, he did not ban their use in some practical applications, provided they did not have a deleterious effect on human thinking or paralyze the soul. In 1915, he chose electric lighting for the Goetheanum (the first Goetheanum). The example of scene lighting is particularly interesting. For the art of eurythmy, Rudolf Steiner wanted an extraordinarily powerful, full-colour stage lighting system. His ideas, which he formulated to the young electrical engineer Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, went beyond the technical lighting possibilities of the time and would lead to exceeding the capacity of the local electricity grid. Pfeiffer developed a special installation that best suited R. Steiner's requirements. This system is now kept in the Museum of Lighting Technology in Salzburg. The telegraph and the telephone were applications that Rudolf Steiner used a lot for practical messages. He followed the installation of the telephone system in the Goetheanum with great interest. The author was lucky enough to know well Viktor Stracke, the electrical engineer who did a large part of the work. Stracke related a number of anecdotes about the cable pulls and wiring of the switchgear and distribution system. These episodes revealed R.

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Steiner's extraordinary awareness of everything that happened electrically in the building. The telephone was used as a flexible form, more immediate than the telegraph, for messages relating to practical matters; it was not a medium used for serious conversation. Rudolf Steiner was totally against the use of any form of recording and reproduction of works of art and creation. When photographs could be taken of the Goetheanum ceiling paintings, he was indignant: "I would never agree to this unartistic way of making reproductions. All this is nothing more than a substitute. I do not want color photographs of the paintings in the dome! [...] And the same is exactly true of the stained glass windows. If if you were looking for reproductions for any reason whatsoever, I would intervene to prevent it " 66 .

The recording of music or the human voice by mechanical or electrical means was an abomination to him. He categorically forbade the use of recordings in connection with activities deriving from spiritual science: "It is no less desirable for a piece of music to be reproduced on a phonograph record which gives a false imitation. I don't want that, I don't want it at all! I don't want to have modern music fanatics in our circles! " 67 .

R. Steiner's words are so strong that someone ignorant of his profound knowledge of the physical and spiritual nature of the technique could take him for a limited fanatic against the innovations that go beyond him. But it's quite the opposite in reality. His words are the words of the one who knows, of the man at the forefront of technology, who sees its potential and future development, and speaks with sovereign discernment. During his discussions with young people, R. Steiner pointed out how to create an intimate sphere of work to which Ahrimane-Sorat has no access. A member of the "youth club" asked him in which technical achievements the Ahrimanic forces worked dangerously on the human being. Rudolf Steiner replied that, according to the observations he was able to make, their direct influence was greatest in films (the cinema) and in the typewriter. This did not mean, he added, that other even more ahrimanic construction machines did not exist, but that, in dealing with the harmful effects on human beings, cinema and typewriters were the most dangerous of all. The reader will perhaps be surprised to read that it is precisely these two applications of the ahrimanic technique which today connect the human being to the computer. The computer screen (liquid crystal or cathode ray tube) is a modern display device that is even more harmful than the cinema. As for the computer keyboard, it is a deceptive form of typewriter, deceptive because the keys do not type the characters written on them. In fact, they don't type any characters.

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Rudolf Steiner always expounded the foundations on which he formed his judgments about the things, beings and events he spoke about. His statements about recorded "music," the cinema, typewriters, etc., were by no means arbitrary. A large number of the explanations he gave are published, others have been recorded orally, and some have not reached posterity. We'll have the opportunity to look in more detail at some of these things built into computers later. These spiritual aspects of information technology are apparently very little known today. However, even without spiritual enlightenment, people often have a healthy distrust of computers and the Internet. Even among anthroposophists, many intuitively feel that Rudolf Steiner's work is in fundamental opposition to numerical computerization. In their struggle to find how to live and work in the computer age while remaining true to their ideals, these people arrive at an inescapable question: hasn't the Internet today become so ubiquitous that it is an inevitable medium for human activity - and for the communication of spiritual science itself - despite all its bad and noxious aspects? It's a trap question. Let us examine it for the first time very carefully. We'll come back to it later, armed with fresh insight into the development of binary technology. Rudolf Steiner considered that the appropriate medium for the communication of spiritual science was spoken language . Between the speaker and the listener, meaning, transcending the words themselves, passes from soul to soul. The words of our modern Western languages have evolved over the centuries towards forms that allow us to express ourselves on the beings and things of external reality, and on the inner experiences of everyday consciousness. Words are unable to communicate supersensible experiences. But when expressed orally, words create an outward bond between the speaker and the hearer . The sound of the voice, the diction, the look and facial expressions of the speaker and so on are all part of this bond. The sense is transmitted to another level. Here is an example to illustrate all of this. Many years ago, the author met an elderly lady who lived in the small town of Ilkley in the north of England. The lady in question only spoke English. In August 1923 , a young woman at the time, she attended a series of lectures that Rudolf Steiner was holding in her city. As always Rudolf Steiner spoke in German. His lecture, which lasted altogether an hour, was divided into three twenty-minute parts. After each part, his translator, George Adams, gave a summary in English. The young woman was fascinated by the lectures and listened enraptured. After one of these twenty-minute periods, she turned to the friend sitting next to her and whispered to him a remark about what Rudolf Steiner had just said. "I thought you didn't understand a word of German," exclaimed his friend. "But he spoke in English!" the young woman replied. It was only after the conference, when other friends convinced her that Rudol f Steiner spoke German, that the young woman admitted the fact. He understood everything that R. Steiner had said. He had listened to her thoughts, not her words. If instead of speaking, he had written down the text of his lecture and given it to her, she certainly would not have understood anything. 171

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Situations like this are not so rare and are not limited to Rudolf Steiner, although in his particular case, they have been anomalously frequent and have taken other forms. Since he regarded spoken language as the only adequate vehicle for the transmission of spiritual science, he worked mainly in this way, giving an incredible amount of lectures and speeches: more than six thousand in all. A handwritten text is very far from being valid as an oral communication. It is no longer possible to hear the writer's thoughts. The sound of the voice, direct eye contact, characteristic expressions, eloquent gestures, all of this is missing. The reader has only the written words to which he must attribute the meaning he thinks to be the one intended by the author. Some time passed between the time these words were written and the time they were read. By the time the reader reads them, the author is busy doing something else. But something of the author's character and state of mind is expressed in handwriting, as graphologists well know. Handwritten text is not totally impersonal. Things are totally different with printed text. All that is left of communication is choice and word order. If the reader does not understand what some words or expressions mean, they will remain incomprehensible or misinterpreted. It is possible that the author is dead and buried before the reader reads his text. Words are simple signs on paper. The reader must make sense of it as he can. For Rudolf Steiner, recourse to the printed text is a stopgap solution (a medium which he considered inappropriate, but which he felt obliged to use for his philosophical works and for his introductory books on spiritual science in general). He considered that it was not possible to transmit the content of his lectures in writing and forbade their publication. He was later forced to abandon his principles in this respect, as other people published his lecture notes without his permission. For him, this was a tough pill to swallow. R. Steiner chose with the utmost care the wording and words of the texts intended for publication. He knew precisely what the press can and cannot communicate . At that time lead letters were used: small metal blocks with letters in relief engraved on them that the typographer grouped together to compose words. The press had at least real letters, assembled by a human being. Human actions and thoughts accompanied each stage of the printing process. R. Steiner worked out his lyrics accordingly . When spiritual truths are communicated, the person who communicates them remains bound by the chains of destiny to the words he has spoken or written. Even if the ancient method of printing was an unsuitable method, Rudolf Steiner was aware that his fate was linked to each copy of each of his books that was read by someone. You really put a part of yourself into a book, and that part is then brought out into the world. This was the situation until Rudolf Steiner's death in 1925. Today, the press is numbered. There is no more the printer, there are no more real printed words. What appear as letters on the card are not letters. The computer makes no distinction between what appear to us to be

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letters or drawings, or videos, or soccer games, or a bunch of meaningless machines, and even the control codes that command the robots in a factory. They are only fragments of anonymous data: "as" and "is". The computer is not capable of transmitting meaning. In reality, it can never communicate anything other than sequences of "a" and "b". Or, indeed, not even that: the computer has no idea what an "a" or a "b" is, they are simply electrical states (the presence or absence of a certain voltage). Like Bacon's lantern that it too was unaware that it was covered or glowing, the circuits of a computer are activated mechanically by electrical impulses.When a computer commands a printer it projects an incredible number of ink dots onto the paper, which are taken for letters and text ", it communicated no meaning thanks to them. For the computer, no meaning ever existed. For him, such things as letters and words do not exist. Computers do not transmit words. Francis Bacon could have told us that. We will look later in more detail at what sense is, and the illusion of sense. It is something which is of the utmost importance, but which is little understood in our age. Some, having no knowledge of the things we have just described, wonder if Rudolf Steiner, if he were here today, would use computers and the Internet "because they exist" or "because everyone uses them" (not everyone of course...). Or even, a strange idea, "because today we are forced to use them". "Yes, that's exactly the problem," some would say. "You are deceiving yourself. It is evident that you can prove that binary electronic computers are not the good technology, that their influence on us is harmful, and that Rudolf Steiner was totally against it. But the fact is that humanity has in every chosen way this technology. Binary computers and the Internet are now realities of life. They are everywhere. The more you make us understand that evil works through them, the more depressed you make us. In fact we have no choice. We have to use binary computers and the Internet whether we like it or not." No! We can choose. We can turn to other forms of technology. What Rudolf Steiner proposes, the moral technique, is described in the second volume of this book. Furthermore, we can fight spiritually against the powers of evil acting through binary electronics. Recalling Rudolf Steiner's scenario of the year 2200 (a vision of Earth dominated by machines and inhabited mainly by our degenerate descendants who will have lost their ability to think), we know that we must fight. The most obvious way for the individual to do this has always been to follow the path of inner development, the path of self-knowledge. But there are many who think that the conditions of life in the 21st century make this path too difficult for them. There is another path that Rudolf Steiner gave and which better corresponds to our time. It is a path that provides us with the means to fight against Sorat's actions. This path is described in volume IL Humanity was not forced to use computers and the Internet. Industry, commerce , science and technology reached their current peak without the Internet and indeed without the need for computers. We use the Internet because Sorat begs us to, because he secretly leads us to believe that the Internet is a blessing. But nothing obliges humanity to continue using the 173

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Internet simply because it has begun to do so. When people claim we can't reject computers and the Internet, it's a reassuring untruth. The real reason is deeper: it is a sort of inertia, a sort of apathy in the face of a world that we feel we can no longer understand and direct. A world, which perhaps at a subconscious level, overwhelms us and frightens us. We seem to have gotten into the habit of using things simply because they exist, of just getting carried away with life, of being conventional and doing what other people do. We do not oppose and we do not shout "Stop!". We indulge simply in the expectation that eventually everything will be in order, as being carried away is easier than standing up for what we believe. Or, is it even more serious than that? Perhaps, as R. Steiner seems to say, do we carry deeply buried within us a desire for death, a desire for the final catastrophe to come , to end once and for all? Do we lie to ourselves? "We need to insist more and more on this point: we have a great need to take things seriously. Men find all this comfortable. They like to believe that nothing prevents us from continuing the usual routine. No, this routine cannot be continued -tran! If we continue to let ourselves live in it without taking into account the impulses that come to us from the spiritual world, then we will have a lot to develop industry, have banks , support universities where all kinds of science are taught, we will have a nice to practice all imaginable and possible trades , all this will lead to bankruptcy, barbarism, the ruin of civilization.He who is not ready to apply in everyday life what can derive from spiritual science actually aspires not to a positive evolution of civilization, but to its decline. The majority of men today actually want this decline and are lulled into false illusions by pretending that all this could be followed by a further ascent" 68 .

"Applying in everyday life what can derive from spiritual science" does not mean simply admitting the truth that spiritual science brings us, without putting it into practice. This means living your life accordingly. Would Rudolf Steiner use a computer? No, he wouldn't use it. The great scientist of the spirit who uttered these heartbreaking words of truth, who rejected the cinema and refused to use a typewriter, since he knew well the damage caused to human beings, would certainly not be sitting today in front of a computer screen engaged in clicking with a mouse. He would have no reason to even think about using the Internet to communicate spiritual science, for the simple reason that the Internet is incapable of communicating spiritual science. Not a single word of wisdom will ever be transmitted by the Internet which uses binary electronics. Just like the weird virtual worlds of networked computer games, networked knowledge is an illusion. But it is a clever illusion. Yes, it is indeed a very clever illusion! It is a pity that the current publication of Rudolf Steiner's works is affected by digitisation. Even those that were written for print are no longer sold. This is the case with all of his work. One by one, anthroposophical bookstores are closing. The major publishers of his books are in deficit and have to make up for it one way or another. How is it possible that the younger generation, clamoring for guidance and spiritual knowledge, does not fervently read Rudolf Steiner's books, the same younger generation who listen so eagerly when a competent person talks about spiritual science? Why? Because books are produced by computers. They are long

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series of "a" and "b". R. Steiner's thoughts are not in there. Words are just empty pods, and we can't help but put our sense into them. The "texts" create an illusion of knowledge that does not feed the seeking soul. This is where Francis Bacon's reduction of words to binary code ultimately leads. It is a great tragedy for the present time, and a great triumph for Sorat. But the Two-Coma Beast has by no means won the battle yet. The most violent fight is yet to come. Now, the reader will surely wonder why the book in his hand was printed from the computer. This requires an explanation, and the author will therefore be permitted to add a personal observation. For years, he has been engaged in physical and spiritual research related to different aspects of computer technology and its effects on human beings. He lectures on this topic and often talks about Internet technology in seminars. For him, it is a matter of principle to have practical experience with a computer himself , because honesty demands that he know well what he is talking about. He also directly researches the processes that take place in a running computer and their influence on the user. But he doesn't need to use the Internet and has never logged in once. It's not wanting to cut your hair in quarters; The Internet is not just a chain of a billion computers. It is about something more than that. The author knows the technology well and is aware of what it does to humanity. This text was handwritten and revised by the author who typed the final version on a computer keyboard. He printed it with a laser printer. He conceived the paperback cover from earlier versions of this book and printed it on an inkjet printer. He has a very special reason for producing this book in this way. He wants to enlist the help of demonic entities, active in computers, to produce a book that reveals what they are and what a computer system is. He wants this for the entities themselves. The words that you, the reader, have before you are basically a pattern of tiny ink dots, to which you make sense, as you do for all books. The author has consciously tried to present his theme and to structure his text in such a way that what you put in these pseudo-words is as close as possible to what he would have said in a speech on this theme. Since his subject matter mostly concerns the physical aspects of the technique, he has reasons to think that this process will work. However, he has also been forced to make certain choices. There are certain spiritual aspects that he talks about when he lectures that are not covered in this book, because he knows from experience that a computer system cannot communicate this. But let's get back to our topic. When one contemplates the monumental work of Rudolf Steiner, which constitutes his teaching of spiritual science, one realizes that only a relatively small number of works were intended for publication. The bulk of his work is made up of a collection of thousands of lectures given in different cities and countries, lectures which were not intended to be published. If Rudolf Steiner's wishes had been respected, this vast body of spiritual knowledge would have escaped electronic digitization. It is a consideration the importance of which we will see later. 175

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The spirit that dwelt in Rudolf Steiner had chosen to be born shortly before the end of the Kali Yuga, in order to be active on Earth at the time of this extraordinary upheaval in human existence. The great turning point - the end of evolution and the beginning of involution - took place not in the external world, but within human beings. It was a change of consciousness, of the soul's relationship with the outside world. What was then the inner event capable of producing such an upheaval? A metamorphosis of the configuration also of the body and of the soul was at the basis of this change in the orientation of human life. The soul configuration of human beings born in Western countries after the end of the 19th century differed from that of previous generations. It was the greatest gap between generations since the beginning of our era. Human beings born in Western countries after Kali Yuga possessed new faculties. This may seem astonishing to us. How could such a fundamental change happen so suddenly? But in reality it was not a question of a sudden metamorphosis. It resulted from the fact that the development, over several centuries, of certain new organs and faculties came to an end at the same historical moment. At all times, humans have contemplated resistance from two distinct aspects . They perceive its external aspect, an aspect which they call "the physical world", by means of the bodily organs of the senses: the eyes, the ears, the ends of the cutaneous nerves (touch), etc. Conversely, it is by means of the sensory organs of the soul, the chakras or lotuses, that they can perceive the spiritual side of existence, provided, of course, that these organs of the soul are normally developed and capable of functioning. Since ancient times, there have been proven methods of developing these organs of the soul and using them for the spiritual perception of existence. These methods, which we call "paths of spiritual development", evolve over the millennia in function of the changes in man's physical and psychic constitution. To acquire clairvoyance, one must follow such a path of spiritual development. Rudolf Steiner gave a somewhat detailed description of it in his basic books on anthroposophy. Now, since the very beginning of the Age of Light, there has been another way of spiritual perception, which Rudolf Steiner calls "etheric clairvoyance". This etheric clairvoyance does not depend on the organs of the soul, the chakras or lotuses, but on an activity of the etheric body linked to an entirely new, physical-etheric organ. This organ was formed in the brain over the course of the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Before the end of the Kali Yuga, no one could practice this etheric clairvoyance, as men did not yet possess the organ in question in its complete form. It is this new mode of spiritual perception that gives our age its name, Age of Light. This is the light of etheric spiritual perception. The formation of this organ in the brain did not depend on the path of a path of spiritual development - human beings had nothing to do with it, so to speak. Its development was the

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fruit of the work done by some superior entities. The creative action of the gods on human beings continues today and will continue in the future. From age to age, human beings acquire new faculties, while others weaken and disappear. This does not happen by itself. The beings of all spiritual hierarchies act in concert in us, perfecting more and more the parts of our organism on which we ourselves are not able to work consciously. One of these refinements is precisely the formation in the brain of the physical-etheric organ of which we speak. Thanks to the awakening of corresponding etheric faculties, this organ allows access to knowledge of the spiritual world. His training ended at the end of Kali Yuga. It is one of the organs and faculties that we have mentioned, the development of which was completed towards the end of the 19th century and which so clearly distinguish people born after Kali Yuga from those born before.

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Rudolf Steiner spoke about it in 1913, just before the Great War: "What is seen under the skull today does not resemble what was observed five or six centuries ago. A subtle organ has formed there; forces have acted to shape an organ that was not there before. Even if one cannot give an outward proof, it is no less true for that. The truth is that a very refined organ has formed behind the forehead of the human being. Forces have acted behind the forehead, forces that have operated in a cycle of four hundred years. These forces have completed their formative work during this four hundred year cycle. Today that organ exists, at least in most Western humans. It will be more and more prevalent in the centuries to come, in the course of the cycle we now enter. . The organ is completed; the formative forces are released. And it is through these same forces that humanity in Western countries will acquire spiritual knowledge" 69 .

People born after the end of Kali Yuga were therefore able to acquire the knowledge of the superior worlds by employing this subtle organ which had formed behind the forehead - a new organ of clairvoyance -, making use of the formative (etheric) forces which became free after the its completion. Previous generations couldn't do all of this; they had to acquire this knowledge of the higher worlds through traditional means, since they did not yet possess this organ in its most refined form, and the formative forces in question had not yet been released. As we have indicated, the fact of having this organ of etheric clairvoyance at one's disposal is not the only change that modified the life of the soul at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, and that distinguishes people born after the Kali Yuga from their predecessors. . But this example alone shows the importance of this breakthrough. A little reflection is enough to realize that the path of spiritual development is necessarily different for human beings born after Kali Yuga from what it was for those born during the dark age. When we equate the end of Kali Yuga with the end of the 19th century, we naturally do not mean that it falls precisely on December 31, 1899. Evoking the first groups of people born after Kali Yuga, Rudolf Steiner mentioned the years 1897, 1898 and 1899. As for the new faculty of etheric clairvoyance, he specified that it would remain in a latent state in souls until about 1933 , at which time this clairvoyance would manifest itself in the inner life of a certain number of Western human beings. If all goes well, more and more people would acquire spiritual perception spontaneously, without having to follow a path of inner development. Over the centuries to come, this clairvoyance would become generalized and become the very foundation of human culture. But the new etheric clairvoyance, in the early stages of its flowering, would be fragile and vulnerable, warned Rudolf Steiner. He spoke of the way in which the influence of an overly materialistic culture, and the psychological pressures that would have resulted from it, could have hindered his development to the point of suffocating it. Moreover, the events that would have occurred a few years after the conferences in which Rudolf Steiner spoke of these things 178

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would have highlighted another danger - one of the most brutal. However, if the new spiritual perception developed after 1933, it later ran into a risk of another kind, of which Rudolf Steiner could not speak, since his listeners would not have been able to understand him. Etheric clairvoyance is based on the activity of a very fine physical organ - so fine that conventional medical techniques could not detect it. Now, an organ so delicate and vulnerable to the accumulated effects of pulsed electromagnetic fields induced in particular by the massive use of portable telephones, Wi-Fi, etc. which make up what we now call electrosmog. In the human being, this radiation acts with the greatest intensity on the head, the brain and the nervous system. The areas of the brain behind the forehead are very sensitive to this powerful pulsating action, whose harmful influences on the pineal gland (epiphysis), for example, are among those too obvious to be denied by official science in the field of bioelectromagnetism. It can therefore be said in retrospect that the concomitant circumstances of the development of etheric clairvoyance would have become fraught with difficulties. It all depended ultimately on whether humanity turned toward the spirit or sank into materialism in the course of the 20th century.

THE NEW FACULTIES IN DANGER Rudolf Steiner did everything possible to awaken human beings to their latent faculties of supersensitive perception - both for those who were to follow a path of spiritual development and for young people in whom spontaneous clairvoyance could develop. The richness of teaching which he has given for this purpose is unparalleled. He would certainly have done even more if his work had not been seriously disrupted by the Great War of 1914-1918. This war differs from previous wars in human history not only by its extent but also by its nature. For the first time they are machines that play the decisive role. "When man manages to make a machine work alongside him, it can be said that in some way he delivers to the machine what he once should have done. And the machine that does it. Next to him is the machine that he performs the work that he previously would have had to do alone.The work provided by the machine is measured in horses, and if one wishes to measure a large quantity, the work provided within a given territory is measured by the force applied from one horse to a year when it completes its daily work time.Now take the following thing: in 1870 - one can calculate all this from coal production - 6.7 million "horsepower" was supplied to Germany - and I specially choose the year of the war.This means that in addition to the work provided by men, the machines have provided 6.7 million "horsepower".It is therefore a matter of a force that has been provided by the machines themselves. In 1912, in Germany itself, machine power supplied 79 million "horse-years"! Since Germany has almost 79 million inhabitants, a horse therefore works all year round alongside every inhabitant. And think of the accretion that took place in just a few years, and that production went from 6.7 million "horse years" to 79 million!

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And now consider under what circumstances the terrible catastrophe of war broke out. In this same year, 1912, France, Russia and Belgium together produced 35 million "horsepower"; Great Britain 98 million. In 1870, warfare was conducted essentially by men, since not many mechanical forces could be mobilized. There were only 6.7 million "horse-years" in Germany. Within a few decades, the situation had changed. You know that during this war of 1914, it was the machines that played an essential role in the clashes. What was found at the front came from the machines, and essentially, in reality, the "horse-years" are mechanisms that were brought to the front" 70 .

Machines battled machines on land, at sea, and in the air. Great Britain developed the first tanks, followed soon by France. These heavy, heavily armored vehicles have changed trench warfare enormously. Naval operations took on a scale that would have been unimaginable a decade earlier. German submarines sank thousands of large tonnage Allied shipping: 430 ships totaling 852,000 tons were sunk in April 1917 alone . The Allies counterattacked with minelayers and anti-submarine warfare vessels. War was also in the air. The use of German Zeppelin airships for long-range bombing raids alerted England to danger from the skies. On 13 June 1917, in the middle of the day, fourteen German bombers dropped 118 high explosive bombs on London and returned without difficulty to their bases. Britain's response was the immediate creation, but used late in the war, of the Royal Air Force and the intensive production of military aircraft. It was the first time that men were faced with this new reality of machine-dominated warfare, a reality that has become familiar to this day. The recent wars in Iraq, for example, have been waged by computers, guided missiles, and the horrific arsenal of machine-weapons that now occupy a far more important place than human soldiers. Had the Gulf wars needed to be waged hand-to-hand in the scorching desert by soldiers armed with ancient war materials, America and its allies would not have had the slightest chance of victory. They weren't going to go into a battle like this. But the situation was different, and Iraqi troops were defenseless against America's gigantic arsenal of intelligent war machines. Real men cannot fight guided missiles. Today we realize that in wars, human power, compared to the power of machines, counts for almost nothing. The strongest nation in warfare is the one that has the most advanced military technology and the latest generation of computers. Rudolf Steiner clearly knew this was going to happen. In the lecture from which the previous quotation is taken, he drew the attention of his listeners to the turn things were taking: "Great Britain was unable to mobilize its 98 million "horse-years" except at the end of a relatively large period of time. Then in what came from the mechanical strength of these countries, 133 million "horse-years came together against 79 million for Germany , or about 92 million if Austria was added. Initially, the ratios were balanced by the fact that, as we have said, Great Britain could not immediately turn its horses" to move them from agriculture to the front. In this terrible catastrophe of war, it is not the wisdom of the generals that, on both sides, has faced each other - even if the generals gave some guidelines -, but the essential of the clash was at the level of the mechanical forces that fought at the front: they did not depend on the generals, but on the scientific discoveries that man had

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made before. Who decided the tide of war, decided with a need for bronze, somehow? Just think of the 139 million additional "horse-years" that were sent to the front by the United States of America, in turn! You see that the force of machines produced by man in a few decades has predetermined the fate of the world, regardless of the genius of the generals. Against this fate of the world, against this fatality where only the results of the mechanical forces that collided at the front counted, there was nothing to do" 71 .

But in addition to all these millions of "horse-years," another potentially more fearsome reality was beginning to play a role in their deployment. The two camps facing each other in the Great War already used IBM-Hollerith computers for their logistics and the execution of their military strategy. Artificial intelligence was integral to warfare, even back then. When we have in mind that machines are not simply machines, but that ahrimanic entities inhabit them, then perhaps we begin to glimpse what was happening. The demons of hate that embed themselves in weapons want to kill human beings. Human soldiers are perhaps motivated by duty, by a desire to protect those who are dear to them, by patriotism or by religious conviction. The demons in warfare are motivated by hatred of men in general. World War I was the first satanic war. And we would be mistaken to suppose that Sorat and his cohorts placed themselves at the disposal of the warring nations because they wished to aid the human armies in possession of the armaments they had joined. It was just a means to their ends. When the demons led the nations of the world to mutilate themselves, they intended to take over humanity and eradicate as many young people as possible of this first generation of the Age of Light. In fact, the new physical and etheric organs and faculties are transmitted by inheritance. If the demons had succeeded in eliminating all human beings who possessed them, this would have been an inconceivable catastrophe for humanity . They failed to do so, but the extent of the losses caused by their actions was appalling. To judge these things properly, we must see them in their proper context. The number of victims of the Great War was appalling . More than 8,000,000 human beings have been killed in combat and there are nearly 13,000,000 civilian deaths. The flower of Europe's youth was trampled on and died. The development of the new etheric clairvoyance was now in danger. Germany takes the biggest losses. Until then, Rudolf Steiner had initially and primarily addressed the German-speaking peoples of Central Europe, whose mission it was to develop spiritual science and pass it on to the world. But now the Ahrimanic war machines had done the worst they could do, and Germany was shattered. Later, when travel restrictions were lifted and an early group of British anthroposophists were able to travel to the Goetheanum in Switzerland, Rudolf Steiner addressed them during a lecture on the mission of the Archangel Michael and said: 181

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"Every man today has the opportunity to observe, I should say, the extreme results of events. In the course of the last four or five years, how many people have been killed! Ten to twelve million at least in the civilized world, perhaps more; the number of sick has reached three times this figure in different countries. Our civilization has really done things well! But all this - little by little it will have to be recognized - is what appears on the surface; the source, one must look for it in the resistance that human souls oppose the will of the spiritual world to intervene among us, to guide humanity towards the future. Today, everything should be imagined and conceived from this point of view, that is, studied in depth, seriously deepened. [. ..] If one looks at these things objectively, one can put oneself from another point of view than the one generally adopted and ask oneself: what has become, to tell the truth, of what has changed, both in those who are called the vanquished both in those who are called winners? Now, the real winner is the Anglo-American world, and thanks to the forces that I have so often characterized here, this Anglo-American world is destined to dominate the whole world" 72 .

Rudolf Steiner alluded to machine forces, to the fact that the Allies had won the battle, not because their soldiers were braver or their generals more able, but thanks to the mechanical "year-horses" they had been able to send to the front. However, their victory had provoked a situation heavy with consequences: the losses suffered by the German people were too great for this people to continue the mission it had to fulfill in the 20th century: "But then, since the German people will be removed from any participation in the conduct of the outside world, what will result from this? They will no longer have responsibility (as a people, of course, since that of individuals remains) in events affecting humanity Any national accountability will be lifted for those who are crushed - and indeed they are. They cannot rise again. A person who claims otherwise is short-sighted. Responsibility is taken away from the German people. This responsibility will be all the greater on the opposite side; that is where the real responsibility lies. The external domain will be easy to achieve; it will be obtained by forces which have nothing to do with merit'. This transfer of material dominion occurs as the last natural necessity. But the responsibility will be extremely significant for souls. In fact, the question has already been posed in the book of destiny: among those who will be assigned, as by a natural necessity, the external domain, there will be a large enough number of people who feel the responsibility to let this culminating domain penetrate [... ] the impulses of the spiritual life? And this should not be done too slowly; mid-century is indeed a very important time. One should feel the full weight of this responsibility when, through an external destiny, one is called in some way to make materialism reign in the world, for it will truly be the reign of materialism. Now, this realm of materialism also carries within it the germ of destruction, and the destruction that has begun will not stop. To assume external domination today is to make one's own the forces of destruction, the forces of disease in men, it is to live in them. What is to lead humanity towards the future will proceed from a new spiritual seed which will have to be cultivated. And to this end, the responsibility rests with those upon whom world domination rests" 73 .

Humanity as a whole was therefore in a very difficult moment. But the general public was

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unaware of this difficult moment. The situation was as follows: for spiritual science, the present civilization, the fifth of the seven post-Atlantean civilizations , is called the Anglo-Germanic civilization. It began at the beginning of the fifteenth century and will last until the middle of the next millennium. In many respects, it is the most important of the seven eras, and represents the culmination of post-Atlantic development. It is the period in which the greatest turning point in the development of human consciousness takes place: the end of the Kali Yuga, the dark age, and the beginning of the Age of Light. Two peoples shared the spiritual direction of this fifth period and were responsible for the correct orientation of human progress: the Germans and the British. The task of the British people is to place outer civilization in the service of the conscious soul. The mission of the German people was to raise the inner experience of the "I" to the level of the consciousness soul. The British people are destined to penetrate to the hidden spiritual foundations of outer existence, the German people to penetrate to the inner spiritual core of self-consciousness. These two missions are very important for the future . One is the complement of the other. If one or the other of these goals could not be * That is: those of millions of horse-years.

achieved, then it would be impossible to carry over to the sixth post-Atlantean civilization the faculties and knowledge it will need. All the post-Atlantic development that has yet to take place would be going down the wrong path. A great tragedy had therefore resulted from the war. One of the two peoples destined to lead the fifth post-Atlantean epoch had been put out of action. The other, the British people, had, in addition to their mission, to take back responsibility for what Germany should have done. But could the people, whose job it was to guide science and technology through the illusion of matter to the spiritual forces behind outer phenomena, also reveal Michael's teaching concerning the path of inner development? It was barely conceivable, as Rudolf Steiner well knew. And yet , there was no other option. Using machine power and IBM-Hollerith computers, Germany was rapidly rebuilding its economy and military strength, only to be annihilated again in World War II. But its spiritual core was broken. The Germany that defied the world in 1939 was a nation led not by men representative of the inner aspiration to experience the "To" in the conscious soul, but by masses mesmerized by the "I"less body shell of a human being possessed by the Beast in two comas: Adolf Hitler. Many of the things that were essential to humanity's continued development were swept away by the Great War. Many of the things Rudolf Steiner had talked about before 1914 no longer applied, he said . It didn't help much to continue working as before the war, and R. Steiner didn't try to do it. We can understand the direction of his work after the war only if we

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perceive his response to this decisive change, a change which imposed on the twentieth century, and on the future as a whole, a new situation, full of unpredictable difficulties. The fifth post- Atlantic epoch would no longer be Anglo-Germanic. Whereas before he had mainly addressed the German-speaking peoples of Central Europe, Rudolf Steiner forcibly turned towards the East. What could still be accomplished by the anthroposophical movement was to be accomplished primarily by the English-speaking peoples of the Orient, and the British in particular. Rudolf Steiner underlined this new situation once more in London when he was allowed to travel to Great Britain. He longed for the English anthroposophists to awaken to the spiritual reality thus modified and to be much more active than before. “Dear friends, just consider something I first said to Domach. Given the role that has become theirs after the terrible War, the peoples of the English-speaking world, in particular, have been given a great deal of responsibility : primarily ensure the task of spreading the life of the spirit in the world. This can actually be done if it lets us be strongly taken by the anthroposophical spirit . Society here today is perhaps small [...], but it will still be possible for it to develop greatly because precisely here there is a great aspiration for the spiritual life.Behind all this which on the one hand asserts itself as a terrible decadence, which you will not deny and, perhaps more than one asserts itself, very unconsciously, a longing for the spiritual life. If there were a lot of enthusiasm and a great vitality in the anthroposophical impulse, then it would be possible, precisely here, that anthroposophy, in what it has specifically, progressed quite well" 74 .

The new orientation of Rudolf Steiner's work was visible in his lectures. Whereas he had been to England only once after leaving the Theosophical Society (he gave two lectures in London at the beginning of May 1913), he now made three long stays in the year 1922 alone , or about six weeks in all. The following autumn, he spent a month in England, lecturing at Ilkley, Penmaenmawr and London. The war machines which had faced each other in battle (the millions of "horse-years") and which had annihilated the German people "were not dependent on the generals, but on the scientific discoveries that man had made" . Let us ask ourselves the following question: What would have happened if the greatest scientists of the early 20th century had realized that spiritual science gave them the means to determine what lies behind the phenomena of the physical world? Without it they were reduced to mere speculation, to inventing theories and trying to evaluate their validity. Had they turned towards spiritual science, scientists would certainly have set about developing their latent faculties of cognition of the supersensible. Some would get there, some maybe not. Had this been the case, we can be sure that scientific research would have followed a more realistic path, very different from the one it has actually taken. By penetrating behind the outer veil of physical objects and events, physicists would have seen for themselves that matter is indeed the expression of forces acting upon each other, as if

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they had assumed it. But they would have been able to identify these forces and discover that they act consciously. Instead of the vague notion of some form of universal intelligence governing the behavior of subatomic particles , they would discover a world of autonomous conscious force-entities. These entities-living forces are far from all being equal. Their degrees of consciousness and their powers of action range from the simplest and most limited forms to those of entities which, in terms of development, far surpass our human stage. Many scientists believe that such highly evolved beings may exist. Today , millions of dollars are spent by governments looking for them. But because scientists in general have not taken care to develop their internal organs of spiritual perception, they are forced to look for these beings in the physical world. Not finding them in what lives on the surface of the Earth, they suppose that these beings must inhabit other solar systems or other galaxies. Since the 1960s, astronomers have been trying to identify radio signals from supposedly advanced civilizations. A very large radio telescope, such as the 1,000- foot Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico , is supposed to be powerful enough to receive signals transmitted from a civilization that would be located 1,000 light-years from Earth. At a 1961 "Search of Extraterrestrial Intelligence" (SETI) congress held at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory on Green Bank , west of Vancouver, the American astrophysicist Frank Drake proposed a equation that would calculate the number of advanced civilizations in our galaxy, the Milky Way, taking into account astronomical, biological and psychological factors . According to this formula, known as the "Green Bank equation," the nearest technically advanced civilization would be only a few hundred light-weapons away from Earth, meaning that radio communications would be no longer possible . The US-based "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" is the major project intended to pinpoint the existence of these advanced, supposedly physicist beings. This research program focuses on the reception and analysis of radio signals claimed to be sent by them. And yet, in truth, these beings are not far from our terrestrial existence; they are close to us in the spiritual realms that lie beyond physical time and space. The domains they occupy do not constitute a parallel universe. Put simply: when we employ our physical, bodily senses, we perceive the physical, bodily side of existence . If we learn to use the spiritual senses of our spirit, we contemplate the spiritual side of existence. The separation into two, the physical and the spiritual, is not a property of the world itself. It is the human being who, through his different ways of perception, divides the unique world in two. This separation will be progressively overcome. If conventional science had ventured beyond the limits of space and time into the supersensible realm, it would have found the higher beings it is looking for . But not only that; man would have perceived his own spiritual nature. He would have learned to know the essence of his being, his external spirit, which always returns to incarnate on Earth to continue its evolution towards the higher levels of existence . Among all that would thus be revealed to 185

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humanity's nascent spiritual vision, the powers of good and evil would occupy a central position. This vision should normally have been perceived by a small number of people in the 20th century. This will necessarily come, sooner or later, but the later it is, the more serious the consequences will be. Human beings would normally have seen Sorat and his hosts, just as they would have seen the radiant Archangel Michael and also the Christ. By becoming aware of Sorat's nature, they would have made his task much more difficult for the execution of his plans, even if his powers of persuasion are truly and extraordinarily great. An important fact for our study, many would have been those who would have seen for themselves the harmful effects of alternating electric current and binary electronics on human beings. They would then have sought to steer the development of data-processing technology in more favorable directions. At the very least, some of the perspectives that Rudolf Steiner had revealed, which have been profusely cited in this book, would have been discovered independently by the best researchers in science and technology. The events of the 20th century might have taken a completely different course. The attack of evil would necessarily have taken place, but humanity would have been better prepared to deal with it. In all likelihood, humanity would have found itself in a much stronger position at the start of the 21st century than it is experiencing today. Rudolf Steiner threw all his energy and determination into trying to bring about a development such as we have imagined here. In doing so, he inevitably exposed himself to the most violent attacks of the powers of evil acting in concert on an occult level, since these powers want to prevent at any price the awakening of the super-sensible faculties of knowledge which are dormant in man. It was the crucial problem of the 20th century: Would humanity wake up to the spiritual side of existence?

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CHAPTER VI THE BATTLE FOR THE SUPERSENSE CONSCIOUSNESS

COMPUTERS AND THE SUBCONSCIOUS In the Age of Light, human consciousness extends beyond the limits of perception dependent on the physical senses. This expansion is natural and necessary. If things had gone normally, in the course of the 20th century, large numbers of human beings would have gradually acquired a clairvoyant vision of the spiritual realm located immediately behind the facade of outer life. However, in its initial stage, the nascent activity of the higher senses is fragile. From the beginning, the powers of evil were determined to eliminate it, if not to take possession of it by diverting it towards an artificial world of pseudo-imaginations: the cybernetic world of virtual reality. The first sound recording and reproduction techniques, cinema films, and later television were only preliminary stages towards the creation of a technology applicable everywhere (digital electronics) which would have made possible the elaboration of this world cybernetic. In the years following World War I , computers weren't yet perfect enough to do it, but they were developing at an alarming rate. Rudolf Steiner became aware that, if the spiritual guides of humanity were to prevent the invasion of all spheres of human life by artificial intelligence, their action absolutely had to go far beyond the task of bringing spiritual knowledge to those who seek it. Rudolf Steiner had put aside his mission to carry out the task that the Masters had entrusted to him, namely: to make known to men the content of theosophy in the form of a science of the spirit. During the first years, he had worked in this direction, as regional manager of the Theosophical Society for the German-speaking countries of Europe. He had held public and private relations, counseled personal disciples, set up a school to awaken their latent supersensitive faculties, and wrote the basic books on spiritual science. In this way, therefore, continuous progress had been made.

