The Rudolf Steiner Archive

18. The Origin of Evil and Wickedness in the Light of Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] Among the mysteries of the world that confront humanity not only from a purely scientific perspective but are also repeatedly posed by life itself is the mystery of the source of evil and suffering in the world. Allow me, then, to speak this evening about this particular enigma of human life from the perspective of spiritual science—specifically, the spiritual science whose foundations I have been expounding to this audience for many years.

[ 2 ] Before addressing the questions at hand, I would like to begin by briefly pointing out how the question of evil and the evils in the world have occupied inquiring minds throughout the centuries, and this unceasing preoccupation alone should demonstrate how deeply evil and evils are felt by the human soul. Let me just briefly note that philosophical thinkers, approaching the issue from a wide variety of perspectives through which they saw evil and misfortunes permeating life, attempted to solve their mysteries but were nevertheless unable to fully come to terms with them. Let us go back to the philosophy of the third century B.C., known as Stoicism, which sought to derive guidelines for the principles of the universe and human conduct from Greek thought. This is where another question arose for the Stoics: How does one cope with human life when one feels the sting of evil within oneself and sees the otherwise wise governance of the world permeated by the evils of existence? If one wishes to characterize the way in which Stoicism sought to cope with evil in human nature, one must turn one’s gaze to the states of consciousness arising from the foundations of the world. When the Stoic unfolded the powers of his consciousness—which he assumed to be in harmony with the world—he believed that only good could develop; but evil did appear nonetheless; then he said: When evil enters the nature of the human soul, there is a twilight state of the soul, a kind of spiritual powerlessness. And the Stoic then asked himself: By what means can the normal consciousness of our soul be drawn into this twilight, becoming, so to speak, powerless? Because human beings are complex beings, and even when they live with their consciousness in one of these normal spheres, they occasionally plunge into lower spheres—much like sinking into sleep—and become saturated by what is not normally within them and should not be there. The Stoic thus conceives of human beings as belonging to multiple worlds; if he follows the good, he is in his own sphere; if he succumbs to evil, he is beneath it. In the visible world, there are beings lower than man—animals, plants, and minerals—forming a hierarchy of the natural kingdoms. That into which man descends when he succumbs to evil must exist there as a disharmony of nature. – However, it can be said here: This attempt at a solution reveals the inadequacy of any such approach to considering these mysteries; for it leaves unanswered the question of what significance it holds in human life when a person, with a dulled consciousness, descends below his normal sphere and evil thereby comes to the fore—what does he bring back from there at all? Philosophical thought has proven—and continues to prove—incapable of approaching the problem of evil from this angle.

[ 3 ] Several centuries later, Plotinus, a Neoplatonic philosopher, attempted to approach evil from a philosophical and mystical perspective, drawing on mystical philosophy. He reasoned: As the human soul continues to develop in the direction of spiritualization, it can immerse itself more deeply in the spiritual realm and gradually free itself from the laws of material existence. – In this, Plotinus—and with him many philosophers—saw that which is the enemy of the good; he believed that to the extent that the material world influences the soul, evil intrudes to the same degree, and thus he saw evil in the material world, which is hostile to the spiritual. But even this did not bring mystical thought any closer to the problem of evil: it has not been clarified why material forces oppose the good, nor what benefit the human soul is supposed to derive from the fact that these forces can influence it.

[ 4 ] Then came the attempt at an Augustinian solution, which is not really a solution at all. In this case, however, something characteristic emerges that recurs time and again from that point on; namely, Augustine does not allow evil to exist in its reality at all. He believes that only the good exists, and just as light is found everywhere—though not in its full intensity, but in various degrees—so evil, with all its misfortunes, is merely a weak form of the good. Such solutions have been repeatedly adopted; they exemplify the tendency to simply deny the mysteries of the world that their proponents could not explain. If, for example, Campbell called evil merely the shadow of good, we have good reason to doubt that evil can be understood in this way; for us, it is little more than saying: Cold is merely another form, a subtype of heat; it is not something positive but something negative, so we need not put on a fur coat to protect ourselves against it. – Such a triviality had to be cited as an objection in order to characterize the value of the latter attempts at a solution.

