"That One Michaelmas Post We Cannot Unsee"
Left and Right Wing Occultism, Part One: Lindsay
Hi everyone. I have not posted in a while, and for good reason. I have done much research recently regarding esotericism, and had many different articles planned; sadly, most of them have not come to fruition. I have, although, done more introspecting about who I am and what I wish to bring to this world. What is my unique insight? What can I offer to our current environment?
Given the recent discussion on X, regarding the Michaelmas post by former-President Donald J. Trump, theosophy popped up again. James Lindsay, who really seems to believe himself here, made an intense schizotheory post on it. You may read it in full here. I would recommend it.
Before we go on, I will write a small rebuttal to simply set the record straight:
Theosophists have a very particular and evil interpretation of Michael as the bringer of the new age and the driver of human evolution, which they explicitly seek to control. He is the bridge and mediator, for them, between the figures of Christ, Lucifer, and the Zoroastrian demon of chaos and division, Ahriman, whom they regard as equally sacred parts of a triune whole.
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Elements of this view will be sprinkled in in various subtle ways, never openly invoking Lucifer or Ahriman but only their "positive"-seeming attributes, to ensnare good believing Christians and new Christians who lack the needed discernment to avoid being taken astray. […] The [theosophist] cult that controls the world and the Left believes in this occult religion and will certainly co-opt the Right into a dialectical foil version and partial spiritual contamination. It's also covered over with the fingerprints of a counterintelligence operation we should be very slow to trust.
There is so much wrong with the world view. And in many ways I believe Lindsay himself believes it. In an occult way, there is a truth to why Lindsay may see reality this way, but the way he wants this reality to be true is utterly false and fanatical.
Theosophy is not a cult that controls the world, they are far from it. I do not think I need much justification for this, as the onus falls upon Lindsay to support his farcicle claim with evidence. Reality on the contrary seems to support the idea that this cult has aboslutely no connection to elected officials in this way whatsoever. Lindsay must support this assertation and we should not entertain him otherwise.
Many of his views on theosophical teachings are outright false. Christ, Ahriman and Lucifer are not co-equal beings. Christ will always be above both Ahriman and Lucifer as Ahriman and Lucifer are beings not intrinsically tied with human spiritual evolution. They are abberations that have introduced themselves into the evolution of humankind.
Firstly, regarding the second point I have made, his balancing of Lucifer and Ahriman actually comes primarily from anthroposophy and not theosophy. Here is what H. P. Blatavasky, the mind behind theosophy, says about Ahriman:
The "King of Light" or Ahura Mazda emanates from Primordial Light and forms or creates by means of the "Word," Honover (Ahuna Vairya), a pure and holy world. But Angra Mainyu, [Ahriman] though born as pure as his elder brother, becomes jealous of him, and mars everything in the universe, as on the earth, creating sin and evil wherever he goes. […]
From the first incipient stage of Angra Mainyu's power, he and his wicked army of fiends opposed the army of Light in everything it did. The demons of lust and pride, of corruption and impiety, systematically destroyed the work of the Holy Ones. It is they who made beautiful blossoms poisonous; graceful snakes, deadly; bright fires, the symbol of deity, full of stench and smoke; and who introduced death into the world. To light, purity, truth, goodness and knowledge, they opposed darkness, filth, falsehood, cruelty and ignorance. As a contrast to the useful and clean animals created by Ahura Mazda, Angra Mainyu created wild beasts and bloodthirsty fowls of the air. He also added insult to injury and deprecated and laughed at the peaceful and inoffensive creations of his elder brother. "It is thine envy," said the holy Yazatas one day to the unholy fiend, the evil-hearted. "Thou art incapable of producing a beautiful and harmless being, O cruel Angra Mainyu". . .
This is not a favorable light for Ahriman. It also creates a dichotomy between the being of Light and the Word versus the Darkness. Blatavatsky does have, supposedly a generally positive view of Lucifer. This already throws out the trinity that Lindsay is saying that Theosophy has. Theosophy actually has a duality between light and darkness, Lucifer is simply a breaker of molds.
In the quotation as [Blavatasky] gives it, Lévi seems to praise the fallen angel, and proclaims that Satan was ‘brave enough to buy his independence at the price of eternal suffering and torture; beautiful enough to have adored himself in full divine light; strong enough to reign in darkness amidst agony, and to have built himself a throne on his inextinguishable pyre.’ This figure, ‘the Satan of the Republican and heretical Milton’, Lévi designates ‘the prince of anarchy, served by a hierarchy of pure Spirits’. Blavatsky adds ‘(! !)’ to the mention of pure spirits serving the Devil (Blavatsky 1888a, Vol. II, 506–7). She then comments:
‘ This description – one which reconciles so cunningly theological dogma and the Kabalistic allegory, and even contrives to include a political compliment in its phraseology – is, when read in the right spirit, quite correct. Yes, indeed; it is this grandest of ideals, this ever-living symbol – nay apotheosis – of self-sacrifice for the intellectual independence of humanity; this ever active Energy protesting against Static Inertia – the principle to which Self-assertion is a crime, and Thought and the Light of Knowledge odious. […] But Eliphas Levi was yet too subservient to his Roman Catholic authorities; one may add, too jesuitical, to confess that this devil was mankind, and never had any existence on earth outside of that mankind. (Blavatsky 1888a, Vol. II, 507.)’