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Over time, the Theosophical Society itself underwent considerable changes. Under the direction of its new president, Annie Besant, who succeeded the founder, HP Blavatsky, the Society took on a resolutely oriental character and its headquarters were moved from London to Adyar, India. Later, his activities took a very embarrassing turn for Rudolf Steiner. An Indian boy named Alcyone (Jiddu Krishnamurti), discovered by Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, was designated as the reincarnation of Jesus Christ . A new religious order called The Star of the East was created around him. Annie Besant begged Rudolf Steiner to support the order, but he refused, knowing full well that the boy was not the Christ (Krishnamurti himself later declared that the Adyar Theosophists were wrong about him, dissolved the order and distanced himself from its founders). Rudolf Steiner's refusal to lend his name to the Eastern Star aroused violent hostility against him in the Theosophical Society and forced him to resign as head of the Theosophical group for Germany. A considerable part of the German-speaking members also left to follow Rudolf Steiner, and decided to form a new organization which they loved as the Anthroposophical Society. Preferring to remain independent, Rudolf Steiner was not an internal member. Instead, he was active there as a teacher, and was regarded by its members as their unofficial guide in spiritual matters. After the First World War, large numbers of people seeking a spiritual understanding of life turned to the Anthroposophical Society. Many carried within them strong impulses to introduce spirituality into their practical and professional work . Their enthusiasm was sometimes greater than their knowledge of Rudolf Steiner's teaching. From a small and intimate movement, the Anthroposophical Society grew rapidly and soon had over ten thousand members. Institutions were born that were intended to be of an anthroposophical nature, even if some were not very representative of the science of the spirit. Anthroposophy thus made itself known little by little to the general public, sometimes in a way extraneous to its true nature. In particular, many scientists who came out of the conventional chains, who enthusiastically studied anthroposophy, found it difficult to get rid of the theories of atomic physics - a problem that still exists today. Their ideas, often a mixture of quantum theory and spiritual science, were unconvincing, both to a materialist and to a person interested in spirituality. The great institutions of religious and spiritual life, which until then had hardly known the existence of the anthroposophical movement , began to pay attention to the activities of Rudolf Steiner and his collaborators. Critics and naysayers made an appearance, and the situation became increasingly out of control. Disagreements also within the Anthroposophic Society , conflicts and later dissensions and rivalries soon arose. Rudolf Steiner tried, in vain, to put the movement back on track . But, not being a member of the Society, he had no executive power and his scope was too limited to be effective. Since the German people no longer had the mission of bringing Michael's teaching to the world, Rudolf Steiner had turned towards the English-speaking peoples. As a result, as we have already mentioned before, the German members saw him less and less. In Berlin, where

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Anthroposophical work had begun, where the Anthroposophical Society had been created and where its Steering Committee was still based until 1921 (when it was transferred to Stockholm ), the members felt abandoned by Rudolf Steiner, in a time when they needed his advice the most, right after the war. The situation was no better in Munich, where the Mysteries had been represented from 1910 to 1913, and where the project had developed to build a large building with a particular architecture, which was to be the world center of the movement. In 1922, when relations between Germany and Great Britain were generally quite tense and not without hostility, Rudolf Steiner spent six weeks "with the enemy" in England, lecturing there. As for themselves, the Berlin members saw him in all for a little over a week. It was even worse in 1923: Rudolf Steiner spent two short days in Berlin, for example, but he spent a month in England. Had he not openly said that the mission of being the bearer of spiritual science in the world had been withdrawn from the German-speaking peoples, too affected by the clashes between war machines and now excluded from the direction of world affairs? This mission had been transferred to the English-speaking peoples. As can be understood, this new situation was, for anthroposophists in Germany, a bitter disappointment and aroused strong resentment. Daniel Dunlop, the most decisive personality of the anthroposophical movement in Great Britain, with whom Rudolf Steiner maintained one of the friendliest relations, had to undergo public displays of antipathy even in the presence of Rudolf Steiner. Dunlop, himself an initiate, was the only person Rudolf Steiner addressed in public. In the autumn of 1923, Rudolf Steiner was forced to recognize that few people, even among his closest friends, were able to grasp the real meaning of the new situation , or to understand what he was trying to do. Even with the best of intentions, they unwittingly put obstacles in the way of the essential spiritual work that he needed to do. The orientation of the Anthroposophical Society still corresponded to that of a small intimate organization. It was no longer adapted to meet growing public interest and the needs of a new generation of human beings seeking a science of the spirit. Outwardly , this orientation created the unfavorable impression of a secret and sectarian organization, which viewed the newcomers badly. Inwardly , the Society was undermined by discord, jealousy, personal ambition and even, in some circles , by the rejection of Rudolf Steiner's teaching. The spiritual truths that R. Steiner had communicated to the members were increasingly misinterpreted and misused . Things got to the point where Rudolf Steiner felt obliged to encourage the young people born after the Kali Yuga, who came to anthroposophy from the youth movements, to create their own parallel anthroposophical society, to which he gave the name of the Free Anthroposophical Society. . Conditions in the Main Society were too harsh. From the outset, Rudolf Steiner's message was intended for humanity in general , and for Western countries in particular. The Theosophical Society had offered him a framework within which he could begin to talk about spiritual science. It had brought together people interested in the subjects he was dealing with. Later, when he had left the Theosophical Society and when

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the other outgoing members had created a new organization, the Anthroposophical Society, he preferred not to join, as we have already mentioned. He felt the need to work independently of any external institution. Of course , he could speak more intimately to the members of the Anthroposophical Society than to the general public, but the mission he had received from the Masters was to bring spiritual truths to all humanity, and not just to the members of one society. The powers of evil were bent on taking control of all human life on earth; R. Steiner realized that the battle between Michael's disciples and Sorat's hosts would eventually be fought on the world stage. He saw that humanity must either awaken to spiritual existence or be trapped in a virtual world ruled by the Beast with two comas. He directed all his efforts accordingly. Now that conditions within the Anthroposophical Society made his mission impossible, Rudolf Steiner was faced with a dilemma. As he himself said, the Society had lost its internal cohesion and was practically in ruins. It was evident that something had to be done. Only a top-to-bottom reorganization could rebuild it. Most of the members were of this opinion. It was agreed that the best practical solution would be to establish national societies in the countries where anthroposophy was cultivated, and to create a body of leadership which would unite and guide them internationally. While most of the members lived in Germany, this leadership could not however be in this country after the war. Theoretically, it should have been in England, as the English-speaking world was now responsible for bringing Michael's teaching to humanity. But that would have required a major change in people's attitudes and would have created countless practical difficulties. In any case, such a proposal would surely have been rejected by the very majority German-speaking members. The management therefore had to be located in a neutral country; Switzerland was the designated location. A reorganization carried out on this basis would probably have solved the most pressing problems of the Society, but not the difficulties that beset Rudolf Steiner himself. As regards the fulfillment of the mission he had received from the Masters, namely the dissemination of a science of the spirit, Rudolf Steiner had to address the widest possible public. But to fight the demons of Sorat, the course of action that the seemed necessary was to cut all ties with the Society and set about doing esoteric work within a small circle composed of his closest and most advanced disciples and friends, a circle which would take the form of a closed fraternity. This would have enabled him to establish the best conditions for progress, and would have given him the possibility of intensifying his work so that chosen disciples would be led rapidly to higher levels of consciousness, levels at which they could receive the 'initiation. It would not have been easy for the demons of Sorat to penetrate such a closed esoteric circle. If the work had succeeded, a group of initiates would have appeared, initiates who would have been able to act fully aware of the Archangel Michael's battle against the powers of evil. But this line of conduct would have had the consequence of breaking the external ties with the other disciples of Rudolf Steiner and abandoning the Anthroposophical Society to its fate.

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Retiring from the Anthroposophical Society and forming a secret closed brotherhood would have greatly facilitated Rudolf Steiner's spiritual activity, but this would have left the Society and the general public who followed him at the mercy of Sorat's cohorts. Few, if any, human beings understood as well as Rudolf Steiner the dangers approaching humanity and how these dangers were about to manifest themselves through technology . True, the war had revealed to the whole world that machines did not simply determine the industrial strength of a nation, but that, henceforth, they would be the deciding factor of military power. The direction of the world would be based on technology; it was already evident. But no one yet imagined that the future of thought itself would depend on the behavior towards the new artificial intelligence in its binary form, which, continuing to develop, would lead to the suppression of human thought on a global scale starting around the year 2200 . After the war, the development of this artificial intelligence entered a new phase. Basile Boachon's punch card readers had been purely mechanical. By observing them , one could understand how they worked. Herman Hollerith, for his part, had used electricity circulating in metal wires. Now, electricity is intangible and invisible; it was not possible to see how it worked. Nonetheless, one could see the layout of the wires and observe the paths that the electricity had to follow. In addition, the electrical impulses actuated mechanical operations: the movement of the meter needles, the opening of the compartment lids of the selection box, and so on. The functioning of these electromechanical machines had not yet escaped human understanding. But now, something new had been introduced into machines that assimilated intelligence . The moving electromechanical parts were replaced by vacuum tubes: valves. We will examine the nature of these valves later. For the moment, let us content ourselves with noting that, in valves, electricity is no longer conducted by visible wires made of metal, or some other material element . In these flasks, the essential action of electricity takes place in a vacuum. It occurs as it were outside the world of matter. This meant that the functioning of a machine could no longer be observed. The operations took place in an area inaccessible to a normal human consciousness. The following consideration will illustrate one of the long-term consequences of this evolution. Nowadays, a person buys a computer perhaps with the intention of using it to send and receive e-mails, surf the net, shop online, etc. This person thinks he is the only user of his micro-computer. She may notice that at certain times, when she pauses to reflect (or to have a coffee), the computer does not remain idle. You hear internal operation noises, for example the hard drive is exchanging data or other similar operations. It assumes that the machine is "doing some internal work", or that it is verifying that all its components are working correctly . Because perhaps a computer is always doing a staggering number of internal operations that never appear on the screen. It is designed to work this way. After all, the user has no desire to know all the internal procedures that are performed between, say, the moment we click the mouse and the appearance of a new image on the screen in response to our click.

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But sometimes, the noises you hear during a break come from someone else using the computer. Without our knowledge, and without our permission, someone else is accessing the hard drive and writing secret information to it, or reading our personal data and transferring it to their own folders. Worse, it could be something more sinister: a criminal organization that uses your computer to send illicit emails without anything appearing on your screen. The computer owner ignores these messages altogether, and cannot even find a trace of them in the computer's memory. A part of the computer has been hacked without his knowledge and has been incorporated into a vast illegal network. At the time of writing this book (2009), it is estimated that globally, one in four computers have been hacked in this way and are linked to what is called a botnet. a robot network. The botnets they are used for harassment, fraud, theft, etc., but also for crimes of a more vicious nature, for terrorist activities and other similar things. To use an analogy: it is as if the computer had a "conscious spirit" (the part that is accessible to its rightful owner), and deeper "subconscious" levels of which the owner knows nothing. Clandestine organizations control and use these subconscious levels, as base instincts influence the human subconscious and push us to actions that our conscious spirit repels. Rogue organizations that steal parts of personal computers and private networks have the option of using them for another purpose: the display of subliminal messages on the screen. Subliminal messages flash overlay in such a rapid flash that the user does not consciously see them, but are recorded in their subconscious, which is affected by them. This technique is well known in the film and television industries, and is illegal in most countries. Unfortunately, its use on the Internet cannot be controlled. This opens the door to suggestion and prodding of all sorts through manipulation of the subconscious on a massive scale. One of the most widely circulated messages about subliminal manipulation is "Kill yourself!" [Kill yourself!]. Even if most people do not react by killing themselves, this reinforces the wish to die that they carry, the wish to do away with humanity, the wish on the subject of which we mentioned Rudolf Steiner in the previous chapter. All this sinister development was possible because , in the years following the First World War, researchers in electronics discovered how to use vacuum tubes (valves) for processing binary data. artificial intelligence could play starting from that moment. The direction in which Sorat was trying to steer tube technology (and what was to follow, transistor technology) was obvious to someone as educated and clearheaded as he was. It was also evident that the dangers it brought to humanity as a whole could only be prevented if enough human beings learned how to consciously penetrate into their subconsciousnesses, how to take control of them. Such self-knowledge was a decisive factor. Now, such self-knowledge is acquired during the first stages of a true path of spiritual development. It was what humanity then urgently needed. The problem was that such spiritual training was not accessible to the public. Rudolf Steiner had communicated in his basic books the general principles of the spiritual discipline in question. He had explained them in his work "How to acquire knowledge about the superior worlds", specifying that:

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"The communications that will follow are the elements of a spiritual discipline whose name and nature will appear clearly to all those who know how to apply them properly. They relate to the three degrees that the school makes one reach by the spiritual path in order to lead to a certain degree of initiation. But here one will naturally find only what can be exposed to the public . These are indications that are extracted from a much deeper inner teaching. Occult training itself leads from a very precise training. Some exercises have as the aim of bringing the soul of the student consciously into contact with the spiritual world.These exercises relate to the content of this book in much the same way as the teaching of a high school, whose regulations are strict, relates to the elementary knowledge given occasionally in a preparatory school" 75 .

Such a "much deeper inner teaching" could only be given to properly trained disciples in a secret esoteric school. From the outset, these closed Mystery schools were hidden from public view, in accordance with strict rules set by the spiritual beings themselves. RUDOLF STEINER'S DILEMMA: UNIVERSAL SOCIETY OR CLOSED BROTHERHOOD At that moment, Rudolf Steiner felt that his realistic chance of helping humanity thwart Sorat's plans was to cut ties with the Anthroposophical Society and retire with the small circle of his more advanced pupils, to work with them in a Mystery wisdom school. And yet, it was an excruciating option. The idea of having to abandon all his other disciples afflicted him deeply. The head of the Anthroposophical movement in Holland, FW Zeylmans van Emmichoven, gave the following account of a meeting Rudolf Steiner had with the committee of the new Dutch branch of the Anthroposophical Society on the eve of its founding: "During the meeting we had with him on November 17 , 1923, the day before the founding of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society, it was clear that the concerns relating to the new form of management of the Anthroposophical Society weighed heavily on Rudolf Steiner. He made it clear to us aware of his doubts, and wondered if it was still possible for him to continue to collaborate in one way or another and maintain ties with the Society. He complained that no one seemed to understand what he was doing, and that perhaps he would have been necessary to continue his work with a small number of people within a very united and closed community. His words made a painful, almost unbearable impression on those of us who were present at that meeting" 76 .

Marie Steiner-von Sivers, Rudolf Steiner's wife and dearest and closest friend, begged him not to abandon the Anthroposophical Society, which would have lost itself in its orientations 77 . Sure, there was perhaps an alternative, but an alternative that was barely imaginable. It implied doing what had never been done before in the spiritual direction of humanity : revealing the Mysteries to the public. This alternative would have required the concerted action of a united, determined and strong organization, whose members should have mastered spiritual science. These members should have wanted to put all their strength in a selfless way to perform an unprecedented spiritual act. No such organization existed, although the Anthroposophical Society would have, at least in theory, the potential to become one. To get there, it would have had to undergo a profound metamorphosis. 195

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Until then, Rudolf Steiner had remained independent of the Society. If he conceived the idea of following the alternative course of action indicated here, he would have to join the Society, take full direction of it, and refound it in a new mold. It was supposed to become a very effective structure of human beings devoid of any ambition or self-interest, a restructured organization acting entirely in the service of the Archangel Michael. Rudolf Steiner should have been able to direct all aspects of his business if necessary, as any action he took would involve enormous risk. The Society should have broken with occult tradition and made public the work of the Mystery schools which, from the earliest times , had been hidden and protected under a veil of secrecy. Yes, Rudolf Steiner should have transformed the Mystery School entrusted to him since 1904 (a Rosicrucian Masonic Mystery school) into a public institution open to all. Such an undertaking would have brought him the worst possible troubles and would have found himself in conflict with esoteric circles and occultists throughout the world. They would have accused him of betraying the Mysteries and his adversaries would certainly have tried to prevent it. And yet, if this risky enterprise had succeeded, a chance would have been offered to thousands, indeed even tens of thousands of human beings to follow the path of self-knowledge. The Anthroposophical Society would establish in the light of day A University of spiritual science that would offer training and esoteric advice to follow the path of self-knowledge under the aegis of the Archangel Michael. The sacred words that once figured at the entrance to the Mystery Times, O man, know thyself, would welcome students without distinction of status or origin into a new school of initiation open to all. If such an audacious initiative as this would find favor with the spiritual beings who inspire the Mysteries, and if the University could train the pupils in the acquisition of self-knowledge, then Sorat's machinations would be dealt a mighty blow. But there was a fundamental question to which no one knew ( could n't know) the answer: would the disclosure of the content of the Mysteries be accepted by the divine beings who inspire them? There is a big difference between writing and speaking of spiritual wisdom, as Rudolf Steiner had done up to now, and revealing the sacred rites of the Mysteries themselves. Such a feat would have been for Rudolf Steiner, for he risked losing his sources of knowledge in the higher worlds if the sublime beings behind the Mysteries had not responded favorably to his initiative. And that wasn't all: the project would have forced him to combine his solemn commitment to serve these divine beings with an earthly commitment to assume the official duties of president of a public organization subject to the laws of the country of his headquarters: Switzerland . The universal Anthroposophical Society would have been a Swiss association founded and governed according to articles 60 and following of the Swiss civil code ††††. Through these articles of law, the supreme power of an association is vested in the General Assembly which ††††As is actually the case.

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includes all the members. The spiritual world does not have the final say on this: it is a mandatory provision of the law. Any verbal or written principle , any statute or decision of the members of an association which claims to invest supreme power in an organ or entity other than the General Assembly, is automatically annulled and invalid by the civil code. It is the General Assembly - not the president of the Steering Committee, nor an Archangel - which gives the directives for the work of a Swiss association, which elects the steering committee by vote and which defines the activities of the association. Swiss law does not allow any derogation from these rules. Then, how would it be conceivable that an institution of this kind, which functions as a moral person subject to laws that do not recognize spiritual beings, could act as an earthly executive organ of the will of the great Archangel? Would Rudolf Steiner have been allowed to act as a link between two such contradictory spheres of existence? If the answer from the spirit world was negative, then he would have lost everything, and the mission that the Masters had given him would have failed. Rudolf Steiner struggled internally with this dilemma, an unprecedented dilemma. He was totally alone. Beings in the spirit world do not answer hypothetical questions such as, "If I did this, what would your reaction be?" Assumptions make no sense to them. They respond to acts. Rudolf Steiner knew that he had to act in one direction or the other on his own initiative, and accept the consequences. He remained undecided until the final days before the Christmas Congress, in the course of which the Universal Anthroposophical Society was to be created as a Swiss association registered with the chamber of commerce, an association which would unite and guide the national anthroposophical societies of the whole world. The two options we have described were possible, and Lima is the antithesis of the other. He had to choose between an esoteric work concentrated in a closed brotherhood (which would have allowed him to lead some of his more advanced disciples to initiation) or to stake everything on the new Society and the unveiling of the Mysteries. The first course of action was safer, but would it be enough to foil Sorat's plans? Would the abandonment of the majority of his disciples and of the Society have been moral? The second line could have led to victory, but it was fraught with dangers. Even if the spirit world welcomed his act, it would depend on the absolute loyalty and solidarity of the members of the new Society, and their zeal to courageously follow his example. Furthermore, upon assuming the presidency, he would be forced to accept the outside charge of leading a world corporation, with all its frustrating, tiring, time-consuming tasks and with all the responsibilities that would fall upon him. While those around him were mainly concerned with the fate of the Society , Rudolf Steiner saw things on another level. He was aware that the success or failure of the mission he had received from the Masters would be a determining factor in the history of the 20th century and beyond. He had to choose in the interests of humanity. This, and only this, would determine his decision. The spiritual world kept silent; the choice was in his hands. With grave apprehension, but extremely strong determination, he finally chose to commit himself to the members of the Society. He would have broken with the sacred tradition of the Mysteries by revealing them to the public. It was a decision that would strongly influence the events of the 20th century.

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Addressing the delegates of the national societies the evening before the opening of the Christmas Congress, Rudolf Steiner informed them that he was willing to take over the leadership of the universal Anthroposophical Society. He formulated his conditions absolutely clearly: either the founding assembly allowed him to be president of the Society with absolute authority or he would retire. Furthermore, he demands that the assembly accept without reserve and without discussion his choice of the new Steering Committee. The following morning, Rudolf Steiner told the assembly in his opening address on December 24 , 1923: "Today's situation has led me in recent weeks, after a hard inner struggle, to clearly see the following: it would have been impossible for me to continue to lead the anthroposophical movement within the Anthroposophical Society if this Christmas Congress on gave his agreement to the fact that I expressly take the direction or even the presidency of the Anthroposophical Society which is to be founded here at the Goefheanum" 78 .

The Anthroposophical Society could place itself at Michael's service only if, at each general meeting , the majority of the members present agreed, tacitly or otherwise, to re-elect Rudolf Steiner as chairman of the Steering Committee and to officially adopt each of his propositions for the work of the company. Rudolf Steiner knew those were the conditions. It is for this reason that he categorically told the members that he would not work with the Society unless they elected him president and agreed to implement his propositions . The situation was only feasible on the basis of absolute trust between the members of the Society and Rudolf Steiner. Some have asked retrospectively: Did he make the good or the bad choice? The question makes no sense; neither option was good or bad. He made his choice, and his decision had consequences far beyond the framework of the Anthroposophic Society . We rightly and clearly look at what was at stake.

THE SCHOOL OF LIFE Since time immemorial, humanity has evolved to higher levels of existence. We could picture this evolution by taking the analogy of a large group of people traveling on foot in a mountainous region that does not appear on any map. Inevitably, some advance faster than the main group, and others fail to follow and fall behind. Now, if the party were to go very far and the journey be a long time, then the distance between the fastest of the leading men in the main party would be very great. In the course of the group's ascension into higher and higher regions, these lead men would attain levels far in excess of the body of the group. An identical situation, albeit of a different kind, occurs in education. As a generation of children travels through education, from primary school to college and beyond, there are always some pupils who learn faster than their peers. The most gifted among them quickly 198

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distance themselves from other children their age. Some pupils, with an exceptional aptitude for learning, will perhaps approach or surpass the pupils of the upper grades. It also happens from time to time that in the university talented students acquire a greater understanding of the subjects of their professors and their teachers. Thus, in the space of about fifteen years, the fastest learners progress far beyond the average level of their contemporaries. Life itself is a school. If we bear in mind that man always returns to Earth to fulfill his destiny, then it will be evident to us that, on the path of mankind's education, those who learn the fastest will far outnumber the great mass of humanity. There will then come a time when they will commit themselves to higher levels of knowledge, as yet unknown to humanity at large. These higher stages of knowledge pertain to levels of existence that lie beyond the realms of outer nature that is perceptible to the bodily senses. The acquisition of knowledge of these higher realms is traditionally called "initiation". There is nothing inherently elitist or mysterious about these higher degrees of knowledge; all humanity will eventually get there, following its normal path of evolution. The initiate is a pioneer, a person who travels faster and who reaches those higher levels of knowledge before the others . He is then able to turn to his fellow men to help them and to act as their guide. These rare human beings, known as the Great Initiates, or Masters, have advanced far beyond the average level of humanity at large. But they are no different in their nature from their human brothers and sisters. They have simply developed before them the faculties and abilities which, in the distant future, will be the preserve of all normally developed human beings. The human spirit that we have encountered in Aristotle, and later, in our time, in Rudolf Steiner, is among those who have reached the higher degrees of knowledge of which we have just spoken. He too has turned to lead his fellows. The Masters recognized in him the faculties required to undertake the urgent task of introducing Michael's teaching into Western culture at this turning point when humanity moved from the dark age of the Kali Yuga to the Age of Light . There are many who, having encountered spiritual science, regarded Rudolf Steiner as an instructor and sought to become his personal disciples, disciples in the sense of students who, using their faculty of judgment , were entirely free to accept or reject what he taught them. Among Rudolf Steiner's personal disciples, some under his guidance progressed rapidly , acquiring the first degrees of spiritual perception (Marie von Sivers was regarded by all as Rudolf Steiner's most advanced disciple - a fact which was undisputed, even by those who, later, became his opponents). These pupils thus progressed beyond the general level of human consciousness. However , none of them approached the exceptionally high degree of advancement that Rudolf Steiner had himself achieved. None of them could have been chosen by the Masters to carry out the capital mission that Rudolf Steiner had accepted . The Masters foresaw that spiritual science gives human beings self-knowledge: the

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understanding of their higher nature and the perception of their subconscious. This would prevent the Two Horned Beast from having total influence over them. Consequently , if Rudolf Steiner's attempt to unite the spiritual conduct of the Michael movement with the temporal direction of a world organization fails, the whole of Western humanity would suffer the consequences. The responsibility rested only on his shoulders; it was the reason for her "hard inner struggle" which lasted for several weeks before making a decision. The decision was not primarily a matter for anthroposophists; it was a decision for the world. The question was: Could Rudolf Steiner continue to lead the Michael movement correctly within the framework of the universal Anthroposophical Society? Would he have dared to reveal the Mysteries without knowing the reaction of the spiritual world ? Would the members of the Society see the importance of the situation and give him their wholehearted support? In fact, by throwing a spanner in the works and preventing him from acting, Sorat would quickly achieve his victory. The future of humanity would then have been even more threatened than before. It was in the third week of December 1923, just a few days before the Christmas Congress, that Rudolf Steiner confided his decision separately to his two closest collaborators, Marie Steiner and Edith Maryon ‡‡‡‡. He asked them to join him as members of the Steering Committee of the new Society 79 . He needed Marie Steiner to be his vice president and successor. But she declined the request, citing poor health, and proposed to appoint a younger person, the highly regarded Swiss anthroposophist, Albert Steffen. A. Steffen was a talented author, poet and playwright who possessed a subtle understanding of spiritual matters. He and Marie Steiner had a lot in common; both approached life with great sensitivity, through art. Rudolf Steiner remained inflexible: the Michaelic spiritual powers considered Marie Steiner and Marie Steiner only - as his replacement and future successor. Marie Steiner later said about it: "Rudolf Steiner insisted that I take over the direction with him, but with my failing health I did not feel fit to take on the responsibility of the Society more than that of the artistic work. At that moment, I did not foresee the tragic events at all of which he was about to fall victim, and I was convinced that he would live for many more years [...] I really didn't really understand what he often said to me, and wrote to me afterwards: that his strengths of physical resistance were been weakened by the terrible event of New Year's Eve [the destruction of the first Goetheanum due to a fire] and which was no longer able to bear and overcome everything as it once was. And so the three of us, Rudolf Steiner, Herr Steffen and I, had an important meeting. It was just before the Christmas Congress, possibly on December 19 , as Herr Steffen wrote . I don't remember exactly. It was a deep destiny that united us. Only a few were aware of this meeting; but Arenson and Unger knew about it. At this meeting, the Doctor told us that he would take over the direction of the Society in accordance with the will of the spirit world, and that I had been designated by the spirit world as his vice president and successor. I already knew this, but nevertheless I did not renew my

‡‡‡‡An English woman sculptor who had become his esoteric disciple ten years earlier and who worked with him on the magnificent and impressive wooden sculpture group representing Christ, the Representative of humanity, between the powers of evil, Lucifer and Ahriman.

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appeal to him to nominate a younger person, as I wished to devote the years that remained to me to the task which was destined for me, anthroposophical art. I have often imagined that I would die before Dr. Steiner. She was so well, she was so strong, while I was always sickly. Dr. Steiner did not accept my refusal. It was only when I raised the objection that, in the eyes of the outside world, it was not possible for an international society such as the Anthroposophical Society to have a husband and wife team as president and vice president, that he agreed my second proposal to appoint Herr Steffen as vice president and successor. But he insisted that the will of the spirit world had to be respected, and that Herr Steffen could only assume this position with me. Herr Steffen then made a solemn promise to Rudolf Steiner that, in accordance with his karma, he would be my knight and protector until the end of his life" 80 .

The attentive reader might note here that it seems to be a contradiction of Rudolf Steiner's oft-repeated statement that he could not have known what the reaction of the spirit world would be to his decision to take over the leadership of the new Society. The words of Marie Steiner that we have just quoted seem to say the opposite. But in reality, there is no confusion: Rudolf Steiner was talking about the spiritual world in general. However, among the supersensitive beings, there was one who was in solidarity with Rudolf Steiner in his way of proceeding. This being is the great Archangel Michael. Marie Steiner's words relating to the vice presidency relate to Michele's needs. The meeting mentioned by Marie Steiner must have taken place a few days earlier on December 19 , because Albert Steffen noted in his diary, dated December 16 , that at a meeting at which he was present, but not Marie Steiner, Rudolf Steiner informed the group (A. Steffen, Ita Wegman and Guenther Wachsmuth) which would have assumed the chairmanship if the members had agreed on his terms , and if the Committee had been constituted as follows: "Himself: President; Dr. M. Steiner and I: Vice-President; Ita Wegman: Secretary; Wachsmuth: Cashier (Wachsmuth preferred the title "Treasurer", to which Rudolf Steiner laughedly replied that a grandiloquent title would not make it most important)" 81 .

This entry in his notebook confirms that A. Steffen knew he was going to be Vice-President together with Marie Steiner and that he agreed. As for Marie Steiner herself - so convinced that Rudolf Steiner would outlive her - she did not seem to have maturely reflected on what might have happened in the new Society if Rudolf Steiner had died before her. The very idea of surviving him was untenable to her. And so she refused to be the official vice president and successor of Rudolf Steiner. His refusal would have serious consequences. Albert Steffen was a sensitive man by nature, highly gifted in esotericism and certain of the importance of the anthroposophical impulse for the world. However, he was not the person designated by the beings guiding Michael's movement, he was not the person these beings were willing to work through after Rudolf Steiner's death. As for the other close disciple of Rudolf Steiner, Edith Maryon: she was bedridden and seriously ill. She declined the request to join Rudolf Steiner on the executive committee due to 201

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her serious state of health. One can only assume that she too gave her answer without maturely reflecting on the reason for Rudolf Steiner's request. In fact, he knew she was dying and yet , he asked her to join him on the Steering Committee. Why did he do this? Thus the first two measures that Rudolf Steiner had wanted to take in order to ensure that the Anthroposophical Society would have the proper spiritual direction met with a rejection. It was not a promising departure and other unfortunate events followed one another in the following days. Consequently, in our study of the events following his capital decision to run the Society, we must bear in mind the fact that the composition of the Management Committee was not what he had intended. But in spite of everything, Rudolf Steiner, totally "engagé", gave the foundation of the new universal Anthroposophical Society the quality of a grandiose spiritual act .

THE FIGHT HAS BEGUN All in all, the people who had gathered in Domach on December 24 , 1923 for the founding congress were the leaders and members of the Anthroposophical Society which had gone bankrupt and had been dissolved earlier in the year. This society was to be replaced by the new universal Anthroposophical Society. Rudolf Steiner announced his conditions to the assembly: either the members agreed that he should assume the presidency with all powers, or he would retire. The assembly gave its consent. Rudolf Steiner immediately took control of the further development of the meeting. Radical measures were taken: the ten members of the previous steering committee were set aside, as were the committees of the other executive bodies. Not a single one of those important members was included in the new committee appointed ex cathedra by Rudolf Steiner. Most of those former executives took their ouster from the new management well. The reception given to the members of the new Steering Committee varied: the appointments of Albert Steffen as official vice-president, and of Marie Steiner, were received with enthusiasm. Ita Wegman was also a well-known figure, respected in many circles, and her appointment was warmly approved. That of Elisabeth Vreede elicited a more subdued reaction, while the appointment of the young Guenther Wachsmuth was unpopular. However, no formal objection was made, as the assembly had given Rudolf Steiner carte blanche. Most of those present chose to put all their trust in his judgment. Most people saw in the Congress an extreme operation to revive the Society dismembered by the conflicts, so that it could still have its role in the spiritualization of Western culture 82 . Indeed, Rudolf Steiner's decision to open the Mysteries brought the Society out of its ruins and took it to a new, higher level. What had been a private organization was transformed into a worldwide institution that was essentially an open university for the dissemination of Archangel Michael's teaching. Rudolf Steiner informed the assembly that the university program was to be announced publicly. The theme of the main course proposed to the students

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would be the acquisition of self-knowledge: it would actually be a training for inner development in three stages. Application for admission to the entry level lessons of this course (the first class) could be made by any serious person who had been a member of the Society for at least two years. All the cycles of lectures which had hitherto been reserved for members of the Society would now be offered for sale to the general public. Rudolf Steiner clearly mentioned that what had previously only been taught within closed esoteric schools was now to be proposed as the core discipline of a publicly administered university. It was a radical change of orientation in relation to the previous character of the Anthroposophical Society. The nine days of the Christmas Congress essentially consisted of taking the official steps to establish and organize the new Society as a legal entity, formulating the articles of association with its purposes, its rules and its financial resources. All of this had to be delivered in a written declaration, acceptable to be entered in the Swiss Commercial Register. In addition to these official sessions, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of speeches on the aims and spiritual aspects linked to this event, which he also expressed in the form of a magnificent, very profound meditation for the members of the new Society: the "Meditation of Foundation Stone". This meditation contains, in condensed form, the essence of everything Rudolf Steiner had taught up to that point , both publicly and in the Rosicrucian Masonic school which he had headed before the war. It was given in a sevenfold form as the key to the Mysteries which were now to be opened to the public. Everything took place in a positive environment until the last day, not without some disagreements and some opposition. The announcement of the composition of the new Steering Committee caused general surprise and some disappointment. Many expected Rudolf Steiner to make his disciples the most advanced in esoteric work. Of the people actually named, only Marie Steiner fell into this category. Even more disturbing to many older members was the proposal to "open the Mysteries". It is not easy for us today to understand the feelings of these older members who had been pupils of the Esoteric School led by Rudolf Steiner from 1904 until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. They had experienced something which later generations could scarcely imagine. It had been a true Mystery School, in which sacred rituals were practiced, awakening spiritual vision in those authorized to attend. Everything concerning the School had to be surrounded by the greatest secret, we didn't even call each other by name. The pupils were chosen by Rudolf Steiner and admitted by personal invitation. The other members of the Society had no access to it and knew nothing of what was happening inside. The teaching given in the Esoteric School was reserved for his pupils; to divulge anything to anyone on the outside would be a gross betrayal. The teaching was imparted not only by Rudolf Steiner but also by the Masters themselves, whose spiritual presence was perceptible by the students. Inside the School everything was done with reverence and simplicity, in a transparent way for everyone. Rudolf Steiner gave the esoteric work the same clarity and precision that

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characterize his philosophy in "The Philosophy of Freedom" for example. The vague mysticism and hazy visions repelled him. The state of mind required in true esoteric work is a consciousness which is far more alert than normal waking consciousness. An atmosphere of great veneration accompanied the sacred rites and the transmission of the wisdom of the Mysteries. What the students lived there, in the School, became the most sacred treasure of their life. In the postwar years, many were filled with a burning desire to resume their education and pleaded with Rudolf Steiner to reopen the Esoteric School. Just before the Christmas Congress, there were rumors that Rudolf Steiner had the intention of opening this school again. Among those who had been his pupils before the war, there was a hopeful atmosphere. To their consternation, however, they then heard Rudolf Steiner announce that the Sacred Mysteries were to be disclosed, that the Esoteric School was to be changed into an institution open to the public. Even more misleading, all this had to be done without the cooperation of the Masters and without the prior consent of the spiritual world. Rudolf Steiner told them it was a bold bet, a dangerous initiative that he had taken on his own. He himself had grappled inwardly for weeks with the question of whether an undertaking like this was morally and spiritually justifiable. It was only "at the end of a hard inner struggle" that he had come to make up his mind. The members had not shared this inner struggle . They were not prepared for his proposals. For many who had attended the Esoteric School, the idea came as a shock. Despite their veneration for Rudolf Steiner, there were many who had to listen , with a heavy heart, with the feeling that what he was proposing was like a desecration. Yes, it was as Rudolf Steiner said: a bold bet. It was a bet that cost him his life. At the end of the Congress, the members of the new Society gathered in the large carpentry workshop (the Schreinerei) for festive farewells before returning to their countries. During this demonstration, Rudolf Steiner was poisoned. It is solely thanks to the strength of his physical constitution and the exceptional power of his mind that he did not die instantly. But his physical organism was fatally affected. It was a terrible misfortune, an almost unbelievable tragedy. With the force of his will alone, Rudolf Steiner continued his work for almost nine more months before collapsing, nine months during which he set up the departments of the University (the sections of the Higher School of Spiritual Sciences), ensured the coordination of the activities of the national societies, unveiled the Mysteries and elaborated the entire program of study and practical training which was to be the main discipline of the university under the aegis of the Archangel Michael. During those extraordinary nine months, he gave more than three hundred lectures in Switzerland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Holland, France and England, as well as a great many public and private speeches, question-sessions, and perhaps more than a thousand of private consultations . For a long time, the attack on Rudolf Steiner was kept secret as he requested. And it was only very progressively that some details began to leak out of the eyewitness accounts, and confirmation from Marie Steiner that she was present when it happened. Everything confirmed that Rudolf Steiner had been poisoned. Speculation was going well as to the identity of the man

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who had wanted to take Rudolf Steiner's life. In 1934, a member of an American fraternity confided to a close disciple of Rudolf Steiner, that his fraternity had been behind the attack 83 . They had wanted to reduce Rudolf Steiner to silence to prevent him from revealing some esoteric knowledge. Whether or not this statement was accurate, the fraternity in question was undoubtedly one of the many secret organizations around the world eager to prevent Rudolf Steiner from unraveling the Mysteries. Many published reports of Rudolf Steiner's poisoning overlook the obvious fact that it is more likely that the hand which put the poison into Rudolf Steiner's cup was the hand of a member of the new Anthroposophical Society. During the assassination attempt, the first action Rudolf Steiner took as soon as he was able to speak was to ask if the other members of the Steering Committee had been spared. Reassured on this point, he agreed to be taken discreetly to Villa Hansi, where he and Marie Steiner lived. There, Ita Wegman gave him a medicine against poisoning. He demanded that the whole matter not be disclosed. Apart from the people directly involved, the members of the Society realized nothing. They returned to their countries full of enthusiasm, or full of apprehension, for all that still remained to be done. It remained to be seen how Rudolf Steiner's proposals would be judged by the beings of the higher world whose inspirations and instructions were essential. It also remained to be seen whether the humans on earth who had teamed up with Rudolf Steiner to found the new Anthroposophical Society would rise to the challenge of working selflessly together in the spirit of the new enterprise. Rudolf Steiner had indeed raised the bar very high, as he himself said on several occasions in the months that followed. Until then, Rudolf Steiner had been the human guide of the Michael movement on earth, that is: the movement that had the mission of bringing the teaching given in the Michael School in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries into the cultural life of the earth 84 . Only an initiate who could hold fast to his mind, in full consciousness, before the Archangel Michael, could lead his movement on Earth. Only such an initiate could receive guidance from Michael for his work in the outer world. How could this be combined with the presidency of an official, external institution, such as the Universal Anthroposophical Society? What would have been the relation of this external institution to Michael's spiritual movement on earth (the anthroposophical movement) after the Christmas Congress? It has sometimes been imagined that Michael's movement had merged with the terrestrial institution as such, that is, with the universal Anthroposophical Society. No one gives Rudolf Steiner's remarks this naïve interpretation. This was not the case, of course. Rudolf Steiner expressed himself very clearly on this point. He stated that, solely because he had assumed the presidency of the universal Anthroposophic Society himself , Michael's movement on earth (i.e. the Anthroposophic movement ) had joined the Society through him 85 . The words (quoted above) that he addressed to the members of his opening lecture at the Christmas Congress were explicit. If he were not elected president with full powers, he said, "it would be impossible for

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me to continue to lead the anthroposophical movement within the Anthroposophical Society." Whenever Rudolf Steiner spoke of the union of the movement and the Society at the Christmas Congress, the words "through me" were either spoken or implied. We need only reflect for a moment to realize that it could not have been otherwise The intimate link between movement and Society depended on Rudolf Steiner directing them both. It is Rudolf Steiner who is the human bearer of Michael's impulse to our age. This impulse works through the anthroposophical movement of which he is the guide. The Society was created as an external vehicle for the anthroposophical movement. If Rudolf Steiner were to find himself separated from the Society for one reason or another, it is he who would remain the leader of the anthroposophical movement. It follows that if the Society were to lose its link with Rudolf Steiner, it would also lose its link with the spiritual direction of the anthroposophical movement. Society and movement would no longer be united, they would follow different paths. This reflection generates a fundamental question: what would then be the situation after the death of Rudolf Steiner? He would remain the human guide of the anthroposophical movement, of course. But would it still be able to exercise the direction of the universal Anthroposophical Society , in such a way as to be able to continue to direct the movement within it? Here it is absolutely not a question of cutting the hair in four; it is a question whose scope exceeds the fate of the Anthroposophical Society alone. It concerns Western humanity of the twentieth century and beyond, as we shall soon see. And then we will find out the answer. Rudolf Steiner won and lost the bet he made at the Christmas Congress. He succeeded spiritually : his sacrificial act was accepted and adopted by the beings of the supersensible world who had hitherto guided his work. Their help and inspiration poured more abundantly than ever into Michael's movement within the Society. On a human level, the majority of his friends and collaborators, aware of the breadth of the task they had shouldered, strove to respond in the same way. The outpouring of goodwill, of willingness to sacrifice one's self-interest, of sympathy in response to one's act, was truly admirable. But Rudolf Steiner had been forced to aim very high, perhaps too high for most members of the new Anthroposophical Society, who could no longer follow him. After all these people had been members of the old Society with its rivalries, its dissensions and its conflicts. Furthermore, the Society was now the target of violent attacks by hosts of demons of the Two-Comatose Beast. Even before the closing of the Christmas Congress, Rudolf Steiner confided to his closest collaborators that on a human level, the impulse he had given to the Society was doomed to failure 86 . There was no way back: it was held publicly, morally and spiritually. Whatever happened, he had no choice but to continue what he had begun. Complications arose everywhere. The legal status of the Society was unclear; the authorities rejected the articles of association that had been debated and voted on by the assembly at the Christmas Congress. The human weaknesses of the members were exploited by adverse powers, cutting off progress in the

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various fields of work, and often aborting initiatives that should have borne new fruit. Worse still, Rudolf Steiner's spiritual activity was increasingly in danger. In the course of the praise

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funeral held at Dornach on 3 May 1924 for Edith Maryon, who had died of her illness, he spoke frankly of this troublesome situation: "Of course, through the people of the anthroposophical movement the most diverse personal traits are expressed . But whenever something which represents a personal element in earthly affairs mixes with a work to be done in our anthroposophical work, it is impossible to answer for this work before the spiritual world if it retains this personal inclination Oh how great are the difficulties for the one who has to bear the responsibility for something before the spiritual world, when what leads to this spiritual world is full of elements from personal aspirations of the human beings involved! You must be aware, at least to some extent, of the consequences of this. When a person has to stand before the spirit world in [this] condition, the most horrible reactions are manifested against him [... Such personal ambitions and inclinations exist.Most people do not know that they are personal; most people believe their actions are impersonal, because they delude themselves about what is personal and what is impersonal. Then you are obliged to carry on all this. The result is the most terrible repercussions, coming from the spiritual world, which strike the person who is forced to approach the spiritual world with these elements derived from personal attitudes, elements which are mixed with what he must bring" 87 .