[ 5 ] The theosophist and mystic Jakob Böhme delved deeper into the state of the world and its causes, where even evil appears as something positive, as reality, when examined with the spiritual eye. He did not stop at concepts and ideas, for he elevated his entire spiritual power to a high level of experience and then felt and experienced what is spiritual and divine. He recognized that evil is deeply rooted in the very foundations of existence; all of existence appeared before him as a “Yes” that can only be fulfilled by a “No.”

[ 6 ] How do we, as human beings, attain consciousness? When a person sleeps, under normal circumstances he has no consciousness; only when he wakes up and, in the way familiar to him, comes into contact with the world in every respect, does normal consciousness arise—his self-consciousness—in response to what confronts the soul. Jakob Böhme already discerns this manner of encountering objects in the divine primordial existence of the world, by having it emerge from the dark existence of the Ungrund; at that time, he believes, divine consciousness could only be kindled by its opposite, just as human consciousness is kindled by the material world. According to Böhme, the divine Primordial Ground emerged from the pre-divine Abyss, and with it, therefore, both good and evil. With this view, Jakob Böhme goes beyond a mere philosophical explanation. Darkness exists without needing an explanation; rather, it is light that requires explanation. Thus, like Schelling, Böhme posits that from the dark abyss of the world—which he sees as permeated by divine-spiritual existence—there emerge effects that are cast into the primordial abyss through the activity of the Divine. It is remarkable that Jakob Böhme recognizes evil in a positive sense and sees it not in the external sensory world but rooted in the depths of existence, because everything divine must rise from the abyss, both itself and the world.

[ 7 ] It is interesting to note that a contemporary of Jakob Böhme in Japan developed a philosophy in the Far East that sought a similar solution; this was Toju, the sage of Omi, who lived there around the middle of the seventeenth century. His view is, in its wording, almost identical to Böhme’s: the divine “Yes” of the Unground rises and interplays with the “No,” the “Ri” of the Unground with the “Ki” of the Primordial Ground.

[ 8 ] Thus we see how each, in his own way, seeks to approach the enigma of evil and suffering through philosophy and mysticism of varying depths. A certain helplessness in approaching the solution to this problem is also evident in Lotze, that brilliant philosopher who tries to stand firmly on the ground of the natural sciences even when considering evil. He says: One can assume that evil must exist in the world so that, by overcoming it, good can be brought forth. But what about the animal kingdom, where evil cannot be overcome through education? Lotze therefore comes to no other conclusion than to say: Evil exists, and we must believe that, for reasons inaccessible to humans, it seemed necessary to the wise government of the world. Human understanding is denied insight into this matter.

[ 9 ] Everything else that could be cited at great length would once again demonstrate that conceptual, idealistic philosophy fails to explain evil and misfortunes, and that this philosophy itself admits that it is currently impossible to come close to solving the problem of evil and misfortunes. And such problems become, for a philosophy bound to the brain as its tool, questions at the very limits of its realm of knowledge; from its standpoint, it must inevitably conclude that human knowledge has fundamental limits. In contrast, however, it must be pointed out that human cognitive power undergoes a development that can indeed be accelerated and deepened through one’s own efforts. When this happens and the problem of evil is approached using the methods of spiritual science, a highly remarkable solution emerges that may at first appear paradoxical.

[ 10 ] We know that spiritual research does not rely solely on ordinary cognitive faculties, but primarily on those faculties that initially lie dormant within the human being but can be brought up from the unconscious through meditation and concentration—by means of an unlimited effort of mental and soul activities that are otherwise used only in their elementary state. Then, after such strengthening, a person can experience themselves outside their body—like a table, for example, that stands before them in ordinary daily consciousness. Just as it is readily possible for a chemist to separate water into its two elementary components, hydrogen and oxygen, so too—as in a kind of spiritual chemistry—the soul can be lifted out of the body and brought to independent activity, so that, working in the spiritual world, it leaves the body behind in the physical world. In this state, the spiritual researcher experiences the existence of spiritual beings and the processes in the spiritual world as a higher reality.