Blavatsky here misrepresents or possibly misreads Lévi, even though she does describe him as being ironic (Blavatsky 1888a, Vol. II, 507). In fact, what Lévi does is simply to relate a conception of Satan held by Milton, which he deems completely erroneous, himself describing the figure as ‘le faux Lucifer de la légende hétérodoxe’ (Lévi 1860, 16). Lévi calling Milton a republican and a heretic is not intended as a compliment, and the same goes for the labeling of Satan as ‘the prince of anarchy’ – Lévi himself, having long-since abandoned the socialist ideas he held in his youth, was firmly conservative by the time he wrote this book. It is interesting that Blavatsky, usually no friend of socialism, here for some reason evidently thinks it ‘a political compliment’ to be the lord of the anarchists.
Anthroposophy, on the other hand, thinks of Christ as that which balances Ahriman and Lucifer.1 There is not much praise to Lucifer himself, as we see with Blavatasky. In fact it may be useful to point out what, leader of the anthroposophical movement, Rudolf Steiner thought of Milton’s portrayal of Lucifer:
If you consider this whole matter you will have to say to yourselves: I am only able to understand the world if I conceive of it in connection with the number three, the triad. For we have on the one hand the Luciferic, and on the other the Ahrimanic element, and in the middle the human being who, as the third element, in the state of equilibrium between the two, must feel his divine essence. We shall only arrive at an understanding of the world if we base it on this triad and become clear about the fact that human life is the scale-beam. Here the fulcrum; on the one side the scale pan with the Luciferic element, pulling upward; on the other side the scale pan with the Ahrimanic element, pulling downward. To keep the scales in perfect balance signifies the essential being of man. [Steiner then says that the role of Christ is the folcrum, with man, as the balancing beam.]
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Now you may well imagine that it is entirely in the interest of the Ahrimanic and Luciferic powers to conceal this secret of the triad. For the proper comprehension of this secret enables mankind to bring about the state of equilibrium between the Ahrimanic and Luciferic powers; that means, on the one hand, to use the Luciferic tendency toward freedom for the achievement of a wholesome cosmic aim, and on the other hand, to strive to achieve the same with the Ahrimanic element. The human being's normal spiritual condition consists in relating himself in the proper way to this trinity, this triune structure of the world.
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We can never feel in the right way what we should feel as the Divine if we do not enter upon this threefold order. Consider from this point of view Milton's Paradise Lost, or Klopstock's Messiah which came into existence under the influence of Paradise Lost. Here you have nothing of a real comprehension of a threefold world structure, you have instead a battle between the supposedly good and the supposedly evil, the battle between heaven and hell. You have the mistaken idea of the duad brought into man's spiritual evolution; you have what is rooted in popular consciousness as the illusory contrast between heaven and hell, introduced into two cosmic poems of modern times.
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Milton's Paradise Lost and Klopstock's Messiah are spiritual creations which rise out of modern man's consciousness. That which manifests in them lives in the general consciousness of mankind; for the delusion of the duad has entered this modern consciousness, and the truth of the triad has been withheld. The most profound productions of the modern age which are, from a certain point of view, considered among the greatest creations of mankind, and rightly so, are a cultural maya and have sprung from the great delusion of modern mankind. Everything that is active in this illusory conception is the creation of the Ahrimanic influence, of that influence which in the future will concentrate in the incarnation of Ahriman of which I have already spoken. For this illusory conception in which we live today is nothing but the result of the false world view which springs up everywhere in modern civilization when human beings contrast heaven and hell. Heaven is considered to be the divine element, and hell the diabolical element, while, in truth, we have to do with the Luciferic element called heavenly and the Ahrimanic element called infernal.
You must realize that the Christ impulse can only be comprehended if one sees in it the impulse of equilibrium between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic principles, if one gives it the right place within the trinity. We may ask: What must one do if one tries to deceive people in regard to the true Christ impulse? One must divert their attention from the true threefold ordering of the world and direct it toward the delusion of the duad which is justified only when we are concerned with the manifest and not when we are concerned with what lies behind the manifest in the sphere of truth.