It was Rudolf Steiner himself, not the Executive Committee of the Society, which had to present itself in this way before the spiritual powers and suffer the consequences of the inadequacies of its members. By assuming leadership of the Society, he had assumed responsibility for what it was in the eyes of the spirit world. Edith Maryon had been one of the few people who truly understood such matters, she said. Three weeks later, he spoke again in Paris of these terrible blows which the spiritual world dealt against him when he approached these superior beings to whom he had to render accounts for the deeds of the newly formed Society. These vicious blows were launched by demonic, hostile entities, which could make use of the personal weaknesses existing among the members in order to attack the bearer of the Michael movement on earth 88 . Yes, it was the members of the Society themselves who, without knowing it, exposed Rudolf Steiner to violent attacks on the spiritual level . Those who might have been his protectors left him defenseless. Rudolf Steiner was a strong and courageous fighter. But his resistance forces had been weakened by the destruction of the first Goetheanum and his bodily organism had been undermined by the poisoning. The question was: How long could he hold out against such occult attacks? There were limits, even to his strength. He knew, of course, that he would be exposed to the fiercest attacks of the Two-horned Beast and his demons if he publicly offered instruction in self-knowledge . In effect, he was carrying the war into the enemy's camp. It was clear that she was going to need all the support and protection of her friends. Among the latter, one in particular had the soul of a fighter - a fighter whose valor had rarely been equaled in the history of mankind. In ancient Greece, there was, among the students closest to Aristotle, the warrior king who had conquered the world: Alexander the Great. The human spirit that had lived in Alexander later victoriously led the battle in the spiritual world against the demonic idols generated by the thought of Francis Bacon 89 .

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This warrior was once again present on Earth alongside his revered instructor, the spirit who had lived in Aristotle and now worked in Rudolf Steiner. But this time, Alexander's spirit worked through a female incarnation, the Dutch doctor Ita Wegman. Before the Christmas Congress, Rudolf Steiner had turned to the warrior in Ita Wegman and talked to her about the need to fight the demons of hate who sought to destroy Michael's teaching on Earth. Ita Wegman possessed the courage and strength to engage in the fight, but in this earthly incarnation she could no longer see the demons. In the spirit world after death, Alexander's spirit had seen the opponent it was to fight. Here on Earth, Ita Wegman would have needed very sharp clairvoyant perception for this, perception she did not possess. Rudolf Steiner gave her special exercises and intense training to help her progress rapidly on the path of inner development. It was desirable that the woman attain initiation in a short time if she was to consciously fight against the hosts of demons. The human spirit in Ita Wegman was a born leader, a being of action, possessing immense courage and great determination in the outer life. In previous incarnations, this same spirit had been victorious in warfare, but had not known as much success on the path of inner development which leads to true initiation. It was once again the case: despite all her efforts, Ita Wegman was unable to achieve the required level of spiritual development, and she was unable to protect Rudolf Steiner against the attacks of demons. Later , after Rudolf Steiner's death, she confided to Albert Steffen that: "Rudolf Steiner had wanted to take her to initiation, but she had failed. The master had enjoined her to attain a specific degree of esoteric development for Pentecost 1924. If she did not attain it, then Klingsor would come and the demons of hate would taken power . Due to Michele's work, the gate had to be built for the San Michele of 1924. If it hadn't been the case, Rudolf Steiner would have fallen ill" 90 .

Once the first half of the year 1924 had passed, Rudolf Steiner was confronted with the inescapable fact that his days were numbered, and that despite his good will and all the efforts of so many human beings, the Society would not accomplish the his noble mission. Even now, he refused to be defeated. With boundless courage, he turned to the only possibility left to him. He began to appeal to the souls most firmly committed to Michael's movement, with whom he would be able to work intensely in his next incarnation in a different way. He spoke clearly of his purpose, taking the preparatory measures for this future activity openly and explicitly before the members of the Society. The great spirit who had worked through Aristotle and through Thomas Aquinas , and who now worked through Rudolf Steiner, found himself obliged, for the remainder of that incarnation, to continue the work he had undertaken: the organization of the High School of Spiritual Science with its esoteric lessons, the establishment of sections for the application of spiritual ideas in the arts and sciences, the integration of national societies into the parent organization, the regulation of relations between the universal Anthroposophical Society and the Free Anthroposophical Society for the younger generation and so on. He devoted all his 209

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strength to the accomplishment of these tasks. But he was dying. He would soon be forced to retire from terrestrial life. His gaze was now turned to the future, towards the next decisive phase in the terrible battle between Michele and Sorat that would begin at the end of the twentieth century. Other tasks would have awaited him then, in collaboration with human beings from other Michelian movements. And he therefore began to address the members of the Anthroposophical Society that he could have guided in this intense work if they had returned to Earth before the beginning of the new millennium 91 . Reading the moving words that Rudolf Steiner spoke in different countries on the occasion of meetings of members of the Anthroposophical Society, one wonders how the members could not be aware of his intentions . Or, have they at least understood them? Their reactions to his words have simply sunk into oblivion, as these things are not talked about today. When addressing the audience, Rudolf Steiner stood upright, with his absolute determination held his dying body upright, and spoke clearly and explicitly. He did not call the membership to participate in the work of the late twentieth century, but spoke specifically to those of the members who, in his terms , were anthroposophists strictu sensu, sincerely, with all the strength of their hearts. They, and they alone, would be so resolutely committed to Michael's cause that they would even shorten their sojourn in the spirit world after death, to be reincarnated before the turn of the millennium. Time and time again, he launched this appeal, addressing directly those of the members who possessed the strength, motivation and absolute fidelity necessary to overcome all obstacles and carry their intention through the door of death, to return with full consciousness to the fact that their mission to ally to him at the end of the 20th century. Their future mission, as esoteric brotherhoods, would be to work vigorously in the service of Christ, in "great and intense spiritual acts of far reaching" 92 . In August 1924, the work of the Michael movement, headed by Rudolf Steiner, had been carried out as far as possible at the time. The essential discipline of the University for Michael's teaching (esoteric training by stages) was interrupted. Only 19 lessons of the introductory course (the first class) had been provided. Rudolf Steiner repeated them in a condensed form in September following numerous new requests to take the course, but the content was not developed further. The project to inaugurate a second level classroom in October 1924 was abandoned. Rudolf Steiner authorized a number of people to deliver repetitions of the existing first class lessons, but the supplementary missing lessons, as well as those of the higher levels, would never be provided §§§§. The core business of the university had effectively stopped and would never resume. In his place, Rudolf Steiner issued an appeal to those devoted to Michael's cause to look towards the future, towards the end of the millennium.

§§§§This practice of repeating the lessons originating in the first class has continued from generation to generation in the Anthroposophical Society, ultimately becoming a sacred tradition.

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Those who answered his call would have to wait until, in their next incarnation at the end of the century, they could join forces with souls from other spiritual movements, especially those of the "great Platonists," in order to to bring the Michelian impulse to its full development. Meanwhile, and for the remainder of their then incarnation, they had to strengthen themselves inwardly to prepare for these far-reaching and intensive spiritual acts. These anthroposophists had to say to each other: "I wait, fortifying myself in view of this expectation for a right anthroposophical work at present, and I take advantage of the short interval which is precisely accorded to the souls of anthroposophists in the 20th century, between death and a new birth, to return to the end of the 20th century and continue the movement with increased spiritual strength.I prepare myself for this new era, for the transition from the 20th to the 21st century - that is what a true anthroposophical soul calls itself - for on Earth, the forces of destruction are numerous. Any cultural life, any life of civilization must slide into decadence if the spirituality of Michael's impulse does not take possession of men, if men are not again capable of raising to the heights the civilization that today wants to roll downhill" 93 .

What would be the breadth of the response to Rudolf Steiner's appeal? No one could be sure of the number of human beings to whom he was addressing who would have the necessary determination not to let go of the terrible years ahead - the "Hitler years" and their aftermath and to pass through the gates of death with the clear resolution, not destroyed, to go to an appointment on Earth on the agreed date. The Germans and the British would soon fall prey to murderous conflict once again. Sorat intended to create a ditch between them. Members of the Anthroposophical movement would not be spared the dire consequence : enlisted in the war between their nations, Anthroposophists would fight Anthroposophists on the battlefields of Europe. Rudolf Steiner realized that similar events were imminent, and that the coming years would be a great test of the fortitude of the anthroposophists of the two camps who had received his appeal. But it was necessary to demonstrate great spiritual firmness so that humanity could resist the violent attack of Sorat. "If sincere souls of anthroposophists are found who want to introduce spirituality into earthly life in this way , then there will be a comeback. If none are found, the decadence will continue. The world war with everything terrible that l "accompanies will be nothing but the beginning of even more frightening things. In fact, today humanity is faced with a great eventuality: either to see what is civilization roll into the abyss, or to have it elevated by spirituality, continue in the sense of what resides in the Michelian impulse that precedes the impulse of Christ" 94 .

As for all the other members, who did not feel personally involved, or who were not able to show sufficient determination, they would be free to define their own goals and activities inspired by everything Rudolf Steiner had given them. The call sounded for the last time on the eve of St. Michael's Eve 1924 in Domach. The previous two days, R. Steiner had been ill and had to stay in bed. The anti-Michaelian demons, of which Klingsor and his hosts are a part, redoubled their attacks and uncomfortably claimed

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victory, for Michael's impulse, which had manifested itself so strongly earlier in the year , had failed to break through. Rudolf Steiner's physical strength was exhausted, but his spirit was clear and not at all affected by the disease. He had spoken a few days earlier of the importance for spiritual work of creating circles of twelve human beings as well as groups of seven circles or communities. In circles of twelve, such as that of the Apostles, the knights of the Round Table, the knights of the Grail and so on, the members share a mission which consists of carrying out a certain spiritual action in the world, he said. Each member represents one aspect of an impulse comprising twelve. In the circle of knights of the Round Table, for example, each knight placed himself at the service of the specific action of one of the twelve constellations of the zodiac. Such circles, when rightly constituted, always have twelve members, while communities, when working together spiritually, are ideally seven. Rudolf Steiner gave the example of the seven congregations at the origin of the Christian Church, evoked in the Apocalypse of San Giovarmi 95 . These numbers are by no means arbitrary; they correspond to spiritual laws. In his address on St. Michael's Eve 1924, Rudolf Steiner concluded by speaking once again of circles of twelve. Anticipating what might happen in the months and years to come, knowing that his time was numbered and that Klingsor's hosts were at the door, he spoke of the need for such circles, indicating that four circles - "four times twelve human beings in which Michelian thought comes fully to life" 96 - would together possess the combined spiritual strength to lead humanity further. This would prevent Sorat from having such a great influence on the coming years as to be able to overcome the events and prevent the preparation for the spiritual battle at the turn of the millennium. Those were the last words Rudolf Steiner addressed to a meeting of members. How is this image of four circles of twelve people joining forces to be understood? What is this Michelian thought that should become fully alive - alive to the point of becoming a Michelian act - in four times twelve human beings? We grasp its essence when we further develop the idea already addressed in the first chapter of this book. We mentioned that the concept "two plus two equals four" can live in many different minds at the same time. If it happened that ten thousand people in different parts of the world thought "two plus two equals four", this would not mean that they have generated ten thousand identical truths. There is but one concept, and it can live in the minds of an unlimited number of human beings. However, this particular example is abstract. We can better illustrate the principle in question by means of a more concrete example: the concept of the "triangle". In his book "The Philosophy of Freedom", Rudolf Steiner says in this regard: "Our thinking is not individual like our feeling and perceiving. It is universal . It takes an individual imprint in each isolated human being only because it is related to his individual feeling and perceiving. Different human beings are distinguished from each other through particular nuances of universal thought. A triangle has only one single concept. For the content of this concept it

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is indifferent whether it is the bearer of consciousness A or B who understands it. But it will be understood individually by each of the two bearers of conscience" 97 .

Now, our earlier abstract concept, "two plus two equals four," was quite limited and probably didn't lend itself much to personal nuance. The "triangle" concept is more open to such a treatment. But it's secondary. The essential point is that a particular concept may live momentarily in many people's heads or none at all. Rudolf Steiner goes on to draw our attention to an error deeply rooted in the habits of thought of modern men: "A human prejudice that is difficult to overcome opposes this thought. The prejudiced conscience does not come to understand that the concept of a triangle that includes my head is the same as that understood by the head of my neighbor. The naive man thinks he form his own concepts. That is why he believes that each person has his own personal concepts. It is a fundamental requirement of philosophical thinking to overcome this prejudice. The one and only concept of a triangle does not become a multiplicity from the fact that it is thought of by people multiple. Indeed the thought of multiple people is itself a unity" 98 . "For the thinking of multiple people is itself a unity." The more we examine this fact, the more we are struck by its extraordinary importance, not only for the life of reflection of the individual, but also for the life of society. Rudolf Steiner continues to develop this idea further on, stating that: "In thought we are given the element that unites our singular individuality with the cosmos to make it a whole. To the extent that we feel and perceive, we are individuals; to the extent that we think, we are the one and all being that penetrates every thing. It is the profound reason for our double nature: we see an absolute force emerge within us, a force that is universal; however, we do not discover it where it pours from the center of the world, but at a point on the periphery. the first eventuality were the case, we would know the totality of the enigma of the world at the very instant in which we attain consciousness.But since we are placed in a point of the periphery and since we find our existence closed within determined limits, we must learn to know the ambit located outside of our being with the help of the thought that, coming out of the universal existence of the worlds, comes to emerge in us" 99 .

It is the human spirit, the "I", which takes in him the universal force of thought and thus receives in him something of the unique being that penetrates everything. The eternal truths that we assimilate live within the 'I', and it is from them that the 'I' builds its highest ideals. It is the basis of human freedom. When man lets himself be directed by what comes from the nature of his personal psychic body, by his desires and passions, he is a slave to his lower nature, even though he perhaps thinks he is following his own free will . An action perhaps perceived as truly free to the extent that what causes this action comes from the ideal part of his individual being. The human being is free to the extent that he is capable, in every instant of his life, of following only himself, that is, of following his "I". However this idea can be misinterpreted:

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"But how is a common life of human beings possible if each aspires only to assert his individuality? Here is the objection of the misunderstood moralism. The latter believes that a community of men is possible only if they are all identical by a moral order fixed in common. The fact is that this moralism does not understand the character of the world of ideas. It fails to grasp that the world of ideas that acts in me is nothing different from what it is in my neighbor [... If we really both draw on the idea and if we do not follow any other external impulse (physical or spiritual), we can only meet in the same aspiration, in the same intentions. A moral misunderstanding is excluded between morally free beings. Only being morally unfree, who follows Nature's instinct or an externally received duty commandment rejects his fellow man when he does not follow the same instinct or the same commandment . others is the fundamental maxim of free men. If the original foundation of a conciliatory spirit were not in the human entity , no external law would be inculcated into it! It is only because human individuals have emerged from one and the same spirit that they can also unfold their lives alongside each other " 100 .

It is Michelian thought par excellence: being able to arrive at true freedom, the one in which we are in one spirit with all free human beings. But this reality must not remain a philosophical concept. It must become an ideal that burns like a sacred fire in the individual and shines through in his social acts and relationships. It must allow for the shared and free action of human beings who are one in spirit: the Michelian act. Through acts of this moral quality, victory can be won in the fight against the powers of evil. Michelian thought can live as thought in the individual ; on the other hand, for it to permeate social relations and become a shared act, man's feelings and will must become disinterested. This can only be done jointly with others, in active circles, groups or communities united in this enterprise. A concrete approach to a work of this kind will be addressed in the second volume . Rudolf Steiner considered that it was urgent that at least four groups of twelve human beings were created in the immediate future, four groups in which true freedom and unity in spirit would be achieved and would become the foundation for concerted action: Michelian thought would become deed. They should succeed in making Michael's thought fully alive in the right way, not according to their judgment, but according to the judgment of the Goetheanum in Dornach, which means: according to the objective judgment of Rudolf Steiner, guide of Michael's work on Earth. Such was the essential thing set before the souls of the members at the end of Rudolf Steiner's last address. Except for a few of his closest friends, the members would never see him again.

DEATH IS A CHANGE, NOT AN END In our modern world, when the founder and leader of a movement dies , it usually heralds important changes, and often that the movement falls into decay. But in the case of the Anthroposophical Society, events were expected to take another turn. For an initiate, death is experienced in another way than for an ordinary person. During his life, the initiate acquires the ability to leave and return to his physical body as he wishes, in full consciousness. He is

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able to enter the spiritual world beyond the threshold of death while he is alive, and learn to know this world well. When he dies, he discards the physical shell as one discards a worn-out garment. His conscience remains essentially unchanged. Since he has already learned to know the spiritual side of the external world and has freed his thought from the instrument which is the brain, he is perfectly capable of following the activities of the living in this external world, not seeing them physically, but perceiving their inner experiences that accompany their external acts. Furthermore, he is able to communicate with living people who are capable of perceiving the spirit world. Now, teaching, how to acquire an exact spiritual perception, had always been one of the fundamental aims of the anthroposophical movement. This should also have been the main course dispensed at the School of Spiritual Sciences opened in Domach in February 1924, a course of which tragically only a part of the introductory lessons were held. However, long before this, some disciples and friends of Rudolf Steiner had already reached the first degrees of supersensible perception. Some had passed this stage. It is for this reason that in many anthroposophical circles, it went without saying that Rudolf Steiner would appear after his death to the more advanced members and continue to direct the work of the Anthroposophical Society. While this idea may appear strange to the reader unfamiliar with occult history, there is nothing new here. In ancient times, high initiates often continued to lead the movements they had founded, perhaps for centuries, sometimes returning to them in successive incarnations. Similar situations will arise again in the future, albeit in a new way. However, there was an important difference between these early spiritual movements and what the Anthroposophical movement had become after the Christmas 1923 founding of its earth vehicle, the Universal Anthroposophical Society. While the work of the ancient esoteric schools was veiled in secrecy, the continuation of Rudolf Steiner's leadership of the Anthroposophical Society after his death would have been, so to speak, "official"; the communications he would make from the spirit world to his colleagues on the Steering Committee would be published, as needed , in the Society's bulletin and would be circulated to members throughout the world. It would have been an unprecedented evolution in our modern world. If the general public had learned of the existence of an extraordinary situation like this, as it was foreseen, if people had become aware that such a collaboration between the living and the dead is not only possible, but actually takes place, the consequences on culture could have been considerable. No doubt some would have refused to admit what was happening, but for others, it would have been concrete proof of the continued existence of the soul after death. The powers of evil want to avoid this fact at any price. Many members of the Anthroposophical Society who were familiar with Rudolf Steiner's statements about the minimal importance of death for an initiate expected him to remain the Society's current president. They thought he would appear in Steering Committee meetings and guide their work. In one sense, this assumption was not unjustified; there was no reason why it wasn't the case, at least in principle, although evidently it seems that it was not well

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understood how such a collaboration across the threshold could come about. Indeed, it seems that the Steering Committee itself - except Marie Steiner - imagined that Rudolf Steiner simply appeared among them as a ghost, so to speak. This seems to be implied by the comment Marie Steiner made after Rudolf Steiner's death: "The majority of the Committee had decided that everything was as before, that R. St. would be president as always, and that nothing had changed. It was childish, but the majority had decided that way" 101 .

Why did she consider the attitude of the other Committee members puerile? To answer this question, we have to touch upon a still little-known aspect of the relationship between a spiritual Master like Rudolf Steiner and his disciples in Christian occultism. This aspect determined, in part, the choice made by Rudolf Steiner when appointing the people who would be members of the management committee of the new Society. It is a spiritual principle which will become increasingly important for the Age of Light, and which will characterize not only the relationship between master and disciple, but also the relationship between members of esoteric circles such as the four circles of twelve people evoked by Rudolf Steiner in his last conference - circles of people in which Michelian thought becomes fully alive. Every human being experiences thinking, feeling and willing. They are activities of the soul which in their essential nature are universal. In his inner life, the individual human being gives them a personal coloring. We have already seen that thinking is actually a universal process: "The naive man considers himself the creator of his concepts. This is why he believes that each person has his own personal concepts. It is a fundamental requirement of philosophical thought to overcome this prejudice. The one and only concept of triangle does not become a multiplicity from the fact that it is thought of by multiple people. For the thought of these multiple people is itself a unity. In thought we are given the element which unites our single individuality with the cosmos to make it a whole. To the extent that we feel and we perceive, we are individuals, to the extent that we think, we are the whole and one being that penetrates everything" 102 .

The activity of feeling, in the common human being, takes on a subjective and personal character. If someone says, for example, "I hate rock music," he is speaking of the reaction of dislike that he experiences inwardly towards rock music. The object of his hearing - rock music itself - exists independently of him. Likewise, the reaction of the soul , which he calls "hating," is known and experienced by all, not necessarily with respect to the object itself (rock music), but in relation to whatever object causes this reaction. What is individual and personal is what is represented by the word "I" in the sentence "I hate rock music." I talk about what I feel in myself. After all, it doesn't matter what others hear when listening to rock music. It is of my personal dislike that I speak.

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If there are two of us who hate rock music and we say, "We hate rock music," we evoke the fact that each of us has the same reaction in his soul, but in each of us this reaction is personal . I don't experience soul movement in the other person. Speaking of feeling, as long as the "I" designates lived experiences in the individual I, we are dealing with subjective motions of the soul. But there are some people who, in the course of their lives, become truly selfless. They deal less and less with their own ego, turning towards others. The joys and sorrows of others become more important to them than their own feelings. People with this selfless character, full of compassion, sympathy and love for their neighbors, are a blessing to the people around them. One who follows a true path of spiritual development rises progressively above the ordinary ego. Just as his thought becomes closer to pure, universal thought , less colored by the likes and dislikes of feelings, so his feeling is bestowed, stripping himself of his personal character to embrace the joys and sorrows of others. It is not a weakening of the life of feelings, of course. On the contrary, feelings become richer, more developed as they go beyond the narrow limits of selfish feeling. The human being in question becomes capable of living true selfless love, love "stripped of itself", which no longer depends on the ordinary ego. It is the love of which Christ spoke when he said to his disciples: "Love one another as I have loved you". Just as in thinking we do not create objective truths, which are independent of us, so we ourselves do not create feelings. They are cosmic forces. We draw them into our soul and bring them into accord with its inner configuration, just as we build up our physical body by drawing into the body material substances from our physical environment, and arranging the substances according to the nature of the body. In less developed humans, feelings drawn from the surrounding spiritual world are firmly anchored in the ego. They lived selfishly. The more a person rises above selfishness, expanding his consciousness and adopting an increasingly disinterested attitude towards the beings around him, the more his feelings retain a universal quality. In the initiate's soul , the feelings have been purged of almost everything that gives them an egoistic character, and are approaching their universal form. Between the spiritual Master and his intimate disciples, thought, feeling and voluntary action can truly be shared. In our time, such a relationship is very rare

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exists at three levels. In the case of Rudolf Steiner, one of his close disciples could share his thinking, another his feeling, and a third his volitional activity. We have seen that when he appointed the members of the Steering Committee at the beginning of the Christmas Conference on December 24 , 1923, Rudolf Steiner was obliged not to include Edith Maryon, at the latter's insistence. However, he considered that she was a spiritual member of it, and acted accordingly. Of the members of the management body, three are of particular interest to us. The relationship of each of these three members with the spirit that had lived in Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Rudolf Steiner was that of a very intimate disciple of his spiritual Master. But these three people were, by nature, completely different from each other . In each of them, in their relationship to the Master, one of the fundamental forces of the human soul was particularly manifested. The first of the three was Marie von Sivers, who was originally from Russia. In her, the forces of thinking and spiritual discernment were highly developed and confident. Michelian thought lived so strongly in her (as thought) that her thought often had a cosmic quality. She was the only person Rudolf Steiner could trust in matters of judgment on spiritual matters. "It is truly with you alone that I can, when it comes to a judgment, be united in thought and perceive it [...]. In fact it is only in your judgment, as far as I'm concerned, that I recognize a competence based on the inner being" , Rudolf Steiner wrote to her in February 1925 103 . For this reason, among other things , he considered her the only person qualified to succeed him. In ancient times, the spirit of Marie Steiner-von Sivers had been deeply initiated into the Orphic Mysteries: the Mysteries of music where the sacred arts of speech and dance were also developed (the hyporchema, for example, a choral hymn to Apollo accompanied by a spiritual dance). This was now beautifully expressed in his anthroposophical work: his creation with Rudolf Steiner of a new art of speech, and his partnership with him to develop the art of movement called eurythmy, musical eurythmy, which is practiced with music, and poetic eurythmy that makes the spoken word visible. The second person, Ita Wegman, was a person of the heart: generous, spontaneous, she was inflamed by her ideals and carried away others with her boundless enthusiasm. He lived intensely in hearing. His most evident character trait was his indomitable courage, which inspired his friends and associates. Courage is the inherent strength of the heart. Affective movements could take on an uncommon extent in Ita Wegman . She was angry, and her fits of anger exploded with sometimes terrifying force. But he forgave quickly, warmly and magnanimously. Her powerful personality, with a thousand facets, often aroused in her collaborators and collaborators - especially in the young people who approached her - an admiration bordering on flattery. Like many human beings in whom the forces of the heart-lung rhythmic system are particularly abundant, she possessed robust health and an extremely resilient physical

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constitution. As a young girl, she said she would become a gymnastics teacher . Later, this purpose morphed into a desire to heal the life forces of others as a therapist. Having become a disciple of Rudolf Steiner, she asked him if it was possible to revive, in an appropriate modern form, the ancient art of sacred medicine. Rudolf Steiner answered in the affirmative, and Ita Wegman devoted all her energy and enthusiasm to this great task. She was Central European, of Dutch nationality, born and raised in Java. It is no exaggeration to suggest that certain traits of Alexander the Great's character were expressed again through Ita Wegman; they were also quite evident. He was of a warrior nature, as we mentioned earlier. Rudolf Steiner had turned to her to protect him against the demons of Sorat after the Christmas Conference. As a close disciple of Rudolf Steiner, Ita Wegman learned to share feelings with him. The third person is Edith Maryon, who was born and raised in London. She was sweet and tender by nature, which was most manifested in the sphere of voluntary action. She was a sculptor with an uncommon talent. His works reveal a perfect sense of proportion and form, and a mastery of working techniques in stone, plaster, bronze and later wood. It was a considerable success in Great Britain. They made her a member of the Royal College of Arts and she was mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Britannica as one of the most talented sculptors of the time and full of future. His early works, even if done in a manner reflecting the naturalism in vogue at the time, already indicate his deep interest in the spiritual. At the age of 38 , Edith Maryon entered a secret esoteric school: The Amoun Temple of the Stella Matutina, which was an offshoot of the Rosicrucian Order of the Golden Dawn. Thanks to his manager, Robert Willliam Felkin, he came into contact with Rudolf Steiner, in whom he immediately recognized his spiritual guide. He placed his artistic gifts entirely at his service and sculpted with him a number of works, of which the best known is the monumental wooden statue of Man's Representative among the opposing powers, Lucifer and Ahriman. It is important to realize that this extraordinary work would have been inconceivable for Rudolf Steiner if Edith Maryon had not been with him. She did all the preparatory work: selecting, laying and gluing the wooden blocks in the right way and in the right position. It was she who sculpted the different figures that make up the statue (Rudolf Steiner gave the final shape to the central figure and put the last coat on the others). In the shared sculpture work, Edith Maryon and Rudolf Steiner were deeply united. She was a close disciple and had a very deep artistic affinity with him. Rudolf Steiner said of her: "What she does, I have done" (Was sie tut, habe ich get an). They shared the forces of voluntary activity. Edith Maryon also played an important role in the creation of the first Goetheanum, a magnificent carved wooden temple of a considerable size, which was erected on the hill of Domach in Switzerland, facing west and overlooking the plain of Alsace . During the construction work of the Goetheanum, Edith Maryon saved the life of Rudolf Steiner. He was inspecting the painting inside the soaring dome, and he stood with others on the great scaffolding . Inadvertently, he took a step back into space. If Edith Maryon had not reacted immediately by grabbing him and pulling him to safety, he would have fallen to his death. R.

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Steiner often said later that he owed her his life. During the last months of Edith Maryon's bedridden life, Rudolf Steiner visited her every day when she was in Domach, and just as often wrote to her when she was away. Together, these three disciples of Rudolf Steiner were in direct connection with the cosmic forces of thinking, feeling and willing which worked through their Master. They were the people through whom, to the extent that they were harmoniously united, he would be able to direct the Anthroposophical Society after his death. It was to them that he immediately turned when it came to forming a Board of Directors. As we have seen, Edith Maryon refused her appointment to the Governing Council because she was already bedridden with her serious illness, an illness that would soon prove fatal. However, it was clear to those close to Rudolf Steiner that he regarded her as a spiritual member of the Committee. When, four days after appointing the Council, he informed the assembly which sections of the Higher School of Spiritual Science would be directed by the people who belonged to it, he included Edith Maryon among the members of the Council. Human beings access their full reality as human beings only by joining other human beings. A child separated from human society, if it survives, learns neither to think nor to speak. He lives his life like an animal and never experiences human nature. As civilized people, we are products of the society in which we live. It matters little what one likes to believe, even the most mature of individualists , even the most inveterate solitary who rejects society, owes his culture, his expressive faculties, his human attributes to the hereditary current in which he was born and to the social environment in which he grew up. We all know from experience that we speak and act differently in different circles. We meet people who, as they say, "make us look our best." Conversely, bad company tends to have the opposite effect. Our relationships with certain people give us qualities that we otherwise would not possess. They are external aspects of a fundamental reality: no human being exists solely for himself. Our lives are determined by these laws of social interaction and personal relationships which spiritual science knows as karma. The actions we take in relation to our fellow humans, and the effects of their actions on us, shape our destiny not only in our present life, but also in our future incarnations. The karmic relationships that we weave from life to life are the threads in the complex web of human existence on Earth. Each of us is an autonomous individual; our thoughts, feelings, and acts make sense to our own ego. Those around us play specific roles in these thoughts, these feelings, these acts. For us, they help make sense of these experiences. Similarly, each of us plays a role in the lives of those around us, they play roles that give meaning to their existence.

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The more a person learns to rise above the narrow limits of the ego (to live selflessly ), the more his fellow men become important to him. As we have seen, the true initiate is not some great egoist who keeps aloof from his fellow humans , who lives in the personal enjoyment of his powers greater than normal (though it is the case for the initiate who follows the path of evil : the black magician). The true initiate is a person who lives almost entirely for others, who places his faculties and the wisdom he has acquired at their service. What matters to him is not being able to do for himself, but what he can do to help others. His thinking, feeling and wanting are imbued with this quality of disinterestedness to a degree difficult to imagine in our selfish society which seeks to satisfy only personal interests. His closest disciples truly share his powers of thought, feeling and will, forces which he places at their disposal out of selfless love. It is in this unusual sense that the following indications must be understood. During the morning session of the fifth day of the Christmas Congress, Rudolf Steiner informed the assembly which section of the School of Spiritual Sciences he would place under the direction of each of the official members of the Governing Council and Edith Maryon. He formulated these appointments in a very particular way. If the reader pauses to examine the original German text 104 , he will find that Rudolf Steiner, even if he expressed himself in a more subtle language, specified the following: -Albert Steffen will direct the fine letters section. - Guenther Wachsmuth will head the natural sciences section - I'll let Elisabeth Vreede run the mathematics and astronomy sections,

but: - I will run the medical section with the help of Ita Wegman,

and more explicitly: - I will direct the section of speech arts, music and eurythmy through Marie Steiner - I'm going to run the plastic arts section through Edith Maryon

Based on these words and their context, it is clear that this was not simply a manner of speaking. Rudolf Steiner indicated the esoteric principle on which the work of the Governing Council would be based. He did so in a way that was understandable to all who had sufficient knowledge of occultism to grasp what he meant. Let us take this formulation in its exact sense, under the aspect of which we have spoken concerning the quality of disinterestedness in the activity of thinking, feeling and willing of a great initiate. "I will lead...through" does not denote a possessive, domineering attitude, but quite the opposite. This means: "With the person to whom I entrust the responsibility for this section, I share my powers of thought (or retrospectively my powers of feeling, or my willpower), so that his work may be inspired by the Archangel Michael working through me". This was to be the character of Rudolf Steiner's collaboration with his three closest female disciples in the picture of the work of the Committee 221

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This relation is implicit in the words he addressed to Marie Steiner-von Sivers: "To reach in thought and feeling a shared judgment is not possible for me except with you".It is also implicit in his relative words to Edith Maryon: "What she does, I have done." But he speaks differently about Ita Wegman. He could not yet say, "I will run the medical section through Ita Wegman," for only now did she become aware of the nature of her karmic link with him. We absolutely do not want to discredit the other three members of the Steering Committee when we indicate that their relationship with Rudolf Steiner was not of the same kind as that of his three closest female disciples. It was mentioned earlier that Marie Steiner put forward Albert Steffen's name , proposing to Rudolf Steiner that Steffen be Vice-President in his place (which was rejected). But would Rudolf Steiner still have chosen A. Steffen as a member of the Committee? We do not know. What we do know is that he considered it desirable to have a personality of Swiss nationality on the Council, since the Universal Anthroposophical Society was a Swiss association which had its world headquarters in that country. We also know that Rudolf Steiner appreciated the work of A. Steffen and that he had appointed him editor of the official bulletin of the Society. Many have thought that Steffen was a plausible choice (an opinion shared by the author), but this remains a guess.

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Guenther Wachsmuth was then 30 years old. It can be assumed that he was not chosen for his expertise in spiritual matters. He had begun a spiritual training, and we learn from the comments he made himself, that he was beginning to have the very first supersensible experiences on this path, but he certainly owed his capacity as a member of the Committee to his professional skills. He was a legal specialist, a doctor of law, and had also demonstrated considerable talent for financial management . Furthermore, he was already working closely with Rudolf Steiner on some administrative issues. One of his duties was to deal with questions and objections raised by the authorities relating to the articles of association and the legal status of the Society, a task for which he was well qualified. During the early selection stages for the creation of the Steering Committee, Rudolf Steiner did not mention Elisabeth Vreede at all. It seems that it was not an immediately obvious choice, even though she had worked with him in Domach since 1914, and earlier in Berlin. Mathematician and astronomer by training, in 1919 she had begun to organize the library of the Goetheanum and had opened the archives containing the notes and other reports of Rudolf Steiner's numerous lectures and allocutions. In naming her, Rudolf Steiner spoke warmly of the value of her work in astronomy, and of her meticulous approach to everything she undertook. Eleven months after the founding of the Society, on Tuesday 11 November 1924, Rudolf Steiner, already confined to his sickbed, was visited by his personal friend and esoteric disciple, Count Polzer-Hoditz, with whom he had often talked about deeper than Michael's movement. Towards the end of their conversation, Rudolf Steiner spoke about the work of the Governing Council: "He later spoke of the tasks of Albert Steffen, of Vreede and of Wachsmuth which consisted of ensuring the purely administrative management of the Society. It is within their section that they are in their place according to their destiny" 105 .

If the different facts are combined, it can be said that Rudolf Steiner has chosen his three closest disciples to form the linchpin of the Governing Council not only for their exceptional personal talents, but also for the esoteric reasons we have mentioned: Marie Steiner , his wife, who shared his understanding and judgment of spiritual matters; Ita Wegman, with whom he could work very closely through selfless feelings in the area of healing, and Edith Maryon with whom he could share the activity of the will. They were the people through whom, if they were truly united, he could lead the work of Michael's movement within the Society. The other three members were chosen for their personal talents and expertise, and because they were already in charge of important aspects of anthroposophical work in Domach in collaboration with Rudolf Steiner. They were also disciples of Rudolf Steiner, of course. One can imagine the Steering Committee as a seed: the three closest disciples of Rudolf Steiner were to form the core, the other three the shell. They were destined to work together in

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the spirit of Michelian thought. We keep this esoteric nature of the Governing Council in mind in our summary assessment of its fate after the death of Rudolf Steiner, a fate that would also determine that of the School of Spiritual Sciences. Marie Steiner was probably the only person who understood Rudolf Steiner's intentions in detail . She had to realize that these could not be fully realized after the early death of Edith Maryon on May 1 , 1924. Later, she had to realize that immediately after Rudolf Steiner's death, Albert Steffen began to forget his solemn promise to be her knight and protector. She also later realized that he allowed himself to re-enter the role of vice president, with an apparent indifference to the will of the spirit world. Worse still, she found herself attacked by Ita Wegman, the person with whom she would need to act in perfect harmony for there to be a chance of Rudolf Steiner acting through them. It was these obstacles and more that led Marie Steiner to label it "puerile" that the remaining members of the Council believed that Rudolf Steiner could still lead the Society from the spirit world. Marie Steiner was equally aware that the opposing powers had focused on them. Rudolf Steiner's early death was itself a resounding victory for the Two-horned Beast, and a frightening display of their adversary's strength. But it was a victory that could have at least turned into defeat if the members of the Committee had been able to work harmoniously. An Anthroposophical Society, united in its efforts and consciously directed by Rudolf Steiner from the spirit world , would have been an even greater threat to the projects of the Beast than it had been when Rudolf Steiner was alive. First, the great human spirit which had worked in Aristotle, in Thomas Aquinas and in R. Steiner, then freed from the duties and constraints of physical life, and finding itself out of reach of the hosts of demons, was on the point of acting with a increased strength. And secondly, if word had spread that there was in Switzerland an institution open to the public which was run without context from the spirit world by an initiate, whose presence could be felt by some of its members, the impact on Western culture would have been truly greater. Would it not have become possible later on to complete the introductory course given in the first class of the School of Spiritual Sciences by lecturing in the spiritual presence of Rudolf Steiner, perhaps even inaugurating the more advanced classes of his second and third grades? The powers of evil knew well that they had to strike hard and decisively if they wanted to consolidate their victory. They could only do so if they were able to arouse such violent conflict among the members of the Steering Committee that it would become impossible for them to share the same opinion and have good feelings for each other. It was hate that must fill their souls . If it was possible to keep the members of the Committee in bitter conflict, then it would be impossible to lead the Society from the spirit world. The work of the School of Spiritual Sciences would thus have been deprived of its living connection with Rudolf Steiner and would have been detached from the impulse of the Archangel Michael. The result would not

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only have been that the Anthroposophical Society would have lost any possibility of concerted action, but also that humanity as a whole would have been deprived of the continuous flow of knowledge which the Masters wanted to give it from the spiritual world. Not only the fate of the anthroposophical movement, but also to a large extent that of terrestrial humanity, were suspended from the events that we must now recount .