[ 11 ] How does the question of evil appear when a person, as a spiritual researcher, develops spiritual eyes and ears? What are these forces that lay dormant in the deepest recesses of the soul and have now been awakened? The soul then feels itself to be in possession of forces that it cannot unfold within the physical body, with its tendency toward the wrong, the ugly, and the erroneous, but as the soul grows into the spiritual worlds, it sees that this no longer hinders it—provided that, before separation, the human being gains a clear awareness of these shortcomings and, as the soul departs from its physical form, gains insight into how these weaknesses and shortcomings become sources of actions in the spiritual world as soon as he can look at his faults with courage and boldness. Indeed, the spiritual researcher must train his senses so that he can look upon all ugly passions; for if he does not allow them all to enter into completely clear consciousness, they will exert an all the stronger influence on the field of spiritual perception, permeating his insights and distorting them into errors, hallucinations, and fantasies. Thus, a connection emerges between evil, the spiritual researcher’s work, and his ascent into the spiritual world. What is available to the spiritual researcher in this process and provides him with clarity lies, in the case of a person who is undeveloped in this sense, in the depths of his soul. When the spiritual researcher now visualizes evil in his mind’s eye and compares it with those forces that were able to lift him up into the spiritual world, it becomes apparent that the forces through which a person commits evil in the sensory world are transformed in the spiritual world, so that through them one can see in the spiritual world with spiritual senses; for, when viewed there, they are the seeds from which clairvoyant powers blossom. However, this must not be misunderstood to mean that these elevated forces—which, when inverted into their opposite in the physical world, become a source of evil and wickedness—would automatically develop into clairvoyant powers in the human soul if they were preserved from being taken over by the physical body. It is precisely this that sheds deep light on human life and explains why it is an obstacle for the spiritual researcher if he fails to recognize evil and it then flows into his soul life, where it manifests as illusion and error. Evil is like, for example, gravity at a lower level of nature, when it manifests in avalanches or volcanic eruptions that can lead to great misfortune, whereas gravity, when properly and moderately channeled—as in a waterworks, for instance—becomes a blessing for the population.

[ 12 ] Just to clarify, it should be emphasized that the findings of the humanities show that human life cannot be conceived of as a simple entity; rather, it must be understood as an interplay of various spheres of existence, whose forces may have a beneficial effect in one world and a harmful one in another. The human organism as a whole must develop different forces in one particular sphere of life than in another. Thus, a locomotive can easily run over a person if, in despair, that person throws himself onto the tracks in front of its wheels and thereby comes into conflict [m?] with the forces that, had he been a passenger on the train, might have brought him salvation. We thus become aware of how forces that must develop on one side become evil on the other—and it is precisely these forces that can lead human beings up into the spiritual worlds; for within these forces, which have an evil effect in the physical world, higher forces reign in a good, uplifting sense within the sphere appropriate to them. Thus, evil becomes transparent in its significance as a product of the transformation of forces in human life, so that we finally arrive at the fact: This evil is the inversion of a higher good in a sphere of action unsuited to it.

[ 13 ] Thus, when one approaches the mystery of the lives of evil people, one sees that one must apply spiritual-scientific insights that reveal how evil, in its true nature, must be regarded as justified—even though it can also be experienced as good, in its equally true sense, in another world. – The events of the sensory world and the history of human thought teach us that those who remain confined to the sensory world cannot explain how pain and evil can intrude into it. Schopenhauer and Hartmann, in their pessimistic worldview, certainly explain how evil prevails in the world, but they do not quite manage to articulate how, in their opinion, the divine-spiritual source relates to the evils of existence, nor how the human soul can free itself from evil. The spiritual researcher finds that wherever evil, suffering, pain, and so on occur in the physical world, they correspond in the spiritual world to all that suffering appearing as a seed for a development that is to take place only later. We can illustrate this again through an analogy—[not to rely on it, for spiritual science does not rely on analogies, but on facts]—as follows: When a desperate person throws himself in front of a speeding locomotive, two spheres of the sensory world collide, [which are incompatible with one another]: What is necessary for the unfortunate person’s continued existence is crushed; the forces of the locomotive, which are otherwise beneficial, overlap with other forces with which they are incompatible. But the person could also be saved if he gets up in time, and the forces of the locomotive could remain effective in a positive sense; this person’s soul would be able to draw new strength from his sudden change of heart for a fresh start to the next phase of his life and thereby recover completely.

[ 14 ] Everything that is placed within life intertwines in such a way that different spheres collide. The spiritual plunges into the physical-sensual realm and experiences itself there in a completely different way than it could have experienced itself in the spiritual realm alone. Through this, the spiritual is strengthened in a way that would not have been possible without this immersion; indeed, one could say that certain developments could not have taken place in the spiritual world at all if evil were not present in the world, just as no seed of a new plant can arise without the withering of the flower and a part of the mother plant. In everything painful lies a necessary descent, so that the seed may develop anew, higher and more radiantly, in the bosom of a sphere that is initially foreign to it—a sphere from which something must be sacrificed for this purpose, that is, for this development; and in this dying away lies the necessity of all evil. In the evil and pain of this world lie the seeds for future development.