In such matters we must go beyond mere names. Calling some being or other Christ does not mean that it is the Christ. If one wishes to prevent another human being from acquiring a true concept of Christ, one need only put the duad in the place of the triad; but if one wishes to point to the Christ impulse in its true meaning, it is necessary that the duad be supplanted by the triad. We need not join the group of people who declare others to be heretics; we need not declare Milton's Paradise Lost or Klopstock's Messiah to be damnable works of the devil; we may continue to enjoy their beauty and grandeur. But we must realize that such works, in as much as they are the blossoms of popular modern civilization, do not speak of Christ at all but originate from the delusion that everything that is not part of human evolution may be considered as belonging, on the one hand, to the realm of the devil and, on the other, to the realm of the Divine.
—[GA194]
We can clearly see that the trinitarian aspect of Steiner actually, in reality, refers to how Christ is more powerful than both Ahriman and Lucifer and must be the balancing point between them, if he were not stronger than them, one or the other could simply undo the entire balance. They are not coequal beings, either, Christ has the central role and must necissarily so.
Now, if you had wanted to critique Blavatasky for her Luciferianism at times, you certainly could. What I seek to illuminate is the true history of what these occultists have thought.
If you look at, lets say, Bing and ask it about Ahriman, Lucifer and Christ you see where Lindsay may have gotten bad information from:
To Bing and most search engines, I would imagine, they think that the Rudolf Steiner Archive is a theosophical archive. This is partially true, but for the distinctions we make above, it is demonstrably false. Theosophy is oriented to the duad of the Beings of Light and the Beings of Darkness, where Anthroposophy concerns humankinds relationship to both Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces—the triad. Anthroposphy also historically split away from the theosophical society for some of these deeper disagreements.
James Lindsay is coincidently enough perpetuating the same issue that Blavatasky had: makind a duad of good versus evil, without regards to human error. This was his fundamental folly with that first analysis we proposed, about Theosophical leaders being cultists that control the world: he cannot recognize the normal human element and has polarized everything into good and evil just like Blavatasky. And just like how Blavatasky became an incedental Satanist, James Lindsay himself was “clowned” on for this post. Most people saw through most of his rhetoric and intuitively grasped that it could not have been accurate, even, somewhat jokingly, framing Lindsay as commiting the same folly as Lucifer himself:
We may even give Lindsay his due desserts, H. P. Blavatasky could be thought of as having spiritual impurities herself, with her affinity for defending Satan. Lindsay likely intuited this, but we must as well remember, we are human.It is our duty to humankind to seek the humanity in our bretheren, not call them evil. If I were to recommend anything to Lindsay, it would be to at least do a bit more research than he currently had done. You may wish to oppose some theosophical distinctions, rightly so, but you mainly talk of anthroposophical teachings when doing it. Which is false, demonstrably and ostensibly. As I have shown.
And as we have shown as well, depending on where he recieved his information, the internet can itself be tricky here (AI or a search engine may have confused the two doctrines). It’s why it is all the more important that someone who does know the difference between the two speak up and show where they seperate from. I hope I can at least do that.
As I said in the beginning, I hope to set the record straight. Michaelmas is a beautiful holy-day. I hope those of you who celebrated it, with me too, had a great Michaelmas. I will post the second more direct theory post after this, going into depth on the title more. Having discussed some of the real reasons for a discussion of the occult in its relationship to certain politics, we may now discuss in full, the actual esoteric content of the left and the right wing, in the following post. Hopefully to illuminate more.
We are injecting this configuration of a relationship between Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman into our Dornach building because the science of the spirit reveals to us in a certain way that the next task regarding the comprehension of the Christ impulse will be to make man finally understand how the three forces of Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman are related in this world. To this day there has been much talk about Christianity and the Christ impulse, but man has not yet gained a clear understanding of what the Christ impulse has brought into the world as the result of the Mystery of Golgotha. Certainly, it is generally admitted that there is a Lucifer or an Ahriman, but in so doing, it is made to appear that from these two one must flee, as if one wished to say, “I want nothing to do with Lucifer and Ahriman!”—In yesterday's public lecture <1 I described the way in which the divine-spiritual forces can be found. If these forces did not want to have anything to do with Lucifer and Ahriman, either, the world could not exist. One does not gain the proper relationship to Lucifer and Ahriman by saying, “Lucifer, I flee from you! Ahriman, I flee from you!” Rather, everything that man has to strive for as a result of the Christ impulse must be seen as similar to the equilibrious state of a pendulum. In the center, the pendulum is in perfect balance, but it must oscillate to one side or the other. The same applies to man's development here on earth. Man must oscillate to the one side according to the luciferic principle and to the other according to the principle of Ahriman, but he must maintain his equilibrium through the cultivation of Paul's declaration, “Not I, but Christ in me.”
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA159/English/Singles/19150518p01.html
We can already see here when Lindsay talks about “Elements of this view will be sprinkled in in various subtle ways, never openly invoking Lucifer or Ahriman but only their "positive"-seeming attributes, to ensnare good believing Christians and new Christians who lack the needed discernment to avoid being taken astray,” he is already off base. The quotation suggests the opposite. By ignoring Ahriman you in fact further his goals, paradoxically.