CHAOS AND COMPUTERIZATION (THE TRIUMPHANT BEAST) In the summary of the facts which follows, there is not the slightest intention of criticizing or condemning the persons who are mentioned. The author wishes to describe aspects of real events which he considers to be related to his theme. It does not consider itself entitled to make a moral judgment on the human beings involved, which would make no sense for our study. The objective of this report is to highlight the strategy employed by the Beast with two horns against the disembodied spirit that had lived in Rudolf Steiner, and which envisaged reincarnation before the end of the century in order to materialize the impulse that he had given. Let us try to know at what point Sorat and his hosts of demons managed to break the Society from this spiritual direction by intervening in the attitudes and actions of the most influential members of the Society, especially the Governing Council. Any explanation centered primarily on demonic attacks and their baleful effects on human relations will necessarily offer a narrow view of the events in question. However, if we have this in mind, this approach will allow us to form a fairer, more objective picture of these events than the comments that try to explain everything in terms of the weaknesses and failures of ordinary human beings. Nothing was ordinary in this situation. Such comments demean human beings and trivialize the events that profoundly influenced the history of the 20th century. They are dictated by a negative superstition which consists in avoiding acknowledging the existence and action of real spiritual beings. When dealing with the powers of evil, it is essential to see things as they are, and to say bread to bread and wine to wine. As soon as Rudolf Steiner had left the earth plane , Klingsor and the satan demons didn't waste a minute to act. They struck, while the members of the Society were still in a state of shock at the disappearance of their spiritual leader. Their most vehement attacks were directed against the Governing Council and other influential members. The extent of their successes will become apparent with the events we will now discuss. It has already been mentioned that Ita Wegman asked Albert Steffen, interim president *****,

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for an urgent private meeting, in the course of which she told him that Rudolf Steiner had wanted to lead her to initiation. He had told her to attain a specific degree of esoteric development before Pentecost 1924. If she ever failed, Klingsor would come and the demons of hatred would take over. She used all her strength to reach the desired degree, but failed. Rudolf Steiner had also told her that, as far as Michael's work was concerned, the gate had to be created for St. Michael's 1924. Otherwise, Rudolf Steiner would have fallen ill. Events unfolded exactly as he had foreseen. Albert Steffen consigned to his intimate diary what Ita Wegman had told him, adding that when he returned home after their conversation, he was oppressed by a feeling of fear. The days that followed proved that his fear was justified. Klingsor had come with his demons of hate, as Rudolf Steiner had said. On the day of R. Steiner's cremation, an explosive conflict erupted between Ita Wegman and Marie Steiner. R. Steiner's widow wanted her husband's ashes initially to be taken to their home, at Villa Hansi, in Domach, as he would have wanted. But Ita Wegman and Guenther Wachsmuth thought that the bodily remains of Rudolf Steiner, like the relics of a saint, belonged to the Society, and that they should be taken directly to the carpentry workshop where the members would have access to them. G. Wachsmuth told A. Steffen that, as interim president, he had to inform Marie Steiner about this. "The proposal frightened me very much. I feared that it would generate a terrible conflict. Here's what I said: I want nothing to do with any of this. I want to dedicate myself to the spirit of the one who has taken away death from us, and I want to help humanity with the great work I can do with his spiritual help. I can do this if I am not involved in such Governing Council matters. Allow me to serve you in this way (as I have kissed the hand of each of you), but do not involve me in such conflicts between two human beings whom I love, so that I find myself torn between two parties [ ... ] 106 .

Here is what can be read in A. Steffen 's personal diary regarding the prelude to the conflict. He also noted that, by tradition and according to the law, the ashes belonged to Marie Steiner. If, at this moment, he had known the tenor of Rudolf Steiner's last letters to Marie Steiner, he would not have doubted that the urn must have remained with her 107 . He had pledged to defend his rights. In his anxiety, however , he seems to have already forgotten his solemn promise to Rudolf Steiner to be Marie Steiner's knight and protector for the rest of her days. The proposal was not submitted to Marie Steiner until she had collected the urn containing the ashes from the crematorium , escorted by the other four remaining members of the Governing Council, and the chauffeured car had arrived in Domach . The young driver, Hugo Meyer, stopped the car, not knowing whether he was going to Villa Hansi or to the carpentry shop up the hill. When Marie Steiner was informed of the proposal, she let out a cry of anguish and shock and declared that it was utterly cruel to deprive her of her husband's ashes before the mourning was over. On this aspect A. Steffen noted:

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"Ita Wegman closed her mouth by saying in a dry tone that others also had rights (i.e. Society, humanity, etc.), rights superior to hers as her collaborator. She spoke surely driven by hatred, because she thought Dr. Marie Steiner was narrow-minded and selfish or, as she later said, that she called her a fool, the good little bride. This answer hit Marie Steiner all over, and it was a terrible shock for her" 108 .

The chauffeur, in consternation, got out of the car and waited while the dispute raged on. Eventually, the urn was transported to the carpentry shop. The five members of the Governing Council sat down in front of the urn and lit candles at the foot of the large wooden sculpture of Christ on which Rudolf Steiner had been working. But there was no reverent silence, no respect for the deceased teacher and guide. The dispute flared up again, with Elisabeth Vreede backing Ita Wegman in her attack on Marie Steiner. Albert Steffen and Guenther Wachsmuth tried to restore calm by proposing, that after all Marie Steiner should have the urn to herself for a few days. In pain and anger, Marie Steiner retorted: "No for all the gold in the world! It's too late now. I won't receive it as a favor from you. I give up my rights to have it, as I have already given up many things. I have got into the habit of giving up what I belongs by full right. I retire. I will continue my work of the art of the word, and nothing else. I will say amen to everything you do" 109 .

This desacralization of what should have been a solemn moment of shared mourning and mutual encouragement to embark on their future tasks together, perhaps reminds us how, six hundred years ago, on a major scale, moral purity and selfless love of the initiated leaders of the knights of the Order of the Temple had been transformed into blasphemy and hatred by the use of black magic. The members of the Governing Council were not physically tortured, of course, but in their particular state, broken down with pain, they were vulnerable to the magical arts of Klingsor who worked invisibly among them. And if we blame the Templars little, just as little do we condemn the members of the Governing Council of the Society for what happened at the time, in April 1925, and in the months that followed. Their deeds, assuming they were their own, were perverted and perverted by demonic intervention directed by Klingsor. As Rudolf Steiner had feared, he had penetrated straight into the heart of Society, and the demons of hatred wasted no time in wreaking havoc there. In the days and weeks following the conflict over the remains of Rudolf Steiner , the division among the members of the Steering Committee grew even greater. Marie Steiner had announced her resignation, but was forced to withdraw it. She then realized that A. Steffen, who allowed himself to occupy the post of interim president, was incapable of keeping the promise made to Rudolf Steiner to be her knight and protector. Worse still, he had to deal with

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the consequences of his own refusal to be Rudolf Steiner's official vice president and successor. Although she had no sympathy for the role of director, she began to glimpse the reasons that had led the Michelian powers to call her to exercise the function that A. Steffen was beginning to assume. It was now evident to Marie Steiner that joint leadership with A. Steffen was impossible . But Rudolf Steiner had stated that A. Steffen was not empowered to act alone as president. This is why she sought someone who Rudolf Steiner esteemed and who, in her opinion, would have the strength of character and spiritual maturity to take on this role. Thus it was that she came to the conclusion that A. Steffen should remain Vice- President and that the new President should be Eugen Kolisko of Stuttgart, a serious and highly respected member of the Society (she probably did not know at the time that E. Kolisko had become a fervent supporter of Ita Wegman). E. Kolisko agreed to take the presidency of the Society if this was the wish of all the members of the Steering Committee. Accompanied by a colleague, Walter Johannes Stein, he went to Domach on 5 June 1925 to discuss with A. Steffen how the change of direction should be presented to the members of the Society, but found to his surprise that A. Steffen was not been informed of his arrival, and that the latter considered Marie Steiner's proposal inappropriate and offensive. A. Steffen, indignant and distressed, flatly rejected the idea. However, he was then informed by his visitors that neither he nor the other members of the Governing Council should have anything to say about the functioning of the School of Spiritual Sciences, since Ita Wegman considered herself to be its spiritual director, appointed by Rudolf Steiner . After this de solante confrontation , A. Steffen noted in his diary: «The meeting with the two of them [Kolisko and Stein] had the following result: Dr. Wegman knows that they came here (they answered affirmatively when I asked them). And they also answered in the affirmative when I asked them if they had informed you of the subject of our discussion. (So I exclaimed: why doesn't he address me directly?) Adding in my head : and he complains about those two, trying to use them to persuade me? And I watch them. They sense my contempt. "We didn't put ourselves first," they said. "It's Frau M. Steiner who called Kolisko. She's gone too far. It's her fault [...]". Anyone who wants to give lessons of the Class must receive the authorization of Ita Wegman , and not of the Council. The Committee, for example, cannot vote against you. (It follows, although this was not said yesterday, that you can admit and exclude people, that you are responsible for the information given, that your orders are simply autocratic, that you are a dictator, and that you are the… heart of the Society) [...]. Here are the reasons why I speak of the facts, that I am a member of the Council not really, but only in theory, for my own name. This must no longer go on like this. I resign. I cannot be held responsible for things I do not know» 110 .

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Rudolf Steiner had effectively placed the functioning of the School under the responsibility of Ita Wegman who was to be its guardian and protector. She was responsible for the admission of members to the first class, and thus to the School as a whole . Conversely, there is no indication that Rudolf Steiner intended to entrust her with responsibility for the spiritual content of the lectures. On the contrary, he had clearly specified that the responsibility for the content was not centralized: it was left to the initiative of the person who gave the lesson. From the beginning, Rudolf Steiner authorized numerous people to give first-class lessons in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain and America. These "mediators" of the class, as Rudolf Steiner called them, had to base the lessons on the special words (mantras) he had given, but otherwise, they had to speak freely, starting from their own knowledge and experience. This would have been different with the higher grades. Marie Steiner alone was to be responsible for teaching the second class, and Rudolf Steiner himself for the third. But Ita Wegman apparently assumed that, even if she had not attained initiation, she was now, jointly with Rudolf Steiner, the spiritual leader of the School. This put her in an impossible position to hold vis-à-vis the other members of the Steering Committee . The situation became extremely embarrassing: rehearsals of nineteen existing lectures were held regularly in regional centers in several countries, but they could not be held in Dornach, at the Society's world headquarters, due to the conflict between Ita Wegman and the other members of the Steering Committee. Marie Steiner, for her part, believed that Ita Wegman was qualified to lecture. Finally, when Ita Wegman decided that the work of the Dornach School could no longer be delayed, she gave her first lesson in carpentry. Marie Steiner, who had decided to assist you, interrupted her in the middle of the lesson to make her aware of her criticisms of her way of doing things. She later left the room with a haughty air, followed by members of her section, leaving the other people in a state of shock. The situation deteriorated rapidly. There were times when the members of the Committee were aware that demons were manipulating them. But it would take the discernment and strength of a high initiation to resist their attacks. Marie Steiner noted in a notebook the following comments (already mentioned) relating to the events we have described: "Right now, K[olisko] says he will take the presidency if the whole Council agrees. The Council in its majority had decided that everything was as before, that R. St. would be president as always, and that nothing had changed. It was childish, but the majority had decided so. Wfegman] came to see me and asked my forgiveness for what had happened. He said that demons had influenced the situation" 111 .

Words like these could pass as light and superficial if spoken by an ordinary person. But the members of the Governing Council were human beings trained in spirit science, and some had progressed so far as to be able to identify the actions of demonic entities - and of demonic entities such as were actually among them. These hate-filled spirits are on the lookout for every opportunity that may present itself to turn human thought into falsehood, and to paralyze the 229

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will. One might wonder: if any of the members of the Governing Council at least had reached the level of self-knowledge and had acquired the spiritual competence implied by what has just been said, and were thus truly capable of recognizing the deeds of demons, why did they succumb to them? The question, though pertinent, would fail to take into account the scale and violence of the demon attack. What Rudolf Steiner had begun was potentially one of the greatest threats to the projects of the powers of evil. These powers responded accordingly. The spirit that had lived in Rudolf Steiner did not have the slightest opportunity to lead the Governing Council which was deeply broken. In the three months following his death, the Committee split into three main opposing factions: Albert Steffen and Guen ther Wachsmuth teamed up; Ita Wegman and Elisabeth Vreede objected to them and to Marie Steiner, who was alone. Albert Steffen went so far as to reject Rudolf Steiner's injunction which stipulated that according to the will of the spirit world, he (Steffen) could not exercise the presidency alone, but only jointly with Marie Steiner. He was eventually to become one of her wildest detractors; his hostility forced her to withdraw from the work of the Society. The dominant personality among them was Ita Wegman, in whom some traits of an impulsive nature could clearly be seen, warrior of Alexander the Great. She sincerely believed that she was responsible for the work of the School of Spiritual Sciences, the source of all anthroposophical activity in the Society. She was also driven by an immense feeling of guilt, that of having failed her spiritual Master, since she had not attained initiation and had not been able to protect him. We recall here his letter to the members of the Anthroposophical Society of October 1925: "The weight of the worries of such declarations is hard for me to bear, but the charge was infinitely greater when the lecture given on St. Michael's Day proved to be my last, and when Rudolf Steiner, ill, had to go to bed " 112 .

Full of courage the woman urgently tried to invest all her strength to advance the anthroposophical work as quickly as possible. In this surplus of activity, she began to act publicly as if she were the successor of Rudolf Steiner. In the months before his death, R. Steiner had published weekly messages to members (called The Guidelines), which dealt with the deeper spiritual aspects of Archangel Michael's work. Ita Wegman then took up that work on her own initiative by distributing her weekly messages in the Society bulletin. He also decided to direct the main public congresses already planned, in place of Rudolf Steiner. This apparent arbitrary appropriation of spiritual direction placed Ita Wegman in violent conflict with Marie Steiner on the one hand, and with A. Steffen and G. Wachsmuth on the other. Steffen and Wachsmuth eventually barred her, with Elisabeth Vreede, from the Society's Steering Committee.

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The members of the Governing Council themselves were people of high morals, extremely serious individuals, full of enthusiasm for noble ideals, and determined to work together selflessly for the future of mankind. They didn't work in isolation, of course. They were surrounded by well-meaning people and passionate supporters – sympathizers whose attempts to give weight to the proposals of either Governing Council member often made matters worse by aggravating misunderstandings. The destructive attitudes and actions did not spring from the souls of the people involved, but were handled by Sorat. The Beast is the supreme master of subterfuge: he was capable of making each of the members of the Council believe that he or she was acting with reason , according to the wishes of Rudolf Steiner. In this way, Sorat succeeded in preventing the disembodied human spirit, which he regarded as a dangerous adversary, from directing the Anthroposophical Society as its supersensible guide. The Beast had sought to deprive the Society of any possibility of coordinated action, and by sowing lively discord among the members of the Governing Council, it had achieved its aim. The Society was internally divided into three main currents which later split completely and went their own way . Hundreds, perhaps thousands of members were excluded or resigned when Ita Wegman and Elisabeth Vreede were dismissed. The members who had been excluded founded parallel anthroposophical organizations in a number of countries. Since Rudolf Steiner had unequivocally placed the first class of the School of Spiritual Sciences under the protection of Ita Wegman who alone was empowered to admit new members, her exclusion from the Society deprived this Society of the spiritual right to manage the school. Marie Steiner, whom the spiritual world had designated as Rudolf Steiner's deputy and successor, found that the internal fights between the members of the Governing Council, in which she herself was involved, absolutely did not allow her to work in accordance with Rudolf Steiner's wishes . She found herself increasingly isolated, denigrated by the very person she had proposed. Eventually forced to retire, she created a new sphere of activity outside the Society. The members who recognized in her, more than in anyone else, a spiritual authority to direct the Society, followed her and later officially created the Anthroposophische Vereinigung in der Schweiz (Anthroposophical Association in Switzerland), with centers throughout German-speaking Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The Association still exists, even if its members are less numerous. This separation into two distinct organizations of what remained of the Society after the expulsion of Ita Wegman and Elisabeth Vreede had important spiritual and practical consequences. Since Rudolf Steiner had personally transmitted to Marie Steiner the exclusive rights to all his works, neither the faction of the broken Society led by Steffen and remaining in Domach, nor the organization which had formed around Ita Wegman, were authorized to publish or sell any book by Rud olf Steiner. As we have seen, R. Steiner had given Albert Steffen and Guenther Wachsmuth responsibility for the administrative aspects of the work of the Steering Committee. None of them appear to have been authorized to lead the Society spiritually. Even more serious, A.

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Steffen, acting against Marie Steiner and securing the presidency in violation of the directive that the spiritual world had given them, seems to have worked in opposition to the intentions of Rudolf Steiner (although, no doubt, at the time he did not look at things from this point of view). External circumstances meant that A. Steffen and G. Wachsmuth were the ones who remained at the headquarters in Dornach, when Ita Wegman and Elisabeth Vreede were excluded and Marie Steiner withdrew. As a result, the general public, who knew very little about the events we have recounted, naturally assumed that the remaining party was the "official" Anthroposophical Society and regarded A. Steffen as its rightful responsible, a view shared in all sincerity from Steffen, Wachsmuth and their supporters. Among free-spirited anthroposophists today (those among them who are concerned with similar matters), opinions are shared when it comes to whether one or the other of the dissident groups can truly consider themselves the successor of the Society created by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Congress in 1923. The postwar Society led by A. Steffen and G. Wachsmuth, which has continued to exist to this day, recently sought legal recognition as a successor to the original Society, but its application was rejected by the Swiss court of justice. However, it has seen its membership rise sharply around the world since the war, and although its membership has dwindled in recent years, it remains the only surviving dissident group to have a significant presence around the world. The spiritual aspiration and the cultural activities of its members are founded and nourished by the teaching that R. Steiner gave during the first three decades of the 20th century (paradoxically, the members show little interest in the work that the Society carries out today in collaboration with those who, among her disciples, have responded to her call to return to Earth before the passage of the new millennium). Now is our round of exploration of the work of this great human spirit who had lived in the past in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, and of the fulfillment of the mission he received from the Masters in his incarnation in Rudolf Steiner. He fulfilled his mission in an extraordinary way, granting mankind a wealth of knowledge relating to the spiritual side of existence such as the world has not yet seen. They were concrete knowledge, full of reality. They could be applied to the inner life (the path of inner development) and to man's activities in the outer world. What should result from his mission would depend on how people let themselves be taken by the impulse he had given . Klingsor and the demons of hate had responded by scattering Michael's disciples, so that they would be unable to ally against Sorat's plans. The Universal Anthroposophical Society had been founded in 1923, as a vehicle for the spiritual movement bringing together the souls of Michael's many disciples who had found, or are finding, their path to spiritual science. The fragmentation of this vehicle into rival currents (where each could claim to have been charged with certain aspects of the Society's mission) had paralyzed the movement. It could no longer go its own way in the world without the coherence and well-established structure of a united organization. The hostility between the divergent groups of the Society had been alive. The explosion had occurred at the time when Adolf Hitler was coming to power. The Nazi Party

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soon banned organized anthroposophical activities anywhere in the German Reich . Sorat had won a landslide victory. After Hitler's defeat, the main current of the anthroposophical movement, now separated from the fragments of the Society, was left without a structure, without an earthly direction. Rudolf Steiner, his true guide, was in the spirit world. Michael's disciples were effectively scattered, unable to adopt a common position against Sorat. The Two-Horned Beast had set the stage for the next phase of his plan. Meanwhile, computers had advanced at lightning speed, as we'll see in the next chapter, and were poised to go from the huge and expensive computers used by governments, large corporations, and major academic organizations, to smaller, affordable machines. to small businesses, and finally to the ubiquitous personal computer, which is now being replaced by the portable telephone with Internet connection via radio (wi-fi): the most dangerous form of computer. Did the outbreak of the Anthroposophical Society have a significant influence on the proliferation of artificial intelligence ? The answer is: most likely. Indeed, it fell to the sections of the School of Spiritual Sciences to ensure that the development and use of artificial intelligence did not exert a harmful influence on human beings. We will speak again in Chapter VIII. After all, one may wonder: if the Governing Council of 1925 hadn't become a victim of the Two-horned Beast, if the members of the Committee had been able to resist that terrible demon in one way or another and had been able to work harmoniously together, would Rudolf Steiner have been able to guide them in this task from the spirit world? Had he been, he surely would have continued to lead the fight against Sorat and his misuse of technique. The warnings he had given about the terrible risk that binary artificial intelligence would soon cause: the suppression of human thought by 2200; similar warnings would certainly have been clearer and more pressing. Countermeasures would perhaps have been indicated. But ultimately, Rudolf Steiner never had the opportunity to lead the Governing Council and had no say in the further development and collapse of the Company. One of the consequences was that the "official" Universal Anthroposophical Society of A. Steffen and G. Wachsmuth in Dornach, with its School of Spiritual Sciences, was de facto regarded by the public as the authority on R. Steiner's work. It was assumed, therefore, that the attitude taken by the Society towards world events reflected that which Rudolf Steiner would have adopted. The vast majority of members around the world who, for the most part, had no inkling of what had really gone on behind closed doors in the upper echelons of the Society in the world leading up to its outbreak, saw things in much the same way. . One consequence would have been that, if the Anthroposophical Society was seen to embrace computers and the internet with open arms, then members in general would have drawn the conclusion that Rudolf Steiner's teaching was in favor of binary computer technology - a disastrous mistake. . The risk existed that the same erroneous conclusion could be drawn by millions of people indirectly connected to the Company in one way or another. In fact, that's exactly what

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happened. Not only did the general current of the anthroposophical movement rightly make such an interpretation of the computerization of the world center of the Society in Domach, Switzerland, but of the movements which were more or less strongly related to it, which considered that spiritual science a school of thought serious, they did the same. The Goetheanum was perhaps the first major anthroposophical institution to succumb to the encroachment of binary computer technology. To be absolutely correct, it must be said that the Anthroposophical Society has not welcomed computerization with open arms. The first computer was tricked into the Goetheanum some forty years ago without the knowledge of the Society's management; the Company found itself faced with a fait accompli 113 . Furthermore, the first stages of the full computerization that followed later went against the wishes of the Governing Council, which the author had warned against the risks involved. But things got out of control and the Internet soon spread its tentacles everywhere in the "building". However, the public knew nothing of this. From outward appearances, the Anthroposophical Society was pro-computer. This apparent "approval" influenced numerous anthroposophical institutions (schools , health centers, clinics, etc.) and swept away any doubts they might have had about the nature of binary electronics, and they embraced computerization. It can be assumed that if the management of the Anthroposophical Society had been sufficiently aware of the true nature of binary computer technology, if they had openly denounced this technology and refused to adopt it (on well-considered technical and spiritual grounds), its position would have had the consequence that a large number of people would have thought more seriously about the matter. Not only within the anthroposophical movement itself, but also in many other, wider circles that recognize the value of Rudolf Steiner's work, one would have focused on the real problems at stake. It can also be thought that if the Society had resisted computer technology and the Internet, the general public in some European country where Rudolf Steiner is well known would have become aware of these problems and would have wanted to know more about the reasons have led to questioning the use of binary computers. It's pure conjecture, of course. But there were a large number of people in these circles who had serious doubts about computerization. They let themselves be persuaded to use this technology because apparently all other people, including the Anthroposophical Society, were in favor of it. In the second half of the 20th century, the anthroposophical movement (that is, the dispersed disciples of Michael and the people in search of spiritual science) progressively freed itself from most of the "quarrels" and hostilities inherited from the division of the Society. It became the widespread, disunited spiritual current that it is today. By the end of the century, there were probably several hundred thousand people around the world who considered themselves vain anthroposophists or students of the spiritual sciences, and who felt the need to take action to stem the tide of Ahrimanic forces flooding civilization. Among these anthroposophists, only a small minority wanted to join an official organization. The majority

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preferred to avoid formal societies and other institutions of this character, with the risks of party spirit and dispute that this entails. But that left these anthroposophists without any means of concerted action. The scattering of Michael's disciples who had prepared to fight against Sorat did not put an end to spiritual science itself; however, Sorat will indeed completely suppress spiritual science if human beings do not come to take measures to counter his designs. Spiritual science had spread throughout the world and was a force to be reckoned with. To keep the Anthroposophical Society united as the earthly vehicle of the movement after the death of Rudolf Steiner , against Klingsor and the hosts of Sorat, would have required a clarity of thought, great courage and a steadfastness of will which went beyond human development normal of the time. It took less than six months for Klingsor and the demons to actually break the Society. However, spiritual science had been given to mankind as a whole and had taken root in Western culture. It proposed a path that led to supersensible perception, to a perception of the ambit in which new and powerful Michaelic impulses could come. Sorat's demons have severely destroyed Michael's work on Earth, but they cannot attack him directly in the spirit world. Not yet. The German people had been shattered. The British people, as a people, were unaware that spiritual science existed. He was not in a position to assume the responsibility of taking Michael's teaching into the world (perhaps there will come a time when that will be possible). At first glance, it was as if Sorat had totally bankrupted the Michelian movement on Earth. But if you look a little deeper, other aspects reveal themselves. When peoples cannot fulfill their missions, whatever the reason, the task must be taken up by individuals, or more exactly by groups of individuals. Rudolf Steiner knew that the only real hope for the wave to turn against Sorat at the end of the century was based on the creation of groups of a new kind: circles of twelve human beings within which Michelian thought would be fully alive . Discreetly, he had prepared the ground for the creation of such groups, not in collaboration with the Society's management, nor with his other disciples and longtime friends, but with only the people who would actually live during the mid-decades. of the 20th century, and until recent years: the youngest of anthroposophists. We shall speak of the work of the twelve-person circles in volume IL When we return to the proliferation of artificial intelligence and its intrusion wherever it is possible into our lives, we are well aware that, even if Sorat was victorious in the external action of the Michael movement, other spiritual seeds had been sown . Preparations had been made for the next stage in the battle for the future of mankind, when the spirit that had lived in Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and R. Steiner would return with the anthroposophists to the rendezvous at the turn of the millennium. Together, they would join forces with other spiritual movements working for Michael, especially what Rudolf Steiner called the "great Platonists ". He had specified that a collaboration with them would be indispensable for the final success of the anthroposophical impulse.

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CHAPTER VII BEWARE OF THE ASURAS!

We now come to our time, to the first decades of the 21st century. A much greater spiritual battle rages around us today than that which took place in the first half of the 20th century. Once again, we are faced with an abnormal collaboration of the great adversaries of humanity, as was the case more than 700 years ago, in the fourteenth century, when Sorat acted in concert with Lucifer to bring about the destruction of the Order. of the Templars. In this beginning of the Age of Light, these adverse powers again join forces against the spiritual beings who lead humanity. But during the 20th century evil beings more terrible than Lucifer and the demons of Sorat arose. Through these beings who have also united with Sorat, an even greater primordial evil is exerted, of a frightening power. Until now, they have not intervened in human evolution, although their existence has been known for a long time. According to the esoteric tradition they are called Asuras. Before examining the action of the Asuras on the human being, it will be useful to place them in what we could call the hierarchy of evil. This will help us understand their nature and also see how we can protect ourselves against their influence. We specified, in the first chapter of this book, that there are two fundamental principles which oppose the normal development of the human being. To one of these princes we have given the name Ahriman. It is the active principle which diverts men from all that is spiritual, inciting them to recognize only the physical material world. Under its influence man becomes deaf to his own higher nature (his soul and spirit), believing that nothing exists beyond physical matter and physical energy. Thus he becomes an irreducible materialist, convinced that we are only biological mechanisms that cease to function with death. He is absolutely not interested in the divine spirit world, as for him it is only a figment of the imagination. He considers the human being as the result of a combination of chemical elements due to chance within a meaningless universe that began with the big bang and will end in the form of dissipated and shapeless heat.

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As for the opposite principle, we have given him the name of Lucifer, in accordance with the Christian tradition. This principle acts upon human beings by inciting them to turn exclusively towards the spiritual. The human being is separated from concrete life and aspires to live a spiritual existence indifferent to the things of this world . He becomes alienated from Earth affairs and forgets his duties as a citizen of the Earth to his fellow citizens and to the planet. His inner life is filled with pleasant illusions and passionate dreams. In an absolute sense, the names of Lucifer and Ahriman do not designate individual entities . They are not specific beings, singular or plural. The very concepts of singular and plural are inappropriate with respect to the true nature of these spiritual Aspects of universal existence . But we don't need to try to grasp them in all their cosmic reality. What matters in our study is to get an idea of how these two principles of evil work in our solar system through beings of the spiritual hierarchies and earthly man. To this end, we evoke a current notion in the Hindu religion, a notion that has been taken up, in an aberrant form, in the world of online computer games. It is about the notion of avatar. In these games, the player needs an image of himself that will appear on the screen and that will play a role in the pseudo-events that unfold throughout the game. The image on the screen is directed by electrical impulses that the player sends by means of a control device: a joystick or a simple "mouse". Thus the player makes his virtual image perform the actions that his real physical body would perform, if this body were able to fit into the virtual world simulated on the screen. Even if the image on the screen looks nothing like the player's physical body, the player regards it as a projection of himself, as another self - yes, as an alter ego. Such a virtual alter ego in online gaming parlance is called an avatar. avatars are spoken of by evoking the manifestations of a deity on a lower or more limited plane. Just as the networked player feels that his on-screen avatar is a manifestation of his own being, the true avatars of deities are manifestations of certain aspects of their essential nature. But unlike avatars in computer games, which are illusory, deity avatars are objective, real beings. Among the spiritual beings of our planetary system are Ahrimanic demons - avatars of Ahriman - of different degrees and levels of power. One of the largest of these ahrimanic demons is the two-comatose Beast, Sorat, of particular interest to us in our study. The Two-Comatose Beast leads the concerted action of the forces of evil in our age. The demons of Sorat were at work in the war machines, which clashed on all fronts in the First World War, in which Western humanity lost the prime of its young generations, and the German people were brutally made fall. Sorat aimed to establish the supremacy of machines in all areas of life, making them endowed with a form of artificial intelligence perfectly adapted to the nature of his demons: an electromagnetic intelligence of a binary nature. But Sorat's drawings didn't stop there! His vast plot involved introducing demons into

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human beings themselves. The sun demon knew that in the future men would be more and more intimately linked with machines, that the development of future civilizations would be based on a true man-machine symbiosis. He had firmly decided that the machines of the future would be animated, and men possessed by his infernal demons. In fact he counted on taking Christ's place: he wanted to be God. Rudolf Steiner comments on these sinister intentions in these terms: "The way by which the demons, thugs of the great demon Sorat, will enter human life is already being worked out. It is enough to talk to those who know - for example, with those who are aware of the continuation of the events that unleashed the World War ale. One is not mistaken when it is stated that the approximately 40 men responsible for the outbreak of this war were all in a state of diminished consciousness at the time of the events in question. Such a state is the gateway for demonic ahrimanic beings, and Sorat it is one of the greatest of these demons. In all of this one can see attempts on the part of Sorat, attempts to penetrate at least temporarily into the consciousness of men and to wreak havoc and confusion there. It was not war as such, but what followed, which is worse and will get worse and worse, such as for example the current Constitution in Russia, to which the demons of Sorat aspire, who penetrate human souls" 114 .

Sorat is the ruler of all ahrimanic beings of the hierarchies of Archangels, Angels and lower levels. He himself possesses a higher rank - he belongs to the high hierarchy of beings we call Archai in the language of spiritual science. There are other latecomer Archai, whose action is equally linked to the human spirit and matter. These beings are, in this sense, ahrimanic in character, but their mode of action differs greatly from that of Sorat and his henchmen. In certain occult schools, they are included in the category of ahrimanic demons, but in spiritual science they are distinguished from beings like Sorat and his followers by calling them by the ancient name of their hierarchy: Asuras (Asuras is another word for Archai). The Asuras are evil demons more powerful than Sorat, in the sense that they act more profoundly than him on the human soul. Lucifer acts, through beauty and art, on the sensitivity of the human being, inciting him to seek an even more exalted, supernatural beauty. The chimerical thinker, in his ivory tower detached from this world, dreams of a transcendent existence. He loses his link with real earth life. Ahriman, as for him, acts on the human intellect . Under its influence, man recognizes only what is material. He becomes an inveterate materialist. By his belief, by his way of thinking, he binds himself only to the physical world. The spiritual is denied, forgotten. The action of the Asuras who also attack the human spirit to the physical world is even more dangerous. It is exercised neither on the sensibility (sentient soul) nor on the intelligence (rational soul), but directly on the human "I", as it is understood in the conscious soul. When the "I" binds directly to the deep impulses that emanate from the unconscious voluntary life , when it lets itself be carried away into an unbridled and perverse sexuality, for example, it leaves a part of its spiritual essence there. In 1909, Rudolf Steiner could still say: 243

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"The Asuras act in such a way that what they appropriate, the 'I', will bind itself to the earthly sensuality, for they act in the sancta sanctorum of our inner nature: in the conscious soul with the 'I". Piece piecemeal, the spiritual substance of the "I" will be torn away and to the extent that these Asuras install themselves in the consciousness soul, to the same extent men will have to leave pieces of their own existence on Earth. influence of the Asuras will be lost forever. [...] Today there is still no one who lives his life in accordance with the notion that man , in his essential nature, is descended from the animal. But this conception of existence will not fail to establish itself, and the consequence will be that those who embrace it will live like beasts , sinking into bestial desires and instincts. In numerous activities - on the subject of which there is no need to dwell here - which take place in certain districts of large cities, such as orgies and depravities of sensuality, we already see the infernal grotesque lights of these spirits we call Asuras" 115 .

One hundred years have passed since the conference cited, and many are those who devote themselves to the most bestial desires and instincts. Worse still, man is not only believed to be an animal, he is also thought of as a machine - a biological machine programmed by the genetic codes in the cells of his body. What it does is what it is programmed to do. In extreme but fairly widespread cases, man assimilates his sexual practices to the functioning of a machine: he sees himself as a "sex machine". The hellish lights of the Asuras take on ever more monstrous proportions. What happens when the "I" loses its spiritual substance bit by bit? What happens when the "I" frays, collapses? His place is taken by one of Sorat's demons. The resulting being is human in appearance, but is not a human being. He is a satanic being . Today, a portion of the earth's population is made up of satanic beings incarnated in a human body. In the cycle of lectures (OO 346) by Rudolf Steiner that we have just mentioned in relation to the sun demon, R. Steiner entrusted the priests of the Christian community with indications that he preferred not to mention publicly at that time. He revealed to them the extent of the calamity that was befalling humanity. At the end of the 20th century, one third of the population would have lost its humanity. This makes more than two billion non-human beings inhabited by demons. And this corrupts the hereditary currents . One in three children born today is no longer human. The situation is very serious. In our age, humanity therefore suffers (in an unconscious way for the most part ) the combined assault of the sun demon, Sorat, of the angel of sin, Lucifer and of the beings of primordial evil, the Asuras. This sinister situation, when we really grasp it, when we recognize it in all its seriousness, can seem so oppressive that we cannot think that all is lost. Indeed , Rudolf Steiner's words ring right: civilization is falling into the abyss. The external facades are preserved: the universities, the factories, the international stock exchanges, and even the churches. But great perspicacity is not required to discern the duplicity of world powers, the lies, the shameless and inhumane greed in international politics, as well as in multinational industrial affairs . In some areas of life, affairs are directed by men who are not human. There

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are, however, many groups of righteous and honest human beings, but they are not representative of our time. On a global scale, morality and a true social conscience (the essence of civilization) are now a thing of the past. However, we must also take into consideration the powers of good behind humanity that can act through the intermediary of groups of honest human beings. Their action is led , in our age, by the great Archangel Michael. While the powers of evil deceive and constrain us, the powers of good set us free, adding their forces to our free acts. In battle, these two forces are equal; it is man who tips the balance. It is itself the battlefield. The fight will be waged and won in and through human beings. Human actions will determine the winner's field. Wouldn't that be a exercise in common sense, for all of us who recognize these truths and find the courage to stand up for good, join forces in one way or another and join forces? Today, humanity needs spiritual science more than ever, not as a dogma, but in its full and living reality. As a science, spiritual research must evolve and must progress. The path that leads to spiritual perception must remain practicable. Michael's urgent call to humanity still resonates, a call that must be able to be heard. It is not addressed only to the souls of anthroposophists who are faithful to their own movement, but also to all the souls of the other Michelian currents, and to all those who feel in their hearts that the appeal is addressed to them. In Volume II we will see how these souls can work together in a new way, one that can give them the means to overcome in the face of concerted onslaught from the powers of evil. Alongside Michael, the men can claim victory - it's not a vain hope. But initially, let us try to clarify even more the exact nature of this concerted attack, since much depends on our ability to understand well what we have to fight against. The human being thinks. In his thinking, he is awake. Thought is an entirely conscious sphere of inner activity. This does not mean that any thought is conscious. Of course, there are lower levels: subliminal, subconscious thoughts. But thinking is precisely the human activity that can be fully conscious. The feelings and emotions that rise from the chest do not have this clarity. It is said that the seat of our inner life of feelings is the heart. However, it is not so much from the physical organ, but from its rhythm that our feelings and emotions seem to emerge, from the rhythm of heartbeats and from the rhythm that is linked to it, that of breathing. All feelings and emotions are accompanied by corresponding changes in these rhythms. The changes are naturally more evident in the case of strong feelings or big emotions, such as the rapid pulse and strong breathing of anger, the momentary arrest of heartbeat and breathing in case of strong fear, labored breathing and pains heart attacks in love pains, hiccups , spasmodic inspirations and cardiac arrhythmias during deep sorrow, etc. These two spheres of our inner life, thinking and feeling, interpenetrate. The abstract thoughts and images that cross our minds arouse the corresponding feelings in our chest. Conversely, strong emotions act powerfully within our intellectual activity, diverting our 245

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thoughts from the course they would have followed if calm had reigned. Since the 7th century, Sorat has increasingly intervened in human thought , trying to control it entirely. The goal that human thought has always strived to achieve is true knowledge: the Truth. Under the influence of Sorat's cunning machinations , the spirits of men have turned towards half-truths and untruths. Normally, human beings feel the Trinitarian aspect of any existence. This Trinitarian aspect can be expressed in the highest way in the divine Trinity. Man finds it in his own nature: body, soul and spirit. He meets her in her triple relationship with the terrestrial world through thought, feeling and deeds, and in the corresponding spheres of her activity: science, religion and art . It expresses itself in its three normal states of consciousness: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. The very architecture of our world is triple: the three axes of space, the division of time into past , present and future. We could continue with other aspects, for our being and the world, from our experience as terrestrial humans, are truly tripartite in their essential nature. By means of logic in syllogisms, Aristotle brought human reason (the activity of mental construction) into harmony with the reality of the world. If we start from premises that are true, syllogistic logic allows us to draw conclusions that are equally true. Sorat undermined the very foundations of human reason by imbuing thought with duality . Man, that is, a being of body and soul, was then placed before a world divided in two: one realm that can be known, and another that cannot be received except through divine revelation. This same tendency was later brilliantly expressed with Bacon in the reduction of thoughts into words, of words into letters, and of letters into sequences of two keystrokes: "a" and "b". This seemed so logical that this idea was accepted almost worldwide, and became the fundamental principle of computer science. And yet, it's a lie. Thoughts transcend words. Also, words are made up of letters. Language existed thousands of years before the alphabet was invented. The letters are only symbols that serve to indicate the articulation of the word by means of vowels and consonants. But no two human beings speak the same way, and we never repeat names by pronouncing them identically, and in the same tone. Thoughts and feelings pour together into the word, which is a living creative act, infinitely varied and in perpetual change. A series of letters on a piece of paper is not a word. It is a conventional, fixed set of standard signs taken from the very limited game of 26 characters. The marks on the card mean nothing in themselves. For the illiterate (who perhaps speaks perfectly), they are nothing more than inkblots. As we learn to read and write, we learn to combine these skeletal symbols and juxtapose them to mirror living speech. When we read, we internally pronounce the words that we generate ourselves, and which we associate with these sequences of skeletal characters. Although written letters can actually be replaced by sets of "a"s and d's for words this is not possible. No normal person speaks in a toneless, accentless voice, without inflection or feeling. Only a

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machine can do this. But the machine is not speaking, it has no consciousness of words. It makes just a series of noises that a human being might take for monotonous speech. Thoughts and feelings pour together into the true word. How magnificent this can be! An inflamed rhetoric colored with idealism; the passionate words of the deeply moved soul, the lyrical beauty of a poem recited; the tender words of a loving heart; the solemn and religious tones of a sacred rite, here are examples of true oral expression. Sorat could not be satisfied with his influence on human reason, since reason can be influenced by feelings. Religious devotion can be stronger than logic. Sorat needed to control his feelings and emotions. He achieved this through his concerted action with Lucifer when in the 14th century the forces of blasphemy and hatred of Christ were wrested from the persecuted souls of the great Templars and poured into Western civilization (these forces would later find a way of automatic action by means of binary technology). Thus truth was replaced by counter-truths, and veneration was changed to blasphemy. But Sorat knew that his plans could still be thwarted by the force deeply anchored in the human being: the will. At the fundamental level of his being, man is a creature of God, made in God's image. At this level, he is good. Primordial goodness underlies the activity of his will. We have said that thinking lives in the head, and feeling in the chest. The will of man lives in his members and in his organs of procreation. It also lives in his metabolic system. The life of his will is unconscious. Man mentally decides on his own actions, and he perceives himself as he is carrying out what he has decided. But the mysterious actions of his will in the muscles and sinews, in the digestive process, and at the deepest levels of the procreative act , all these lie far beneath his waking consciousness. The forces at work in the sphere of the will are primordial forces of extraordinary potency. In his metabolic system, man destroys the matter he has absorbed as nourishment. The part that needs to be assimilated is totally broken down, almost as completely as when matter in the outside world is destroyed by nuclear fission. An enormous force of destruction thus acts through the human metabolism. Conversely, a divine creation force acts through the organs of procreation. But none of these original forces are under the control of man's waking consciousness. It is nature itself that governs their action within the human organism, according to the cosmic principle of Goodness. One day, humans will be able to direct these forces consciously, but only when they have evolved further still. If these forces were to come under their control before they achieve total disinterest, the consequences would be catastrophic. The divine principle of Goodness, which underlies our bodily nature and our will, is not what we call morality, it is something deeper. We are not dealing here with goodness according to some codes of ethics or according to any other criterion of human judgement. It is the divine aspect par excellence of Man, the image of God: the fundamental characteristic of the created being. Man is intrinsically good (although the etymological roots of the words "good" and

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"God" - "gut" and "Gott" in German - are defined as uncertain by the Oxford English Dictionary, it is clear that they are intimately related †††††. A In this regard, it is interesting to note that the adjective "good" is absolute. It cannot take comparative or su perlative forms such as "gooder" or "goodest", but different words are used: "better" and "best"). Neither Sorat nor Lucifer can directly access this fundamental level of human nature. However, Sorat's purpose is to subjugate the will of man, in order to fully control his spirit and take it away from him. An attempt in this direction could only succeed by combining the action of these primordial powers of evil (Asuras), with the concerted attack of Sorat and Lucifer. Let us now examine the preparations that made all of this possible.