[ 15 ] Take, for example, monistic materialism, which developed from the natural sciences, particularly in the nineteenth century, and under whose ideas even some of our most idealistic men live their lives as if under a heavy burden. Because this worldview has penetrated ever deeper into the human soul, it has enabled people to see through the laws of matter, and everyone living today is unconsciously dominated by the knowledge of these laws of material existence—laws that have, however, suppressed the free view into the spiritual world. And so it became possible for thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Lotze to emerge in the nineteenth century, who pressed for a conception of existence that should have satisfied humanity; yet they were unable to formulate ideas about the spiritual realm that would have been capable of overcoming the ideas of natural science through spiritual superiority. To them, therefore, the pain that exists in the world appears inexplicable; they see what is withering away, but not the seed that lies within it as a hopeful outcome—a seed that must also be found within the dying blossom and seed coat, just as the consequence of pain and evil in life. Everything emanates from the spiritual world and also affects the realms of physical existence. However, the researchers of the nineteenth century did not—or at least not sufficiently—recognize how this should manifest according to its inner nature. We see how difficult it becomes even for the most capable representatives of their time to come to terms with the phenomena of the world, and [how they] in many matters find no way out through the views of the natural sciences alone; we see in such minds how they thirst, in the innermost life of their souls, for a satisfying perspective on existence, yet their vision is clouded by the pressure of a one-sided understanding of the natural sciences. For example, one such person describes how the world appears to him as follows: It is like the corpse of a human being, of whom one can know that he has been forsaken by his soul; but what lies before us as a corpse is incapable of developing something soul-spiritual out of itself, as might be expected from a remnant of a pre-worldly spiritual existence of a divine-spiritual being that was present, perhaps, in the beginning. In its present state, however, no seed of a new spiritual essence can be found. – This philosopher, Mainländer, who lived around the middle of the nineteenth century, has been honored by Court Councilor Max Seiling with enthusiastic words, yet with complete accuracy in fact. When one sees such a spirit in all its tragedy, one recognizes that the task of spiritual science also lies in relieving people of the oppressive burden of nineteenth-century ideas, especially in the case of such significant spirits who take life as seriously as Mainländer, who sees in human existence nothing but old age and evil, pain, and death. In contrast, however, spiritual science also sees that within all of this there lives something—the spiritual—that springs forth toward the future and could not later unfold in its unique way if it had not, from time to time, been forced down into physical life as evil and pain. From such a standpoint, however, one can no longer speak of the “philosophy of pain and its redemption”; for then it would be absurd to speak of this redemption—in light of the analogy already used with the plant seed, the so-called seed, for whose development the entire mother plant, or at least a part of it—the flower and so on—must often die, which one would also have to regard as an evil for the seed. Nor can the new and perfect develop from a spiritual seed without causing evil and pain in the physical world. If we view all of this from a higher spiritual perspective, we will come to realize that, in all our efforts to alleviate evil, we cannot be redeemed from it in the ordinary sense, but must learn to endure it. Even if what is painful and distressing in the present is sometimes quite difficult, the joyful fruit will lie in the future and will then come to fruition. From such a perspective arises a bearable, peaceful, and constructive outlook on life; whoever knows that suffering, like a seed, will give rise to something more perfect in the future sees a better future even in a present that may be painful—provided they do not turn a blind eye to the imperfect and the ugly while actively working to remedy them. Even as the leaves and blossoms of existence fall away, the seed that enables a future, richer development grows and endures beneath them, and we come to understand: What appears to us in the physical world as evil and misfortune is a parallel manifestation of that which, in the spiritual world, makes a future, more perfect existence possible. With this view, which corresponds to reality, we can transcend the harsh, the sorrowful, and the painful; for in evil and misfortune we see something inexplicable only in physical existence; we find it explainable—and thus bearable—only when we penetrate to the source of all these processes, to the spiritual world. There, the otherwise dreadful spectacle of the sensory-physical world is transformed.

