Inclination to Evil

The inclination to evil is present in every human being in the present consciousness soul age:

„If one wants to look for evil in man, one must look for it not in the evil actions which are carried out within human society, but one must look for it in the evil inclinations, in the inclinations to evil. First of all, one must completely abstract, completely disregard the consequences of these inclinations which more or less occur in one person, one must direct one's gaze to the evil inclinations. And then we can ask: In which people do the evil inclinations work within the fifth post-Atlantean period in which we are standing, those inclinations which, when they are expressed in their side-effects, live out so vividly in the evil actions, in which people do the evil inclinations work?

Yes, you get the answer to this when you try to go beyond the so-called threshold of the guardian and really get to know the human being. That is where the answer to this question arises. And the answer is: In all human beings, since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period, there have been in the subconscious the evil inclinations, the inclinations to evil. - Yes, it is precisely in this that man enters the fifth post-Atlantean period, the modern cultural period, that he absorbs the inclinations to evil. Radically, but very correctly, the following can be expressed: He who crosses the threshold into the spiritual world makes the following experience: there is no crime in the world to which every man does not have the inclination in his subconscious, in so far as he is a member of the fifth post-Atlantean period. The inclination has; whether in the one or in the other case the inclination to evil leads outwardly to an evil action, that depends on quite different conditions from this inclination.“ (Lit.:GA 185, p. 110)

„The question then arises all the more: Yes, what do these forces, which bring about the evil inclinations in man, actually want in the universe, by first trickling into the human being, by flowing into the human being? What do these forces want? - They are truly not there in the universe to bring about evil actions in human society. They are brought about by those forces for reasons which we shall discuss later. Just as the forces of death are not there merely to make man die, these forces of evil are not present in the universe to lead man to criminal acts, but they are present in the universe in order, when man is called to the soul of consciousness, to call forth in him the inclination to receive the spiritual life in the way we characterised it yesterday, for example, and already last time.

These forces of evil are at work throughout the world. Man must receive them. By absorbing them, he plants in himself the seed for experiencing spiritual life with the consciousness soul. So these forces, which are perverted by the human social order, are truly not there to cause evil actions, but they are there precisely so that man can break through to spiritual life on the level of the consciousness soul. If man were not to take up those inclinations to evil of which I have just spoken, man would not come to have out of his consciousness soul the impulse to receive the spirit, which from now on must fertilise all the rest of culture, if it does not want to be dead, the spirit from the universe.“ (Lit.:GA 185, p. 111)

See also

• Cain and Abel Imagination
• Centre of Destruction
• Evil

Literature

• Rudolf Steiner: Geschichtliche Symptomatologie, GA 185 (1982), ISBN 3-7274-1850-8 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org

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