DEHOMAG - THE MACHINES OF INHUMANITY We have followed the development of Hollerith's automatic tabulating machines up to the mid-1920s, at which time they can be regarded as IBM computers. The German branch, Dehomag, became a key driver of computer development. Its ascent paralleled that of the one whose name will be inextricably linked to it: Adolf Hitler. Dehomag machines were , of course, not used to take censuses in Germany. Hitler soon ascertained that these machines were exactly what he needed to implement his global strategy which aimed to conquer the world and to establish the supremacy of the Teutonic race. When most American businessmen reflect on the development of IBM, which has become one of the most prestigious companies in contemporary history, they probably don't think for a moment of Herman Hollerith. In all likelihood, few of them would be able to give the name of the person to whom Hollerith sold his company: Charles Flint. But surely they would know well and be filled with admiration for the man Flint hired to run his company: Thomas J. Watson. He was one of the greatest technical and industrial heroes of the 20th century America has known, and he occupies a high position in the pantheon of worldwide success. Born into a family of Scottish descent, Thomas J. Watson grew into a very enterprising young salesman, unscrupulous, ready to intimidate, to extort things with deceit, to lie and to cheat if the profits were worth it. In 1895, he was hired by NCR, the National Cash Register Company , as a sales representative based in Buffalo, the company's regional office, where Herman Hollerith had been born thirty-five years earlier. Young Thomas was so successful in business that he was sent to one of the regions that had the worst sales levels, to see if he could make it profitable. He rose to the challenge and surpassed all hope. The head of NCR was a man named Patterson, a megalomaniac and a real scoundrel. His method for NCR to be the undisputed leader in the cash register business was to destroy its

†††††In English "buono" is "good" and God is "God".

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competitors and eliminate them altogether . Recognizing the potential of the young Thomas Watson, he entrusted him with a secret mission. He was to strike a deal apparently unrelated to NCR, and receive sufficient funds to enable him to prosper by selling NCR's cash registers at a loss, much cheaper than those of their competitors. He had to use all the tricks of the trade: disinformation, attrition, intimidation , cheating of consumers , etc. Patterson wanted him not only to bankrupt the other cash register makers, but also to capture the second-hand market. Thomas Watson was the ideal candidate for this job. And he did it well. Very good. Patterson began to feel uneasy about having such an ambitious and ruthless man on his team. Wouldn't Watson have challenged him sooner or later? Patterson didn't want to take that risk. One day, he called Watson into his office and kicked him out immediately. Watson was furious. He swore he would create his own empire, bigger and better than NCR. Charles Flint, who had bought back Herman Hollerith's shares, was a tough American business tycoon, living the good life and keeping his footing in both camps. Some say he was an arms dealer. When Thomas Watson put himself forward to run the tabulating machine business, Flint knew exactly what kind of guy he was dealing with. He engaged Watson on the latter's terms, and gave him full powers. Thomas Watson transformed the Flint machine company Hollerith into a world-class international financial empire: IBM. American author Edwin Black, the son of Poles who survived Hitler's massive Jewish extermination operation, has written a weighty study of the alliance of IBM and its German subsidiary, Dehomag, with the Nazi party, based on years of research detailed information and a huge amount of verifiable facts. His excellent book, IBM and the Holocaust™, describes, sometimes in unbearable detail, how starting in 1933 Dehomag's engineers and employees worked closely with the Nazi regime to establish and implement racial identification procedures. Although Dehomag appeared to the German authorities as an independent German company , it was in reality a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM America. The true identity of the company was disguised behind cleverly drafted documents and covert financial transactions. It is unlikely that the Germans got completely duped , but because Dehomag served their purposes, Hitler and his staff turned a blind eye to Dehomag's questionable status and Watson's gigantic profits. Hitler embarked on his offensive against the Jews as soon as he came to power in 1933. He described them as an evil race that wanted to dominate the world. His campaign was not directed against the Jewish religion but against their blood. From the beginning, his intention was to exterminate all Jews in the world if possible. The campaign was prepared skilfully and effectively. It began with a census and the compilation of ever more detailed statistics of the Jewish bloodlines using Hollerith-IBM machines and charts specially designed and supplied by Dehomag. A person was considered to be a Jew if he had Jewish blood in his veins, whether 249

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practicing or not, and also if he had converted to another religion. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped Jews of their civic rights. Then, in 1938, came the fateful Crystal Night, when patriotic rioters broke the windows of Jewish homes and shops throughout Germany and Austria. They burned and looted more than a thousand synagogues, attacked Jews in their homes, and sent them by the thousands to concentration camps. The Nazi Party knew who to attack, whether they had Jewish traits or not. The Nazis held a large body of data on Jewish bloodlines, data compiled on Hollerith's machines with the aid of Dehomag's techniques. While most of the world's countries had turned against Hitler's regime and commercial transactions with Nazi Germany were prohibited, IBM continued its commercial transactions with Adolf Hitler through an office in Geneva, in neutral Switzerland. This office became IBM's European center for covert transactions. IBM supplied machines, paper and technical services, not only for the program to exterminate the Jews, but also for the rearmament of Germany in preparation for World War II. Special machines were developed for the Nazi party, IBM's largest customer abroad. Dehomag machines were installed in the concentration and extermination camps, and a special registration system was created to keep up to date the details of the slavery system, in which robust Jews literally killed themselves in labor, and to classify the method of extermination of every child , every pregnant woman, every sick or elderly person: in all more than two million people. The degradation and brutality to which the victims were subjected are simply too heinous to be told. Thomas J. Watson, who personally earned a lot of money with Dehomag, traveled to Germany on occasion, and this was until 1939. In recognition of his outstanding services to the Nazi regime, Hitler had created a special medal for him, the Cross of Merit of the German Eagle with Star, the highest decoration ever awarded to a foreigner, which Watson proudly wore. Thanks to IBM's technology, Germany had probably the best logistics facilities in the world when the war broke out. But IBM also sold equipment to the American military. Watson could not lose, and so supported the war on both sides. He knew perfectly well what his machines and other products were used for. He knew better than anyone what was happening with the thousands and thousands of unfortunate Jews. He never laid his hand on one of them, of course, but he supplied his client with the technology, without which hundreds of thousands of victims probably would not have been identified for extermination. This image of IBM, the world leader in information technology, also allows us to glimpse the darker forces that through Adolf Hitler, possessed by Sorat, were brought into relation with binary data processing. Hollerith had built his census machines, to track the growth of a nation. Through Hitler, IBM-Hollerith machines were used to track blood ties. They were the first steps that aimed to unite the binary technology in a very bad way with the deepest forces in human beings: the forces of procreation. As for IBM, it managed to dominate the world of data processing. As of 1960, IBM produced 70% of all computers in the world, and sold 4 out of 5

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computers to the United States. Some may wonder why Thomas J. Watson was not prosecuted as a war criminal. Had he been German, he would surely have been sentenced to life imprisonment. But he wasn't German, he was on the winning side. And one of America's brilliant corporate heroes. At times, Adolf Hitler was not a human being. His hypnotic voice, his cries, were used by the Beast with two comas to awaken the bestial forces in the souls of the men who listened to him. Since the destruction of the Templars, the Beast controlled the forces of the human heart in certain situations and could turn them into blasphemy and hatred. These ominous sentiments were particularly visible when, for example, Nazi forces threw sacred torahs on the ground and smeared them, or lit alive, like candles, Jews doused in kerosene forcing their families to sing sacred songs while those they were dying in the flames. Sorat's influence through Adolf Hitler not only transformed IBM-Dehomag into what it became in the 1930s and 1940s, but had decisive repercussions on the development of the computer in England and America. This brings us to the man we mentioned earlier, Alan Turing.

TURING'S MACHINE It was only in 1984 with the publication by Andrew Hodges of the highly gilded biography Alan Turing: The Enigma that the world at large became aware of the work of this 20th-century mathematical genius, Alan Turing. In some respects, Turing was the opposite of Bacon: a shy, neglected-looking man who preferred the simple things in life and did not aspire to universality. However, in many respects, it is as if Bacon's grand vision for calculating and processing data in binary code, after having slumbered for three hundred years, arises forcefully again through this man's modern spirit. uncommon. Alan Mathison Turing was born on June 23 , 1912 in Paddington, London. His father was a British government official in India, but Alan was brought up and educated in England . From his earliest childhood , he demonstrated an analytical curiosity which disappointed and puzzled his family, since they had no taste for science. For his tenth birthday Alan Turing received a gift which made a deep impression on him and which left a lasting impression on him; an unknown benefactor offered him a book called The Wonders of Nature that every child should know. The book, written in a somewhat puritanical and profoundly materialistic style by one Edwin Tenney Brewster, informed its young readers that: "[...] we are not built like a house of concrete or wood, but rather like a brick house. We are made up of small living bricks. As we grow these living bricks separate in two and each half turns back into a complete brick. But do they know where and when to grow fast, where and when to grow slowly,

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and where and when not to grow at all? No one has yet discovered that" 117 .

The author insisted that humans are machines: "It is evident that the body is a machine. An extraordinarily complex machine, a thousand times more complex than any other machine ever built by man; but nevertheless a machine. It has been compared to a steam engine, but our knowledge has evolved since then. In reality it is the petrol engine that we need to think about; an engine of a car , ship or plane" 118 .

And following the example of so many descriptions of man's constitution as a mechanism , Brewster's image of his inner workings leads him to liken the nervous system to a telephone exchange. To describe how the brain commands the lungs to breathe harder when we exercise, Brewster writes: "When the nerve center in the neck tastes a little carbon dioxide, it says nothing. But as the taste starts to get stronger (which comes in less than a quarter of a minute after it starts), it calls the lungs through the nerves: "Hey, hey, hey! What's going on over there, guys? Hurry up. Breathe in strongly. This blood is hyper-burning and starting to caramelize!” 119

It is through this book that Alan Turing was introduced to early 20th century scientific thinking. He greedily devoured it and began imagining his own experiences to supplement the very limited information this book contained on the chemistry and mechanics of the human machine. But it was the field of mathematics that fascinated him . In elementary school, instruction in mathematics was limited, and yet by the time he was old enough to go to secondary school, he had already achieved with his unorthodox methods a level beyond what an ordinary mathematics professor could convey. . On the other hand, his works were written so badly and with so little care, that he often lost points for the mistakes he made, since he could no longer read his scrawled and illegible figures. In fact, the general presentation of his work at school was so poor that it took some time for one to realize the gifts that lay behind this neglected appearance. He had no literary talent and never tried to develop a particular style in his writings. In mathematics, he was maverick, intuitive, and brilliant. Alan Turing was awarded a scholarship to Cambridge University where he became a professor at the age of 22 . A short time later, in early 1935, she had an inspiration that led her to mentally conceive the model of a machine that met the needs of Bacon's data processing system (although he did not recognize it as such at the time). . His theoretical model, which was later known as the Turing machine , was one of the most important mental constructs of our age. However, curiously enough, Turing 's approach was exactly the polar opposite of that of Bacon, who would no doubt have regarded the young mathematician's methods with the greatest contempt. As Andrew Hodges puts it : "Alan was in fact certain that science thought for him, saw for him, and didn't boil down to a collection of facts at all. Science called axioms into question. Alan approached the questions as a

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specialist in pure mathematics, giving free rein to thought, then later verifying whether or not there could be applications in the physical world. This often opposed him to his friend Kenneth Harrison, defender of a more traditional conception according to which experience precedes theory and its verification" 120 .

The starting point of Turing 's research was a question posed to all the mathematicians of the world by their famous colleague, David Hilbert. Hilbert wondered if in essence there was a precise logical procedure that would allow one to decide whether a given statement is true or not: "Was mathematics decidable, i.e. was there a method that made it possible to decide, without proof, whether a mathematical statement was true?" 121

Hilbert's question did not impose any restrictions on the nature of the method , as long as it was strictly logical. But the question took on a new color for Alan Turing when he attended a series of lectures at the University of Cambridge given by Max HA Newman. The latter formulated Hilbert's question in another way: "Was there a definite method, or as Newman puts it, a mechanical process which made it possible to determine whether a mathematical proposition was provable or not?" 122

Naturally, Newman was speaking of a mechanical process in an abstract sense, a theoretical process rather than a physical mechanism.

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Now, Alan Turing was very fond of exercise, and had taken to running long distances in the afternoon, often along the banks of the River Cam. One afternoon early in the year 1935, he ran to Grantchester, where he lay down on a prairie. Lying on the grass, he brooded, as in a dream, over Hilbert's question, when an answer came to him. Hilbert had asked if there could be a definite method by which one could decide whether a proposition was true. Newman had put it differently, asking whether there could be a mechanical process by which one could decide whether a proposition was true. Alan Turing went one step further. He wondered if there could be a machine that could decide whether a proposition was true. And in thought he invented precisely such a machine. Alan Turing 's machine was its universality. But what is a universal machine? To answer this question, let us turn our gaze back to Bacon and his universal code.

FROM TRUTH TO NON-TRUTH Bacon maintained that everything that could be expressed in words could necessarily be expressed by means of a sequence of "a" and "b", and these two letters could in turn be represented by the two possible states of a mechanism as simple as a valve All ideas, concepts and thoughts, in essence the body of knowledge, could thus be reduced to a series of states "turning on" and "stopping" a valve, for example. Of course, Bacon knew perfectly well that it was he who had invented the code. But later, some thinkers would succumb to the dangerous temptation to look at it the other way around, as Sorat wanted them to do. They would have imagined that these two fundamental states are a common denominator of any knowledge, and would have wondered if information, as such, is not actually made up of combinations of these two basic elements. Perhaps these basic elements were there first. All knowledge is perhaps nothing more than an infinitely long series of a's and b's, they said to themselves. It's a relatively modern idea, one that has been advanced ever since World War II. One of the consequences of an information theory like that is that the difference between one thought and another, or between one truth and another, is purely quantitative (that is, it depends on the number and sequence of "a" and " b"). The notion of qualitative difference cannot exist. The very concept of "quality" is a simple sequence of "a" and "b". Any wealth, any beauty, any grandeur, any dignity is lost. The idea of "freedom" becomes laughable. The "meaning" of life is just a particularly long combination of "a" and "b". This character, "destroyer of qualities", resulting from the reverse use of Bacon's code , was reflected in another development at the beginning of the last century: the model of the atom. Here again we encounter the same untruth as applied to the material world. What is the difference between a rosemary and a cigarette butt? Basically none. Both are made up of 254

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different substances which in turn are made up of atoms. Of course, the atoms of the pink stain are different from those of the cigarette butt. But the difference begins to fade when we take it one step further, as atoms themselves are made up of tiny building blocks. For simplicity, let's say there are two basic elements: electrons and protons. According to atomic theory, all electrons are identical, and the same is true for protons. If you swap some electrons of the atoms of the stain rose with those of the butt atoms, this won't make the slightest difference. The only thing that distinguishes the atoms of one substance from those of another is the number of electrons and protons they contain, and the relative positions of these electrons and protons within the atoms, just as the number and sequence of "a" and "b" as regards the information. The difference between one substance and another is only quantitative. Where does this take us? Since matter is itself said to be made up of universal basic elements, what would be the fundamental difference between, say, a cathedral and a pile of rubbish? Well, then, one might say, I admit that there is no qualitative difference between the substances of which a cathedral is made and those which make up the rubbish heap. Both are essentially made up of electrons and protons, and all electrons are identical, as are all protons. In this sense, there is no real difference. But nonetheless, one is tempted to add that the real difference is found in the principles, the ideas, the architectural inspiration embedded in the lines and forms of the cathedral. All of this is going very well. But what are the principles, ideas and thoughts (inspired or otherwise)? Aren't they simply sequences of "a" and "b"?

THE TRUTH The truth, as we have seen, is that the contents of the human spirit cannot be expressed by series of "a" and "b". Bacon rightly proposed that anything that can be formulated in writing can also be formulated in writing. The help of the binary code. But the thinkers who came later made an incorrect assumption, that is, they said that everything can be expressed in words. Let us examine this hypothesis. The life of the soul is made up of experiences of all sorts. Some people are emotional ; they react to their environment with feelings. He who has never seriously tried to define a specific feeling knows that he cannot do it with words. Even the most complete dictionary does not contain a literal description of love, for example. Perhaps some indications will be found as to the circumstances in which love is felt, the behavior of the person who loves, and so on. The Oxford English Dictionary gives as the main definition of love: "That disposition or state of feeling (deriving from the recognition of seductive qualities , of instincts relating to natural relationships, or of sympathy) which relates to a person and which manifests itself in solicitude for the well-being of the object and usually also in the joy of his presence

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and in the desire to obtain his approval; warm affection, attachment" 123 .

It is perhaps the best definition we can come up with, but in reality it only informs us about the particular circumstances that can make us perceive this "disposition or state of feeling" we call love, and how perhaps we will react. Neither love nor any other feeling can be reduced to a definition , even if everyone knows what they are from personal experience. A careful observation of our soul life reveals that only concepts, ideas and other forms of thought can be expressed in words. In fact, most of us think in words, but we don't feel or act in words. Furthermore, the words we think or speak have qualities that cannot be rendered by the corresponding sequences of skeletal characters on paper, as we have already seen. The realm of feelings and emotions, like the realm of actions, is of a different nature. What we can express in words are our thoughts about feelings and our mental conceptions of acts. But thoughts about love can never play the role of love itself. A human soul that longs or needs to be loved will be no more satisfied with a sublime description of love than a hungry man will be with a beautiful description of a meal. There are also other areas of experience that cannot be put into words. Some lovers of good music have experienced those precious moments when the tones of a symphony convey to the soul the intuition of another level of truth other than what can be conceptualized. Such insights can never be described. We experience it and feel enriched internally. One could cite as an example many other domains of experience where the same thing occurs. But back to the young Alan Turing, who was introduced to scientific thought at the age of ten by Brewster 's book "The Wonders of Nature Every Child Should Know ", with his dogmatic statement that "we are made up of little living building blocks". , and that "the body is obviously a machine". He grew up with the idea that all beings and that all objects in the world are assembled from identical elementary units. And thus, he arrived at the idea of a universal machine. THE UNIVERSAL MACHINES The fundamental difference between an ordinary machine and a universal machine will quickly become apparent if we look at the main characteristics of ordinary machines. Washing machines can only wash, typewriters can only type symbols on paper or other media, simple calculators can only add , subtract, multiply and divide. Each machine is designed to perform a specific task. It can therefore be said of a common machine that: 1. it performs a specific operation 2. the operation can be applied to variegated objects. It is true for the three examples we just mentioned. What does a washing machine do? Lava.

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Its specific operation is to wash. What is this operation applied to (i.e. what washes)? It is applied to any kind of dirty linen, clothes, etc. The operation (washing ) is always the same, but the objects to which it is applied vary considerably. One could say about the same thing about a mechanical typewriter. The specific operation that it performs is to strike the paper with hammers which are activated when the desired keys of the keyboard are touched. Each gavel has an embossed symbol (letter, number, etc.) which imprints its profile on the paper when the gavel rests on the ink ribbon. The operation (typing) is always the same. But what is the object to which it is applied? The object is the text, which is almost infinitely variable. Similarly, a simple calculator is limited to four operations: addition, subtraction , multiplication and division. Conversely, these four operations can be applied to an almost infinite variety of digits. We can therefore reformulate our elementary definition of the common machine as follows. A similar machine: 1. performs a very limited set of specific operations 2. the objects to which they are applied can be extremely varied and diverse. Contrary to an ordinary machine, a universal machine performs an infinite variety of operations. Indeed, a car that would be truly universal: a. it would perform an infinite variety of operations b. would be applied to an infinite variety of objects. All of this is very accurate in theory, but in practice, how would you instruct a universal machine to perform a specific operation? Due to a clean

operations, it would take an infinite number of buttons and there would not be enough space on the machine to accommodate them all. One way of dealing with the problem is to equip a machine, for example, with five buttons derived from the letters A, B, C, D and E, by which certain operations are selected:

BUTTONS EDCB extension

If only button A is pressed, the machine performs operation 1 If only button B is pressed, the machine performs operation 2

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If buttons A and B are pressed, the machine performs operation 3 If only button C is pressed, the machine performs operation 4 If buttons A and C are pressed, the machine performs operation 5 If buttons B and C are pressed, the machine performs operation 6 If buttons A, B and C are pressed, the machine performs operation 7 If only button D is pressed, the machine performs step 8 and so on. In the following table, the letter "a" means that the button is "not pressed" and the letter represents the "pressed" condition. Operation

Buttons

Operation

Buttons

None aaaaa 16 baaaa = = = = 1 aaaab 17 baaab = = 2 aaaba 18 baaba = = 3 aaabb 19 baab = = 4 aabaa 20 babaa = = 5 aabab 21 babab = = 6 aabba 22 daddy = = 7 aabbb 23 babbb = = 8 abaaa 24 bbaa = = 9 abaab 25 bbaab = = 10 ababa 26 bbaba = = 11 abb 27 bbabb = = 12 bark 28 bbbaa = = 13 abbab 29 bbbab = = 14 abba 30 bbbba 15 abbb 31 bbbbb = = When we take a closer look at this sequence of button combinations, we are perhaps struck by its resemblance to Bacon's universal code. Instead of five numeric characters we have a row of five buttons. Each button can assume one of two conditions at any time: "not pressed" or "pressed" . Using the letter "a" to mean that the button is "not pressed" and the letter "b" to represent the "pressed" condition ”, we have a game of 31 possible combinations. By a process equivalent to Bacon's binary code, a row of five buttons allows us to select 31 different operations, or none at all. A greater number of buttons would command a much greater number of operations. With ten buttons , 1023 binary combinations could be established , with twenty-five there would be 33554431 combinations and so on. This simple way of giving instructions to a universal machine occurred naturally to Alan Turing. As a boy, he had been struck by the idea of the human machine (which in materialist terms is a particularly flexible mechanism), and had developed a great interest in machines. In

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particular, Turing had been interested in typewriters (his mother owned one), and had thought of inventing his own model. Then, as an adult, Alan Turing imagined a sort of typewriter that had to work without a typist. In contrast to an ordinary typewriter, in which the typing head moves across a blank page typing a letter at each step , in Alan Turing 's typewriter , the page did not have to be blank. At each step, the head would encounter a pre-typed symbol which it read, and which dictated what was to be done. The symbol could command the typing head (which would have been much more multipurpose than an ordinary head) to type a letter, or move one space left or right, etc. It was a very rudimentary way of approaching the universal machine. It was very limited, but that was not the essential point; a more complex machine could always be imagined if necessary. Turing was a mathematician and, at that time, he probably didn't know (or knew little) the machines of Hollerith or others of the same kind, which had mechanisms that could be adapted to his idea, while a typewriter could not. The essential thing was his vision of a potentially universal machine which received, in the form of Bacon's universal code, both the information {data) that it had to process, and the instructions indicating what to do (operations) with that information. Hollerith and IBM had created machines that were programmable, up to a certain point, with punched cards, the same ones that contained the information to be processed. But their machines were designed for very specific tasks. They were not universal machines. Turing 's idea of a universal machine was a major impetus. Now, as we know, the superiority of human beings over animals is due in part to the fact that we are less specifically organized beings. A small beaver instinctively knows how to build a dam, its physiological organization is specific to this activity. Conversely, it cannot make paper, fly, hunt deer, or do any of the things that other animal species specialize in. One could say that animals are designed for certain specific operations. Quite different is the case with men. The newborn is a defenseless little being who, left to himself, would not survive. But given the proper instructions, a human being can build a dam, make paper, fly (in an aircraft), hunt deer, and, within certain limits, do all that different animals can do. Alan Turing regarded human beings as the closest thing to universal machines. He suggested that at birth, the cortex is an "unorganized machine" which, with learning, organizes itself to become a "universal machine or something like it". When we reflect on these ideas, it becomes clear that the most important characteristic of a universal machine lies in the program of instructions relating to the operations it must perform. The physical mechanism must, by nature, be as simple and as general as possible. When given the proper instructions, it must be capable of behaving like any kind of machine. The closer a machine approaches a universal machine, the more general its mechanisms are, but the more diversified its instruction program. A truly universal machine would have to be physically multipurpose and have an infinitely large set of instructions. In reality, in an absolute sense, the instructions are the machine. And what Alan Turing became aware of.

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Turing tried to conceive, in theory, a machine that would be capable of solving all mathematical problems. But contrary to his expectations, his research, published in 1936 in his major report entitled On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem (On the subject of computable numbers, and using them to make decisions), they demonstrated that such a universal mathematical machine could never exist. Turing 's idea had a major influence on the development of modern computer theory. These modern machines are called "binary computers" because they are based on Bacon's binary code. Furthermore, they integrate as far as possible the universal Turing machine principle . Like the Turing machine , their most important feature is their set of instructions, a fact often overlooked these days, but one that is of primary importance. Today, the specialized literature often speaks of new , more powerful components of physical machines (faster processors, bigger and faster memory cards, graphics controllers, and so on), and one can easily get into the habit of considering wrongly, the physical body containing the electronic circuits like the computer, or, at least, like its most important part. However, the computer industry pertinently knows that this is not the case. In general computing terminology , hardware is used to designate the physical machine, and software is used to designate the sets of instructions that, when input into the machine, cause it to perform specific operations . Software is simply made up of sets of coded instructions (long sequences of "a" and "&"), recorded on a magnetic stripe, optical disc or other equivalent medium. And as any competent computer expert points out to his clients, software is much more important than hardware. If you think you need a computer , the expert will help you choose exactly the set of instructions (the software) that will make the machine perform the operations you want. He will take care to select precisely the software that meets your needs . It is only later that the question of the physical machine will be addressed, which can be any machine chosen from among the hundreds of different models, and whose characteristics pass into the background, even though it is capable of reacting normally to the set of instructions you have chosen.

THE INHERENT FALLIBILITY OF COMPUTING DEVICES It is often imagined that if the software was error-free and the material was flawless, computers would not make errors. Computer systems are basically error-free, it's a widely held idea. Alan Turing knew that wasn't true. As a leading mathematician, he knew perfectly well that all formal mathematical systems are, by nature, imperfect. Such was, in effect, the tiring answer (for mathematicians) to Hilbert's question concerning the existence of a particular logical procedure which allows one to decide whether a given statement is true or false. The answer was formulated, for the first time, by Kurt Godei, a logician of Austrian origin. In 1931, Godei published the proof that within a rigorously logical mathematical system, there are propositions which can neither be proved nor rejected on the basis of the axioms of this system.

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It is for this reason that it is not even certain that the fundamental axioms of current arithmetic will never give rise to contradictions. Godei's conclusions were independently confirmed by the logical-mathematician Alonzo Church, and by Alan Turing in 1936. Linking himself to the question that, today, has not aroused as many debates, namely: "Can machines think?", Alan Turing drew attention to this problem of thematic mathematics: "A number of results from mathematical logic can be used to show that there are limits to the capabilities of machines using discrete states. The best known of these results is called Godel's theorem, and it shows that, in any logical system sufficiently powerful, propositions can be formulated which can neither be proved nor disproved within the system, unless perhaps the system itself is incoherent.There are other conclusions, identical in certain respects, which are due to Church, Kleene, Rosser and Turing The last result is the most practical to consider, since it relates

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directly to machines, while the others can only be used in indirect reasoning: for example, if Godel's theorem were to be used, we would also need means to describe logical systems in terms of machines and machines in terms of systems logical. The result in question relates to a type of machine which, in essence, is a digital computer of infinite capacity. He says there are some things such a machine cannot do. If it is configured to give answers to questions as in an imitation game, then to certain questions, it will either give a false answer, or will not be able to answer at all, whatever the time given to answer them" 124 .

The inherent fallibility of computer logic is not simply an academic question that does not interest theorists. It can be a matter of life and death, as we shall see. Other problems arise from the physical conception of a binary computer. This can be illustrated by a simple analogy. If we had a calculating machine of very small capacity, which could record only two digits at a time, and we wanted to add 50 and 75: 50 + 75= 125 our machine would register the first number, 50, which has only two digits, and do the same thing with the second number. But since it only has two columns, one for units and the other for tens, it would n't be able to report anything in the hundreds column. It would give us a false answer: 25 or 12, depending on whether it eliminates the first or second digit. Of course, machines with such limited capacity do not exist in real life. But all machines have a certain capacity, and will give wrong answers when it takes more decimal places than they have. This is generally not a problem with decimal calculators. The matter is different for binary machines. The result of our little addition , 125, in the decimal system is written 1111101 in the binary system. It already requires seven columns ‡‡‡‡‡. A large number, say 9236957415 (which poses no problem for decimal-calculating machines), becomes in binary notation, an unwieldy thirty-four-column digit: 1000100110100100001100100011100111 Binary arithmetic machines reach their limit much earlier than their decimal cousins . This problem was raised by another mathematical genius of the 20th century, Professor Johann von Neumann, to whom we will return. Evoking the (binary) number systems, he says: "The error as an element of normal operation, and not only as an accident attributable to an indisputable failure, nevertheless appears in the following way. The absolutely correct product of 10 digits is a 20 digit number. If the machine is designed for manipulating numbers of only 10 digits, it

‡‡‡‡‡See the example of the alphabet written in binary form with 5 numeric characters in chapter IL. The same principle applies to numbers.

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will have to neglect the last 10 digits of this 20 -digit number and work only with the first 10 (the improvement, minimal even if very practical, due to a possible modification of these digits by rounding, can be neglected here ) . _ _ maximum of digits for which the machine was designed, this maximum will be reached, sooner or later, in the course of successive multiplications Once it has been reached, the following multiplication produces additional digits and the product must be reduced by half of its digits [the first half, conveniently rounded]. The case of up to 10 digits is therefore representative and we can use it in our examples)" 125 .

Here is the second way that binary computers are fallible by nature. But that is not all. In fact, in addition to the mathematical problem, there is the much more thorny question of the defects that appear in the manufacturing of the components. No microprocessor is perfect. Manufacturers define the acceptable decimal rate of bad cells in the micro processor. It's the same for memory chips and other important digital components. Sophisticated data verification software is used to catch as many errors as possible: even a rate of one error per hundred million operations is catastrophic in a machine that can perform several thousand million operations per second. But data verification programs have their own limitations and are themselves subject to the various failure modes described above. They too may malfunction due to material error combinations. In short, errors always occur, in far greater numbers than is generally thought. The physical computer makes mistakes at every level: in theory, by design, and because of the fallibility of its physical components. Also, all very big programs contain errors. The end result is a machine which, moral and spiritual considerations aside , is inherently flawed. At best, it will occasionally generate errors. At worst, it will be hopelessly flawed. Today, so-called "recovery" systems are built into computers right from the start, because manufacturers expect them to fail in the course of using them. On average, new laptops suffer some form of failure within six months of their purchase. Sometimes, the "recovery system" gets them to work again, usually with data loss. Other times it fails.

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Such fallibility is not simply a harmful factor, but can be a matter of life and death. Error-catching systems are installed in the computers that control medical devices in hospitals, such as the x-ray systems used to treat cancer patients. Mistakes happen, of course, and an undisclosed number of patients are fatally affected by a radiation surplus caused by faulty software or equipment. This problem, and others like it, are covered later in the book. The computer is therefore a defective device by nature. We must also regard computer technology as defective in another respect. During the last few decades, information processing applications have spread at an almost incredible rate. Some commentators, confusing proliferation and progress, have claimed that their evolution since the Second War is as important as the evolution of technology in general between the Stone Age and the 20th century. The comparison is obviously not very relevant, but it reflects a misunderstanding in the specific field of computer science, according to which things develop in an extraordinary way.

THE END OF ORIGINALITY The reality, unfortunate as it is, is that progress in science and technology, in terms of fundamental discoveries, of major theories, and first of all of new techniques, has marked a sharp slowdown and has almost stopped since the computer it prevailed everywhere in the second half of the last century. If we compare the last thirty-five years (1973-2008) with the equivalent periods one, two or three centuries earlier, we are almost shocked to find that the discoveries and the spirit of invention have become bogged down. During the thirty-five years between 1873 and 1908, for example, one can note (to mention only the most outstanding achievements): Fundamental physical phenomena discovered: Electromagnetic radiation: Heinrich Hertz, 1885 X-rays: Wilhlem Rontgen, 1895 Radioactivity: Henri Becquerel, 1896 The electrons: JJ Thomson, 1897 Significant scientific theories: Electromagnetic Waves: James Clerk Maxwel, 1873 The quantum theory: Max Planck, 1900 The Theory of Relativity: Albert Einstein, 1906 The space-time continuum: Hermann Minkowski, 1908 Some of the most notable new techniques: Motor vehicles: - petrol engines: Karl Benz, 1885

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- diesel engines: Rudolf Diesel, 1892 The Airplane: The Wright Brothers , 1903 Computers (tabulating machines): Herman Hollerith, 1890 Electrical appliances and services: - The Telephone: Alexander Graham Bell, 1876 - The Electric Light: Thomas Alva Edison, 1880 - Recording Sounds: Thomas Alva Edison, 1878 - Television: Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, 1884 - The radio: Guglielmo Marconi, 1896 - Cinema: Auguste and Louis Lumière, 1895 - Alternating current, electric motors, etc.: Nikola Tesla, 1883 - The cathode ray tube: Ferdinand Braun, 1897 - Electronic lamps: John Ambrose Fleming, 1904 - etc., etc. The medical techniques: - X-ray radiology: Wilhelm Rontgen, 1895 - Psychiatry: Sigmund Freud, 1895 Let us now turn to our age. Semi-conductor electronics, integrated circuits and the electronic binary computer were well developed in 1971 . The Internet (which was still called ARPANET) already existed. Digital sound recording had already been invented, as had laser technology. Nuclear power was widely distributed. The Americans had been to the moon. Some satellite systems were used. The structure of DNA was known. So what fundamentally new discoveries have there been since 1971? Basically, few things have changed. True, there have been numerous devices and systems described in the press as "remarkable", "avant-garde", "sensational progress", etc., etc. And yet, if you examine them, you find that they are further evolutions of already existing technologies. They sometimes represent important advances, major milestones in the mastery of a particular technique. But the list of entirely new discoveries, comparable to those of a hundred years ago, is actually poor: Fundamental physical phenomena: Nobody Relevant scientific theories: None Main new techniques: - The magnetic resonance scanner: P. Lauterbur, 1973 -1 Tunneling electron microscopes: Binning and Rohrer, 1981 - Nanotechnology (if it's really a new technology) - The cloning of mammals: Rosslyn Institute, 1996

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Some might argue that the microprocessor should be added to our list , but it really doesn't incorporate any new technology. At its base, it is a higher density integrated circuit that allows the components of a greater number of circuits to be combined on a single chip. Others might think that the most recent speculative theories in astrophysics should be mentioned (theories of superstrings, black matter , etc.), or the experiences with the new gigantic particle accumulation rings which aim to "prove" the existence z bosons, Higgs bosons , and other exotic things like that. But the superstring theories are not proven and do not make runnimity. The existence of black matter is equally hypothetical. As for the storage rings, they date from the first half of the 20th century, and the hypothesis of the existence of the Higgs ze bosons was established well before 1973. Why is the crop so lean? The obvious answer is that we are increasingly letting computers do the thinking for us. Much research is done today with the help of computer simulations. But computers, by their very nature, can only combine, in different ways, the things we already know. Originality of approach, inspired vision and creative spirit are attributes of human beings, not of artificial intelligence. The computer has certainly accelerated the development of present science and technology to a considerable degree, but we are mired in routine. True creativity begins to belong to the past. Many scientists are aware of what is happening. Susan Greenfield, famous specialist in neuroscience, director of the Royal Institution and professor of pharmacology at the University of Oxford, clearly warned a few years ago of the danger that the Internet would stifle creativity. One of the great concerns that Greenfield expressed was related to the fact that thought itself acts on the physical brain , creating the connections between nerve cells. He warned against the fact that information is presented in an increasingly standardized way, which could lead to standardized brain connections. In his latest book ID The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century 126 (Identification. The search for identity in the 21st century), she alerts readers to the progressive loss of personal identity in the younger generations, following prolonged exposure to standardized, two-dimensional impressions conveyed by computers. The human "I" is weakened. Why did we opt for binary electronic computers rather than another more appropriate technology? Because humans never asked: Is this the technology we want to develop? Who chose it? A factor that played a decisive role in the extraordinarily rapid development of binary computers, which has led to this current standardization of the human being and the stagnation of creativity, was the particular psychic state of Adolf Hitler (who was possessed by the sun demon) and the his rise to the dictatorship of Germany.