[ 16 ] A genuine and spontaneous ethics is also rooted in all these things. This does not result in moral preaching—which in itself would be easy—but rather, through it, human beings come to know the source of evil and suffering in the spiritual world; and this, along with a further urge for knowledge, will lead them ever deeper and more thoroughly from the sensory world into the supersensory world, which is the cause of it all. Spiritual science is able to point out that all evil, all misfortunes, and all suffering will remain a mystery to human understanding as long as their sources are seen only in the sensory world. Only spiritual science can shed true light on human life and all human action, for it points back to the origin that does not actually exist in the sensory world, but rather teaches us to recognize evil in its true form by revealing its good origin in the spiritual world. In summary, we can express what has been said today in terms of human feeling as follows: Much in the world will remain hidden from the seeking soul that does not wish to go beyond the physical world in its search; it can easily fall into despair if it lacks the courage to penetrate to the deepest depths where life’s greatest mysteries lie hidden—to their source in the spiritual world. Spiritual science will increasingly lead people toward a solution to what weighs heavily on their souls; and they will be able to come to terms with their existence in the most diverse life situations if they understand that the origin of evil and suffering lies not only in the sensory world but above all in the supersensory world, recognizing them as the seeds of a better future, influenced by the spiritual world, which is also the home of their soul.

Question and Answer

Question: Can one understand life [only] if suffering is distributed evenly?

[ 17 ] Rudolf Steiner: When speaking of oxygen, one should not expect that all questions of chemistry can be resolved at once. That is a different matter here: the distribution of evil and wickedness. After all, there is not just one kind of life. Let’s suppose we have a picture: It depicts a variety of things; everything is covered up except for one ugly thing. Only when the covering is removed does it become clear from the whole picture that there is something ugly in that very spot. [The same applies here:] Every insight—if it is not merely theoretical—is not gained through joy and pleasure, but through suffering. Joy is something that is gratefully accepted in life. This is not a matter of asceticism, but anyone who has arrived at a realization that permeates their entire soul and were asked, “Would you give up your joy or your pain?” would answer: “I would give up joy and pleasure if only I could keep the pain I have endured, for it is to that pain that I owe my realization.” And so, viewed from a higher perspective, many things lead to a justification of suffering and pain.

Question: [Regarding] Hatred, cruelty, cannibalism: How can they be sources of a positive force in the afterlife?

[ 18 ] Rudolf Steiner: I didn’t say that; it never even occurred to me! There is no cannibalism in the spiritual world, so nothing can develop there out of cannibalism. One could say, for example, that a philanthropic soul would perform all kinds of good deeds with the power of a lion: that would be something entirely different; but one must not say that the lion’s predatory instinct becomes philanthropy.

[ 19 ] Rudolf Steiner: A question has been asked here that I am not supposed to read aloud, but only to answer with “yes” or “no”: No.

Question: What [exactly] is good, and what is evil?

[ 20 ] Rudolf Steiner: Asking this question after today’s lecture seems a bit peculiar. It has been a customary practice in education over the last few centuries to ask: “What is this?” “What is that?”—But what is actually contained in this “what”? People don’t realize how short-sighted such questions are. But the question can be explored more deeply. As the question is posed, it cannot be answered with an absolute definition; every phenomenon of life must be explained within the context of life as a whole. So, if “the good” is to be explained, yes, many definitions can indeed be found. For example: Good is that which enters into life in such a way that this person’s life is most fully fostered; or that which best satisfies one’s own conscience, and so on and so forth. Someone might come along and say that evil is something fluid, or time, or an ethnic group. But that is not the point, whether considered partially or generally; one must try to explain it as was done today. Question: Good and Evil: [Is there no difference]?

[ 21 ] Rudolf Steiner: There is no satisfactory answer to this question either. Gravity, which is extraordinarily beneficial when it propels the Earth around the Sun, can also cause harm, like an avalanche rolling down a mountain. The lecture did not intend to teach a revaluation within another sphere, but rather a transition into another sphere. Even if people do not know what evil they are doing, that is irrelevant: It makes no difference whether something takes place consciously or unconsciously within the sphere of decay. The lecture was not an apology for evil, as if to say: Those who are truly evil are the best, for in them lie the powers of true clairvoyance. It has not been asserted that the best human being is the great criminal—but it has been stated: There is no “beyond good and evil” in the sensory world, but only in the supersensory world.