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ADOLF HITLER As we have already glimpsed with the operations of IBM's Dehomag subsidiary in Nazi Germany, profoundly destructive Ahrimanic forces were at work through Adolf Hitler when he embarked on his project of world domination. Much has been written about the evils of the Third Reich, and it is not necessary to deal with this subject here. However, one aspect is related to our subject: the particular ahrimanic influence which causes the future to fall into the present. Sorat worked this way through Hitler, very effectively . Two examples will suffice to illustrate this point. At the time the war broke out, the scientists working on the fission of the atom were still in the very early experimental stages. They were aware that a time would come when atomic forces would be influenced in technology, but they did not consider that this could happen immediately. The threat Hitler posed to the world created a situation in which leading scientists were asked, in the name of humanity, to put their knowledge at the service of making a bomb. Scientists were definitely not ready, as many have publicly said ; the basic practical and theoretical work was not finished. They had normally anticipated that the foundations required for safe nuclear technology would be established by the end of the 20th century. But the war called everything into question, and the most prominent scientists allowed themselves to be persuaded to build the atomic bomb. When it exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity was faced with the reality of total destruction. Fear for the future of our planet penetrated our hearts and minds and hasn't left us since. It is a prime example. The second example is that of the binary computer itself. Had they not been developed for warfare or by the hard work of men like Alan Turing, computers would have developed much more slowly. The era of the personal computer and the internet would perhaps still belong to the future. But when in the last stages of the war, Great Britain became aware of the fact that its survival was seriously threatened, it tried to derive all possible technical benefits from the latest scientific ideas, and therefore turned to its greatest scientists . For centuries, England had relied on the supremacy of her navy. The British fleet found itself abruptly caught in speed and in danger of being defeated , which would have had disastrous consequences. The main problem was the lack of information on enemy movements. The Germans had developed an effective coordination and logistics system, based largely on IBM-Dehomag technology. Furthermore, they had adopted a very advanced model of encryption machine to encrypt command orders transmitted by radio to their armed forces. The code changed every day, sometimes several times a day. Spying on radio messages from the German fleet seemed to serve no purpose, as the messages were indecipherable. It is difficult to know what the outcome of the war would have been for England and America if a code-breaking organization had not been created, headed by mathematicians such as John Jeffreys and Alan Turing, the cryptographer Brigadier General John Tiltman and the electronically gifted Tommy Flowers. These fertile minds were 267

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continually put under increasing pressure to devise every conceivable technical innovation to enable military leaders to decipher the enemy's coded messages. Inevitably, Tommy Flowers and his team built the very first fully operational electronic computers, starting with what has come to be called the Colossus Mark 1 at Bletchley Park, which had 1500 tubes. They were evidently binary computers, limited versions of Turing's universal machine. Codes are the means to hide something from the conscience of men. The messages are formulated in such a way that human thought cannot grasp their content. Through his code work, Bacon developed the universal binary code and thus laid the conceptual foundations for binary data processing. Hitler's use of codes forced the British military to manufacture functional binary electronic computers, which resulted in artificial intelligence developing much more rapidly than should have been the case. Computers were prematurely placed in a mold from which they would never emerge: all computers developed later would be binary, electronic Turing machines. It was a resounding victory for Sorat. Even if he succeeded, in the seventh century, in pouring the content of the conscious soul into the rational soul and thus reducing man to a soul of a binary nature, he had nevertheless led men to establish the dogma of the dichotomy of soul at the ecumenical synod of Constantinople between 1'869 and 1'870. He had destroyed the noble development of spiritual morality in the Templars, and by means of the arts of black magic, he had spread blasphemy and hatred of Christ in Western culture. He had incited Bacon to spread the illusion that all knowledge could be expressed in the form of a binary code. Later, during the 20th century, through the intermediary of Klingsor and the demons of hate, he had hindered the university's core business of teaching Michael on Earth, and deprived the Anthroposophical Society of its spiritual leadership. . And through Hitler's lunatic campaign for world domination and the supremacy of the Teutonic race, he had precipitated the intelligent machine technology of the future in the peculiar form of binary computers. The sudden appearance of the electronic binary computer under the pressure of war enabled Brigadier John Tiltman and his teams to crack Hitler's code. Hitler's campaign also brought the unwanted fruit mentioned earlier: the hydrogen bomb. The bomb itself turned out to be a catalyst in the premature advent of the electronic binary computer. Professor Johann von Neumann of the Institute for Advanced Study (Institute of Advanced Research) of Princeton, in the United States, was brought to participate in the work at Los Alamos, where the colossal task of making the calculations for the hydrogen bomb was being carried out. The Americans feared that Germany would master the technique of nuclear fission before them, which would perhaps allow Hitler to realize his dream of world domination. Von Neumann estimated that the work at Los Alamos could not be completed in time without the aid of an enormously powerful calculating machine. He knew Alan Turing very well, having first met him in Cambridge in 1935. Later, during Turing 's stay at Princeton in 1936-37, von Neumann became familiar with the young man's scientific works. The idea of the universal machine had probably

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intrigued him. Furthermore, shortly before joining the team at Los Alamos, he had become interested in calculating machines of the time, when, during a visit to England in 1943, he conceived a program for an NCR compatibility machine At the time, several computer projects were under development in the United States . Von Neumann became interested in the work of Moore 's Electrical Engineering School at the University of Pennsylvania, and was soon appointed a consultant on the project. Like the Colossus computers in England, those of the Moore school were heavy, gigantic machines , far removed from the sophisticated ones used today. The first of them, a huge device, bore the name Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computar (a "computer" was a person employed to do, full-time, calculations of differential equations; they were usually women), abbreviated as ENIAC. It weighed about thirty tons and filled a large hall. Machines such as the ENIAC, developed by electrical engineer John Presper Eckert, physicist John William Mauchly, and their colleagues, were the first general purpose electronic computers in which sets of instructions were "stored" within the components of the machine's memory. When he saw the system, von Neumann was filled with enthusiasm, convinced that the way the program instructions were stored inside constituted the most promising "architecture" for computers. Looking forward to a machine of the next generation, he proposed, in a famous account considered part of the history of computers, to use the same architecture as that of the ENIAC. The publication, written in 1945 for the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, was titled First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC (Draft report on EDVAC):

* Original spelling; now generally spelled "computer".

"When analyzing the functioning of the apparatus under consideration, some classification distinctions immediately come to mind. Firstly: since the apparatus is originally a calculator, it must be able to perform the most commonly used elementary arithmetic operations, i.e. addition, subtraction, multiplication and division: +, -, x, < Consequently , it is normal for it to contain specialized bodies precisely for these operations. In any case, the machine will probably have to have, as an essential component, an arithmetic part [...]. Secondly: the logical control of the machine, i.e. the correct sequencing of its operations, can be carried out more effectively by a central control body. If the apparatus is to be flexible, i.e. as multi-purpose as possible, then a distinction must be made between specific instructions which define a particular problem and data for this problem, and general supervisory bodies which make sure that these instructions (whatever they are ) are performed" 127 .

The architecture of ENI AC thus became a model for the following generations of machines. Almost all computers used today have an architecture called the "von Neumann architecture " , which is nothing more than an ingenious practical application of the basic principle of the Turing universal machine (it seems a bit unfair that von Neumann has been given all the merit 269

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of the invention of Eckert and Mauchly , while it contributed nothing to its conception and its realization. But the thing is like this: the attitude of merciless competition that reigns in scientific universities and in industry is itself", there is no place for fair play). ENIAC was intended to do the test calculations for the hydrogen bomb, but it wasn't actually finished in time. He began making his first calculations in December 1945, four months after Hiroshima was hit by the first atomic bomb. Thus we see that Hitler's encryption, and calculations for the bomb, were decisive factors in the premature birth of modern computer technology. The ENIAC was a gigantic electronic monster, which consumed an enormous amount of electricity. But it was more than just a car; he was a demonic being.

NEGATIVE SUPERSTITION "Today someone builds a machine; he does so believing that in reality nothing happens except that he builds the machine, and that, moreover, the latter produces something. But abandoning yourself to this belief would be establishing what is generally widespread today and which can be call negative superstition. Superstition is the belief in spirits where there are none; but one can also disbelieve them where there are: the negative superstition, to which a large humanity is dedicated today without knowing it initially, because there we are still used to thinking in a moral perspective, and in the whole of cosmic ties, which appears in the course of human evolution; today, from this point of view, we think only from a mechanical point of view" 128 .

This quotation, taken from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner in Dornach on November 26 , 1916, shows an aspect of the technique which is of undoubted importance. He talks about the fact that there is no machine that is just a simple machine. Every time a machine is built, an ahrimanic intelligence appears and thus experiences a kind of incarnation. At the time Rudolf Steiner made these comments, most machines were still steam-powered machines. Electric motors and internal combustion engines were only in their early stages of development. Thus it is understandable why he used the example of the steam engine to illustrate this spiritual aspect of machines. After describing how it had been developed into its first functional form by Newcomen in 1719, and perfected by Watt some fifty years later, he stated: , on what is the possibility of having steam engines , a fairly recent possibility , based? in which Watt somehow and for the first time raised the steam engine to its true level, is the year which is not very far from the conception of Goethe's Faust.Perhaps some strange relations will reveal themselves in our study between this engine engine and the conception of Faust, although these two facts are far from each other.But for this, we must first of all evoke in our soul many things that are connected with the appearance of the steam engine in the evolution of humanity. On what is the steam engine

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actually based? On the possibility that one has of creating a space in which a vacuum is created, or in which the air is rarefied. Any possibility of building steam engines it is based on the creation of a space in which emptiness is created and which can be used practically. In ancient times, now long gone, there was talk of the "horror of emptiness". Something objective was meant by this, it meant that space always wants to be filled with content, that something empty can actually be created, that Nature has a kind of horror of the void. Before tackling the steam engine, it was initially necessary for humanity to disappear this belief in the horror of the vacuum, for the possibility of creating a space almost empty of air, in which the air would be rarefied, to be established. It was necessary to expel the air from certain spaces. They are not considerations of a mechanical order which will somehow allow us to acquire a new moral cosmic representation in comparison with the old moral cosmic representation of the horror of the void. But what actually happens when we create an empty space of air, or in which the air is rarefied, with the intention of putting it at the service of human evolution on Earth? The Bible says that Jehovah breathed into man the living breath, air, and that through it he became a living soul. It was necessary for the air to penetrate him to make him what he is as an earthly man. For centuries, for millennia he has used the rarefied or condensed air only in the form that manifested itself in the cosmic context. Then came the modern times. Man rarefied the air himself, suppressed what Jahvé had created, opposed with his action Jahvé's activity of placing man on the Earth. What actually happens when man uses a space in which the air is rarefied, when he empties the space of air? He opposes Jehovah. Now you can easily think of the following: while Jahvé penetrates man through the air, man expels Jahvé when he creates a space in which the air is rarefied! Ahriman gains the ability to anchor as a demon into the physical when the steam engine is built this way. By building it, the demons are given the opportunity to incarnate. There is no need to believe in their existence if you don't want to; it is negative superstition. To see spirits where there are none is a positive superstition; but to deny their existence where there are, is a negative superstition. Now, in steam engines, the ahrimanic demons are driven up to the physical body. This means this: while through what has been introduced in human evolution, the cosmos has descended to the Earth with its spirit, the spirit of the cosmos is cast out by the demons thus created. This means that the great, admirable new progress has brought not only a demonology, but a "demonomagic"; and modern technology is in many ways demonomagic" 129 .

On the subject of other forms of energy developing, Rudolf Steiner added: "There is much greater demonomagic wherever electricity is used, and other things as well , as one wields other forces, which have yet another meaning for the cosmos" 130 .

It is in this way that Ahriman-Sorat can extend his activity even in the physical functioning of machines and technical devices, when we create the vacuum in them, and above all when the vacuum is associated with electrical processes. ENIAC combined these ahrimanic properties of vacuum and electricity. It was the first large general purpose computer built with electronic vacuum tubes §§§§§. As we have said, von Neumann had intended to use it for calculations for the atomic bomb. Ultimately, other calculating machines had to be used in its place, as it was

§§§§§We will see later what these vacuum tubes represent. 271

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not finished in time. Among the devices then used were some remarkable mechanical calculators (differential analyzers) invented by a man whose profound influence on the fate of the twentieth century is almost unknown to the general public. His name was Vannevar Bush, and he had been born in Everett, Massachusetts, in March of 1890, the year Holle rith's first machines were used for the census. His family had no relation to those of the two presidents of the United States. His father, Perry Bush, was pastor of the Church of the Redeemer, and his mother Emma was a distinguished and loving young woman from a wealthy Princetown family. Vannevar Bush was a bright and active boy, even though in his youth he had health problems and serious illnesses, such as acute rheumatism of the joints and, among others, typhoid fever. As a teenager he spent an entire year bedridden. But as soon as these moments had passed, he developed a cheeky , defiant attitude and at times became very aggressive. He had an extraordinary talent for mathematics, was skilled with his hands, and had a very inventive frame of mind. He also gets to sniff out good shots to earn a lot of money. He was a quick learner, was insolent to his superiors, and despised any form of stifling conservatism; he knew how to pave a path in life with determination, discovering that he was a born leader. In 1925, Vannevar Bush invented a mechanical calculator, from which he later developed a number of ingenious devices which were sometimes quite successful. One of them, called the "intergraph," won him the Levi Medal from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1928. That same year, he began work on a much more complex and powerful machine: a mechanical machine for solving differential equations. Finished in 1931, it was a huge assemblage of axles, gears and wheels revolving on discs, filling an entire room. But it worked perfectly. Later university researchers made replicas of it, but in practice, it was mainly used by the military, who needed a machine to calculate the trajectories of the grenades fired from the cannons. Vannevar Bush 's interest in mechanical calculators did not blind him to the apparently promising future of electronic tubes. In 1924 he co-founded the Raytheon Company, which developed and sold tubes used in early radios. In the early years of World War II, the company played a leading role in the manufacture of equipment for radar systems. Today, it is the third largest defense subcontractor in the United States. Bush possessed one of the most intuitive minds of the time. He understood that computers were destined to play a major role in everyday life. He realized that humanity was faced with a new and important problem: how to order and access the enormous amount of information that computers were about to process? How would a person find the particular information he needed in the mass of data littered in computer systems of any sort? How would he know to look for her? Some of Bush's innovative ideas came to him in the form of dreams. He described one of them something like this: A doctor is sitting at his desk, on which is a machine called a memex.

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Baffled by his patients' symptoms, the doctor activates the memex and brings up the patient's file on the screen. The machine draws his attention to any identical symptom found in the medical histories of old patients. It also establishes associative links with appropriate passages in the medical literature and medical textbooks. The memex is a step-by-step guide to the doctor's reflection towards the information he needs to make a correct diagnosis. The memex wouldn't be useful only to doctors, of course. In Bush's words: "Completely new forms of encyclopaedias will appear ready for use, gridded with associative paths, ready to be loaded into the memex for development. The lawyer has at hand the judgments and decisions accumulated over the course of his practice. The industrial property council has , upon simple request, the millions of patents that have been delivered, with well-established links on every subject that interests his client.... The historian has, for such people, a simple chronology, and he travels through it in a quick summary examination, stopping only on the essential points. But at any moment he can follow paths which give him an idea of all civilization at a given epoch. There is a new profession of pioneers, those who delight in establishing useful connections through the enormous mass of recorded data. [...] Thus science can provide man with the means of producing and consulting the memory of the species" 131 .

As its name indicates, the memex would eliminate the need for human beings to develop their memory and their ability to remember. They would no longer even have to think in associations of ideas: they would be directly ready for them. It was a prophetic vision. Today there are over a billion users of the memex, even if it is known by another name. All this reminds us of Bacon, of whom Macaulay rightly said: "The knowledge in which Bacon surpassed all was the knowledge of the relations which all the disciplines of knowledge maintain among themselves". It is curiously significant that at the same time as Bush's vision of the memex became known to the general public, another of his dreams, a world-shaking dream, became a reality in a secret location in the desert of New Mexico. On July 16 , 1945, at 5.30 in the morning, there was a flash of light of a devastating intensity, brighter than the sun, and a sudden wave of heat followed by a terrible thunder as shock spread and resounded through the valley. A fireball rose rapidly, followed by a gigantic mushroom cloud more than 12 kilometers wide. The surface of the desert all around melted to form a massive glass circle about 1600 meters in diameter. The very fabric of physical space had been torn apart for an instant, and the door had been opened for the Asuras, the primordial powers of evil, to enter man's terrestrial existence forever. Frightened, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the chief scientist, murmured: "I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds" . Vannevar Bush, for himself, was exultant, for it was he who had made this experience possible. It was a moment for him of personal triumph. As a trusted adviser to Roosevelt, Bush had pressed the president to launch a 273

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comprehensive, government-funded scientific research project to develop the bomb. Roosevelt agreed and created the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD ) , with Bush as its head. OSRD directed and funded the Manhattan Project, which cost approximately $ 2,000,000,000 . Bush supervised the work of the six thousand scientists employed in the manufacture of the new weapons. Thus, the mastermind who invented the memex to free human beings from the need to develop their intelligence was also the one who proposed the development of the atomic bomb and guided science in its manufacture. These two dreams of Vannevar Bush, and others as well, became the engine of nuclear research and information technology in the 20th century, as we shall see later. The complex calculations for the bomb were made with the help of differential analyzers invented by this same puzzling mind.

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CHAPTER VIII THE FALL INTO MATTER

There is no machine that is simply a machine. Arimanic demons incarnate in the devices we build. What kind of beings incarnate in computers? To address this issue, it helps to remember what a modern computer really was - as a standalone machine - before it was connected to the Internet. We have already seen that it is a limited form of universal machine. And, as Alan Turing noted, the main feature of a universal machine is the sets of instructions that tell you how to perform different kinds of operations. Indeed, in an absolute sense, the instructions are the machine. The most important part of a modern binary computer is therefore made up of its sets of instructions written in binary code. The latter are not handwritten on paper, but are generally recorded on magnetic tapes, discs or drums, although punched cards are still used. A magnetic tape is simply a continuous tape of plastic covered with a magnetic oxide on which coded instructions can be recorded in the form of series of magnetized spaces, such as small magnets with the pole oriented in the direction of travel of the tape (instead of series of "a" and "b" written on the card). Personal computers (microcomputers) typically use magnetic disks (hard drives) instead of tapes. A more recently appeared storage medium, called an optical disc (such as CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs), stores the sequences of "a" and "b" in the form of holes or the absence of holes in a metal layer on a plastic disc, which allows a low power laser beam to "read" the data. The binary sequences identified by the laser are then converted into electrical impulses . Optical discs are, after all, a more modern form of punched cards. Finally, the latest memory media, SSDs, are semi-conductor memory blocks that use the polarity of electricity. We don't need to go into more technical details. It suffices to imagine that magnetic bands , for example, are introduced into the machine, which "reads" the north poles and south poles of the magnetized areas in much the same way as Hollerith's mechanical reader read the holes and blank spaces of punched cards. Afterwards, the machine performs the operations

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corresponding to the codified instructions. The binary computer can therefore be considered as an electromagnetic machine whose most important element is not the box containing the electronic circuits, with the screen, the keyboard and the mouse, but the sets of instructions stored on tapes and disks. Rudolf Steiner was familiar with the IBM-Hollerith computers of his era. The word "computer " was not yet used and therefore is not found in his lectures; he simply called them intelligent machines. He evidently knew that intelligent machines were to come, and indeed they are destined to play a central role in the evolution of the Earth during the next millennia. In fact, Rudolf Steiner indicated that these machines could have brought great benefits to humanity, provided they had worked with the right forces, since : "[...] what will then be obtained which, certainly, will detach the mechanical side of life from man, but it cannot establish any dominion nor any power of one group over another. The cosmic forces which will be sought from this side of heaven [of Virgo and Pisces] will produce strange machines, but only those which will free man from his work because they will bring in them a certain force of intelligence.It is a science of the spiritual which is itself oriented towards the cosmic dimension he will have to watch out so that all the great temptations that will start from these animal-machines that man will produce himself do not exert harmful influences on men" 132 .

According to Rudolf Steiner, the science of the spiritual should therefore ensure that the influence of artificial intelligence on human beings is healthy. Now, the elaboration of such a science of the spiritual which is itself oriented towards the cosmic dimension was precisely the task of the anthroposophical movement. This movement was moreover the only one to possess the spiritual knowledge necessary to guide the development of artificial intelligence in this sense, with the exception of certain secret societies of occultists, of course. Starting from the end of 1923, with the creation by Rudolf Steiner of the School of Spiritual Sciences of the Universal Anthroposophical Society, the duty to monitor the evolution of intelligent machines with vigilance, and to intervene if necessary, was imposed on the sections competent of this School in this case the section of natural sciences, directed by Guenther Wachsmuth, and that of mathematics and astronomy directed by Elisabeth Vreede. Rudolf Steiner himself set the example, warning several times about the dangers inherent in the automation of thought, the need to avoid a binary technique based on polarity in electric and magnetic forces, the risks inherent in the potential power of intelligent machines and so on. In retrospect , we can realize today the extreme importance of this task, as artificial intelligence would dominate the world. Evoking the force of intelligence of animal-machines that bring benefits to human beings, R. Steiner did not speak of binary computers. He spoke of artificial intelligence based on a technique of a completely new kind (see description in Volume II). In the conference he gave in Domach on November 25 , 1917 and from which the previous quotation is taken, R. Steiner rightly warned against the terrible dangers men would run into if they developed a technique

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based on polarity in magnetism and electricity. We mentioned, in the " Computers and the Michael Movement" section of Chapter V, the first truly attested use of tubes - a technology that relies entirely on the polarity of electricity - in a digital electronic circuit in 1919. It was a fateful step in the development of artificial intelligence - a step that engineers might have avoided had they known the full extent of the spiritual stakes at stake . According to the chroniclers of these developments, one would have imagined using the valves in Hollerith's machines starting in 1915. But the technique was not yet perfected. It is striking to note that as early as 1917, Rudolf Steiner warned men against this development. As was often the case, his warning was not understood. The warning was delivered by Rudolf Steiner in the lecture we have just quoted. Having mentioned the development of artificial intelligence - future intelligent machines, R. Steiner described the great danger inherent in the use of the polarity of electric forces and that of magnetic forces. What was this danger? They were the perforated cards which, in the first readers made by Basile Boachon for the silk weaving loom, defined the forward movements of the tappet rods, to sink the draw cords into the teeth of the comb. Each card was carried against the pushrods. If there was a blank space (no holes) in a box, the cardboard in this box exerted pressure on the corresponding tappet, moving it forward. If there was a hole, no pressure was exerted. The holes and white spaces of the cards thus determined the action, or the absence, of a purely mechanical pressure. Either a hole is not in itself a force; there is simply no cardboard. It would be absurd to qualify holes and white spaces as polar forces. The hole itself does nothing. If someone told us: "The accumulated force of all these holes shines in the surrounding world, causing damage in the kingdoms of nature and affecting human health", - well, if someone told us this, we would take him for a fool! In essence, the situation was the same in Hollerith's machines. They were the holes and the white spaces of the punched cards which defined whether or not there was the passage of an electric current coming from the batteries. Mechanical pressure was also replaced by electrical force and to operate the lids of the sorting box behaviors, magnetic force. But as with Boachon's reader , the "information" to be dealt with was represented by the holes and white spaces of the punched cards. The holes and white spaces themselves exerted no direct influence on the surrounding world. A hole is not a force; not even a white space. It was a major change when the hole cards were gradually abandoned . The presence or absence of cardboard (blank spaces and holes) was replaced not by the presence or absence of another material, but by the polar forces at work . The punch cards themselves were passive. The polar forces of electricity and magnetism are active and affect the environment. This fact is of capital importance, as we shall see later.

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Let us take the case of magnetism. If two magnets in the form of iron rods are held in the hand, one finds that powerful forces emanate from the two ends of each rod. One of the forces is designated as the north pole, the other as the south pole. They are different from each other. Two north poles or two south poles repel each other . Conversely, a north pole and a south pole attract each other. If the magnets are powerful, this force of attraction can be so great that you cannot separate them by trying to pull them in opposite directions . If, on the contrary, one tries to bring two north poles (or two south poles) closer to each other, the mutual repulsion force can be so great that, even using all one's muscular strength, one cannot get the two ends. In the case of caiamite, it is therefore not a question of the presence or absence of a substance (such as cardboard), but of two radiant polar forces, that is, which are proposed in the form of electromagnetic waves. What emanates from the south pole of a magnet is not simply the absence of the north pole force, or vice versa. If this were the case, only the exerting north pole would have an action, while the south pole would remain inert. But this is not the case. We are dealing with two effective, polar forces. The same happens in the utilization of the forces of electricity - positive force and negative force - in place of the holes and blank spaces of punched cards. These holes and blanks which exert no direct action on the environment were gradually replaced by polar forces which exert a considerable action. Moreover, these forces are not qualitatively neutral. It can be said that the holes and white spaces of a punched card have no intrinsic quality . A hole is not in itself good or bad. But the same cannot be said of electricity and magnetism. In chapter IV, we saw that electricity is condensed light, light that has been compressed and forced to remain imprisoned in a sub-natural condition, which gives it a Luciferic character. Through this extreme compression, the intrinsically moral nature of light is changed into its opposite: immorality. To use Rudolf Steiner's expression, it becomes the bearer of the evil instinct. The forces of electricity and magnetism are, by their very nature, harmful. Let's look at this problem more closely.

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Magnetism and electricity, in their essential nature, express the interaction between the Earth and the Universe. They are cosmic-telluric forces. Our planet is surrounded by north-south oriented lines of invisible forces, which together we call the earth's magnetic field. Magnetic north is near Earth's geographic north pole; the same goes for the south magnetic and geographic poles. The fundamental property of a magnet, as we have seen, is its polarity. By calling the poles of a magnet north pole and south pole, we indicate that this polarity is defined, not in relation to the internal forces of the magnet, but in relation to the whole Earth. (Let's not forget that being a magnet is not an intrinsic property of the metal rod. First of all, the metal rod is manufactured. Then it is magnetized through a technical procedure, briefly exposing it to very strong external electromagnetic forces ). If a magnetic iron bar is suspended horizontally so that it can rotate freely, it will align itself on the magnetic lines of the earth's field, orienting north-south. It is the principle of the compass, where the needle is a small magnet. Now, it would not occur to anyone to attribute the orientation of the needle to the internal properties of its structure alone; it is known that its orientation results from the action on it of external forces: those of the earth's magnetic field. The earth's magnetic field is generated by cosmic forces acting on our planet . Already in ancient times, it was known that the source of these cosmic forces was located in our galaxy, in the direction of the group of stars forming the constellation Gemini. The symbol of Gemini : two faces looking in opposite directions, expresses, among other things, the polarity of magnetism. Just as the Earth is surrounded by a field of magnetic lines produced by the action of forces from sidereal regions beyond the solar system , so it is surrounded by an electric field generated by the cosmos, an electric field that penetrates into the intrinsic layers of the planet. Our modern knowledge of the properties of this electric field goes back to the scientific experiences of Benjamin Franklin and daredevils in 1752, long before the discovery of the electric current by Luigi Galvani. At a time when lightning and thunderbolts were still believed to be celestial fire which the gods, in their wrath, caused to fall on men, Franklin was one of the first to guess that they were electrical phenomena . He was then living in Philadelphia, in a region where thunderstorms were very frequent and the storm clouds accumulated low above the plain. Franklin came up with the idea of flying a balloon up into a black cloud during a thunderstorm; the balloon was held by a hemp cord which would carry the lightning to a large wrought iron key, which was secured a few inches from the end of the cord in the hand. It was pure madness. Since the delivery of the balloon took too long, Franklin and his son shaped a light but robust kite, capable of flying high. On the day of a violent storm , they took the kite up to the storm clouds. The experience was crowned with success. A powerful electric shock (fortunately

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only a weak part of the lightning) ran up the rope and sent sparks flying from the key. Franklin was shocked but not injured (among other scientists who imitated his experience in other countries, there were deaths from electrocution). The orientation of the Earth's electric field is vertical. The atmosphere is electrically positive with respect to the ground, the amplitude of the charge being a function of altitude. The outer layer of the atmosphere is considered to be the positive pole of this natural electric field of the Earth, while the earth's crust is the negative pole. Although the exact cause of this field has not yet been determined by modern science, it is attributed to the action of forces emanating from the universe, which are called cosmic rays. We have said that a magnet that can rotate freely on the horizontal plane will take a north-south orientation, obeying the forces acting on it from the immediate origin of the earth's magnetic field - forces whose origin is located in the constellation Gemini. In the case of the magnet it is not difficult to visualize these relationships . As far as electricity is concerned, the cosmic-terrestrial interaction is evident at the level of the electric field of the Earth, but less so at a lower level. The action of an electric battery - a small battery common in a flashlight or a portable telephone, for example - which supplies positive and negative polarity electrical "energy", depends on the cosmic forces which generate the earth's electric field. Without this field, there would be no electricity on Earth. This reality is too often forgotten in conventional science. We tend to look for the origin of its polar forces in the chemical reactions inside the pile. By doing this, we lose sight of the fact that the atoms themselves involved in these reactions are not things in themselves; they are crossing points (of interaction) of the lines of force of the universal electromagnetic field. However, modern physics recognizes the fact that any movement of a charge, or passage of an electric current - anywhere in the world - produces an immediate effect on the entire electromagnetic field of our solar system. This field reacts globally to the slightest change caused by an electric discharge or by the passage of a current. In the case of what happens in the circuits of an electronic computer, we are therefore very far from the harmless operations that take place in the mechanical readers that read the holes and the white spaces of the punched cards. These inert holes and white spaces are replaced by active electrical processes, which affect, and are affected by, the cosmic-terrestrial electromagnetic field (the same can be said for magnetic processes). When using a computer or mobile phone, the electric and magnetic processes take place not only inside the device, but also spread throughout the solar system. Moreover, in the operation of the computer (PC, laptop, mobile phone, etc.), not only does every part of every operation resonate throughout the cosmos, but it also causes, by induction, a parallel electrical process in the human nervous system. The neurocerebral system of the human being effectively becomes a replica of the circuits of the computer. To understand the true nature of binary electronics , on which artificial intelligence is based today, it is necessary to place it in its real, cosmic and terrestrial context.

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aforementioned lecture of November 25 , 1917 , Rudolf Steiner described how groups of individuals very gifted in these matters (occult brotherhoods very little known in outer life) are keeping up with the development of this nefarious technology, which is related to of beings acting from the Gemini region in the cosmos. And he mentioned that some American brotherhoods knowingly placed themselves at the service of Sorat, the Antichrist, hoping to obtain through him great power over the rest of humanity through the improper use of the polarity of magnetism: "One will not worry at all about these [Pisces and Virgo] forces where one will try to get everything out of the duality of the polarity of positive and negative forces. The spiritual mysteries by virtue of which what is cosmic can - with the help of double forces of magnetism, the positive and the negative - traversing what is spiritual on Earth come from Gemini; they are of the southern forces. Already in ancient times, it was known that it was something cosmic, and scientists well know, today, on the exoteric plane, which exists in one way or another in the zodiac, behind Gemini, a positive magnetism and a negative magnetism.It will then be a question, for these circles, of paralyzing what will be to be drawn from the cosmos when the true duality will reveal itself to man, to paralyze him in a selfish, materialistic way, by means of the forces which flow towards humanity from Gemini in particular, and which can be wholly placed at the service of the etheric double" 133 .

So spoke Rudolf Steiner about some Western occult circles. In the East there are other ill-intentioned brotherhoods whose purpose is to divert humanity from the impulse of Christ emanating from the Mystery of Golgotha. They incite man to be interested in his lower bestial nature. This is related to the polarity of electricity , a relationship we will study later. Modern computers integrate a technology based entirely on the duality of polarities that exist in magnetism and electricity. Their instruction programs are recorded in binary code on a magnetic medium using the polarity of magnetism (north and south). These instructions are read into the physical machine, where they cause electrical processes which are nothing more than the use of the polarity of electricity (positive and negative). However, if we want to get a fair picture of modern computers, we need to keep the following in mind. In most cases, the individual physical machine that we see, say, in an office, laboratory, or factory, is an illusion. In fact, it is not really an autonomous machine at all: it is just a cell of a large multicellular organism. And one of the most important aspects of modern computers: the fact that they are tied together in a network. This is what is called networking: the interconnection of computers on a network. When you sit in front of a computer terminal (which looks something like a television connected to a keyboard) and start hitting keys, you can't tell how many other machines are tied to the one in front of you, you can't know the size of the network to which it belongs. Initially, networks were used by military and government organizations, but were quickly adopted by large corporations and commercial companies to connect their computers to a central information bank and allow different departments to exchange information . . Later, with the computerization of banks , news agencies, public services, financial markets, etc., vast networks began to extend their spider webs over the Earth. The largest of them has become the Internet and now spans the entire planet. Today, an

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unimaginable number of computer users (institutions, companies, individuals in every country of the world) are connected to the Internet. Not only are hundreds of millions of computers interconnected, but many other types of machines are connected to computers through local area networks or the Internet. In a fully computerized factory, for example, the central computer can be connected to various types of measuring and sensor devices (cameras , optical detectors, pressure sensors, temperature measuring instruments, of sounds, and so on), as well as machine-instruments (drills, welding machines , pulverizing machines, etc.), as well as automatons that load and transport raw materials, finished and semi-finished products finished. Nowadays, it is very common for a new product to be conceived and designed with the help of a certain computer graphic system in a certain place , and for the machine-tools that manufacture it to be in a completely different place - perhaps in a other part of the world - and receive their execution instructions via the Internet. We may get the impression that the Internet has already invaded most environments , yet network management is still in its first stutters. As we said talking about the universal Turing machine, in an absolute sense, the set of instructions is the machine, likewise we can say that the sets of instructions used for processing, transmission and retrieval of information on the physical network constitute the essence of the Internet. The set of instructions (protocols) is called the World Wide Web . Initially, the World Wide Web used electrical wires in special armored cables that connected computers in networks. Then, as telephone companies replaced their old systems with dial-up switching, the Web began to invade national and international telephone systems . Today, more and more Internet users are using a cordless mobile phone instead of a desktop computer. These phones are connected to the Internet via radio. The new generations of phones will be permanently connected to the Internet. This tendency of the Web to get rid of physical transmission media and live in the atmosphere is spreading rapidly. The exact image of the emerging computer is that of a vast spider's web spreading across the entire Earth, connecting not only millions of individual computers together, but countless other machines as well. This giant computer-being has its own sensory captors, its own means of communication, robots, machine-tools, vehicles, conventional and atomic weapons. If we want to study more closely the kind of diabolical magic capable of producing such a computer being, we must ask: what are today's computers made up of?

THE FALL INTO MATTER The physical part of the ENIAC was essentially made up of vacuum tubes. Most readers may recall that before the transistor era, devices such as radios contained such tubes (these

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tubes are back in fashion for some electronic devices such as high-fidelity stereo amplifiers and other similar devices). They look a bit like electric bulbs that emit a reddish light when energized. Without going into too much technical detail, let us mention a particularly interesting feature of these tubes, when considered from the point of view of spiritual science. Inside the tube, a vacuum has been created, not a temporary vacuum as in the steam engine, but a deep, permanent vacuum. In this vacuum, inside the tube, metal plates have been placed connected to wires through which electricity reaches them . Vacuum tubes of this kind operate according to a revealing phenomenon, namely that electricity and heat are in some sense opposites. Heat has a tendency to push electricity out of a metal and, conversely, electricity tends to expel heat. From the point of view of spiritual science, this relationship between heat and electricity dates back to very ancient stages in the evolution of our solar system as described by Rudolf Steiner in his book The Occult Science. The oldest stage, which Rudolf Steiner calls "Ancient Saturn", was characterized by the fact that there was no solid, liquid or gaseous matter yet. All matter was still in the form of heat plasma. The phase of Ancient Saturn consisted of matter which was in the state of heat and of heat ether (called heat ether), and likewise of more subtle forms of heat, such as soul heat and heat of the spirit. When the solar system had finished its Ancient Saturn phase of evolution, it returned to a purely spiritual state (pralaya); then it appeared again and entered a second evolutionary phase traditionally called the Ancient Sun. A part of the matter then condensed to a gaseous state, while a part of the heat ether separated into a higher element, the light ether, and in a lower element, electricity. Electricity and heat , although having a common origin, therefore belong to different evolutionary stages. Now what is interesting about vacuum tubes is that one of the metal plates that are in the vacuum, the negative pole, is heated until it glows , which has the effect of driving electricity out of it. Thus expelled, the electricity forms a kind of cloud in the vacuum. It is a very particular condition, not natural. Air is initially pushed out of the tube, which creates a "hole" in the space which is then filled with heat and a dense cloud of negative electricity. As can be imagined from Rudolf Steiner's observations quoted above, this particular kind of "hole" in space is produced to attract demons related to electricity. The ENIAC contained approximately eighteen thousand vacuum tubes and consumed more than twenty-five thousand watts of electrical power. But this technology used in computers quickly turned out to be only a transitory form . Beginning in 1947, researchers at Bell Laboratories in the United States made a further discovery that would totally transform the physical aspect of computers. The discovery happened "by accident", as historians say. After several years of pursuing leads that led nowhere, and carrying out a large number of experiments without results, physicists John Bardeen in theoretical physical science and Walter Brattain in experimental physical science , supported by about two thousand scientists and engineers from the world's largest industrial

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research organization discovered the transistor on December 16 , 1947. Conventional reports in relation to this momentous event, based on carefully prepared press releases from Bell Labs, also attribute the discovery to a third man, William Shockley. In fact, Shockley, who was head of the department where Bardeen and Brattain worked, was not directly involved in the discovery. But it was Shockley , an intellectually brilliant, unstable and strange individual, who later invented a different form of transistor - called a junction -, a form which was to transform the world of technology. The first junction transistor made to Shockley 's specifications was created at Bell Laboratories on April 7 , 1949, by Morgan Sparks and his assistant Bob Mikulyak. Any one of the countless billions of transistors operating all around us, in our clocks, alarm clocks, telephones, cameras, televisions , stereo systems, washing machines, central heating controllers, measuring instruments, X-ray machines, scanners, pacemakers, satellites, rockets, trains, traffic lights, and well into our computers, comes from Shockley 's invention , born out of his anger and deep resentment at not having been involved in the first discovery made by "his" men, Bardeen and brattain. Spectacular changes then took place. From a huge and cumbersome machine, the computer suddenly became much smaller, easier to build, more reliable, cheaper, more powerful and less "greedy" for electricity. What had happened? Transistors, as well as their descendants, integrated circuits, microprocessors, etc., are made from crystals. Anyone who has admired a magnificent quartz crystal or a fine amethyst, he observed something very similar to the material used for transistors. They are mainly manufactured from extremely pure silicon crystals, grown artificially under very severe conditions. These crystals are given special electrical properties by adding homeopathic quantities of certain metals : a procedure known as "doping". Let us recall for a moment Bacon and his binary code. Bacon postulated that all words, and therefore any knowledge that can be expressed in words, can be communicated as a sequence of "a" and that the transmission can be done by means of any device that can assume only two possible states - for example a valve which can be either “running” or “not running” You may decide that “running” represents “ a” and “not running” la or vice versa. It is the fundamental principle of modern computers. ENIAC included approximately eighteen thousand vacuum tubes. Each of them was the equivalent of a valve. The tube could be either "running" or "not running". Ultimately, we could say that the fundamental difference between ENIAC and Bacon's system was that instead of using a single valve, ENIAC used eighteen thousand, and therefore things went much faster. It is evidently a simplification pushed to the extreme, but which can help us understand what exactly is happening.

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Transistors are used in digital computers as switches, otherwise referred to as the equivalent of tubes, even though the transistors themselves aren't really switches. Used like this, the transistors can be either "on" or "not on". The big advantage lies in their small size. A silicon wafer measuring a few square centimeters can contain hundreds of thousands of transistors bound together and thus forming electronic circuits. essential computer functions are no longer performed in a vacuum filled with a cloud of electricity. They now unfold within crystals (or pieces of crystals). We can see the importance of this fact when we turn our gaze to the physical and spiritual nature of silicon, as it occurs in its natural form: silica crystals or rock crystals. Dr. Friedrich Benesch lays out the four ways crystalline silica is formed from the Earth: "It is with four powerful brushstrokes that the silica being has painted its expression throughout the entire organism of the Earth, as it has evolved from the states prior to its present condition: the first brushstroke is drawn wherever the siliceous element appears in its characteristic form as silica and quartz. In this form, it is a sort of ash, a dioxide of the metal silicon (SiO 2 ). This dioxide occurs in nature in four variants: 1. in the form of large crystals (rock crystals and similar) 2. in the delicate crystalline varieties, made up of fine crystals like hair and granular crystals which are therefore no longer transparent, but translucent (chalcedony, etc.) 3. in entirely opaque quartz of the jasper family 4. in opals, where quartz appears in the colloidal state as a hardened gel" 134 .

To these four varieties of crystals, man has added a fifth, which nature had never produced: the dark gray, brilliant and opaque crystal of pure silicon. Silica is found everywhere on Earth. Indeed, in the form of siliceous rocks (granite, etc.) and sand, it represents more than half of the substance of the earth's crust. Its hardness and tendency to crystallize make it the typical representative of solidified mineral matter. And yet, it is wonderfully transparent to the spiritual forces streaming into our planet from the cosmos. In his course for farmers in Koberwitz, Rudolf Steiner talks about the role of silica in nature: "If we take the earth's soil, we have in it first of all all the effects of what depends on the distances of the cosmos coming into line for the action exercised on the Earth. It is what is commonly called sand and rock. The sand and the rock, which does not let water pass through it, which does not contain any nutrients, but which in the same way as what still enters the bill, is extraordinarily important for the unfolding of the growth process, all this depends entirely on the influences of the most distant cosmic forces.And through the transformation of the siliceous sand - this is what we see however improbable it may seem - it mainly penetrates the earth's soil, to act later during the irradiation returning from the Earth towards the heights of the heavens, which we may call the life element of the soil and the element having a chemical action in the soil" 135 .

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Man uses the particular quality of silica, its transparency, in the most diverse ways. What would our houses be without windows, these disinterested plaques of hard material that allow us to look at the outside world without disturbance, and cause light to flood our homes. Silica, in the form of glass in eyeglasses, binoculars, telescopes and many other optical instruments, helps us perceive the world in a variety of ways. And how we love to relate light to crystal and see how it shines through the facets of a crystal chandelier! But it is in man's hell itself that silica, in its thinnest form, unfolds its activity as a support for the human faculty of perception. Rudolf Steiner once gave the workers who built the Goetheanum a very interesting indication from this point of view. He described how, when we observe a plant, for example, a very small inverted image of the plant is formed in our brain from silica crystals and then immediately disappears. In their book Basic Data for Expanding the Healing Art, Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman describe silica in the human organism as a support for ego consciousness. From this and various other aspects already mentioned, we can get an idea of the pure and disinterested nature of silicon . Does this noble virtue stamp its character on modern computers? Silica is bound to light. A rock crystal is similar to condensed light. It has no affinity for electricity. On the contrary, it prevents the circulation of an electric current : it is an insulator. If we want to manufacture electronic components from an artificially grown silicon crystal, we must initially change its nature. And what is done by introducing infinitesimal quantities of very specific impurities. It is interesting to note that the electronics industry itself uses the term "doping " to describe this process, as if the technicians intuitively perceive that they are doping the silicon being to make it lose its luminous purity and make it succumb to the action of electricity which, it is nothing but decayed, degraded light. Thus doped, silicon can no longer oppose the circulation of electricity, although it never becomes a real conductor . It is then what is called a "semi-conductor". Curiously, the engineers creating semi-conductors and the creators of "chips" still explain the functioning of the doped crystals inspired by the technique of punched cards invented by the weaver Basile Boachon, three hundred years earlier. They imagine that the electrical processes in the crystal are sequences of electrons and "holes".

SILICON VALLEY The foregoing considerations help us to discover what kind of evil magic is at work in the industry that manufactures computer components, the semi-conductor industry. We have now traveled a long way from the near incarnation of the great Sorat in the Persian Academy of Gondishapur in the seventh century to the heart of the modern computer industry. This heart beats in a place called Silicon Valley: "The determining requirements for choosing the site where the semi-conductor industry was to establish itself did not have to entirely satisfy criteria that most other industries considered important.

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A large part of the semi-conductor industry is still with centered in specific regions, but the east coast is no longer the center. On the contrary, the west coast has attracted semi-conductor companies , and the driving force of this industry is now in California, especially San Francisco. to the south is the Santa Clara Valley, better known as the "Silicon Valley" name , since as of 1969, no fewer than twenty-five semiconductor companies had settled there and were separated by only a few miles from each other." 136 .

Since these words were written more than thirty years ago, Silicon Valley has become famous throughout the world. It soon became the Mecca of modern technology. This development was not due to chance; hidden spiritual currents are at work behind the advent of Silicon Valley, the new Academy. Relying on indications taken from Rudolf Steiner's lectures, Helmut Knauer gave the following geological description of North America. Unless otherwise noted, he describes the geographic region, not the American people: «In modern times, America became a center of attraction for the peoples of many European nations, after a long period during which it was hidden or remained concealed from the consciousness of men. Before its discovery by Christopher Columbus in 1492, its "etheric climate" would have been too powerful for Europeans and would have caused premature hardening. It is above all in this region of the Earth that the electromagnetic forces, linked to the already mentioned action of the life ether, exert a strong influence. Rudolf Steiner pointed out how, precisely in North America, the forces that radiate from the bottom up have a particular influence on the human organism and the character of the race. "It is particularly through the underground electric and magnetic currents that the spirit of the people affects the ethnic characteristics of the American people. And something flows back to it from the head, something which neutralizes the influence of the underground electric and magnetic currents: what flows back in this way is really the human will. This is the peculiar quality of the character of the American people" [in OO 181] The structure of the American continent reflects the interplay of many such forces, which cause destruction and hardening. Just as in the east, high mountain ranges border the Asian continent from the Pacific Ocean, in the west, mountain ranges are located where the American continent and the Pacific Ocean meet. But these mountains are higher, wilder and drier than those of East Asia. The creative forces which there have shaped the face of the Earth are those which have worked directly in the mineral element, solid, and which have led it to a process of death. The massive region of the Rocky Mountains, with the Colorado Range, is one example. On a large scale, this unvegetated outcrop stretches north to south like an angular spine with deep folds. There, the sclerosis of the Earth has reached its most advanced stage and is expressed in the majesty of these peaks and these depths» 137 .

The very powerful electromagnetic forces that radiate from the earth in the region described above have a particular relationship with a being that we carry within us: it is called the

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ahrimanic opium double. On this issue, Rudolf Steiner indicated: "But there is a place on the surface of the earth which presents the greatest kinship with these forces. When man goes there, he enters their sphere of influence; as soon as he leaves it, it is no longer so, for it is a question of geographical characteristics, not ethnographic or national but purely geographical.The region where what flows from below exerts the greatest influence on the double, and where it is therefore also communicated back to the earth , by the fact that it appears closest to each other double with what emanates from him, is the region of the earth where most of the mountains are not oriented transversely, from west to east, but where the mountains are mainly oriented from north to south - and this is in connection with these forces - and where one is close to the north magnetic pole. It is the region where, under the effect of external conditions, an affinity with the Mephistophelean-Ahrimanic nature first of all develops. And much, in the evolution of the Earth which continues its march forward, is due to this affinity. Today, man has no right to pass blindly through the evolution of the Earth; must deduce these links between things. Europe will be able to establish just relations with America only if these circumstances can be deduced, if one knows what geographical limitations come from there. Otherwise, if Europe continues to remain blind from this point of view, it will be the same with this poor Europe as it was with Greece with respect to Rome. It doesn't have to be that way; the world must not be geographically Americanized. [...] Indeed, America's efforts aim at mechanizing everything, at bringing everything back into the realm of pure naturalism, at wiping out the culture of Europe little by little from the surface of the Earth. It cannot do otherwise" 138 .

As we have seen, Silicon Valley is located just south of San Francisco. It is interesting to note that the nearby mountain ranges, the Coast Range and , further east, the Sierra Nevada, which form part of the great north-south ridge described by Knauer, have an axis which is approximately parallel to that of the Zagros Mountains, behind Gondishapur. Now let's try to bring together the different pieces of the puzzle that we have studied and see what the resulting image is. Mani, one of the teachers of humanity, had founded a Christian esoteric school in Gondishapur, in the third century of our era. After his death, he had gathered around him the highest initiates of the time, Zarathustra, Scythian and Buddha , and in this council "the plan was arrested according to which all the wisdom of the Bodhisattvas of post-Atlantean times was to pour more and more into the future of humanity". The adversary of Christ, the two-comatose Beast, did everything in his power to pervert the noble spiritual impulse of Mani which had spread from Gondishapur. Inspiring the brilliant minds of the Academy of Gondishapur in which "the most rigorous thought was linked to a certain imaginative spirit which nevertheless followed logical paths and rose to clairvoyance", the Beast wanted to precipitate this wisdom of the future in the present, and to pour into the rational soul of men of the seventh century all the knowledge they had to acquire thanks to the conscious soul in the third millennium. By means of its terrible powers of black magic, the Beast with two comas would thus have introduced the content of the conscious soul into the rational soul of man, thus interrupting its evolution towards the true consciousness of the ego. His soul nature would remain dual, a binary soul nature.

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The Beast's plan was thwarted by the development of Islam. Gondishapur fell into the hands of the Mohammedans and the leading thinkers left to settle near Baghdad, where a new and powerful center of learning flourished under the leadership of Harun al-Rashid and his adviser. There, the brilliant science of Gondishapur was colored by the rigid determinism of Islam. The desire to serve this wisdom, "which knew nothing of Christ and did not even want to know of Christianity", was brought into the spiritual worlds by Harun al-Rashid and his adviser as they passed through the gate of death. There, a meeting took place between the souls of Harun al-Rashid and his adviser on the one hand, and those who had lived in Aristotle and Alexander on the other. Aristotle and Alexander, the great souls of the Michael movement, "manifested themselves by saying: what was once founded must be directed, in the strict sense of the term, towards the kingdom of Michael. Since it was well known that Michael would take over the his regency in the 19th century". The souls who had been Harun al-Rashid and his adviser objected to the union of the ancient wisdom with the Christ impulse. "The protagonists of this spiritual battle in the 9th century faced each other in intense and determined opposition ...".At that time, down here, the Eighth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople decreed that man is not a tripartite being composed from a body, a soul and a spirit, but a bipartite being, a binary being. It was an important stage in the execution of the two-comatose Beast plan. The Beast had wanted to pour all knowledge into the rational soul of men of the seventh century through the inspiration of geniuses. Men would receive the vision of an earthly paradise; great powers reserved for the future would be placed in their hands, and they would suffer terrible misfortunes. Something of the dark grandeur of this plan had passed into Baghdad, where Harun al-Rashid sought to gather all human knowledge into his court. Later , he was born in England in the person of Bacon, and had access to the highest office of the state. "I confess," Bacon wrote to Burleigh in about 1592 , "that my contemplative aims are as broad as my civic ambitions moderate: for I have made all knowledge my scope." He then set about eliminating all ancient wisdom, proposing that knowledge be acquired systematically by means of scientific research and experiments. Furthermore, he showed that by using his ingenious binary code, any human knowledge could be expressed in the form of series of "a" and d's. And he gave mankind a new vision of the earthly paradise itself, made possible with the acquisition and elaboration of any knowledge He destroyed the spiritual power of words and created a crowd of demonic "idols." Bacon's doctrine of acquiring all knowledge and creating an earthly paradise was a more earthly version of the two-horned Beast's abortive plan . It was an intermediate version that was intended to prepare human minds for what was to come. In fact, the Beast knew well that a time would come in the second half of the 20th century, in which the Ahrimanic forces would become extremely powerful, which would allow him to try again to realize his designs in another way. Indeed, it well knew that the fate of the world was unfolding in such a way as to enable it to bring its activity to a climax at the end of this century, and that conditions would be

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favorable to produce that event which Rudolf Steiner described as the very physical incarnation of Ahriman-Sorat in America. This event is now behind us. We see how the actions of the Beast descend from the spiritual into the material. In the seventh century, through inspiration and revelation, the Beast would have given men all earthly knowledge. In Bacon's view, knowledge was no longer to be received by revelation, but was to be processed by the spirit of man, as a mill does flour. Then, in the last century, the Turing machine appeared. It was supposed to be a universal machine capable of treating all knowledge in all possible ways. Under the guidance of the Two-Coma Beast, everything becomes binary. Any ternary aspect is lost, destroyed. It truly is the Binary Beast, and we will call it that when the time comes. As the time of Sorat's incarnation approached, computer technology was put into a binary mold, harnessing the duality of magnetism and electricity . From this duality and in accordance with the cosmic forces acting from the region of the constellation Gemini, the machines were granted intelligence: an immense intelligence capable of processing all information. A new Academy was established in this region of the Earth where magnetic and electrical forces rise from the depths and work mightily within the human being, a region where, in Rudolf Steiner's terms, "a relationship develops above all with nature Mephistophelean-Ahrimanic due to external conditions". Artificial intelligence was now to be embedded in the crystalline matter of the earth. But this matter was equally to remain receptive to the cosmic influences which were to act within, particularly from the direction of Gemini. And researchers were thus led to discover the semi-conducting properties of silicon, this disinterested element , crystal- former, receptive to cosmic distances. Men learned to "dope" silicon, forcing it to open up to electricity as well. The first silicon transistor was discovered "by accident" by Bardeen and Brattain in 1947, but their system found only a few applications in everyday life. It was the brilliant but unstable physicist, William Shockley, who in the grip of anger and deep resentment, developed the real transistor, the junction transistor, at Bell Laboratories in 1949. It is this transistor that was to affect life so profoundly everyday and define the technology used in modern computers. Six years later, Shockley was the first man to found a semiconductor company in what would become Silicon Valley. Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories , a subsidiary of Beckman Instruments, was founded in Palo Alto in 1955; it was Shockley's hometown . Other companies soon appeared right next to Shockley's company. They were founded by his former employees who quit because they couldn't bear to work with him. Some of these companies enjoyed spectacular success, while Shockley's venture failed. He became increasingly obsessed with racist ideas, claiming that standardized tests of intelligence showed

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that man's intellectual capacity was determined by his genes, and that Blacks were inferior to Whites. He believed that the high reproduction rate among the Blacks had a regressive effect on the evolution of humanity and that measures should be taken to eliminate this problem. It is rather strange to find that the important milestones in the development of electric computers are intimately linked to the desire to regulate human reproduction. Hollerith's machines were created to measure the growth of the American population. Hitler linked them to the extermination of the Jewish race. And Shockley, the father of the transistor technology used in every computer today, was obsessed with what he regarded as the genetic problem of Blacks. These are the events at the origin of the birth and development of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley was more than just a concentration of semiconductor companies . Everyone who worked in this area knew each other. Firms appeared when two or three employees left an existing enterprise to create their own business. The separate businesses were almost like the faculties of a sprawling university or academy . But if it was the manufacturers of semiconductor products that created Silicon Valley, it was the makers of personal computers that made its name known to the world. The best known and most reputable of these companies and personal computer pioneers is called Apple. Hundreds of millions of personal computers are in operation today. They are all built on the model of computers that Apple developed in Silicon Valley. The commercial emblem of the company is an apple of which a piece has been eaten, the symbol of man's fall into original sin. It was no coincidence that the price of the first Apple computers, which started the micro-computer industry, was $ 666 . Silicon Valley became the heart of the computer industry. Artificial intelligence began to emerge from the drugged crystals, and to extend its spider-like being on Earth via computer networks. Ever more powerful, ever more capable of accumulating and processing information, it sparked an imagination in the souls of many computer users: If only we can get all the knowledge into the computer databases, they will then be able to answer all of our questions. Only computers are capable of storing such immense amounts of information, sorting, comparing and classifying all the details. Only computers can draw conclusions from whatever pertinent information is available. If only we can fit enough facts into their memories, computers will then be able to solve all the puzzles of existence. Couldn't the great spider-like computer-being become omniscient? And think of the power of those in control of this giant computer being; if knowledge is power, they would be omnipotent. These are the demon-inspired dreams of those who have glimpsed the fearsome capabilities of the binary computer being (for binary technology is only in its infancy) and have fallen under its spell. As we have seen, the adage "knowledge is power" comes from Bacon.

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There is another old saying which states: more than one truth is said jokingly. And there is a well-known joke in the computer world: a man asks a question to a state-of-the-art computer in which all the information has been stored. He asks: "Does God exist?". And the computer replies: "Yes, now it exists." There is a bitter truth behind this joke , as the Binary Beast intends to become our God, and it can succeed if humanity remains deaf to the problems of the binary technique. The more seriously one thinks about these questions, the more one perceives the problems of the binary computer, which are not ordinary problems, but of a cosmic dimension. The Second World War was followed by the Cold War, during which humanity lived in fear of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. In 1957, the Russians were the first to successfully launch a spacecraft, and the Americans were horrified by the idea that atomic weapons could be launched at them from space. Urgent measures were needed, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower created DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to expedite and coordinate American rocket projects in space. Among DARPA's many contributions to military technology was the creation of the first true computer network, remotely linking research and defense sites. It was known as the ARPANET and later became the Internet (DARPA still coordinates American military research. It is currently evaluating projects to implant microprocessors in the brains of soldiers to increase their cognitive faculties). The Internet was thus born out of America's fear of atomic weapons in space. At the time the ARPANET was first used, personal computers did not yet exist. The network was designed to connect the large central computers of major DARPA -funded research establishments , such as the University of California (UCLA) with its Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Standford Research Institute ( SRI ) in Cali _ _ _ _ _ _ _ human user and the computer. This included an early graphical representation of the tabs (like today's Microsoft Windows "office") and a pointing device such as a mouse or joystick.

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In 1967, the initial problem with setting up the network was that these big central computers each worked in their own way, each differently. So to speak, they didn't have a common language they could use for networking in the beginning, and it took twenty years with the creation of the World Wide Web for this problem to disappear for computers in general. The plants that were originally connected to the ARPANET medium got around the problem by each purchasing a mid-size computer of the same model and manufacturer, a Honeywell DDP-516. The institution could program it to act as an interpreter, to translate the specific data structures of its central computer into a common "language" for exchange on the network.

INTERNET Up to now we have considered computers as machines that seem to process general information , most of the time in the form of text or images. As we have seen, we often tend to think that computers are an evolved form of calculating machines, or were conceived in this light. Their history, their technology and the main uses that have been made of them show that this is not true at all. The data processing functions for which we use computers were fine-tuned in the 17th century by Francis Bacon. However, the individual computer is neither a universal machine nor the realization of Bacon's dream of the House of Solomon, that great human data-processing organization that ruled the mysterious island of Bensalem, the new Atlantis. Computer technology first took on real form with the development of the Internet. The Internet is the physical network of cables, telephone wires, radio links and other connections, which unites more than a billion computers of all sorts in an immense network of planetary dimensions . And, as they say, the network hardware. It is distinguished from the World Wide Web, which can be thought of as a huge computer program, or as a set of programs, that work on the Internet the way a program works on a personal computer; The World Wide Web is the most important and most used program on the Internet. Among the application programs developed earlier (in the early 1970s) for the ARPANET applications that developed with it as it expanded to become the Internet - are Simple Mail Transfer Protocol ( SMTP). mail), later known as e-mail, for sending short messages. At first, this consisted of a cumbersome folder transfer procedure, but eventually a specific program was created for that purpose. It began to be seen as a practical alternative to letter writing or telephone conversations. Email is used virtually everywhere today and is considered by many to be the most convenient way to send messages or exchange ideas. But the result is an impoverishment of the style as well as of the content of communications, and consequently, the appreciable decline of the literary level everywhere in the world. It also tends to replace direct human contact.

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THE WORLD WIDE WEB (THE DOMINATION OF THE BEAST) Vannevar Bush 's vision of the memex - a vision published in 1945 at the time when the first atomic bomb was tested at Los Alamos - became reality, coinciding in time and in fact with another major progress in nuclear fission. In 1989, the world's largest particle storage ring, the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) accelerator, was put into operation . It was an immense octagonal ring made of hollow electro-magnets, 27 kilometers in circumference 100 meters below the ground at CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. Introduced electrons and positrons of the gigantic ring electromagnetic field were accelerated each time 240 million times in opposite directions, thus achieving an extraordinary speed and kinetic force . Eventually they crashed into each other in collisions of hitherto unimaginable violence . The particles were pulverized into new sub-particles (like z-bosons), which had never existed yet. At first glance, CERN in Switzerland is apparently unrelated to the work of Vannevar Bush, the man behind the Los Alamos project to manufacture the atomic bomb; but in reality this is not the case. The creation of CERN was largely intended to repatriate European physicists who had emigrated to the United States during and after the Second World War for various reasons, attracted by the fascination of what was called Big Science there . CERN's idea was presented at the Fifth General Conference of UNESCO by physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi as the European Big Science project, which would be so prestigious as to eclipse those of the United States and to incite the best scientific spirits to return to Europe . Fourteen European nations jointly participate in the management and direction of CERN. The term Big Science first appeared in 1961, in an article published in the journal Science and titled "The Consequences of Large-Scale Science for the United States." The undisputed father of Big Science was Vannevar Bush. It was primarily on his initiative that the colossal state-funded research projects saw the light of day, the very projects that are at the origin of the "brain drain" (this is what the mass emigration of the best physicists of the world is called). Europe). CERN was Europe's answer to Vannevar Bush. And it was right there, at CERN, that Bush's dream of the memex came true. In the late 1980s, a young English computer engineer named Tim Berners-Lee worked in the CERN buildings near the underground magnetic ring. He shared Bush's dream of the memex and had long wondered how to implement such a system: "Suppose all the information stored on all existing computers are connected, I said to myself. Suppose I could program my computer to create a space in which everything could be linked to everything" 139 .

As the tests took place in the large particle accelerator and the particles crashed against each other, the solution finally took shape in his mind. He conceived of a practical method for

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"establishing useful references through the enormous mass of data found", exactly as Vannevar Bush had imagined . Tim Bemers-Lee successfully tested his system on a very small scale, in his CERN office, christening his embryonic associational path network Hypertext . Hypertext means on-screen text that doesn't read from beginning to end as it normally does , but which contains underlined keywords. If the user clicks with his mouse on one of these keywords, the visualization "jumps" to another text concerning the subject related to the keyword. So let's imagine, for example, that the computer user is reading a text about Bacon on his screen. The text probably mentions that he was born in London. The word "London" is possibly superimposed on the text. If, instead of reading ahead, the computer user clicks on the word in question, the text on Bacon will be replaced on the screen by a text on London. Thus the hypertext jumps from one theme to another following predefined associative paths, exactly as Vanne var Bush had imagined. As for his special data transfer program that allows hyperlinks to access information stored in other computers connected to the network, Tim Bemers-Lee had the idea of giving it a rather ambitious name : World Wide Web [the web ( of spider) worldwide]. But his optimism was justified; his little web grew to become worldwide. And so the Web was born in the most important nuclear research center in the world, while subatomic particles crashed into each other with unprecedented violence and disintegrated. Tim Bemers-Lee's cunning system was first used at CERN to exchange technical information between offices and departments. But its potential was soon recognized outside this organization. Starting in the mid- 1990s, as the World Wide Web became more and more accessible, a large number of institutions, companies and even individuals connected their computers to the Internet. In its infancy, the Web resembled the memex in its principle, and in its physical functioning. Subsequently, a significant evolution that was to change the Web into something new began in 1998, the year Ahriman-Sorat's physical and real incarnation took place behind the outer veil of existence. Tim Bemers-Lee called this new phase "the second part of the dream: the Semantic Web". Fully developed, the Semantic Web would have some capacity for reason , for understanding - it would actually start thinking. By searching for links, your search engines would no longer be satisfied with just finding keywords or an underlying code; they would begin to analyze the meaning of the information they would sift through, and draw conclusions from it. However, this ability to analyze was not yet truly possible as the year 2000 passed , in part because, as Tim Bemers-Lee wrote in 1999 : "[...] it is already hard to find people endowed with the form of intelligence capable of drawing this type of conclusion, even more so when it comes to a computer program. But a simpler reason is that the information given on the Web it very rarely comes in a form that a machine can understand. The Semantic Web tackles this simpler problem, perhaps ultimately as a starting point for tackling a

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more complicated one" 140 .

Thus the idea of the World Wide Web began to develop beyond Vannevar Bush 's prophetic vision of the memex . Although its function was still as he had imagined , "to provide man with the means of producing, storing and consulting the memory of the human species", a more intoxicating dream had taken shape in the minds of the computer creators at the head of the which we find Tim Bemers-Lee (in 1994 the latter had founded the World Wide Web Consortium in the United States at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Consortium offers advice to the Web to help it develop its skills and raise its level). However, Tim Bemers-Lee and his colleagues were not in a position to control the evolution of the Web. No human being was. Their vision of the Semantic Web didn't count against the breadth of other forces that would come into play, forces led by Sorat. Indeed Sorat wanted the Web to be much more than a mere illusion of an information system in which thought would be trapped. He also intended to link the life of man's feelings and will to the Internet. From the information system that it essentially was, the Web was now undergoing a profound mutation, becoming more and more a means to do business or purchases, to chat, to distract oneself, to wage wars, and above all to engage in crime. According to some studies, illegal and criminal practices account for more than half of all Internet activity. Even the conservative Encyclopaedia Britannica - which is anything but an alarmist publication - makes the following comment: "Despite the peaceful nature one ascribes to the Internet, it might be best regarded as a modern example of the American Wild West without the sheriff." This same image was used in the House of Lords during a debate on crimes of order in 2007. Now, spiritual research had long established that the very forces that make the Internet work, electricity and magnetism, are not neutral, but immoral in themselves. Here it enters the World Wide Web's tendency to birth the worst in human nature. Internet with the World Wide Web is not a bottomless pit of knowledge as people imagine it. Its proponents often give absurd estimates of the amount of useful information that can be accessed. They fail to mention that the bulk of this information is simply the repeated duplication of data that is common to most large databases. It is somehow as if a rich man wanted to buy a hundred libraries, each of them having an average of one hundred thousand books inside. He would own ten million books, but not ten million different books. In most fields and for any given subject, this man would be found with hundreds of copies of the same book. Furthermore, in the case of the Internet, a considerable part of the information currently available on the network is either poor in quality or so inaccurate that a professional editor would never agree to print it. A large number of good books (including the works of Rudolf Steiner) have been digitized and their contents put up for sale on the Internet, but this is not the case for the majority. Furthermore, the user does not have direct access to the main body of information on the network. He must use a search engine which , in principle, follows the preestablished tracks. In cases where no one has thought of creating links related to a particular

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theme, there will be no leads to follow. The Semantic Web may or may not become a reality. Meanwhile, as Clifford Stoll pointed out in his thoughtful book, High-Tech Heretic: "Internet search engines, which many believe to be the answer to their need for information , provide information that is both useful and incorrect. Their search lacks depth and breadth: search engines ignore between 60 and 90 percent of Web pages, and that says it all. [...] Computer search engines do not dispense with going to a well-referenced library. [...] Fundamentally, search engines and automatic indexing programs seek words, not concepts. They know nothing of the nuances of language and context. Indeed , viewers generally ask Web site creators to write in a particular structure so that search engines can find their information. What a crazy idea: organizing and communicating our thoughts so that they are easily parsed grammatically by a machine!" 141 .

There are many users who imagine that when they launch a search, the search engine actually sifts through the databases of the whole world to look for the information they want. Actually, that's not true. Currently, the fastest and most competitive search engine is that of the Stanford company, Google Inc. The way Google works illustrates what we have just said. This company purchases hundreds of personal computers and connects them together to form blocks that function as one huge machine equipped with hundreds of micro-processors and hard drives. Google then downloads the World Wide Web (easily accessible web pages) into the combined memory of its computer blocks. On each of its computer sites, Google therefore has an up-to-date copy of the parts of the World Wide Web that are accessible to it. With each new search request, Google scrutinizes information on the local site involved , not on the Web pages themselves, scattered throughout the world, but on its own copy of the Web. It uses a system that assigns levels of importance to each Web page according to certain criteria: the search begins by browsing the most important pages then the other pages, in decreasing order of importance. Google derives its huge profits from commercial advertisements intelligently selected to match the topic that is being searched by the customer. Information accessible on the web is information that institutions, companies and individuals make available to the public in a form that can be recognized by a search program (search engine). If, as Clifford Stoll said ironically in his book High-Tech Heretic mentioned above, the text containing the desired information is written for artificial intelligence so that search engines can find the keywords or codes loaded, then the information will be accessible. If you make the mistake of writing in too human a style, the search engine will be unable to parse the text and will not find the information. Clifford Stoll is right when he says it would be better to go look at a large, well-referenced library. But of course this implies leaving your home, going to the library, meeting real people and leafing through real books. In many respects, the "information superhighway" of the Internet and the World Wide Web must be regarded as the greatest fraud ever committed at the expense of the general public. But 299

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these are only external aspects . The real problems are to be researched deeper.

ELECTRICITY AND EROTIC FORCES There are three great illusions related to computers and the Internet, three great illusions that insidiously lead the human being to believe that he can use them with impunity as tools for thought, while he remains on the sidelines and retains control of his soul life. We have already addressed the first illusion, the one which consists of believing that a machine is simply a machine. It is not true. Man indulges in "negative superstition" as Rudolf Steiner calls it, when he imagines entering into interaction with an immobile and lifeless assemblage of physical components that carry out mechanical and electrical processes . No, of course it's not like that! He enters into an intimate relationship with a real being or, in the case of extremely complex systems, with a whole hierarchy of subnatural beings. A computer, far from being the anonymous plastic box we would like it to be, with circuit boards and other similar things inside, is an ahrimanic being who has consciousness of the user. When individual computer-beings are connected to the gigantic superhuman mind of the Internet, it is this malevolent intelligence that stands behind the computer screen, and there it reaches out its hand to the user sitting in front of it. The second illusion, which we will deal with in volume II, is that which consists in believing that we know how the Internet works. We are not talking about the particular user, of course, for whom the technique remains generally incomprehensible. He or she, however, assumes that the engineers who develop the hardware and manufacture the microprocessors know how their products work. Likewise, the user imagines that since the program was written by human programmers, there is someone somewhere who knows exactly how the program works. We will see that in reality, no human being knows what happens inside a modern microprocessor, and that there is not even a human mind that is familiar with the gears of a large computer program. This is already the case with modern personal computers. As for the Internet with the World Wide Web, how it works far exceeds human understanding. The third illusion is perhaps the greatest of all, and also the most dangerous. And the belief that computers are primarily akin to human thought, that artificial intelligence just means artificial thinking. It is far from the truth. A few years ago, the famous professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Kewin Warwick, made a shocking statement that shocked many people. The professor , whose widely read book In the Mind of the Machine established him as one of the world's leading experts on cybernetics, is a witty character who believes that artificial intelligence will soon surpass its human equivalent and that machines will rule the world. Concerned that they might decide to exterminate human beings because they are considered ineffective, inconsistent and

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incompetent, he thinks we would be well advised to make ourselves so useful that they let us live, at least as their slaves - a grim vision of the future . In certain respects , however, Professor Warwick 's ideas are perfectly relevant. Many regard him as an outspoken visionary prophet of the postmodern world; others take him for a fool. Be that as it may, he is a man who preaches by example, who has tested implants in his own body. In 2002, for example, he was able to mentally control the movements of a mechanical hand that was connected, via the Internet, to his nervous system. He was in England, but the hand that moved was in the United States. What shocked him was his proposal that he and his wife get implants and have sexual relations through the Internet. To many, the idea seemed not only grotesque and repulsive, but also physically impossible. After all, don't we need the reproductive organs of the human body to have sexual relations? The uncomfortable answer to this question is: no. Having sexual relations via the Internet is not only possible, but it is also already widely practiced even if incompletely . How are we to understand all this? Unpleasant as this topic may be for some readers, it is essential that we better come to know the important difference between what sexual relationships are on the one hand, and having carnal intercourse with someone on the other, if we are to be able to able to understand what the Internet is doing to humanity today. The author intends to approach the topic from the point of view of spiritual science and begs sensitive readers to be lenient with him. Electricity and magnetism are fundamental forces of physical existence, and they are active at different levels of human beings' bodily life. In machines, they are used to replace the work of our limbs moved by willpower. Powerful electric motors can lift heavy loads, pump liquids, push vehicles , etc. It was in the motorization of machines that electricity and magnetism were first employed, following the discovery of electricity in 1786 and Michael Faraday's excellent experiments in electromagnetism some forty years later. During his spiritual scientific research, Rudolf Steiner made an extremely important discovery that allows us to understand the relationship that exists between human nature and what acts electrically in computers and the Internet. Outlining the evolution of the physical human being from the first stages of his biological development, R. Steiner arrived at a crucial stage in which radical changes took place both in the bodily and soul nature of man, and in his physical environment. Humanity is much older than is generally imagined. In the early stages of his terrestrial evolution, man was essentially a being of soul and spirit entering only slightly into the finer , more ethereal constituents of the material world. His physical body was not dense enough to leave traces in the form of fossils or the like. It is for this reason that conventional biology cannot go back to the physical human being except from the very first material traces, which in reality reflect a much later stage of evolution than what a study of the soul nature of the human being can reach. man. The crucial phase of interest to us here, in the formation process which shaped our planet, is

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the period in which the substance of the Moon separated from the main mass of the Earth and found itself in orbit around it. This event is much more recent than current cosmology claims. Spiritual science calls the phase of planetary evolution in which this event took place the "Lemurian Epoch." Physical humans already existed in Lemurian times, albeit in a very primitive, ethereal form, very different from our present-day bodily nature. The separation of the Moon and the Earth, a progressive process that lasted thousands of years, coincided with the division of the original form of the human organism into two sexes: male and female. Before this decisive metamorphosis, so important for human life, humanity was asexual. Every human organism had the ability to reproduce itself, which resembles what we now call a stem cell. It could reproduce by a sort of mitosis, dividing into two complete beings. Indeed, from certain points of view, the physical organism is no different from a stem cell, if not in terms of size, at least in terms of structure. The body was not yet the expression of the psycho-spiritual nature of the human being as it is much more today. Human life was essentially lived at the level of the soul, a human life incredibly different from what it has become in our age. However primitive our distant ancestors may have been, the enormous change they underwent when they lost the ability to reproduce sexually and were divided into two halves men and women - has been of paramount importance up to the present day. Today. Just think how different human society would be if separation into the two sexes had not taken place! Now the separation of the moon and the earth, and the division of the original human nature into two sexes, were connected with another development of equal importance. Let's look at how Rudolf Steiner described it: "Let's now take a brief look at an event of the Lemurian epoch. There was a very precise point in evolution that now goes back thousands and thousands of years, when terrestrial humanity was still completely different from today. You know , through what I wrote in The Occult Science in its general lines on this evolution of humanity on Earth, how impulses come into humanity little by little.There was a moment in evolution when it became fixed within the from the cosmos, what we know today as magnetic and above all electric forces. For magnetic and electric forces also awaken secretly in us. Prior to this period, during the Lemurian era, man lived on Earth without the magnetic and electrical forces which spiritually develop in his nervous system, between the actions of the nerves and those of the blood.These forces were incorporated into him. We will disregard magnetic forces and also some electrical forces. Through the fact that these forces which I designate as electrical forces of galvanism, voltaism, etc., these forces which today intervene so profoundly in civilization due to the fact that they have incorporated themselves into the human organism, have become linked to human life at the archaic times, they could for a time remain unknown to human consciousness. Man carried them in his inner being, but outwardly they remained unknown to him. Now, the magnetic forces, the electric forces other than galvanism and voltaism, we have already learned about them much earlier . But galvanism, contact electricity, which today, far more than is thought, impresses its karma on our age from the outside, was, as you well know, discovered by Galvani and Volta only between the eighteenth and Nineteenth century. Habitually, too little thought is given to facts like these. Imagine for a moment Galvani intent on

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preparing a frog leg. Since he has fixed it by chance, as has been said, at the window, the frog's leg comes into contact with the iron and contracts. Here is the beginning of all the discoveries, of all the inventions that today dominate our Earth thanks to the electric current! It's been such a short time since all of this. Usually one does not ask: how is it possible that humanity has not known this before? Suddenly this thought comes to light in a most wonderful way in a human being; this human being is driven towards this thought. Our materialistic age naturally does not think about these things. But it is also because it understands absolutely nothing, scientifically, of the real becoming of the world. The truth is this. After humanity had passed the point of the Lemurian era in which these forces were implanted or rather received them, these forces that today in electricity pass through a wire and act in an invisible way in the human being, once it is finished this era, electricity lived, so to speak, within the human being. Now, evolution does not progress as it is sketched , lightly, by a simple straight line. One only believes that time progresses in this way, that it passes into infinity. But it is a completely abstract representation. Indeed, time progresses in such a way that it keeps moving, that evolution is reversed and goes backwards . [At this moment the lecturer drew a lemniscate ******on the blackboard]. The movement of the lemniscate takes place not only in space, but also in time. There was humanity during the Lemurian age [intersection point of the lemniscate], when it took root in itself the principle of the electric force. During the Atlantean era, it traveled this path [right bend of the lemniscate] and, in relation to certain forces in the post-Atlantean era, it found itself at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries at the point [intersection of the lemniscate] of the evolution of the world in which it was during the ancient Lemurian era, when it had implanted itself the principle of electricity emanating from the cosmos. And this is the reason why Galvani described and then discovered electricity! Furthermore, human beings always return to what they have already experienced. Any life takes place in a cyclical, rhythmic way. As humanity, we find ourselves, so to speak, really in the midst of the materialistic epoch which developed from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in that point of the universe which we had once traversed during the Lemurian era. And all humanity then remembered the irruption of electricity in the human being, and through this memory it impregnated civilization with this electrical principle. What lives in the human being as soul and spirit has found again what was already experienced once. It is necessary that similar truths become clear again for humanity, since it is only through these truths that decadence will be avoided in the future" 142 .

What Galvani discovered and Volta mastered was what we now call electric current. It is a combined circulation of forces, caused by the force of attraction acting between the positive and negative electric poles. Unfortunately, the model customarily present today for defining electricity - originally, this conceptual model was put forward as a provisional hypothesis, not as an explanation - does not help us much in understanding what positive and negative polarity is. It's best to leave out this widely held notion that electric current is made up of a bunch of electrons bouncing from atom to atom along the wire, a notion that, by the way, no serious physicist really believes. This simplistic idea does not explain polarity at all, it only

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attributes polarity to the theoretical atomic structure of the conducting material. The structure of the atom is said to contain positively charged particles ††††††found within the nucleus, and negatively charged electrons circling around it. If the number of electrons is identical to the number of positively charged particles, then the atom is electrically in equilibrium. It is believed that the electric current appears where an imbalance is created which allows the atoms to take or give electrons to neighboring atoms. An atom that has lost an electron—it then has more positively charged particles than negatively charged electrons—is positively charged, while an atom that has one too many electrons is negatively charged. So far the theory seems plausible. But who gives the electrons their negativity and the corresponding nuclear particles their positivity? It is, say the physicists, the action of this fundamental force in the atom which science calls the electromagnetic force. In other words, the cause of electricity is the electric force... This cannot make us progress much. What is really useful to ask is: what are the qualities of electrical positivity and negativity? This question opens up a fascinating field of research that can be conducted with the help of spiritual science, but which goes beyond the framework of this book. However, we must mention some qualitative characteristics which are directly related to our specific theme. They will have to be given here in the form of simple statements, without examining the facts that allow them to be justified. Were we able to fully explore the subject, we would find that electricity is a cosmic principle expressing itself in the Earth's biosphere as a duality, or more exactly, a polarity. Negative electrical polarity has an earthy, darker, more material quality, while positive electrical polarity has a cosmic, luminous, more ethereal quality. We know that negative electricity radiates from the fixed Earth upwards into the atmosphere - this is what manifests itself in the real auroras for example -, while positive electricity flows into the atmosphere towards the Earth from the Cosmos. In climatology this polar flux is measured, and is called the vertical current. Negative electricity has somewhat of a rather ahrimanic quality and is related in human bodily life to male sexuality. Positive electricity is luciferic and is linked to female sexuality. This polarity also manifests itself down here in the life of the soul in many ways - for example in the polarity between conception and perception in mental representation, or again between male intellectuality and female intuitiveness. The qualitative nature of positive and negative electricity, which underlies the erotic forces in human sexuality, was expressed artistically excellently by the fifteenth-century German artist Albrecht Diirer , in a painting of which Rudolf Steiner had occasion to speak in these terms: elemental cosmic beings ! who are in contact with more trivial manifestations of human nature

††††††These particles are called "protons".

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than those which can be seen during the day. It could be said that among the falling asleep and waking up, consequently in the realm of elemental life, of nocturnal life, men do all sorts of incongruities, while in the external life they are above these things. dreams? It is an experience that anyone can have. Man therefore performs all sorts of escapades during sleep, in a company that is not good at all, that on the contrary turns to his passions, his instincts, and that is well worse than what his education achieves in the waking state. If this is understood, many things become clear in historical events. In order not to do too much foolishness in the physical world, today's man must already have the gift of not attributing too much value to his dreams. It is what makes him forget his dreams very quickly, that he forgets the follies of his dreams, and it is fortunate for him, since he is in full consciousness, in the waking state, that he must now enter the spiritual world, while once he could not enter it except during sleep, before his awakening. After all, a certain consciousness of this spiritual world still existed not too long ago. I'll give you an example. There was a painting by Albrecht Durer that remains enigmatic to many people, especially scholars and scientists. It is an etching that represents a sort of faun, a satyr, who holds a female being as if bound to him. In the background appears another female being who approaches the couple with a vengeful attitude. And a male figure , a sort of Hercules , stands nearby, with a club in hand, and prevents the female avenger from approaching the group formed by the woman and the satyr. It is, one might say, completely curious, extremely curious, to see the effort that scholars have made to understand this picture. It is usually called "Hercules". But what it represents does not figure in the legend of Hercules. So one wonders: how did Dùrer get the idea for this scene? And there, the most bizarre hypotheses have been put forward. One can see for example how Herman Grimm is embarrassed in front of this picture. He really doesn't know what to make of it. Make the wildest guesses. Why? Why don't people understand anything about it? Because neither Herman Grimm nor scholars no longer know - which Dürer still knew - that people enter the spiritual world during sleep. Today the awareness of this fact has been lost. But Diirer still knew that there are, for example, men who during their sleep in the company of elementary beings make all sorts of escapades, men who in normal times are well-mannered gentlemen, but during their sleep they fall back into the world of instincts and make every sort of trivial thing, all sorts of nonsense. In Dùrer's painting, we see the satyr and Hercules with the cudgel. This good Hercules would like to be the satyr himself. But he lives in the physical world, and his spouse won't let him. She arrives and therefore wants to drive him away. But he likes it anyway, and prevents her from approaching" 143 .

This portrayal of male sexuality - not as it originally was, but as it has progressively become - in the figure of the desire of the satyr with his ahrimanic, bestial nature, is an exact artistic representation of the male erotic force in the lower part of the soul . . We must make a clear distinction here between what lives in our physical organism as procreative power, a sublime creative force , and the sensual experience which may accompany it. The physical act of procreation, in the case of man, is a disinterested act: a giving. The role of the woman is equally disinterested : to welcome the gift of man into her body, not for herself, but for another human being. The third human being to take part in the act of procreation is the non-embodied soul who unites with this giving and receiving at the moment of fertilization. The true act of

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procreation always involves three human beings. In ancient times, there were sexual relations aimed only at procreation. The man and woman were united in the spring, at Easter, and the children were born in the winter, at the time which later became the Christmas festival. This natural state of affairs lasted much longer in certain parts of the world than is generally imagined, for example among the Germanic tribes of northern Europe: the Ingevoni, the worshipers of Ing, who later migrated westward to England . They are also called the Angles, and are placed in the same category as the Saxons as Anglo-Saxons, though of very different characters. Among the Ingevoni, procreation was a sacred act celebrated in spring and blessed by Ing, the goddess of fertility. It continues like this until the time of the Christ. In the more "civilized" parts of the world, sexual relations had already dissociated themselves from procreation and had degenerated into a practice intended solely for the satisfaction of the senses. Without wanting to be moralizing, we have to admit that sexual relations, then limited to two human beings - a child was not welcome - thus acquire a selfish nature. From that moment, it was no longer a giving, but a taking, a possession. The man "possessed" the woman (or vice versa) and took his pleasure in his carnal relationship with her. The experience of the senses, lived in the lower part of the soul, thus began to be detached from the physical act of procreation and become independent of it. A small caveat is in order at this stage. It has already been said that monkeys are not the ancestors of humans. They are ramifications which have broken away from the main line of the evolutionary process and have followed a development different from that of man. To assume that the mating habits of monkeys are a reflection of human habits of ancient times would be fallacious. Humans of long ago were very different from today's apes in terms of the interaction of soul and body. This school of thought which draws conclusions about the evolution of human sexuality from animal studies is of no interest to us. Furthermore, when we speak of the electrical forces which underlie erotic experience , we must equally bear in mind that the term "forces" is only a summary and convenient way of speaking of the activity of beings. There is no inanimate, anonymous force as such. All forces are manifestations of the activity of one entity or another. In the previous quotation relating to Hercules, Rudolf Steiner speaks of the nocturnal experience of erotic and sensual dreams caused by the relationship established between the sleeper and lower elemental beings. These beings are electrical in nature and are akin to electricity that works deep within the human being. The more his soul life of desires and passions freed itself from the natural order regulating the power of procreation in his body, the more man could be subjected to the influence of these elemental beings of electricity. For a long time, erotic experience in waking life was ennobled by the feeling of love to which it was intimately linked, although there were, of course, many exceptions. In the Middle Ages,

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the two began to separate, and in modern times, erotic sexual experience could either be accompanied by love for one's partner, or be completely without it. Thus, a double separation took place. On the one hand, the erotic experience was detached from the spiritual creative procreative force of the physical body acting in the unconscious depths of the will, and on the other, it was detached from the grace of love emanating from the heart. As cut off from her natural control as it was from her loving orientation, erotic energy could now be commercially exploited on a massive scale. It is what began to occur towards the end of the 19th century with the development of photography and cinema, and which ended up becoming, in the 20th century, one of the major industries in the world: the sex industry in all its ramifications. The electrical forces acting deep within the vital processes of the human being , in the nervous system and between nerve and blood, especially in the erectile tissues, were ever since then more and more directed not by the higher spiritual force of procreation, nor by the erotic love , but from external ahrimanic stimulation through advertising, movies, sensual popular "music" and so on. Perhaps it should also be emphasized that the word orgasm, used very improperly and to which all sorts of inappropriate pseudo-spiritual and romantic connotations are attributed , comes from the Greek term orgasmos, itself derived from the verb orgao. It relates to erectile tissue tumescence and the accompanying physical arousal in animals and humans. Aristotle uses this verb in the sense of "to be in heat; to desire to have sexual intercourse". Aristophanes uses it metaphorically to say "swell with sexual desire, become dissolute" 144 . The completely false idea that, for modern man, human sexual intercourse can be a path to higher knowledge through love, and that the orgasm is a tool for objective spiritual experience, is largely attributable he takes part in the introduction into Western culture of degenerate forms of yoga generally known as Tantrism. True occultists of East and West condemn these dangerous doctrines. In his Secret Doctrine, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky talks about the problem of tantrism, concluding with this comment: "Now that we have shown that the tantric works, as explained in the book of Rama Prasad and in other yoga treatises of the same kind, published from time to time in the theosophical journals - since, note well, the treatises of real Raja Yoga are never published -, tend towards black magic and it is very dangerous to take them as guides for one's training; I hope students will be on their guard" 145 .

It was a serious warning. This statement by Helena Blavatsky is by no means an expression of puritanism - she was certainly not a prudish woman. It is the sound judgment of a person who can consider himself an authority on such matters. The same thing is evoked from another point of view in the following severe critique by Rudolf Steiner: "From this point of view, materialism has come to be a shameful science, the likes of which have never happened before on Earth. The worst of what has happened in our age is to confuse love with 307

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sexuality. It is the worst expression of materialism, the most diabolical of our age. What is done in this area, is what must be got rid of in the first place. Sexuality and love have nothing in common. Sexuality has nothing to do with pure, original love. Science has committed an infamy by publishing a whole literature that deals with putting these two things in relationship that have no relationship" 146 .

The industry was the prime mover behind the fallacious association of sexuality and erotic relationships with romantic ideas of true love and spiritual experience. It could make huge profits, and it did . After World War II, there was a marked increase in the commercial exploitation of the lowest and most explicit form of erotic stimulation: pornography. Even the term pornography is a Greek word which originally means: to reveal and demean the mystery of femininity. As the 20th century progressed, sexual experience expanded into practices contrary to nature. It went so far as to incorporate a substitution copulation through electrical and electronic systems of different types, such as video simulation, by which the viewer identifies himself with the video image of a person having sexual activity, or i intercourse with a prostitute by telephone, etc. Binary electronic technology became a major medium of erotic experience. However, it was through the creation of the Internet with the World Wide Web that this perversion of the human soul was able to assume the gigantic proportions it has reached today - a perversion in comparison with which the worst dissolutions of morals in human history appear as gods. peccadilloes. The polarity of the erotic force, freed from the natural physical polarity of man and woman through which the higher spiritual force of procreation acts - and deprived of the direction given by the human heart, is left to itself and loses its normal orientation. While this polarity of erotic force had previously been inseparable from its natural foundation, it lost its grip and drifted away. Thus it fell more and more under the influence of the lower elemental beings. For a human being in this situation, the opposite erotic pole could become confused with a person of the same sex, or with one 's physical body, or with an animal or some artificial object of desire. Homosexuality or lesbianism, previously much rarer, began to sweep across humanity like a tidal wave. Human society as a whole, not understanding the phenomenon, has failed to see homosexuality in its true light. It is neither a crime nor a natural human condition. The lower erotic soul force, freed from natural constraints and greatly strengthened by massive and permanent stimulation through advertising, amusement shows and the sex industries, increased disproportionately, assuming various deviant forms. The influence of this force upon the bodily nature became even greater than that of the higher spiritual power of procreation, which itself began to undergo certain changes, wishing for an evil more terrible than anything mankind has hitherto known. The Asuras, the primordial powers of evil, act by means of the denatured erotic force, in order to take possession of the divine creative energy which is the basis of the power of procreation in the depths of man's unconscious will. The World Wide Web offers them an unlimited field to ply their trade on a humanity wholly unaware of what is happening. This is the danger of the third great illusion.

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The computer user, who usually doesn't have the slightest idea of all this, might say to himself: "I will only use my computer to write a few letters, consult my e-mails and do the accounts. I will remain completely in control of myself myself and will keep myself safe from all the grimmest aspects of the Internet." Sitting in front of his screen, cradled by the three great illusions just described, the user has no awareness of everything that happens at a subconscious, subliminal level. The gigantic intelligence, the might of Lucifer, Sorat and the Asuras combined, acting through electricity and magnetism, easily finds access to the electric and magnetic forces at the core of human nature. The poor computer user lets himself be manipulated in ways he can't even imagine. Humanity is indeed at a bad impasse. Be that as it may, it is the destiny of mankind in the Age of Light - whether men are prepared or not - to encounter evil in all its terrible reality, and to gather forces to fight and conquer it, or to succumb to it. We can fight this evil. Some indications as to the path which can lead humanity to victory will be given in volume II. But first we must complete this description of our adversaries and disclose the means and practices they employ. A CONTINUOUS STREAM OF "BITS" AT THE SPEED OF LIGHTNING ... When you click a key on your computer, you close an electromagnetic switch , which, through a series of complex operations, sends a coded signal (a sequence of electrical impulses) to the processor in your computer. This triggers an additional series of electrical impulses towards the screen which produce the illumination of a certain number of tiny dots and form a matrix made up of these dots (pixels), which produce the outline of a letter of the alphabet, or other character. This character corresponds to the one appearing on the key you just pressed. The important difference between the computer system and the ancient typewriter is as follows: pressing a typewriter key, the corresponding hammer with its letter printed on the front struck an ink ribbon and caused the impression of the letter on the paper. The letter was printed as a whole, at once. In the computer, no letter or piece of information is ever a whole—everything is made up of sequences of electrical impulses that follow one another at incredible speed. This is the fundamental character of computers, the Internet and the World Wide Web: they contain only the electrical impulses transmitted so rapidly - there are billions of impulses per second in your computer - that, to us humans, they give whole sounds, and etc. But this is an illusion - there is no information, no text, no images: just streams of 'bits'. Bitstream technology is a mirror image of what is happening deep within the Earth, in the layer that is immediately adjacent to the planetary core from which the original forces of black magic emanate. This penultimate layer - the eighth - is called in occultism the "Fragmenter ". Everything that comes close to the Fragger (she is very spiritual in the sense of evil) is shattered into a thousand pieces. All moral qualities are disturbed and transformed into their opposite: love and compassion are transformed into hatred and brutality. The action of the Fragger was utilized by the Two Horned Beast in the operation of black magic through which the selfless

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love of the Templars for Christ was transformed into hatred and blasphemy. The forces of the Fragmenter are utilized in atomic fission, for example in the explosion of the atomic bomb, or in the bursting of particles in a storage ring . Computers seem to do the opposite: they start with thousands of fragments - "bits" of data - which appear to agglomerate to give complete information, but which actually follow each other at lightning speed. Fragments remain fragments. The Internet with the World Wide Web is becoming a complete mirror image of the eighth layer within the Earth. As this occurs, as the Internet comes closer and closer to perfect resonance with the eighth layer, it takes on the fundamental character of this. Human beings begin to aspire to a world community, harmonious human relationships and peaceful cooperation everywhere in the world. It is a sign of the presence of the Christ in the etheric environment of the Earth, in the ambit of the vital forces which are also at the basis of the life of society . The internet is a lie. It claims to bring human beings together, but in reality it separates them. They do not speak to each other soul to soul, but through the intermediary of an enormous machine possessing an evil intelligence. Human society is also fragmented. The spiritual powers that act on the Web are those of the eighth layer that surrounds the planetary nucleus: the Fragmenter . They are the evil powers of the Origins, the Asuras. In his spiritual quest, Rudolf Steiner was led to observe how the Asuras seek to destroy the human "I". They strongly hinder it, they tear pieces from it, he said. He also describes how they draw the human being into an environment devoid of all morality, which is also a form of perturbation or disintegration of the soul, to allow them to strengthen their influence on the "I". The mad increase in moral depravity, on a scale the world has never yet known - pornography, pedophilic assaults, prostitution and perversion in the most appalling forms, and so on - which characterized the development of the World Wide Web, bears the mark of the Asu ras. The Internet and the World Wide Web have also brought about a possibility that would have been unimaginable a century and a half earlier, which consists of linking human spirits directly to the world and to the very being of artificial intelligence.

CONNECTING OUR BRAINS TO THE INTERNET In just a few decades, the Internet has gone from a primitive information sharing system linking a few large computers to the World Wide Web with a plethora of services accessible from the latest generation of mobile phones. The next decisive step in this rapid evolution has been evident for a long time now: the direct connection. It is implied by the very conception of microprocessors copying neural networks. Its concrete realization is much closer than one would like to believe. Today, vaccination is mandatory in many countries. Most people do not turn up their noses

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at the idea of having fluid injections, whether they want to or not. Nor will they refuse silicon chips when implants become mandatory, which they probably will soon. At the beginning they will be subcutaneous implants used to identify the person or to closely monitor his state of health. These techniques are already developed and are being applied to human beings in certain fields. The next stage will be the placement of implants in the brain, connecting the human mind to the Internet. Research in this direction is officially encouraged and supported by the US government for example, and by many other countries. Most of the material [hardw are] has already been developed and tested. Professor Susan Greenfield, in her book already mentioned , talks about the technique developed by a Brazilian specialist in neuroscience, Miguel Nicolelis, who implants microchips in the brain to convert nerve impulses into electrical impulses capable of controlling the movements of prostheses. There are huge commercial interests at stake; the potential world market for neuronal prostheses (brain chips) weighs in the hundreds of billions of dollars. It would be very naive to imagine that the general public could avoid the future obligation to be directly connected to the Internet in this way, unless there is a major change in our attitude towards digital computer technology, very little change of course . likely. If not, the younger generation will likely experience it in their lifetime. Many will reap with pleasure, of course. In some respects, they are already well channeled in this way, with their wireless headsets and small integrated microphones that connect them to the Internet via radio. The American company Emotiv announced in 2009 the marketing of helmets for players equipped with 16 electronic sensors that are in contact with the skull and measure the electrical activity of the brain. A gyroscope integrated into the helmet closely follows the movements of the head. A sophisticated program allows the player's computer to analyze and interpret data such as thoughts and feelings. Independent tests have shown that the system, called EPOC, can be used to mentally order the movements and actions of the player's avatar on a computer screen. According to Emotiv, the helmets were expected to go on sale in the United States starting in 2009, for a price of around $ 200 . Other systems of this kind are under development. The next stage is, logically, the implantation of the microprocessor in the brain. The connection of the human spirit to the machines had to come from it; the real question is: how was it supposed to be done, and with which machines? It shouldn't have been done with binary electronics. Brain chips and the Internet are not the solution. Humans are not meant to hand over control of their brains to Sorat. wars, conflicts, struggles for supremacy everywhere . We see the political powers threatening each other with their terrible instruments of destruction. Yet these things are only pale outward reflections of an inner spiritual reality: Earth is the battlefield where the powers of evil are unleashed with all their might against the Christ in man. Michael, the guiding Archangel, leads into this spiritual battle human souls who are aware of reality and who can gather their courage to access freedom. Souls who truly seek to understand the world and ground their actions in spiritual science are among those who are called to fight under Michael's banner.

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Rudolf Steiner urged his friends to prepare for spiritual warfare. He asked them to do it with a determination that would deliberately go beyond death and a new birth. Speaking in London on August 27 , 1924, he said:

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"It is something shocking to describe how all this lies against the background of everything that takes place outwardly at the present time. But it is something which, under the influence of the Goetheanum Christmas Congress must be placed in the souls, in the hearts of those who bear the name of anthroposophists. It is something that should live in the hearts, in the souls of those who call themselves anthroposophists. It is what gives us the strength to continue to act, because those who are anthroposophists today , who are anthroposophists in true sense of the term, honestly, they will feel an imperious need to return to Earth.And within the framework of Michelian prophecy it is predicted that numerous souls of anthroposophists will return to Earth at the end of the 20th century, to bring to its climax what, today , must be strongly founded: the anthroposophical movement".

And he added the words already quoted: "Here is what should really animate anthroposophists: I am here. The anthroposophical impulse is in me, I recognize in it the impulse of Michele. I wait, fortifying myself in view of this expectation through the right anthroposophical work, and I I profit the short interval which is precisely accorded to the souls of anthroposophists in the 20th century, between death and a new birth, to return to the end of the 20th century and continue the movement with increased spiritual strength.I prepare myself for this new age, for the transition from the 20th to the 21st century - this is what a true anthroposophist soul defines - since on Earth the forces of destruction are numerous. Any cultural life, any life of civilization must slide into decadence if the spirituality of Michael's impulse is not if men are not again able to rise to the heights, the civilization that today wants to slide down the slope takes possession of men" 147 .

It was a clear appeal to those of his hearers who were anthroposophists not only in name, but in real life. An appeal to take their destinies in hand: "to return to the end of the century and continue the movement with a force that will be much more spiritual". On several occasions, starting in July 1924, the same appeal resounded in Switzerland, Holland and England. Yes, the anti-Michaelian demons, exploiting large-scale black magic forces under the banner of the Beast in two comas, have managed to break up the Anthroposophical Society which was supposed to be the vehicle for Michael's movement, and to cause death premature of its terrestrial guide Rudolf Steiner. They intend to completely annihilate the Michael impulse on Earth. Against them resist those human beings who have the will to fight. The arachnean being of artificial intelligence extends its tentacles into all spheres of society. By blinding us with the illusion that knowledge can be converted into a sequence of 'a's and 'b's, he takes over the administration of commerce, industry, military affairs, government and many areas of life. social. We must be very careful not to succumb to the illusion that individual computers are regarded as mere machines. They are not mere machines, they are beings. And the networks that never cease to spread are nothing more than the outward physical expression of something monstrously malevolent. An image is appearing, but for the moment, it is nothing more than a sketch with somewhat blurred edges. If we want to clarify some details, it will be necessary to look beyond the present century, to see how the being-computer will evolve in the future and to see what will become of 313

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its relationship with man. Here again the penetrating spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner allows us to continue our study. And it will be what we will do in the second volume of this book. However, before looking towards the future, a small caveat is necessary. We will need to keep in mind the fact that there is not only one future: there are two. Rudolf Steiner spoke of this important detail in a series of conferences on the Apocalypse of St. John. Humanity, he said, is beginning to split into two distinct evolutionary streams. A part of humanity is made up of those who have recognized that behind all phenomena in the physical world lie spiritual realities. With ever greater clarity , they understand that man is in essence a spiritual being and that he must evolve spiritually if he wishes to progress further. Since the beginning of the last century, this part of humanity has therefore concentrated its activity more and more in the direction of the path of higher development and the formation of communities based on fraternal love. These souls strive first of all to learn to cultivate a real disinterest in the sense of the words of St. Paul: "Not I, but the Christ in me". The second part of humanity will place its faith in the further development of materialistic science. Humans will acquire considerable mastery of material phenomena and will learn to manipulate and transform the physical world to a very high degree. Even some spiritual forces will be used in a materialistic way. This part of humanity will renounce spiritual development in favor of a scientific mastery of the world on the material plane. The intensification of selfishness will accompany its results . The first signs of the separation of humanity into two distinct human races have already made their appearance in our age. As the centuries go by, the divergence will become increasingly marked and will also be expressed in the physical traits of man. By the time humanity enters the sixth post-Atlantean civilization towards the end of the fourth millennium, the two humanities will be sharply differentiated. For a long time it will still be possible for souls who have chosen the path of materialism to abandon it and join the more spiritual race, but this will become more and more difficult. Later there will come a time when the two races will have become so different that their future evolutions will no longer have anything in common. The two humanities will inhabit the Earth for the next millennia, until that very distant moment in which the spiritual and material elements of our planet will separate. But the Earth itself will undergo major changes in the coming millennia, as we will soon see. From the present century onwards and in the future, two lifestyles will evolve as each of the two humanities continues its development. These lifestyles will be expressed in all spheres of human activity, including those of science and technology. We call the science to be developed by spiritual humanity "spiritual science", and we give its technology the name of "moral technology". On the contrary, we will qualify the science and technology sought after by

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materialistic humanity as "materialistic science" and "dark technique". With these terms, the intention is not to pronounce a moral judgment, but to express some objective aspects on which we will concentrate in the second volume of this book. In Volume II, we will examine the future development of the dark technique to the extent that it is possible to do so through spiritual scientific research. The reader will perhaps find the prospects that will open before his gaze painful and almost unbearable. He might even want to ask whether it might not be better to direct our attention solely to the exalted ideals of moral technology, lest dark technology's vision of a horrible future weigh too much on us. However, that would be tantamount to sticking your head in the sand. Moral technique will rise to spiritual heights as great as the depths to which its materialistic counterpart will fall will be abysmal. The adepts of spiritual science who develop the machines and techniques of moral technology, machines that will be of unimaginable beauty and power, will need to understand the creations of the dark technique. They will have to penetrate it with a clear thought, to be able to defend themselves against them. Indeed there will be no peaceful coexistence, even if men of the spiritual race try, out of love, to help those who have chosen the path of Sorat. Where do we stand now with respect to these future developments? We have seen how clear thinking and in-depth knowledge are essential, however, they are not enough by themselves to fight the great evil that has befallen humanity too soon. More than clear thinking and knowledge is needed . Worries weigh heavily on the soul as one contemplates the events we have outlined in this and previous chapters. But the weight of these worries can be lightened when we learn that there are ways to resist the onslaught conducted in concert by the three great powers of evil. Even if these paths belong to a field of activity that goes beyond the framework of our study, we will nevertheless lift a corner of the veil that materialism has drawn over them. Perhaps some readers, sensing that it is possible to achieve victory provided enough human beings enter the battle in the right way, will feel inspired to do so. Others will perhaps be comforted to know that such a possibility exists. What do we mean when we talk about the fight against Sorat? Of course, we are not suggesting that we should try, one way or the other, to kill the Two-Comatose Beast, to eliminate it. Sorat cannot be destroyed. He is part of the very fabric of existence . It is the same for Lucifer and for the Asuras. Nor do we intend to attack the Internet, lead a commando of hackers (computer pirates) to make them introduce the most fearsome viruses into the system, so that the computers would be put out of order and all the databases irreparably corrupted. Even if this were possible, we would be addressing one of the main symptoms of the problem, but not its cause. Indeed, for Sorat, computer technology is a tool, not an end. You can't beat him like this. The combat we are talking about takes place within the human being himself, where Sorat has taken control of his thinking, where with the help of Lucifer he has perverted his feelings, and where, thanks to the dreaded power of the Asuras has penetrated his will . It is a battle to regain human nature, a battle that rages in the very heart of the human being.

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In volume II, we will initially turn to the strength of our human "I" and to the means it has at its disposal to be able to win the battle to reconquer human nature. We will see how Michelian thought becomes Michelian act. Armed with this knowledge, we will be better able to deal with the frightening ideas of the further development of dark technology. It will also become apparent that moral technique is the outward complement to the inner strength of the human ego. It is the means by which our industrialized civilization can be brought into harmony with the spirit of man.

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Most of Rudolf Steiner's quotations are taken from French books, when they existed. However, they have been checked and sometimes slightly adapted in order to render the sense of the original German text as faithfully as possible. Acronyms used: OO: Opera Omnia Complete edition of the works of Rudolf Steiner. EAR: Editions Anthroposophiques Romandes, Yverdon N: Editions Novalis, Montesson T: Editions Triades, Paris 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Rudolf Steiner: Karma and professions. OO 172, 9" conference, November 26 , 1916 Joseph Weizenbaum: Wo sind sie, die Inseln der Vernunft im Cyberstrom? Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2006. The same lecture applies to the continuation of the quotation. Kurt Godei: Three theorems published in the German journal Monatshefte fiir Mathematik und Physik, vol. 38, 1931. George Lakoff & Rafael E. Nunez: Where Mathematics Comes From. Basic Books, New York, 2001. George Boole: Les lois de la pensee. Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, Paris, 1992. Aristotle: The Organon 1. William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1938. Aristotle: Les premiers analytiques (Organon 3). Libraire philosophique J. Vrin, Paris, 1983, pa gina 4 ff. Albert Steffen : La mort de Manes. Drama in five acts, Anthroposophical Society, French section, Paris, sd (out of print). Rudolf Steiner: The East in the light of the West. OO 113, 9th conference, 31 August 1909. Rudolf Steiner: “Polarity between duration and evolution in human life” in OO 184, Rudolf Steiner Anthroposophical Ed. Rudolf Steiner: “Polarity between duration and evolution in the life of man” OO 184, 14" conference, 12 October 1918. ibid., 13" conference. ibid. ibid. ibid. 14th conference, October 12, 1918. ibid. The same reference applies to the beginning of the quote. Anton Powell: The expansion of Islam. Editions Gamma, Tournai, 1980. JM Roberts : The Pelican History of the World. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, 1980, p. 328 ff. ibid. See note 10 Rudolf Steiner: The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. OO 74 . Annex III to the English translation entitled: The Redemption of Thinking, Anthroposophic Press, Spring Valley, New York, 1983. Rudolf Steiner Esoteric considerations on karmic connections. Volume VI. OO 240, 11" conference, August 14 , 1924.

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23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

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ibid. ibid. Author's translation from the Latin work: Canones contro Photium. Canon 11 in Latin in: Carl Joseph Hefele: Histoire des conciles d'après les documents originarne 01ms, Hildesheim, New York, 1973, vol. IV, p. 526. Rudolf Steiner: The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. 0.0. 74. See note 22 Anthony Kenny, ed.: Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy. Oxford University Press, New York, 1997. Lytton Strachey : Elizabeth and Essex. Chapter 5, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1981. George Sampson: The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Chapter IV, Section XIV, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975. See note 22 See note 30 Francis Bacon: Novum Organum. Introduction et traduction de Michel Malherbe et Jean-Marie Pousseur, PUF, Paris, 1986, pp. 110-112. ibid. Rudolf Steiner: Present Spiritual Life and Education, 0.0. 307, 5th conference ibid. See note 18 Rudolf Steiner: The Enigma of Man. 0.0. 170, 15th conference, 3 September 1916. Francis Bacon: Du progrès et de la promotion des savoirs (1605), coll. Tel, 178, Gallimard, 1991. [The Two Books of the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning Divine and Humane]. Translated from English by Michèle Le Boeuff, p. 182 ff. Francis Bacon: La Nouvelle Atlantide, GF 770, Flammarion, Paris, 1995, pp. 129-131. See note 30 Rudolf Steiner: History in the light of anthroposophy. 0.0. 233, conference of December 27 , 1923. Rudolf Steiner: The Legend of the Temple and the Golden Legend. 0.0. 93, conference of November 11th bre 1904. Rudolf Steiner: Humanity's Inner Evolutionary Impulses. 0.0. 171, 6th conference, September 25 , 1916. See note 44. 9" conference, October 2 , 1916. Paul Emberson: About the clones and the Lost Hierarchy. Chapter 4, Agri.Bio.Edizioni, 2016. Albert Ladret: Le grand siècle de la Franc-Mafonnerie. Dervy-Livres, Paris, 1976. Rudolf Steiner: Education and teaching based on knowledge of man. 0.0. 3O2a, conference of October 15 , 1923. Rudolf Steiner: The becoming of man. 0.0. 183 , 5th conference, August 25 , 1918. D. de Prat: Traité de Weaving in Jacquard. Librairie Polytechnique Ch. Béranger éditeur, Paris et Liège, 1921, p. 7. Rudolf Steiner: Esoteric considerations on karmic connections. Volume VI. Oo 240, 15th lecture given in London on August 27 , 1924. ibid. ibid. Rudolf Steiner: Initiatory Knowledge. OO 227, 11th conference, August 29 , 1923. Herman Hollerith: “An Electric Tabulating System". School of Mines Quarterly, Columbia University , 1889. Introduction d'Édouard Schuré à Le Mystère chrétien et les Mystères antiques. GA 8, Librairie académique Perrin, Paris, 1908, p. 17. Rudolf Steiner - Marie Steiner-von Sivers: Briefwechsel und Dokumente 1901-1925. 0.0. 262, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 2002. (9 January 1905, p. 86). Max Planck: Address to the Congress of Physicists in Florence in 1922, cit. in Udo Renzenbrink, Ernahrung in der zweiten Lebenshàlfte, Verlag Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgart, 1981. Arthur Stanley Eddington: La Science et le Monde invisible. Fischbacher, Paris, 2nd ed. 1988, p. 21. Ibid., p. 22. Ibid., p. 23. Ibid, p. 27. Konrad Zuse: Entwicklungslinien einer Rechengeràte-Entwicklung von der Mechanik zur Elektronik. Digital Informationswandler. Vieweg, Braunschweig, 1962. Rudolf Steiner: The freedom to think and the lies of our time. OO 167, 4th conference, April 4 , 1916. Ita Wegman: Nachrichtenblatt, 2 and A. No 40, p. 153. (English version: Letter to all members. Letter dated

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66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104.

October 4 , 1925, in Esoteric Studies, Temple Lodge Publications, London, 1993). Rudolf Steiner: Meetings with the professors of the Waldorf school in Stuttgart - Volume I (1919-1921 ). OO 300a (Federation of Steiner-Waldorf schools in France, 2005), council of June 14 , 1920. ibid. Rudolf Steiner: The bridge between cosmic spirituality and the human element. OO 202, 16th conference, December 26, 1920. Rudolf Steiner: The Occult Basis of the Bhagavad Gita. OO 146, 5" conference, June 1 , 1913. See note 68. 3rd conference, November 28 , 1920. ibid. Rudolf Steiner: Michael's mission. OO 194, 11th conference, December 14, 1919. ibid. Rudolf Steiner: Rudolf Steiner Speaks to the British. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1998. Closing words of the conference of 19 November 1922 (in OO 218: Geistige Zusammenhange in der Gestaltung des menschlichen Organismus, note p. 179 of the 1992 edition). Rudolf Steiner: Initiation. How to acquire knowledge about the upper world OO 10, p. 55. Rudolf Steiner: Die Konstitution der Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. OO 260a, Ru dolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1987, p. 10. ibid. Rudolf Steiner: The Christmas Conference for the foundation of the Anthroposophical Society. OO 260, with the opening lecture of December 24 , 1923. Peter SelgEdith Maryon. Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, 2006. Lydia Baratto: Memories of Marie Steiner. Hectographic report, 1947. Concerning Rudolf Steiner's intentions that Marie Steiner was to be his successor, see also: Anna Samweber: Rudolf Steiner - Récit d'une collaboratore. (EAR, 1993). See note 76, p. 12. Johannes Kiersch: Zur Entwicklung der Freien Hochschule fiir Geistes-wissenschaft. Die Erste Klasse. Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, 2005. (English version: A History of the School of Spiritual Science. Temple Lodge Publishing, Forest Row, 2006). Elirenfried Pfeiffer: The Heart Lectures. Typed notes of three lectures given at Threefold Farm, Spring Valley, USA, 1950. See also: Thomas Meyer: Ein Leben fiir den Geist. Biographic d'Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, Perseus Verlag, Bale, 1999. See note 22 Rudolf Steiner: Esoteric considerations on karmic connections. Volume VI. OO 240, 10“ lecture given in Torquay on 12 August 1924. See note 82, pp. 256-258. (Letter from Ita Wegman of 2/22/1935 to Maria Ròschl.) Rudolf Steiner: Unsere Toten. OO 261, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, 1984, p. 305. Rudolf Steiner: Esoteric considerations on karmic connections. Volume V. OO 239 (EAR, 1984), conference of 23 May 1924. Rudolf Steiner: Esoteric considerations on karmic connections. Volume IV. OO 238 (EAR, 1983), 6th conference, September 16 , 1924. Erdmuth J. Grose: Das Rdtsel des Griindungsvorstandes. Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, 2007, p. 109. See for example Rudolf Steiner's lectures: Esoteric considerations on karmic connections. Volume IV (lectures 16 and 28 September 1924), in Volume VI (lectures in Arnhem 18/19/20 July 1924, and in London on 27 August 1924). Rudolf Steiner: Apokalypse und Priesterwirken (Vortràge und Kurse iiber christlich-religiòses Wirken, V). OO 346, Dornach, 2001, 8th conference, 12 September 1924, p. 121. (English version: The Book of Revelation and the Work of the Priest. Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1998, p. 116). See note 51 ibid. See note 92, 4th conference, September 8 , 1924, p. 69. Rudolf Steiner: Esoteric considerations on karmic connections. Volume IV. OO 238, Last allocution. Rudolf Steiner: The Philosophy of Freedom. OO 4 (N, 1993), chapter V. ibid. ibid. ibid. Chapter X Op. cit. footnote 82, p. 205 (Annex 6). Op. cit. note 97. Chapter IX. See note 57, p. 264. See also Hella Wiesberger: Marie Steiner de Sivers, une vie pour Tanthroposophie. (EAR, 1990), page 409. Rudolf Steiner: The Christmas conference for the foundation of the Universal Anthroposophical Society. OO

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108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113.

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260, allocution of December 28 , 1923. Rudolf Steiner: Letters to members. OO 260a, Rudolf Steiner. Op. cit. footnote 90, p. 127. After the last deterioration in his health at the end of September 1924, Rudolf Steiner was taken to the carpentry workshop (Schreinerei), where he was treated by the doctors Ita Wegman and Ludwig Noli. Shortly before his death, he wrote to Maria Steiner that he felt like a prisoner there , and begged her to come and take him to their home, the Villa Hansi. (“...I feel like in prison, come and take me to Villa Hansi...'”), words taken from Hans Arenson's typed notes from a statement made to him by Anna Samweber, who was present when Maria Steiner received the letter and he handed it to her, so that she, Anna, could read it. Op. cit. footnote 90, p. 129. ibid. p. 131. Op. cit. footnote 82, p. 215 ss., Attachment 10: note by A. Steffen dated 5 June 1925. ibid., p. 205, Annex 6. See note 65 The details of the discovery of a computer on the Goetheanum stage some forty years ago were told to the author by the late Dr. Georg Unger, head of the mathematics section, whom the Steering Committee had called to find out whether the machine was, or was not , a computer. That machine, it turned out, was an expensive and massive minicomputer that had been purchased without the Committee being consulted. A few years later, the author discovered that the first personal computers had been introduced into the Goetheanum - by illegal means - and tried to put an end to these unauthorized operations. The Steering Committee tried to return the computers to the suppliers, but later informed the author that he had found himself trapped in a very binding contract that included such economic penalty clauses on termination that he was defeated . As strange as this story may seem, it is not atypical of the unscrupulous ways in which, today, some computer vendors impose themselves within large organizations , when they are not favorable. See note 92 Rudolf Steiner: Spiritual scientific anthropology. Vol.2. OO 107, 16th conference, March 22, 1909. Edwin Black: IBM and the Holocauste. Robert Laffont, Paris, 2001. Andrew Hodges: Alan Turing or the intelligence puzzle. Page 23 ff., Editions Payot, Paris, 2004. ibid. p. 23 ff. Andrew HodgesAlan Turing: The Enigma. Simon & Schuster, Inc. New York, 1983, p. 17. Op. ai. footnote 117, page 75. ibid., page 86. ibid., page 87 ff. The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2002. Alan Mathison Turing: “Can a Machine Think?', Mind, 1950. Johann von Neumann: Théorie generale et logique des automates, Éditions Champ Vallon, Seyssel, 1996 (English version: “ The General and Logical Theory of Automata", in JR Newman: The World of Mathematics. Volume IV. George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1960). Susan A. Greenfield: Id The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century . Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London , 2008. Johann von Neumann: “First Draft of a report on the EDVAC', in The Origins of Digital Computers. Selected Papers. Edited by Brian Randell, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, 3" ed., 1982. Rudolf Steiner: Karma and professions. OO 172, 9th conference, November 26 , 1916. ibid. ibid. Vannevar Bush: “As We May Think", Atlantic Monthly, July 1945. Rudolf Steiner: Behind the scenes of external events. OO 178 (T, 1999), conference of November 25 , 1917. ibid. Friedrich Benesch & Klaus Wilde: Kiesel - Kalk - Ton., Verlag Urachhaus, Stuttgart, 1983, page 39. Rudolf Steiner: Scientific-spiritual impulses for the progress of agriculture. OO 237, 2nd conference , June 10 , 1924. Ernest Braun & Stuart MacDonald: Revolution in Miniature. Chapter 9, Cambridge University Press, 1982. Helmut Knauer: Erdenantlitz und Erdenstoffe. Chapter 3, Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag, Dornach, 1961. See note 132. Conference of 16 November 1917 held in St. Gallen. Tim Berners-Lee: Weaving the Web. Texere Publishing Ltd, London, 2000. ibid. Clifford Stoll: High-Tech Heretic. Reflections of a Computer Contrarian. Anchor Books, New York, 2000. See note 44. 9th conference, October 2 , 1916. Rudolf Steiner: Spiritual Aspects of Northern Europe and Russia - Man and elemental spirits. OO 158, 4th

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144. 145. 146. 147.

conference, November 15 , 1914. Henry Georges Liddel and Robert Scott: Greek-English Lexicon. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky: The secret doctrine. Tome 6. Miscellanées, Éditions Adyar Paris, 1991, page 215. Rudolf Steiner: The Ways of the Soul to Christ. OO 143, 10" conference, May 8 , 1912. See note 51.

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This wonderful and at the same time dramatic book on the real understanding of computer technology, this unique text of consciousness and awareness that Paul Emberson gave us, should be read , studied and analyzed by every man who do you love and you love humanity and consequently human beings. Anyone who reads and appreciates it should recommend it, read and comment on it together in groups, and give it to their closest friends and acquaintances. With a lucid, organic, scientific, historical, artistic and detailed analysis, the author reconstructs in a clear, progressive and dynamic way all the events that have made us unknowingly, but much more than potentially, almost complete slaves of machines (computers , tablets, smartphones and various computer and electromagnetic systems) which are nothing more than means used by the obscure beings who have warped and guided, in a deafening silence, the plot that has become increasingly clear over the last 15 centuries. Reading this book we realize our complete ignorance (in the sense of not knowing) about the spiritual technique existing in computers, but we are even more ignorant about the history of computers and given that the French philosopher Auguste Comte said that "One does not know I found a science until its history is known" never a more complete and exhaustive text than this can help us in the historical, scientific as well as spiritual knowledge of computers in order to be able to judge their effects and use them with conscience and awareness.

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